LinkedIn voice messages: the fastest path to your next 10 clients
Stephanie Melodia
Maybe you’re the consultant who sends 50 connection requests a day to little or no response. Maybe you’re the coach whose carefully written messages get ignored. There’s a reason for that. Everyone assumes your message is spam or AI-generated until you prove otherwise.
Voice notes prove otherwise. They’re polarizing, sure. Some people despise them. Mitchell Tan, CEO and founder of Kondo, a platform for LinkedIn messaging, puts it bluntly: “A lot of people hate on voice notes. Are you so lazy that you can’t even type it out and expect me to listen to your thing?” But here’s what matters more: “for every 1 person who gets annoyed, 5 people will listen to your note who would otherwise have not read your text.”
Voice messages on LinkedIn: your secret weapon for landing clients
Stand out for being human
Only 1 in 10 LinkedIn messages sent using Kondo are voice notes, according to Tan’s data. Think about that. When inboxes are full of ChatGPT-crafted outreach and automated sequences, your voice becomes the anomaly. “They stick out. And sticking out is great,” says Tan. The data backs this up. LinkedIn launched voice notes in July 2018, limiting them to 60 seconds and first-degree connections only. Six years later, most people still don’t use them.
You can leverage this scarcity. While others compete with text-only messages, you occupy a different space entirely. Send a voice note to a new connection today. Watch what happens. The response might be transformational. Stephanie Melodia, keynote speaker and host of the UK top 20 business podcast Strategy & Tragedy, reports “near 100% response rates” from voice notes. Compare that to your results and give it a try.
Demonstrate you took the time
“Do things that don’t scale” is the mantra Melodia follows. Voice notes embody this principle perfectly. “You can’t automate them. You can’t bulk-send them. You can’t delegate them to AI. Yet. Each one requires you to tap, hold, and speak,” said Melodia. That’s the point. “We have a Kondo power user who only sends voice notes,” shares Tan. “When people reply saying ‘I don’t listen to voice notes, can you text?’ he sends another voice note to reply to that!”
Make voice notes time-efficient by batching them. Run through new connections between calls with your laptop open for profiles and phone ready for recording. Or send them while walking. A 60-second voice note takes less time than typing and proofreading the perfect message, and definitely less than setting up an entire nurture sequence. The constraint forces clarity. You have one minute to introduce yourself, explain why you connected, and add something personal. No room for rambling.
Create instant trust and connection
Your voice conveys more than text. Presence, authenticity, confidence. Beyond the words, recipients hear that you’re real, you’re present, and you took the time. The perception is different. People hear your tone, your pauses, your personality. They can’t help but trust you more than another text message in their inbox.
I personally like it when people ask permission first: “Mind if I send you a quick voice note?” This respects my preference while still being human. Once they agree, keep it tight. My friend Niraj Shah, a M&A advisor and investor, deletes and re-records voice notes that run too long. Respect matters. A rambling voice note shows you don’t value their time. A concise one shows professionalism with personality.
Run an experiment before you decide
Not everyone loves voice notes and the stats show mixed feelings. People dislike that they can’t skim them, can’t listen to them in meetings, and some find them intrusive. WhatsApp added transcription in November 2024 specifically because many prefer reading. This resistance works in your favour. It filters out people who aren’t your ideal clients.
Could voice notes be a potential pirate move? Underleveraged, underused, with the power to work for you? With anything new or controversial: try it, test it, then see. Treat negative responses as data. Someone who won’t listen to a 60-second voice note probably won’t invest time in working with you either. Move on. Focus on the majority who appreciate the personal touch. The ones who respond “wow, I never even knew you could do this” or “so good to hear your voice!” could be your people.
Follow this structure
Start with their name and a genuine thank you for connecting. State why you reached out, referencing something specific from their profile. Share one relevant thing about yourself that connects to their world. End with a soft next step, not a hard pitch. “Would love to hear what you’re working on” beats “Let’s book a call” every time. The 60-second limit keeps you focused.
Melodia’s experience shows the power: “I’ve booked top guests on my show, landed clients, and the sentiment is always very positive.” She believes voice notes are “the most effective way to get people’s attention, elicit a response, and to be seen as a tech-savvy wizard on LinkedIn.” For now, it’s the last truly human frontier. Only humans can tap, speak, and share their actual voice. No automation, no AI, just you. Until the robots master this too, you have a window. Use it.
Turn LinkedIn connections into paying clients with voice messages
Not every LinkedIn strategy works for everyone. But if you’re tired of being ignored, if you want to stand out from the AI noise, if you’re ready to do something that doesn’t scale to get results that do, voice notes might be your answer. They’re rare enough to grab attention, personal enough to build trust, efficient enough to scale manually, polarizing enough to filter ideal clients, and simple enough to start today. Pick one new connection. Send them a 60-second voice note. See what happens when you become the human in their inbox.