Accepting and Responding to New Connections - LinkedIn Tip #4

Many times when I am working with people helping them with LinkedIn, they are trepidatious about connecting with people on this platform. 

They are worried that if they do not have their "business running perfectly" they better not do anything on LinkedIn until they are where they think they should be.  Or they are worried that their boss will see that they are doing a side business.

Here's the shtick.

You can turn off all notifications while you are setting up your LinkedIn profile. In fact, I recommend that you turn them off, otherwise LinkedIn will be sending all your connections message after message about you and your profile. You can always turn notifications on later, when you are ready.

Here's another point.

It takes time to build up momentum on LinkedIn, and if you just get on there, set up your profile, and then sit there waiting for people to "ask you to dance", you will be waiting for a very long time! We need to be actively interacting with people on LinkedIn, in order to build the relationships we need and want for business. It all takes time and patience.

Tip #4

Head over to the little blank person icon with the plus sign beside it in the upper right corner of your LinkedIn platform and hover over it. A drop-down menu will appear, and you will see who is asking to connect with you. As you move your cursor down the menu, you will see "x" and "check mark" icons appear. You can click on the check mark to accept a connection.

Once you have accepted a connection, you can click on that contact immediately and then send them a message thanking them for joining your network and ask them what inspired them to join LinkedIn, or something that is copacetic with their profile.

It is important to acknowledge every person who reaches out to connect with you or accept your requests to connect. It is all about making that first great impression. You only have 3-8 seconds to do it online.

If you do not want to connect with someone, then click the "x".

It is all about being responsive and gracious. Treat connecting on LinkedIn the same way you would if you attended a live networking meeting.

Happy Connecting!

Next time we will discuss how to search through the members in the groups.

Christine Till

The Marketing Mentress

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Are You Connected...Really?

Today I am sitting in the lobby of the Rowe building at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia. 

I am watching a myriad of young men and women as they gather in this great lobby waiting for their next classes to start. 

Know what I am seeing? 

There is very little conversation happening. Most of them are on their electronic devices. They may be standing close to their classmates, but they are not communicating.

Have you heard of the quote, "No man is an island"?

Theoretically this quote should be true. But I have noticed something very significant that is occurring with this age of connectivity. Social media has and continues to create more "Islands".

It seems that more often than not, people are sitting alone or even beside friends texting and checking online for ... whatever. In fact, instead of chatting to one another, they text each other, even when they are sitting together!

I was waiting at a stop light to cross the street and there were two young ladies, around 14 years of age standing in front of me waiting for the light to change. They were both busy, thumbs flying as they were texting someone. Then a very strange thing occurred! One girl turned to the other one and said, "Yes!" Then there was another flurry of flying thumbs, and the other girl turned to the first one and said, "No Kidding!" -And that is how their communication was continuing as we stood there on the corner.

I was in shock!

What is this world turning into? No wonder we are having more challenges with building relationships today than ever before. All our gizmos and social media are actually making us more disconnected.

Then what in the world does this "age of connectivity" really mean? Does being or staying "connected" mean that we are taking our relationships for granted and simply think that because we are "connected", we are communicating?

Lightbulb!

We are human beings and thus are gregarious by nature. We all need interaction with other human beings in order to stay healthy. In fact, we have discovered that when people stay isolated for a long time, they are more apt to have things like dementia when they are older. Dementia can start when we are in our twenties. It usually is not detected for at least 20 years, thus it is thought to be a condition of old aged.

Is this age of "connectivity" also creating the microwave oven effect on our other relationships?

Because we are sending and receiving messages online at an alarming rate, when we do not get the results we desire quickly, we leave in search of another solution

.

If our relationships are not growing at the rate or in the area we desire within a very short period of time, we give up on them and search for that "perfect" one.

Believe me, it does not work that way.

Building relationships takes a lot of work! Years! It is not easy and "life does not run smoothly."

It takes reading lots of books; working together with open minds; finding solutions to those "hic-ups" along the way. Believe me, they will happen, and yes, "life does not run smoothly", but if you have a willing heart and mind, together you can do amazing things. 

If you are in business, you will want to seek out a good coach to guide and mentor you through this process.

It takes time to build those relationships we need and want with the people we need and want for business, and it all starts with you.

Get connected on a much deeper level. People you are connected to will only do business with you if they know, like and trust you. If you are in business, you will be glad you did.

Make it a great day!

