How to add MORE Strategic LinkedIn connections

Imagine if you were connected to all the right people on LinkedIn. 

CEOs, decision makers, influencers, and movers and shakers. 

Would that impact your business?

NOT automatically by just being connected! 

Despite that, it does not mean that having the right connections is unimportant. 

One of the first things I tell someone who is getting serious on LinkedIn is: STEP ONE - Figure out your goal. 

Once you've figured out your goal, decide who you need to connect with to become your clients and to become your networking partners. 

Once you know who your ideal referral partners and ideal clients are, ask yourself this question. 

HOW MANY OF THOSE PEOPLE AM I CONNECTED TO ON LINKEDIN?

I recently spoke to a business insurance guy, and I asked him who he needed to speak to in order to get more business. He said he needed to be in touch with CFOs. 

He was complaining that he was not getting any business from LinkedIn because CFOs are not really active on LinkedIn. 

I laughed at that. 

I asked him, "HOW DO YOU KNOW?"

He said, "because I checked, and I see the people that are engaging in my feed are not CFOs."

Then, I dropped the question: “How many CFOs are you connected to on LinkedIn?"

He said that he never checked. 

I replied, "GET BACK TO ME WITH AN ANSWER." 

When he called me back, he was pretty embarrassed. 

Turns out, he only had 3 connections that were CFOs. 

That means, out of the 2000 connections that he had been HOARDING and collecting, ONLY 1.5% of them were his ideal target market. 

WOW. What a serious waste of time - being active on LinkedIn, only to be interacting with the WRONG AUDIENCE. 

He asked me if he should DELETE his account and start over, and I said NO! 

"WHY?," he asked. "These are all the wrong people."

I said, "THEY ARE NOT THE WRONG PEOPLE, because they are ALL connected to CFOs. It's much easier to get accepted by CFOs, when they see all the mutual connections you have with them."

So, here are a few strategies that I put together for my friend. Hopefully, you can learn from these and get more connections. (We teach this in our course).

Are you looking to add millions of strategic LinkedIn Connections on LinkedIn?

Well, you are out of luck. 

Why? 

Because you can only add 30k connections on LinkedIn. 

Let's set a REASONABLE goal. Something realistic. Let's add 50-100 strategic connections each week. (That's 2500 - 5000 a year!).

Here are 5 amazing strategies to get more strategic connections on LinkedIn.

1. Import your contacts from Gmail or Outlook. 
2. Get a list of people who are in your target market and import emails to LinkedIn. 
3. Use LinkedIn Search and add strategic 2nd degree connections. 
4. Add connections that looked at your profile. 
5. Invite people to send you a connection request via a POST. 

Most people I know have not tried to import their Gmail and Outlook contacts. They are afraid that LinkedIn will randomly send ALL THEIR CONTACTS a connection request. 

Hence, when you do the import, make sure you UNCHECK all the people you do not want to get a connection request from you. This is a PROCESS, but it's worth the time it takes, because you can send up to 2,500 connection requests with the click of a button. It's pretty powerful if you do this right. 

If you want to connect with real estate agents, get a list of REAL ESTATE agents' email addresses, then, import them to LinkedIn, and LinkedIn will send all of them a connection request from you. It's really easy to import lists of emails to LinkedIn. 

I imported the entire list of the CEOs of the fastest growing companies in the US, and I connected to hundreds of CEOs in minutes. It's pretty powerful. 

The downside of using importing is that you cannot customize a NOTE for each person that you send a connection request to. 

Personally, I do not think it's the end of the world, especially if you are mass connecting. 

Using LinkedIn search is a great way to find people whom you want to connect with. Why? It's because you have the ability to really drill down to the BEST 2nd degree connections - those people whom you have a mutual connection with. 

They are very likely to accept your connection request, especially if you use a NOTE telling them WHY you want to connect with them. 

In your note, always include your NAME and WEBSITE, because they will get that in their email too. Often times, they will want to click to see who you are without going to your profile and getting KNOWN for checking you out. 

People are pretty savvy. They know that when they go to your profile, you can see that. So, they will avoid doing that if they are not sure they want to connect with you. So, let them find you elsewhere. (I still track the people who come to my website with other technology, but that is for another article).

Save your searches as bookmarks so that you can go back to them each day and add a few strategic connections. You will find that there are HUNDREDS - if not - THOUSANDS of second degree connections in your LOCAL AREA that you can connect with. 

When someone looks at your profile, it's a great opportunity to send them a connection request. Most people do not even check who looked at their profile, but those people that look at your profile are possible referral partners, or even clients! Put this in your calendar to check every day. Include a LINK and make it a habit. 

Create a post on LinkedIn telling people that your goal is to ADD 100 connections this week. See who sends you a connection request. Ask them to TAG your target market and you will see that people are happy to tag others in the comments of your posts. 

Did you get VALUE from this post?

If yes, REPLY, leaving a comment with your questions, comments and goals. Let me how many new connections you want to add per week and what your strategy is. 

Would love to hear from you. 

Joe Apfelbaum

Ajax Union

Want to watch our most recent webinar replay? Check out https://learn.evyrgreen.com/webinarreplay You will LOVE THE WEBINAR! BOOM