[caption id="attachment_3637" align="alignleft" width="341" caption="Jaco Grobbelaar LinkedIn Profile"]
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You go to Chamber and BNI events to meet people who might be able to help you improve your business. Or you go so that you can offer your expertise to those with less experience. Perhaps you go to meet people who have a service that you need. When you look in the Yellow Pages for a business, you are not certain you want to pick a business out at random. So your goal for going to the BNI or Chamber meeting is that you want to meet some people either in the business or who know people in the business so you can get references. Perhaps you are the one with the service to offer. While you are there you pass out your business cards to others and collect theirs.
LinkedIn has much the same things to offer, but you don’t have the physical go-to-meeting opportunity you have at a Chamber function; however, there are some ways for you to meet people if you are willing to network, with emphasis on the word “work.”
Your Personal Profile
Once you set your profile up and have invited some of your friends and family to join, you will start receiving suggestions of people you might know through LinkedIn and other people will be suggested as people who might know you. One of these people who sees your profile and thinks you might be a good contact might send you one of LinkedIn’s generic invitations to join that person’s personal network.
Be sure and look up their profile on LinkedIn. This is like their business card only better since there is more information. You can choose to reject a person because you don’t know him or her; or you can send them a message and ask how they found you and why they want to connect. Then you can do the unexpected and ask them if there is something you can do for them.
Say what? Why did this person contact you in the first place? It could be that you both have several people in common or she read your profile and needs some help. If you start a dialog with her, you are doing exactly what you would do if you met her at a BNI event. It is not a good idea to pass judgment on anyone on LinkedIn. That person might turn into some one important in your network.
[/caption]What's in LinkedIn for you if you are not looking for a job or an employee? Why should you network on this site? And why for that matter have you gone to Chamber of Commerce and BNI meetings?
You go to Chamber and BNI events to meet people who might be able to help you improve your business. Or you go so that you can offer your expertise to those with less experience. Perhaps you go to meet people who have a service that you need. When you look in the Yellow Pages for a business, you are not certain you want to pick a business out at random. So your goal for going to the BNI or Chamber meeting is that you want to meet some people either in the business or who know people in the business so you can get references. Perhaps you are the one with the service to offer. While you are there you pass out your business cards to others and collect theirs.
LinkedIn has much the same things to offer, but you don’t have the physical go-to-meeting opportunity you have at a Chamber function; however, there are some ways for you to meet people if you are willing to network, with emphasis on the word “work.”
Your Personal Profile
Once you set your profile up and have invited some of your friends and family to join, you will start receiving suggestions of people you might know through LinkedIn and other people will be suggested as people who might know you. One of these people who sees your profile and thinks you might be a good contact might send you one of LinkedIn’s generic invitations to join that person’s personal network.
Be sure and look up their profile on LinkedIn. This is like their business card only better since there is more information. You can choose to reject a person because you don’t know him or her; or you can send them a message and ask how they found you and why they want to connect. Then you can do the unexpected and ask them if there is something you can do for them.
Say what? Why did this person contact you in the first place? It could be that you both have several people in common or she read your profile and needs some help. If you start a dialog with her, you are doing exactly what you would do if you met her at a BNI event. It is not a good idea to pass judgment on anyone on LinkedIn. That person might turn into some one important in your network.
Jaco Grobbelaar is the owner of BroadVision Marketing. BroadVision Marketing works with business owners to put in place inbound and outbound marketing strategies that consistently secure new clients. The BroadVision Marketing Training Center is located in Petaluma, CA and primarily serves companies in the San Francisco Bay area.
Jaco can be reached at jaco@broadvisionmarketing.com or 707.766.9778 or connect with Jaco on Facebook - www.facebook.com/broadvisionmarketing - and LinkedIn - www.linkedin.com/in/JacoGrobbelaar.