January 7, 2008

Growing Your Business: Coming Out of the Gate Strong in 2008

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I want everybody who reads my column to come out of the gate strong in 2008. You know that I talk regularly about ways to market our services and ways to improve our businesses. If you read my blog and my Growth Minute column, you will know that small things can make dramatic and impactful changes to the way that you do business.

One of my favorite marketing engines that I speak about regularly is LinkedIn - a service that can help you connect to other professionals and help to accelerate the progress that you make in your own career. The acceleration comes because you can help others and others can help you.

My LinkedIn network is enormous. I'm probably in the top 500 of all LinkedIn members in the entire world with about 8.4 million people in my personal network. I would like to suggest that you make it your goal for 2008 to accelerate your efforts and utilize LinkedIn as a powerful platform for growing your business and your personal opportunities. My goal is to move from 3,600 first tier connections to over 7,500 by year's end.

One of the best ways for you to grow your network is to create exposure on pages that other people look at regularly. It seems like such an obviously piece of advice, and we do it this way in other places. For example, we try to get onto websites that will give us excellent promotion, yet, most people who contact me about LinkedIn go about it exactly backwards.

I get several requests a week from people asking me to endorse them. If I know them and if I have business experience with them, I'm happy to write such an endorsement. But what people don't realize is that if you have a small network, no one is looking at your page, and therefore no one is seeing that endorsement.

Instead, why don't you do it the other way around? Why don't you put your endorsements and recommendations on people's pages that are being viewed frequently?

One suggestion is for you to put a recommendation for me on my page (http://www.linkedin.com/in/joelblock). If you like my blog, if you like the material that I produce, if we have personal experience together, or otherwise, why don't you write a note and make a recommendation about what I provide. My LinkedIn page shows up in more than 100 searches a day and I get dozens of people a day looking at my LinkedIn page. Those people, as they are scrolling through my page, are likely to see your recommendation or endorsement, and potentially, they will click on your endorsement and go to your page to see what you are all about. This is a free way to get the benefit of my traffic.

I also suggest that you make it your goal, if we don't know each other, to give me a reason to write a recommendation about you. If we create a relationship of substance, then I would be more than happy to provide you with a recommendation or endorsement like you have given to me.

Try that. See if it doesn't make a big difference for you and the benefit that you get out of LinkedIn. In the meantime, I want you to have a wonderful 2008. I know it's going to be a great year. We're already off to a great start. We have a lot of great material planned for the readers of our blog, and our columns. We wish you the best and the happiest New Year that you could have.

About Joel G. Block

Well known in the business community, Joel Block is a best selling author, speaker, and business strategist. Frequently a principal in his transactions, Joel has raised tens of millions of equity dollars for his ventures, which have included real estate syndications and privately held businesses.

Joel’s career is highlighted by the launch of a financial publishing company which he grew nationwide and later sold to the Los Angeles Times. More recently, Joel works with scientists, engineers, technologists and others to help them optimize their entrepreneurial opportunities. Would you like to get a private phone consultation with Joel? Visit www.joelblock.com/capital for details.

Go Out And Stake Your Claim!