Tip 1: Never send a standard or default invitation

I almost felt stupid including this as a valuable tip, but I received 4 invitations this morning and 3 of them were the default text.

The first reason to follow this rule is that you will probably reduce your chances of getting IDKed by a factor of 100 as any kind of a legitimate request to connect will probably be accepted or archived without incident. This is assuming you don’t break the next rule.

Tip 2: Don’t send a prospecting or sales oriented invitation

The worst thing you can do in an invitation is ask someone for business. Your invite should be about developing a valued relationship with the other person, NOT about getting their business. Any hint of prospecting will probably cause you to be denied the connection and possibly get an IDK if you don’t know the person already.

Tip 3: Provide value

Offer the new potential connection something of value. If you want people to connect with you, just like trying to get their business, you must offer them something of value.

This might be simply your offer to help them get connected on LinkedIn, or information or resources (that are free) that you can provide them to help better their current situation.

Following these three tips will help you get connected more easily and with less chance of getting an IDK.

The first thing you must do if you haven’t is become an open networker. For the scoop on what this means and why you should do it read the following article on my blog. The Open Networker Debate

Leverage

The first thing to consider, and especially when starting out or putting on a push to grow your network, is making an effort to go after those with the biggest networks. Doing this quickly increases your second and third levels giving you more access and visibility to others.

There are a number of ways to do this. The first is by using a very simple resource that lists the top networkers on LinkedIn (Click Here). On this page you’ll find the people with the 50 largest networks on LinkedIn. To the left is a menu of other useful items such as recommended reading and how to get on the “invite me list” which takes us to the second point.

Growth on Autopilot

If you join the open networking groups, they can be found by searching “open networking” from the group’s page,” each has a discussion item for those looking to connect – and invite me list.

If you put your name on the TopLinkedIn list and others you will probably get 5-10 invites per day.

On the other side of that is that these lists represent a place you can go to find the kind of people you wish to connect to and be able to invite and connect with them easily and reasonably safely.

Remember that you should still do a proper job inviting them – don’t send the default message. There are still some open networkers who IDK, not many but there are some.

Here are some blog articles related to this subject.

Suggestion for Your LinkedIn Invitation Acceptance Message

A Fatal Omission On LinkedIn

Don’t Use the “I don’t know you” option on invitations

From Flyn

For those of you that are serious about building opportunities on LinkedIn and haven’t grabbed my FREE power networking mini course you should do so. For information on the course go to: http://onlinebusinessnetworker.net/minicourse. The 4 reports and 8 videos will be hugely helpful to your efforts.

]]> http://onlinebusinessnetworker.net/blog/2010/04/some-key-things-you-can-do-to-build-a-better-network/feed/ 0 http://onlinebusinessnetworker.net/blog/2010/03/help-i-don%e2%80%99t-have-time-to-work-linkedin/ http://onlinebusinessnetworker.net/blog/2010/03/help-i-don%e2%80%99t-have-time-to-work-linkedin/#comments Tue, 16 Mar 2010 14:31:43 +0000 Flyn http://onlinebusinessnetworker.net/blog/?p=557 In Jeff Olsen’s book “The Slight Edge” (Highly Recommended) he talks about how huge changes in success are made up of little decisions, the kind we make on a daily basis, hour to hour even minute to minute.

His point is that if you make the “better” decision, say; to have the salad instead of the burger, you put yourself on an upward curve.

Many people complain that they don’t have time to spend working their LinkedIn account hours each day. However you can have significant success in far less time by just doing some little things each day.

Here’s a simple little schedule that over time really adds up.

1. Start by asking one question each week. The question should be related to your expertise or the business you are looking for. If you can pick a more controversial topic you will get more respondents. Remember to ask an opinion question and not one that could be mistaken for a prospecting effort. You can add to this by posting the same question to one of your group’s discussion boards.

2. Invite respondents to your question to connect.

3. Engage respondents in a discussion replying to their answer.

4. Track the one or two top question topics and check them whenever you get into your LinkedIn account. Try to answer at least 2 questions a week. Don’t forget to ask the questioner to connect.

5. Get together some quotes, resource or article links (including your own articles or blog posts) and put at least one in your header update each day.

6. Reach out to at least one person each week with an offer to see how you can help each other on LinkedIn.

7. Don’t forget to create a “connection email” that offers thanks and value to those who invite you to connect.

8. Try to take a look at your profile at least twice during the month and find something simple you can up date – rotate your picture if nothing else.

