Whether it’s a referral to an exciting new customer with big potential, a new supplier or vendor with a more effective solution, or a referral to your next great employer, referrals are not only highly effective, but it can be fun meeting your friends’ friends. However, it’s not easy to ask the open-ended question, “Who in your network could help me find a job, customer, etc.?” So, rather than putting all the pressure on your connection…Continue Reading »
LinkedIn is contacting more and more companies and trying to convince them to upgrade their sales teams to Sales Navigator accounts. In addition, LinkedIn is putting more limits on the better features of their free accounts. Thus, more and more business professionals are asking me, Is LinkedIn Sales Navigator really worth the $79.99/month? I’ve been using Sales Navigator for about eight years. Since it’s a fairly expensive upgrade, I’ve put together some facts, figures, and…Continue Reading »
Connecting with people has always been easier when you know that they attended the same school you did. Those mutual warm, fuzzy feelings can open a lot of doors. Personally, I’ve done a lot of business with fellow Marquette and UW-Whitewater grads whom I’ve found on LinkedIn. The school(s) people attended are prominently displayed on their LinkedIn profiles, which means you can easily search for classmates. But then you can use the numerous filters on…Continue Reading »
Over 58 million companies have LinkedIn company pages, and that’s a great place to start, but you may not get the results you desire from your company page alone. The road to real corporate marketing success begins with company employees presenting a consistent branding message on their personal LinkedIn profiles. But if you are company management, how can you help your employees share the responsibility for promoting your company’s products or services? It starts with…Continue Reading »
Should you let your first-level connections see all of your other first-level connections? Should you let them search into the entire list? This question can lead to a lively debate. Typical answers include: That’s not fair! Networking is about sharing and Of course, I hide them—that’s my client list! or You want to have your cake and eat it too if you hide them. But how many people are actually hiding their connections from their network? On my most…Continue Reading »
What percentage of your LinkedIn connections are in your target audience? That’s a question I’ve been asking the people with whom I’ve had one-on-one consultations over the past few years. Here are the answers I get from the majority of the people: . I don’t know Never thought about that Maybe 10 to 15 percent That tells me most people aren’t being very strategic in adding connections to their LinkedIn networks and maybe need a…Continue Reading »
Ever wonder if you are doing the right things on LinkedIn in order to get the most out of the site? Well, LinkedIn has an awesome FREE grading system called the LinkedIn Social Selling Index (SSI). However, most people have not taken advantage of it. And don’t be turned off by the word “selling” just because you’re not a salesperson. Let’s face it—we’re all selling something. If you’re not selling products or services, you’re selling…Continue Reading »
If you owned or managed a retail store and someone walked into the store, what would you do? Obviously, you’d say, How can I help you? and engage in a conversation, because the person may be interested in what you have to sell. LinkedIn has something similar to your very own retail store—your profile. People are viewing your profile (stopping into your store) each and every day. So why not take these visits seriously and engage in…Continue Reading »
LinkedIn’s database includes over 800 million professionals, and smart companies are capitalizing on this massive database. However, LinkedIn is not very user-friendly when it comes to searching for great new employees. LinkedIn’s simple solution is to purchase their Recruiter product—but Recruiter licenses come at an annual cost of $6,000 to $8,000 per user. Well, as a past CFO myself, I never really thought much of one-size-fits-all solutions—especially those with hefty price tags. So, as your…Continue Reading »
Have you taken advantage of your free LinkedIn job posting? What??? You didn’t know you could do that? Yes, and it has been that way for quite a while now. However, in typical LinkedIn fashion, they failed to let you know. Here is an article from the LinkedIn Help Center that will give you the blow-by-blow details. Of course, they will encourage you to boost that free job post, but you don’t have to do…Continue Reading »
