How to Make Money On LinkedIn

LinkedIn is by FAR the best place on the internet to generate leads, and hence to make money - for most types of business today - whether it's B2C or B2B.

That's just my opinion of course... but I'm pretty sure you've heard many others say the same or similar. Check this graph out from a HubSpot study if you don't believe me 😉

So why are so many small businesses struggling to get results from LinkedIn?

Well, in my experience it's because they fall short in one or more of the 3 key areas you need to focus on to be successful at generating leads on LinkedIn.

They are:

• Your LinkedIn Profile - the first thing people check to find out if you can help solve their problems
• Your Content - whether or not you provide value to your audience
• Your Connections - more specifically, how you create new connections

If you get all 3 of these firing on all cylinders, generating leads from LinkedIn becomes a whole lot easier!

So, let me share with you some of the mistakes I see people making all the time in each of these areas.

If I were to sum up the biggest mistakes I see in this area it would be that people make their profiles about themselves rather than about their ideal client.

Now, that might sound crazy... why would you write your own profile about your clients? Well, if you don't, you won't stand out from the crowd and you'll lose your audience!

The analogy I always use is when you meet someone new at a party or some other social event and all they do is talk about themselves, you're turned off pretty quickly, right? Well, it's the same with your LinkedIn profile.

You see, when people are on the internet their brains are in energy conservation mode which means they rely on the less advanced part of the brain to figure out what might actually be of use to us and more on the primitive part of the brain (that basically keeps us safe) to act as a filter.

The primitive part of the brain is basically looking for anything that helps us thrive or survive. It's instinctive and we don't even know it's going about its job most of the time. It's on the lookout primarily for danger and once it's sure there is no danger and our survival is not at risk it starts to look for other things that might help us to thrive.

So it starts to ask questions like:

• Can I eat it?
• Will it give me shelter?
• Can I mate with it?
• Will it help my kids in some way?

And so on... until it gets to the questions related more to the specific challenges and desires that we have at that moment in our lives.

Your profile needs to talk to them about those specific challenges and desires.

It also needs to feel familiar to them, hence safe. So when you write it in a way that constantly refers to them, what they do, the challenges they face and the desires they have it begins to stand out from the crowd. A lot!

Simple right? Yes... but not easy!

To find out this information you need to understand your audience - deeply. You need to carry out research to find out what their biggest challenges and deepest desires are. And you need to know how to do that efficiently and then make sense of all the data you capture.

It can be done though, and if you're making this mistake right now I strongly suggest you do something about it quickly!

Use your empathy, put yourself in the shoes of your ideal client, start reading your profile and then ask yourself: How can this person help me to thrive? Do they understand my challenges and desires? Does this profile speak to me personally?

That will at least put you on the right track...

Your content is VERY important. It tells your audience a LOT about you. Especially on LinkedIn!

Even if your content isn't getting hundreds of thousands of likes, comments and shares, people will notice it and want to read it if they are interested in finding out more to see if you're the person to help them solve their problems. Oh, and if your content is good enough on LinkedIn, over time it most likely WILL get hundreds of thousands of views...

But what is 'good content'?

Basically it's anything that offers value to your audience. It needs to be engaging and useful. It can also be humorous and intriguing to pull people in, but value comes first.

The biggest mistake I see with content is that people don't use their empathy when creating it. They talk about things from their own perspective. They talk 'at' their audience. They write what they like to write and not what the audience wants to read. And worst of all they often push their products, services, events etc. on LinkedIn...

OK, there are all sorts of different types of content and delivery media. For example, LinkedIn allows you to publish text only posts, image posts, multiple image posts, videos, articles documents, polls and so on. The last time I counted there were at least 11 different types and they are being updated all the time. Check out this post I wrote about it a a year or so ago if you'd like to know more.

It doesn't matter what type of content you write, or how it's delivered. Empathy is THE #1 skill required for writing good content, in my opinion.

Whenever you are about to put pen to paper, or fingers to keys, you should put yourself in the shoes of your ideal client.

Then you will have a much better chance of writing content that resonates with your audience.

Jim Rohn once said "Your network is your net worth".

I agree with him 100%.

Especially when it comes to your LinkedIn network. Your connections on LinkedIn are extremely valuable - if they are the right kind of connections.

Imagine reaching the maximum number of allowed connections on LinkedIn (30,000 by the way) and all of them were your ideal client trying to solve the exact problem you help them solve to reach the exact desired outcome you help them reach. What would that be worth to you? A lot of money, I suspect!

Your followers are very important on LinkedIn. You can reach them regularly if you create good content and you'll stay relevant in their minds so that if they ever decide they need something you offer they will be more likely to come and find you.

Your connections however are priceless! If you carefully choose your connections and reach them in the right way you'll build a very strong network of potential clients over time. You can reach out directly and personally to all your connections through a message. You can't do that with followers, (well unless you're in the same group or they have open profile set up etc.)

Being able to chat 1:1 with a potential client puts a lot of control in your hands. You create a more personal connection with them and it's way more human.

The biggest mistake I see people make when they try to connect with their potential clients though is that they either push too hard from the onset or they do what everyone else does.

What I mean by that is they start to push what they have to offer before they build any rapport with people. I'm sure you've seen those messages like "Hi Adrian, I work for XYZ company and we provide services for people just like you. I'd love to connect."

I don't know about you but 9 times out of 10 I don't even look at their profiles and just reject the invitation. 🙄

Or perhaps you've seen something like "Hi Adrian, I came across your profile and saw we have a lot of connections in common. I'd love to connect."

The first thought that comes to mind is "how many other people has this exact message been sent to today?"

When you do this differently... When you read people's profile and find things in there that truly resonate with you and refer to them in that first connection message, people have a very different experience.

I'll use the party analogy again... When you meet someone new and they ask you about yourself, the things you love, what you're working on, what lights you up, etc. and they show genuine interest in you and what you have to say, it's a very different experience from being stuck with that other annoying person that just doesn't stop talking about themselves!

So, when I see a message like "It looks like you really offer value to your clients from all the awesome recommendations you get Adrian" or " I loved your article on XYZ Adrian. It really resonated so I thought I'd reach out to connect" they stand out immediately.

And even if I have a hunch that the person may be trying to offer me something further down the line, I'm still way more open to connecting with them, as whatever they offer might come in handy for me in future and I prefer to buy from someone who took the time to build rapport with me than someone who just pushed their crap at me right from the get go!

The Bottom Line

To be successful on the world's best online platform for generating leads you just have to follow some simple rules and get it right in the 3 areas I've talked about. Like I said, it's simple... but it's not necessarily easy!

How would you rate your self in these 3 areas?

Would you like to know how I rate you in these 3 areas?

If so, I have created the LinkedIn Health Check so you can see how you fair in each area. It's completely FREE and takes less than 2 minutes to complete.

You just need to answer 14 quick-fire questions to get your personalised, detailed report that will show you exactly how you're currently performing on LinkedIn and what you need to do to improve.

Just click below if you'd like to know your score... 😉