Get More Clients Using LinkedIn

Interest in LinkedIn from lawyers, accountants and other professionals has taken off recently. And it makes a lot of sense. Despite the hype over Twitter and Facebook, LinkedIn offers the greatest opportunity for professionals to make connections that lead to winning new business.

Unfortunately, many professionals fail to use LinkedIn to it's full potential. Their profile is either non-existent, or not attractive to potential clients. And they don't use it's great ability to form new, valuable connections.

Here are the top 10 tips for using LinkedIn to get clients and win new business.

1. Make your profile client focused

The first thing people do when they join LinkedIn is to create a profile. And since LinkedIn has slots for your previous job roles, qualifications, etc. there's an almost overwhelming temptation to make your profile look like your CV.

Resist that temptation.

When you first meet potential clients you don't rattle off a huge list of companies you've worked for and the responsibilities you've had - that would bore the pants off them. Most effective introductions focus on who you help, and what problems you help them solve or results you help them achieve. Then if asked more, you say a bit more about what you do - and give a little "backstory" as to why you are uniquely qualified to help.

LinkedIn is for making connections - and for the majority of professionals that means clients and business partners, not recruiters.

You need to design your profile to have the impact you want on those connections. Treat it like your introduction at a networking meeting.

Despite the ease of just uploading your CV details, most potential clients and business partners won't get value from seeing the details of your previous roles. Job titles, main achievements and company names can help give you credibility (and make it easier for others to find you) - but don't include all the details you would on a job application.

2. Get connecting - but...

LinkedIn works on connections. The most powerful use of LinkedIn is to find new clients and business partners through the search function or directly via your contacts connections. The more direct connections you have, the more opportunities you have to connect. I still see people who've made all the effort to set up their LinkedIn profile - but who have so few connections that they don't get any benefit.

The LinkedIn toolbar for Outlook provides an easy way of inviting the your Outlook contacts and people you email regularly to connect with you.

However, there's a catch...

3...Choose your connection strategy carefully

There are two very different strategies to connecting on LinkedIn: "Open Networking" and "Trusted Partner Networking".

In business networking generally, the value you get from your network is a product of the size of your network, and your ability to "convert" connections into productive business (work, a referral, etc.). You can grow the value of your network by getting more connections, or deepening the strength of each connection (getting to know people better, helping them out, etc.)

On LinkedIn, one strategy for getting value is to be an "Open Networker" or LION (LinkedIn Open Networker). Open Networkers focus on growing the size of their network by initiating and accepting connection requests from as many people as possible. Open Networkers typically have many thousands of connections. This means that when they search for useful relationships (potential clients or business partners), for example looking for contacts in specific companies, or geographies or with specific interests or job titles - they are much more likely to find them (exponentially more likely because of the way LinkedIn connections work).

The downside of this strategy is that with thousands of connections you don't know each one very well, if at all. You're essentially using LinkedIn as a giant Rolodex or telephone directory rather than as a way of making deeper connections. That's neither good nor bad - it just means that if you find someone you want to connect with through one of these "shallow" connections, you're unlikely to get a strong referral to them.

The other strategy is to have fewer but deeper connections - a "Trusted Partner" strategy. Here you only connect to people you already know and trust. Most likely from face-to-face interaction, but possibly from online interaction too.

With this strategy you have less chance of finding someone via a search because you have less connections. But if you do find someone, it will be through someone who knows and trusts you - and they will be able to give a strong referral to you and put you in touch with the person you're interested in connecting with.

In my experience, this Trusted Partner strategy works best for most professionals. It mirrors the way we develop trusted relationships in the real world. And it reduces the risk that your trusted connections will be spammed from other connections you barely know.

Both strategies can work, but you must be consistent. If you're following a Trusted Partner strategy, you must only connect to people you really know & trust and turn down connections from people you don't (Open Networkers for example).

