Will Bachman 00:01
Today’s episode, a few tips on sending connection requests on LinkedIn. So, first thing I’ll say is, it’s always helpful, I would always strongly encourage you to send a custom request where you send a custom note, as opposed to just hitting connect to the person where they just get the generic LinkedIn connection request language. So you want to give people a reason to connect with you and make it something specific. So some common ones that I would use would be if I’ve just been looped in or if I’ve been directly introduced by someone will, you should meet so and so I’ll find that person on LinkedIn. And I’ll send them a connection request. And I’ll customize it to say first name, comma, hey, just following up on the introduction from so and so, by email, I look forward to exploring opportunities to collaborate or you know, love to speak with you about this potential project, or whatever it may be. But usually, I say, Just following up on the intro from so and so if it’s a client or someone at you know, somebody had a client, I’ll and I’ve been looped in with them, let’s say perhaps it’s the executive assistant of a CEO, then I will connect with the executive assistant say, Hey, I saw you know, I, I see that you’re an executive assistant of the CEO. And we were just copied on the thing look forward to collaborating with you on this on this project, or whoever it was, that the decline has copied, just to connect with other people in that organization. And if you do it, right, then when you first get introduced, it feels relatively natural. And most people will accept those connection requests. Another one would be reaching out cold to people, I would never just do it just as straight up Connect, and the generic is people don’t know what it’s about. But if you say, I’m doing a project on XYZ topic, and I would value your insights on it, would you be open to a short discussion? You know, if you’re able to offer compensation, you might say that specifically, you might give some instructions on how to schedule time with you, you might give a little bit more detail about what specific question you have. Would you have five minutes to answer, you know, this specific question, many people will accept that connection requests not 100%, but probably more than 15 or 20%. My understanding is that you do want to keep your your acceptance rate of your connection requests, more than 20% of the ones that you send. Because otherwise, LinkedIn will look at you as sort of a spammer. And mu will limit your ability to send connection requests to people unless you have their email address. So try to keep it above 20% monitor monitor that. Another new type of outreach would be if you’re organizing an event, you might reach out and say I’m organizing this event on this topic. I thought it might be interesting to you, would you like an invitation to join? Or, hey, I’m, I’m organizing a community or I run a community for people interested in this topic, would you like to join this community? Or another approach would be, hey, um, I would love to interview you for my blog, or my podcast or my white paper, or use some affinity group. So I’m a fellow alum of quote unquote, famous college insert name, would be grateful to get your advice on ABC on a job search that I’m doing or on how to find, you know, a vendor in this specific space that you that you work in. So give that person a reason to connect with you something specific, and make it a limited request, you know, can I get five minutes of your time 10 minutes of your time? Would you offer something would you like to join this event? Would you be interested in joining this community. So always give a reason. And then after you’ve sent the requests, you want to keep track of your sent requests. And you don’t want to get those to pile up to be too many. So after you have about 200 sent requests that have been not accepted, start going to some of the older requests and just delete or archive them. Because if you have too many pending sent requests, at some point, LinkedIn stops you from sending any more so you can delete the old ones. And then you free up capacity. It’s something around 300 or so more or less. When if when you’ve sent about 300 that are just sitting there, not accepted. Then, at some point, LinkedIn will say oh, you can’t send any more unless you have the person’s email address. So go delete those old ones. Now, on the browser version of LinkedIn, it’s very obvious on how to add that customization. It’s Actually pops up and says, Would you like to add a customized note. But on the LinkedIn app, it’s the opposite. I think that they wanted to make it a very smooth and easy experience, and have people sending lots of connection requests. So they make it really hard to find out include a link in the show notes to this blog post that I wrote on how to do this with some screenshots. But you can follow along here on the app, you want to if you see someone you want to connect with, do not just click Connect, so click on the person’s name instead. And when you click on that person’s name, then you get to that little short little semi profile that abbreviated profile that you get to. And again, there’ll be a block button at the top that says Connect. Again, do not click on the connect button, instead, click on View full profile at the bottom of the screen. And then the third time, it’s like the, it’s like the third challenge. Do not click on the connect button again. Instead, there’ll be the person’s name their picture, and then under that there’s a big Connect button. Don’t click on that. Instead, right next to that, there’s more dot dot dot, click on More dot, dot, dot. When you get to that screen, you’ll finally have a thing, have a link to say, personalized invite, that’s what you want to click on, you want to click on personalized invite. And then you can finally get to a screen that says connect and gives you the chance to write a short, personalized invitation. That’s what you want to do. And then you write that, and then you click Send invitation. So it’s quite a bit of a hassle on the app to send out personalized connection requests. So generally, I almost always would do that on the browser version of LinkedIn. But if you are out and about and you have your mobile and you want to send someone a connection request, unless there’s someone that you’re totally sure, like, knows you super well, and is going to definitely just accept it. You know, if it’s someone that you’re reaching out to a client who is not, you know, necessarily your best friend, or just not sure exactly what the context is, you do want to personalize it. So the app makes it difficult can be done, you have to avoid temptation three times to click on Connect, to finally get to the place where you personalize it. Okay, so that’s it for this episode. If you go to umbrex.com slash Unleashed, you can sign up for the weekly email, where I’ll let you know about the most recent episodes that we’ve published with a short summary of each one, so you can decide which episodes you want to listen to. If you are so inclined to write a five star review of this show on iTunes, I would greatly appreciate it. It helps people discover the show, and it makes me feel really good. And you can email me