All of this is probably less than two hours of work per week.

However doing these simple things will probably cause you to engage at least 25 new people each week. You will reach out to 4 people per month to advance your relationship, and you will have 25 or so exposures in the Q&A and via your updates. And you will probably end up with 10-15 new connections if not more.

You will be surprised how much activity this simple course generates over time.

]]> http://onlinebusinessnetworker.net/blog/2010/03/help-i-don%e2%80%99t-have-time-to-work-linkedin/feed/ 3 http://onlinebusinessnetworker.net/blog/2010/03/monetizing-linkedin-another-way-to-be-invaluable/ http://onlinebusinessnetworker.net/blog/2010/03/monetizing-linkedin-another-way-to-be-invaluable/#comments Mon, 15 Mar 2010 15:06:26 +0000 Flyn http://onlinebusinessnetworker.net/blog/?p=555 Having valuable resources to share with your connections is a great way to become invaluable and monetize LinkedIn.

You should of course have such an item connected with your website so visitors to your profile have a reason to visit. But you can provide yourself with lots of potential value items very easily by using the “Google Alerts” feature.

Search Google for “Google Alerts” and then fill in the form for the alert. Whatever your area of expertise; then simply enter a keyword phrase and select the various options. Google will send you email alerts as to that subject showing up on the web.

I suggest that when you find alerts that are useful, that you save them in a document with their links. Organize them in whatever way you can so that when you get a new connection or are surfing your own you can connect the two.

Sending people regular links to resources is a great way to increase the communication and affinity between you as well as to monetize LinkedIn.

If you want better relationships with your connections and thus more opportunities, all you have to do is communicate more frequently. You can do this by posting questions or answering the questions of others. You can also do it by paying attention to what’s going on in the world that is interesting and forwarding those things of value to your connections who would potentially benefit.

In addition, and it’s my favorite, you can simply send your connection a message asking how you can help, or if they’d like to chat and investigate how you can help each other.

Whenever you increase the amount of communication that takes place you also increase the amount of affinity between you and that other person.

This actually reveals another secret of LinkedIn. By making yourself visible in valuable ways (great questions, answers, content, or communications) you develop in others an affinity for you.

Whether people are connected to or not seeing your posts, receiving your communications, and just reading more about you will develop in them an affinity for you. In the future there may be some point where your paths cross. At that time you may greatly benefit from the affinity you have built up without ever knowing it existed.

I don’t particularly like the “LinkedIn Invitation” as it is usually done far too impersonally. I prefer a much more straight forward approach. However in some cases it can be use the introduction or nothing.

I suggest to you that before you ask for an introduction that you do two things. The first is to try to make the introduction a 1-hop connection instead of two. The more people your introduction goes through the more chances it won’t be passed on.

I have had relatively few instances where my network wouldn’t pass something on, but you can severely reduce that by reducing it to one-hop.

The key action in your effort to get introduced is to  reach out to the person (if you don’t know them) you want to introduce you before you ask for the invitation. If you have any kind of a relationship or first hand knowledge of the person you are asking to pass your invitation on, you have a far better chance it will be passed and at least some chance for some good words from the person passing the invitation.

When I say reach out I mean, make a call, or send an email to this connection inviting them to chat and see how you can help each other out on LinkedIn. Don’t worry about whether this person “looks” like they can be valuable to your or not – as your real goal is be to be of value to them in some simple way – passing them a resource, a connection, or helping them with some other issue.

Once you have established whatever value you can create with the connection, you can now come back to this person and say – “By the way I noticed you are connected to so and so and I would like to get connected with them.” Don’t forget of course to send a note along to the person you are trying to get introduced to telling them why and of what value you might be to them.

Because of your efforts you now have a much better chance of getting a great introduction.

If you have followed this process, and you happen to have a double hop invitation, you can now potentially ask your first connection, since you have some relationship with them, to tell the second connection in the chain that you are a good person and that they should forward this invitation to the intended party.

You will find that this “relationship based” approach is very valuable.

From Flyn

FYI – Technical issue

Just a not for those of you who may have noticed. I am having some technical difficulty with my links in the groups when posting in the news sections. Some of them are being corrupted and sending viewers to a page that says account suspended. No one has yet figured out what is going on, my apologies for the inconvenience.

