Your network is your biggest asset and LinkedIn is the way to demonstrate your personal branding

by admin | Feb 20, 2012 | Blog, LinkedIn, LinkedIn Training, Promotion, Strategy

There are not many certainties in the world today, but here are 3 we can examine and show you how LinkedIn can assist you in benefitting from each:

1. The world has changed and the change of pace will keep accelerating.

Whether there will be another financial crisis or not and how big it will be is not something any of us can predict or control, but jobs will keep being lost; outsourcing, offshoring, resources will keep flowing to where the return on investment is the greatest. Whether it is job vacancies or business opportunities you will have to work harder and smarter to stand out and differentiate yourself from a greater number of competitors all trying to get a smaller share of the pie.

So, who can you rely on when times get tough?
You! And the equity in you; your personal brand. LinkedIn is the perfect personal branding and publicity tool.

LinkedIn, is a way that you can communicate to the world

1. What you know, your experience and expertise, knowledge and the benefits you can deliver to your clients and manage and leverage
2. Who you know, your trusted network, the people that think you are good
   There’s no point debating which of the two is more important, you need a good dose of both for success.

2. Online Marketing in general and Social Media Marketing specifically, together with the irreversible swing towards inbound marketing means that if your online marketing assets are not optimised and helping you and your business ‘get found’ then you will rapidly be left behind.

When it comes to B2B and professional services, LinkedIn provides the ultimate platform to combine all of your marketing assets, once they have been optimised – no point driving visitors to a leaky boat:

• Your LinkedIn Profile itself is a great way to be found by prospects and stay top of mind in front of your customers
• Your Website
• Your Blog
• Your YouTube Channel
• Your Slideshare

3. Everybody in business relies on it, everybody wants it, everybody knows it is the most effective way of attracting customers, yet when it comes to the holy grail of generating referrals very few businesses / salespeople have a have a plan and a process to turn their connections into contracts!

LinkedIn is the perfect Sales Tool for B2B and professional services marketers that allows you to leverage your networks. LinkedIn provides the perfect and simple platform for every step of a typical Referral Process:

1. Identifying Referrers / Influencers in your Network
2. Providing customers with a WOW experience (LinkedIn won’t help you there – you need to be great at what you do or deliver exceptional value through your products and services!)
3. Stay Top of Mind through regular communication that adds value to your customers and prospects
4. Educate your network how to refer to you
5. Ask for targeted Referrals and Introductions, rather than ‘asking for referrals blindly’
6. Recognise and Reward those that refer to you!

Don’t get left out, get LinkedIn.

To learn about our LinkedIn courses check this out.