Finding and making connections

LinkedIn has a very good search engine for finding people.  You can search to find people by their job role, what company they work at or by their name.  Not all people will be available to connect with on day one as LinkedIn wants you to build up your credibility first.  It doesn’t want to bombard people in senior positions with lots of connection requests from what it sees as lower calibre members.  Start with people you know to make your first connections before trying to find the Head Buyer at Waitrose.  As your connections grow so will your network of opportunities.  If you already have a mutual connection with someone on LinkedIn, then the platform will usually allow you to send a connection request.  So spend time looking for good quality connections that you have some synergy with, not just people you want to sell to.

When you send a connection request, LinkedIn will ask if you want to personalise it by adding your own short note.  Never send a connection request without doing this and don’t open with a sales pitch.  Be friendly, be personal.  If you have met them before remind them where, if you have a mutual connection tell them how you know them.  Doing this will increase the number of people who accept your connection requests tenfold. I get daily connection requests on LinkedIn that are without a covering note and rarely accept them unless it looks like someone who would be useful for me to know, because I know they will likely just be looking to sell to me.  Just as bad is the non-specific copy and paste message of: ‘I am looking to build my connections and came across your profile and thought there would be mutual benefits to us being connected’ that doesn’t even start with my name.  As soon as I accept one of these connection requests I know I will get an automated follow-up detailing everything about the company they represent and an invitation to set up ‘a discovery call’.  Don’t send these kinds of message.  Ever.  It’s not a numbers game and people are not sat waiting for you to connect to them thinking ‘Wow, I’ve been looking for someone who offers these services for ages!’.  You will get the same treatment as if you turned up unannounced at their office door asking to show them your presentation.

When someone genuinely interesting sends you a connection request though, don’t just accept and move on.  Send them a message to start a conversation.  My favourite one to use after accepting a connection is simply a single line: ‘Hi (person’s name) and thank you for the connection request – have we be introduced before?’.  9 out of 10 people reply, and many turn into conversations with some interesting opportunity.