How NOT to use LinkedIn

This article is a lesson for sales newbies and people who are new to LinkedIn.

Anyone who has been using LinkedIn for a while will be familiar with the problem outlined in this story and tired of being on the other end of SPAMMY connection requests.

Email is the perfect vehicle for SPAMMERS, see last week's article "The 10 worst email opening lines".

Before I accept an invitation to connect on LinkedIn I check the credentials of the person sending the request.

95% of the time, I get it right and people are genuine in wanting to connect to extend their network, because we have an affinity or reason to connect. Sometimes I take leap of faith when the person requesting to connect has connections in common, which in this case she did.

When I started using Linked 9 years ago I made a couple of stupid mistakes.

I asked former colleagues to connect and after they did, advised them of my new consulting business and then offered my services should they require them.

I learned quickly that your connections don't like to pitched or receive unsolicited offers.

Particularly offensive is an unsolicited offer from a stranger, whose connection request you accept, which is immediately followed by a sales pitch.

No howdy-doody, old school tie, golf or small talk, it's there in my profile if you bother to look. Nor even waiting a day or two to send me something that I might find useful or interesting.

I think a lot of new salespeople think what I just described (connecting and sending unsolicited offers) is social selling. It isn't.

It's unwanted SPAM, it's offensive and a breach of trust. It's email SPAM using a different channel.

I include a snapshot from Lovely Chor Sanchez' InMail, who does indeed look lovely in her photograph. I got her request at 11.13 and by 1.40 I had her reply. BAM.

She's straight into the pitch. Hit hard and hittem early.... get those numbers up.

On closer inspection of Lovely's profile I can see that she is two years out of college and already a LinkedIn Marketing Expert... wow. It took me 10,000 hours to become competent in creating effective sales and marketing messaging and content to drive conversations.

Lovely has just joined her new company and is no doubt trying to prove that she is indeed a LinkedIn marketing expert.

Some lessons are hard learned.  We are fortunate in sales that we can make them frequently and still make a living. No hard feelings Lovely, but I disconnected from you.

We can make a lot of money in sales if we take the lessons from our mistakes on-board and work on new ways to achieve our goals..

If you really want advice from a LinkedIn expert to improve your profile and effectiveness in using LinkedIn to connect with others, try connecting with some of my first connections: Kurt Shaver,  Brynne Tillman.

The Linkedin SPAM inMall

The following solicitation (SPAM) arrived in my inbox last week. This is equally annoying and I let Jadine know it.

Subsequently her profile has disappeared from Linkedin, suggesting that she was appropriately booted off.