Social Proof Is A Fancy Word For Reputation

When I first got on LinkedIn in July of 2003 (60 days after LinkedIn launched), one of the first things I noticed was that LinkedIn had a Recommendation feature. People can recommend you for good work-related experiences they've had with you. Clients, current co-workers, former co-workers, managers, bosses, networking partners, etc. Whomever has had a good work-related experience with you. And you completely control which Recommendations show up on your LinkedIn profile. So obviously, if someone wrote a Recommendation about you which you didn't like, you wouldn't post it.

I immediately started using LinkedIn's Recommendation feature as I understood that if I could get people to look at my LinkedIn profile (which is easy to do) before hiring me, doing business with me, referring me, etc they'd see other's peoples' good experiences with me. I couldn't say all these good things about myself. But other people could. In the old days before Al Gore invented the Internet we had a word called "reputation". Now it's often called "social proof". Old concept. New word. There's nothing new under the sun.

 Here's a Recommendation a kind person wrote me yesterday:

"Kevin Knebl is outstanding. His simple principles can be transferred into any industry and are simple, yet often overlooked. He emphasizes the importance of sincere, genuine relationships and provides advice on how to achieve them. Forget everything you've learned about sales. Kevin Knebl is the real deal, and he understands how success can be attained. His talk completely changed the way I think about my job. I especially loved the ideas he gave on how to creatively form relationships with people that are pure and intentional. So often we are taught to use unnatural means to achieve natural results. Kevin preaches that if we are ourselves, and genuinely care, we cannot go wrong. Whether you think you're in "sales" or not, Kevin Knebl is a must listen. His enlightening and refreshing perspective and principles will surely impact your life both personally and professionally! " -Hannah H. Pioneer Title Company Boise, ID

You can't pay for press like that. Most people have a handful of Recommendations on their LinkedIn profile which is unfortunate as they're probably in a position to have a lot more. I started using this feature years ago and I've been the most recommended person on LinkedIn out of 550,000,000 LinkedIn users worldwide for pretty much the last 14 and soon to be 15 years. As of this morning, I have 1918 individually handwritten, non-anonymous, date-stamped Recommendations. I'm not saying this to brag, I'm saying this to show that I practice what I preach. Forget about getting thousands of Recommendations. How might it serve you to have just a dozen or two dozen people raving about their experiences with you?

Certain industries such as Financial Services have compliance guidelines regarding Recommendations and you may not be able to use this LinkedIn feature. But those restrictions are loosening up. Recent SEC rulings are making it easier for Financial Advisors, Insurance Agents, etc to start leveraging this feature. 

The bottom line is that if people are having great work-related experiences with you, there's a way for you to have evidence of this without you grandstanding or showboating. Stack the deck in your favor. Deliver massive value and allow your reputation to precede you.

This brief post was taken from Kevin Knebl's weekly newsletter. To subscribe to Kevin's newsletter, please feel free to do so at www.kevinknebl.com and thanks for your interest.

Kevin Knebl, CMEC is an International Speaker, Author, Trainer and Joie de Vivre Coach? whose clients include individuals and small, medium and Fortune 500 companies. He's an in-demand, leading authority on Social Selling, Relationship Marketing, LinkedIn and Twitter with a healthy dose of Inspiration, Transformational Insight, and Humor blended in for good measure for conferences, conventions, company trainings, and many other events.

Kevin is the coauthor of "The Social Media Sales Revolution: The New Rules for Finding Customers, Building Relationships, and Closing More Sales Through Online Networking" (McGraw-Hill). Kevin is also a contributing author of "Learn Marketing with Social Media in Seven Days" (Wiley).

If you have read this far, you may just want to call him to say hello. He's very positive and encouraging. Like....way positive and encouraging. Besides, you must be looking for something to do if you're reading the fine print.

To book Kevin Knebl, or to just say hello, please call 719-650-7659 or visit him online at www.kevinknebl.com. Also, please feel free to subscribe to his newsletter and to dig through his newsletter archive. There's alotta great stuff in there.