Last week we wrote a blog post about the Know, Like and Trust Factor.

What it boils down to is that other people need to know, like and trust you enough before they will pursue a further (business) relationship with you.

Cartoonist Cora Keukenmeester was inspired and made the following cartoon for us:

Enjoy her other cartoons at her own website.

Jan and Bert

Networking and referral expert Bob Burg is famous for his quote (from the excellent book “Endless Referrals”): “All things being equal, people do business with, and refer business to people they know, like and trust.”

So in order to build relationships it is important to raise your Know factor, your Like factor and your Trust factor with the people from your network.

What does this mean in practice?

- Know factor: what do people know about you? What is your background? What are your interests on a professional and personal level? Which organizations do you belong to? To raise your Know factor it is important to fill in your Profile on LinkedIn as much as you can.

- Like factor: people like other people who are helpful, kind and not pushy. Applying the networking attitude, thinking about what you can share with other people and answering questions in Discussions and Answers already helps a lot to raise your Like factor.

- Trust factor: there are two kinds of trust:

1. Trust that you are an expert. This part of the trust factor can be raised when answering questions in Answers and Discussions in your field of expertise. By giving good and solid answers you will be perceived as the expert. Also by having recommendations from other people describing your professional expertise your Trust factor will increase.

2. Trust that you will behave in a decent way when you get an introduction or referral. This is a consequence of your behavior described in the Like factor. Having recommendations from other people describing your attitude when working with them will also raise this part of the Trust factor.

LinkedIn helps to raise your Know, Like and Trust factor in many ways.

As Stephen M.R. Covey wrote in his book, “The Speed of Trust”: trust can also be transferred from one person to another. Therefore, it is good to ask for introductions and to pass on messages when you trust people; this is one of the best and easiest networking actions to take.

It also works the other way around: trust (and your reputation) can be damaged very quickly. So don’t only be a good advocate, but also a good filter!

To your success !

Jan and Bert

PS: more tips about the fundamental principles of networking can be found in “Chapter 1: What is the value of networking?” of the book “How to REALLY use LinkedIn”. You can download it for FREE!

Last week we already reported that LinkedIn’s user interface now also is available in Dutch and Czech.

That raised the question for many Dutch speaking people how this would affect them and the people interacting with them.

How does this work?

1. Situation 1: the person you are looking for has a Profile in one language. You will see that Profile no matter which user interface you use yourself.
2. Situation 2: the other person has a Profile in several languages (for example French as primary language and Dutch as second language).
   - If you use the French user interface you will by default see the French Profile. You can switch to the Dutch Profile on the top of the page.
   - If you use the Dutch user interface, you will by default see the Dutch Profile. You can switch to the French Profile.
   - If you use another language as user interface, you will by default see the French Profile. You can switch to the Dutch Profile.

Remark: not many people are aware of how this works and don’t know they can look at people’s Profiles in other languages.

Tips to deal with this potential issue:

1. Make sure you have a Profile in all the languages you are doing business in !
2. Many people still use the English user interface. English is also still the international business language. So it might be beneficial to always have a Profile in English, unless you never have professional contacts outside your non-English speaking country/region.

To your success !

Jan and Bert

PS: more tips about the behavior of LinkedIn can be found in “Chapter 20: Little Known, But Interesting Features and Behavior of LinkedIn” of the book “How to REALLY use LinkedIn”. You can download it for FREE!

From today on LinkedIn is available in Dutch and Czech! For people living in Belgium, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic this could actually be the tipping point for how to REALLY use LinkedIn. How do you change the language on LinkedIn? And are there any other consequences?

We have been waiting for it, but it’s been worthwhile! LinkedIn is now available in 2 extra languages : Dutch and Czech. There are 2 ways to adapt your language settings in LinkedIn:

1. The first one is via your Settings. Click at the top right of any page on your own name and choose the first element (Settings) in the dropdownbox that appears. LinkedIn will ask you to login again. This is a security measure to prevent others from changing your settings while you are away from your computer. What you are seeing next is the overview page of your settings. Choose “Account” at the bottom on the left. Click on the link “Select Your Language”. In the popup, now click on one of the official LinkedIn languages you want. From now on your LinkedIn interface is in this language. Congratulations!

2. The second one is a shortcut! At the bottom of every page you find a link “Language”. When you click it, a menu appears. Just click on the language of your choice. Easy, right?

Now that LinkedIn is available in Dutch and Czech, it has consequences. The first and probably the most important one (if you are from Belgium, the Netherlands or the Czech Republic), is to create your profile also in your native tongue. How to do this? You choose “Edit Profile” under “Profile” in the topmenu.