Please Comment on and Share this Post

Also I value your comments and discussions on these posts and invite you to share them with other using the various social media icons below.

Last Chance for Special Pricing on My Premium Course

Finally, I am getting ready to publically announce and launch my Power Networking Profit System course for LinkedIn – this is your last chance to benefit from the pricing on the “charter memberships” before it changes.

At the moment you can try out the course for the first month for just $1 – The trial includes an introduction chapter plus chapters 1-5 of the course. This is 67 pages of text material, 5 audio chapters, and 17 training videos – a pretty good deal for a dollar even from my prejudice point of view. Not only that, but while you’re a member of the course you can also attend my free coaching call each week. Click here to enroll.

The first one is: Have you helped at least two people get connected in the last week?

The key to success on LinkedIn or in any networking environment is “valued relationships.” A “valued relationship” is one where the other person is connected to you because of the value you provide.

The primary measure of a great networker is not how many people they are connected to, though good networkers tend to be well connected, but how many connections they create.

By taking the time to find out who your connections wish to meet and forwarding them opportunities to get connected you become a very valuable and trusted resource. This act develops reciprocity in others that will be of great value over time.

The second is: Have you talked to one of your new connections in the last week?

The act of getting connected to someone is one of the best opportunities you’ll ever get to make direct contact. Of course you must do this correctly and for the right reasons (getting business and selling your stuff doesn’t qualify).

I call new connections all the time simply to investigate how we might help each other. These conversations can be extremely profitable. If you aren’t taking the time to reach out occasionally you are passing up a wonderful opportunity to find gold on LinkedIn.

Third is: Have you made at least one update to your profile in the last 2 weeks?

Posting updates to your profile gives you visibility as it is published in the updates section of all of your connection’s home pages. Keeping your name out there is one of the ways people become familiar enough with you to make a decision to investigate your profile.

The more people that investigate your profile the more likely you are to find opportunities.

From Flyn

Thank you for visiting, I hope you find my ideas useful. Your comments, suggestions, and questions are welcomed. I also encourage you to send others to this resource either directly or by using the social media resources below.

In addition to your comments I would be delighted if you’d answer the following questions. You may leave your comments on the blog or send them directly to me at Flyn@OnlineBusinessNetworker.net

How often do you read the blog and what do you think of the content? Has it helped you succeed on LinkedIn? Any suggestions would be welcome (And I’ll admit to being a crappy editor up front.).

One last note in case you aren’t aware of it — I will help anyone that send me questions or requests — just invite me to connect (if we aren’t connected) and then feel free to ask for my help.

However, there is a more important strategy for selecting groups that you might want to consider. The purpose of joining groups is to give you additional accessibility and visibility.

Being in a group increases you accessibility because most groups will allow you to invite other members. This means others can more easily get connected to you.

More importantly however is the fact that participation in the groups makes you visible to many who many not be in your network or are not first level connections.

One way to measure the value a potential group might bring is check the news section of the group site and see if there are a regular flow of posts. Secondly see if the posts are being read.

Most of the news posts will show you how many views the post has received. If the posts aren’t being read, you may be in a group that doesn’t have good participation. If this is true, reduces your ability to use the group to get visibility.

You may also want to watch how many new members each week the group is getting. Again groups that are very active are going to offer you the maximum opportunities.

In order to investigate the news section you will have to first join the group. Once in the group you can make the decision to stay or not.

Twitter has no rules about having your personal information on your profile and as you may have noticed many people have backgrounds with all kinds of data, email, phone address, and other links. Creating one of these backgrounds and providing visitors the email address they need to connect on LinkedIn is a great way to help others engage you and connect.

Once you have done this you can simply put in the first line of your summary and contact settings sections of your profile that people click and follow you on Twitter (a bonus) and that they can find your email there to connect on LinkedIn.

Just to make things easy, here are the directions for creating the background on Twitter.

You will need to design a graphic with the data and graphics you want for your Twitter background. Then go into the Account Settings / Design tab in your Twitter account. At the bottom of this page is a button to change the graphic. Use this to upload your graphic.

You may need to mess with the size and design of your background graphic to make it all work the way you wish, but its not terribly difficult if you have some basic Photoshop or other graphics program skills.

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

Please comment on this post if you have any ideas questions, like it, or hate it. I would also appreciate any social media sharing you might do. The icons below will allow you to DIGG, MIX, Tweet or whatever very easily. Thanks for your support.