How to make LinkedIn deliver what YOU want

By Neil Patrick

Linkedin holds the key to a world of opportunity for all of us, if we can just learn to accept one simple truth...

I discuss LinkedIn a lot with my offline network.

I also chastise many of my professional friends for their failures to take it seriously. The main reason I do this is that they only think about it when it is too late. Like when they lose their job, or are struggling to progress some aspect of their career or business.

LinkedIn cannot and will not deliver benefits for you if you only turn to it when you desperately need help…unless you have invested already for months and years beforehand.

But if you have already made that investment, then you’ll have a network of relevant connections that can you can turn to. People who know something or someone that you need.

And if you have paid it forward, investing in helping others in your network, with absolutely no demand for anything in return, you’ll have their goodwill too.

But it’s not a mechanical process. It has an element of randomness about it for sure.

A few months ago I happened to see a particularly erudite and insightful comment posted on LinkedIn. I wasn't in any way connected to the poster. So I simply clicked ‘like’ and wrote one sentence of praise.

Total time invested? About 60 seconds.

The poster happened to be a very senior investment banker. He invited me to connect which I did. Several emails and phone calls flowed from this over the following weeks. We had an easy rapport. We got to know each other properly. We discovered how we could collaborate and be of value to each other.

We now have a very productive business relationship, where we provide real value to each other.

In the real world, our paths would never have crossed.

Today, I know I can pick up the phone to him at any time and discuss anything where I think he can be of help.

That’s just one example. I have dozens more similar stories I could tell you. Every relationship is different, but they all started in the same way…a more or less random encounter on social media.

And this is why I think people struggle with seeing the value of social media for their careers. If you’re in manufacturing, you think in term of raw materials, processes and the value of goods you can sell. If you are more financially focussed, you want to see the return on every investment you make. If I spend this…what do I get back?

But this misses the point entirely. I accept that 90% of the connections I make on LinkedIn will never create any value directly beyond some friendly exchanges and perhaps a tip off here and there. But by the same token, 10% of them will be priceless. I just don’t know which ones. And I never will.

Pharmaceutical firms view their businesses in a similar way. They invest billions every year in research and development of new drugs. And they know that 90% or more of them will never get to market, let alone earn them any revenues.

But they also know that they only have to have one which does make it through to generate millions or even billions of revenues in the future. And so they continue to invest steadily in potential new treatments, in the full knowledge that most will fail.

It’s exactly the same with LinkedIn. You only need one job, one person, one exchange to transform everything and change your prospects. One change to your profile can transform how others see you. One comment can lead to a world of opportunity.

And the only way that will happen is if you invest steadily every day in a way which makes sense for the outcomes you are seeking.

If you are mindful and focussed, you will achieve the outcomes you seek.

Just don’t expect LinkedIn to deliver unless you have committed to it with a purpose from the start. And paid your dues.

How to Network Using LinkedIn Groups

By Stephanie Sammons
 

Are you a member of a LinkedIn Group? Do you spend time networking in LinkedIn Groups? LinkedIn Groups are great way to build credibility and make new connections that can ultimately help grow your business.

With over 1.5 million LinkedIn Groups, it can be difficult to find relevant Groups and determine which ones might be the best for you to join. It’s also important to find Groups that are well-managed.

Unfortunately there are many LinkedIn Groups that are not well-managed, which makes the experience within these Groups less than optimal.

You are sure to find a LinkedIn Group of interest to you.

Not to worry, I’m going to give you some insights on how to find the quality groups you can leverage most for your LinkedIn strategy!

How many groups should you join?

You can join up to 50 LinkedIn Groups. However, it’s difficult to gain traction in 50 Groups as well as find the time to participate in that many.

I recommend that you go ahead and join up to 50 Groups, but select 5-10 Groups to spend your time on in order to get the most benefit out of your participation.

Below are 5 tips for maximizing your LinkedIn Groups experience.

#1: Use LinkedIn Search to Find Relevant Groups to Join

In case you haven’t noticed, LinkedIn search has been significantly enhanced. This includes the ability to search for relevant Groups (based on your network) and search for discussion topics within open Groups!

Now you can search for discussion topics within “open” LinkedIn Groups

To start, search for Groups using keywords that would be a natural fit for you, based on your geographic location, industry, prospects, education history, community/charity organizations, hobbies and interests.

