It’s true. People don’t care about your LinkedIn profile. You are fooling yourself if you think people care one bit about where you worked 12 years ago or what you think your “skills” and “abilities” are. Despite what you may think, your LinkedIn profile isn’t all about you. Stop with the “LinkedIn” resume already. It doesn’t serve you.
They care about what you might be able to do for them, to help them get to the next level in their career or business. People need and want the connections you have, to expand their network of connections.
They care about the value you bring. What can you do for them? Who do you know that you might be able to connect them to, who will help them in their business?
“When your name is clicked on, show a reason why someone would want to link to you.” – Jeffrey Gitomer
What advice can you offer on your profile that genuinely can add value to someone’s business? Ask people how you can help them. Find out what their business goals are and how you might know someone who can help them or advise them. Then make the introductions through LinkedIn.
Here’s my 90 second video rant on this subject:
Use LinkedIn for what it is, a powerful connection tool where you have the opportunity to serve other people.
I would enjoy hearing your thoughts in the comments below!
Let’s connect on LinkedIn here.
I agree with the view that people are looking for “what you might be able to do for them” but I respectfully disagree that your LinkedIn profile is irrelevant. Your profile is your *opportunity* to voice “what you can do for them.” This may be mere anecdote but whenever I meet anyone – colleague, client, vendor – absolutely anyone, I look them up on LinkedIn to learn more about them.
Circling back – Joe, I think your theory of shifting your perspective into the mind of the viewer is right on – put yourself in the shoes of the person looking at you on LinkedIn – and the way that’s done is through your enhancing your profile by, as you say, showing what you bring to the table.
Hi Daniel,
First, thanks for the feedback and taking time to comment.
I agree about the profile being your opportunity to voice what you can do, how you can be valuable. This is why I often suggest using video on your profile to showcase that value visually on your profile. It will also differentiate yourself from most of your competition (if not all) who are not using video.
You can’t (respectfully) disagree with me though. :) Reason: I didn’t say that your LinkedIn profile is irrelevant. It’s vital that you use your profile as a tool to connect and add value to those to seek you out, or stumble upon your profile in a search. Just don’t make it “all” about you or your resume/bio is what I’m suggesting. Instead when someone lands on your profile give them something they can latch onto as valuable. This is where a video may come in, articles/white papers you can upload to box.net and showcase them on your profile, showcase your blog feed of recent posts, etc.
More importantly what I’m encouraging is taking the time to also actively learn about your connections, give referrals to help others – don’t connect just for the sake of connecting to have more connections.
JS