Developing Markets with Linked In Partnerships
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I. Overview
II. LinkedIn Strategy and Benefits
III. LinkedIn as part of your natural business model.
IV. LinkedIn Business Proposition
V. LinkedIn's Networking Value matched with your Market Readiness.
VI. Productivity in Partnership
VII. Integrating LinkedIn Partner Considerations.
VII. Resources
I. Overview
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Developing skills for social and business networking improves our individual abilities to successfully identify new revenue potential, enhance marketing programs, and networking skills to serve greater industry needs. We can do more together than we can alone, but how do we balance the mix of creativity and operational excellence?
The key is in balance and ideas. The case for LinkedIn Networking for developing marketshare, partnerships, or longevity, is really an extension of what you already do in managing relationships.
The objective of using LinkedIn to develop sales and marketing capabilties will help you to define or refine some elements of your strategy that you could not have done otherwise.
* Articulate a strategy and benefits to creating win win partnerships.
* Leverage natural base of connected strategists for each partnership focus.
* Better communicate and get feedback on company position, business propositions and value based partnerships.
* Explain how through networking you can create both sales and consumer demand through your existing base, if your focus is on developing well working partnerships.
II. LinkedIn Strategy and Benefits
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In life as in networking, we must consider our motives, our communications, and "WIIFM" (What's In It For Me) for those we network with. The objective is well working relationships, forged in integrity and trust, built for repeat business and referrals. Think about the methods you use to cultivate well working relationships, consider the sink holes and traps and plan around them-- they are minefields of time wasters. All of this is an effort to support your companies bottom line, so the better youare at ASKING for the Business, FOLLOWING the response, and Closing accordingly sets the stage for your LinkedIn Experience.
Attributes of all LinkedIn Professionals:
* Owns access to potential customers, clients, or business expertise.
* Creaties, identifies, or stimulates service possibilities.
* Includes their own value as part of the connected service offering.
* Can create competitive endorsements that can speak volumes more for you than you could for yourself.
* More complete profiles and reasonable level of connections improves your viability to other networkers. Not collectors, but win win marketeers.
III. LinkedIn as part of your natural business model.
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LinkedIn should not be viewed as a "bolt on" extra thing to do. In fact it fits nicely as a natural part of your business model. With all connections having equal possibility to influence revenue or competitive position, it becomes clear that connecting to people who know you and can value your offering is golden, but if that were sufficient, LinkedIn would not be necessary.
When demand for quality jobs grew beyond my current skills, I turned to LinkedIn to ask specific questions of experts who could help me. Today I am indeed friends with some of those people I met some 5 years ago as strangers. Delighted I never turned my back on an invitation from a viable networker, as I would have greatly diminished my ability to help others, if I never met the 3 key people I had on the road to building a business.
Key to any business model, and Linked In is no exception is the notion of channel related business models forming a triangle of activity surrounding : Sales Process, Financials Process, and Present State (Hot buttons of what matters most to them).
Why is it important to understand their Sales Model?
.. Their Financials Intentions?
.. Their Present Hot buttons?
IV. LinkedIn Business Proposition
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The real business proposition to why build with linked in lies in the opportunity it presents for every member you connect to, and yourself to:
* Attract partnerships, customers, and business advantage.
* Influence your service delivery and service offering position
* Gain new and retain and grow existing business relationships.
People who begin to understand the possibilities with Social Networking and in particular with Linked In may begin to use it more completely to refine their networking message, to motivate and stimulate partnerships, and the network itself becomes an individual vehicle of value to create unique conditions for business success.
What do you think is necessary to your vision and business proposition to make it compelling to yourself and your connections?
What makes a relationship worthy of a deeper investment/commitment?
V. LinkedIn's Networking Value matched with your Market Readiness.
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Everyone working within the realm of networking has perceived value, skills, needs, marketplace position, and readiness. LinkedIn Relationships can be used to improve the value proposition (Credibility, Believability, and readiness) for your service profile, skill or business offering, serving as a benefit, distinguishing you from the competition. This is done by the quality of profile, quality of connected associations, quality of endorsements, and the capacity of your network to create solutions.
The LinkedIn Network itself becomes a vehicle for prosperity and opportunity for its capacity and ability to create unique solutions to its network members needs. In this way, while a LinkedIn network is part of a way of doing business, its value creates a means to expand your companies or your individual influence on partnership, programs, or opportunities.
If your business network is mature, and your business follow through is equally ready, it is easy to see how a LinkedIn network creates unique service values including:
* Network member resource needs
* Identified alternative sourcing needs
* Ability to combine, create, or collaborate on product or service collaborations.
* Develop new networking and operational skills that benefit you, your business, and your network.
So LinkedIn does have inherent value, but it must be matched with equal human relevance. Reputation, features, reliability, serviceability, strategy, and perceived quality depend upon both system, and individual to create the value.
The two depend upon one another for success as a very resourceful person without a network will soon run into limitations as to their scope of influence. Conversely, a super connector who collects only names, without a profile or deeper human element will also run into shallow offering capabilities.
So who might find value in your LinkedIn Networking Product today?
What can you do to bring more value to your LinkedIn Network Capabilities?
VI. Productivity in Partnership
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So it seems that in business and in LinkedIn Networking, being able to consider your value in partnerships depends upon the clarity to which you can introspect, identify, create the experience and opportunities.
* How well do you define or create opportunities for improving your business proposition?
* How can an existing business alignment create feedback channels to improve quality and create new business?
* What consequences exist as challenges when a partnership is in distress?
Productivity is found in partnerships, and thus improvement requires a focus on value, maintaining relationships, and growing our ability to serve one another. While the network may require referrals or solutions that are Service, Product, or Professionally related, the value they ssee in partnership lies in a networking partners ability to be available, with the right price, product, people, and skills to their need. Partnerships enable a higher level of business relationship and service advantage when done correctly, your customer can not help but to become very dedicated to you, because you are a solver of problems, a creator of opportunities, and so are your valued network members.
So what to do to preserve value and reduce alignment issues? When goals and objectives are aligned, there is a clearer sense of requirement between supply and demand, making it easier to satisfy demand through leveraged relationships. Partnerships work because they are realistic in their abilities to help one another, but focussed upon becoming the best in their areas of specialty, and attracting other like minded professionals who feel the same.
Find a natural way to keep in contact, with reciprocal benefits, and the continuous ability to learn, grow and improve the initial investment. The key to keeping in alignment is to be open in objectives, without overdependence on any one person, rather a belief that a quality network will always identify quality results, equal to customer demand, but never exclusively tied to a relationship that is a poor fit to the overall network.
What can you do to naturally balance collaboration and promotion, giving your service, exposure and audience it deserves, with proper balance?
VII. Integrating LinkedIn Partner Considerations.
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Consider the presentation and improving the communicatiosn around your service offering and networking requirements. Discuss with your partners what you have and need, and what they have and need, discuss ways to understand and improve the quality of our services. Identify and brainstorm breakthrough solutions involving connections, possibilities, or business angels not considered before.. What additional integration opportunities exist within your network?
If the key factors to business success are availability and readiness, what can you do within your network to create unique advantage for both?
What are some opportunities of needed services, or people needing your services that could represent integration possibility? What would be your plan to recognize them?
VII. Resources
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a.
Story of LinkedIn Partnerships on LIHFCN Blog.
b. Learn and Teach Linked In Partnerships at
LI_HFCN Yahoo Group. Links Library to networking best practices, connect with other networking masters, improve your mastery.
c.
Request your invitatation to add the colorful HFCN Logo appearing in master networkers profiles under groups.
d. Use your group affiliations to meet other professionals you can learn or share resources with.