Ten Tips for a better LinkedIn profile 3/10
Your LinkedIn Profile is certainly your first, and can be your last chance to make a positive impression online.
It’s a combination of a sales pitch, a personal presentation, a business card, a brochure, a personal statement, a list of recommendations, a mini web-site, and a wave from across the room. It has a lot of work to do, and it only has a few seconds to either succeed or fail in doing that work. So — how do you make it a success?
This is the third of Ten Top Tips with my compliments, to help you make your LinkedIn Profile more effective. Enjoy!
Don’t want to read? Listen and I’ll read this to you via SoundCloud (2m 46s)
Ten Top Tips for a Better LinkedIn Profile: 3/10
Tip 3: Show me the benefits
Don’t say that you offer a bespoke service to small to medium enterprises and individuals. Tell me “I can save you 22.6% on your shoe polish and make your shoes last 3 months longer.”
My point here is that you need to sell people on the specific benefits you offer — and the more specific you can be, the better. People want to hear about benefits, not features.
FEATURES (Yawn!)
85mm x 55mm x 2mm
Pink or Green
USB Docking
BENEFITS (Oooh!)
Smaller than a credit card to allow you to take it anywhere
Pink or Green colour to match your tastes or outfit
Rechargeable battery — good for the environment, and good for your pocket, with fast ‘drop and forget’ recharging by just connecting to any computer USB port
Radio WII FM
There’s a radio station everyone listens to: Radio WII FM.
That’s Radio ‘What’s in it for me?’.
I want to know what you can do that will help me solve the problem I have right now.
And do remember, you are selling to me, one person, not “people like me.” Address me as an individual. I want to hear how a profile makeover will make me look better, feel better, make me more attractive, and bring me more business. I want to know exactly how I can save 22.6% on my shoe polish.
I want specifics.
Tell me a story about an instance where you really did your stuff. Or have a customer do that. Where you can’t really come up with a list of benefits, link them to features with the magic phrase “which means” — for example: “24 hour service — which means the last-minute inclusions for your conference pack can still arrive up to 8pm, but we can deliver packs to you at 6am the next morning for distribution to delegates on arrival.”
So in a nutshell:
Tell me why it will benefit me to do business with you — precisely, exactly, measurably, and specifically. If possible, add an example, testimonial or a recommendation from a real person who is also on LinkedIn.
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David Petherick is Director of First Impressions at Amazes.Me and makes your online presence visible, legible and credible at I Own My Own Name. Follow him on Twitter at @petherick_or circle him on Google Plus. Please feel free to connect on LinkedIn
You can listen to all of David’s Tips for a better LinkedIn Profile at https://soundcloud.com/petherick/sets/linkedin-top-ten-tips
Originally published at www.linkedin.com on November 24, 2014.
