How to Ask Your LinkedIn Connections for Help

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Your LinkedIn network contains a full range of relationships, from your best friends and family to people you haven’t even met yet in the offline world.?It’s important to keep that spectrum in mind when you ask for help through LinkedIn.?

You don’t want to assume a close relationship with all your connections.?At the same time, you don’t need to avoid asking for help from others.?It could be a college friend, a colleague from a past job, or your sister’s friend.?They have access to information, insights, and connections that you don’t.?

It makes sense to leverage LinkedIn to ask your weak connections for help, but there’s a right and wrong way to do it.

Since you might not know these people well, it’s important to create the proper context for your ask.?But the overall etiquette isn’t that much different from asking for help in the offline world.?

4 Keys to a Good "Ask"

The most important thing to realize is that although LinkedIn is a new communication medium, you’ve been communicating your whole life.?So whatever approach you’d take in the real life is one you can take online.?

There are 4 pieces of the puzzle to keep in mind when reaching out for help on LinkedIn:

1.????Time it right.

How long should you wait before you ask for help??If you haven’t seen someone in 5 years, and then you reconnect with them on LinkedIn, can you ask them for an introduction the next day??

That’s a very real scenario and the answer is: sometimes.??There are no hard and fast rules to this, but keep in mind how you would act in the real world if you weren’t using LinkedIn.?

If you ran into the person at a class reunion and would feel comfortable giving them a call the next day, then go for it.?If not, spend a little time building the relationship through LinkedIn before you ask for help.

2.????Give a “Because”.

People love to know why something is happening.?When you reach out on LinkedIn to ask for help, tell them why you are doing asking.?It helps give some context for your request.

?It can be as simple as saying, “I wanted to see if you’d introduce me to the person at your company who is responsible for ______,?because I would feel a lot more comfortable than if I had to cold call them.”

3.????Leave an out.

No one likes being trapped in a corner.?You always want to leave your connection the opportunity to say “no” without feeling bad.?Maybe they’d love to introduce you to their boss, but they just came back from a staff meeting where the boss said how sick she was of interviewing people right now.?

When interacting with your weak connections, you don’t know the back story.?Give them an out so they can refuse your request gracefully if they’d like to.

4.????Express gratitude.

We’re all busy, so the fact that they even read your message and considered your request is great.?Let them know you appreciate their time.?And let them know you appreciate their effort no matter the result.?

From the very first message, be very clear with your gratitude.?And if they do help with an introduction or some information, take a few minutes to compose a nice thank-you note.?You can even send it through LinkedIn.

Putting It All Together

When you put these steps together, it looks something like this:

Hi Juan,

"It was great connecting with your last month at the Annual Conference and I’ve enjoyed seeing your posts here on LinkedIn.

Do you know Lisa Smith on your product marketing team well enough to introduce us??I saw that you were connected.?It looks like her department is hiring and I wanted to find out more information to see if I would be a good fit.?And if you don’t know her well enough, no worries.?

Thank you so much for any help you can give."

These four steps are great for asking for help from all your contacts, whether they are someone you see every day or once a year.?But remember that much of the value of LinkedIn lies in your ability to build relationships with the people in your network on a consistent basis.?

One of the best ways to use it is to invest some time and attention on your network on a regular basis.?When you do this, you’ll find that when you need to ask for help, it’s an easy and natural process.

This article is taken from the?#1 best-selling?Networking in the 21st Century on LinkedIn. Check it out if you want more ways to connect with prospects, clients, and partners.

And if you have questions, want me to help your organization leverage social selling, or just want to say hello, feel free to send me an invite or a DM. I'll get back to you.