How to connect with almost anyone on LinkedIn

I'll tell a quick story about why this is so important. I was at the gym earlier today and one of my friends is in the spirits industry and there's this woman who she admires that she wanted to meet for years. She's written so many books about spirits. She's very well respected, but also kind of hard to get to. And the other day when she was in her apartment, she realized there was a package there that had this woman's name on it. She's like, holy cow. I think she lives in my building. So very serendipitous. And eventually she ran into this person, like in the stairway of their building at like 2am, which is kind of spooky. But she's like, oh my God, are you xyz? And confirmed that. And they're now connected, right? They're working together and a limited capacity, which might grow into something bigger. But it reminded me of how back in the day, meaning, let's say pre Covid, you could go out and just meet random people serendipitously and build these networks, right? These relationships. But now it's a bit more challenging to do so in person. However, it's never been easier to do so online, specifically through LinkedIn, because you can literally type in who you want to meet and then go ahead and form that connection, right? So that's what I want to talk about today is how can you do that without hoping someone lives in your building and you run into them at 2 in the morning? But how do you reach out to people on LinkedIn who you want to connect with for one reason or another and cut through the clutter, the noise they might have? Because often the people that you really want to connect with, they have everyone else trying to do the same thing. So how can you cut through the noise and make that happen? That's we're going to talk about today. First, I want to say hi to Trinity. She's calling in from Durham, North Carolina. So a lot of North Carolina, South Carolina represented here. It's pretty cool. And we're going to go ahead and get started. So one thing I realized is often people will reach out to me and just send a connection request with no kind of context. And by design, I often just ignore those, which I know sounds rude, or I'll take a quick look at their profile and say, hey, does it seem like this is someone I want to engage with? And the reason why I'm bringing this up is because you might be the right person to connect with someone, but if you don't front, load yourself for success. Do the steps we're going to talk about today. You might get passed over.

Right?

And what I do often, sometimes, is someone will reach out to me randomly and I'll say, hey, Joseph, thanks. Thanks for reaching out. I'm curious what prompted you to connect with me? And then I still won't hear anything back. And I'm like, well, okay, there was no message in your initial outreach. And then when I prompt you to say something or respond, nothing. So it shows me there are people just collecting people as followers and connections and. And I never want to be that person. Which is why, by design, a little bit more selective about who I let in. And it's not that I'm being an elitist, but it's just saying, like, do you genuinely want to talk to me or connect with me or are you just throwing stuff out there? And on the other side of the coin, I want to make sure I can learn from you as well.

Right?

So I want to see your content. Are you posted on a regular basis? You know, what are you about? Because if that's the case, cool, I can learn something. Otherwise I'm not sure what's. What's going on. And by default now, if you enable creator mode on your profile, which I encourage you to do, write that down if you haven't done it already, because it helps you get more reach for your content and More features on LinkedIn. By default, if you have that enabled, the option is to connect to follow someone, not connect with them. So when you follow someone, you can still see their content, but you're not connected, meaning you can't message each other back and forth. So again, when someone reaches out and says, oh, you know, I just, I just love your, your content, it's like, okay, cool, you can love it without us connecting. And again, I'm not saying this to be rude. I'm saying this so you know what's going through someone else's mind when you reach out to connect with them.

Right?

So today I tested this out. Someone sent me a random connection request right before this, this call. And I said, hey, Andrew is his name. You know, I'm curious what prompted you to reach out? And he said, hey, you know, I love your content. I think it's great. I'm just wondering, are you single? I have a bunch of women in their 30s who are looking for a life partner and they might want to meet someone like you. And I'm like, well, Andrew, clearly you have not been following me because you see me Talking about my wife, my children, and all this other stuff. Plus, that's just kind of random, right? So again, this guy reached out and responded, but was looking to see what he could take from me as opposed to what he could create.

Right.

Some kind of relationship. So going a bit deeper, when you do reach out to someone, you don't want to just try to pitch them on something, especially like lifelong love, that's kind of weird. You want to start some kind of relationship, Right? So Angela is asking a question. Yes, you will get access to the recordings. That's always a good sign people ask. So I'm glad to hear about that. You can actually come back to the exact same link and it'll be here visible to you. And then beyond that, Megan, my amazing executive assistant, will have this on my website as well as on, on YouTube. And speaking of that, let me, before I hop into the content, one thing I want to ask is if you have not already, there's a survey linked in my profile and I think Megan's going to put up a QR code in a moment that I would love for you to fill out. My goal here is to learn more about my audience so I can create better content that's going to help you advance your career and or make more money. So if you have not already, you can go to my profile. It's in my featured content section and it's also the link just below my. My name essentially and my profile. So it'll be super beneficial if you have already done so. Thank you for that. And by the way, that makes you eligible for this giveaway. I have with various prizes, including one on one time with me. There's some great audio, video equipment as well. So please do fill that out. All right. But let's get into it. So I said there's X steps to doing this. The first step to making a connection with almost anyone on the platform is making a good impression, like I said, when they look at your profile. So what does that mean? Well, one thing that's simple is having a picture up. Hopefully a picture that shows you in your best light. Not in regards to actual light light, but just in a way that you look presentable based on who you are in your industry.

Right.

And by that I mean years ago, the picture I had on LinkedIn was the same picture as my, my Facebook photo. So I had like a crooked hat on and like my earrings in and like some like silly necklace, so and so forth. That wouldn't work too well these days because of who I am. And what I want to do. So the first thing is having a decent photo. You can take it yourself. You don't have to have an actual photographer, but it's look presentable. And then make it clear what you do in your title on your LinkedIn profile. So don't say that you're a program manager or don't say something that's just like a job title. You might want to say something like, I help companies better facilitate their outcomes by doing great program management. Making this up.

