Consistently send out connection requests to carefully selected LinkedIn members

Let’s Summarise the process so far An overview of your network building process Consistently send out connection requests to carefully selected LinkedIn members

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:

  • Examine the list of LinkedIn profiles that were generated by the Boolean search of connections of your first-level connections (i.e. your 2nd level connections) and decide which ones you want to send a connection request
    • We call this process of selection “triaging”
    • It’s worth taking the time to examine profiles looking for people who may be like-minded and make great network-building partners
    • You only need to find and build a relationship with a few good partners who will follow the same process as you
    • Send those that you have selected a personalised connection request message with the goal of meeting them on Zoom (it’s so more effective to take the connection beyond a mere LinkedIn connection)

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.

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