LinkedIn Currency: Commitment Is Critical To Success

What does commitment have to do with LinkedIn or social media?

Do you just dabble or are you committed to using LinkedIn as a tool to help you grow your business?

Think of any relationship you have. When you know the other person is all in, you are much more likely to reciprocate this feeling. But if the other person is more like “kinda in” how do you feel about that relationship? Would you put your all in, in if you know they are only kinda in? How much effort or importance would really put in to that relationship.

Not much I suspect.

The same is true of your relationships with your community. If they don’t feel like you are all in, is this going to help them know, like or trust you?

Probably not.

“The only limit to your impact is your imagination and commitment.”  ~Anthony Robbins

So how do you show your community that you are all in? 

With Commitment.

In my previous article LinkedIn Currency: The Collaboration Economy, I examined the concept of collaboration and why taking action is so vital to be able to provide real value to the members of your community, which strengthens your network and creates a strong sense of community.

But random, occasional actions will not have the same impact as those which are planned out in advance, carried out on a consistent basis and that people can trust will continue. That is how you show your community that you are all in and where the third concept of LinkedIn Currency comes in.

“Commitment is an act, not a word.”  ~Jean-Paul Sartre

But just what does commitment entail? Commitment can be defined as:

• a promise to do or give something
• a promise to be loyal to someone or something
• the attitude of someone who works very hard to do or support something

By incorporating each of these three aspects of commitment into your community building, you show your connections that they can unequivocally trust you to be their trusted advisor and when they need it, the person they can go to, to solve their problem or help them overcome their challenges.

Here are the three key elements of commitment on LinkedIn, which will help you to attract the right people to your network, further increase your authority on your subject matter, and firmly establish the trust of your community

LinkedIn Currency: The 3 Key Elements of Commitment

Intention

You must know and understand what your intentions are (your WHY) to be truly successful.

 “Our intention creates our reality.” ~Wayne Dyer

Why do you do what you do professionally (other than to make money)? What exactly are you committed to providing to your community?

While money is certainly a byproduct of successfully doing what you do, it is not (or should not) be the only reason that you are in business.

People can easily sense when your intention is self serving and this will repel people. Conversely, the opposite is also true, you will attract those people to you who resonate with your core intention or commitment. These are the people who want and need what you are offering.

By understanding and correctly sharing your intentions or why message, you will not only attract the right people, but you will also be more effective in converting those people to customers. Because they care about they same things you do, they will be more committed to your intentions or why message.

Keep in mind that if you do not understand your intentions, your community will not either. This will result in you creating ineffective messaging, that will severely limit your ability to establish trust and generate sales.

Need more help figuring out your intentions? Check out Simon Sinek’s TED Talk, Start With Why.

Time

Time is a necessary but an often ignored component to fulfilling our commitments to our communities.

Everyone has busy lives and a set amount of time each day to accomplish everything they have to get done.

So you need to determine how much time you can set aside each day, week and month to commit to your community/network building efforts on LinkedIn.

BE REALISTIC!

You are better to set aside too much time than too little. If you have less time than you planned on, you may feel pressed for time and be more likely to skip or procrastinate on your list of tasks.  The most important thing is that you stick to whatever schedule you have set up and be consistent.

Being consistent means people know that they can count on you, whether it is providing them with regular content that helps them to be more successful, to reply to their messages and comments in a reasonable amount of time, or to solve their problems or challenges with exceptional products and services.

A task list/checklist will help you be consistent as well as efficient with the time you have and keep you on track and on task. When creating your daily/weekly checklist make sure you put the most important tasks at the top and indicate what days they should be done on.

Items you might want to include on your LinkedIn checklist might include:

• Accepting and sending a welcome message to new connections
• Sharing a status update
• Replying to comments
• Finding and connecting with 5 to 10 new prospects
• Posting to LinkedIn Publisher
• Reaching out with helpful content to hot prospects

Make a physical copy that you can print and check off as you accomplish your tasks. Once a month or so reevaluate how much time you have set aside to see if it is allowing you to get these tasks completed.

Keep in mind that it will likely take you twice as long to accomplish things in the beginning, while you become familiar with your daily task list and how to most efficiently accomplish each item on your list. Some tasks may only be done every couple days, others once a week or even once a month depending on the task and the schedule you set up.

Need help making your own daily task list? Check out this social selling (lead generation) task list that you can do in under 30 minutes a day.

Trust

Trust: assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something; one in which confidence is placed.

The end goal of all of your network building efforts is to help your community to know, like and trust you.  Because without trust, there can be no sale.

So if you want to make sales, DO NOT rush the sale!

Remember, if you have done your job properly building your community, they will come to you when they need someone with your expertise. You will be the only choice in their mind.

Trust must be earned and this takes time, so commit to building relationships and trust without rushing the sale.

Not sure how to move your prospects towards a sale without rushing it? Check out our LinkedIn Social Selling Funnel.

Commitment: The 3 Cs of LinkedIn Currency

As I explained in my earlier article, LinkedIn Currency: Calculating The Value of Your Network, understanding and implementing the 3 C’s of LinkedIn Currency is crucial to your success in building a strong and valuable network and understanding the actual value of that network in measurable and unmeasurable ways.

In LinkedIn Currency: Build an Engaged & Profitable Community, we examined the three key elements essential to create a strong sense of community.

Then in LinkedIn Currency: The Collaboration Economy we studied what actions you need to take to effectively collaborate with your community. In this article we explored what is required to ensure you fulfil your commitments to your community to establish their trust.

In the final article of this series I will share my LinkedIn ROI Calculator with you, which you can use to discover how many new clients you could be getting each month, what the lifetime value of your clients is and most importantly an actual dollar value to what you could be generating in sales every year from effectively utilizing LinkedIn.

Would you like to significantly impact the size of your expanded LinkedIn Network? Send me a PERSONALIZED connection request mentioning this article (it is very unlikely I will accept your request if it is not personalized!). By doing this you will greatly expand you 2nd and 3rd degree networks.