A Fatal Trap on LinkedIn
One of the most important things to your success on LinkedIn in is how you are perceived by others. Each time you change in any way your perception from “networker” or “invaluable resource” to “salesperson” or “business person seeking business” you begin to reduce or close your access to the spheres of influence of others.
If you start a communication cycle with one of your connections by telling who you are and what you do you will immediately start to close down the communication. You will make this even worse if you add the “selling phrase” “Let me know if you have questions or need these services.” or something to that effect.
However, even if you keep your message informative and don’t ask for anything, sending your resume in any form will put you in the light of a “prospector.” Each time you do this you will change, even if ever so slightly your image as an invaluable resource.
Ask yourself this question. If someone sends you in their first email communication a complete list of all of their products or services, would you be inclined to respond? You probably wouldn’t respond, unless you absolutely needed what they were offering.
That may not sound too bad. If you send out emails re your services only a couple of people are going to respond any way. No harm no foul, right? Wrong.
What has happened here is that you have missed the opportunity to get to know this other person and become of some value to them. This is the only way they’re really going to get to know you and the best way to get them to seek out more information in your profile or your website.
Not only that, but since you have “prospected” this person they are not likely to even consider giving you a name or engaging you with one of their connections. They don’t want to be responsible for sending a salesperson calling.
In fact, when you realize what the message is about you may not even read it, you may simply delete it. If you happen to be out of sorts that day and don’t like SPAM anyway, you might end up reporting it as SPAM or an advertisement.
Avoiding this Trap
The best way to avoid this trap is to always send messages that start by offering value to the other person. Offering value can easily lead to an invitation to talk about how you can help each other. And those are the conversations that build relationships and put you in a position to get business.
Allow the conversation about what you do to be at least initiated by the other person – then you have permission to talk about what you do. There are of course back door ways to get someone to ask about your products or services without prospecting.
From Flyn
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