Real Success on LinkedIn Comes from Selling Your Wisdom, Not Yourself

So many LinkedIners spend their time trying to advertise and sell themselves in the Question and Answer Forum and in their profiles. Admittedly, your profile is a resume and should be persuasive.

However, the real secret to success on LinkedIn is to “sell your wisdom.” It is your wisdom that will attract not only valuable connections but business.

Since networking is all about gaining access to spheres of influence what you’re looking for is “valued connections” (people who connect because of the value you provide them).

If you spend your time providing great wisdom you are much more likely to attract the above and that is what makes you successful.

I have a very modest network by standards (2200~), but it provides many opportunities because a large proportion of my connections are there because I have provided value. These are people that will help me do anything I want to do on LinkedIn. Many of them send me valued resources and new connections on a regular basis.

So, if you really want to make things happen on LinkedIn stop spending more time with your ad copy and signatures and put out some really valuable information. When you do this everything else will come your way.

Empowering Your LinkedIn Header

Many LinkedIn users don’t take advantage of the header area in their profile. See the diagram.

LinkedIn Profile Header

In the area right below your name you have a space that will allow you up to 120 characters. Mine says:

LI Networking Expert ► SEO & Social Marketing Expert
► Inside Sales Guru ►Author ►Please connect on LI,
Twitter & FB

You get about 53 characters on the first two lines to work with. After the 53^rd or so character the text will drop into line two, and then again from line 2 to 3.

What you put in this section of your header is like the headline to your advertisement. Additionally, this data shows up in the “Mini Header” next to your responses to the questions in the Question and Answer forum.

I highly recommend that you use this space to the maximum as it is what will lure people to read the rest of your profile. I also recommend that you steal form your word processing program “widgets” such as “►” and use them to highlight and break up your text as no formatting is permitted by LinkedIn.

Putting careful though into your header and using widgets to highlight will get more people to read your profile. You can use the widgets in the rest of your profile as well to make your profile more interesting.

Are You Leveraging and Maximizing Your LinkedIn Communications?

One of the most critical parts of making your LinkedIn networking activities profitable is maximizing your communications with others.

Each time you have a communication with another LinkedIner you have the opportunity to do numerous things that can build your relationship and bring you closer to an opportunity.

In the following paragraphs I will give you a couple of ideas you can use to maximize your communications with others.

You can use these techniques in any of your communications with other LinkedIners but they are most easily applied to your efforts in the Question and Answer forum.

In the Question and Answer Forum

Here there are a couple of things you can do.

1. Engage and further the conversation discussing the person’s answer or encouraging them to respond to your ideas. By doing this you can get to know the person better and bring the relationship just a bit closer.
2. Make are reference to their website, blog, or other asset. Visit the responder’s website and make some relevant comment or start a conversation – “How long have you been in this business?”
3. Ask the person to connect.
4. Give the person some other valuable resource you have found valuable like a website, free software or ebook.
5. Get them to connect with you on other key social media sites like FaceBook and Twitter.

There are many other things you could do but doing any of the above will help you to build the relationship. One of the primary keys to success on LinkedIn is increasing the amount of communication you have with your network and others on LinkedIn.

Do You Have Valuable Free Content to Give Away?

If you don’t have articles, white papers, or other valuable free content to give away, you’re missing the boat.

In order to build valued relationships and let people know what you’re doing without prospecting or trying to sell them, you have to have something of value you can give them. This is a key tactic in any smart marketing program that includes a list building strategy.

What’s valuable?

You may ask yourself well what could I write that would be of value? If you’re not sure, just visit the LinkedIn Question and Answer forum and see what people are asking and talking about. You should have no trouble finding a great topic.

How it helps you?

In fact, if doing this and picking topics that are common threads gives you another great opportunity to promote yourself in a positive way. Let’s say you have written a paper or article on “cold calling” and have that on your website or available via email request.

