“Hi (insert name), I see we have a number of mutual connections. My company is helping lots of businesses just like yours. Here’s a link to our portfolio (insert link). Lets book in a call with one of my team so we can help you grow your business too.”
Now I’m not meaning to take the pi$$ here, but how many times a week do you get a message like this on LinkedIn? I don’t know if it’s lockdown, or the changing of the seasons, but it must get at least once a day at the moment!
I always try to reply – these are people at the other end of the screen after all, but I feel compelled to explain once and for all why I won’t be buying from you…
I Don’t Know You
Just because you added me on LinkedIn and I accepted (usually because we have more than 10 mutual connections), doesn’t mean I know you. If I don’t know you, and the first thing you do is try to sell me something, I’m not going to buy. I accepted our connection because I want to get to know you though – I want to see your content, find out about your business, and more importantly I want to learn from you!
Where’s the Trust
I put a huge amount of value on trust before taking professional relationships to a place of business. Like most people, before I’ll recommend you or your products/services to others, or before I buy them myself, I really need to trust you: I need to trust you know what you’re talking about, you’re products are reliable and that you’ll deliver what you promise. Show me how amazing you are at what you do! Show me you know your stuff, and you’re reliable, and helpful and someone that I want to do business with!
You Don’t Care
When you don’t even care enough to view my profile before you send a message. When you leave the words ‘insert link here’ in your text (happened just yesterday). When you misspell my name of have no idea what my business does I can tell you don’t really care. And if you don’t care, I can’t care either. It takes five minutes to view a profile, click through to a website and read the ‘about us’ section. Personalise your message to me so I can see you care and have taken the time to do some research. That’s when I’ll start caring too.
It’s Too Fast
We’ve just connected on LinkedIn, like most people I’ve got a lot on my plate right now so I’m sorry but no I don’t have time to book in a call with your colleague (because you’re too busy to have one yourself?). Take it slow, give me a change to get to know you and your business through the amazing content that you share. Take the time to get me and my business too! Engage with my content, share it, nurture it ffs, that’s when we’ll start to get to know each other and that’s when we can book in a call to discuss how we could potentially work together or support each other.
This all comes down to the basic networking concept of Know Like Trust. In order for people to make referrals and do business these three elements needs to exist. If you’re selling something of either high value or that’s deeply personal then these elements will become even more important.
I also think these things are more important to people who live in rural areas vs densely populated areas where lower importance is places on strong relationships before making buying decisions…but that’s a topic for another blog.
So if you want to connect on LinkedIn, amazing! I’d love to find out about you, your business, and learn from your expertise! But before you try to sell me anything lets get to know each other first.
For more on things such as Know Like and Trust, and how to build effective relationships take a look at our 2 Min Networking Tip videos.
Of to sign up to our online ‘Be An Amazing Networker: Remote Business Networking Course’!
