Wake Up & Smell The LinkedIn Roses - You Could Achieve This Too!

I never considered myself to be a gardener, so having re-read the blog I posted last week ' Why Is The Root To Social Media Success Gardening?' I decided to don my social media wellies and began to sow some seeds - the results speak for themselves!

One thing I'm learning about gardening is that you don't simply grab your garden fork from the shed and begin furiously digging. Primarily because if you do, you're likely to end up digging in completely the wrong place. 

So, I took a gulp of tea from my newly acquired gardener's mug and asked myself a question - where should I be sowing my seeds if I am to get the best results? I use Facebook and Twitter, we email market to our existing database but I was in no doubt that LinkedIn was where the most fertile soil lay.

Which Seeds Should I Sow?

I had chosen 2 different types of seeds; one set was going to cultivate new relationships with my ideal target audience. I would need to sow these carefully as these seeds were unknown to me and if began by planting them too deep and aggressively, they'd be unlikely to blossom and would soon shrivel up and die. The second group of seeds I felt much more confident about. These were seeds I was familiar with, they had in the past born fruit and in some cases, very ripe and delicious fruit. However, I had, for some reason, neglected this pack of seeds for many months if not years and left them lying at the back of the shed. This second set of seeds were my existing LinkedIn connections, fellow coaches and business consultants - the very group of people who had in the past open doors to their clients for me and would perhaps be willing to do so again?

Just one week in and perhaps thanks to the slightly warmer September weather we've been enjoying recently (which can often make the most reluctant of plants blossom) I am already beginning to see shoots of new business opportunities poking their young heads through the top soil.

It's About Nurturing What You Sow 

Now as my colleague and good friend Mark Ashton stated in his blog 'Doing Business On Social Media: Rule No 3' good gardeners tend and nurture their gardens, they experiment - sometimes making mistakes, which they try and learn from - and they know that over time, some trees, plants and bushes will do better than others. Already this is proving to be the case, as I begin to plant this season's crop. 40% of the new invitation to connect messages I planted this past week have already taken and I even noticed one or two more buds have appeared in my email inbox just this morning, despite the early morning frost and fog.

I have also experienced some very early bloomers - 4 people have already agreed to meet - so it would seem that investing in the correct seed and sowing them in the right field is already bearing fruit (didn't I already use that pun?!).

Forget the gardening analogy for a moment - let's get down to business

Now, let us leave the gardening puns and links behind for a moment and get down to the facts. What have I actually been doing this week?

1. I identified my target audience of business decision makers I had not had any previous relationship with.
2. I sent each a personalised invitation to connect, using the 'Friend' option and referencing a shared connection we both had in common. 40% of these have connected so far (7 days in experience tells me that more will in the coming days)
3. Those who responded received a 'thank you for connecting' response from me, asking politely why they had chosen to accept my request. 50% have responded to this message so far.
4. Each person who has responded to the Point 3 example, have received a further thank you message, personalised based on their response and I have included a link to one of my blog articles, relevant to their particular business situation.
5. Alongside my approach to new prospects, I have been re-connecting with my network of 1st degree connections, apologising that I've neglected them for a while and suggesting we get together for coffee. These connections are people who have opened doors for me in the past and they are all people who work with the type of clients I would also like to. I have already received a number of messages, had phone conversations  and meetings agreed.

And that is pretty well where I'm at for week 1 of my Autumn cultivation project.

Now, I should explain that gardening is not my full time occupation, I also happen to run a business. Perhaps you also run a business or you have a very busy job but you'd like to become a gardener also? I can tell you that it's not easy; you'll need to set aside a bit of time each day, ideally every day if you can. You'll need to plant your seeds and nurture them and be prepared that some of them will not take root at all and others will bud momentarily then wilt and die. But then there will be the blooms and some may even be prize winning blooms. These are the ones that you will one day step back and admire and you can say 'I created and brought these to life!)

Many thanks for reading this.  If you liked it please click on Like and share it.  Constructive comments are always welcome and if you have questions on the subject matter you can connect with me on LinkedIn and send me a message, or else you’ll find my contact details on my LinkedIn profile uk.linkedin.com/in/stevephillip.

 If you need help to get active doing business on social media, or to do more by improving your skills then please get in touch and check out our website  www.linked2success.co.uk. 

You can also follow me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Linked2Steve