LinkedIn – A Tool, not a Butler

LinkedIn I think is one of the least understood and mostly underutilized tools on the Web.  If you’re an entrepreneur and you’re not using LinkedIn, you are not giving yourself the best chance to succeed. LinkedIn can help you gain access to customers, to investors, to critical service providers and vendors, help you qualify leads, and significantly boost your Internet footprint.  And it’s free.  Here’s the key.  LinkedIn is a tool – mainly for networking.  If you’re a bad or uninterested networker, LinkedIn won’t help you.  If you expect LinkedIn to hand you great connections and leads with no effort beyond signing up and adding names to your connections roster, you’re looking for a butler, not a tool.  If you have the money, and you’re looking for the leads on a silver platter, consider hiring an intern or administrative assistant to do that for you.  No Web 2.0 app I know of will deliver that.

As a wild guess, of the 33 million or so LinkedIn participants, I’d bet my ColecoVision that less than 10 million or so are truly “users” – meaning that they actively rely upon LinkedIn to accomplish some objective.  I think less than half of the business and personal contacts I truly care about even have a LinkedIn profile, and a fraction of that pool has a reasonably complete profile and double-digit contacts themselves.  Of course, LinkedIn is free with opportunities to pay more to do other stuff (more on that later).

Nevertheless, LinkedIn seems to evoke strong opinions among people who don’t pay for a thing.  As I researched for this blog, there are several high-profile statements by people getting out of LinkedIn – basically “goodbye cruel LinkedIn” notes.  On the other hand, LinkedIn has its avid supporters, notably Guy Kawasaki (Guy – I promise to read Art of the Start by January 5th!).  Paul Allen seems on board also.

This is what your LinkedIn network will look like if you don’t work at it.

I have been a LinkedIn participant since 2004.  I don’t know how got “LinkedIn” in the first place.  Indeed, I wish there were a function to let me know when I connected to whom.  Chances are good it was a piece of spam that I accidentally clicked and the next thing you know, I had a LinkedIn connection.  Now , I thought, I just had to sit back and wait for the Russian porno-spam and Nigerian gold “opportunities” to roll in.  Thank Heaven I’m shelling out $60/month for broadband.

Then at some point a couple of years ago, I started to take LinkedIn seriously and went fromparticipant to user.  I’m sure the fact that I took a job where relationship building is critical to my professional success had something to do with it.  As I explored, I began to appreciate what a terrific tool LinkedIn can be.  Here are some compelling statistics on typical linkedIn users.

• 28% of LinkedIn users hold executive titles and make over $104K per year
• Another 30% make between $93K and$104K
• 66% are in a position to influence their companies’ purchase decisions
• 28% are director/vice president level or above in title
• Users with personal incomes between $200,000 and $350,000 were seven times more likely than those below that level to have over 150 LinkedIn connections

To paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen, I’m no Guy Kawasaki.  People don’t flock to my blog because of my name (well, they don’t flock at all).  I need to be active in developing relationships.  LinkedIn is becoming an increasingly useful and indispensable tool for strengthening my personal Internet presence and making me a more effective executive.  LinkedIn makes potential relationships within 2-3 degrees of separation visible to me, which means my relationship reach is vastly extended.

Before describing how I use LinkedIn to positive effect, let me set forth what LinkedIn’s limitations are.

1. LinkedIn does not generally just deposit sales leads or job offers at your door just by being involved
2. LinkedIn does not generally filter your network.  You have to do that.
3. LinkedIn does not let you treat the whole network like a big mass-mailing list.
4. LinkedIn will not turn you from being a bad networker into a good one.

