Internet Marketing Tools

You created a Linkedin Job Searching Profile to attract help with your job search.  ”Build it and they will come” only happens in the movies.  You must now promote your new Profile.  Promoting and marketing your Profile is just as important as creating your Profile.  Later we will deal with how to use your network, the major effort to promote your job search.  Here, I will share with you six additional ways you can promote your Profile.  The more people that see your Profile, the more exposure your job search gets.

Status Update

You have an opportunity to type in on a regular basis the current Status on what you are doing.  You know about Twitter which is the fastest growing social networking program on the internet.  Twitter has made its mark from this one feature “What are you doing now”.  Twitter allows only 140 characters to complete this sentence.  Millions are joining Twitter each month. (If you are linked to Twitter, your Twitter updates will appear on your Linkedin page).

The Status Line on Linkedin can be used much like the Twitter 140 character line.  It keeps people informed. And each time you change your Status, word automatically goes to all your Linkedin connections.

This is a great tool to keep people in your network informed.    In advertising they have the expression, “Top of the mind awareness” which means keeping your product in front of people.  You can use the Linkedin Status Line function to keep your job search in front of your connections.

Make these Status updates about your job search.   For example, you might write,  “I just finished an interview with XYZ company about their accounting position.”  Or, “I am currently involved in a forum discussing new accounting ethical standards.”   You can occasionally write something more personal in this Status line to show people that all work and no play make Jonnie a dull boy.

During your job search, you should be updating your Status line on a daily basis.  It will take less than five minutes to do so.  Think of the exposure this gives you to your connections with just five minutes of effort?

Email Signature

You have probably noticed more and more people have social networking logos attached to their email signature.  (An email signature is that special one line sentence automatically attached to every email you send.)  You can create a Linkedin email signature.  When someone receives an email from you and clicks on the Linkedin logo, they are immediately taken to a very nice summary of your Profile.  From there they can click to see your complete Job Searching Profile.  You can even include your photo.  This means that any time, you are emailing someone, you let them know about access to your Profile.

Go here and follow the step by step instructions to develop your Linkedin email signature.  http://www.linkedin.com/signature

Create a Vanity URL

When you first joined Linkedin, Linkedin gave you a number to identify your Linkedin account.  You want to be known as more than a number!  Linkedin allows you to customize your Linkedin address, or a Vanity URL. For example, if you type in www.linkedincom/in/alhanzal, you will be taken directly to my Linkedin summary page.  Use this Linkedin tool to create your own URL and get even more exposure for your job search.  Here is how to do it.

Click on your current Public Profile URL link, you’ll see the edit box.  You will see the original number address you were given at sign up.  Click on Edit and it will take you to a new page and a box where you can change the address.  Type in your full name–all in lower case letters as one word.   Then click Set Address.

Your Linkedin address changes from numbers to your name.  Now you can put this on your signature file, websites, and other marketing pieces to let people know that you are on Linkedin.  You now have given people another way to contact you.

Promote Your Linkedin Profile Everywhere

Put your new Linkedin address on your business card, your website and any contacts points where people might want to see your resume.  By promoting your Linkedin Profile offline, it can work while you sleep.

Here’s another specific way to promote your Profile.  Join online forums.  Online forums are where thousands of people go to ask questions, seek answers about specific issues and topics.  There are forums for almost anything.  Go to Google and search “Forums for XYZ (your job search area).  Check them out by reading through some of the discussion topics and determine which ones would be most appropriate for your job search.  Join the forums and regularly participate.

Forums allow you to use your email signature.  Besides getting known for your comments and questions, you can sign each comment with your email signature.  Those people interested will click on it be taken to your Profile summary.  You will find forums for your actual business area as well as plenty of forums about career changing and job searching. (Do a Google search for Job Searching Forums) Participate, learn and get more exposure for your Job Searching Profile. 

Google Alerts

Google has an Alert function.  Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic.  You can go to Google and set up an alert function for key phrases and words in your job search, for companies or other key items in your job search.  Once you set up the Alert and how often you want to be notified, Google will send you an email every time new information arises about the terms, the company or other items you are using for the Alert.  Get Google to be helping you in your job search.

Regularly update your Profile

Did you know that every time you update your Profile, your connections are sent a notice that you have updated your Profile on Network Update pages?  Make a change once a week to your Profile and automatically get additional exposure with your Linkedin your connections.   

Conclusion

These are just a few of the additional ways you can promote our Job Searching Profile.  Make time each day to promote your Job Searching Profile.  