4. Use Search to find potential clients and business partners

Many people get going on LinkedIn but fail to use it to help their business. One of the most effective ways to gain business value from LinkedIn is to find potential clients and business partners.One of the things I do in my consulting practice is to help clients get more referrals for their business. And one of the key things I teach them is to be very specific in who they ask to be referred to.

LinkedIn allows the ultimate in specificity. You can search for exactly who you want to be referred to - by company, by geography, by name, by job title, etc. And you can search across your entire network at once. Or you can look at the contact list of an individual to see if there's anyone you'd like to be connected to.

Once you've identified people you'd like to be introduced or referred to, rather than try to connect them directly, give your mutual connection a call and ask them if they can connect you. That's much more polite than going directly, and it's much more likely to be successful.

5. Give testimonials to get them

Testimonials are very helpful to have on your profile. They're a clear indication of the quality of your work and the relationships you form.

But begging for a testimonial isn't a great strategy.

If you want to get testimonials, use LinkedIn to give them to people you've worked with and who have done a great job for you. LinkedIn will show them the testimonial to approve, then ask them if they want to reciprocate. They probably will.

6. Have a helpful headline

When people find you in searches on LinkedIn, or when you contribute to Group discussions or in the LinkedIn Answers Q&A section; the initial thing they see is a little box with your name, photo, and your "headline".What most people have in their headline is their job title. "Owner at XYZ Company" or "Principal consultant at ABC Ltd". By default, unless you change it manually, LinkedIn takes the headline from your last job title.

Unfortunately, this doesn't give people a clue as to whether you might be able to help them, or might be interesting to connect to.

You should treat your headline like your introduction when networking. Focus on what you can do to help people.

My headline, for example is "Helping Professional Services Firms Attract More Clients and Win More New Business". It's much more useful in telling people what I actually do than using an "official" job title like Managing Director. That will get more people to click through to my profile and maybe begin to interact with me.

You can edit your Headline via the Edit My Profile option.

7. Join LinkedIn Groups to connect and interact

LinkedIn groups are essentially discussion forums for specific interest groups. They allow you to find out the latest news, and to join in debates on topics of interest. You should be joining groups both of interest to you professionally, and the groups where your potential clients "hang out".

The same is also true of the LinkedIn Q&A section. Post sensible answers or pose sensible questions and over time you'll develop a reputation for knowing what you're talking about.

But please, don't spam the groups with constant offers for your services - or questions that are really thinly disguised promotional pieces. Many groups have become unusable because sellers fill up every discussion slot with adverts and real discussions are difficult to find.

Demonstrate your capabilities by being helpful and people will reach out to you.

8. Use Status Updates to subtly remind your contacts of what you do

LinkedIn status updates are a nice way of helping to stay top of mind with contacts. If you were to call or email all your contacts any time you did something small but interesting, it would quickly become seen as pushy or spammy. But updating your status is an non-intrusive way of getting a gentle reminder out.

Depending on their settings, your contacts will get a regular email with a summary of the status updates of their contacts. And they will see the updates on their LinkedIn homepage. Mostly it will just be "so and so updated their profile" type messages. So if your status update has something interesting in it ("Ian has just run a seminar on consultative selling skills") it will remind them of the sort of thing you do and may even trigger them into action.

Recently, for example, I put up a status update saying I'd run a training course on Marketing for Consultants for the Institute of Business Consulting. That prompted one of my old colleagues to get back in touch and we came to an arrangement about sharing training material.

Using the ping.fm service allows you to update the status of other social networks like Facebook and Twitter simultaneously.

9. Watch others' status updates to initiate contact

Keep an eye on status updates from others - it can be a good opportunity to get back in touch - especially if they've changed jobs or have set out on a new venture. Even small status changes can help give you something to start a conversation - the sort of smalltalk needed to keep dialogs and relationships going in between more meaty topics.

10. Proactively link others together who you think may benefit

Don't wait for others to initiate a request to be linked up to your other contacts. Review your contact list regularly looking for ways to add value to them. One good way is to offer to link them up with potential clients or partners for them.It's not super easy to do this using LinkedIn functionality - I find it's easier just to email both and suggest they make the connection themselves.