Christine Till

The Marketing Mentress

1-780-904-9557

www.marketingmentress.com

marketingmentress@gmail.com

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The LinkedIn Marketing Mentress Tip #3

How to respond and share from your notifications menu under the tiny bell icon in the top right corner of your LinkedIn platform.

A wise man told me many years ago that I would discover that life does not run smoothly. At the time I thought, "Sure, I can handle that." However, there have been many times since then that I have sincerely wondered about my own sanity, dealing with so many changes in my life. At times it seems like everything was conspiring against me, and I have wondered if I would ever get through it.

Guess what! I survived!

If you are on LinkedIn and just getting started, you will want to feel like you are accomplishing something that makes sense for your business marketing plan. If you signed up on LinkedIn just prior to the last 2 weeks, you are probably wondering if you are logging into the right platform.

Am I right, or am I right?

Part of LinkedIn keeping us on alert was first changing the look of the platform. As soon as we see the layout change, those of us who have been using LinkedIn for a while realize that this means there are more new changes happening.

We are in the age of connectivity now, and that requires us to be more connected to our networks.  We need to be constantly working on new ways to build the relationships we both need and want for business. And LinkedIn is a great tool to help us with this.

There is another reason that LinkedIn has made changes.

The search engines.

Each and every time we make a change to our profiles on LinkedIn, we are letting the search engines know. Their little cookie monsters are always on the net searching for something new. The search engines love these changes!

Tip number Three:

Responding through the drop-down notifications under the bell icon.

Notifications are the messages you are receiving from people who have responded in some way to your posts or viewed your profile. These are the most important ones to be aware of, because you can respond in real time. With this age of connectivity, we also need to be more responsive. If we can respond within 10 minutes of receiving a message on LinkedIn, it could mean whether we can build a relationship with a potential new client of not.

If you have a smartphone, you can very easily respond to these notifications. The app allows you to click on each item, read it, like it, comment on it, and share it. I prefer responding to my notifications via my iPhone. It is fast and easy.

However, responding to this same drop-down menu on a PC is a little different. You add a couple of steps after clicking to read the post, in order to comment or share with the post, here is what to do.  You will need to scroll down to the bottom of the post to comment and share it through Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. 

Another way to respond to these notifications is through your main feed on the Home page, but that is a lot more time consuming. I am helping you to save time.

If you have any questions, please feel free to send me a message through my email below.

Next we will address accepting and responding to new connections.

Make it a great day!

Christine Till

The Marketing Mentress

1-780-904-9557

www.marketingmentress.com

marketingmentress@gmail.com

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LinkedIn Tip #2 - How do You Respond to New Connection Requests?

When you logged into your LinkedIn nine weeks ago, what did you see?

Aside from the whole new look, there were many changes to how to use LinkedIn for business.

My first post was all about how the Inbox has changed and what the check mark in the tiny box at the bottom of the reply window really does. I hope you have unchecked it by now, that is if you wish to send messages with more than one sentence.

Tip of the Day:

The way we can respond to the people who are sending us connection requests has changed.

It used to be that as soon as we accepted a connection request, we could immediately click and respond with a thank you note. We can still do this. However, there is one simple step added.

When we respond to accepting a connection request, we can click on the profile of the person who invited us, then as soon as we are in their profile, we can send them a message.

We can still build those relationships we need and want for business with our favourite business platform, LinkedIn.

Tomorrow we will address how to respond to and share "notifications" from the little bell icon in the top right corner of LinkedIn's new platform.

Get answers to your LinkedIn questions by getting in touch below.

Watch for my next tip tomorrow.

Make it a great day!

Christine Till

The Marketing Mentress

1-780-904-9557

www.marketingmentress.com

marketingmentress@gmail.com

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What is Your Flight Plan?

Today is a long day of flights and lay-overs as I travel to visit one of my daughters and her family in Halifax.

As I sit here in Toronto Airport waiting for my next flight, I am watching the myriads of people coming and going, getting away from it all and taking it with them. They are as bad as I am carrying everything they think they might need during their trip to wherever-buck-two.

As I watch these goings on, I am reminded of when I took flying lessons. Before I was allowed to climb into the cockpit of the Cessna, I had to go through a routine of inspecting the plane and establishing a flight plan. If I just got into the plane and took off for "no-man's land", there would be radar tracking me as an unidentified object and I would be in big trouble!

