A Critical Misconception About LinkedIn Profiles

First of all let me just say to everyone that reads my blog – thank you so much for your support and patience and may you all have a wonderful and profitable New Year.

It occurred to me that the reason most people profiles are not that powerful is that they have the wrong viewpoint when writing them. I believe this same thing happens with resumes.

The problem is we think when we write our profile or resume that it is about us. In reality our LinkedIn profile is about everyone else – it’s about the reader. The universe gives us an obvious clue this is completely true – how often do your ready your own profile?

OK, maybe that’s a stretch, but the fact of the mater is that your profile needs to be compelling and interesting to others and what you think is a distant second. If you want to get a job or develop business you must have a profile others enjoy and find interesting.

What is the one thing people like to talk about the most (most of us anyway)? Ourselves, right. Well, if this is true you can us it as a lens through which you can create the content for your profile.

The question is how do you leverage the fact that the reader wants to talk about themselves – or in this case, read about themselves.

It is really quite easy. As you write your profile simply tell the reader what you can produce for them, what experience you can give them, how you can help them, what you can give them.

When you make your profile about the reader you will find that people start sending you complements. You will also notice that the number of people inviting you goes up – provided of course you are encouraging others to connect.

Here is a simple thing you can do to empower this approach. Read your profile and after each paragraph ask the following questions (As a READER, not as yourself):

1. What’s in it for me? If you don’t find anything for you then ask…
2. What could be in it for me? In other words, what could I give the reader.

To handle the second question you will need to look at what you can produce and how it might be given in that paragraph.

You will find this an interesting exercise and you will discover ways to talk about your reader in the process.

From Flyn

If you’d really like to power up your profile and learn a number of things you can apply to your resume as well, you should attend my upcoming webinar “Empowering Your Profile: Strategies for Job and Business Seekers.” You can find the information on this webinar workshop in the events page link above my picture.

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