Monetizing LinkedIn: The LinkedIn Money Chain
I wanted to share with you something you’ve probably never seen before. It’s that backbone or skeleton of the process of monetizing your LinkedIn networking efforts.
I will explain each bone briefly so you can see the process of getting business in the LinkedIn networking environment.
Foot Bone: Accessibility
Accessibility means being easy to get to. The most recent example I observed was someone that asked me about getting business on LinkedIn. I went to this person’s profile and found that there was no link to their website.
This omission is an “accessibility” problem. If you don’t make it easy for people to find and engage you, many of them simply won’t take the time to figure it out. Remember that most of the people looking for what you provide have NOT yet made the decision to buy. These people won’t go out of their way to engage you, they’ll simply move on to someone else.
One of the key areas relating to accessibility is your LinkedIn account settings. There are many settings in your LinkedIn account that will either close off or open up the access others have to you.
Leg Bone: Visibility
Visibility is one of the primary keys to finding and getting business on LinkedIn. It’s all based on pure numbers – the more people that see you, the more chances you have that someone that needs your products or services will find you.
Visibility is achieved in a number of ways the most common is of course participation in the Question and Answer Forum and the Forums and Discussions within the groups. These actions will put you in front of potentially millions of LinkedIners that may not find you otherwise.
They have the additional benefit of pre-qualifying your engagements as what you write about should to some extent attract people in that arena.
Visibility can be enhanced by making your outflow more valuable and by your actions of simply helping others.
Back Bone: Being Invaluable
The back bone (no pun intended) of all success on LinkedIn is being perceived as an invaluable resource and not a prospector.
In order to succeed on LinkedIn without prospecting you must attract opportunities that put you in a position get business. It is that process of getting people to come to you that relieves you of the need to prospect.
Neck Bone: Your Profile
The central piece of attracting opportunity is how that opportunity engages you in the early phase of the relationship. That piece is your profile.
If you are putting out value in the question and answer forum, and in the group discussions and forums the first thing people will see is your mini profile – the header of your LinkedIn profile. The very next thing they will see if you’ve caught their interest is your profile.
The focus of your profile needs to first be providing value and second moving the person from LinkedIn to one of your assets, usually your website. There has to be enough gravity in what you do to draw them close enough to you that they will engage you.
With out that engagement you never get the chance to build a valued relationship and thus put yourself in a position to do business.
Head Bone: The Engagement
As I just stated, you need an engagement to put yourself in communication with the other person so you can first build a relationship. Second, you need to add value to that relationship in ways that give you or develop opportunities to get business.
The real benefit of LinkedIn is that you can truly show people how valuable you are before they ever engage you.
In a prospecting effort it is very difficult to give the prospect any real vision into how much you really know or how good you really are. On LinkedIn you have the ability to do this when you publicly help others through questions, answers, and discussions.
The money chain on LinkedIn is simply drawing them through the various layers that separate you from them to a point where they engage you directly. You must be accessible, then seen, then perceived as valuable, become valuable, and then finally engage the other person.
From Flyn
I hope you have enjoyed this post and would appreciate your comments and sharing of the information above. In this blog and my other resources I try to help people master this cycle. I look forward to hearing from you.
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