Right at the outset of this article I just want to declare that I love LinkedIn. It took me a few years to fall in love with the service but when I did, I fell really hard. It wasn't always this way, but I got there eventually.
It all started about 4 years ago. I had been using the service for quite a few months. Had created a professional profile. Listened to a few gurus tell me how to write the profile and get it to the top of search results. I was feeling pretty good about it. I then went out and collected some connections and waited. I was confident that leads would roll in. I waited some more and decided it was yet again a lot of hype around a service that didn't really deliver much.
That was prior to actually taking some time and deciding who I wanted to connect with and what I wanted to achieve. I actually thought about developing a strategy. Of course I didn't actually put it into practice. Well, I am a small business owner with a lot of demands on my time. LinkedIn hadn't delivered anything much and I wasn't sure if my strategy would work.
I had an issue with some software and I wanted to find a specific set of software that would meet a few specific needs of my clients. I did a search online and discovered a product overseas. They didn't list the owner on the website so I decided to look for him on LinkedIn and yes I found him. I sent him a 2 line message and before I knew it, was in a Skype conference within 3 days with him, his CEO and Business Development Manager. That connection lasted for a few years and brought me some really good business as well as connections. There, I had it, it dawned on me just what you could achieve on LinkedIn once you had a strategy or a plan.
My next step was to develop a plan that would help me connect with my ideal clients. I know that we all think in business that everyone is our ideal client, especially if you deliver a generic service. As I was talking about the largest networking site in the world with close to 1 million new users a day I realised that I would have to be very specific about who I wanted to connect with on LinkedIn. I wanted to test the service and see if it was worthwhile spending time on this site. I then thought about my usual strategies when going networking in the real world. I actually did a costing of how much money I invested in being part of a regular weekly networking group. I worked out that membership, time, travel, meeting costs etc cost me $28,000 per year. In return, I had developed relationships with 20 people who sent me business referrals on a regular basis. For this particular year, I had received 75 referrals. Being a maths genius I worked out that each referral had cost me $373. I know that this doesn't mean much to you as you aren't aware of the value of each referral and how many actually converted to business. However, you can see from this exercise that face to face networking can be expensive not only in money but also in time.
LinkedIn offers you an opportunity to be part of the biggest networking event in the world. Imagine walking into a room that had millions of business people in it, all wanting to network. How do you make full use of your time? By being specific on who you want to network with. It was very important for my strategy to define who I wanted to network with.
I decided to trial a strategy where I connected with as many business owners as I could in my local area. I thought that a good strategy would be to exchange messages with these business owners and hope to get a follow up telephone call or Skype meeting with them so that we can develop the relationship. We would meet in an online world and get to know each others business. Explore possibilities and then if suitable meet face to face.
It turned out to be a good plan. When I started the project I had about 300 connections already and I set the goal of increasing this to 500 in 3 months. My maths kicked in again so I knew that I was looking at connecting with between 3 and 4 business owners per day. Trying for follow up meetings at 1 to 2 per week. Sounded like achievable goals to me at the time.
The first part of getting connections is searching for business owners located within my post code (or a certain radius). LinkedIn has a great search function and you can refine it under the advanced option. The search results gave me a list to work with. I then opened profiles on the list and found out what groups these contacts were members of. I joined the same group and connected with them through the group. Personalised the request and followed up each with a request to learn more about their business. Following this plan, I found that I was spending an hour or so each day on LinkedIn and with distractions, this was getting longer and longer. Yes, I was getting great results but how could I minimise my time even further? After all I am a small business owner with lots of demands on my time. Anyone who spends time on social media knows how addictive it is!
Enter my trusted Virtual Assistant. I provided her with the strategy, template messages, instructions on what message went to which connection (depending on their profile) and asked her to implement the strategy each day for me. She charged me $57 per week. I thought that this was a bargain as I didn't have to spend time on LinkedIn, I spent time once the meeting was arranged and in my diary. I had no costs for travel, meeting costs, membershp of networking groups, business cards or name badges. In fact this weekly fee was equivalent to attending one networking meeting a week. I didn't want to get ahead of myself until I saw the results.
The results were amazing, within 3 months I had 1248 connections who were small business owners in my local area. I was getting 10 telephone/Skype appointments each week which brought in more business than I had attracted in 12 months in my weekly networking meetings. Cost for each lead was $5.70. I had to pause the service because of the level of success, it was hard to keep up.
Key messages to take with you:
1) Build a strategy and plan
2) Create the content of the messages (test them out)
3) Hire a good Virtual Assistant who understands your business to implement the strategy.
Just think, if you get it right, you may never have to network face to face ever again.
If you are looking for a good virtual assistant who understands LinkedIn go to http://www.vasearch.com.au/ You will be able to search for the skill and contact the VA directly.
Alternatively, you can visit http://www.vaplacements.com/ and they will do a free recruit for you.
Liz Parker is the CEO of 121 Temps Pty Ltd and VA Placements. Her organisation not only helps people set up as virtual professionals but also offers clients a unique recruitment service to help them find the RIGHT virtual assistant.
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