At Sally, we help B2B companies land clients through cold outreach.

Just last month, our clients brought in 200+ leads via LinkedIn — thanks to a well-built system: from ICP research and warm-up to first contact.

This guide covers one key part of that system: your LinkedIn profile. It won’t bring you leads on its own — but it does determine who opens your message and whether they’ll reply.

💡 Short on time? Jump here for a step-by-step checklist to quickly get your profile outreach-ready.

1. What is SSI and why it matters

It’s not a success metric, but it’s a good indicator of profile health.

SSI (Social Selling Index) is LinkedIn’s internal score (0 to 100) based on four pillars:

1. Establish your brand — how well-built and visible your profile is
2. Find the right people — how precise your targeting is
3. Engage with insights — how often you post and get engagement
4. Build relationships — strength of your network and reply rates

A high SSI won’t bring you leads on its own.

But if you're actively doing cold outreach, a low SSI can trigger account restrictions. Keeping your SSI in the green is partly about safety.

What’s a healthy SSI?

If you’re not posting content, but you:

• have a well-built profile
• received endorsements
• regularly add relevant people
• engage with your feed (likes, comments, reposts)

→ then a score of 50–65 is normal.