My Life on LinkedIn Since 2006: A Case Study for Sales and Personal Branding
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Transcript of My Life on LinkedIn Since 2006: A Case Study for Sales and Personal Branding
My Life On LinkedIn Since 2006A Case Study for Sales and Personal Branding
I signed up for LinkedIn onNovember 22, 2006.
cc: clasesdeperiodismo - https://www.flickr.com/photos/24614969@N04
I saw the platform as an opportunity to post my
resume online.
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I mainly responded to connection requests from
other people and spent very little time on the site itself.
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In early 2007, I had jumped into the sales profession, joining an IT consulting
boutique.
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My job was to diversify the company by growing its
network of consultants and landing new clients.
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Very quickly, I realized how LinkedIn could help me do
both.
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I spent the next four or five years adding every person who I
connected with on a professional basis as a connection on LinkedIn. Before meeting
someone new, I looked him or her up on LinkedIn so that we could relate that much better.
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My big breakthrough happened in 2009.
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That small IT consulting company landed a large,
multi-year contract, and we needed people with specialized skill sets.
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I leveraged LinkedIn and found subject-matter experts around the world. I contacted them, began dialogues, and
transitioned the relationships to phone calls and eventually
visits to Newfoundland.cc: LK-GA - https://www.flickr.com/photos/24052304@N04
In 2012 we decided it was time to grow the company
geographically.
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I scheduled multiple business-development trips to other
provinces.
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I spent hours on LinkedIn, looking up key individuals in the provinces I planned to
visit. I sent inMail messages to those I wanted to meet.
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LinkedIn has facilitated hundreds if not thousands of
coffee chats for me. Some have led to business. Virtually
all have led to new connections.
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In 2013 the company was acquired by KPMG Canada. I lead business-development
efforts for the Microsoft practice.
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Interestingly enough, the Microsoft practice originated with that boutique firm about a year prior to its acquisition,
when two Microsoft MVPs used LinkedIn to contact me
and form a relationship.cc: striatic - https://www.flickr.com/photos/34427466731@N01
In mid-2014 I decided to pursue my lifelong dream of
writing a book.
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I wanted to share with entrepreneurs and new sales
professionals the message that, with the right mind-set, they can embrace selling and become very effective at it.
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It’s Time to Sell: Cultivating the Sales Mind-Set, self-
published in December 2015, has sold many thousands more copies than I ever
expected.
H o w ?
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A few months after I began writing the book, I began to research how to promote a book. I came to realize that without a platform doing so
would be very difficult.cc: Roberto_Ventre - https://www.flickr.com/photos/65743191@N00
I took notice of a few people I knew who were publishing articles on LinkedIn’s new
publishing platform. I decided to jump on board.
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To date I have published just shy of one hundred articles and attracted a whole new network of thought leaders
and influencers.
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I also have leveraged the SlideShare platform as
another avenue for communicating my message.
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My platform has expanded to include the It’s Time to Sell
podcast. All thirty guests who have been on the podcast are connections that I made via
LinkedIn.cc: Colleen AF Venable - https://www.flickr.com/photos/49503171926@N01
Around the same time that I began publishing on LinkedIn,
I embraced another new LinkedIn tool: Sales Navigator.
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I use Sales Navigator to stay up to date on key accounts,
clients, and leads.
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My use of Sales Navigator, in particular, leads to the reason
that I am excited about Microsoft’s potential
acquisition of LinkedIn.
Under its Dynamics brand, Microsoft has a powerful
suite of enterprise applications. CRM is one of
them.
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I see huge potential in the combination of Sales
Navigator and Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
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How Microsoft and LinkedIn integrate those products will
be interesting to see.
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Could this be the next chapter in my life on LinkedIn?
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Time will tell.
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