How to Use Linkedin to win new business: poll results

Ian Brodie, LinkedIn expert has carried out some interesting research to find out ‘How people were using LinkedIn to win new business’.

There are plenty of theories for what you need to do, top ten tips for improving your LinkedIn profile etc. Never mind the theory, how are people actually winning business via Linkedin in the real world?

After working with Cisco Webex and guest blogging for them, they allowed Ian to run a poll in the Business Awards group asking people what they’d found to be the best way of winning new business via Linkedin.

There were 256 respondents. Of course, the results have an inbuilt bias as they’re not from the full Linkedin population, but from those who have participated in the Business Awards group. But they certainly give a good picture of the different ways people are actually using Linkedin effectively.

The Results: Just How Are People Using Linkedin to Win New Business?

The poll question asked was “What has been the best way you’ve found to win new business using Linkedin?”. Like all Linkedin polls, respondents were allowed to pick one answer only.

First up: Overall results from all respondents

That “Finding new connections” came out in 1st place is no surprise. The way Linkedin works makes it ideal for connecting with friends of friends. And that’s been the main focus of most of the advice given about how to get new clients through Linkedin: using search and asking other to refer you.

But what was a surprise for me was that “Reconnecting with old contacts” was only just a few percentage points behind it in 2nd place. Remember, the question wasn’t just about how you use Linkedin generally or for fun – it asked respondents about the best way they’d found to win new business. And nearly 30% of respondents were primarily getting new business from reaching out to old contacts they’d lost touch with.

When you think about it, this makes sense. Our old contacts (in the main) already know and trust us – whereas new connections don’t. And the obvious initial question “what are you doing now?” can lead to interesting follow-ups: “oh really, funny you should say that, we were looking for someone to…” or “actually, I know someone who is on the lookout for…”. Although this is not something that’s happened to me personally, a number of people I’ve spoken to have said this has worked well for them. the contacts they’ve reconnected with have often been in a position to pass on work to them.#

Linkedin’s pretty good at recommending names to reconnect with. And the more old contacts you connect with, the more it seems to recommend other, similar contacts.

So perhaps my biggest recommendation emerging from this survey is that if you want to use Linkedin to win new business, don’t just focus on trying to find new connections: look at re-establishing contact with some of your old colleagues and clients.

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