How to Build Business Relationships on LinkedIn Without the Hard Sell Artwork

Business Owners & Entrepreneurs Podcast with Peter Boolkah | Business Coach | The Transition Guy®

You didn’t start a business to become its hardest-working employee.

But that’s exactly where a lot of successful business owners end up.

The business grows. The team grows. Revenue grows. The problems grow.

And somehow, instead of creating more freedom, you find yourself working harder, carrying more responsibility and becoming increasingly essential to the very business that was supposed to give you choices.

That is The Hamster Wheel Trap®.

I’m Peter Boolkah, business coach, author of Your Business Sucks: Build a Business That Works Without Destroying Your Life, and for more than 20 years I’ve worked with business owners and leadership teams around the world.

This podcast is about one thing:

Building a business that works without needing you at the centre of everything.

We talk honestly about the issues most business owners eventually run into, founder dependency, leadership, people, culture, sales, profit, cash, scaling, management, exit readiness and what it really takes to build a business that someone else would actually want to own.

Sometimes that means challenging the way you think.

Sometimes it means admitting that the thing holding the business back is you.

And sometimes it means recognising that a bigger business is not necessarily a better business.

Along the way, I sit down with entrepreneurs, authors, thinkers and leaders from around the world, including people such as Chris Voss, Mark Divine, Verne Harnish, Brad Sugars to name a few, to unpack the lessons, decisions, mistakes and experiences that shaped the way they think about business, leadership and life.

This is not a podcast about hustle.

It is not about vanity revenue.

And it is definitely not about pretending entrepreneurship is easy.

It is about building a stronger business, becoming a better owner and creating something that gives you more options not fewer.

Because eventually every business owner has to answer the same question:

Do you own the business, or does the business own you?

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Business Owners & Entrepreneurs Podcast with Peter Boolkah | Business Coach | The Transition Guy®

How to Build Business Relationships on LinkedIn Without the Hard Sell

March 28, 2018 • Peter Boolkah

0:00 | 7:24

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Are you building genuine business relationships on LinkedIn—or simply collecting connections?

LinkedIn can be a powerful networking and business-development platform, but only when it is used with purpose.

In this solo episode, Peter Boolkah explains why he embraced LinkedIn as an alternative to traditional networking and how he used it to build relationships, create opportunities and generate business without immediately pitching his services.

You’ll discover:

Why LinkedIn can be particularly valuable for introverted business owners
The difference between collecting contacts and building relationships
Why Peter accepts a broad range of connection requests
Why attempting to sell immediately damages trust
How a clear, current profile allows prospects to assess you
Why business relationships develop over time
How sharing useful content creates one-to-many visibility
How your network can help clients, employers and other connections
Why consistency matters more than occasional bursts of activity
The simple LinkedIn routine Peter used at the beginning and end of each day

The central lesson is that LinkedIn should be treated as a long-term relationship platform—not a database of people to pitch.

Peter explains how keeping his profile current, sharing useful material and regularly participating in the platform allowed opportunities to develop naturally, sometimes years after the original connection was made.

This episode was recorded in 2018. LinkedIn’s features and online networking practices have continued to evolve, but its relationship-first principles remain relevant.

CONNECT WITH PETER BOOLKAH

Website: https://www.boolkah.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/boolkah
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pboolkah/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Boolkah
X: https://twitter.com/boolkah

ABOUT PETER BOOLKAH

Peter Boolkah is a business coach, author and speaker who has spent more than 20 years helping business owners build stronger, more valuable businesses that do not depend on them for everything.

He is the creator of The Hamster Wheel Trap® and author of Your Business Sucks: Build a Business That Works Without Destroying Your Life.

Peter works with founders and leadership teams on the issues that ultimately determine whether a business creates freedom or becomes another job: leadership, founder dependency, people, profit, execution, scaling, exit readiness and enterprise value.

His approach is direct, practical and built around one simple question:

Do you own the business, or does the business own you?

Learn more at https://www.boolkah.com

PETER BOOLKAH [00:06]

Hi, Peter Boolkah here, and welcome to today’s edition of The Transition Guy.

In today’s episode, I want to look at online networking and, more specifically, LinkedIn.

Networking has been part of everyday business life for what seems like forever and a day. You might go to BNI, the Chamber of Commerce, Rotary Club, the Institute of Directors or perhaps even play golf.

Golf is probably one of the most widely used networking tools available. Imagine you’re going to play a round of golf. A round can last four hours or more, so you’re spending four hours with someone.

