Can LinkedIn Increase Your Sales? May 9, 2008

I’m a member of LinkedIn, along with other groups and sites, and this free report about finding the gold in LinkedIn is, well, a gem.

Many people are drawn to the promise of millions of connections on LinkedIn but suffer from the “now what” syndrome once they get signed up. There is gold in LinkedIn, but like any social network the secret lies in understanding how to open up access points and begin to make them pay off in mutually beneficial ways.

http://www.sellingtobigcompanies.com/content_display.jsp?top=8486&mid=76812

 

How do you turn down business you don’t want? May 9, 2008

An interesting discussion I brought up at a networking lunch today. How do you turn down business you don’t want?

I don’t mean, “I’m too busy to take you on, here, let me refer you to someone else.”

I mean, “I don’t want to work with you–I don’t get along with you, I’ve heard too many bad things about you, I don’t like how you operate,” etc.

Social Networking: Careful mixing personal and business. May 7, 2008

I won’t use this post to get into all the nuances of social networking. Today I’m just going to briefly cover the 101 aspects that, if followed, will definitely keep you out of trouble.

1. If you create any kind of personal site, such as a MySpace, remember that search engines crawl those pages, too. Meaning? Someone searching your company website out on Google may also come across a very personal MySpace, with information you may not want them seeing. The rules about personal sites always apply: if you don’t want it displayed at your funeral, don’t display it at all.

Dress for Success, but do it your way. April 30, 2008

I had a great discussion with a fellow entrepreneur recently about dressing for success. He wears a suit to practically every networking group. I wear fashionable jeans. So how are we both perfectly capable of running a professional business?

WLS Quicktip: Detach Yourself from Introductions April 15, 2008

Start to tremble when someone asks what you do for a living? Want to join a networking group but don’t–simply to avoid that “30-second commercial”?

I found that I froze up when giving an introduction for my business…yet, had no problem introducing someone else’s. Why was this?

My theory was that I was simply not attached to that other person’s business–or what anyone thought of it. I couldn’t control whether people would be interested and my threshold of concern for that wasn’t as strong as it was for my own thing.

So I decided to pretend that when introducing my own business, I was actually just a rep for someone else. In doing so, I was able to detach and my concern for whether or not that person liked me, or my business idea, dropped dramatically. I took things less personally and was less worried about feeling rejected; I was able to embody the “my business is not for everyone” philosophy, and thus didn’t take it personally when someone didn’t join my group.

It’s always easier to refer someone else than to put your own best foot forward, so for those of you with this difficulty, try pretending you work for a nameless boss who owns your business when making the introductions. You may very well find that you speak more freely and without fear of rejection!