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While LinkedIn is used for professional networking, connecting, and job searching, companies, the platform has evolved into a certain business interface which can also generate leads and grow your business. Networking online via websites like LinkedIn in 2021 is a must. While LinkedIn can be a valuable site to find a job or expand your business, connecting with individuals on the site requires more than just sending someone a message trying to sell a product or a solution. 

Individuals are looking forward to make connections with potential clients via social networks need to be social and take the time to develop genuine connections with those they’re reaching out to. LinkedIn can truly improve your professional brand awareness if used wisely.

Growing number of invites

Since early 2020, I’ve seen a spike in the number of connection requests I receive on LinkedIn.

I find LinkedIn a great platform to generate new business relationships and an even better place to stay connected with all the contacts I come across in my day-to-day life – each time I meet someone interesting in person, or these days more online in other forms of networking and meetings, I look them up on LinkedIn and send them a connection request. When you are in a corporate organisation, you can easily check the background of the newly appointed executives – and this should not be considered as spying – people only share the professional details as they feel comfortable. Even 20 years ago, such an easy way of checking somebody’s corporate profile would not have been possible.

My style is not the hard sell type of business relationship so many seem to head straight for these days. I also created my Linkedin Page to separate my datacenter business development  persona from my business coaching persona. I like to develop relationships with others who have a similar business ethos, which is important to me in the work I undertake and keeps that passion burning.

Often I also use LinkedIn to track competitors and hear about announcement of corporate new products or events of the key players. There are also some interesting and inspirational posts that challenge me to think about my own business and my management and leadership style or give great tips.

What has changed since 2020?

Well, we all know that the world came to a great pause. For businesses that relied on direct sales to drive revenue, the door-to-door cold calling or in-person networking events were no longer an option. Businesses had to reconfigure their sales strategy and with remote work environments many have adapted to virtual interactions.

As more businesses and sales people become digitally savvy, the use of platforms like LinkedIn has increased and evolved.

If one wants to use a platform like LinkedIn to network and generate more sales and business, a farming mindset still applies in the approach. Networking is, and always will be, about forming, building and developing relationships. It is about knowing, liking and trusting. It is about being able to identify the sort of business your network members are seeking and helping.

Farmers and Hunters on LinkedIn

The farmer prepares the networking ground, sows seeds of business relationships, nurtures those relationships and reaps rewards through referrals or even new business opportunities. When they first connect with anyone they would have done some research to find common ground and when reaching out they offer solutions to challenges through their content. 

A hunter on the other hand will literally start pitching and hard selling to you the moment you accept their connection request. They have a generic opening message they send everyone, there’s no effort made in personalisation and researching the needs of the person or the organisation they are connecting with whatsoever. It’s literally a numbers game for them. Therefore a pure hunting strategy on LinkedIn does not generate much benefits for you.

A savvy hunter will mask him or herself as a farmer initially so they may use a slightly different approach. But they too will start soliciting prematurely after a couple of interactions online.

Engaging prospects through LinkedIn or any similar social media for that matter is a fine balance and the focus shouldn’t just be on selling but providing value. If you come on too strong with a sales pitch and a hard sell, they’ll go running. Adopt a farming mindset and follow the tips below if you want to truly be successful with online networking.

Engage first

It’s all about one interaction, which eventually spills over into other audiences when your comments go viral. You need to engage on a personal level, similar to how you would at a networking event or even a casual cocktail party.

Never steamroll over your prospects with the hard sell approach; this simply doesn’t work with social media and repeatedly blasting your marketing messages isn’t going to help you build fruitful relationships or provide value.

You might see examples of posts that were possibly created to generate tensions and initiate a clash of different opinions. Just like at a cocktail party, people do not directly discuss religion, politics or similar topics unless they are already aware of the other party’s engagement to this or that side. You never know who will read your post from your network, or the network of your network.  You might get attention this way, but it’s not sure that this is the badge of troublemaker you’d like to wear from now on.

Imagine having a casual conversation with someone about newsworthy items, or industry standards and someone walks up, interrupts your conversation, and starts talking about themselves.

Being Personal

It’s an often debated topic, how much you should be personal and sharing your life details with a professional network. As I realized, the most favored posts with many reactions and comments are the personal ones – telling you about a personal story. This is how we are built, humans love stories from our childhood and can relate to other people by their stories. Most people share positive stories of achievements (promotion, graduation, business awards etc.) which might be confirmed by the LinkedIn network. There are very few examples of stories of failures as the major goal of the platform for many people to show their best professional profile. Failure does not fit in here, though if you deepdive into the contents created those stories, articles and posts are the most discussed  (commented and shared) in which a failure is turned into success. So don’t be shy to share failures, too.

Don’t be that savvy hunter masked as a farmer

Seasoned LinkedIn users have no problem pointing out sales people working an angle just to try to sell them on their services. Instead, be yourself; show them your human side. The more honest and personable you are, the faster you’ll earn the trust of your prospects.

If you try to fake your way through the social process, your heart won’t be in it and your newly found connections will feel it and it’s not a quality that they’ll trust.

Focus on adding value with your connections

When you engage with your clients and potential clients, it’s crucial that you always add value to your conversations. Help your social sphere solve a problem by providing them with interesting information about the industry, or useful tips that they’ll appreciate. LinkedIn is a great place to initiate a sale, but a terrible place to try to close. 

In other words, if you blindly pitch your services, you’ll end up forcing what you’re selling into the discussion far too early in the sales cycle.

Listen to what’s being said

LinkedIn is an incredible place to gather useful information like your competitor’s attributes, learn industry news, discover your potential or current client’s pain and pleasure points and much, much more. All you have to do is take the time to listen and take note.

If you only use LinkedIn to blast out your salesy messages and don’t pay attention to what’s being said, you’re wasting a huge opportunity to research, listen, learn and participate.

At the end of the day, there’s only one way to actually close a sale via LinkedIn and that’s to establish yourself as an industry leader and a trusted resource. Once you’ve earned your target audience’s trust, everything else will fall into place. To help you on this journey from day 1, join me so we can optimize your LinkedIn profile, discover the power of Linkedin connections and  you could Network like a Pro!