It only takes a few
It’s good to keep reminding yourself that you are only searching for a few good network building partners who will do the same!
- Your process is not one of trying to convince anyone to join you
You are looking for people who see the value in building their networks - You are looking for people who believe in building trust with others regardless of whether transactions are likely to flow directly from them from those they reach out to
- You are looking for people who will appreciate your help
- You are looking for people who you will enjoy working with
- You are looking for people who say: this is exactly the environment I have been looking for
It’s good to remember that you find great people; you don’t “make” them.
It’s futile trying to work with people that need convincing about the value of building their networks (if they haven’t figured that out yet, you don’t want to be the one to try and convince them!).
Having said that, many people will need time to immerse themselves in the CC culture to convince themselves that this is exactly the environment they are looking for to help them build their networks and achieve the results they are looking for.
The better you get at the process, the sooner you find great partners. So, to find great network-building partners as quickly as possible, it pays to become better at:
- Finding a list of like minded-others on LinkedIn
- Reaching out to them with a suggestion that you meet with them on Zoom
- Ensuring that your LinkedIn profile clarifies that you enjoy advocating for people you Know, Like & Trust. Also that you have an extensive network of contacts spanning many industries (in the CC, your connector will usually know many people and will help you connect the people you onboard with relevant others)
- Sending great messages that help you have Discovery calls with great like-minded people
How to tweak your LinkedIn profile
When you reach out to people on LinkedIn and suggest that they meet with you face-to-face (on Zoom), there is a good chance that they will first take a look at your profile.
They are much more likely to connect with you if they can see you are willing to connect them with like-minded others (once trust has been established between you and them), and that you have a substantial number of relevant contacts (which you do when you are part of the CC!).
So, the first step is to ensure that the first thing they see in the “About” section of your LinkedIn profile is words to the effect:
Although you and I may not be able to do business together directly, it is highly likely that I will know people who are great contacts for you. I am always happy to advocate for others who also have a pay-it-forward attitude. I’m fortunate to have many connections with whom I have developed a know, like & trust relationship.
Adding these words usually adds great value to your profile without the need to substantially change anything else.
In addition, it’s great if your profile looks appealing – especially the banner section at the top, your headline and your Photo.
How to find like-minded people on LinkedIn
Let’s revisit the basics of searching on LinkedIn
Think about the quality of the people you’d like to partner with?
What words come to mind?
- Integrity
- Willing to work
- Entrepreneurial
- See the value of building relationships, collaboration partnership
What words on the other hand would you use to exclude profiles that you are not so interested in?
In the next lesson learn how to create a great filtered list using the Boolean terms AND OR NOT in the LinkedIn Search box
How to create a Boolean search to find a great list of candidates
An example
After a while, you will become much more creative about the types of words you could search for to include more likely profiles in your search results or words that you could use to specifically exclude profiles with certain words (using the NOT operator).
Let’s look at the following example:
client (founder OR start-up OR entrepreneur) (technology OR digital) NOT(recruitment) NOT(talent) NOT(student)
What does this say?
First, all profiles selected would have to contain the word ‘client’.
The next 3 terms are separated by the Boolean OR
When using the Boolean OR remember
Put it in capitals like this OR
founder OR start-up OR entrepreneur
These words separated by OR are also surrounded by parenthesis as follows:
(founder OR start-up OR entrepreneur)
Why parenthesis?
So that it’s clear these words should all be evaluated together (separately from other words in the Search)
Then there is a space followed by
(technology OR digital)
So it looks like this:
(founder OR start-up OR entrepreneur) (technology OR digital)
This means:
In addition to having one of the words “founder, start-up, or entrepreneur”, to qualify for the results list, a profile examined by the LinkedIn search must also have one of “technology or digital” to qualify for the results list.
Then we have NOT(recruitment) NOT(talent) NOT(student)
This means we don’t want profiles that contain the words recruitment or talent or student
Important notes regarding NOT
NOT must be in capitals
It must be followed by an open parenthesis WITHOUT any space so NOT(student) is OK but NOT (student) is not OK.
LinkedIn will allow you to use multiple NOT’s but a maximum of only 5 ANDs (even on paid version) before coming up with a “please shorten” message
LinkedIn Booleans do not permit wildcard searching
In other words, you can’t use “recruit*”. Instead, you need to use “recruit OR recruitment” (as an example).
However, it does appear to search for upper or lowercase.
Don’t be scared to have a go
It’s the only way you learn!
And it’s worth persevering so that you can filter out better quality candidates – it will save you a lot of time in the long run!
How to enter searches and filters in LinkedIn
A quick note about LinkedIn’s Limits
LinkedIn will apply restrictions to your account if they think you are spamming.
In general, up until recently, LinkedIn were not specific about exactly what the limits are.
And they keep on changing their policies!
However, recently LinkedIn stated that you will get a message similar to the following:
“You’ve reached the weekly invitation limit”
if you attempt send more than 100 Connection Requests in a week.
This is fine because, if you learn how to select well, you should not need to send any more than a maximum of 80 per week to achieve more Zoom discovery calls than you can handle.
We believe (with some degree of confidence that comes from current experience) that the above newly imposed restriction has removed a previous restriction.
The previous restriction would only allow you to conduct about 15 searches per month. Unlimited searching with the new restriction makes a lot more sense.
We’ll keep an eye on it and update this information as we learn more.
