I was reviewing my LinkedIn profile and I noticed someone had viewed my account that fit my criteria for people I want to connect with. So I sent her a connection request, which she accepted, and told me that she was participating in a webinar on how to connect with people on LinkedIn. Her goal was to reach out to a mutual connection to ask for an introduction, but she did not have to do that now because I connected with her.
I am waiting to see what she will do next. Sadly, this happens a lot. People connect with each other on social media and then do not do anything with the person to build a relationship. You cannot collect connections like baseball cards. You need to engage with people and build relationships. It is very rare that someone who you randomly connected with will be comfortable enough with you to reach out if they need your services.
Her next step should be to reach out to me to see if we can meet up for a coffee. I understand this can be a time consuming process, but it is necessary step in the process of building relationships. As always we do business with people we know, like and trust. It is really hard to build that trust through random social media connections.
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Kevin Willett is the Author of One Connection How you can grow your business (and change the world) one connection at a time. The business networking book is available on Amazon. Purchase One Connection on Amazon
Kevin is also the CEO of the Friends of Kevin Networking Group and the New England B2B Networking Group. Please connect with him on social media to hear about his upcoming business networking events