“Cold calling” is a very hot topic. Now, should a question pop up on cold calling you can answer the question and then provide a link to the paper on your website. This brings people into closer contact with you and your website in a legitimate way. No one will ever get mad at you for answering a question and then providing a link with even more detailed information on the subject.

Summary

So, if you don’t have some valuable content to give away, it’s time to sit down and create some. There is no better way to accumulate high quality connections than to be an invaluable resource. One way to be an invaluable resource is to have a wealth of great fee stuff you can pass out.

Build the Value and Power of Your Network, Make Contact

One of the best ways to improve the quality and power of your network is to start meeting the people you are connected to.

Once you’re connected to someone you have the ability to send them a direct message. You should use this ability to invite your connections to engage you in a conversation. The best reason to have that conversation is to see how you can help each other.

You’ll be shocked by the number of discoveries you’ll make if you contact a number of your connections and chat with them. You’ll discover that many people you would never think could help you actually can.

I say this hundreds of times in everything thing I write and say about networking on LinkedIn. You MUST NOT call them to sell your product or service – you SHOULD call them to find out how you can help them on LinkedIn or with their business or personal objectives.

Remember that the stature of a networker is not how many connections they have, but how many they have created. Zig Ziglar said it right – help enough people get what they want and you will have everything you want.  Pay it forward and help your connections and you receive all kinds of surprises.

I don’t recommend calling people cold – send them a note asking if they would like to chat and see how you can help each other. If they agree you can set up a time to chat and make the call.

I would bet that you cannot talk to ten of your connections without getting some real value in return. Try it. I assure you that you’ll be surprised by what you discover and find.

If you needed a reason to use LinkedIn – READ THIS!

Though I am a very savvy computer and technology user I am not really that technical when it comes to all the great stuff that can be done on the Internet.

This brings me to my story. I have a blog for my OnlineBusinessNetworker site. That blog was done in word press. Unfortunately because I didn’t have a ton of time to work on it and I really don’t know that much about the technical side of word press – though my blog is full of good information on networking on LinkedIn it is ugly as sin and with out the plug-ins it should have.

This being the case I decided to post a question offering to trade my web marketing skills for those of someone who could spruce up my WordPress blog. Well, I was overwhelmed with offers to help and many of the offers were to just help me with no reciprocation.

Amazing! Now my problem is figuring out who to work with. To all those that made offers, thank you! To the rest of you wondering if you should be using LinkedIn – I would definitely say so.

For those that aren’t aware of my LinkedIn networking success kit, which I am still giving away for free, you can get it at:

“www.OnlineBusinessNetworker.net/successkit”

Enjoy

The Power of Networking

If you didn’t happen to catch the show “Connected: Six Degrees of Separation” you should try to find in on your cable or dish network. Watching this show will really give you some insight into how powerful networking can be.

In the program they first reveal that there is a science of networks and that the study of this subject has started to lead to some most incredible opportunities. For example they are now doing genetic research looking for genes that are causes of specific diseases using networking theory.

The most fascinating thing was the experiment they did re how connected we all are. This was inspired by the Brad Pit event where someone decided to show that Brad was connected to almost every other actor in Hollywood through those he had worked with.

They set up a test subject in Boston, a professor and Boston U. and then distributed 40 packages to people all around the world. The idea was that each of these people was to give their package to someone they knew with the idea of eventually getting it to this professor in Boston. They were not allow to look him up on the Internet only forward the package and have that person forward it further.

What they discovered was that the packages would arrive within 6 hops. The results indicate that you are probably only a maximum of six connections away from anyone in the world.

The point of my story is to impinge upon you the power you have if you work your network and continue to add connections and build valued relationships. Some of the people in the above experiment had almost no connections. One was a woman in a small tribe in Africa I believe. She had only one friend in a major city that even had access to postal services. No one else in the tribe even knew anyone outside the tribe. She was able to get her package to the professor in just six hops.