The tips I've outlined are for professionals who want to use LinkedIn to help them grow their businesses and their careers through what is essentially the online equivalent of normal business networking.

It's not the only way to use LinkedIn. For years I used it mainly to reconnect with old colleagues I'd lost touch with.

But it's certainly a good way to use LinkedIn that can deliver real business results.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ian_Brodie

Your Guide to Making LinkedIn a Social Media Marketing Tool

LinkedIn is a social networking site for professional and business-oriented relationships. It is a social media marketing tool that helps you discover inside connections to recommended job candidates, industry experts and business partners. As online marketers, we can harness LinkedIn's power for SEO and give our site a boost it needs from the search engines.

The first thing we will need is searchable public profile on LinkedIn. This guide will show you how to get a LinkedIn account and how to use it to get traffic to your site both from LinkedIn and Google. LinkedIn strengthens and extends your existing network of trusted contacts.

It is highly recommended that you use the "Build Your Network" feature by LinkedIn. All it does is contact people on your email address book, letting them know you have an account with LinkedIn, letting them know how to add you or how they can connect with you through the site. Enter your email username and password for each email accounts.

LinkedIn will list all your contacts and allow you to select which ones get an invitation. Later, if you need to add more friends and colleagues to your LinkedIn, you can do so by clicking Contacts from the menu on the left side of the page. Here are other ways you can do to harness the power of LinkedIn.

Ask your staff, employees, friends or colleagues at work to join LinkedIn and put links to your site on their profile. Remember to ask them to use "Other" from the pulldown and give them the keyword to use for when linking to your sites. Then there are your LinkedIn connections.

Ask them to link to your sites also using the "Other" pulldown. What this is going to do is let Google find an array of links and associate your URL with keywords used and reward your site (and LinkedIn profile) with good ranking. Your LinkedIn profile may land business directly from the contacts you'll make on the site.

There is no doubt that LinkedIn is a powerful social media marketing tool. Bear in mind that effective networking requires reciprocity through developing and nurturing win-win relationships. By using LinkedIn, you will also have the opportunity to help out those in your own network, by answering questions, providing relevant leads, and improve the traffic to your website at the same time.


Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=TJ_Corruthers

Yellow Pages Ad Design Tips For Success

I was not only a Yellow Page consultant for 25 years, but I also have a degree in advertising design. Therefore, I used to create the ads for all my customers, many drawn right on the spot. That was before computers when I carried a sketchpad and a slew of fine point markers. Whether you use a computer graphics program or the old-school method I employed, the result should be the same. You must produce an eye-catching and communicating ad, that contains all the elements that will get results. There are only a few basic concepts to remember and enact.

1. The size: Make it large enough to be seen and compete within your budget. Choose size over color options to allow for all the room needed to get your message across. If you are making multiple ads, place the largest ad in the most competitive heading.

2. The layout: The simplest way to design a display ad would be to place a large, bold headline at the top, a sub-title under that and a photo or picture somewhere, if there is space. Don't add a picture if it sacrifices important sell copy.

3. The headline: Unless your name is a brand like Goodyear or Allstate, go with a feature or benefit instead. You can always place your name by the phone number at the bottom. Write a headline that's short and to the point that invites the reader to learn more.

4. The picture: If you must have one, it should make a point. Displaying a photo of a truck in a plumbing ad says nothing about your company. Decide if a picture will really sell your business or should you use the space more effectively with copy.

5. The copy: This is where you explain the details of what you have to offer. Simply listing them as bullets can do the trick. They must contain your features and benefits.

6. The communication area: Now is the time to have your contact info such as your name, address, phone number, website, email, fax, cell, or other method to reach you. Make the main number largest and include a map if you are a retail type store and have the room.

There are several other options, which I shall now address.

7. Fancy borders: They do very little to enhance an ad or sell the company. Often times they just take up additional space while adding very little. A basic thick black line can be enough.