Right.

Or on mine, I say I help entrepreneurs make money, save time and make better decisions as well.

Right.

So just kind of truncating that. The other thing, which is going to be even more, I would say time intensive is this having good content on your profile.

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Because yes, you do want to have a good photo, a good about section. But if you have good recent content on your profile, that helps too because that gives another lens into who you are as a human, not just your job title.

Right.

So again, remember that people want to learn from you too. It's not just, okay, let's connect and, you know, talk about stuff. It's like, what can I learn from this person? So that's the very first thing is setting yourself up for success by making a good first impression. So out of curiosity here, just say yes or no in the, in the chat here. Have you posted on LinkedIn in the last two weeks? Say two weeks? To make it fair, have you posted any content on LinkedIn in the last two weeks? And for me that's super important again, because you want to look at someone and see, hey, are you active on the platform? Because if you're connecting with me and you're not active on the platform, it's going to be hard to make a relationship. If I see that you're constantly posting, that lets me know that, hey, if I talk to this person, we can actually continue a conversation and it just won't be a one time thing where they're on the merry way. So yes or no, have you posted anything recently again, within the last two weeks on LinkedIn. On my end, I do so pretty much every day, video when possible because you can make a deeper relationship there. We have Brittany Barnhart here. She's saying she has. Zoe, good to see you. You have as well.

Great.

So yeah, I mean, again, and this, this, this is regardless of like, if you're trying to like make a connection for, you know, a job, your company getting on podcasts, which are all good reasons, it's, it just lets people, again, Know who you are and beyond just the title that you have. But that's the next step is determining who you want to connect with. And that's why again, I'm amazed when I get random connections from people. They're like, oh, you know, I'm a pharmacist in Ohio, let's connect. And I'm like, that sounds interesting, but why are we doing this?

Right.

If you're inspired by my work, that's great, but I'm just always curious, like, why are you reaching out to people at random? Connecting, right? So what you want to do is think about your goals, right? What are your goals for making a connection with someone? And it can be a self serving goal so long as you have some kind of value that you can provide as well. So maybe you want to get on more podcasts. Cool. Make a list of podcast hosts that you want to associate with. Follow them, right? Start putting them on your list. Maybe you want to get more speaking engagements. Cool. Start looking at event organizers and make, put them on your list as well. Maybe you're doing prospecting, right? You're looking for actual clients for your company. That's great too. Just have a reason for it is what I'm saying. Because I'm not going to give you an easy way to do this. I'm going to give you a clear way to do this. But if there's no, there's no end game for you from making these connections, you're going to say, man, there's a lot of work for nothing. It will be for nothing if you're reaching out to a pharmacist in Ohio, unless that's relevant to you. But if you're thinking to yourself, damn, you know, if I can just meet people in this industry who are on this podcast, right? Who write for this, this magazine, whatever it is, gosh, that would be amazing, right? So that's why you actually want to have something as an end goal for what you're doing. And Aaron, I'm glad you're here. Aaron said creating every day has been life changing. So Aaron, I would say is like an emerging creator on LinkedIn. Aaron, how long you've been creating content for. But from what I can tell, he just started, he's just going deep.

Right.

And I can literally see you probably think I'm paying attention, but I can see your engagements is going up and up and up and up in regards to likes and comments. So just congrats to you for doing that on a consistent basis. And I know you have a family as well. I think you're at least married, so I know it's hard to find that time, but I think you're a good example of how creating content consistently can help you. Same with Matthew Bieber. He's here as well. I want to say Matthew started maybe like a year and a half ago or so, but he's been crushing it as well. He's getting people reaching out to him, saying, hey, can you help me or my company create this content? As well as teaching on a university level as well.

Right.

So that's the byproduct of creating content. I don't want to go too deep into that right now, but there's really nothing. There's no reason why you shouldn't be doing it.

Right.

Because you can find all these other opportunities. So again, make that list of who you want to connect with. But then what you also want to do is go to their profile and then go to their recent activity, go to their posts, and then book the URL to see all their recent posts. Bookmark the URL to see all the recent posts. Because you want to make it easy to find these people going forward.

Right.

You don't want to scroll through your newsfeed hoping to find something relevant. You want to go exactly to these people that are on your list. And on my end, I would say make a top 40 list, 40 people you want to be connected with for whatever reason it is.

Right.

Again, podcasts, prospects could be, you know, media opportunities, whatever it is. But make that intentional list and then bookmark it so you can easily find their content. And if they post consistently, then you can also write time. Write down what time they post their content.

Right.

So if I know that Matthew posts every day at 8:15am, I want to jump in there and be the first comment, because first of all, I know he's probably still on the platform. And then second of all, the people that are following him will most likely see my content as well.

Right.

So two steps so far. One is just look presentable by having good content, and the second is be intentional.

Right.

Don't just throw stuff at a wall, saying, again, with the random one I got today, some guy asked me if I was married and want to meet some random person, which there's no. So don't be that person.

Right.

Here's the part again where we're talking about it being challenging. I want you to engage with their content. Engage with their content. What do I mean by that? I mean comment on it, share it.

Right.

And that way, when you do reach out, eventually you won't be some random person and they'll know, oh, wow, gosh, you know, that's. That's Zoe. I've seen a lot of comments from Zoe. I want to, you know, go ahead and maybe accept this request, but this is also time consuming, right? Because again, you're going to see they posted on Monday, then maybe again on Thursday, whatever day it is, so and so forth. And you don't want to just move too quickly, right? You want to build this relationship.