What Can LinkedIn Do for You?
LinkedIn can help you connect with important business
contacts on a regular basis and it can help potential clients
find you.
All you have to do is type in the names of your business
contacts and send a “LinkedIn Invitation” to them (or better
yet, scan the business cards and upload them in batches).
Once a business connection accepts your invitation, they
become part of your LinkedIn network.
LinkedIn is a contact database on steroids. It’s got a wealth of
information on each contact:
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Name
Contact information
Picture
Headline
Work and education history
List of connections (who they know)
Recommendations and information on the writers of
their recommendations
• Group memberships
• Status updates
Each piece of information will help you in a different way.
Their picture can help you recognize them at a networking
event. Their work and education history can help you see
what you have in common (e.g., you both went to UCLA or
worked at United Healthcare). Their work history can help
you see if they are part of your target market. Their group
memberships can help you determine if they can help you
access your target market.
What LinkedIn Can’t Do
LinkedIn is an incredibly powerful tool. But business won’t
magically appear just because you’re on LinkedIn. As Chef
Gordon Ramsey of “Hell’s Kitchen” has said, “... business
doesn’t just come and sit on your lap, you’ve gotta go looking
for it and if you don’t you’re going to fail.”
So that’s why most people have a LinkedIn account, but don’t
get much out of it. LinkedIn is not a replacement for the inperson contact needed to build business relationships, rather
it’s a tool to enhance relationship building.
You still need to talk to people on the phone, meet with them
for coffee, see them at networking events, or at the very least,
send them a personal note via LinkedIn or email. You still
need to interact with them on a human level.
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Coaching World |
February 2013
How Can You Use LinkedIn to Build
Business Relationships?
Maintain connection:
1. Send “LinkedIn Invitations” to every quality contact you meet.
Personalize the invitation to build a foundation for the relationship:
“It was nice meeting you at the MGMA Meeting. I enjoyed our
discussion about Pay for Performance. I would like to continue to
build our business relationship and am inviting you to link with me
on LinkedIn.”
Build relationships:
There are many ways to use LinkedIn to build business relationships, for
example, you can:
1. Review a contact’s LinkedIn profile, once they accept your “LinkedIn
Request,” send them an email highlighting the experience,
education, or connections that you have in common.
2. Review a contact’s LinkedIn profile before a phone call so you can
target questions to address their business needs.
3. Take a contact’s LinkedIn profile with you to coffee or lunch and
use it to build rapport.
4. Review the profiles of key people in a networking group, prior to
attending an event, to:
• Select people to look for
• Help you recognize them
• Prepare questions to initiate meaningful business conversations
Meet new business contacts:
There are many ways to meet new business contacts on LinkedIn. You
can find them in:
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A “people” Search
A friend’s connection list
A group
A comment they made in a group or the “answers” section
They can also find you in one of the ways listed above
How You Can Use LinkedIn to Enroll Clients
Once you become more active on LinkedIn, you will begin to get more
“LinkedIn Invitations” fr