8. Strange typefaces: They might be too cute or hard to read. Stick with the traditional fonts that will convey your words easily.

9. Photos of people: Many insurance agents, lawyers, medical professionals, and even store owners love to see their photos in their ads. Unless it's part of a local media campaign where everyone is looking for your particular face, find another use for the picture or artwork.

Advertising design is neither a science nor an art. It's uses common sense and should display the information in a clean, precise manner. One way to uncover good design is to peruse the directory and see what attracts your attention. Ask your friends and family what they like and which ad they would call. Take notes and form the basis of your ad employing the various elements that do the most good.

And for more details, consult my book that lists everything discussed here and much more in depth. "Inside the Yellow Pages" is a bible for creative design and many cost-saving ideas. It's available on my website and amazon.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jeffrey_Hauser

Guerilla Marketing Help

Guerrilla Marketing- is a phrase coined by Jay Conrad Levinson as a take no prisoners way of marketing (not to be confused with prospecting tactics taught by most sales organizations) Guerrilla marketing can be an inexpensive way to market for the entrepreneurs who are on a "shoe string" budget. Guerrilla marketing can be used to generate new business right in your own back yard.

This strategy is highly recommend to first time entrepreneurs and independent professionals who are having a hard time prospecting for new clients.

Guerrilla Marketing can be defined as going after conventional goals using unconventional methods. Most business owners and sales professionals usually start out by throwing money at their marketing campaign before investing in their marketing education.

When using guerrilla marketing the focus is to find as many ways to market your service with little or no cost at all. It essentially about the creativity that you can bring to the marketplace.

"7 Steps of a Guerrilla Marketing Plan"

1. Call to Action-What do you want your customers to do (i.e buy your product or services)

2. Competitive Audience-who are your competitors and what are they doing

3. Target Audience-Who is your core audience and what is the best medium to reach them through)

4. List of Marketing Weapons (Tools)-What tools are you going to use (signs,special reports,newsletter)

5. Positioning -How to your want to be perceived in your niche market by your audience

6. Company Identity- Do you want to be known as the cheapest guy or the most expensive, the most classy, the quickest the easiest?

7. What's your marketing budget- How much do you have to put toward your guerrilla marketing campaign.

"Guerrilla Marketing Strategy"

An example of guerrilla marketing would be referral marketing. As you all know referred customers are the best customers. The great thing about referral marketing is that it can be absolutely free.

If you already have some existing customer base ask them for a referrals but offer them something in return. For example a free offer of your product or service next time they purchase. When the person or people they referred to you buy give them the same offer.

Another example will be advertising in high traffic areas. Lets say you have a restaurant you can make an offer and post it on a sign professionally from a FedEx Kinkos for less than $35.

Create a picture of a delicious plate your number and address. You can tie balloons around the sign or make it in the shape of a person on the side of the road. This will drive tons of traffic to your business since they are already in their car.

Public speaking is another guerrilla marketing tactic. There are many organizations both for profit and non that are always in need of a speaker to keep there events exciting and valuable. With the right educational approach this can prove to be a perfect way to generate leads and position yourself as an expert.

Be sure to present valuable educational content that is relevant to your product and service but leave the sales pitch out. Studies have proven that with a good follow up process more than 50% of the audience will turn in to paying customers.

Writing Articles in your local papers is a favorite for guerrillas. Public relations usually proves to be more profitable than advertising and the media is always looking for a good story or at least content for their columns. Try submitting press releases on interesting ways that your bringing value to the marketplace.

Database Marketing- If you have been in business for at least a while than you should at least have a list of you current customers. These are often the best prospects because its always easier and less expensive to sell to people that have already bought from you. Try offering special offers to previous customers and customer appreciation discounts.

