
Decide who you’d like to send a LinkedIn connection request
Once you’ve used a Boolean search to filter out a great list of candidates from the people that have already connected with you on LinkedIn (your 1st level connections), examine their profiles and select those who look as though they could be great candidates.
The next step is to devise a great message and send it to them.
When someone has already connected with you, your message is not restricted in length (unlike a connection request message which is limited to 300 characters) so you are able to construct quite a creative message which would usually being with something like:
“We’ve been connected for a while and after revisiting your profile I thought it would be great if we could have a quick Zoom….”
While the list of people who have already connected with you is the ideal starting point, that list will soon run out. Therefore, as soon as possible it’s important to master the following steps:
Your goal is to set up a Zoom meeting and you should make it clear that you have no agenda other than to build great relationships with like-minded others
When someone reaches out to us, our first thought may be:
Why do they want to meet with me, what’s in it for them, what do they want to sell me?
Fortunately there is another possibility:
We actually want to earn the trust of others knowing that this directly or indirectly (usually indirectly) produces a far great “return on generosity” than attempts to immediately directly pitch to others we meet.
In another course in this syllabus, we discuss how to create great, authentic connection request messages that will be highly effective and that you will feel comfortable with.