Former Classmates

Reconnect with Your Former Classmatesstring(37) "Reconnect with Your Former Classmates"

September 3, 2020
, , Relationships, Social Capital, Social Media

During the “back to school” season, I often recall my first day at the University of Southern California. This is where I pursued a doctorate in organizational behavior. One professor spent the first part of the class talking about the “elite network” of peers. We were going to be working alongside these peers and he talked about how we would build lifelong relationships with them. Instead, we spread out to chase our professional goals without any context in which to keep in touch after graduation. I have not networked with any of my former classmates over the years. Therefore, I have not given to or received from any of my former classmates a business referral.

Fortunately, the internet now offers a multitude of options to help you reconnect with old school friends and acquaintances. Here are three steps to convert those past relationships into useful new tools for your business.

to help you reconnect with old school friends and acquaintances. Here are three steps to convert those old relationships into useful new tools for your business.

Contact your school’s alumni services department. 

By being active with your alumni organization, you can share news about your business that may catch the eye of your fellow graduates. You can also research other alumni to find out who you may want to connect with.

Reconnect with your former classmates using social media.

LinkedIn is an online platform that connects the world’s professionals. A complete LinkedIn profile includes your educational background in addition to your professional experiences. You will likely find many of your former classmates there because LinkedIn will display anyone who attended college at the same time as you.

Facebook is a social networking site that makes it easy for you to connect and share with family and friends online. I hear stories all the time about how people have reconnected with classmates and childhood friends they have not seen in years.

Social media is best used as a brand-building tool. However, you can use it to find new sales leads to make a sale and close a deal. Write an occasional post on your pages asking your followers if they know anyone who might be a potential customer for your business. You can also occasionally mention a special deal, or announce a special event.  Encourage your followers to “like” and “share” your posts with the people in their networks.

Gently seek referrals.

Once you have organized your network, the next step is to tactfully tap your social capital. But be careful. Networking is about building stronger relationships, not closing a sale. If you immediately try to sell to an old classmate, they might drop, disconnect, or “un-friend” you. You have not talked to your classmates in years. Therefore, take the time to rebuild a strong relationship first.

I encourage you to connect with one of your former classmates during the coming week by using one of the online networking options. Once you have started reconnecting with old classmates, it’s important to keep track of these valuable contacts by setting up and maintaining a database system to organize your network to be able to follow-up with them regularly.

These tips will help you effectively reconnect with your former classmates so you do not have to sit around waiting for a reunion to give you the opportunity. The main thing is to keep in touch with these potentially wonderful business contacts.  Maintain a powerful personal network by contacting your old classmates (maybe go “old-school” and call them) regularly and adopt these tips now. 

LinkedIn

Stop! Don’t Pitch on LinkedInstring(31) "Stop! Don’t Pitch on LinkedIn"

June 25, 2020
Building Relationships, Social Media, VCP Process 8

Raise your hand if you’ve been cold-called on LinkedIn? OK, I can’t really see you but, I’m guessing most of you have.  I know I have.  It happens to me almost on a daily basis on LinkedIn. Let me give you a real-life example of a recent one. I recently accepted a request to connect with me on LinkedIn from a person who I’ll call Greg.

I’m calling him Greg because… well, that was his name.

When he sent the request, he wrote to me and said,

“I love connecting with founders of companies where we can share mutual connections.  Let’s connect and share insights if you’re open to it?”

I accepted. He wrote back.

Thanks for connecting with me Ivan, I appreciate it!  Anything exciting you’re working on at BNI? Let me know if I can be a resource to you in any way, and thanks again for connecting!