Try searching LinkedIn Groups with the keywords that actually describe your natural affinities. For example, type in the name of the college you attended to find potential alumni groups that exist on LinkedIn.

You can also take advantage of Boolean search operators for smarter searches on LinkedIn. I recently discovered this Tip Sheet on Boolean Search from LinkedIn Corporate Solutions.

To locate a LinkedIn Group that was in my geographic location and my industry, I searched LinkedIn Groups using the Boolean Search Operator “AND” for the keywords social media AND Dallas.

LinkedIn showed me 25 results for Groups based in Dallas AND focused on social media!

Get more specific with your Group searches using Boolean search operators

Another interesting finding was when I typed the word “hiking” into LinkedIn Group search. I found a group with over 1000 members who share this passion. There is no better way to start relationships than connecting around a common passion or interest!

Search for LinkedIn Groups using your passions, hobbies and interests as keywords

For each LinkedIn Group displayed in search results, you have the option to view members in your network who belong to the Group, as well as “similar Groups.”

See which of your connections are members of Groups and find similar Groups

You can even reach out to your LinkedIn connections and ask them what they think about the Groups that they belong to. This gives you a solid reason to reach out and connect with your network.

LinkedIn Group search is extremely powerful to discover the right Groups to join!

#2: Review the “Groups You May Like” Suggestions From LinkedIn

The easiest way to navigate to the Groups You May Like feature is through your navigation menu bar under Groups. There you will see these options. (The Groups Directory option is the primary search area for LinkedIn Groups.)

The Groups You May Like feature

When you click on the Groups You May Like feature, LinkedIn will list suggested Groups for you to check out, based on your network connections, profile information, skills and expertise and existing Group memberships. You may also notice some Groups (or subgroups) on this list that you already belong to.

#3: Evaluate the Quality of a LinkedIn Group

How do you know if the LinkedIn Groups you are interested in joining are going to be well-run and high-quality?

In some cases, you may just have to join the Group and spend some time there to make that determination. However, here are a few ways to evaluate the Group for quality:

• Who are the Group managers, and are they engaged and visible?
• What are the Group rules? (Hint: if the Group rules don’t exist or they are not well-written, chances are the Group is not well-managed.)
• Do a good majority of the discussions involve questions and dialogue?
• Are there lots of promotional links or an abundance of “self-promotional” updates?
• Are the top influencers in the Group credible?
• Is the Group manager among the top influencers?

In a well-managed Group, you are going to most likely see a manager who is visible throughout the discussions, and a strong set of rules.

The Intuit Small Business Group manager is highly visible

The quantity of membership and the activity level of a Group aren’t always correlated to whether the group is high-quality. I’ve seen some very large Groups that are very well-managed and some very small Groups that aren’t managed at all!

Be sure to evaluate the stats of the LinkedIn Group you are interested in as well. There you can learn more about member demographics, activity, how long the Group has been around and more.

Evaluate LinkedIn Group stats

#4: Consider Joining Corporate-Sponsored Groups

There are a number of corporate-sponsored Groups popping up on LinkedIn. This is where LinkedIn has officially partnered with brands or corporations to help them build robust Groups. Within each of these Groups, the organization can drive member visits and discussion participation while also controlling the ad display space within the Group site.

Examples of these corporate LinkedIn Groups include Intuit (Small Business Group), Citi (Professional Women’s Network), Staples (Small Business Network) and Capital One (Business Traveler Network).

Intuit has a corporate-sponsored LinkedIn Group that caters to small business owners

What I love about corporate-sponsored Groups on LinkedIn is that they are very well-managed. The discussions tend to be in-depth with rich dialogue among members. These brands/corporations have a vested interest in making their Groups successful, and in every case there are dedicated Group managers in place who facilitate the dialogue and keep the Group spam-free.

I have found as a member of several of the Groups listed above that the discussion questions submitted weekly (and delivered via email) by these Group managers are intriguing and enticing. They make you want to jump right in and give your own insights and opinions!

If you run your own LinkedIn Group or you’re thinking about starting one, you could learn some terrific strategies as a member of these corporate-sponsored Groups.

#5: Adhere to LinkedIn Group Participation Best Practices

In order to make LinkedIn Groups serve as authentic forums for discussions and dialogue, we can all do our part to maintain the integrity of the Groups we belong to. This will make the LinkedIn Group experience better for everyone.

