Making the Most of Your LinkedIn Connection

Are you on LinkedIn?  It is a professional social network connecting colleagues, peers and past associates.  It’s a free service and enables you to create a profile which includes your work history, current assignment, and referrals from past clients.

Unlike Facebook or MySpace, the platform is focused on the business aspect of your life.  Niche groups have formed connecting like-minded professionals to engage in lively question and answer sessions.  Job searches can be effectively conducted using the connections and the research capabilities are endless.

LinkedIn is a wonderful resource however to most it is perhaps more about seeing how many connections you can collect.  It reminds me of the 60s and baseball cards.  For a nickel you could buy a pack with really awful gum and a handful of cards.  Kids would gather on the playground to show off their collection and trade away their duplicates for the coveted Johnny Bench rookie card.  (I have it!) It was all about the collection.  How many did you have and who had the most valuable card?

Are you using LinkedIn as your modern baseball card collection or are you making the most of your LinkedIn connections?

Yesterday I met Colin Taylor via commenting on his blog and he sent me an invitation to connect on LinkedIn.  I quickly responded and shortly after I received this email from Colin:

I am happy to assist my connections in any way I reasonably can. Please let me know if there is anything that I can do to assist you.

For our part we operate in the consulting space, are headquartered in Toronto and operate across Canada, the US as well as Asia. We do infrequent gigs in Europe.

We consult on all things call/contact center…strategy, technology, process, people, methodology/metrics, service to sales, site selection, outsourcing etc. If I can be of any assistance to you, I am happy to do so. We often give away our time (for 30 -60 minutes anyway- beyond that is will cost $).

If you come across people who could use our services, please feel free to refer them to us, we are happy to pay a finders fee for engagements we could/would not have sourced otherwise.

For more information on The Taylor Reach Group, Inc. please visit our website www.thetaylorreachgroup.com and/or read our newsletter (which is sent 10 times per year to 10,000+ senior call contact center executives globally).

He started the email with a personal message but the rest is a beautifully crafted note that let’s me know:

1. He wants to help me in whatever way I might need; introductions, connections, answering questions or providing advice
2. He clearly defined what his company does, who he helps and how he helps them
3. He let me know how he could be contacted and where I might find more information
4. He shared a freebie:  free 30 minute consultation

How many times have you reached out to your LinkedIn connections with such focus and clarity?  I can only speak for myself and say that after I’m connected with someone I usually just send them a thank you note and say something folksy like “so how the heck have you been?” 

I wonder; which use of LinkedIn drives more business or offers a better networking opportunity?  I think it is a no brainer.  So I emailed Colin and asked if I could brag on him and he called me.  We had a great conversation and he said that he views LinkedIn as a great opportunity that is under utilized.  Agreed. 

The same can be said for any of the marketing, networking, branding or social media tools that we utilize:  it is only as successful as the effort we put forth. 

I would encourage you to consider crafting a short email response to your new LinkedIn  Connections.  Interested in connecting with me?  You can visit my LinkedIn profile.

Visit Colin on his blog Call Center Perspectives to hear what he has to say regarding customer service in the call center world.  Good stuff!

Check out  Guy Kawasaki’s article 10 Ways to Use LinkedIn

Check out this post Is LinkedIn a Waste of Time?