Build contacts with business executives you don’t know by linking with people you do using the tool LinkedIn.

How? Let me provide some background first. LinkedIn is a Web 2.0 social marketing tool that fits into the neat nomenclature of “social network”. It is primarily created for business professionals. It's different than other social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook as it is designed specifically for professional networking -- finding a job, discovering sales leads, connecting with potential business partners -- rather than simply making friends or sharing media like photos, videos and music. For our purposes, we will focus on discovering sales leads.

There has been a massive popularity of social networking sites such as LinkedIn, MySpace and Facebook. In recent years. In August 2007 alone, MySpace had more than 60 million unique visitors and Facebook attracted 19 million, a growth rate of 23 percent and 117 percent, respectively, from a year earlier.

If you are wondering what a “social network” is, think of them as websites where users create personal profiles, search for "friends" or "contacts," and create extensive networks of connections. The number of these sites runs from 300 plus various social networking sites built around many different themes: video-sharing sites, photo sharing (such as Flickr), social bookmarking (such as Digg and Stumbleupon to name a few) and many more. LinkedIn is an all purpose professional networking site.

So why might this tool be good for you for sales leads? Because it is big! I mean it is really BIG! It had more than 15 million members as of October 2007. It is one of the fastest-growing online social networks in the world. Traffic rose 323 percent from July 2006 to July 2007, making the site the No. 1 online destination for professional networking.

LinkedIn Contacts

After you register and create a profile page, you are ready to create your contacts. LinkedIn will automatically find all of your e-mail contacts who are already members of the site. You can also use LinkedIn's "Find Contacts Wizard" to upload contacts from Microsoft Outlook or any other address book software.

Once you've uploaded your contacts, you then can select which of those LinkedIn users you'd like to invite to become members of your network. You can also use this opportunity to invite all of your non-LinkedIn contacts to join the site. The more you invite, the more connections you will be establishing.

If you click on the "People" section of the LinkedIn Web site, you can conduct a name search or an advanced search. With a name search, you enter either a full name or just the last name of the person you're looking for and LinkedIn will give you a list of all current members who share that name. Wow!

LinkedIn Connections

Finding classmates, colleagues and friends is just the beginning. To leverage the real power of LinkedIn -- gaining access to your connections' connections -- you have to invite these people to join your network.

On LinkedIn, the people who are part of your network are called your "connections”. Connections imply that you know the person well or that they're a trusted business contact. LinkedIn warns against adding complete strangers to your network, or accepting an invitation from someone you don't have a trusted relationship with.

Now what you want to do is to turn a contact into a connection. You will need to invite that person to join your network and they need to accept. Likewise, for another person to add you to their network they need to invite you and you need to accept. Regardless of who invites who, when an invitation is accepted, both parties are automatically added to each other's list of connections.

You can also remove a connection after you've accepted their invitation. You just go to your list of connections, check the box next to the people you want to remove and press the "remove connections" link. Don't worry, LinkedIn won't tell them.

How Do Sales Leads Work?

This is where the program gets fun. Think of the game “6 Degrees of Separation” (Usually associated with Kevin Bacon). The game is to find actors that have acted with another actor who has finally acted with Kevin Bacon (or whomever). Because of the mathematical odds, it can almost always be proven that we are all within 3 to 4 degrees (connections) of knowing or being related to each other.

For example, here is how my LinkedIn profile currently stands.

I currently have 338 “connections”, or people who know me and whom I know. Just in the program, there are 17,600+ people within one “touch” of those people, or people who know those people. One more separation away from those leads to 1,867,200 people that are within 2 “touches” away. In other words I can email my friends and ask for introductions to 17,600 people. And because they are “first party” endorsers, the new relationship is a slam dunk. See how you can build your “connections”?

So how does all this lead up to sales leads? Okay, let’s start out this way. Let’s say that you would love to find an in to the new medical supply plant that is moving hundreds of people in next year. Make a call to the receptionist of the personnel manager and ask for a meeting. If you get turned down, no problem. Get her business card. She’ll probably have her email address on it.

Now the fun begins. Add her to your list of connections. This will send her an email saying that you have added her to your list and would she mind if she added you to hers. This is very non-threatening and most people just accept. After all, she’s met you. The next step is to ask for an “introduction” to her boss (the personnel manager). Remember that this is not an appointment, but access to them as a “friend”.

If you get this, you are in. Now the two of you have a common friend (in the receptionist) who is common to each of you. Now it is much easier to invite him/her to lunch. The beautiful part of all this is that it can be done by the dozens and dozens to as many people as you care to prospect . . . the easy way.

Stop pulling your hair out over prospecting. Make it fun.