Practice Your LinkedIn Profile Before Going Live

Rapid Learning Mini-Course #6: Click here to watch the video.

Welcome back to the sixth video in this mini-course on rapid learning. The whole goal of this program is to help you become a rapid learner – so you can quickly master new information or pick up new skills.

So far, we’ve focused on Dumping, Chunking and Sequencing. You’ve learned about how to take the “Deep Dive” on that one specific area you’re going to tackle first. In short, you’ve acquired the knowledge you need. But knowledge is worthless if it’s stuck in your head. You have to immediately put it to use, or it will quickly evaporate into thin air.

Up till now, we’ve focused entirely on knowledge acquisition.

Now, it’s time to turn that knowledge into action.

This means you’re going to have to update your own LinkedIn profile so it reflects what you learned.

If only it was as easy as popping over to LinkedIn, jotting down your new verbiage and pressing the save button. It’s not. Whenever you learn something new, you go through this horrible awkward stage. You write something down – and two seconds later, decide it’s awful. You try again. And again. You rework it so that it sounds better, flows better and makes more sense.

This is the Practice phase of rapid learning.

Because our focus in this series is on your LinkedIn profile, we’re talking about writing. But you also need to follow the same process with your words – in all your client interactions. If you want to get good at anything, practice is essential. Not live, in front of prospects – where any mistake you make will confuse people, create objections or make you look like a rookie.

Instead, you need to practice first – with yourself as you struggle to master how to use this new info you’ve learned. Then with others, like your colleagues or boss. You ask them for feedback on what you did well – and also where improvements need to be made. Then you make the changes and try again.

Then finally, finally you’re ready for prime time. Practice is tough – sometimes even brutal. But it’s how you get better.

So now, back to your LinkedIn profile. Once you’ve improved it, based on the feedback you’ve received, it’s time to go live, online. Before you do, make sure you turn off the updates feature – otherwise, every time you “save” it, you’ll notify your whole network.

Your next step is to finish your Experience section, again from the prospect’s perspective. When you’re done, you’ll have a good LinkedIn profile that will serve you well as you reach out to connect with your colleagues, prospects and customers – a good next step! Rapid learning is sequential. You’re much more productive this way.

In our next video, we’ll address the one key objection I hear all the time from sellers like yourself. It’s a doozy, so stay tuned.

Did You Miss These Rapid Learning Mini-Courses?

• Intro: Can You Learn How to Sell – Or Do You Need Innate Ability?
• Video #1: Rapid Learning is Critical for Sales Success
• Video #2: First Step to Rapidly Learn LinkedIn: Do a Brain Dump
• Video #3: Use Chunking to Make Sense Out of LinkedIn Chaos
• Video #4: Sequence Your LinkedIn Learning Plan
• Video #5: Research the #1 Facet of LinkedIn: Headline and Summary
• Video #6: Practice Your LinkedIn Profile Before Going Live

Jill Konrath is the author of three bestselling sales books: Agile Selling, Selling to Big Companies and SNAP Selling. She's a frequent speaker at sales meetings and conferences. Check out the tons of free sales resources on her website: www.jillkonrath.com/sales-resources.