So far, so good.  This was a great start.  But wait… two days later (without waiting for my reply) he wrote his pitch:

Hi Ivan, We have developed a new generation project management tool that leverages artificial intelligence and that allows you to automate your teamwork and always know that you have the best organization in place. I’m sure it would be a great help for you and your teammates in BNI as we already have many clients from your industry using it. You can discover it here with this link if you are interested:  [I’m leaving it out to protect the guilty.] Hope you find it useful and I’d love to hear any feedback you have! All the best, Greg

OK, so now I knew he wasn’t really connecting to share insights.  He was connecting to pitch me.  I didn’t respond. He wrote again a few days later.  He said,

Hi Ivan, I hope you are doing well. I’m contacting you because I really need your help and have something great for you and your business in return. We are a young startup and have created a revolutionary intelligent project management tool that leverages artificial intelligence to automatically plan the work for you. There is no such product that exists today and the increase of performance that you can get with it is just mind-blowing. You can discover our software here: [Leaving out for the guilty again.] and I would be glad to exchange with you on the subject and show you how it works and how it can be a game-changer for your business. We will also offer you amazing pricing conditions as being part of our early adopters. I hope you can help me out and we will for sure over-deliver for you in return. Let’s talk? Best regards, Greg

I so did not respond to that. He wrote again a couple of days later.

Hi, Ivan Hope, you found our site valuable!   I’d love to share some insights with you over a quick call. When would you be available? Greg

I didn’t respond. The next day he wrote, Hey Ivan – making sure you saw my last message.  Any thoughts?

Yes, I had plenty of thoughts, none of which would be appropriate to share.  So, instead, I wrote back… No thanks.

He responded almost immediately, Hi Ivan. Thanks for the feedback.  For my personal knowledge, may I ask you why?

Hmm, I thought – does he really want to know why?  OK, I decided, I will tell him why. I wrote back.

Because you don’t really know what I do, you don’t know anything about me (other than what you’ve read), and we have no relationship (which, if you knew anything about me, you’d know is important).  This is a “cold-call” via LinkedIn and it is against everything I teach in my business.  This “pitch” is the very thing I write about NOT doing to people.  You asked and that is the unvarnished truth.

He replied almost immediately, Interesting. So how do I reach out to you?

I replied.

I do business by referral.  That takes time and effort.  I recognize that “cold-calling” does as well.  I just choose not to do business that way and it is a strategy that has worked well for me and most of the people who follow my work.

He replied almost immediately.

I get a lot of referrals. But right now I’m reaching out to people like you in a cold way because that’s the only way I can potentially get to talk to them. I was just asking for some help as a young and dynamic entrepreneur that has a really disrupting product. Remember how it was hard in the beginning…

I responded,

I do.  That’s how I learned that networking is more about farming than it is about hunting.  It’s all about the relationships.  That’s how I built the business.  Reaching out “cold” is not the only way to talk to people.  It is the most expedient way to “feel” like you are doing something but not the only way to do it and I would argue – not the best way.  Those are my thoughts on the subject.  I need to run now. Use the advice, don’t use the advice, that is up to you. Good luck. Ivan

I also sent him a link about the VCP Process in networking.  I’ve never heard from him again.

Now, I don’t want to pick on LinkedIn.  It can happen on any social media platform.  It’s happened to me on Facebook, Twitter,  and even BNI Connect (I know – that one is really frustrating to see). This is not just a LinkedIn issue.  However, it does seem to happen a lot more there for me.  In either case, cold-calling is cold-calling no matter what form it takes.  But, it never hurts to ask, right?  Wrong.  Check out my video here to learn why: https://staging2.ivanmisner.com/never-hurts-ask-right/

To Connect or Not to Connect, That is the LinkedIn Questionstring(59) "To Connect or Not to Connect, That is the LinkedIn Question"

November 30, 2015
, , Community, Connections, Social Media, Visibility 2

linkedinLinkedIn is an extremely powerful tool to help you grow your network and your business. Unfortunately, it is also a network that many can abuse. There are social networking tactics that work perfectly on Twitter and Facebook that flop on LinkedIn, and vice versa.

One huge mistake is forgoing importing your email contacts into LinkedIn. The vast majority of your business contacts are likely on LinkedIn, and if you aren’t already connected to them, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity. By connecting with your email contacts, you can endorse their skills and perhaps be endorsed in return, automatically receive updates when they change something in their profile, and learn more about them professionally.

