The daddy of modern day networking is a pioneer called Dr Ivan Misner. He came up with the idea of breakfast networking clubs and his is still the biggest –BNI (Business Networking International). He says unless you know who you want to know very few people can help you.
When delegates ask for referrals far too many people say “I am looking for anyone who needs an accountant/ plumber/ circus ring leader” which leads fellow networkers’ minds to go blank. When you ask “Does anyone know anyone at Smith & Co?” you either do or you don’t.
This is the beauty of LinkedIn. You have to be specific when seeking referrals; your computer won’t put up with the nonsense of you saying to it ‘any accountant anywhere’. In fact I’m wrong –if you ask LinkedIn to ‘find me a profile with the word ‘accountant’ in it, at this time of writing LinkedIn comes up with 286,436 times. Go through those if you’ve nothing else to do!
This is where the advance search comes in useful; it means you can be bulls-eye specific.
For me, you will get the best out of LinkedIn when you know your target market-you need to know who you need to know. So there you have it, no more “Do you know ANYONE…..!”
For more LinkedIn tips and ideas, visit http://www.linkedintraining.co.uk/. Kintish is fast becoming the UK’s leading authority on LinkedIn. We run public, in-house and web based training seminars for this exciting online networking business development software.
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