Building Solid Business Relationships Using LinkedIn

There is a good chance that you have a LinkedIn account. You may have had it for a long time. As you know, having a complete profile is critical to using it successfully. Now, you need to leverage your connections.

Leveraging your LinkedIn connections to their fullest potential

Perhaps, LinkedIn doesn’t seem to be doing much for your business. It is very possible that you have concentrated all of your efforts up to this point on increasing your online connections so that you strengthen your credibility and visibility. Believe it or not, building your lists of LinkedIn connections is not your greatest challenge. An even bigger challenge for you will be to take those connections that you have established and to deepen them to the point where those people will buy what you are selling.

The success of social media (including LinkedIn, of course) depends on relationships. Meaningful interactions and face-to-face meetings are critical to the success of your business. So, what can you do to leverage those meaningful relationships so that they become even more significant for you and for your business?

Event Leveraging

You should be paying close attention to what your connections are doing and where they are going. Because you are connected to them online, the chances are great that they will be sharing information on which events they will be attending. If you see that those events are in your geographic area, you should plan on attending them also. If the events are live, you should consider them a wonderful opportunity to interact with your online connections face to face, even if they are not first-tier connections to you online.

You should approach this by visiting the RSVP page of the event, identifying who among your connections is attending the event, and reaching out to a few of those people. You can communicate with them by sending them a message if they are a close connection or sending them a message through InMail if they are a more distant connection to you. Your message should indicate that you will be attending that particular event and that you look forward to the opportunity to interact with them in person. This approach is effective but unobtrusive at the same time. 

Timing is critical

The optimal time to start to build a deeper relationship with your connections is when you are on their minds. Right after you have made a new connection, received an introduction, made an introduction, responded to a question or comment or received a response to a question that you have posed are all ideal times to reach out to build a more meaningful relationship. Online interactions can easily lead to phone calls, continued discussions and face-to-face meetings.

Seek advice from others

There is not a person around who doesn’t love to give his or her 2 cents. Everyone loves to feel valued. If you reach out to your connections and ask their opinions on something that is important to you, you will be surprised at the amount of valuable responses your will receive in return. You will also be strengthening your relationship with your connections. When you do reach out, make sure that you clearly communicate who you are, explain the common thread or threads between you, pay them a compliment and explain why you are seeking their advice. This will prove to be a wonderful approach for you.

Coordinate geographic locations with travel

If you happen to have clients in several different locations, and you have a business trip planned to one central location, and other business associates are planning to be in the same city, try to arrange a meeting or meetings. If you are comfortable enough, you may want to arrange to meet them all at once for a networking meeting or dinner. If that isn’t a good idea, you can have separate one-on-one meetings. All sorts of good things can potentially come out of that.

Act as a valuable resource for your connections

The more you position yourself as a subject matter expert (SME) in the eyes of your online connections, the more often they will think of you first when it comes to needing help or advice. The more valuable you become to them, the more they will want to do business with you. Pay close attention to their status updates, topics of discussion, types of questions that they ask, etc. The closer you get to understanding their issues, the more valuable your advice will be for them. The more they trust that you know what you are talking about, the more meaningful the relationship that you share will be for them. Try to create opportunities to interact with them offline and face to face as well as online.

Conclusion

LinkedIn is one of the most powerful social media channels that exists for business. Of course, it is critical that you establish high-quality connections but it is also very important that you strengthen those connections and make them work for you and the other person. The stronger your connections, the more successful you will both be in your respective businesses. Remember that your success at strengthening your online relationships is dependent on you and the other person. Even if you initiate the approach to a deeper level of the relationship, chances are great that the other person will reciprocate. You have valuable connections all around you. You just need to reach out and touch them.

We are pleased to provide you with the insightful comments contained herein. Please contact us at CompuKol Communications for further discussion on how we might be able to assist you and your team and don’t forget to “like” our Facebook page for additional, valuable content.