LinkedIn – Now the hottest trending tool for business development in 2014 – by Dean DeLisle

So when talking to our clients and students, as we approach an amazing 90,000 trained and coached, we have proven to ourselves and gathered significant evidence that simple moves are making massive strides when using LinkedIn for the purpose of Business Development.

Three Solid Reasons why this is hot for business development in 2014

1. Law of Attraction – now certain people that we train simply have to just upgrade or do a profile makeover and “bam” they start getting leads. Just by the sheer fact that their profile did not clearly state what they were doing and what they want, then once we do this or coach them to do this – they instantly start to get inquires, referrals, yes inbound referrals. We just had a client in Asset Management last week update her profile and once she published started instantly getting inbound QUALIFIED appointments. Her network just had never seen her in that light before. Now she is coming up ranked in search results and looking incredible. Why would this not happen?We see a pattern of success from three specific areas, so let me explain:

2. Network Transference – this is the simple act of someone who previously had, what we tell our students, a great relationship with their network. They have a very relevant network where they have built relationships, trust and have done a decent job staying in touch with folks. This same relationship and trust transfers when they load their database into LinkedIn. Those relationships also begin to exist in LinkedIn and another touch point occurs or appearance with the person who has the great relationship with their network and now shows up in one more instance. Think like a reunion, when the star of the class who had great rapport with folks, all of a sudden comes to the reunion, they room is already receptive. We just had a mortgage client who simply loaded her database into LinkedIn and had more requests and referrals than she could almost handle, and yes…now she has an assistant. Why not? It makes sense.

3. Momentum Factor – some people catch a wave, either in industry, their business, products, services, or some sort of wave where there is a level of momentum. It’s hot and trending, whatever it is and the network around their network is already on the move in their direction. Once that person does steps one and two above, even not at what we would call a “Level 5” profile, they automatically get business. It’s the equivalent of seeing a profile pattern of buyers that travel in a certain direction on a certain street. One would, simply position a billboard in that direction, sometimes people don’t even have to know you at this point, you’re just the obvious choice. So you get the people who know you and even the ones that do not. You simply have great placement and great timing! We had numerous students take our intro class, build their keywords, update their profile, and load their contacts and watch their inbox start to fill. Now this will not work for a lot of us, but with steps one and two you have a better chance for sure.

The interesting fact here is that many people ask, will this work for my business? They might also ask what business do you see this working in ? The answer is quite simple, any business that looks for referrals or counts on relationships and trust building in their network for new business. Also, if you have a commodity product or service and don’t count on these things, then you might just want to consider the third component of “Momentum Factor” or simply building a solid profile for credibility, reputation, and brand identity. After all, only you know the things that build trust when people Google your team or your offerings.

So the bottom line is to be clear with your profiles, activate your network, engage, maybe even catch a wave and for sure get on this great new trend of business development for 2014.

For more information, we invite you to check out our website for upcoming complimentary classes on this and many other topics. Also, click below to see a slide deck or YouTube video on this topic.

SlideShare – How to Use LinkedIn for Business Development 2014
YouTube – How to Use LinkedIn for Business Development 2014

I hope to see you online in person, looking good, and generating new business, real soon! – Dean

Contact Forward Progress for more on how to best leverage LinkedIn in 2014

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