Last year, LinkedIn helped me do something crazy.
I up and quit a job where I’d worked for more than a dozen years . . . with a boss who liked me . . . at a Major League Baseball team. I did it to start a business, an endeavor I’d never attempted before, and I couldn’t build up much of a client base before leaving because of how interconnected the industry is. One asset I did have to help me in this nutty venture was a certain business networking site. LinkedIn = enabler.
I started planning to go all entrepreneurial on the world two years before I actually did it. The preparations I made included buying a computer and selling a house. They also included business cards. I needed to print my own, which I had to get done rapid-fire at FedEx Office when I unexpectedly found out on a Friday that I had my first client meeting on a Monday. I also decided to go through the large stack of other people’s calling cards I had accumulated over my career. Here’s where LinkedIn enters the picture.
Every person represented on one of those cards that I felt might still remember me (fondly, ideally) got searched out on LinkedIn and received an invitation to connect. After I went through the mounds of business cards, I checked old emails, media guides (I worked for a baseball team, remember), and askmen.com’s list of available heiresses (not really - I swear). Relevant folks from those sources also received invites. I got back lots of accepted invitations.
I felt it important to start connecting with folks before I needed anything from them. At that time, I was the guy who worked for the Texas Rangers, a baseball team headed for the World Series, not a struggling startup proprietor desperate for paid-by-the-word blogging scraps. LinkedIn works perfectly for such a scenario because it feels low-pressure. Accepting an invitation doesn’t obligate one to anything or grant access to political-career-destroying-photos. It just reminds one you’re a professional and cracks a door to future business interaction.
The exercise helped with some personal interaction, too. I always try to use a personalized message in my invitations to connect and that stoked further messaging, phone calls, and an occasional meet-up with people with whom I hadn’t worked in years. Those connections proved fun as well as useful in networking.
Since then, LinkedIn has helped me do more wild stuff. It occurred to me that lots of the people I might like to do business with belong to the same LinkedIn Groups I do. I became more active posting content to those groups and started a blog. That led to more contacts, including a business partnership an ocean away and regular appearances on a radio showthat originates out of Corfu, Greece (really - I couldn’t make that up).
You can learn a crazy amount of information on LinkedIn about people you don’t know but would like to. That’s a two-way street, of course. Bring it on. Research me. Let’s mess something up together.
LinkedIn doesn’t host cat videos (unless you’re a veterinarian, maybe) or vacation photos (unless you’re a travel agent, perhaps). It has a more buttoned-down feel, as it should. But that doesn’t mean it can’t contribute to some completely audacious undertakings. Party on, LinkedIn.
Rush Olson decided to write this post after receiving an invitation to publish from LinkedIn (more craziness from them). So, he figured, why not make it about LinkedIn? You know, do a little apple-polishing.
Rush has spent two decades directing creative efforts for sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns and related creative projects for sports entities and much more through his company, Rush Olson Creative & Sports.
RushOlson.com
Linkedin.com/company/rush-olson-creative-&-sports
Facebook.com/RushOlsonCreativeandSports
Behance.net/rusholson
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