When your candidate responds positively to your invitation to meet face-to-face with them on Zoom, arrange a Discovery call as described in prior Workshops.

At the end of the Discovery call, you should only invite those you feel would be valuable contributors to your team and the CC to experience a CC introductory session.

Follow-up with those you have attended a CC Intro session as soon as possible, and if they are keen to take a trial of the NBS and you believe they will make a valuable member of your team, book your first onboarding session with them.

Having obtained a filtered list of candidates, it is important to sift through each profile to decide whether or not you would like to send them an invitation to connect with a view to meeting on Zoom.

It makes sense to connect with others whose profiles clearly indicate that they are likely to be interested in building their networks and are like-minded.

In the end, you are only looking for a few good people to join your team. However, your team will grow because those that join your team will start building their team.

In many cases, a quick glance at a profile is enough to decide that you do NOT want to send them an invitation to connect.

In a few cases, you will give them the benefit of the doubt.

In other cases, you will be very excited about what they have written on their profile and be very keen to meet them on Zoom.

This triaging process can become tedious; especially when you are discarding most of the profiles you examine.

It is therefore essential that you

Keep working to improve your Boolean searches to produce better lists of potential candidates.
Establish consistent daily mini-habits.

Let’s say you set a goal to send out 1 request to connect per day.

In this case, the number of connection requests you send per day is so small that it is unlikely to become boring.

Also, you will likely send out more than just 1 connection request each day.

Our experience tells us that it will take about 200 well-selected connection requests to find 5 people excited about building their network as part of your team. In this case, even if you only sent 1 connection request per day, it would take you 10 months to onboard 5 team members. If you did 2 per day, it would take 5 months, and with 5 per day, you would onboard 5 team members in 2 months.

It’s up to you how quickly you build your team of team-building advocates. However, it is worth understanding your team members will often follow your example. In other words, if you introduce new team members quickly and your team members duplicate your speed, your entire team of team-building advocates will rapidly grow through the efforts of many others.

Careful filtering on LinkedIn can save you a great deal of time and the tedious effort of examining many profiles to find the few you are looking for.

In other words, it is so worthwhile taking the time to understand LinkedIn searches and work on improving your searching techniques.

LinkedIn allows you to enter the following filters:

Connection level (1st, 2nd and 3rd);
Geographic locations;
The text you would like to appear on a candidate’s profile to be selected for your further examination.

Your search text may contain the Boolean operators OR NOT AND. When entering any of these 3 operators, you must enter them in capitals for them to be recognised as Boolean operators.

It will save you some frustration when you know about the following quirks of LinkedIn:

If you have more than 5 OR operators, LinkedIn will issue an error message and suggest that you simplify your search.
LinkedIn interprets a space between words in the same way as the AND operator. You should use space instead of AND because LinkedIn will give you an error message if you have 5 or more AND operators but not if you have 5 or more spaces.
You can have many NOT operators if you don’t combine them with the other operators. For example, NOT(talent) NOT(recruitment) is better than NOT(talent OR recruitment).

The free version of LinkedIn has a “Commercial Limit” of about 15 searches per month. If you exceed this limit, you will have to wait until the start of next month before you can do any more searches.

However, we will show you how to save your search so that you don't have to keep using your allocation of searches every time you go into LinkedIn.

All versions of LinkedIn allow you to send a maximum of 100 requests to connect per week. It is therefore important that you choose carefully before sending an invitation to connect.

Let’s look at some examples of searches.

If you were to enter the words tall, space dark, space handsome

All the profiles returned from your search would contain all of the words, tall, dark, handsome.

On the other hand, if you entered tall OR dark OR handsome, all profiles returned from the search would contain at least one of these words. This will be a much more extensive list than that produced by tall, space dark, space handsome.

When you look at the following example:

(founder OR entrepreneur) ("digital marketing" OR information) (relationships OR others OR difference OR, partner) NOT(talent) NOT(recruitment);
it’s apparent that Boolean searches can be sophisticated and powerful. Many people in the CC have a great deal of experience using Boolean searches and will be more than willing to help you iron out any kinks in your search strings during some of our workshops.

It’s worth taking the time to think about Boolean searches. As always, it helps to work smarter as well as harder.

