5 Great Reasons to Accept LinkedIn Connection Requests from People You Do Not Personally Know

Do you also receive unexpected LinkedIn connection requests from time to time? Specifically, from LinkedIn users who you have not even met.

Many users on LinkedIn are extremely private. They do not accept connection requests from people they don't personally know. If you are one of these people, I'm telling you, you may be passing up on a great connection.

In this LinkedIn article, I list down five reasons why you need to accept a connection invite with people you do not personally know. Also, I will tell you how you can filter your connection requests so you only accept people who are worthy (and not those who will only spam you with dumb messages).

5 Reasons Why Accepting a Connection Request from Someone You Don’t Know is a Good Idea 

As a business leader, it may be best to always keep an open mind. Having an open mind includes accepting connection invites from strangers but are worthy of the 'accept' button.

Some of the reasons I have written below:

Reason #1: LinkedIn is a place for showing support to your network’s businesses.

With over 706 million users, LinkedIn is the biggest professional social networking platform in the whole digital world.

People on LinkedIn use the platform to: 

??  Boost their network (net-worth).

??  Build relationships with prospects through social selling.

??  Establish or boost their authority in the industry.

??  Seek recruitment from well-known companies.

??  Stay updated on the latest business strategies, suggestions, and industry news.

With the right connections, your team will be able to find helpful posts and read informative articles directly on their home feeds. Then, your sales and marketing team can show support to your connections by engaging or reacting to their posts. Whenever your team shows support by “liking” and/or “commenting” you can anticipate that the LinkedIn users your team engaged with, would give support to your LinkedIn activities as well.

Still, many users on LinkedIn don't understand how to use the platform correctly. Rather than showing support – those users utilize LinkedIn to "blindly" sell. They undertake the spray and pray technique wherein they send a templated message to many of their connections in the hopes of obtaining a sale. There are lots of “get-rich-quick" companies who teach this method. Don’t be a fool and get your profile blocked! Or worse... get thrown in LinkedIn jail!

Some LinkedIn users also post useless posts that don’t quite fit your core values. Posts like this will show up in your newsfeed. It’s not a big deal, but if it becomes a big deal, can their a$$! ?? If it’s not a big deal, don’t worry about it and move on. You always have the option to delete them or block them if it becomes an issue.

A note: At the bottom of this article, there is a CRAIG’S LIST of “how to filter out your connection requests”. The list will help you accept requests only from users who will help you with your LinkedIn journey.

Reason #2: We are on LinkedIn to grow our businesses – it’s social selling (but you better do it right)!

Support is a two-way road. In order to achieve your goals on the LinkedIn platform, it’s important to help others along the way. What comes around, goes around. It’s kind of like the “Golden Rule”. It just works!

So, help your other connections achieve their goals, then they will do the same when they’re able to. Remember, they don’t always see your posts, or they have other things in life going on – so there must be more than one person you’re connected to on LinkedIn.

There is a LinkedIn algorithm that can increase your visibility on the platform. As you engage with others' posts and they engage back, more people will see your posts.

As you achieve your goals on LinkedIn, your connections, if they’re deploying a good strategy of LinkedIn activities, can achieve their LinkedIn goals as well. Implementing my suggestion can be a great way to improve your social selling.

Reason #3: New connections offer you cool new perspectives on growing your business.

LinkedIn is an ideal platform to have great discussions with like-minded people and even people you’re not like-minded with as well. The platform can help you gain new perspectives about your industry, business, leadership strategies, how to deal with people, and even your own mindset. 

Self-improvement, really? Do you read books? Do you want to improve yourself and your business? There’s a lot of good published content on LinkedIn that can help you grow and not become obsolete. Progress is an ongoing process. Change never stops. There's always something new to learn and things you can improve further to achieve more success. The world didn’t stop when you graduated from college. Why should your learning stop?

Reason #4: You might be one person away from the next big opportunity ($250,000 deal).

Regardless of the purpose why you joined LinkedIn, connecting with people you do not know can bring you closer to your next huge opportunity. I received a referral for a shipping software I sold that increased our bottom-line by over $250,000. I also sold the account to a partner later and made even much more money. It is all about knowing someone who knows someone else.

Another example, having the occasional “off-LinkedIn-platform conversations” with interesting connections and businesspeople create opportunities – opportunities to learn from each other, or network to meet other important connections. I started a business with someone I met through LinkedIn!

Bottomline, whether it's to find your next sales prospect or brainstorming great business ideas with your peers, LinkedIn will surprise you if you just give it the time and resources. Do you know any other B2B platforms where your prospects are hanging out?