To be continued, your comments are welcomed…

Al Hanzal

Your Brand on LinkedIn

A few more thoughts about branding before you start the details of creating your Job Searching Linkedin Profile.

Your Internet Billboard

Your LinkedIn Profile is your billboard on the internet highway.  Like billboards along the freeways, you never know when someone is going to take notice of your billboard.  Getting noticed by others is essential.  Your Profile needs to be constructed in such a way that it becomes a billboard that others will notice as they travel the internet highway.

The Brand We Call You

You are always selling on Linkedin.  You may not think of yourself as a company.  You may not have a lot of experience.  The fundamental rule of selling is that people buy from people they know, like and trust.  Your Linkedin Profile is where people get to know you, get to like you and get to trust you.

 They will come to know the brand that is YOU.  You will construct your Profile, not only to show your skills and expertise, but also your personality as well.  Remember people buy from people not a business.  You want your personality to be expressed in your Profile.  People buy from people they know and they like!

Building Your Brand

Your Linkedin Profile is the marketing expression of your brand.  Your brand is the expertise and skills you can bring to a company.  It’s the special something that you give that a company cannot get from your competition.  If your profile is like every other profile from others in your industry, why would a person want to interview you?  Your profile offers an opportunity to establish your online reputation that will draw others to you.   You don’t want to overlook this opportunity.

What do you do? Your first challenge in creating a brand is to provide the prospective company with a clear picture about what you are offering.  What skills, expertise, experience are selling do?  You must be able to answer this question simply and clearly.  Confused buyers never buy.

Write down the answer to this question in simple and clear words.  Then show it to three people.  Is it simple and clear to them?

What is your specialty?  A second branding question is what is your specialty?  Companies don’t “buy” from Jack of all trades and masters of none.  They have too many buying options.  When you try to appeal to everyone, you appeal to no one.   Make it clear about your specialty.  Can you describe in one sentence what makes you attractive to your customers and different from your competition?  How will the company benefit from your skills and expertise? Why should they believe you?  Your Profile should answer these questions for a company.

View Profiles In Your Industry

A very good exercise is to view at least the Profiles of at least five other people who are already working in the industry where you want to work.  Read them.  Study them.  Learn what language and terms they use in their Profiles.  Check out their backgrounds and experiences.  You want your Profile to be consistent with these Profiles so that a company feels comfortable with you.  At the same time, I will show you how to create a Job Searching Profile that makes you stand out and get noticed.  

To be continued, your comments are welcomed…

Al Hanzal

A First Step

When you’re looking for a job, you want to use every available tool.  This includes Want Ads in the newspaper, online Job Searches, networking with professionals, head hunters and now social networking programs like Linkedin.  At its heart, Linkedin allows you to find and create networks of people without the traditional limitations of time and space.

As an introduction to Linkedin Job Seeking functions, let me share with you my own experience from a hundred years ago on the power of networking to obtain a job.  You will see from this experience why I am partial to using networking (Linkedin is today’s digital version) as the best avenue to find a new job.

My Job Search

For six years, I had a career in the ministry.  When I decided to leave, I remember many people telling me, “Father, you are going to find it very tough in the ‘real world’.”  I had a lot of people skills and public speaking skills.  I could speak Latin and Greek.  Where were the experiences to show potential employers?

A friend shared with me a networking model for finding a job.  I started with one person I knew who was several positions higher than the level of jobs I was seeking.  (Because he was higher, I was never a threat to his job).  This man had a position in the public energy company—not a place where I was seeking employment.  I asked him if I could meet with him to help me with my job search.  I made it clear that I was not asking him for a job, just asking for his help.  He was happy to meet with me.  

I shared with him my resume and talked about the skills I possessed.  He gave me suggestions and new ideas.  Before I left, I asked him if he could give me the names of two other people who might be helpful to my job search.  He was happy to do so.  When I called these two people, I used his name to be introduced to them and again said “I was asking for help with my job search, not asking for a job”.  

This was the start of 58 interviews I did over a two month process—starting with just one person and creating my own network.  Each day, I would do two interviews.  I would do research about the company (at the library because Google was not yet born—told you it was a hundred years ago!).  In the interviews I would relate my skills to the company’s business.  From each interview I would get two more names.  

After each interview I would sent a letter (didn’t have email in those days) saying thank you and promising to keep the person in the loop about my job searching progress.   I provided these people with updates every Monday.    What was the result of this process?

