LinkedIn For Business: 4 Greatest Mistakes

More and more companies and individuals today realize the fact, that LinkedIn is a great tool for business. But the general excitement is also accompanied by many mistakes, that can cause you more harm than good. Which are the most frequent ones?

1. Selling at the initial contact

This mistake is basically “the killer” of any other opportunities, which could be given to you and your business by LinkedIn. You have probably previously received this sort of message a few seconds after you have accepted the invitation to connect:

The aim of the sender is to introduce themselves, their business and mainly to get a new prospect… However, this practice has a completely opposite effect. From the receiver’s point of view, this offer comes from somebody, who he/she doesn’t know and which is annoying.

What is the result?

The better scenario being ignored by the recipient. The worse scenario, which is more likely to happen is making the new contact “angry” right at the beginning. This results in all other potential opportunities to close any business deals in the future are lost. 

No wonder if the certain person removes the spamming contact immediately after this happens. The worst step could be reporting this bothering activity to LinkedIn, where they can block the account.

Effective and successful LinkedIn business strategy is built on building relationships and gaining trust. It is a known fact, that there is only a small percentage of customers who is going to buy from you at the first contact. On the contrary, business built on the equation KNOW + LIKE + TRUST = BUY works perfectly and long-term. How to apply this equation on LinkedIn? You can learn here >>>

2. Just another database of cold contacts

Yes, you can find your potential customers (B2C) on LinkedIn, target companies and their decisionmakers (B2B). There are a number of ways, how to get in touch with these people. And then to send them e-mails or call.

But all of us are so glutted with offers, meeting requests and other “opportunities” that the success rate of cold e-mails and phone calls is decreasing. 

No, this is not the right path how to help your business and sales thanks to LinkedIn. You can get much more.

You just need: to network with potential customers (widen aimfully your network of contacts), build your brand and gain trust. LinkedIn is a great tool for this. 

Then your e-mails or calls to these “warmed up” contacts will have a much greater success rate. The secondary effect will be that your new customers will contact you from their own initiative… How to do it >>>

3. Unrealistic expectations from the company profile

It is good to have a LinkedIn company profile (project page, services, product…) and build the brand. But many companies, small or large, unfortunately, rely just on this. And then they often come disappointed – the company profile on its own won’t bring new business and sales.

The content on your company profile has almost no audience if there aren’t thousands of followers which the potential customers could be recruited from. It can even take a few years to get thousands of followers or it costs money invested into (not really cheap) advertising.

What is the solution?

Ambassadors: People, who are connected to this page. Employees, key people, business owners, managers… These, who are on LinkedIn, they have a good quality personal profile, a large network of contacts and they are building their personal brand. All these connected with the company brand (project, service, product…)

People connect with other people, people trust people. Your ambassadors transfer the trust to the company, product, service, by their personal profile, targetted network broadening and publishing and sharing quality content. 

4. Passivity

It’s cool to be on LinkedIn. The number of people joining LinkedIn is generally growing.

But to be on LinkedIn isn’t enough. Even having a top-notch profile isn’t enough. Where I invest nothing, nothing returns.

And it is necessary to invest in LinkedIn. To invest in connecting with people, your potential customers, to the widening of your network, to invest in building your personal brand, to building relationships with your contacts and gaining their trust, to sharing quality content, your know-how, to educating of your audience.

It is necessary to be active. Regularly and long-term.

This all will return in the form of new customers, orders, repeated sales, new opportunities – in the growth of your business. 

Jana Bártíková

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