LinkedIn Makes It Easier To Share with the Sharing Bookmarklet

The Sharing Bookmarklet is a tool LinkedIn has developed to help you share interesting content on LinkedIn.

It was already available as part of the Browser Toolbar, but now it is also available “stand-alone”.

After you have installed it in your browser you have these options:

• Post to updates: you share the web page you are on, with a personal note, as a Status Update on LinkedIn.
• Post to Groups: post this web page (together with a note) to one or more LinkedIn Groups you are member of.
• Send to Individuals: send this web page via a (personalized) LinkedIn message to your first-degree contacts. You can also add email addresses from other people.

You can find this Sharing Bookmarklet under Tools (which is at the bottom of each page on LinkedIn).

To your success !

Jan

PS: get your free light version and free updates of the book How to REALLY use LinkedIn (or in Dutch: het boek Hoe LinkedIn nu ECHT gebruiken)

New Features for the LinkedIn Company Profiles

LinkedIn has lately been adding extra features to the Company Profiles.

In the past one could only write a small description about the Company. The rest of the Company Profile was filled in with the information from the LinkedIn Profiles of people who are/were for that company.

Though the most information still comes from the individual LinkedIn Profiles, LinkedIn added “Careers” and “Products”. You can also promote your company using LinkedIn Direct Ads.

With “Careers” you can add “Job Postings” to your Company Profile and even show different job offerings based on the Profile of the person who is looking at this “Careers” Page.

With “Products” you can showcase your products and services.

One of the reasons why I like these extra “Products” features is that people can write recommendations about products or services from a company, which is different than recommendations for an individual. A product or service is a joint effort from everybody working for the same organization. Next to that, you also don’t have to be connected in the first degree to write a recommendation about a product or service.

For our company, Networking Coach, this helps since we give a lot of presentations for large groups of people with whom we don’t have a personal connection (yet). Through the company profile page they are still able to share their experience. These recommendations also benefit us as a company since their network is notified via Network Updates.

LinkedIn offers a pretty elaborate form to list your product or service. These are the steps to take (but you don’t have to do them all):

• Choose whether it is a product or a service.
• Assign it to a category.
• Name the product/service.
• Upload an image.
• Describe the product/service.
• Make a list of key features (keywords) and if applicable write a disclaimer.
• URL
• Contact persons: use the LinkedIn Profile of the co-workers to act as the contact person (note: you need to be connected with them on LinkedIn).
• Add a promotion (Title, URL and Description)
• Link with a YouTube video.

What I recommend to do, is to showcase your products/services, but use the promotion and video to share free tips so people’s Know, Like and Trust factor increases which will help the sale.

Last but not least, you can also add the following to the Company Profile:
• (Company) Blog
• (Company) Twitter ID
• News: you can choose whether or not news about your Company is published on the Company Profile.

To your success !

Jan

PS: get your free light version and free updates of the book How to REALLY use LinkedIn (or in Dutch: het boek Hoe LinkedIn nu ECHT gebruiken)

Networking Skill: Listening – Intention Part 2

Last week I shared already the first batch of tips about changing (or being aware of) your intention when you listen to people.

Why?

Listening is the most important networking skill. By only perfecting this skill you will be way more successful than you have been till now (unless you are a master already of course :-), but watch out: we all think we are better listeners than we actually are, so be honest with yourself and look for ways to improve your listening skills)

These are some more tips about your intention when listening to others:

• Understand that there are different ways and styles of communication. You have your own style and have a preference. Don’t judge people right away, give them a chance. And evaluate later. Looking for commonalities helps to get over the differences in communication styles.
• Be sincerely interested in people and in what they say. People feel when you’re not interested, at least at a subconscious level. Don’t fake it.
• Let go of the idea that you need to be right. Once you and the person you are listening to both understand this, listening becomes less difficult. This frees everyone to listen rather than keep trying to convince the other of their “rightness”. This tip establishes a common understanding that listening does not require people to definitively alter their opinions, beliefs, and values.
• Watch your own emotions. If what the other person is saying triggers an emotional response in you, be extra eager to listen carefully, with attention to the intent and full meaning of his words. When we are angry, frightened or upset, we often miss critical parts of what is being said to us.
• Beware of disagreeing, criticizing or arguing. Even if you disagree, let other people have their point of view. If you respond in a way that makes the other person defensive, even if you “win” the argument, you may lose something far more valuable: the relationship!
• Be sensitive to your emotional deaf spots. Deaf spots are words that make your mind wander. They set off a chain reaction that produces a mental barrier in your mind, which in turn inhibits the continued flow of the speaker’s message. Everyone is affected by certain words so it is important to discover your own individual roadblocks and analyse why these words have such a profound effect on you.
• Mind reacting to the message, not to the person. Don’t let your liking or disliking of the physical appearance of the other person cloud the content of his story.
• Keep an open mind. The other person might be saying something that you strongly disagree with, but if you allow him to finish his story without you interrupting him, you might find that his point of view is not that different from yours or you may even have learned something new.

To your success !

Jan

PS: this is an excerpt from my book “Let’s Connect!”. You can download a free light version of the networking book Let’s Connect in English (or het netwerk boek Let’s Connect in Dutch)

Networking Skill: Listening – Intention Part 1

A few weeks ago I wrote that listening is the most important networking skill.

In this week’s post I would like to address the most important part of listening: the intention that’s behind your listening.

Effective listening begins with a genuine desire to listen to other people. This also means forgetting about yourself for a minute. Often, without intending to be rude, your enthusiasm for a subject and your own desire to hear yourself talk cause you to forget courtesy. Or you may be so involved with your own point of view that you forget to listen to what is being said. You just stop listening!

Here is the first batch of tips that might help you:

• Be eager to learn: always try to learn something from the conversation.
• Be patient. Give the other person enough time to tell his story to you. If you don’t have this amount of time, communicate this and make another appointment.
• Listen with the intention to gather information, make a connection and create rapport (building mutual trust and affinity).
• Look for things you have in common to get on the same wavelength.
• Be helpful. Listen for information that signals that there is something you can help the other person with. To build a relationship it is especially recommended to listen for ways you can help someone else without a direct benefit for yourself. Of course, if you feel you have the perfect solution, you can talk about this.
• Be empathic. Try to look at the situation from the other person’s point of view. This is not easy, because all things that happened in our lives, contributed to the way we look at the world. It is very normal to perceive the world from your own standpoint. But if you are capable of abandoning your own point of view for a moment and try to understand the other person, you’ll get respect and people will remember you.
• Change your hierarchy of looking at situations:
1. from the point of view from the person you are listening to
2. from the point of view of your network (how can you match the person you are listening to with your network so they can both benefit)
3. from your own point of view
In many cases we only listen from our own point of view. You’ll stand out of the crowd by not doing this and you’ll also have better relationships.

To your success !

Jan

PS: this is an excerpt from my book “Let’s Connect!”. You can download a free light version of the networking book Let’s Connect in English (or het netwerk boek Let’s Connect in Dutch)