Results of Networking

At the end of sixty days (I had budgeted for three months of finding a job as my full time job) I had three different job offers with pluses and minuses for each offer.  I found 20% of the people I interviewed became active supporters in my job search, working for me while I slept.  I build a network of people some of whom I called upon for professional help in my new job.  The process was not a negative process.  These two months were like a college education about how business operates and jobs are found.

I have shared this process with many people over the years and they have found similar success using it.  You can see from my successful experience with networking, why I think so highly of Linkedin which can now make the networking component in a job search so much wider, bigger and more efficient than the street work I did many years ago. 

To be continued, your comments are welcomed…

Al Hanzal    

Don’t Be Casual

Do not take the task of getting Linkedin Recommendations casually!  When you started your Linkedin presence, you started with goals on how you want this program to fit into your personal and business life.  If the Recommendation section on Linkedin pages is the second most review part on any Linkedin page, then you want to make your Recommendations to fully support the goals you have for your Linkedin program.  Think of your Recommendations as pillars that support your Linkedin bridge.  

Get Recommended

Linkedin provides you with a simple process for getting Recommendations.  Before you start you should determine what type of Recommendations you are looking for and from whom you want to get those Recommendations.   For some Recommendations, you may need a two step process.  The person who could give you a wonderful recommendation may not be on Linkedin.  So first go through the process of having them join Linkedin so they can give you a Recommendation.  

To start the process go to your Profile page, Recommendation Section, and click on  Get Recommended.  You will be brought to a new page.  Then click on Request Recommendation.  Here you will be asked to choose what you want to be recommended for?  Find the option that best suits your purposes.  Then you are asked who you want to ask for the recommendation?  You can ask up  to 200 Linkedin participants.  You then are invited to create your message.  

This is a critical piece.  People will give you want you want, if you ask them.  Left on their own people will generalize and give you glowing remarks that may have little to do with your goals for Linkedin.  Share with them what you would like to hear from them.   Ask them to be specific, talk about your strengths and responsibilities and the specific results or benefits you produced.  

This may make you feel uncomfortable because you are asking other persons to do you a favor.  Why not ask them to do the favor that will benefit you the most?  A simple statement like, “It would be helpful if you could tell people about, XYZ and how you achieved XYZ because of my products.”  People actually appreciate guidance from you.  It makes their job of writing a Recommendation that much easier.

Even if you are sending a Recommendation request to a number of Linkedin participants at one time, they each will receive an individual invitation.

Revisions—The Extra Step

When you receive a Recommendation, you are given the opportunity to make revisions.  Use this opportunity.  If there are revisions you would like, ask the person to make them and suggest what you want done.  Take this extra step.  People will cooperate especially if you share with them what you are trying to accomplish on Linkedin.   In a job interview, I once checked some references the person gave and when they were not glowing comments, I moved on to other candidates.  You want your Recommendations (since you help create them) to put you in the best possible light.

Manage Your Recommendations

Clicking on Get Recommendations will also show you a page that keeps track of Recommendations made and received.  You are given several ways to manage your Recommendations.  

Ongoing Recommendations

I tell small business owners to make getting testimonials for their business an ongoing effort in their business.  You can never have too many customer testimonials.  I give the same advice about Recommendations.  You can never have too many Recommendations.  Always be getting fresh Recommendations.  

Remember each time you add a new one all your connections are notified that you have received a new Recommendation.  If you did this once a month, your name would be visible in front of your connections. (Al Hanzal has received a new Recommendation)  Your connections will see it and many would click on it to see what it says.  All while you are sleeping!!

To be continued, your comments are welcomed…

Al Hanzal

This is the third post from a my special report on using testimonials to generate more profits in your business.  What is true of testimonials is true for resolutions.  Today, I look at elements involved in a good resolutions or testimonial making.  Enjoy.  If you want to see the entire report, click here  http://tinyurl.com/cj5yz6.

Most testimonials are dull and boring.   If you are going to add this ingredient to your business, why not use the best?  Use the following framework to make testimonials a powerful tool in your business.
 

Framework of a Good Testimonial

• I am a customer just like you.
• I had a problem and I wanted the same benefits as you.
• I wondered if there was a solution.
• Now, I know there is a solution.
• This solution will also work for you.
   

Testimonials that follow this thought process lead customers to buy your product!  The following are 10 rules for creating powerful testimonials in your business.

Proven Techniques to Power Testimonials

1.  Start by listing the benefits of your business–those things that make you unique and special.  Get testimonials that speak directly to these benefits.   Your prospect wants to hear about how you are going to make their life better.

