Interview with Fred Krautwurst, founder of Netpluswork and Red Peppers

In this post I interview Fred Krautwurst, founder of Netpluswork and Red Peppers. These are two organisations which bring business people together in breakfast and dinner sessions in the Netherlands. Fred is also a speaker about networking himself, author of 3 networking books (so far) and organiser of the Landelijke Netwerkdag.

He invited me as a speaker at this last event and there we had the opportunity to talk a little bit further. I was happy to have the chance to pull him away for 9 minutes and ask him for his top 3 tips about networking.

Hear all about them in this interview with Fred Krautwurst.

Have a great networking day !

Jan

Jan Vermeiren is the founder of Networking Coach and author of Let’s Connect! and How to REALLY use LinkedIn

LinkedIn Announces Subgroups

LinkedIn announced today a new feature: subgroups.

This means that within Groups also subgroups can be made by the Group owner and managers.

This is (again) a great step forward in the interactions between people. Especially for very large groups.

In their announcement email LinkedIn put it like this: “Subgroups are like a break-out session at a conference. They enable you to create more focused areas than in the main group.”

Since this is one of the features I also have been advocating, I’m a happy man today 🙂

Have a great networking day !

Jan

PS: see you at the free web seminars about how to REALLY use LinkedIn later today! Bert Verdonck, who was so nice to be willing to be the host of tonight, will have his work since almost 1000 people signed up for them. If you haven’t registered do it via the Open Course page on the website of Networking Coach. There is one in Dutch and one in English.

Next free web seminars (In Dutch and English) about “How to REALLY use LinkedIn”: June 24.

The next free web seminars (in Dutch and English) about “How to REALLY use LinkedIn” will be held on June 24.

These are the topics:

• What are the benefits of (online) networking?
• What are the 3 most important fundamental principles of (online) networking?
• What is LinkedIn (and what not)?
• How can LinkedIn help you and what to expect from LinkedIn?
• A basic LinkedIn strategy
 ◦ How to craft a good Profile
 ◦ How to build a network … fast
 ◦ How to effectively and efficiently expand your network
• Questions & Answers

Bert Verdonck will be again the host who will interview me and facilitate the session.

Participation is free, but you have to register for the webinar or web seminar to receive the instructions to attend. In Dutch: schrijf je in voor het volgende web seminar over “Hoe LinkedIn nu ECHT gebruiken“.

Feel free to inform your colleagues, business partners and other people from your network about these web seminars!

See you there!

Jan

PS: in case you are wondering what a web seminar is: it is a session that you can follow from behind your computer. So you only need a computer, an Internet connection (and preferably also a headset) and you can attend.

15 Benefits of LinkedIn for Sales People and Business Owners

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)

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

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 profile)

7. Maintaining relationship 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)

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 which offers the same products or services than yours. This might be a trigger to contact your customers again (network updates)

To your success !

Jan

PS: this is an excerpt from the book How to REALLY use LinkedIn (of in het Nederlands: Hoe LinkedIn nu ECHT gebruiken). Make sure you download your FREE light version.

Interview with Angelique Van’t Riet, Universal Flirting Coach

This post is an interview (in Dutch, sorry for the non-Dutch readers) with Angelique Van’t Riet, founder of the Universal Flirting Academy. Contrary to my and other people’s beliefs it is not about seducing or sex, but about making genuine contact with other people.

Listen to the interview with Angelique Van’t Riet, Universal Flirting Coach (6 minutes).

This is her website: www.universalflirtingacademy.com

Have a great networking day!

Jan

Jan Vermeiren is the founder of Networking Coach and author of Let’s Connect! and How to REALLY use LinkedIn

Hoe LinkedIn Gebruiken om een Baan of Job te Vinden

This blog post is in Dutch.

Als je op zoek bent naar een nieuwe baan of iemand kent die op zoek is naar een nieuwe job of nieuw werk, bekijk dan deze presentatie “Hoe LinkedIn nu ECHT gebruiken om een nieuwe baan te vinden in 10 slides”.

Deel dit gerust met anderen !

Jan

Jan Vermeiren is de oprichter van Networking Coach en spreker over netwerken en referrals

How Organizers Can Help The Participants To Feel More Comfortable At Their Events

The last few weeks I have been giving tips about how to avoid the uncomfortable feeling that many people have when they attend a networking event.

This week another tip, but this time for the organizers.

How can they help the participants to their event to feel more comfortable?

A golden tip: have a welcoming committee.

This is a group of people whose only task is to greet people and ask them who they want to talk to. (So they can NOT do the registration, take care of the speaker, take care of the catering,…)

I also encourage organisations to give everybody the list of participants.

This won’t only help the participants themselves, but also the welcoming committee.

The welcoming committee can ask the participants the question: “Who of these people do you want to meet?” And then introduce them to each other.

This is very simple to do and it will tremendously help the participants. The consequence: they will rate the event much higher and will be much more inclined to come back the next time and maybe even bring some more guests.

Have a great networking day !

Jan

Jan Vermeiren is the founder of Networking Coach and author of the networking books Let’s Connect! and How to REALLY use LinkedIn (both in English and Dutch)

LinkedIn Myth: Not Everybody Has a Profile so It Doesn’t Work For Me

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. From 19 million to 32 million users worldwide in one year (2008) is a fast growing pace. 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 paths 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”?

I repeat what I wrote before. Despite the fact that not every person is on LinkedIn, it is a 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

PS: this is an excerpt from the book How to REALLY use LinkedIn (of in het Nederlands: Hoe LinkedIn nu ECHT gebruiken). Make sure you download your FREE light version.