Here are some hints and tips that may help you:

Include words that help you find others of like-mind.
For example, the words “Others” & “Difference” often mean that they are interested in making a difference in the lives of others.
Include words that help you find others that are likely to be interested in expanding their networks.
For example, words such as owner, founder, start-up, entrepreneur.
Include words that will make it easy for you to connect with them when you meet them on Zoom. For example, if they have a similar profession or entrepreneurial spirit, you will have an affinity that can make it easier to connect.
As you examine LinkedIn profiles, take note of words you may want to include in future searches.
Ideally, your search should yield about 500 profiles. Unfortunately, anything above 1000 is wasted because LinkedIn will only allow you to access the first 1000.

People who

have not yet connected with you
but have connected with your 1st-level connections

Are referred to by LinkedIn as your 2nd-level connections.

Let’s say, for example, you have 500 1st-level connections.

If each of these 500 connections also had 500 connections, you would have 250,000 2nd-level connections.

It’s easy to see how a relatively small number of high-quality 1st-level connections can lead to a huge list of similar quality potential connections.

When sending your 2nd-level connections an invitation to connect, LinkedIn limits the size of the message that accompanies your invitation to 300 characters in length.

What’s the objective of your invitation to connect message?

Your objective is simply to gain their agreement to have a Zoom call between the 2 of you so that you can meet face-to-face and see if your network building objectives and your values align.

Think of your invitation to connect message as having 2 parts.

The first part of your message should vary depending on what you have observed on their profile.

For example,

“It’s great to see that we both believe in making a difference in partnership with others.”

The second part of your message should always be the same.

For example,

Hopefully (like me), you also value stronger relationships outside LinkedIn?
If so, let's connect with a view to meeting on Zoom or equivalent.

Given that you are suggesting a Zoom call with people you don’t yet know, you must select candidates carefully so that you do not waste each other’s time.

We cover how to select people who could be a great part of your team in the next topic.

Let’s first think about the people who have already connected with you on LinkedIn.

In many cases, you will not know many of these 1st level connections very well.

So, a great place to start is to create a filtered list of your connections on LinkedIn that you’d like to have a Discovery Zoom with.

One great benefit of sending messages to those already connected with you on LinkedIn is that LinkedIn does not limit you to a message of only 300 characters-length as it does when sending a message accompanying your invitations to connect.

So, let’s start by reaching out to potential great quality network building partners who have already connected with you on LinkedIn
You may already have many connections on LinkedIn that you have not yet had a chance to build a relationship with.
Some of these may have profiles that suggest they are keen to build relationship-based networks.
The quickest way to identify a list that you can further examine would be to do a "Boolean Search" of your first-level connections (the how-tos of Boolean searches is discussed in subsequent Workshops).
What would your message say?
Fortunately, you are already connected with these candidates, so LinkedIn does not limit you to just the 300 characters they allow you for a first-time connection request.
Nevertheless, it doesn't have to be a long message.
It could be something as simple as:
"Hi, Mary,
We've been connected for a while on LinkedIn, and I recently re-read your profile and love your attitude about xyz.
So much so, in fact, I thought it would be great for us to have a quick Zoom call for us to get to know each other better. Especially as I have some contacts that I think could be of benefit to you.
How about we meet face-to-face on Zoom?
To save juggling diaries, use the following link to book uncommitted time in my calendar that works for you.
I look forward to getting to know you beyond a mere LinkedIn connection and seeing how I may be able to best help.
Cheers
Fred.
Note: the link you mention in your message refers to a link to your Calendly (or similar) booking system. Having a tool like Calendly can save you so much time and stress! It's not essential, but it makes it easy to align calendars.
How do you feel about reaching out like this?
The main point here is that you are potentially doing them a favour.
You are not looking for anything from them immediately.
You are looking to build trusted relationships with like-minded others who may, in due course, join you as a partner in building their network.
You have the connections, and if all goes well, ultimately, you can introduce them to many other relevant, high-quality contacts that could be very valuable to them.
You are just out to have a quick chat with them on Zoom and see if it is worth proceeding further.
Are you nervous about how your Zoom call with them will go?
There is no need to be nervous for the following reasons.
You do not have to "sell" or even mention the CC if you feel they are not people you'd like to get to know better or are not "on the same page". It's effortless to end the conversation after a pleasant discussion without going any further.
Always remember that you are potentially doing them a huge favour - because you have the connections!
We have so many great workshops and resources on getting better with these calls; you’ll soon feel more confident.
Your connector is usually very willing to role play and will talk you through potential conversations (or go through some post mortems!).
There are plenty more "fish in the ocean" you are only looking for a few great partners.
If you are generally not confident with strangers, here is an excellent opportunity to learn how to connect with those you don’t yet know.
Make a start and refine it as you go
Don't procrastinate; just give it a go.
You have a list of people that have connected with you; look for some good ones and send them a message - you may be amazed at what comes from it!