"Guerrilla Marketing Tools"

Print materials- flyers, Signs, Special Reports, On or offline newsletters, postcards, banners, seminars are all good guerrilla marketing tools. Try anyone of these tactics with the right tools and your guerrilla marketing campaign is sure to get off to a good start.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Rossi_Eason

Marketing Help During Recession

You realise that marketing is vital for your business to survive this economic downturn. Now more than ever you need to use marketing to help you sustain and grow your business, however, you need to cut costs and marketing expenses does seem like an easy way to achieve this!

You are not alone. Ever business is struggling with this challenge at one level or another. What do you do? How can you get the right balance? How can you recession proof your marketing?

Well the answer is simply and obvious. Stop wasting money on marketing programs that do not bring results! So many businesses spend on marketing activities without a clear business objective and the ability to track results. Every marketing dollar spent must be scrutinised. You need to get smart about how you are marketing. Smart marketing is about maximising your business results in the most cost effective manner. You do not need mega-bucks to apply smart and effective marketing for your business. In fact, if you follow my guidelines you will achieve Better Marketing Results on your own marketing activities.

Here are four rock-solid points to ensure your marketing will become recession proof:

Focus on your Ideal Customer: Develop a customer profile with detailed descriptions of their drivers and buying processes. You must completely understand your customer and their buying process to allow you to formulate marketing messages that are relevant and will resonate with them. Your message must paint an emotive picture of your customer enjoying the benefits of your product or service.
Apply Multi-Channel Marketing: At any one time you must have a least four marketing channels delivering results for your business. Yes, you read that right four not one. You might be thinking to yourself that implementing one is already a struggle let alone four. The secret has long been discovered by successful business entrepreneurs. You need a business marketing system that will function efficiently as your business development engine. Consider the following four marketing channels to start with:


a) Referral Marketing: We all know this, however, what we need to do is go full-throttle on referral marketing as a driver for new business. Look at implementing referral programs with incentives and rewards. Rewards can be informal such as flowers, chocolates or a dinner for two for referrals that generate business. At the very least a thank you card would be appropriate even if the referral did not turn to new business. Formal programs like affiliate referral strategies are Pay for Performance paying commissions only on successful referral sales.

b) Networking or Personal Selling: Everyone in your business must be able to network effectively whether in a social and or business function. Make sure all staff is familiar and comfortable with your Unique Benefit Statement. Formulate your Unique Benefit Statement from your target customer's point to view What's In It For Me? The value of networking is in your opportunity to establish relationships that expand your market reach beyond your immediate networking circle.

c) Email Marketing: I am not talking about blast or broadcast emails that have spawn the term SPAM. Don't be one of these. Properly implement email marketing is focused on your recipient. It must deliver relevant and interesting content for your target audience. Understand your customer and use their profiles in defining what they want and need. Inform and educate your customers in the benefits that will help them with their pain points to demonstrate the value you can deliver for them.

d) Web Presence: Get this under performing marketing channel into shape and revamp your website into a properly functioning online web business presence. Make it an automated marketing engine for your business development. Revisit your key business objective for your web presence and demand more for those electronic web pages in cyberspace. If you have a clear business objective you will develop an understanding of how it can be achieved on the Internet. Every single web page must work hard for your business. A good way to help you focus on this change is to view your online web presence as belonging to your target customers it is theirs not yours! Content must be oriented toward their relevant needs and interests not what you want to say. Ensure that every web page meets this content test and is designed according to persuasion conversion scenarios. If your web designer/developer is unfamiliar with these design concepts find one that does immediately!

Engage in Relationship Building with your Customers: Make you customer feel important and appreciated. At the simplest send them a thank you note or card. Deliver real value and keep engaged and in touch with your customer. Remember engagement or interaction with your customer is keeping the conversation open with them. More than anything a customer moves on if they feel neglected and undervalued.

Test, Test and Test Again: Everything you do in marketing must be tested. Measuring and tracking the results against the business objective for the effort will allow you to manage and achieve Better Marketing Results by ramping up what is working and dumping programs that are ineffective.
Apply these guidelines and you will get Better Marketing Results to make your marketing recession proof.

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