2.  Avoid the “Rah, rah, Bob is great” style of testimonials.  Customers get very little from cheerleader comments.

3.  Try to obtain your testimonials as close as possible to the customer’s greatest satisfaction from your product or service.  This is when they are most excited to tell others about what they have experienced.  That excitement carries over into their testimonials.

4.  Get testimonials come from a credible person who has nothing to gain from giving the testimonial.  Testimonials from experts or famous people add power to your testimonials.

5.  Make sure the testimonial is specific and detailed.  It’s much better to say “I realized a 19% increase in profits,” rather than “I improved my profits.”  Which statement do you find more believable?

6.  Use the person’s own words in the testimonial, even if they aren’t grammatically perfect.  

7.  Make it easy for customers to give you testimonials.

8.  Include the name and the city where the person lives.  Adding a photo or audio gives the testimonial even more power.

9.  Get the customer’s permission to use the testimonial.

10.  Thank your customers for the testimonials.

Conclusion

If you’re not using good testimonials in all of your marketing and sales materials, you’re keeping your “best sales person” in the closet.  You don’t have to spend a lot of money to get this sales force working for you.  When you start using good testimonials, you will start seeing more customers, better customers and more loyalty in your business.  

To be continued, your comments are always welcomed…

Al Hanzal

This is the second in a series of posts where I am using materials from a White paper I developed on Testimonials.  The information in this white paper applied to your Resolutions on your Linkedin page.  Today, I look at the many ways you can get Resolutions/testimonials.  If you want to see the complete paper go here:  http://tinyurl.com/cj5yz6 .

Ways to Get your Testimonials?

Long Term Customers

Start by calling your long-term customers or those customers who are repeat buyers.  You know these people well.  You’ve done a lot of business with them.  These are easy testimonials to get.  They will be more than willing to help you.  

Tell these customers what you would like them to focus on in their comments—remember your benefits.  This step will produce some immediate testimonials.

Search Your Mail

Search your morning mail, invoice payments or letters for positive comments from your customers.  Many times, people will write a comment when paying their bill.  This can be the source for a testimonial.  When you find something good from one of these sources, call them, thank them and ask them if it’s ok to use their words in your sales and marketing efforts.

Third Party Endorsement

Every business has other businesses they work with.   Go to these businesses and ask for a testimonial about your business.  Exchange testimonials about their business.  Third party testimonials have the additional quality of showing how your business is part of much larger business network.  This impresses the customer.

Industry statistics

This type of “testimonial” starts to stretch the envelope on testimonials but it has its place.  For example, national studies show that when a business has sales training, they increase their profits by 16%.   That does not say anything about your sales training, but that statistics show a 16% increase when a company gets sales training.  This type of testimonial will help some customers buy your product.

Customer Call Backs

After every sale, call the customer to see how they like the product.   Have a series of questions that leads the conversation in the direction you want.  When you get some good comments, thank the customer and ask if it’s ok for you to use their comments.  As a side benefit, you will learn a tremendous amount of information about your business.  It’s wonderful feedback and takes only a few minutes for each sale.

Networking

It is common practice at most business networking meetings to give others members of the group a verbal testimonial when someone has used their service.  “I want to tell you what good service I received from Jane last week when I went to her bank to switch over my account.”  Typically, Jane nods her head and says, thank you.  Go to the person after the meeting and ask if you can write down what they said about you and your business and if you can use it in your marketing efforts.  Don’t let an opportunity like this slip by.

Photo Testimonials

Use photos of your customers using your products or services—make sure they are smiling!  If you provide a service, have someone take a picture of you doing the service.  I know a financial adviser, who gives workshops to seniors.  He had his picture taken at a workshop, then used the pictures in brochures to advertise his workshops.

Have a contest with your customers to send in the best picture of them using your product or service.  Give the winner a free dinner.   Always, let people know you may want to use their picture for marketing purposes, call back the winners, thank them and again ask permission.

Customer photos with written testimonials are doubly powerful.

Audio and Video Testimonials

Present you testimonial in audio form.  You can easily create a customer hot line where customers can call in at any time to comment on your product or service.  This could be a dedicated line with an answer machine. Make it easy for the customer to give you a testimonial.  Some customers find it easier to call in comments, rather than write comments.  These audio comments or video comments can be used on websites or turned into a testimonial CD.

Ask Before you Start the Project

This is a great systematic way to generate an ongoing stream of good testimonials.  Make your request for testimonials part of the package you are offering the customer.   As part of the details with closing the deal, you ask, “I assume that I will do a great job for you.  If I do xyz will you be willing to give me a testimonial about the job?”   I have never had a customer turn me down when I have made this offering. 