When you are new to the concept of network-building, keep reminding yourself that it’s not about; you. Instead, it’s about empowering the people in your teams to build their teams.

The easiest way for you to do that is to have a system that your team can easily follow without you having to explain everything to them personally.

When everyone in the CC follows the same system, experienced others can conduct workshops to help your team even when you are not there. As will the web pages and podcasts that make up our system.

Our system encourages everyone to first think about the people they know. In other words, if you or your team already know many people, it’s a great place to start looking for others who may see the benefit of having an expanding group of others advocating for them.

In the end, many people network; but very few focus on network-building.

We are about helping others engage in network-building rather than just networking to develop a growing team that advocates for them and others in the team.

This is very different from just passing referrals between members of a group that grows very little.

As such, many of the people you know, and your team members know will have contacts who are attracted to the idea of growing their team of team-building advocates; rather than just passing referrals around and hoping for the best.

So, when looking for people to join your team, a great place to start is with the people you know. Starting with people you know is simple. You don’t need to do anything on LinkedIn. You simply need to know how to have a Discovery call, invite them to experience the CC, follow up and book a time for your first onboarding session.

While this process is occurring, we strongly recommend that you and your team members learn how to search for great contacts and message them using LinkedIn.

The main reason for this is that you and your team have a finite number of contacts that you already know. So when you have spoken with all the relevant people you know, you can quickly find great new contacts on LinkedIn when you know how.

You may be wondering why we use LinkedIn when other platforms are available. The answer is that we have studied LinkedIn for many years and have developed ways of quickly achieving the results we are looking for.
In the end, if there is a way to achieve the results more effectively and efficiently; why not use it?

Our experience tells us that it will take about 200 connection requests to carefully selected candidates on LinkedIn to onboard 5 people with who you have built enough rapport to feel you’d like to have them as part of your team.

Let’s say you sent out 5 connection requests a day on LinkedIn to your selected list. It would then take you 40 days or roughly 2 months to achieve Core-5).

How long would it take to send out 5 connection requests after examining and discarding, say 15, that you did not send a connection request? Let’s say that took you 20 minutes a day.

If everyone who came into your team onboarded 5 people every 2 months into their team, you would have quite a large team of team-building advocates after a year.
And after that, look forward to exponential growth as more and more in your team follow the system to duplicate their networks.

So, the real question is, what’s the point of worrying about other platforms when you and your team can quickly achieve fast and, most importantly, duplicatable growth using our system to contact relevant others using LinkedIn?

However, the first question is: Why would I want to reach out to others on LinkedIn?

Let’s start by reinforcing that the primary purpose of the Connect Collaborative is to help you build your team of team-building advocates. In other words, our primary purpose is to facilitate network-building rather than networking so that you can have a large and increasing number of others advocating for you.

If you had a large, rapidly growing team advocating for you along with people in other CC teams also advocating for you, wouldn’t that solve most of your problems?

Once again, however, we emphasise that you are welcome to participate in the CC environment without building your network if you see other value in simply participating in a positive environment.

When you reach out to others on LinkedIn, will they believe you are reaching out to them because you want something from them? It’s a common belief that the main reason others reach out to you is that they hope they will do business with you directly.

So, a good question is, how can you clearly show others that the reason you are reaching out to them is so that you can build trust with them?

1. When you reach out to others, suggest meeting face-to-face on Zoom because you are impressed with their profile and may have some contacts that could be good for them. When they see this message, there is a very good chance that they will look at your profile to see what you are about and ensure that you are genuinely interested in helping them rather than selling them something.

2. Tweak the summary section of your LinkedIn profile so that the first paragraph has words to the effect; although you and I may not be able to do business together directly, it is highly likely that I will know others who will be good contacts for you. I’m always happy to help like-minded others who also have a pay-it-forward attitude.

When you use a message suggesting meeting face-to-face beyond LinkedIn, it shows you believe it will be a worthwhile investment of your time.

When your profile informs them that you are keen to help others meet relevant contacts because you believe in establishing trust, why wouldn’t they want to connect with you?

If you are currently using LinkedIn for customer outreach, will this strategy dilute what you are currently doing? Not necessarily. If you are dealing with this issue, speak with others in the CC who have solved this dilemma.