The first thing any prospective client will likely see is your profile picture. This is your first chance to make a good impression. The conventional wisdom is to use a simple headshot. However, depending on your business, you might want to break with convention. If for example, you are an illustrator, then you could use a self-portrait to provide an immediate example of your work. Your profile picture should say as much as about you as it possibly can.

When building your profile, consider the keywords that someone might use to find you and avoid simply listing your job title(s). For example, if you work for a media production business, your title might be Creative Director. However, people are unlikely to search for vague terms. Instead, you might want to consider what roles your title encompasses and put them down instead. Someone is far more likely to search for ‘video marketer’ than a ‘creative director’.

Entice People

Your profile will be listed among numerous other profiles. If you are to generate any business, you need to stand out. Give people a reason to click your profile.

The best way to do this is to combine your keywords with a brief statement about what you do. A Social Media Manager might say something like “Social Media Manager experienced in increasing engagement rate and reducing cost-per-click”.

In the above example, that quick statement tells us the field of expertise, along with knowledge of the important aspects of a social media manager’s job.

Summary, Not Life Story

Your Summary section needs to be clear, concise and speak to potential engagers. Avoid turning into Charles Dickens and scrawling a gigantic wall-of-text that becomes challenging and tedious to read. Instead, write a couple of sentences that indicate your history, and your enjoyment of your work. Share a little bit of your personal journey, but not too much, and then ensure that your summary contains your keywords.

Feel free to give yourself credibility by referencing your experience and previous clients. Above all, make sure your copy is speaking to your target market. Your Summary must stay focused on what you do, and what you offer.

Finally, ensure that your Summary ends with a Call to Action. If you do not include a Call to Action, prospective clients may believe that you are not currently looking for extra work. Instead, tell people what to do next; should they visit your site to contact you? Should they connect on LinkedIn and send you an InMail? You must make it easy for people to take the next step.

Grow Your Network

In searches, LinkedIn favours the profiles of those connected to other connections. You are unlikely to appear high in the search results of someone with whom you have no connections at all.

Connecting with colleagues and previous clients is a good first step. Regarding the latter, past clients are a good way of generating word of mouth leads on LinkedIn. In today’s world, people often defer to their circles when choosing professional services for business. Former and current clients, therefore, are very likely to link to your profile if someone asks for recommendations.

You may also want to consider joining relevant LinkedIn discussion groups. Virtually every industry, from business consultancy to creative writing, is represented on LinkedIn groups. By joining and engaging with these groups, you increase your presence and credibility on LinkedIn, which can lead to more connections and a greater public profile.

Get Active

Too many people treat LinkedIn as a CV storage directory. You cannot expect to put up a profile and for people to come to you. Think about why major brands such as Nike and McDonalds continue to advertise their products and services? It is because they want to remain at the forefront of consumer’s minds. You should treat LinkedIn similarly.

Writing your own posts/articles, and responding to other people’s is a good way of keeping an active profile. If you regularly post insightful and creative content, you increase the chance others will engage with you.

Similarly, engage with new connections. Send them a quick note thanking them for connecting with you, and offer them something of value. Whenever someone endorses you, do the same. Avoid using automated services for this, however, as people quickly become accustomed to automation and it lacks the personal touch.

Encourage Testimonials

LinkedIn has one major advantage over a website – the testimonials are definitely credible. When you see a testimonial on a website, often you have little to no evidence that the testimonial is not made up! A testimonial on LinkedIn, however, is traceable to another profile. This is the reason why every testimonial on Robin Lines Associates is taken directly from LinkedIn. A user can click through to LinkedIn and see the endorsements on my LinkedIn profile.

When generating leads on LinkedIn, many people will head straight to the testimonial section. They are looking for evidence that a person is capable of delivering what they promise in their profile.

A good way of encouraging testimonials is to offer them yourself. If you have worked with a particularly good client, then let the world know. You might be providing a service for them, but it does not prevent you writing words of appreciation for a good manager or consultant. Much like sharing business cards, one kind gesture often encourages another.

The post Generating Leads on LinkedIn appeared first on Robin Lines Associates.

Yet, the truth is, we can. In the social media age, it should even be somewhat easier.
 

Listen

One of the wonderful benefits of social media is that our customers are right there, talking and giving us the information we need. I’m sure many of us have heard the old business philosophy that a happy customer might tell two or three people, but an unhappy one will likely tell ten or more. In the age of social media, an unhappy person is more than likely to voice their complaints on social media and reach a lot more than ten people.

