Cold messaged 40 people on LinkedIn about their teams, three replied, one turned into an actual referral

Wasn't asking for jobs directly, just short messages asking what their team actually works on day to day, genuinely curious. Most went nowhere, which I expected. Three had real conversations with me, and one of those offered to refer me a few weeks later once a role opened. Slow, mostly quiet feedback loop, but a three percent reply rate that occasionally turns into something feels a lot better than the zero percent I was getting cold applying.