As a networker you have far more power in your hands than you realize, the key is learning how to use it.

I hope this blog and the free materials I provide (LinkedIn Netowrking Success Kit) will help you. In addition do not hesitate to contact me regarding your LinkedIn or networking questions. I am looking for subjects to do blog posts and other free materials on.

You may reach me at: “flyn@onlinebusinessnetworker.net”

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Improving the Readability of Your Posts

If more people read what you post on LinkedIn you will improve you chances of finding opportunity.

Here is a very simple thing you can do to get more of what you write read by others in you profile or the Question and Answer forum.

The secret is to keep your sentences short 10-12 words and keep your paragraphs short – less than 7 sentences. Large blocks of text look intimidating and are in fact harder to read. By breaking your thought up into short paragraphs you will increase others willingness to read what you’ve written.

I highly recommend Blake and Bly’s book “Elements of Copywriting” to anyone who uses LinkedIn actively. The techniques in this book and suggested above will help with all of your marketing, self-promotion, and sales copy.

A LinkedIn Sphere of Influence You May Have Overlooked

As a networker you know that the key to networking is visibility. The more visible you become the better your chances of running into opportunity.

The question is how do you raise your visibility on LinkedIn? Answer this question and you’ll likely find more opportunities. Logical right?

One of the ways you can increase your visibility on LinkedIn is through connections to “spheres of influence” (SOI). These are people to whom others are already connected in some way (no necessarily a LinkedIn connection).

On LinkedIn the advantage of being connected to one of these SOIs if they participate in your questions you get visibility to their network as the answering of a question is posted to the updates on their connections homepages.

So who is this sphere of influence you missed? It is the person(s) you’ll find at the experts list after clicking on the Answer Questions link under “Answers” at the top of your LinkedIn window. The window will be titled “This Weeks Experts.”

There are two big advantages to being connected to these top people. First of all just the direct visibility and exposure you get when they participate in one of your questions or you in theirs. Second, these are the people that like to answer questions. If you create good questions they will usually jump in and when you get lots of people in your questions others notice and want to add their two cents.

This prolific group of people represents a great way to increase your visibility and exposure on LinkedIn. You will benefit from finding ways to connect with them.

For a free report that discusses strategies related to  spheres of influence, get my free LinkedIn Networking Success kit and see report #4 called “Working a Room at a Live Event .” This report discusses some ways to find spheres of influence at live events and then tells you how to use that strategy on Linkedin.  Get the report free at: http://www.OnlineBusinessNetworker.net/successkit .

Using Signatures in the Question & Answer Forum

This discussion is in response to my recent engagements in the Question & Answer Forum on LinkedIn.

I wanted to chat for a minute about a subject I feel is quite important. That is the use of signatures and links when you respond to questions.

To start I would like to say that anything you add to your response to someone’s question that is not relevant is inappropriate. Links to websites that don’t address the question at hand and self promoting signatures are simply advertisements at the expense of someone else’s discussion. I believe that LinkedIn policy actually covers these items and says not to do them.

However, that aside, let me tell you the very simple reasons you should always refrain from adding anything to your question that is not directly relevant.

1. It’s not necessary. When you answer a question your mini profile is displayed right next to your answer so anyone who wishes can easily track you down. Of course you must make sure that if they get to your profile they can find your contact information if they want it.
2. In angers or irritates some. This is actually the most compelling reason for not participating in these activities. Your goal in networking is to eventually profit by receiving business from your activities. Why in heavens name would you wish to aggravate anyone on the system — they could be a prospect or a connection to one. In my opinion this is a totally destructive action. No one will complain if you don’t put your website link or fancy signature with your answer. But they may be irritated if you do.
3. It really doesn’t work. I have found much better results on LinkedIn when you maintain a complete public image as a valuable resource and never taint that with displays of prospecting or activities that might be seen in that light.

I hope this information has been useful. I look forward to seeing you in the Q&A forum.