Additionally, LinkedIn is doing its part by helping Group managers fight promotional posts. If you are thinking about posting a discussion that contains the words me, my or I, don’t count on it showing up. Most likely it will end up under the Promotions tab, where it’s highly unlikely that anyone will see it.

In order to successfully build influence in LinkedIn Groups, your best bet is to authentically engage in discussions and contribute value-added insights.

Below are some best practices to remember as you find the right Groups to join and start engaging with members:

• Don’t just drop into Groups and promote your products or services.
• Don’t auto-post your blog articles into LinkedIn Groups. Instead, provide links to reputable sources of information within the context of discussions that can help members. This can include your blog articles if they truly serve that purpose.
• Ask questions and provide thoughtful answers.
• Contribute to ongoing discussions and new discussions consistently.
• Share meaningful, helpful, interesting and reputable content.
• Send invites to connect with mutual Group members only after you’ve spent some time participating in the Group. The best time to send the invitation is when you’ve interacted with members in a discussion.

Closing thoughts…

I hope that these tips will help you make the most of your LinkedIn Groups experience. LinkedIn Groups provide an amazing opportunity to position yourself as a thought leader and an influencer. If you lead by example with your participation, others will follow.

Stephanie Sammons is the founder and CEO of Wired Advisor, a digital strategy coaching and marketing company for financial advisors, business professionals, and professional services firms.

How to get your profile to page 1 of a Linkedin search by tomorrow!

By Neil Patrick

If you are a regular follower of this blog, you’ll know that I consider Linkedin to be the most powerful tool at our disposal for enhancing your career prospects.

And I’m sure that you already have a live Linkedin profile. But I find time and time again that people who ask me for advice have sub optimal profiles.To fix this completely takes a good deal of time and effort over an extended period. And many people can just never find the time or persistence to do this.

But if we go back to our objectives for being on Linkedin, if we are job hunting, possibly the most desirable goal is for our profile to appear at the top of a Linkedin search whenever a recruiter or headhunter is looking to find a person with our type of experience and expertise.

Now of course, doing this alone won’t get us very far – it would be like ranking top on Google and having nothing behind your search result to provide the content that people are searching for. No use at all. But I’m assuming you already have a fairly complete Linkedin profile, you just want to get it seen by more people who are looking for professionals like you. And you will I am sure appreciate the benefits of a high search ranking on Linkedin without me having to spell out all the  benefits of this.

But how can we do this? After all, there are hundreds or probably thousands of other similar professionals on Linkedin who have all sorts of advantages over us in terms of experience, premium Linkedin accounts, larger numbers of connections, better SEO on their profile etc etc. As a result of this type of thinking, many resign themselves to accepting defeat without knowing how close they are to turning this situation around.

Like many things on Linkedin, if we know how to position ourselves on Linkedin correctly so that we are in tune with how Linkedin’s search algorithms function, it's perfectly possible to get to Page one of a Linkedin search.

If you’d like to see just how easily this can be done, this video explains a simple step by step approach which will deliver this outcome. It won’t take weeks of work, it doesn’t require expert SEO skills and you don’t even have to have a 100% complete profile. In fact you could have it all done by this time tomorrow…

Five Tricks that Turned this Introvert into a Master at Networking Events

By Dumont Owen

 

I have struggled with being an introvert all of my life. Yet most people who meet me in a networking situation would assume that I’m an extrovert. Why? Because I have developed this little bag of tricks that I use to make it easier for me to attend networking events with confidence.

The fact is that introverts not only can network effectively; it’s a job search technique at which we can excel! So before you give up on this valuable resource, try a few of these tricks and see if they make networking events a little less intimidating and a little more effective for you.

Remember why you’re attending the event. The purpose of a networking event is to meet contacts that can become champions for your cause and/or gain you access to key individuals you need to meet to further your career campaign. Don’t “waste” time trying to meet everyone…one or two in-depth conversations with the right people can yield better results than ten “surface” conversations.

Check attendees. This is one of my favorites. Many of the events I attend list the people who have RSVP’d. I look over the list and research the attendees. I pick three to five individuals (knowing there will be some no-shows) and send them an e-mail telling them I’m looking forward to meeting them and why. This is similar to turning a “cold call” into a “warm call.” The person is expecting (even hoping) to meet you. You’ve already “touched base” with them once.

Look at the nametags. Often they will list the company or occupation of the individuals registered. If there are no nametags, you can often find a time when the registration table isn’t busy and ask the organizer or registration volunteers for recommendations on who you should meet. I’ve often found that they’ll even volunteer to introduce me.

