August 19, 2017

Pre-outreach in LinkedIn

The main tools I’ve been using in my research for credit union outreach are:

Of these, LinkedIn presents a bit of a dilemma. Unlike the other three, my search and browse actions are not anonymous and can potentially call me to the attention of folks I might reach out to in the future.

In a sense, my LinkedIn activities are like pre-outreach... I haven’t explicitly asked someone for a meeting, but I am potentially creeping into their radar merely by viewing their profile.

Because of this, I felt it was important to update my profile to be positioned as tightly as possible based on my current (albeit limited) knowledge of my ideal buyer.

Also, I started posting, commenting, and sharing more on LinkedIn so my activity stream would be interesting, relevant, and current. Doing this can send notifications to a variety of people associated with the thread.

Here’s one example:

By all outward appearances, there’s very little assistance I can offer to Mr. B’s credit union because their mobile user experience is remarkably good.

My hope in contacting Mr. B is to strike up a “shop talk” conversation because:

NOTE: I hope all this doesn’t come across as sneaky or deceptive. It’s not. I’m simply looking for people who stand to benefit from my expertise, in the most polite manner possible.

It’s sort of like easing my way into the conversation at a party where I’m an outsider: standing on the fringe, listening 95% of the time, and only chiming in when I’m confident that I’ve got something useful to contribute or a non-dumb question to ask.

More to come!

Yours,

—J

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