So, now that we understand those limitations, here’s how I have gotten great benefit from LinkedIn

1. I can manage my online identity much more robustly than I can through my company’s web site which is (as of this writing), to be diplomatic, in need of the kind of face lift even Joan Rivers would find daunting.  We don’t even have pictures associated with our bios.
2. I identify whom in my network may know someone whom I’d like to meet and proactively ask if an introduction would be feasable and appropriate. It’s like generating leads by self-serve.
3. I frequently learn more about people from their LinkedIn profiles than what is in the bio section of their web site.
4. Before meeting with someone, I research their profile to see if we know someone in common. That’s helpful for two reasons.  First, I can contact the person we know and learn more about the person requesting the meeting and find out if that meeting is worth my time.  I have saved hours of awkward, low-value meetings in this way.  Second, if I do ultimately take the meeting, I know going in that we know someone in common and that awkward first 20 minutes or so goes far more smoothly.  And I ask our mutual contact to give me a quick briefing on the person so I know something about him or her.  We also use this technique to screen for CapitalLounge and keep the riff raff out.
5. I make my connections available to my network so anyone I trust enough to be in my network can proactively look and decide if I can make a connection that is helpful to him or her.
6. When traveling, I have used LinkedIn to help schedule meetings to fill in downtime when on the road. In one case, I just sent out a question to my network asking for people to help me set up meetings in Tampa where I had to be for 2 days but for 2 1-hour meetings.  Within 3 days I had both days filled with great meetings.
7. I ask questions of my network and frequently receive thoughtful, informed answers very promptly.  This is a lot more effective and polite than just spamming my contact list.
8. I  keep track of people when they move or good things happen to them (for example, they get promoted and their title changes), or if they change jobs.  LinkedIn now also has a Twitter-like status update box.
9. I see what other people are doing and thus am able to find hooks to strengthen my relationships.  I got a meeting with someone in my network when I learned from his LinkedIn profile he is reading a book on valuation.
10. I am able to publicize this blog as LinkedIn not only sends updates to the network when I started the blog, but now my profile pulls the latest Unblakeable post.
11. I build online groups through LinkedIn rather than having to build a separate site or use some other site with which I am unfamiliar in order to set up group communications. This is also less intrusive than a mailing list with endless “Reply to All”s.
12. I store my more popular speech decks on LinkedIn so if you want you can just download the deck, or if you’re considering asking me to speak, you can see what my speeches are like before asking me.
13. I follow company updates and thus get an idea for which entrepreneurs are achieving things and which others are just waiting for a term sheet to fall into their hands so they can quit their jobs and take another job as an “entrepreneur”.
14. When I ask to connect to someone, I write a personal note rather than the vapid “I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn“  Come on!  You want access to my network and you can’t be bothered to type a dozen doggone words?  Fail.

The way I have positioned myself to extract the most value from LinkedIn is the following:

1. I neither accept nor solicit LinkedIn connections from people I don’t know fairly well. If I wouldn’t be comfortable in making an introduction on your behalf, then linking in to me really doesn’t help you, and I won’t get comfortable unless and until I get to know you.
2. I read the updates carefully when they arrive by weekly email.
3. I fill out my entire profile and keep it up to date, including my reading list, slides and blog posts.
4. I respond to community questions when I think I have an intelligent contribution to make.
5. I allow anyone in my network to see my contacts. I find it truly repugnant when people don’t make their connections visible to their networks.  That’s more like Leeched-In than LinkedIn
6. I make LinkedIn a part of my normal research and intelligence gathering process. The first thing I do when learning about a person or company, after going to their web site, is go to LinkedIn.
   
7. I make recommendations for people that I have observed in action. I don’t have the chutzpah to ask someone to make a recommendation for me but I guess there’s nothing wrong with asking for testimonials if done tactfully.
8. I ask for help. If I have you in my network, it means I’m comfortable asking you for a favor once in awhile.  Not that often but maybe a couple of times a year.  If I can’t ask for an intro, why are we even in each other’s networks?
9. I continue to build my networking/netweaving skills. As I said, LinkedIn is of no value if you aren’t interest in building relationships and helping people.  If all you do is take, soon others will see no value in giving.
10. I actively build my LinkedIn identity when I don’t necessarily “need” it.

It’s important to understand that LinkedIn is not intended to be Facebook and that’s not a knock against it.  LinkedIn was recently valued at $1 billion and Facebook at $15 billion (at least in October, 2007), based on recent venture capital transactions.  That does not make LinkedIn an inferior tool to Facebook  Facebook draws a wider audience and thus is arguably more valuable from an investment standpoint.

If you’re not getting a lot out of LinkedIn, here are some probable reasons why.