Help others! If you can facilitate an introduction for someone you meet, offer to do so. The person you are helping may not be in a position to help you directly but they may know others who can. Paying forward by helping others in their job search will return your investment many times over.

Follow up the next day to arrange a personal meeting where you can talk on a one-to-one-basis. I love meeting people over coffee where I’m much more comfortable than in a large group setting. It’s a chance to really deepen the relationship and convert that contact into the raving fan that’s going promote my cause.

Networking is the most effective of way of creating new opportunities for employment. If you’re an introvert who’s avoiding networking events, don’t give up on this valuable resource! Try a few of these techniques from my little bag of tricks and see if they make networking easier and more productive for you in your job search.

www.linkedin.com/in/dumontowen/

Baby boomers start 'encore' careers

By Rodney Brooks


“Of 76 million people above 50 and nearing retirement, about half have interest in entrepreneurship,” said Jean Setzfand, vice president of financial security at AARP. “And many want to give back to their communities.”

Sitting at home through a 20- or 30-year retirement is no longer an option for an increasing number of baby boomers.

Some are looking to do something else because they have to for financial reasons. But, increasingly, boomers are embarking on entirely different “encore” careers after retirement.

“The reality is people are living longer, healthier lives, and when they get to the point when the need to make a change - they retire, are laid off or sell their business - they are 60 years old, and they say ‘I still have another 10, 15, or 20 or more years and I want to do something,’ ” said Nancy Collamer, author of “Second Act Careers: 50+ Ways to Profit From Your Passions During Semi-Retirement.”

“It’s out of financial necessity is some cases, but it’s lifestyle in other cases,” she said.

Take Linda Lombri, 65, and Virginia Cornue, 68, both of Montclair, N.J. In their post-retirement lives they have reinvented themselves as mystery writers, even though neither had written fiction before. They began an e-book series, the “Sandra Troux Mysteries,” which is sold on 10 websites, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Apple’s iTunes. The first in the series, “The Mystery of the Ming Connection,” was published last year under their pseudonym, Crystal Sharpe. Their second in the series will be out this spring; the third in the fall.

Both fans of the Nancy Drew series when they were young girls, they have re-imagined her into a trio of female baby boomer characters. “Not only are we reinventing ourselves, we have our characters reinventing themselves as well,” Cornue said.

Pushed out at 62

Lombri had careers as a home economist and a marketing executive. She was forced into retirement at 62 when her job was eliminated - when she had a daughter who was a high school sophomore. “I was ready for (retirement) emotionally, but not financially,” she said.

Cornue said she has already reinvented herself several times. She started out as an actor in New York City, became a director of nonprofit organizations and ended up a cultural anthropologist. She still teaches part time at a local college.

Then there’s David Roll, 72, who ended his career as a Washington, D.C., lawyer 10 years ago and embarked on a new one as an author, historian and founder of Lex Mundi, a nonprofit agency that finds pro bono lawyers for social entrepreneurs around the world.

But it’s the nonprofit legal agency, which has taken him around the world, that occupies most of his time: “I love it,” he said. “It has its frustrations, because you’ve got to raise money to keep it going. But to have created something that is having an impact. ... Not every social entrepreneur is changing the world, but they are some doing amazing things.”

Cookies!

Yuval Zaliouk, 74, is co-owner of YZ Enterprises in Toledo, Ohio. He retired from a career as conductor of the Toledo Symphony in 1989 and decided he didn’t want to move his family to take another conducting assignment.

The answer was his dream: to make and sell cookies based on his grandmother’s recipe, starting out in his kitchen. 

“I even won entrepreneur of the year award in 2003,” he said. “I never imagined that I could be a businessman.”

The Almondina cookies now sell 12,000 cases a day, ship to all 50 states and can be found in supermarket chains such as Trader Joe’s and Publix. Oh, by the way, the co-owner of the business is his wife, Susan, a former ballerina with the Royal Ballet Company in London, where they met.

“Only in America,” said Zaliouk, a native of Israel. “There is a lot of mobility in this country. It’s not like Europe, where if you are not fired, you stick with a job for life. Here you are free to start things. It’s a different atmosphere.”

Marc Freedman is founder and chief executive officer of Encore.org, a San Francisco-based organization that helps Boomers start that second career. Its focus is getting them involved in nonprofit agencies.

