Mastering LinkedIn: Building Genuine Connections That Drive Business Success

LinkedIn is a good tool for making connections, creating your own personal brand with your personal content, and engaging with those that engage with your comment.

I've met many new business people that I've developed relationships with or am in the process of developing better relationships.

Here's my goal for 2024.

Developing relationships with connections from LinkedIn with a focus on how I can help those people to further their business.

If you DM me and we have a zoom chat, you'll see how I do that to help others.

But, there's troubling actions I see everyday on LinkedIn.

Those that seek to sell before learning.

It's like Stephen Covey said, "Seek first to understand. Then be understood."

There's a common scenario people do on LinkedIn of connecting with someone only to be bombarded with their sales pitch in the direct messages. And that doesn't built a relationship. It's awkward and annoying.

The Conventional Numbers Game

Picture this: you receive a connection request on LinkedIn. You accept, thinking it's an opportunity to expand your professional network. Almost immediately, your new connection dives into your DMs, bombarding you with a sales pitch for their services. The strategy here is a numbers game—reach out to as many people as possible, and a small percentage will inevitably say 'yes.' While this approach might yield some results, it comes at a cost.

The Downside: Damaging Brand, Ruining Reputation

Engaging in a relentless pursuit of connections for the sake of pitching services can lead to significant downsides. This approach damages a person's personal brand and ruins their reputation. Most importantly, it risks annoying the majority of connections who either don't need or aren't ready for the offered services. This can result in a negative perception and even lead to being marked as spam.

Let's explore a more effective approach to LinkedIn networking—one that focuses on education, authenticity, and relationship-building rather than sheer numbers and pushy sales tactics.

A Better Way: Educate and Offer Help

There is a more effective way to navigate the LinkedIn landscape—one that involves educating and offering help without any sales strings attached. This alternative approach offers numerous advantages that go beyond short-term gains:

1. Builds Thought Leadership

Positioning yourself as a thought leader involves sharing valuable insights, industry knowledge, and expertise. I use what I call the breakthrough equation for writing thought leading content. Breakthrough = Great Hook + Contrary Point + Pain Connection + CTA. Examples of my posts that follow the breakthrough content approach are: Anti-email marketing, treating customers as wallets, and how to build interactive video relationships at scale. If you focus on breakthrough content, you'll create your thought leadership approach and it won't be status quo content. Here's an example LinkedIn post that is anti-email marketing: https://bit.ly/breakthroughequation

2. Educates Buyers of Your Value

Instead of immediately pitching services, focus on educating your connections about your story and write to their pain points, motivations, and outcomes. When you find out your potential customer pain points, you can create content linking their pain points to your solution. This showcases your expertise and helps potential buyers understand the value you bring to the table. Here's an example of a LinkedIn carousel on how to do ongoing market research to discover your customer's pain points: https://bit.ly/breakthroughcontent

3. Connect Authentically

Authentic connections are built on genuine engagement. Engage with your network through thought-provoking comments. Tag the individual using the @ symbol so they'll see your comments. Authenticity fosters trust, a crucial element in any professional relationship. I use a great tool to quickly comment on posts in my network. It's called Aware: https://app.useaware.co. All you need is 10 minutes and your commenting is done.

4. Reduces the Sales Cycle

By taking the time to educate and build relationships, you're laying the groundwork for more meaningful connections. This, in turn, can reduce the sales cycle as potential clients are already familiar with your value proposition. Here's an example of a LinkedIn post that educates: https://bit.ly/momentumrecipe

5. Builds Trust at Scale

Trust is a key factor in business relationships. Educating your audience and providing valuable content builds trust at scale. When people trust you, they are more likely to consider your services when the need arises. Here's a Relatable interactive video that educates on specific use cases with valuable content: https://relatable.pro/?evergreen

6. Develops Relationships

The ultimate goal is to develop lasting relationships with your connections. By focusing on education and authentic engagement, you're creating a foundation for relationships that go beyond a mere transaction. Those relationships can be done at scale with the tool I created called Relatable. If you're interested, see our website: https://home.relatable.pro

Elevate Your LinkedIn Strategy

Instead of playing the numbers game, focus on building thought leadership, educating your audience, and developing authentic relationships. Remember, in the world of business, it's those who prioritize genuine connections and build relationships that have lasting success in their business. We all know people do business with people they like, know, and trust.

If you found this article insightful, consider sharing it with your network. For more in-depth guidance on leveraging the power of interactive video to build relationships, revenue, and scale your business, sign up for our free video course. To sign up for the free course and my book, be relatable that teaches you how to be more relatable with your content, go here: https://bit.ly/relatablevideocourse