• You’re a lousy networker. You think networking is somehow evil and insincere.  LinkedIn won’t help that.  But a couple of great books will.  Professional Networking for Dummies and The Heart of Networking.
• You don’t ask for anything. I have a crystal ball on my desk.  I haven’t yet successfully used it for ESP.  It is much easier for people to help me if I ask for help.  If you just build a LinkedIn profile, make some good connections and then lean back in your chair thinking “And now I play the waiting game” waiting for the good stuff to roll in, you’ll be waiting a long time.  If your contacts are good ones, they will be happy to do you a favor once in awhile (just don’t be going to Ice Pick – Magnum PI reference – every time you need a license plate run).
• You don’t discriminate on who is in your network. I don’t find having thousands of names in your network impressive.  They don’t give trophies or even Outback gift cards for that.  A small core of people upon whom you can depend is much more valuable than a LinkedIn-driven White Pages.
• You only joined when you needed something (like a job). In the second half of this year, it’s estimated that LinkedIn is adding 1 million accounts a month.  Look – you know the guy that didn’t talk to you for 10 years after graduating from college and then calls out of the blue looking for a job?  You don’t look like less of a loser when you pull that junk online either.  At least a phone call takes guts.  If you only think about networking when you need a network, you’re going to get no results, regardless of the Web 2.0 tool.
• You don’t fill out your profile, so only your direct contacts actually knows who the heck you are. That severely limits the usefulness of LinkedIn since the whole point is the “degrees of separation” thing.
• You don’t share your connections. When you don’t share, you are signaling that you’re a taker and not a giver.  We call those people leeches and I’ve never heard that term used in a positive way except in a 16th century medical manuscript.  People don’t reach out to try to help known leeches.
• You try to use LinkedIn like Facebook. They are related, but entirely different web products.  You wouldn’t use a screwdriver to drill a hole.  Don’t use LinkedIn thinking that it generates the spontaneous communication that Facebook does.
• You haven’t made LinkedIn part of your professional process. LinkedIn doesn’t bring a lot of stuff to you.  You have to make a modicum of effort to go get the value, but it’s there, and you have to make a habit of it.

Anyone can get a free ride from the community… for a little while anyway

If you used to be a participant in LinkedIn but at some point dropped off, you should take another look.  LinkedIn has recently improved its search features (you can now search by organization or school attended), added many cool applications to let you share far more than your connections and professional bio, and they are adding tons of new people every day (over 1 million users a month and that number should accelerate as the economy continues to teeter, but that may be more out of desperation than of enlightened selection).

• Blog Link lets me keep track of my friends’ blogs more efficiently than my Yahoo RSS feeds.
• SlideShare lets me share my slide decks and see those of others in my network
• Reading List by Amazon let’s me see who is reading what
• WordPress let’s me show my current blog directly in my LinkedIn profile
• Events lets me promote my events (such as CapitalLounge) as well as see what events others in my network are promoting and/or attending

I am also starting to get comfortable with the LinkedIn iPhone app, where I can see people’s name tags at events and look them up before meeting them.  Yeah OK it sounds creepy but I don’t go “hey, you don’t know me but how are your wife and kids doing at that house at (insert home address)?  Wanna see the Google Earth map of your home that I punched up?  I think I’ll drive by there tonight!”  But it is nice to try to find something in common with a stranger before you talk to him or her.

Pay to Play?

I promised to address the question of whether paying for the premium services makes sense.  I think most of those who do pay for them are recruiters.  In fact, job searches represent 30% of LinkedIn’s revenues.  If you pay, you can save searches, up your search results to 300 or more, send InMails, and send Introduction requests.  You have to use LinkedIn an awful lot to get value out of the first two benefits, and the latter two, I think are better executed with a personal note rather than going through the sterile LinkedIn system.  So, for most people, I think there is no benefit to buying the premium services.

In challenging times when we are looking for funding, jobs or business leads, networking takes on increased importance.  Your network is the one thing that the real estate market can’t take away from you.  LinkedIn is a tool that augments your existing networking efforts and abilities.  But a tool helps you do the job, not do it for you.  If you put a hammer next to a nail to repair a shingle, and then you walk away and go watch the Falcons, don’t blame the hammer when your roof leaks next time it rains.  Pick up the hammer or get Alfred to do it for you.