On endorsing skills, have you gone through your contacts an endorsed everyone for at least one skill? If you are connected with someone on LinkedIn and you don’t know enough about them to be able to endorse them for at least one skill, that is a red flag that you aren’t fully utilizing that contact. I recommend reaching out to them and asking if they have time to schedule a one-to-one. Your goal is to learn enough about them, and identify enough about their skillset to feel comfortable endorsing them. If you feel like you don’t know them well enough to endorse them, likely they feel the same about you.

Update your profile’s summary to one clear, concise sentence that defines your current career trajectory. Help your contacts help you by making it clear, both in the real world and the digital world, what a good referral for you is.

The occasional status update is good, too. Say you write a blog for your business, or read a particularly interesting trade piece. These are great things to share and to start conversations with your contacts. Be aware, though, on LinkedIn, it is very easy to cross the line between just enough and too many updates. You should strive for just a few updates a week, as people tend to log into LinkedIn a lot less than other networks.

Search through the connections that your contacts have, and see if there is anyone you may ask to be introduced to. Your network’s network is a tool that you have at your disposal, just know how to access it in the best way. Perhaps a contact you’ve known for 10 years is connected with someone that you had always wanted to meet. Reach out to your contact and see if they would be willing to make the introduction. It never hurts to ask.

How do you use LinkedIn? Are there any LinkedIn suggestions you think are vital that I’ve missed? Share them in the comments below!

It Never Hurts to Ask . . . Right?string(34) "It Never Hurts to Ask . . . Right?"

November 20, 2014
, , , , , Advertising, Building Relationships, Business, Connections, Conversation, Credibility, Faux Pas, Marketing/Sales, Networking, Networking Prep, Networking Tactics, Online Networking, personal story, Rant!, Referrals, Relationships, Sales, Social Capital, Social Media, Strategy, Success, Video Blog 13

How many times have we heard people say that it never hurts to ask? Surely more times than we can count. 

Well, in this video, I explain why it definitely hurts to ask sometimes–especially if you ask to soon!  I share a personal story of a recent time when a stranger contacted me via LinkedIn wanting to connect and accompanied the connection request with a note asking me something which I found inappropriate to the point that I decided right then that I was never even going to consider connecting with her.

Watch the video to hear the story and to find out why I flagged the woman’s LinkedIn request as problematic on three significant levels.  Let me just say that this is ‘Networking 101’ and if I were her teacher, she would have gotten a failing grade–this is not the way to network!  Whether you frequently participate in face-to-face networking, online networking, or both, you’ll definitely want to hear this story so you never make the three mistakes that this woman did.

I’d really love to hear your feedback on this.  What are your thoughts?  Also, please share any similar horror stories you may have in the comment forum below–I’m looking forward to hearing from you.  Thanks!

Five Steps for Getting the Most from LinkedInstring(45) "Five Steps for Getting the Most from LinkedIn"

December 1, 2011
, Connections, Marketing/Sales, Networking, Networking Prep, Networking Tactics, Online Networking, Referrals, Social Media, Video Blog, Word of Mouth 9

I’ve been following the development of online business networking for several years now; particularly at the inception of sites like Ecademy.com and LinkedIn.  That said,  I’d like to state for the record: If you’ve had any lingering thoughts that social media is just a fad, you may want to lose them.

Are you aware that LinkedIn’s IPO (Initial Public Offering) has a valuation of 4.3 billion (USD)?  That’s right, I said BILLION.  If you haven’t been taking social media seriously, perhaps it’s time to start.

While there are indeed many competitors to LinkedIn, it has certainly–for now–risen to the top when it comes to sites devoted primarily to business networking and social media.

In this short video, I offer five valuable tips that will guide you in the right direction when it comes to using LinkedIn and getting the most from the efforts you put into networking online through this particular site.

Do you have additional tips for using LinkedIn, or other networking sites, which you’ve found to be highly effective?  If so, please share them in the comments section so others can learn and benefit from your experience.