How much do you get to know about that person in four hours? Quite a lot. It’s a very intimate environment.

Traditional networking can be really good if you love golf, you’re extroverted or you enjoy going into large rooms, meeting lots of people and quickly starting conversations.

For people who aren’t extroverted and are completely introverted, however, that kind of environment isn’t conducive to happiness.

I know many introverts who attend networking events because they feel obligated to, but they absolutely hate them.

You know what it’s like. If you absolutely hate something and haven’t bought into it, do you honestly think you’re going to be at your best? Absolutely not.

Back in 2007, I believe, I latched onto LinkedIn. It was a relatively new platform at the time, but I thought it was absolutely brilliant because it was like networking for introverts.

For me, it meant I could meet people, put my profile out there and allow people to connect with me.

There are a couple of schools of thought here. I’ve noticed a lot of negativity from people who are fed up with strangers continually trying to connect with them.

They don’t know these people from Adam, and they think, “These people are just trying to sell to me.”

I know people who play with these contacts. They think, “I’m going to get some form of connection revenge on you.” They become sarcastic or play games with them.

I know lots of people who do that, and that’s one school of thought.

Over the years, I’ve adopted a different school of thought.

If I’m in a room full of people, I don’t tend to speak to that many of them. The people I don’t get to speak to might represent a missed opportunity. Perhaps I could add value to their lives somewhere down the line, or perhaps I’m missing the value they could add to mine.

When it came to online networking, I decided that anyone who wanted to connect with me was welcome to do so. I accept everybody.

The reason is that I don’t believe a relationship is created through one or two messages. A relationship develops over time.

We’ve got to make the time to get to know people, build trust and develop that relationship. If I’m not connected to someone in the first place, that will never happen.

It’s my loss and, potentially, their loss, so I accept everybody.

I don’t go out and push my services onto anybody. But then I have to ask myself, “How do I get people interested in my services?”

What I decided to do years ago was spend a lot of time on my profile.

I constantly update my profile and ensure all my experience is current. If I win any awards or accolades, I put them onto LinkedIn.

My profile is current and accurate. When people look at it, they know what I’m about, who I am and what I have to offer.

That puts the ball in their court. They can make the fundamental decision: do they want to engage with me?

Some people won’t want to engage with me right now, and that’s absolutely fine. But, at some stage, I know some of them will.

I’ve been connected with people for many years without speaking to them. Three or four years might pass, but then something clicks.

They might contact me because they want to discuss something and have been seeing my profile over the years.

It might also be because I’ve shared something for one of my clients.

My clients are often looking for talented people and advertising positions. I share their posts, and there is frequently someone in my network who knows somebody ideally suited to the role.

If I can help my clients by sharing an opportunity with my network, happy days—it’s a win-win.

But you need to have that network in the first place.

It’s about asking, “What do I want to do? Do I want to grow my network? How do I want to grow it?”

I know people who are frustrated because they’re on LinkedIn, but it doesn’t work for them. We’ve got to examine why it doesn’t work for you.

As I’ve said, I’ve built my business on LinkedIn. Most of my business comes from LinkedIn. That is a substantial endorsement of the platform.

I’ve made sure my profile is strong, but I also ensure that I’m delivering content to people.

I share other people’s articles and post my own videos. People then come to me because they want to talk about coaching.

That might be because they’ve seen my profile or videos. More importantly, it might be because one of my contacts loved a piece of content I shared and passed it on to their network.

Someone in that network sees it, decides it’s right for them and contacts me directly.

When it comes to networking, it’s never only about the one-to-one relationship. It’s also about the one-to-many—but you’ve got to work at it.

I’m on LinkedIn day in and day out, but I don’t spend the whole day on it.

I have a ritual. I spend approximately 20 minutes on it in the morning, keeping up and ensuring I’m up to speed. I ask, “Is there anything interesting that I’ve missed?”

I normally close out the day by checking LinkedIn again. So much can happen during the day, and it’s good to have that closing period.

But you’ve got to participate to reap the benefits.

LinkedIn is a huge topic, and we aren’t going to cover all of it today.

If you want a more detailed explanation or want to pick my brains about how I built my business using LinkedIn, head over to Boolkah.com and get in touch.

Alternatively, you can find specialist LinkedIn trainers who do a great job of teaching the basics so that you can build upon them.

Whatever you do, do something—because failing to learn is learning to fail.