Lesson 19 - Reach out on LinkedIn

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LinkedIn is a powerful tool for engaging with prospects. In this lesson, you’ll learn best practices for sending personalized connection requests and follow-up messages on LinkedIn. Your assignment will involve sending at least three personalized connection requests and crafting tailored follow-up messages for your top accounts.

Transcript

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Nicholas, welcome back to the daily quota. I'm your host, Nicholas Hill, and in today's lesson, you're going to send a LinkedIn connection request and a LinkedIn message. Let's start with LinkedIn connection requests. When you are connecting with someone on LinkedIn, you're not selling your solution, you're selling your value as a connection. So if I'm reaching out to someone on LinkedIn as a connection request, I might talk about shared interests, shared objectives. Value that I can bring referrals, other people that I know that, that they know in their network, shared groups that we're a part of. But ultimately, if the reason I'm reaching out to connect with someone is because I want to sell you something, they are far less likely to accept that connection request. And with LinkedIn, if they don't accept your connection request, you can't send them a message unless you pay for InMail, which is expensive. So you want to send connection requests that are compelling that people are going to want to accept. Now your connection request has a 300 character limit, just to make things a little bit trickier. So there are a couple of things to remember when you're sending these connection requests, you have to be less than 300 characters. You should always include the person's name, make it personalized, just like your emails, you should always have a specific reason that you're reaching out following that kind of why you, why you now framework we talked about in the last lesson, and when it comes to timing, try to reach out either early in the morning, or Well, early in the morning is actually probably your best bet. Try to reach out early in the morning so that you're catching people while they're kind of planning their day out. They're logging on in the morning. They see the connection request. It's right after they've had their coffee. They're in a better mood. So that's a good kind of rule of thumb there. Here are some templates, right? So I might say, Hi Mark. I've been impressed by your innovative approach to social media management, highlighted in your recent article on using AI to write compelling social posts. As someone passionate about enhancing social media engagement myself. I'd love to connect and exchange insights. So now, why would mark connect with me? One, because I did my research on him. I know that he just wrote this really compelling article that I want to talk to him about. Two, because I'm also passionate about some of the things he's passionate about professionally. So those are things that that we can connect and talk through. That was 282 characters. So even that short message is basically at the limit. Just so you know, here are some other let's go through a few other examples. Hi, Maria, I was really impressed by your presentation at Amazon connect last week, your insights on change management in the IT space were incredibly enlightening. I'd love to connect and learn more about your work in this area. So now again, flattery, flattery will get you far. Actually, studies have shown that flattery will get you far even when it's obvious, flattery isn't that interesting. It's kind of like how a placebo works, even though, you know, it's a placebo, which, by the way, is another study you should look into anyway. Um, so, yeah, just talk about, Hey, I saw this thing that you did. I thought it was really cool. I want to talk to you about it. Lots of people are willing to jump on a call to talk about stuff. Um, hi, Javier, I see that we're both members of the Supply Chain Leaders group on LinkedIn. We share a passage, passion for supply chain management. I found your post enlightening, and I'd appreciate the opportunity to connect and share some ideas. I don't know, I don't personally have a passion for supply chain management, but Javier might, and you might, and that's something that you can connect over. Hi Stephanie. Michelle chin spoke highly of your work in UX design. I'm also involved in creating user experiences. I'd be keen to discuss best practices and some of the new trends in the space. Let's connect. So here now I'm using a referral. Now I'm using someone that Stephanie knows as a reason to reach out and connect with her. Hi, Dion, I noticed that we both graduated from the University of Wisconsin, albeit a few years apart. I'm currently working with data analysts such as yourself. I'd love to connect with some fellow alumni and make an impact in the industry. It's a great way to connect with an alum, an alumnus of your organization. Hi, my I've been admiring your Tesla's innovative approach to the automotive industry, especially your latest project on solar powered charging stations. I'd love to connect and learn more about your journey and experiences there. So now we're talking about a company update right now. Remember our goal with all of these examples is not to. Manipulate. We're not trying to sneak our way in. It's okay to make it obvious that you're a salesperson. It's okay to make it obvious that you eventually want to talk about your solution and how you can help, but also have another reason for them to connect with you. What value are they going to get by connecting with you as a human being? Remember, this can also be a way to expand your network, and if you have other individuals that are interested in the things you're interested in, both personally professionally, this can be a great way to connect with others in that space. Another pro tip to engage with people on LinkedIn is before you reach out to connect with them, engage with their content, like their posts, comment on their posts, share their posts, right? Show that you're engaging with them, that you're looking at their content, right? Another form of flattery. Now, once you're connected, it's time to send a LinkedIn message. And LinkedIn messages can be longer. It can be more like an email, more like the style of an email. So once you've connected with someone on LinkedIn, now you can send a message which is going to set the tone for the potential relationship. So start with gratitude. Thank you for accepting my connection request. Provide value. End with a soft call to action and remember that why you? Why you now framework? So an example might be Hi Jamie, thank you so much for connecting. Given your role at Birchbox, I thought you might find this case study on sprout socials impact on engagement rates interesting. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, or discuss how we might help Birchbox achieve similar results. Are you available for a brief call next week? So that's a quick and easy example of a LinkedIn message that you can leverage and yeah, give the person some time to respond, right? People, sometimes people aren't checking LinkedIn all the time. I know I don't check check LinkedIn all the time. Not everyone checks it. So wait a few days between messages. A good rhythm might be, you know, day one, you send the initial message. Day four, you send a follow up. Day eight, you might send a follow up. You might even spread it out a little further. Days one, 815, something like that, but make sure that you're spreading it out. And now it's your turn. So your assignment is to choose a contact that you're trying to connect with, send them a connection request on LinkedIn. You're not going to be able to send a message yet because you have to wait, but once they've accepted your connection request, you should draft the message that you're going to send. So yeah, that's what I'll say as the assignment, send the connection request and draft the message that you're going to send afterward. Use the strategies that we've discussed, check it with your manager, mentor, your study guide, to walk you through all of this. Follow that. Why you? Why you now? Framework and yeah, I hope, I hope it gets you a connection. And if it's your first connection, even better. Would love to celebrate that with you. So reach out to me if it bears fruit. And that's it for today's lesson on the daily quarter, daily quarter. Thank you for listening, and we'll see you next time you.