Freedman spent 15 years working with children in low-income neighborhoods. He has long had an interest in mentoring, so he made his second career into a job that helps baby boomers step into their second careers.

“The larger aspiration behind the organization is to tap the human capital and population moving into their 50s and 60s,” Freedman said.

Zaliouk has advice for budding boomer entrepreneurs: “In one word, courage.”

“It really is a question of courage, making up your mind to do something - courage, tenacity or stubbornness,” he said.



http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20130327/BIZ/303270026/Baby-boomers-start-encore-careers



HELP FOR ENTREPRENEURS

The U.S. Small Business Administration and AARP are involved in helping retirees into encore careers, as entrepreneurs. They are jointly promoting April as Encore Entrepreneurial Mentor Month, featuring one-on-one instruction, classes, mentoring programs and help writing business plans.

Robert Kiyosaki – How you can survive the coming financial catastrophe

I’ve provided a lot of posts lately here and to my Twitter followers which describe how the financial crisis is escalating. I’m very concerned about this because we baby boomers are particularly vulnerable. This is because of high borrowings, falling incomes, rising costs of living and increasing job insecurity.

But most of all we are vulnerable because we don’t know how to respond to these economic conditions. And that’s because the education system in the western economies hasn’t provided us with the right knowledge about how we can do this.

I wanted to get Robert Kiyosaki’s view on the current global crisis and what he thinks we can do about it. Here he describes at length (so grab a coffee before you hit play!) how he sees the next few years unfolding.


His prognosis is very similar to my own – we are likely to see a collapse in Europe, due to the unsustainable burdens of failed Eurozone economies on Germany and the ECB, whilst the US is setting itself up for further devaluations of the dollar by continued printing of more money.

But most importantly he describes how we can survive and prosper over the next 5-10 years if we start to think totally differently about how we see our place in the world and how we direct our careers in what is already a massively changed society.

Why you have what it takes to be a great entrepreneur

By Neil Patrick

The last few days I have been guilty of doing what I criticise others in the media for doing i.e. focussing too much on all the bad news (well there has been a lot of it to cover!)

So by way of restoring the balance, here’s a great video featuring Phil Poje of Tech Orchard. He’s a very calm character, but don’t let the measured delivery fool you. He’s got real passion under that cool façade.

Here he talks about why our generation has what it takes to succeed in business and how you can go about organising yourself to create a business you absolutely love... and which rewards you not just financially, but emotionally too.

His thoughts mirror my own almost exactly. If you feel that your mid-life years are a time to re-assess your future, then you will take inspiration from his comments about why you already have so much potential to succeed.

In my view, if we can’t expect the economy, our investments or our employers to look after us, it is time to take matters into our own hands. Creating our own independent income streams for ourselves is the best possible way to do this.

How you can make something amazing happen

By Neil Patrick

I came across this today. It's Marissa Mayer from Google/Yahoo. In case you don’t know her, she was employee number 20 at Google and their first female engineer. She has had a distinguished career since and now sits on several boards including Walmart and Yahoo, where she is President and CEO.

Anyway, I like the method she describes here of how to choose from several business/career options:

The approach is elegant in its simplicity. And I think somewhat counter-intuitive. But more importantly, I think this approach is especially relevant to the over 40’s. Our life experience often encourages us to rely too much upon our own abilities in isolation.

The baby boomers grew up in a world with no computers, no internet and little globalization. And our education broadly matched the requirements of that world. Part of it was that we were taught that our own efforts matter more than anything else. It’s these which will dictate your results. It’s you against the world. Success is about beating your competitors.

But this is a different and more contemporary view. It recognizes that engaging with the best and most able people in a given field is the most important thing. It emphasizes collaboration rather than competition. Why go through all the trial and error and risks of figuring something out for yourself, when you can tap into the experience and learnings of someone who's done it successfully before?

One reason the internet and social media in particular are so powerful is because they foster and faciliate collaboration.

It's a whole new worldview for anyone born before about 1980.

It’s one of the reasons I set up this blog - to help mature workers to see the world of opportunities that is available to them if they have the courage and vision to venture outside their comfort zones.

The one thing that we like to cling to is the comfort of doing the things we know about. We feel safe and secure in our knowledge and experience of these things. But how can we grow if we do not extend ourselves continuously?

And the best way I know to do that isn't to challenge others, it's to challenge ourselves.