Reason #5: You Are Within Six Degrees of Separation to Someone Who Knows Kevin Bacon – NOT ON LINKEDIN! There are only three degrees of separation which exponentially increases your ability to connect!

If there’s only three degrees of connections, and if you connect with someone who knows someone else, it’s easy! DUH! 

This is not rocket science. Bear in mind that LinkedIn is a B2B networking platform. By connecting with other people, you can connect with their 2nd-degree connections. When I send out a connection request, I usually will get up to a 40% connection acceptance rate. It’s all about your LinkedIn social selling strategy!  

Do you even have a written LinkedIn social selling strategy? If not, the time is now!

“CRAIG’S LIST” B2B LinkedIn Training on Accepting New LinkedIn Connections

Before you hit the “accept” button on people you do not personally know, you need to check if they have: 

 ? Professional Profile Photo 

Does the LinkedIn user have a professional-looking profile photo?

Don't accept any requests from profiles who have a blank profile photo. These users will not offer you any value, as they cannot even finish the basics of creating a good profile.

? Personalized Connection Request

Did the LinkedIn user include a genuine personalized message in their connection request?

A personalized invitation wherein the LinkedIn user mentions why they wish to connect with you allows you to understand their objective. With a personalized note that does not pitch their products and services, you can immediately know if that individual is a prospect, a potential partner who can help your business, or someone who’s not worth your time.

? Professional Profile Content

Is the profile of the LinkedIn user filled out completely? Is their About section filled out? Are they active on the platform? Do they have LinkedIn activities that are not just shares and likes?

 Reviewing the LinkedIn user’s about section tells you what they do and their purpose of being on the platform. If you find an incomplete profile – little to no work experience or a paragraph in their About Me section – moreover if they don’t have any LinkedIn activities such as posts or comments, then they’re probably just in LinkedIn to collect names!

?  Number of Connections 

Does the LinkedIn user have less than 500 connections? 

If the LinkedIn user has less than 500 connections, it is screaming at you to the profile in more detail. Quite often when they have less than a hundred connections, why would they even want to connect with you if they aren’t in your industry! They’re probably a bot... report them to LinkedIn as a fake account.

Do you and the connection request profile have at least 25 shared LinkedIn connections?

Check whether you have mutual connections with the LinkedIn user who’s trying to connect with you. If you have at least 25 shared connections, you still need to check out their activity to see if they’re making real, valuable comments on the platform

LinkedIn is the best platform for B2B social selling and social media networking as long as your prospects are on the platform.

If you would like to cultivate your professional network and discover prospects, LinkedIn is the best social networking platform to drive business from. A year from now you will have wished you had implemented a LinkedIn strategy today. With the sales landscape shifting to digital-first, and the days of traditional selling methods gone – LinkedIn provides a growing B2B platform to network and professionally sell on.

Businesses need to embrace the trend that is here to stay, social selling through LinkedIn Marketing. If not, your competition will be wiping your business off the planet. Sad but true.

Should you need any assistance with your LinkedIn Marketing, visit our 14-Step Crushing B2B Digital Strategy System and our LinkedIn Profile Optimization pages. These FREE resource pages will be able to help you kickstart your LinkedIn Marketing the right way.

Link to original article: https://crushingb2b.com/blog/linkedin-connections

About the Author

Craig Wasilchak is the founder and CEO of Crushing B2B Digital Strategies. He is also an active member of the Entrepreneur Organization, as he is the owner of a business earning over $1M in sales annually. 

Crushing B2B Digital Strategies is a Dallas-Fort Worth area-based company that teaches CEOs, C-Level Execs, & Entrepreneurs how to grow their business value by using success systems for LinkedIn, other social media platforms, and SEO. Crushing B2B offers a variety of Social Selling & LinkedIn training, Branding & Lead Generation systems that are proven to convert digital sales conversations into profits. 

As a B2B Mentor that has extensive skills in Leadership, Mentoring, and Entrepreneurial skills, Craig loves to share his amazing business journey and help others achieve their maximum success. 

Craig has built and sold multi-million dollar businesses over the last 25 years. Now, with Crushing B2B Digital Strategies, his goal is to teach other entrepreneurs how to grow and run profitable businesses in a disrupted business world utilizing practical business strategies. If you wish to connect with Craig here on LinkedIn, just send an invite! You are also more than welcome to subscribe to his YouTube Channel "The B2B Lead Generation Movement”.