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3 Ways to Handle LinkedIn Connections
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a solopreneur that finds a great deal of value in LinkedIn.
Today, however, we’re going to focus on connections.
The first way to add connections is to go to your LinkedIn profile and click on “Connections”
If you then go down to “add connections,” you can connect your address book to LinkedIn.
You can then add everybody in your address book. If you have an address book that is strictly for business, then you will only get business connections. But, if you use the same email for both (or have Gmail and it just grabs all of your contacts), then you will get a listing of
*E*V*E*R*Y*B*O*D*Y*
…your son’s soccer coach from when he was 6, your daughter’s third grade teacher, the health tech from the middle school.
You get the idea. There might be some people in there that might not really be considered business contacts.
So it might be time to step back and see who you WANT to actually add to your connections.
From what I can gather from what I’ve read and what I’ve seen, there seems to be three schools of thought.
- Grab for ALL the connections you possibly can. This is where you would add your son’s soccer coach and the ex-boyfriend of your second cousin once removed.
- Be purposeful and specific in the people you do or do not add.
Change with your whim week by week.
As you can see, I’ve put a strikethrough through #3. This plan doesn’t have any logic.
#1 has some benefits, and there are advantages to having a large number of LinkedIn connections. This is spelled out in the first article below (9 Reasons Why LinkedIn Friendship is the Mightiest of Magics). This was written by someone that does Online advertising so increasing the size of a market is a significant part of their business. (As a complete aside, as the mother of a “brony”, I have got to admire someone that manages to write a blog post outlining their professional services while using lessons from My Little Pony – props to Larry).
The second option is the one that I’ve personally chosen. I want to have the ability to speak to the business acumen or character of my connections.
As I was working on this blog post, a call came in from another member of the Virtual Assistant community looking for graphic artists. I sent her information about 3 graphic artists that I know and their LinkedIn profiles. This way she can see their experience and recommendations right off the bat.
Related articles
- 9 Reasons Why LinkedIn Friendship Is the Mightiest of Magics. Larry Kim (wordstream.com)
- When to Refuse LinkedIn Connection Requests. Quentin Fottrell (marketwatch.com)
- Attention! You’re More Transparent Than Ever. Colleen McKenna (business2community.com)
- 6 Ways to Grow Your LinkedIn Connections. Melonie Dodaro (socialmediaexaminer.com)
Top Three Things to do on LinkedIn This Week
As a Virtual Assistant, I help a number of clients with social media communication. I spend a lot of time on Facebook and other platforms like Twitter and Pinterest and Google+. While I spend fewer hours per week on LinkedIn, I find that LinkedIn has values that are not offered on the other social media sites. Some examples are:
- E-introductions. More than once I’ve referred to someone’s LinkedIn Profile when I was looking for that “just right” turn of a phrase for a virtual introduction.
- Memory jogging. Have you ever had that person that you met once at a networking event six months ago contacts you interested in your services? And you realize that you don’t remember them at all? If you take a quick at their LinkedIn profile, you’ll find out who they are, what they’re doing, and you’ll even (more often than not) get a picture to go along with it.
- Background Checks. Have you ever gotten a tip about someone who is “great” at “something.” You can look up the person on LinkedIn, find their history, read their recommendations, and see if you have any common connections.
- Search. If you’re looking for a service and type in the proper search term (and then narrow things down) you might have luck finding a service provider. Just today someone I know was looking for someone to do mold removal – I found a local contractor who had 3 people in common with me.
So – what THREE THINGS should you do on LinkedIn THIS WEEK?
- Make sure your profile photo is up to date and recognizable. If you’ve still got the same selfie that you took when you first signed up for LinkedIn in 2009, it’s time to update (consider a professional profile photo).
- Make sure your summary is clear, current, and concise (in case anyone wants to use it to e-introduce you to someone.)
- ASK for (and give) recommendations. Request recommendations from former employers, current customers, or anyone you’ve done business with. And look for a person or two that has done great work for you, whether it be a lawyer, an insurance agent, a virtual assistant, or a mold removal service.
LinkedIn might not be the platform you spend the most time on, but it might be the platform you spend the most valuable time on.
3 Tips on Who To Delegate To
Yes, I’ve talked about deleg
ation before. It’s a topic that comes up often. The other day I was reading a Facebook Status from a friend that has a spouse in the construction business.
“Watching all these shady contractors on the news ripping people off makes me sick when there are good guys out there like ____________ who follow all the guidelines and have insurance and proper registration and do a great job for their customers and lose jobs to these clowns that rip people off. If the bid is low, there is a reason. You get what you pay for.”
Sometimes we think it’s hard to find the “good guys,” but if you do your research ahead of time, you’ll save time and frustration in the long run.
Here are three tips that should help you whether you’re looking for a plumber, a lawyer, or a virtual assistant:
- Just ask. Ask everybody you know. Ask your friends, ask your neighbors, post a request to Facebook. Rest assured, if you don’t know somebody, you know somebody that knows somebody.
- Do background checks. I’m not talking about the background checks that go with hiring bank employees or Sunday School teachers*. But if you do a Google search on a name, look at a service like Angie’s List, or look at a person’s profile on LinkedIn, that will give you an idea of their professional persona.
- Interview. Most reliable service providers, in any area, are more than willing to sit down and talk to you for some amount of time for free (or at a greatly reduced rate) so that you can see if a working relationship is possible.
I honestly can’t think of a single time I’ve made a decision based solely on cost that I’ve been happy with that choice. On the other hand, I’ve often been happy with work done by people that have come with strong personal referrals.
Think about what you can do if you release some of the things that make your life difficult. No dollar amount can be placed on time with your family or on peace of mind.
No Secrets (Carly Simon album) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
*As an adoptive parent what I often tell people is that if I had any skeletons in my closet, they would have been found during the background check process. I’m like Carly Simon and I have no secrets.
Outsourcing: What we can learn from Harry Potter
This week is my week to have car stuff done. I’m getting tires rotated on both vehicles and I’m getting the oil changed on one of the vehicles. (That’s three trips to auto service places in three days).
There are certain jobs that I will never do on my own. Some I won’t do because I don’t have the expertise, some because I don’t have the proper knowledge, and some because I lack the proper tools. Some jobs are easy to give to someone else. Many people take their autos into a shop for an oil change. It’s not necessarily a difficult job to do yourself, however there are specific tools needed to remove the the drain plug and other tools needed to remove and replace the filter. You also need to have jacks or stands, and oil and filters handy (and the knowledge of what kind to use for your car). In some areas there are also laws about the disposal of used motor oil. With all that in mind, I (and most of us) will gladly pay someone else to deal with it for me. (I’ve included a DIY guide on oil changes in the “Related Articles” section – just for grins).
Some jobs are difficult to hand off to another person or company. When you’re a business owner, it can be difficult to determine what jobs to pass along to someone else. Once you do determine which tasks you’ll have someone else do, it can be hard to determine who should be doing the work. In this series, I will touch on those issues and make your decisions a little easier.
WHAT TO OUTSOURCE