When I was nine years old, I moved from the big city (Montreal) to a smaller city on the East Coast of Canada (Halifax). Fortunately, I already had one friend from spending my summers in the Maritimes so I wasn’t totally alone on that first day in my new school. My summer friend, Mary, introduced me and helped me get the lay of the land.
I’ll never forget my first art class. As we were dipping bits of newspaper in glue, my partner, Kim, asked me if I wanted to be best friends.
Even at the age of nine I thought: woah. I don’t think I’m ready to make that level of commitment to you just yet. Let’s see how the papier mache turns out first!
I think that’s the general sentiment when people go in too hard, too soon. Even if you’re a sweet, smiley, budding artist.
Have you been on the receiving end of that strategy on LinkedIn? You make a connection and instantly you’re invited to hop on a call or buy an ebook or follow a page?
Now, I’m going to be like my old pal Mary and show you around the playground on LinkedIn so you aren’t going it alone. One step I find effective in getting the ball rolling is to simply add a short message when you invite people to connect.
Don’t overthink it! (Unless you’re salesy. Then wayyyyy overthink it.) Actually, here you go- copy and paste this and make it your own:
Hi NAME,
LinkedIn recommended I follow you and since I like to connect with (target market desired quality for ex. impressive, ambitious, etc. ) in (industry, network, city, group, etc.)__, I think I’ll take the advice! Hope to connect!
Thanks,
Your name
Of course, you’ll want to test different copy and keep track of the results but start with this and send it to twenty people in your target market. Check out how many friendly responses you get and how many accepted requests you get. Bet you’ll be pleasantly surprised. And guess what? Just like that, you started building a relationship with a targeted lead.
Hit ‘reply’ and let me know how it goes!
Better yet, send it to me on LinkedIn! You can find me on LinkedIn here.
Cheers,
Carly
PS- If you need help getting the ball rolling on LinkedIn, here’s how I can help:
Book a free consult: here’s a link to my calendar.
Check out my tools and resources page here.
Get a complete LinkedIn Guidebook- a personalized strategy, email list building lead magnet, messaging templates, content and profile optimization to turn your profile into a marketing machine: here are the details on the Guidebooks.