Short and sweet today and, at the same time, one of the most powerful things you can do on LinkedIn.
You receive an invitation to connect and press the “Accept” button. Another connection made. But should you leave it at that? I say no. At that moment, perhaps more than any other, you have the perfect opportunity to develop that potential relationship easily and immediately by writing back and getting the conversation going right there and then.
Let’s face it – if you were at a face to face networking event and you’ve just gone through the “preliminaries” of introducing yourselves, would you just leave it at that? It would seem unusual to do so … maybe counterproductive even, almost giving off the message that well I now know the minimum about you and that’s all I want.
Anyway, it’s just as easy to continue the conversation on LinkedIn – when you ‘Accept’ a connection on LinkedIn you are automatically given the opportunity to ‘Send a message’ as you can see below.
So, what should you say?
Well, check out their profile and ask them a question or tell them something that you do that’s relevant to them. Perhaps something that you could do for them (novel approach 😉 ) or enquire about something from their profile, an event they’ve said they’re attending or a recent update that they’ve sent out.
If nothing else, have an equivalent to the famous / infamous 1 minute elevator pitch that all these morning networking groups have encouraged and send them a precis of that to help develop the dialogue.
At the very least, just say “Hi!” and thank them for getting in touch – you just never know where that might lead in the business world!