At the top right you will see a link “Create your profile in another language”. Click on it and start filling out your complete profile in the language of your choice. LinkedIn makes it easy for you by copying a number of elements from your first profile. Do yourself a favor and copy everything from your other profile. This way, you will make sure that both languages are completely similar. This is important because you never know in what language visitors of your profile will arrive. And if you are like most of us, you want to make a great first impression, right?

Another consequence is that it will probably take a while for everyone to create their Dutch or Czech profile. So, go easy on others if they haven’t created or updated their profile yet. It might be that they don’t know about the fact that LinkedIn is now available in these languages. Even fewer people know that if you have Dutch as your primary language, that you will see the profiles of others in Dutch first (if they have it). However, it fits perfectly well in the “give and receive” attitude to inform others of the fact that Dutch and Czech are now official languages on LinkedIn. You can even point them to this article on how to make the changes, if you want. On top of that, everyone can receive the full version book “How to REALLY use LinkedIn” for free!

Two weeks ago the interview about “How to REALLY use LinkedIn” in the television show “Z Boek” was broadcasted on the Belgian television station Kanaal Z.

Watch the 4:13 minute interview of Jan Vermeiren and Bert Verdonck by host Ianka Fleerackers (in Dutch).

We already explained in a former post that the value of the LinkedIn Groups functionality is in the interactions between people. Before the Discussions function was introduced, there was already another tool that stimulated interaction: the Answers.

Actually the concept is pretty simple. Some people ask questions and others answer them.

Again this allows you to receive help from the network on the one hand and raise your visibility and credibility on the other hand .
Just by answering questions you will be on other people’s radar. This will boost your personal branding.

If they really think you are an expert in your field of expertise, they will give you expert points. These points are awarded by the person asking a question to the person they thought gave the best answer.

Once you have gained some expert points you will also be listed in the experts directory, which raises your Profile even more. How many points you need to be in that list depends on the category. In some categories there are only few questions and also only a few people who answer them. It is easier to get in the expert list of that category. But since there are not so many questions your visibility as an expert will be limited.

Does that mean you shouldn’t put in any effort? No, it is not about the expert points, but about genuinely helping other people and sharing good tips. By doing this you will be perceived as an expert.

However, since the categories are open for everybody and worldwide, this might not be the place you want to focus your attention and time on. Answering questions in the Groups that you have chosen gives you much faster visibility and more credibility. However, in Groups you can’t earn expert points (you won’t get expert points in private messages, only in public ones).

The advantage of Answers on the other hand is that all the answers are stored and visible for everybody months after you have answered a question. So this is another way of passively raising your visibility and credibility. Answers in Groups are not searchable and can only be browsed by people who are a member of that Group.

Note: if you ask a question yourself whether in Answers or in a Group, people appreciate knowing what you did with the input you got. So take the time to react.

To your success !

Jan and Bert

PS: more tips about how to use LinkedIn to boost your visibility and credibility can be found in “Chapter 10: Personal Branding, Raising Your Visibility and Credibility on LinkedIn” of the book “How to REALLY use LinkedIn”. You can download it for FREE!

Like we wrote in “How to REALLY use LinkedIn“: the power of networking resides in the combination of online AND offline networking.

LinkedIn is a great tool to help you prepare to feel more comfortable and be more successful at offline networking events (read Chapter 11).

If you want to find a networking opportunity in the Netherlands, this is one of the directories you can use: http://netwerkeninnl.nl/

To your success !

Jan and Bert

PS: more tips about how to use LinkedIn to prepare yourself for events can be found in “Chapter 11: The Power of Combining Online and Offline Networking: Events” of the book “How to REALLY use LinkedIn”. You can download it for FREE!

In the book “How to REALLY use LinkedIn” we already dedicated a whole chapter about having an attractive personal LinkedIn Profile.

One of the most overlooked parts is the Professional Headline (the sentence below your name and picture).

It is kind of a teaser to invite people to read the rest of your Profile.

Since yesterday this part became even more important for your personal branding.

It was already important for:
- Standing out in search results: when people need to choose between 100,000 profiles from their search results, they will only pick the ones that have an interesting Professional Headline.
- Getting click throughs to your Profile after contributing in a Group Discussion: when you have written something interesting in a Discussion, but don’t have an appealing Professional Headline, people will not click on it.

Now it is also even more important for your personal (and company) branding.

Why?

