How to avoid being forgettable on LinkedIn

First impressions matter, whether they happen in the physical world or in the virtual world.

We need to be very thoughtful about the impression that our passive social presence is creating. It will only reflect what is in the LinkedIn profile. It does not reflect our actual expertise or accomplishments.   

If you’re not actively using LinkedIn to grow your business, you might not consider the impression that your profile is making. This is a little bit like caring little for how you dress for networking events and work functions. 

We understand that our appearance is relevant to how people perceive us when it comes to networking in person. In the virtual world, the LinkedIn profile serves a similar purpose. 

The impression that our LinkedIn profile is making is best measured by our connection acceptance rate, the percentage of people who accept our requests to connect. If our LinkedIn profile is making a good first impression, our connection acceptance rate will exceed 50%. 

My connection acceptance rate is almost 60%.

So, how do we make a good first impression when virtual networking?

First and foremost, we must complete our LinkedIn profile. Every section plays a role in telling our story to the world. It's best to avoid hiding behind titles and accomplishments. 

Second, we must create a headline that helps us to stand out and encourages people to read our profile summary. 

Third, our profile summary must make people want to know us. The best way to make this happen is to write a profile summary that humanizes us. People do business with people whom they know like and trust. So, we want to write a profile summary that helps people to go through that process quickly. 

The combination of your passive social presence and your active social behavior creates an impression of you that people will either be attracted to, repelled by, or made indifferent.

Learning how to use LinkedIn to network, market, and sell is mission-critical. Gartner, the world-leading technology research and advisory firm, predicts that 80% of business interactions will be virtual by 2025.

 So, now is the time to get started.

 My goal is to help my community to win at digital. 

Earlier this year I partnered with Tim Hughes, best selling author, co-founder, and CEO of DLA Ignite and the #1 social selling influencer in the world to get that done.

For the past several years, DLA Ignite has been perfecting a virtual selling methodology to network and deepen relationships. The DLA Ignite process helps you to start conversations, naturally, without cold Inmails, interruption marketing, and other negatives behaviors that people hate on LinkedIn. Hint: There's no selling. It's these conversations that lead to sales, referrals, or LinkedIn champions that spread your message.

It's a proven process that gets results. Clients, typically, see a 30% increase in sales and a 40% decrease in the sales cycle.  

Networking is the key to growing your business, but doing it in-person is a thing of the past.

For more information on how you can learn the DLA Ignite process to stand out on LinkedIn and build your sales pipeline, please email me at [email protected].