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Free Webinar – Using LinkedIn to Sell More, Faster and with Less Effort

6/28/2007 By

Next Monday night, July 2nd, at 6pm PST / 9pm EST / 1am GMT, I’ll be presenting a free web seminar in conjunction with Larry Benet, “The Connector”, on using LinkedIn to boost your sales. More specifically, we’ll talk about how to use LinkedIn for:

  • Lead generation – How to find and attract highly targeted prospects in LinkedIn
  • Sales acceleration – How to use information and leverage relationships via LinkedIn to speed up the sales cycle and close more deals
  • Solution delivery – Use LinkedIn to find the partners to help you compete with larger companies for larger projects and contracts

The web seminar is totally free, BUT… space is limited, so you do have to register in advance to guarantee your spot.

Hope to see you there!

You can see the story of how I met Larry and decided to do a webinar on less than a week’s notice over at Linked Intelligence.

Filed Under: Miscellaneous

Ecademy Success Story from a Reader

6/28/2007 By

I got a very nice private message on Ecademy this week from a reader — always rewarding to hear that what you’re doing is making a difference in people’s businesses:

Reposted with permission

Hi Scott!

Just wanted to write and say hello. I’ve read just about everything you’ve written at About.com and I’ve read your blog a few times as well. Actually, your work convinced me to sign up for Ecademy. I lurked around Ecademy for about a week before I uploaded a profile and actually began networking. After a few days of connecting with people I upgraded my membership to PowerNetworker status so I could utilize more of the tools. Honestly, I was only going to *try* Ecademy for a few months.

Well, I’ve been a member now for less than one month and I’ve gained new clients and great feedback as well. I’m impressed! Online networking is a lot of fun and I’m communicating with people all over the world.

Thanks for sharing great information!

Kind Regards,

Michelle McCray
*Swell Creative – Graphic Design Arts + Marketing Communications

If you’re on Ecademy already, or if you decide to join, be sure to stop by Michelle’s profile and say “hi”.

Filed Under: Success Stories, Web 2.0 Sites

Nerd Guru Reviews The Virtual Handshake

6/28/2007 By

HP.com Chief Architect Pete Johnson, who I met here in Austin a couple of months ago, has posted a review of The Virtual Handshake on his blog (also made the front page of TechDispenser).

Pete was particularly taken with our “7 Keys to a Powerful Network” framework, which triggered one of those ah-hah moments for him:

This is all covered in the first two chapters of the book, but I spend a lot of time on it here because it not only provides a framework for the other chapters, but when I applied this analysis on my own career it had a pretty profound effect on me. What I realized was that I had a bigger network than I thought I did, despite never actively “networking” per se. However, I had pretty pitiful diversity outside my employer of the last 14 years.

You can see more of my thoughts on networking for nerds over at Linked Intelligence.

Filed Under: Success Stories, Virtual Handshake Marketing

Blog Comment Signatures Can Boost Your Traffic

6/28/2007 By

This week, Jason Alba is doing a series of posts about his blogging secrets. This is a great guide for how to effectively build relationships and your personal brand with your blog.

One of the tips that came up in the comments on his Day 1 post was the matter of using a signature in your post when you leave comments on other people’s blogs. Typically, if you leave your name and URL in the comment posting form, it ends up linking your name to your site, e.g., Scott Allen points to TheVirtualHandshake.com (or LinkedIntelligence.com or Entrepreneurs.About.com, depending on the context). However, that’s a) usually at the top of your comment – people don’t scroll back up once they’ve read your comment, and b) it’s non-obvious that it actually links to your blog.

Jason explains, as well as sharing his hesitation about using comment signatures:

ALso along these lines, I have since started to leave a new signature:

Jason Alba
CEO – JibberJobber.com
.. self-serve job security ..

I’ve been trying it out, and with different tag lines. Putting a URL in the comments makes it really easy for readers to just click over to my website, and the tagline makes people curious.

Sometimes I’ve hesitated before putting the signature on the comment, especially when no one else is, but I figure it’s better to risk than pass up the chance, and if someone says they don’t like that then I’ll make note of it and leave the signature off for later comments.

But Pete Johnson reassured him, sharing the success he had after learning the tip from The Virtual Handshake:

As I learned from Scott Allen (and am writing about later in the week), the post signature is huge. On one techie site in particular, I got 10x more traffic when I went from this:

—Pete
http://nerdguru.net

to this:

Pete Johnson
HP.com Chief Architect
Personal Blog: http://nerdguru.net

The second one even got me an unsolicited email from the editor wanting to know if I wanted to write a case study based on HP’s web architecture, an opportunity I wouldn’t have dreamed of otherwise.

This is a great example of co-opting a brand. “Nerdguru” isn’t a household name, but HP.com sure is. Pete is able to leverage his position to build his personal brand.

But what if you don’t have a big-name brand to co-opt? Even a simple signature can serve you well. Which is more likely to get your attention and make you click?

Scott Allen
LinkedIntelligence.com

or

Scott Allen
Linked Intelligence – Home of 80+ Smart Ways to Use LinkedIn

Or how about:

Scott Allen
TheVirtualHandshake.com

or

Scott Allen
Coauthor, The Virtual Handshake: Opening Doors and Closing Deals Online

*Sigh*

I need to remember to follow my own advice! :-)

Filed Under: Blogging, Chapter 09: Blogging, Success Stories, Tips