Most businessmen, CEOs and Business Development professionals would agree that networking (particularly when it leads to referrals) is a great way to build a business. The problem is how do you do it cost effectively? In many cases this means proactively to a process rather than reactively waiting for it to happen? This question came to light this week when I was presenting to the Academy of Chief Executives (www.chiefexecutive.com) in the Holiday Inn Elstree, UK. It seems that many of them were not making full use of a great networking tool called Linked In (www.linkedin.com). If you haven’t discovered it yet it’s well worth a look. Basically it allows you to ‘connect’ with other professionals that have the same interests that you have and through the connection get access to a wide range of people who can help build your business.
We had a group of around 20 people at the workshop and the attendees ranged from the enthusiastic to the downright skeptical! But the majority seemed to be in the ‘I have joined but I don’t use it much’ category. As an example of the power that Linked In affords I asked some brave volunteers to mention some of the titles of people who were likely to buy their products or services, I then searched on Linked In using the ‘Advanced’ search option available to everyone. Imagine their surprise when they found that not only were there some people in their target group there were often many thousands and they lived only 25 miles away!
Suddenly the attention span in the room sharpened noticeably and we had a clamouring of ‘try me next!’ cries! What the attendees were experiencing was the same thing that I experienced when I first used Linked In which is the paradigm that it’s not a question of ‘will there be any people I can contact’ its rather ‘there are too many people to contact so how can I refine my search further’? And this is one of the great early learning points about Linked In. It forces you to think hard about ‘Who is you perfect customer’? But then again isn’t that what all the best marketing books that we all buy at airports tell us?!
By now most people in the room had woken up to the idea that it might be easy to find prospective customers, members, clients, consumers, etc. using Linked In but there was still the problem of how do you then make contact? Fortunately Linked In deals with this problem as well! As a group we explored the two essential ways of contacting a prospect (by Introduction or by In Mail). An introduction is simple, someone you know knows the person you want to contact so you ask them for an introduction. What could be simpler? And because Linked In is basically a networking site 99.99% of people are happy and willing to make connections. The second method is useful if you can see somebody exists but you don’t know anybody who knows them. that’s where In Mail is so useful! Because Linked In knows your e mail and the e mail of the person you are trying to contact it can act as a trusted broker to allow you to contact the person of your choice without revealing the person’s e mail address. In this way people don’t have to respond to your In Mail messages but if they want to they can. Once again this puts the onus on you as the individual sending the message to make it relevant and valuable to the person you are sending it to.
By now the group was ‘cooking on gas’! and keen to explore possibly one of the most powerful features in Linked In that of Groups. Groups exist in Linked In to allow like minded people to exchange information about a common subject matter. Groups exist for charities, alumni, ex colleagues, research topics, salesmen, technologists. Just about anything you can think of really (at the last count there were over 5,000 groups on Linked In all of them searchable using Key Words). So we had some fun looking at groups that some of the members of ACE 2 might like to join to get to know who else was interested in their products, services, expertise, experience, etc.
By now however the group members were getting really smart so it didn’t take long before someone asked ‘Couldn’t I start a group of my own and ask my customers, friends, contacts, prospects, etc to join?’ And the answer is of course yes! We explored how to do it in the group so look out for ACE and ACE 2 groups appearing on Linked In in the near future!
By now our allotted 4 hours was nearly up so it was time to take stock and review what we had learned and what we were going to do about it. There is no doubt that the richness of the possibilities in Linked In appealed to many in the group “I never imagined there would be so many people who I could connect with who might want my products and services! If I only interested 10% of them in me or my offerings I would never need to market my business again!” However, some reservations still remained “What happens if my competitors see who I know and then they will be able to leverage my network?!” Although an understandable fear we were able to discuss how Linked In allows you to control very effectively those people that you allow to see your profile so this fear is realistically unfounded.
Finally after all the discussions, arguments and counter arguments had been exhausted a small but thoughtful voice said “You know I have just realised that probably the most valuable asset in my business is my relationships and Linked In will help me to manage them more effectively and deepen the ones that I want to focus on?!”
With that I realised that my work here was done and it was time to ride out (or drive out) into the sunset with the warm glow of a well briefed group behind me. In 4 short hours I thought, I have made electronic networking converts out of skeptical hardnosed business men and women. It was as I was congratulating myself thus that the car phone rang and one of the participants I had just left asked: “Mike, great session, really enjoyed it. How do you log on again?” Ah well, maybe not expert electronic networkers but at least I had struck a spark in the digital darkness!
Mike Nevin is an international speaker and researcher on the subject of relationships. His business (www.alliancebestpractice.com) allows organisations to establish effective business to business relationships that create enduring value. Recently he has become increasingly drawn into the associate world of person to person relationships using the latest social networking tools and in particular Linked In. He can be reached at mike.nevin@alliancebestpractice.com
