How do you BEST use your 5 introductions? Does it work well?
I am not a fan of Introductions. I think they are good in theory, but in the end you are relying on someone else to pass along your introduction in a timely manner (if at all). As well, with the free account, you only get five introductions at a time (fifteen with the paid account). That means if you ask five people in a company to introduce you to someone, and none of them pass along the introduction, you won’t have any more introductions to use again – indefinitely! You can withdraw introductions, but sometimes that takes weeks as well. Depending on if LinkedIn is having a good day or not.
Here are my recommendations:
- Start the introduction process with the person you to whom you want to be Introduced. LinkedIn will give you a list of people to choose as the “Introducer”.
- When you choose a person to pass an introduction along for you, choose someone:
- You know
- Who uses LinkedIn regularly (you can usually tell by how fully formed their profile is and how many connections they have)
- Someone who likes you.
In that order.
Someone you don’t know might not pass along the Introduction.
Someone who knows and likes you but is never on LinkedIn might pass it along – eventually. But by that time it might be too late.
- Be very clear to the person you want to be connected to AND to the person doing the Introduction WHY you want to connect. Give them details. Needless to say, a sales letter is going nowhere.
- If your Introduction hasn’t been passed within a week’s time, withdraw it and try someone else.
- Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Don’t use all five introductions with five different people all at once to Introduce you to a single person. At the most ask three different people for introductions to your intended connection, and as soon as your introduction is passed through, withdraw the others.
On the other end, you might have a policy in place for passing along introductions. Here’s mine which I post in my Contact Settings section.