This technique gives a different impression of you.  The customer realizes that it’s your intention to do a good job.  They will happily want to write a testimonial about that job.  This is also a wonderful way to systemize a testimonial system to get ongoing referrals in an easy, no effort way.

Customers Feedback Forms

There are many versions of customer feedback forms.   These forms help you direct the types of questions you ask about your products and services.

“Did you enjoy our product?  What was the best thing you liked about the product?  What was the thing you leased liked about the product?  What other comments would you like to make about the product or your buying experience.  May I use your comments in my efforts to help other customers?”  (Enclosed a self-addressed envelope)

Keep it simple for the customer.   You may also wish to give them some reward for taking the time to complete the form.  Giving rewards is perfectly acceptable because you are asking the customer to do something extra.   

Expert or Well Known People

Expert testimonials can be two types.  You can find expert opinions that speak to one or more of your benefits but are not speaking directly to you particular product.  Doctors speak about conditions necessary for weight loss programs. Your program has several of those conditions.  Like industry statistics, these become a form of endorsement or testimony for the generic use of your product.

The second and more powerful testimony comes from an expert who has actually used your program or service and wants to tell others about it.  Who hasn’t read reviews on a back of a book cover to help you decide to purchase the book?

Movie stars and athletes have been using their names to sell products for years.     

Conduct an Interview

Have a third party conduct an interview with some of your customers.  This could be a professional, a PR person or a friend.   They invite the customers to offer their comments about the recent purchase.   Customers feel free and easy sharing comments to a third person.

You can use these interviews in their audio or visual form or you can transcribe them and edit them into useful written forms.  

These are powerful testimonials.  Even when you use a professional , your costs will easily be offset by the return these types of testimonials will bring to your business

Surveys and Questionnaires

Surveys and questionnaires receive mixed reviews as a technique for getting testimonials.   Remaining anonymous is usually a chief characteristic of surveys.  This would defeat one of the primary qualities of good testimonials—using the name and address the person giving the testimonial.   Without the name and address you sacrifice the power of the testimonial.

Their Name in Print

One popular reward you can offer for a testimonial is getting your customers name in “lights.”   You address the customers, “I was wondering if you could help me.  I want to thank you for being a wonderful customer and ask for your help.  Could you answer the following questions?”  You give them some simple directive questions to answer and tell them this may result in using their name on your website, in your brochure, etc.  Everyone loves their 15 minutes of fame!

Offer to Write it for People

There is nothing wrong with helping the customer write a testimonial.  You can say, “I know that you are very busy.  I’d be happy to draft something you can use.  You can edit or change it.”  

Many customers prefer this method of giving a testimonial.  They want to say nice things about your business but they don’t know how to articulate them.  They don’t know where to start so they put it off in their busy schedule.  They promise to give you a testimonial.  You wait and wait, not wanting to bug them.  Helping them write it overcomes this bump in the road and allows you to get some very pointed testimonials.  

Personal Testimonials

You can use personal testimonials.   You may need these especially when you are just getting started in business.  When I wrote my book about how to buy carpet, I had a good friend provide a testimonial for me.   She said in the testimonial, “I did not use Al’s book, but he has worked on our house in the past and his experience and insights were wonderful.”  In short, you can trust Al, the person. While these are not as powerful as product testimonials, they have their place.

Use testimonials as Success Stories

On your website or other marketing materials, you may have the occasion to share success stories with prospects.  These can be very powerful, especially when a customer does not know a lot about your product.  Design the success story in the following manner.

Describe the problem the customer was experiencing.  Provide some details about the problem—so the reader can identify with it.   Then tell how your product or service solved the problem.  The third section is the quote from the customer about your business.  This simple three step process is very effective because in step one and two you create a clear problem-solution scenario.  The customer testimonial becomes reinforcement to that scenario.

To be continued, your comments are always welcomed…

Al Hanzal

I believe that next to your Linkedin Profile (your personal brand see my earlier post Branding and Linkedin Continued…) is the second most important element in your Linkedin page is your Recommendations.  Before we dig into the details on the how to do Recommendations, let me share with you why I feel so strongly about their power.

Personal Experience

Last Christmas, my wife asked for a new winter coat.  This is dangerous business for any husband.  You need to get the style, the color and size right—otherwise the present goes back.  I went on line and found a coat I thought fit all the requirements.  I asked my 13 year old daughter, Laura, for her opinion.  She thought it was a very nice coat.  Then, she read the comments section from women who had already purchased the coat.  