Looking out on the tarmac at the huge airliners, I am thinking, "These planes are sooo much larger than my little Cessna!" Imagine what would happen if one took off without a flight plan? For sure, someone would be in deep "doo-doo"!

This reminds me of my own business.

When I first was "Fired at Fifty", I had to write my own "flight plan" for my business. I needed to know my destination, and figure out how I was going to get there. I believe that was the second hardest thing to do in my life! Second to bearing children.

However, Like bearing children, when you have a plan and follow it, correcting along the way, both have a favourable outcome.

Key words, "correcting along the way".

During the childbearing process, there are regular checkups throughout.

When running your own business, there are "corrections" that need to be made along the way. When one system becomes obsolete, another must be brought in to replace it. For example, when the Commodore 64 became obsolete, a new and better computer replaced it.

I have a good friend who laughs about his degree in Commodore 64! But I digress.

Many of us have grown up without online marketing systems and computers. We have been working our businesses without them for years, and are struggling with declining sales.

 Here is why you are struggling: Your competition is online snatching up potential customers and existing customers from you, the one who is still "lost in the Ozarks".

Because I have witnessed many businesses struggling to keep up with the changing times, I took it upon myself to help as many as I can with their online marketing, specifically LinkedIn. I know what it is like to feel like your head is about to explode with all the new information you are trying to stuff into it.

So when you are noticing that your sales are declining and wonder how to correct along the way, give me a call. I can help you with your LinkedIn flight plan.

Christine Till

The Marketing Mentress

1-780-904-9557

www.marketingmentress.com

marketingmentress@gmail.com

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LinkedIn Tip #1 - Have You Been Hoodwinked by LinkedIn?

In October, I logged into my LinkedIn account and felt like I had landed on Mars!

Was this you?

There were several new things that appeared during the course of the week.

1. There is a whole new look.

2. The Inbox is totally changed.

3. The way you search for your key target audience in the groups has changed.

Here's the "schtick".

You can still do everything you have been accustomed to doing on LinkedIn. You just need to know how to implement these new changes.

Over the next few weeks, I will expand on these "newbies" to help you adapt.

I am pleased that LinkedIn is so astute and keeps upgrading their platform to accommodate change. Change is good in this case.

Tip for Today:

In your Inbox, when you respond to messages, there is a tiny box at the bottom of the "reply" area that is automatically checked to send a message every time you press enter. Be careful to uncheck this box if you do not want to send a message with every sentence you type in your replies. What will happen is the person you are responding to will receive a new message with every sentence. I don't think you would want to do that, would you.

Watch for my next tip tomorrow.

Make it a great day! 

Christine Till

The Marketing Mentress

1-780-904-9557

www.marketingmentress.com

marketingmentress@gmail.com

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Are You in Wait Mode?

Are you waiting for something to happen that will propel you into success?

What are you waiting for?

There is a slight misconception with the quote, "Success comes to those who wait."  Taken literally, one can think that if they just sit there, something will suddenly come into their life that will propel them into success.

Yes, we  need to have patience with our efforts! Key word, "efforts".

There are many books and presentations that I have read and watched demonstrating how visualizing what we want will somehow make it appear. However, in the book of Christine Till, just sitting in a recliner visualizing driving that Lamborgini of your dreams will not make it magically appear.

Humbly speaking, there is a key ingredient missing in many of these books and videos on visualization. Do you know what it is?

You guessed it...work!

There must be some consistent effort exerted for a consistent period of time along with that visualization. Yes, we do need to visualize our dream and keep that in the forefront of our brain-box while we are putting forth consistent effort working toward our "goal/vision". The two must go together.

Sadly, a job is not the answer. Owning your own business has a much better chance of success with you at the helm. But hold your horses there! Before you run off with that bright idea for your business, there is one more ingredient needed to be added to the mix.

Have you ever watched a school of fish in the ocean? They have but two goals. 1. Find food, and 2. Avoid being food. They drift with the crowd this way and that in search of these two goals. Compare this to business owners without a plan for their business.

All too often I have witnessed new business owners get their business started on a very small scale and immediately start attending networking meetings. They have no plan as to how they are going to make  sales or build their business.

Hence, one needs first to have a vision and second to have a plan. I remember another famous quote, "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail!"

Take that precious time necessary to plan to accomplish your dream. Then get to work and work like stink!

Christine Till
The Marketing Mentress
1-780-904-9557
www.marketingmentress.com
marketingmentress@gmail.com
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