Weekly Newsletter Vol. 133 - March 18, 2026

Generating your Lead Story…

Did LinkedIn Just Turn Your Services Page Into a Free Lead Generator for Your Competitors?

I noticed something on LinkedIn this week that every recruiter, career coach, and service provider in my community should understand. It has to do with the Services Page feature and something called “Receive additional projects that match the services you offer.”

At first glance, this sounds helpful. But when you look at how it actually works, it raises some serious questions.

Here’s what’s happening:

When someone visits a service provider’s page and clicks on a service — for example resume writing, recruiting support, or career coaching — they can submit a request through LinkedIn’s Services form. Most people assume that request goes directly to the person whose page they clicked on.

That would make sense. But that’s not always what happens. Instead, LinkedIn can make that request visible to multiple service providers offering similar services. Which means other providers can immediately jump in and reach out to that same potential client. In other words, someone who came through your page can suddenly receive messages from dozens of competitors. And that’s exactly what just happened.

A potential client told me today that after selecting one of the services on my page, they were bombarded by more than 25 messages from other providers within hours.

Twenty-five. Think about that for a moment.

Someone visits my page, clicks a service that I offer, and within minutes the platform effectively creates a feeding frenzy among other providers who had nothing to do with generating that interest.

That’s not a marketplace. That’s a race to the bottom. Now consider the scale. My page currently has over 160,000 followers on LinkedIn. Those followers took years to build.

Thousands of posts.
Thousands of conversations.
Thousands of hours of work.

So when someone clicks a service on my page, it’s not random traffic. It’s the result of audience trust and attention that I built. Yet the moment someone shows interest, the system appears to distribute that opportunity to other providers who did not build that audience. Naturally, that raises an important question.

Why are other providers benefiting from demand generated by someone else’s platform presence?

If someone walks into a store, we don’t suddenly invite 25 competing stores to rush in and pitch them. But in this case, the platform appears to be doing exactly that. And the impact is real. If even a small percentage of those opportunities turn into business elsewhere, the lost revenue can quickly add up to thousands of dollars over time. More importantly, it creates a poor experience for the person making the request. Imagine you simply wanted to ask a question or explore a service, and suddenly your inbox is flooded with two dozen messages from strangers competing for your attention.

That’s not helpful.

It’s overwhelming.

And it’s not what most people expect when they reach out to a specific provider. Now, to be clear, platforms like LinkedIn are constantly experimenting with ways to create more opportunity across their network. But transparency matters. If someone reaches out through a service provider’s page, it should be clear whether that request is: Going directly to that provider, or Being shared with a broader marketplace of competitors.

Because those are two very different experiences. For those of you in recruitment, coaching, consulting, or any service-based business, this is something worth paying attention to.

Your audience and reputation are valuable assets

Understanding how platforms distribute the demand you generate is part of protecting that value. So here’s my advice for this community. Take five minutes today and review your own Services Page settings. Look specifically for the option related to receiving additional project requests.

Ask yourself: Is the platform sending potential clients directly to me, or are they also being routed to competitors?

And if you’re someone who uses service requests on LinkedIn, be aware that when you submit a request, it may not be going to just one provider. You might be entering a much larger marketplace than you realize. Finally, I’m curious about something. If there are any lawyers in this community, I’d genuinely value your perspective.

Is this simply how marketplace platforms operate?

Or could this be considered a structural flaw in the system when the initial demand is clearly tied to a specific provider’s page? Either way, it’s a fascinating example of how platform design can shape entire markets. And it’s something every recruiter and service provider should understand.

Let me know your thoughts.

You can’t make this stuff up

_{(*Disclaimer: these are real experiences provided by RME's community of job seekers and hiring managers)}

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