1. Name : since LinkedIn is website for business networking, use your own name and not a “nick name” you would use on other websites. 2. Professional Headline : this is the most important part of your LinkedIn Profile. If the title on your business card is Marcom Director, but people search for Vice President Marketing or Communication Manager, chances they will find you, decrease dramatically.

It makes the networks of the people we know visible. LinkedIn shows us our second and third degree networks and the paths towards them. LinkedIn makes this visible. Frustration! You define the HR Manager as the person who can help you best reaching your goal (a job, a contract or expertise). Then you use LinkedIn and do a search with “HR Manager, Coca Cola, and your country”. You didn’t know this because Coca Cola never has come up in your conversations.

However many sales people tell us LinkedIn doesn’t work for them. LinkedIn is a very powerful tool for sales people who are proactive and don’t wait till someone contacts them. LinkedIn is a NETWORK tool and not a SALES tool. LinkedIn helps to build relationships with people. Instead use LinkedIn as a research database to discover the relationships between people and then proceed outside of LinkedIn. Call your contact and explain him the situation.

Many people among which sales men have a Profile on LinkedIn and some connections. The power of LinkedIn is that it makes the relationships between people visible. Before LinkedIn good sales people already thought who they could ask for referrals. Before LinkedIn good sales people thought about which contact could possibly know potential customers. LinkedIn helps to deal with this process much more effectively and efficiently. LinkedIn uncovers many unexpected relationships between people. LinkedIn shows these relationships.