I Declined Your Connect Request. Here’s Why!

Do you have rules for whom you connect with on LinkedIn and which connection requests you accept? I do or I mean I used to do. What I mean is I do have rules but they have changed over time. I am not one to judge how others connect with people on LinkedIn as people can have different purposes that require different strategies. My purpose is to help finance professionals succeed in their careers and help finance functions drive value creation together with the business. I do that through my writing here on LinkedIn and by participating in various, webinars, podcasts, conferences etc. That means my potential target group is huge. If I just search for the terms “finance accounting” on LinkedIn I get more than 5.7 million hits on people. With a maximum limit of 30,000 connections (I’m still far from that limit) I need to find ways of narrowing down who to connect with and who to decline. So, I thought we could discuss rules for accepting and declining connections request. 

Here’s how mine have developed over time 

Let’s then look at how my rules for connecting with and accepting requests have developed over time. Unless I specifically state that a previous rule has been superseded then it’s still valid.  

1. I connect with and accept requests from people I know
2. I connect with and accept requests from people I have had engagements with online
3. I’m willing to accept almost any request from people in my target audience if they write a personal note
4. I’m willing to accept almost any request from people in my target audience regardless of a personal note or not
5. I actively connect with people in my target audience that matches a specific geographical segment
6. I decline requests from people even if they’re in my target audience if they don’t match the geographical segment or write a relevant personal note

Likely more rules will be added later on as I draw closer to the 30,000 limit (currently I am at ~13,750). You can see how my number of connections has developed over time below. You can also see if I continue my current growth that I will almost reach the limit at the end of 2018. That’s because I’m currently actively reaching out to finance professionals in selected geographies in and close to Denmark.

Here’s why I say no

Let me be the first to say that I want a diverse network to encourage different kinds of thinking and get different perspectives on my writing. Furthermore, I would like to stay in touch with how the finance function is developing from Australia through India to the US. However, as I am soon launching a new venture where the target markets are Scandinavia, UK and Germany, I have found it necessary to limit intake of connections from outside these markets. Unfortunately, sending someone a connection request is the only possibility for actively reaching out to people oneself, hence, to build more presence in my target markets I need to preserve my connections for this purpose. That’s also why I have had to say no to a lot more requests lately than I would ideally like.

The good news is that there are plenty of other ways to engage on LinkedIn these days than the old-fashioned connection. For one you can choose to follow someone and get equal access to what they post in their feed. You can also join some of the groups I have created (see links at the bottom) where I frequently engage with the members and send a weekly update with latest content. Simply choose one of these two options and we might as well be connected. What’s your strategy for connecting with people on LinkedIn? 

The quarterly numbers 

Another far from dull quarter on the social media side I must say. Again above 40,000 views on the blog and some exciting articles on digital transformation as well as the grand finale on the Business Acumen series. The quarter also started with a splash when I published my finance leaders to follow in 2018 list. This has now been read by more than 5,000 people. In addition, I did my first video interview on the blog with David Boyar of Sequel CFO in Australia. Here are the pure stats.

As you can see there’s significant growth vs. same quarter last year and fourth quarter. It’s at a similar level though of second and third quarter of 2017, however, in those quarters I also published more articles. The significant growth in followers continue as well as I am soon hitting 20,000. The magic mark here is, of course, 30,000 because once you’re above that you can’t simply connect yourself to more followers. Then you must make people follow you because of your content alone. I hit the 5,000 pure followers this quarter and still had a solid growth of almost 20%. My groups also had significant growth and not least the Finance Business Partner Forum where I have started to actively invite members. I really hope I can grow the group to 10,000 this year. All in all, I can’t wait to see what happens further on into 2018. I promise you there will be exciting news, interesting content and many more thought-provoking discussions. 

Why are you on social media and do you measure your progress? What’s your strategy for connecting with and following different people? Let’s make sure to stay in touch in the coming quarter! Who knows we might even get to work together. 

Here are links to my groups if you would like to join them: 

Finance Business Partner Forum - The place where Finance Business Partners meet to discuss and elevate the concept of finance business partnering to a whole new level. We will share how finance business partnering is currently done in companies across the globe and what are the key challenges and opportunities.

Blockchain For Finance Professionals - This group is for all finance professionals that have an interest in Blockchain whether to learn about it or because you're already working with it. The intention is to share relevant material about Blockchain and how it could potentially affect the finance function. However, at this point, there's no limit to what you can share as in the group as long as it relates to Blockchain.

?konomifunktionen Danmark (Danish only group) - Gruppen fokuserer p? de seneste fremskridt indenfor ?konomi, regnskab og finans. Den s?tter fokus p? ledelse i ?konomifunktionen, samt hvordan funktionen bedst kan supportere forretningen. Ydermere er der ogs? fokus p? den enkeltes karriere, og hvordan denne kan videreudvikles. Sidst, men ikke mindst deler vi relevante jobs, hvor medlemmerne dermed f?r en direkte reference til at s?ge stillingen.

If you would like to read more about social media and how to get the most out of LinkedIn you can continue reading below.

7 Lessons From Connecting With 9,000 People

How To Hack Your LinkedIn Post To Go Viral

If You Lost Everything How Would You Reboot?

SoMe The Numbers: 2016 Lessons, 2017 Advice

How To Live Off A Social Media Bestseller

How To Master Your Personal Brand

What If I Had Never Pressed Publish?

Have You Gone Viral Yet? If Not, Read This!

How To Rock LinkedIn In 2016

How To Use Social Media For Career Building

Personal Branding Is Like Building A Business

7 Steps To Improve Your Personal Brand

Anders Liu-Lindberg is the Head of Global Finance Program Management Office at Maersk and has more than 10 years of experience working with Finance at Maersk both in Denmark and abroad. My main goal at Maersk is to create a world-class finance function not least when it comes to Business Partnering. I am the co-author of the book “Skab V?rdi Som Finansiel Forretningspartner” and a long-time Finance Blogger with more than 18.000 followers.