In my initial post of Your 7 Steps to Create More Business, I gave you the opportunity to get a head start…

If you did, then you’ve joined me in LinkedIn (Hooray!), one of the most effective business social networks on the Web, today.  Incidentally, if you’re unfamiliar with exactly what a social network is, at least in the online context, please learn more on WhatIs.com.

If you haven’t, your first task is to start using the power of LinkedIn, and you’ll need to create your free account, you can do so by Joining Today.

Think of LinkedIn as today’s version of traditional networking, such as a Chamber of Commerce event, however, your potential contact from an hour of time is in the hundreds, rather than ones or tens.

Once you’ve joined, here’s the good stuff — exactly what you need to do:

1. Build your profile.
   Thanks to me asking a question to a total stranger on LinkedIn - we’re all able to benefit (see the power already?)  I quickly became friends with Brad Hanks in Colorado, and he was nice enough to give us these 5 Tips for building your profile, even though it’s aimed at Real Estate Professionals, his concepts apply across the board.

   The concept is clear, and I’ll personally verify this works wonders: Humanize your profile, let people get to know you, sales pitches don’t work, getting to know people does work, share, share, share about you, your uniqueness, and how that applies to your approach to business.  And, as if he speaks from experience ;), don’t let Social Networking consume your time (you’ll see why that gets real easy soon).
   
   Give it your best try & if you need help or direction, I’d be happy to take a look at it. Also, be sure review my profile for an example.

2. Add me (and any others you know) to your network.
   The way LinkedIn works is that when you add me, you automatically add the people I’m connected to, along with the people they’re connected to (3 degrees of separation).   You instantly have access to a world of thousands of people!  This plays a key role on number 4 below.

   Today, I’m connected to 79 people, and that gives me access to over 1.7 million people in LinkedIn (LinkedIn has over 30 million members!)

3. Ask for Recommendations.
   This has been invaluable!  This provides people who connect with you an instant way to get to know you, your work ethic, and gives them a feeling about how trustworthy, knowledgeable and honest you are.   Be sure to read some of mine, you can either view them once you’re logged in to LinkedIn, or see them in a side-project I just completed called Just Ask It’s Done.
4. Ask Questions!
   This is where it’s at, and it may require that you come out of your comfort zone.  Trust me, it’s worth it.  In the last 7 days alone, we’ve gotten quite a few leads from doing this.

   My best words of advice are to find categories that relate to you, your business philosophy, and relate to how you, and your business, can a) help people avoid pain, or b) get people out of pain (you create lifelong clients that way).
   LinkedIn will automatically recommend categories for you as well.  Before you answer, spend some time reviewing how people answer, and specifically, how people answered that got “best answer” selections (meaning the person posing the question voted their answer to be the best).  Model after them.

I never said this was going to be easy, however, if you’re serious about adding other dimensions to your approach to creating more business, I’ve just given you a very good tool to use & promote.

Shortly, we’re going to be debuting our “New Media Success” service which provides you with a Strategic Action Plan for promoting your business online.  Even if you’re business is local or regional, the benefits are HUGE from a search engine marketing perspective.

As always, if you need any help, please feel free to contact me.   I want nothing more than to see you succeed, and as we’ve all learned a little encouragement can be all it takes.

See you on LinkedIn!