You can conduct a little experiment. Head over to your personal Facebook feed, or logon to Twitter and just take a quick look at how many posts/tweets are negative in some way. People might be complaining about something bad or annoying that happened to them that day, or they might be voicing their concerns over something going on that conflicts with their personal beliefs. One of the key things that psychologists understand is that most people want to be heard. Social media is giving them a chance to be heard.

In business, we need to listen.
 

Act

In some cases, we’ll have to act after the fact. If you look up major businesses on Twitter, you’ll see that their social media teams spend more time dealing with complaints and criticisms than praise. A business with empathy at its core will respond to these complaints politely and try to resolve whatever they can as fast as they can. Occasionally, they’ll even have to take a small hit – such as offering a voucher as a goodwill gesture.

The key to remember here is that your customers complain when they feel there is something amiss. There’s a handful of people out there who complain for their own amusement, but most people simply want to make their life convenient and stress-free. The act of complaining is a sign that the business they’re dealing with has failed in some way, but it doesn’t mean that there is not still an opportunity to succeed.

In a real-world example, I have dealings with a particular tech company. An error on their end inconvenienced me somewhat one morning. I sent that company an email and within twenty minutes they had not only responded but they had fixed the problem. From my point of view, any irritation from this error was quickly erased by the polite, efficient way they addressed my issue. It makes me feel valued. It makes me feel like this is a business that cares about me; a business that is empathic to me.

Importantly, ask yourself, is your business content to simply address complaints, or is your business being proactive in limiting complaints? Treat each complaint as an opportunity to learn. If one person is expressing their pain and feeling the need to complain, then the chances are that there are others. Show empathy and try and make things easier and better for your clients and customers.
 

Anticipate

Of course, we don’t want to spend all our time addressing complaints. In an ideal world, we wouldn’t receive any complaints at all! That’s not really feasible. However, by listening to people, we can anticipate what they might complain about and address the problems before they ever reach the customer.

This should be a key part of any business’s research and development strategy in the 21st Century, but too many businesses are not actively looking for this crucial information. They develop products and services with little input from the end-user. By doing that, they risk causing irritation and annoyance.

Too often, we’re content to spend money on costly focus groups or targeted surveys rather than simply reviewing what is already out there. Imagine your business is making a new technology device – like a mobile phone or a tablet. You know what your competitors are doing, but are you considering what your potential customers are asking for?

Your potential customers will be out there. They will be discussing what makes their current device great, and most importantly, what could be improved. By considering their needs, you will be able to invest your development budget more wisely, focusing on the key features that consumers want from their device.

This may seem an arduous task but it doesn’t need to be. Have a look at product review videos on YouTube, and then read through the comments sections. Very often, you’ll find people saying “I bought [product] and like it, but…” – those “buts” could be just what you need for your next innovation!
 

Ask

Don’t be afraid to ask. There’s another small business that I deal with who develop a software product which I use regularly. Recently, they took the time to post the list of features for their software currently slated for development but rather than simply put out a features roadmap, they opened up a survey asking their clients which features they wanted first.

This is a fantastic step towards building trust and brand loyalty. The customer feels like they are part of the development of this piece of software. They know that the company is listening to their customer’s needs and feel that the company is responding to them. By making their polls public, they also allow their customers to know what other people are prioritising. Thus if one person’s preferred feature isn’t top of the list that person knows it isn’t the company neglecting them. Instead, they can see that the company is responding to their wider audience’s wants and needs first. This has the somewhat added advantage that the customer cannot blame the business if their most-desired feature isn’t next on the list!

If you’ve got an active social media channel, don’t just tell your customers what’s coming. Ask them what they want. If you’re delivering what they want, then your business will be more successful. You can create an emotional investment between business and customer. The benefits of this go beyond the bottom line of your business because it will also reach the hearts and minds of your customers. It will create a direct link between the two of you.

Back to psychology, in addition to wanting to be heard, many people also want to feel part of something. If you look at crowdfunding campaigns like those found on Kickstarter or Indiegogo, you’ll often find a core group of supporters who feel proud that they’ve helped a product reach the market through their contributions.

People who feel part of something in this way are also the people more likely to spread the positive word about your business, both on social media and to their friends and family.
 

Empathy

If you seek to understand and feel what your customers are feeling, then you’re on a pathway to more success. Once your business becomes an empathy-driven business, there will be so many ways to expand and grow this philosophy, making it an integral part of your business culture.

There’s much more that can be said about the importance of empathy in business – from dealing with your people all the way to satisfying shareholders and investors. I could say so much that I may well revisit this subject at a later date.

For now, ask yourself whether your business is doing its best to build a relationship between you and your clients, or whether you’re putting up too much distance. Innovation need not simply be inventing something before anyone else but giving people what they want before anyone else.

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