Since yesterday LinkedIn shows the Professional Headline when people connect with each other.

In other words: when you connect with someone, your name and Professional Headline is shown in the updates of their network.

If you expand your network with your goal in mind (use the G.A.I.N. exercise© from “How to REALLY use LinkedIn), then you could become way more visible to potential customers, employees, employers, partners, experts and other people who can help you reach your professional goals.

People tend to connect to their peers and to people who work for the same organisation. When you connect with them, you get visibility to their peers and colleagues!

Remark: by default LinkedIn uses the last job title as your Professional Headline. Please change this and make it as attractive as possible so people will get interested in reading the rest of your Profile !

To your success !

Jan and Bert

PS: more tips about how to create an attractive LinkedIn Profile can be found in “Chapter 4: How To Create An Attractive Profile” of the book “How to REALLY use LinkedIn”. You can download it for FREE!

Not everybody knows how LinkedIn can benefit them. That’s why we will be sharing some insights on this blog for different “profiles”.

Let’s focus in this article on the benefits for people who are looking for new customers.

For business owners, account managers, business development managers and anyone else who is in sales, these are the benefits LinkedIn can bring you:

1. Identifying the right people at a customer or prospect (finding their profile).

2. Receiving introductions or referrals to prospects (via the introductions tool or outside LinkedIn via a Magic Mail).

3. Receiving referrals to other departments at current customers (via the introductions tool or outside LinkedIn via a Magic Mail).

4. Discovering the relationships between customers, prospects and other contacts (see the connections in their profiles).

5. Discovering the relationships between your colleagues from the same and other departments and prospects (see the connections in their profiles). This might avoid painful situations when sales people from the same company call the same prospect or customer without knowing that their colleagues from the same or a different department are already in touch with them.

6. Discovering information about prospects and customers which makes the conversations online and offline easier (reading their personal and company profile).

7. Maintaining relationships with current customers (Personal contacts, Discussions in Groups and answering questions in Answers).

8. Visibility for you as a sales person and your organisation and personal branding (your profile not only on LinkedIn, but also in the Search Engines like Google, contributions in Answers and in Discussions).

9. Make yourself be perceived as an expert (contributions in Answers and in Discussions and Expert points).

10. Word of mouth publicity (receiving recommendations and people telling about you in Discussions, mention you as the expert in Answers or talking about you outside of LinkedIn).

11. Getting recommendations which are visible to customers and prospects (recommendations written by other people which can’t be modified by you; which makes them stronger).

12. Finding the right groups and organisations to be member of, both online and offline (via the profiles of people from your network and four other ways).

13. Picking up trends in the marketplace (Discussions in the groups of your customers and in the groups of your peers).

14. Getting notifications when someone changes jobs. This is a trigger to contact them to see if you can be supplier to the new organisation and to get introduced to the one who will replace them at your current customer (network updates).

15. Getting notifications when your customers link with sales reps from a company that offers the same products or services than yours. This might be a trigger to contact your customers again (network updates).

To your success !

Jan and Bert

PS: you can find an overview of passive, active and proactive strategies to find new customers in chapter 14: “How to REALLY Use LinkedIn to Find New Customers” in the second edition of the book “How to REALLY use LinkedIn”. You can download it for FREE.

A comment we hear often hear in our presentations and workshops is: “Not every person or every function is on LinkedIn. I can’t always find the right person. LinkedIn doesn’t work for me.”

It is right that not everybody is a member of LinkedIn. But the network is growing VERY fast. There are two new members signing up per second! So maybe the person you are looking for was not on LinkedIn yesterday, but signed up today.

Let’s also look at it from another perspective: a few years ago, when LinkedIn didn’t exist, it was almost impossible to find the connections between people. Or it cost lots of time. Now LinkedIn makes it a lot easier. And if you don’t find the person you are looking for, what keeps you from doing it “the old way”?

We repeat what we wrote before. Despite the fact that not every person is on LinkedIn, it is an excellent website for business networking. What we see in practice is that the majority of organizations are represented on LinkedIn (In the USA, all of the Fortune 500 companies have an executive level presence). Maybe you won’t find the Marketing Manager of a company, but you might find the IT Manager. The Marketing Manager is only one step away from him. OK, it is some extra effort, but still lots easier than before LinkedIn existed.

To your success !

Jan & Bert

PS: to find more “myths” read chapter 20: “Little Known, But Interesting Features and Behavior of LinkedIn” from the second edition of the book “How to REALLY use LinkedIn”. You can download it for FREE.