She said, “Dad, you don’t want to buy this coat.  Read about all the trouble women are having with this coat.” I read the comments and she was right.  I left the website and found a different coat. (My wife loved it!)

Websites

When I work with small business owners creating their websites,  I have them put a testimonial on every page of their site.  My logic is that for most internet buyers, the business is a stranger to them.  They expect the business to say good things about their products.  Before they buy, they want to hear what other people like themselves have experienced with the product.

Small Business Owner and Believability

Many small business owners think their “smallness” gives them an edge with customers.  It’s true.  When all things are equal, most customers would rather buy from a small business and have a personal transaction. However, customers do wonder whether the small business can deliver on the promises they make.  They know that larger, brand name businesses are more impersonal.  They also know large businesses have been proven in the market place.  Their products have been purchased by many people and if they were not working, people would not buy them.  Small business must overcome a believability issue.

Social Networking

Dave Evans in his wonderful book, Social Media Marketing, One Hour a Day, says the real power of social media programs comes with the consideration phase of the buying process.  He says there are three steps in the buying process: awareness, consideration and the purchase.  Social media programs allow consumers to share their experiences with products.  These experiences carry a larger weight than traditional media when people are considering a particular purchase.  

He shares his own experience of trying to decide between a PC and a MAC computer.  He asked for people’s advice on his social media program.  Many people shared their experiences with both types of computers. Their information helped him decide which computer to purchase.

Linkedin Bonuses

Recommendations within Linkedin reflect this changing landscape of business credibility.  Here are three Linkedin bonuses that come with Recommendations.

1. Statistics show that after the Profile, Recommendations are the most read section on a Linkedin page. People want to know what others are saying about you.  If your page does not have Recommendations, they wonder, “What’s wrong with this person?”

2. When you give a Recommendation to another person in Linkedin, your Recommendation is noted on the right side of your Linkedin page.  It is also found on the page of the person receiving the Recommendation. Both of these items give you more visibility and an additional touch point for the search engines.

3. Each time  you receive a Recommendation or give a Recommendation, an alert is sent to all of your connections.  This gives you added exposure with your connections.

Conclusion

People buying from strangers on the internet; the small business extra burden for creating believability; the power of social networking and social media to influence the consideration phase of the buying process are just some of the reasons the landscape of credibility has changed for small business owners.  This makes the Recommendation step of your Linkedin page all the more important.

To be continued, your comments are welcomed…

Al Hanzal

Taking the time to answer other Linkedin participant’s questions not only allows you to contribute, it also builds credibility and expertise within your network.  Years ago, when I left my carpeting business, I volunteered for one of those “Ask an Expert” websites as an expert regarding carpet.  I answered 50-60 questions per year.  It’s been several years, since I left that program.  I still get emails from people I have helped with my knowledge.

Click on Answer a question and you will get a drop down box that also indicates what recommended Categories are most likely for your expertise.  These are based on the groups you belong to and the information in your Profile.  You will also see a heading, New Questions from Your Network.   In addition, you can click on any of the Categories listed on the right side of the page and answer questions from these Categories.

Use one of the above options to see a list of current questions.  Click on an appropriate question.  You will have two options.  You can answer the question Answer Yourself or your can Suggest an Expert and provide the person asking the question with a connection to an Expert or a resource that can help.

While Answering the question yourself bring some immediate attention to your own expertise, connecting other people resources is also a powerful way of building relationships.  Do you remember the last time someone hooked you up to the right person?  You felt good that you had a solution to your problem.  The expert felt good that they were recognized for their expertise and could now establish a new relationship with you.   And the connector felt good because they were helpful even though they did not have the immediate answer.

This Week’s Expert Status

You will also see a list of This Week’s Experts with a Star logo behind their name.  The person asking a Linkedin questions gets to select the best answer to their question.  When you are choose as the best answer you get a “Point” from Linkedin.  After several “points” you are given Expert status of the week—just a little extra bonus of recognition.  Here are the Linkedin rules for getting Expert status.

Earning expertise is easy:
1.    Find questions in the areas you know
Browse questions to find categories familiar to you
2.    Answer those questions
Remember, private answers won’t help you earn expertise
3.    Every time the questioner picks your answer best, you gain a point of expertise
The more points of expertise, the higher you appear on lists of experts
To be continued, your comments are always welcomed…

Al Hanzal