Watch the following 3-minute video explaining how to set up a Boolean search in LinkedIn
How to construct a great LinkedIn search
Attitude / Character traits
In general, think about the words that someone may have on their profile, which indicates that they are like-minded.
In other words, someone who believes in relationship-based network building rather than transactional networking.
Someone who believes that “If you help enough other people to get what they want – you get what you want.”
What words on their LinkedIn profile might indicate they may believe in building trust with others?
Difference (often used in the context of “in the lives of others”)
Others
Relationship
Believe
Partnership
Wisdom
Positive
Collaborative
Collaborate
Connect
Advocate
Attitude
Integrity
Connect
Prosperity
Grow
Can you think of more great words that indicate that someone may have the character/attitude you are looking for?
What words on their LinkedIn profile might indicate they may be entrepreneurial (and therefore keen to build their network)?
Entrepreneur
Start-up
Founder
Owner
Entrepreneur
Scale
Growth
Can you think of more great words indicating that they may be keen to build their network?
What words on their LinkedIn profile might indicate you might have the ability to build rapport with them quickly (for example, you have similar background)
Let’s say your background is in technology; some words that may help you build affinity with others might be:
Technology
Digital
Online
Software
Web
What words on their LinkedIn profile would indicate someone that you do not want to connect with?
Often you may not want to connect with someone in a particular industry.
For example, you may NOT want to connect with people in the people recruitment industry.
The reason for this is that there is an overwhelming number of recruiters on LinkedIn.
How would you combine these words into a Boolean Search that will work best for you on LinkedIn?
Well, it could be:
(startup OR Start-up) (difference OR others OR positive OR advocate OR integrity) NOT(food) NOT(wellness) NOT(health) NOT(Retail) NOT(medical) NOT(talent) NOT(recruitment) NOT(government) NOT(blockchain) NOT(solar) NOT(crypto) NOT(affiliate) NOT(home) NOT(wealth) NOT(head) NOT(manager) NOT(proven)
Notes:
- Ideally, you want your search to return between 500 and 1500 results
- The reason for this is that you can only access a maximum of 1000 results, and if you get a lot more than that, it pays to refine further so that you get a better list.
- LinkedIn will not deal with a Search string that is beyond a certain complexity
- If your search is too complex, LinkedIn will display a message asking you to “shorten” your search
- In this regard:
- Enter a maximum of “OR”’s
- Rather than using AND use a space – for example, “entrepreneurial difference” rather than “entrepreneurial AND difference”
- Have multiple NOT’s in the format shown in the above example does not seem to create a problem
- After you have done a search in LinkedIn and selected “2nd level” connections and set the locations, you are interested in, examine a few of the profiles in the results that LinkedIn displays
- Looking at their profile, is this the type of person that you believe could be a good network building partner?
- It’s worth experimenting with this search because it can save you a great deal of time and help you to find some great people quickly
How to construct your LinkedIn connection request & subsequent messages
LinkedIn permits a maximum of 300 characters in the connection request message you send to other LinkedIn members.
The ideal message is broken into two parts:
- What about their profile prompted you to send them an invitation to connect
- An invitation to connect face-to-face on Zoom
For example:
Hi Bill,
I love your attitude and approach – could be of interest to some of my contacts.
Hopefully (like me), you also value stronger connections outside LinkedIn?
If so, let’s connect with a view to meeting face-to-face on Zoom?
Cheers
Mary
Notes:
- The sooner you can get off LinkedIn and into a face-to-face Zoom meeting, the better
- You should be aiming for about 30% (or more) of those that you send a connection request to connect with you
- The ideal outcome is that they say something like:
- Great – here’s a link to my calendar – book in a time that works for you OR
- Great – when works for you?
- In this case, you could send a message like:
- Great Bill, to make it easy and save juggling diaries, it would be great if you could choose a time that works for you using the following link. Really looking forward to meeting you and see how I can best help.
- Follow this with a link for them to book a time into your calendar using a tool such as Calendly
- Sometimes their response to your invitation to connect will be a “Thumbs Up”
- In this case, send them the above message anyway
- Sometimes they will simply press the “Connect” button without any message
- In this case, give them a second chance and send a message that invites them to meet face-to-face on Zoom. This could be a more extended message as you are not restricted to 300 characters.
- It could be something like
Hi Bill,
Thanks for connecting!
Looking at your profile, I believe there could be some great mutual synergies with some of my contacts.
Hopefully (like me), you are also interested in pro-actively building your personal business network with like-minded others and making our LinkedIn connections more “real” & authentic?
If so, let’s connect via Zoom or by phone?
To make it easy and save juggling our diaries, book in a time that works for you using the following link to my calendar:
https://calendly.com/Mary
I have been an entrepreneur all my life, and now I’m enjoying giving back by helping others progress their career and business growth through trusted strategic collaboration.
Importantly, I have no other agenda.
I have quite a few IT and other business contacts, and I’m finding we can create business/career opportunities simply by collaborating.
Cheers
Mary
- Note the highlighted bit – it is highly effective!
- Sometimes they will request more information
- In this case, send them a message handling their query (best not to go into too much detail as it’s always best to speak face-to-face)
- The message would also suggest a quick Zoom and follow the structure of the example above
- In general, it saves you both a lot of time, if you can jump straight onto a Zoom rather than carrying on with endless messaging on LinkedIn