The Right (Powerful) Way to Respond to a LinkedIn Invitation (Or in Any Networking Environment)
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It amazes me what people do during the process of connecting with others. In this post I’m going to give you a powerful way to respond to any invitation to connect on or off LinkedIn.
First off NEVER respond with and “I DON’T KNOW” or IDK as it is known. There is one exception – that is if the person inviting you has be ignoring your requests to stop contacting them.
If you are on a networking site, punishing people for inviting you to connect, unless you have stated you don’t want any invitations, is simply wrong – even if they don’t know you, just archive the message (Proper invitations are never IDKed even when sent to someone that doesn’t know you. But that’s a different subject.)
Second, NEVER fail to respond with at least a thank you or some acknowledgement of the person’s invite. (See the better way below.)
Third, ALWAYS look at the other persons profile even if only for a minute. You will be surprised how often you find the most interesting pieces of gold in profiles of people you would never think of connecting with.
Personally, I like to go to there website as well. Why? To look for some way I could be of value. If nothing else I will learn who there customers are and maybe I can send them someone.
Fourth, send them a note that does the following.
- Thanks them for inviting you
- Offers to help them in any way. One way to do this is to tell them to look through your connections and see if there is anyone they would like to meet. Another would be to offer free advice in your area of expertise.
- Give them a specific value. In a previous blog post I discuss having free stuff to give away – this is where you use it. Since I have a bunch of great free LinkedIn stuff – my networking success kit – I offer that.
- Give them a valued connection. In my case I know a gal who is just a wiz at LinkedIn and always willing to connect and help anyone so I include her name, with her permission of course and she includes mine.
- Ask them how you can help – who would they like to connect with, what are they looking for in their life or business that you might be able to help them find?
- Finally, let them know it is alright to contact you, I even provide my email and phone in my message. I also let them know that they may give my name and email to anyone they know that would like to connect or feel I could be of value.
This is only the first step of building a great relationship with your network. However it is a very important one. First impressions last – make your first impression with you new connection a great one!!
Your comments on this post are more than welcome!
I would greatly appreciate any promotion of this blog you are willing to do, tell your friends, Tweet it or DIGG it – whatever. My goal is to help others be successful on LinkedIn.
I do my best to provide powerful and practical advice that will actually help others succeed and I seek to share that information with as many people as possible – your help in this effort is greatly appreciated. Thank you!
The Right (Powerful) Way to Respond to a LinkedIn Invitation (Or in Any Networking Environment) - ( 12 Comments » )
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