My Life On LinkedIn Since 2006A Case Study for Sales and Personal Branding

I signed up for LinkedIn onNovember 22, 2006.

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I saw the platform as an opportunity to post my

resume online.

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I mainly responded to connection requests from

other people and spent very little time on the site itself.

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In early 2007, I had jumped into the sales profession, joining an IT consulting

boutique.

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My job was to diversify the company by growing its

network of consultants and landing new clients.

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Very quickly, I realized how LinkedIn could help me do

both.

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I spent the next four or five years adding every person who I

connected with on a professional basis as a connection on LinkedIn. Before meeting

someone new, I looked him or her up on LinkedIn so that we could relate that much better.

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My big breakthrough happened in 2009.

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That small IT consulting company landed a large,

multi-year contract, and we needed people with specialized skill sets.

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I leveraged LinkedIn and found subject-matter experts around the world. I contacted them, began dialogues, and

transitioned the relationships to phone calls and eventually

visits to Newfoundland.cc: LK-GA - https://www.flickr.com/photos/24052304@N04

In 2012 we decided it was time to grow the company

geographically.

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I scheduled multiple business-development trips to other

provinces.

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I spent hours on LinkedIn, looking up key individuals in the provinces I planned to

visit. I sent inMail messages to those I wanted to meet.

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LinkedIn has facilitated hundreds if not thousands of

coffee chats for me. Some have led to business. Virtually

all have led to new connections.

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In 2013 the company was acquired by KPMG Canada. I lead business-development

efforts for the Microsoft practice.

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Interestingly enough, the Microsoft practice originated with that boutique firm about a year prior to its acquisition,

when two Microsoft MVPs used LinkedIn to contact me

and form a relationship.cc: striatic - https://www.flickr.com/photos/34427466731@N01

In mid-2014 I decided to pursue my lifelong dream of

writing a book.

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I wanted to share with entrepreneurs and new sales

professionals the message that, with the right mind-set, they can embrace selling and become very effective at it.

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It’s Time to Sell: Cultivating the Sales Mind-Set, self-

published in December 2015, has sold many thousands more copies than I ever

expected.

H o w ?

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A few months after I began writing the book, I began to research how to promote a book. I came to realize that without a platform doing so

would be very difficult.cc: Roberto_Ventre - https://www.flickr.com/photos/65743191@N00

I took notice of a few people I knew who were publishing articles on LinkedIn’s new

publishing platform. I decided to jump on board.

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To date I have published just shy of one hundred articles and attracted a whole new network of thought leaders

and influencers.

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I also have leveraged the SlideShare platform as

another avenue for communicating my message.

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My platform has expanded to include the It’s Time to Sell

podcast. All thirty guests who have been on the podcast are connections that I made via

LinkedIn.cc: Colleen AF Venable - https://www.flickr.com/photos/49503171926@N01

Around the same time that I began publishing on LinkedIn,

I embraced another new LinkedIn tool: Sales Navigator.

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I use Sales Navigator to stay up to date on key accounts,

clients, and leads.

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My use of Sales Navigator, in particular, leads to the reason

that I am excited about Microsoft’s potential

acquisition of LinkedIn.

Under its Dynamics brand, Microsoft has a powerful

suite of enterprise applications. CRM is one of

them.

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I see huge potential in the combination of Sales

Navigator and Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

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How Microsoft and LinkedIn integrate those products will

be interesting to see.

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Could this be the next chapter in my life on LinkedIn?

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Time will tell.

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