Once or twice on this blog, I have mentioned that LinkedIn is my favorite social networking tool. I want to share a specific case of how LinkedIn has helped me generate business.
As part of my regular routine using LinkedIn, I like to pay attention to who my immediate (1st level) connections are connected to. For a while I noticed that Bethany Spilde was connected to several my connections. She also seemed to share a similar professional interest in using social media for small business marketing. For these reasons, I decided to contact Bethany to see if we could meet in person.
During our first meeting, we learned that we did indeed share a lot of professional interests, including teaching business owners how to use LinkedIn to grow their business. During that first meeting, we discussed LinkedIn and how even though it was gaining in popularity, many people that we met were still unsure about how to use LinkedIn to grow their business. So, we decided to partner together to put on a LinkedIn workshop.
This story may seem fairly unremarkable but, we were able to meet, get to know, decide to do business together, and are making money together – all in a span of 30 days. In my mind, that demonstrates how powerful LinkedIn can be.
How LinkedIn helped:
- It helped me find Bethany. I may have met her eventually without LinkedIn, but then again, I may not have.
- LinkedIn provided the background information that helped speed up the Know, Like, and Trust factors of building a professional relationship. Because we knew several of the same people and had the opportunity to learn about one another from our profiles, we had a head start on the “getting to know each other” phase of the relationship. This allowed us to move more quickly into the “how can we help each other” phase.
- Because our networks are visible to one another, we could easily determine how we should split the marketing activities for our new boot camp.
- As an aside, meeting with Bethany also introduced me to my now favorite coffee, tea shop, and bakery, the Dragonfly
I’d love to hear how you have used LinkedIn to generate business – leave me a comment and tell me your story.
P.S. If you are in the Kansas City area and would like to learn more about our upcoming LinkedIn boot camp, visit the information and registration page.
