There are ways to build this section that won’t hurt your credibility if you have no formal post-secondary education, or even . . .
Read More: Tip from the LinkedIn Rockstars – Keeping Your Education Section Updated]]> Presenting yourself as a lifelong learner is a great asset to your LinkedIn profile. Even if you didn’t finish official schooling or just took a few classes, this information belongs in your LinkedIn profile.

There are ways to build this section that won’t hurt your credibility if you have no formal post-secondary education, or even if you didn’t finish high school. There are a lot of successful people out there who are in the same boat.

Start by listing the schools you attended all the way back to high school. List other forms of education too; professional development training can add up to a lot in the minds of others. Training sessions, industry seminars, vocational education and the like are all rich places to look when adding more education. They show your eagerness to stay updated in your field and that you have the modern skills needed to succeed.

There is a great deal that can be learned ‘on the job’ and outside of the traditional classroom. LinkedIn is not the place to sell yourself short! Show people what you are capable of!

Building a large network of 30,000+ is part of the lifestyle I have chosen to ‘live . . .
Read More: LinkedIn: More than a Numbers Game]]> After last week’s post, readers made some excellent comments regarding the value of large networks. A couple of people seemed to think that the focus of my post was entirely about numbers, and so I am back to clarify.

Building a large network of 30,000+ is part of the lifestyle I have chosen to ‘live out loud’ via social media. I accept people into my network on LinkedIn, always open to see how we may be able to work together, to see what value someone will share with me. It’s not about the numbers and it sure isn’t about me! It’s about allowing someone to reach out, shake my hand and say they want to be part of my network—part of my life—and then responding in a way that encourages them to continue the conversation.

I have met so many wonderful people with whom I have excellent relationships. Most of those I first connected with on LinkedIn, and most often by accepting their invitation to connect. Our networks intersected, we were interested in each other either professionally or personally, and the relationships took off from there.

I even met my business and life partner, Mike O’Neil, through a LinkedIn search of Denver, CO when I chose it as a place I wanted to visit. In this case, I did the search sorted by people with the most connections (because I believed they would be the most open to helping me), he came up at the top and responded positively when I reached out. That was circa April/May 2008. We met in person in September of that year and the rest is history.

Having a large network opens doors to meet people you may have never otherwise interacted with. You show up in searches and interact with people all over the world that you can reach with a large network. When my partner and I travel, we often post our travel plans on LinkedIn, keeping our connections updated. We search for people in the cities we are visiting and the airports we layover in, coordinating meetings when we can.

Having a large network has helped me cultivate amazing relationships; it is not a numbers game. It is a means of reaching out to people…people around the world…people I have the chance to call friend.

Several more have Skyped me.

Sure, it’s just a simple act – some might argue it’s only slightly more social than a poke, but I disagree. Frankly, I think this is really what the . . .
Read More: Happy Birthday to Me, and How Distributed Cognition Enhances Relationships]]> It’s 9am on my birthday, and already, 65 people have posted birthday wishes on my Facebook wall.

Several more have Skyped me.

Sure, it’s just a simple act – some might argue it’s only slightly more social than a poke, but I disagree. Frankly, I think this is really what the social web is all about: using distributed cognition to truly enhance relationships.

How so?

Ever heard of Dunbar’s number? Basically, it’s the theory that the size of our social network is limited by the size of our neocortex, and for human beings, the maximum number of “close” relationships we can theoretically have – the number of people whose names and faces you remember easily, who you can remember details about them, like what they do for a living, the last conversation you had with them, etc.

But what happens when our capacity for social relationships is no longer limited by our brain capacity?

Some people think that tools like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and even CRM or contact management systems have created an illusion of having more “real” friends than we actually do. I suppose, for some, that’s true.

I look at it differently, though. I look at these tools as distributed cognition. Essentially, we’re making our brains larger by using external tools to enhance our memory. I can “remember” hundreds of people’s faces, because they’re right there when I interact with them. I can call them by name – one of Dale Carnegie’s most important tips for winning friends and influencing people. I can easily recall the last conversation I had with them with a couple of mouse clicks. I can see what they’re up to and ask specific questions about it rather than wasting my time and theirs with small-talk questions like “So what are you up to these days?”  LinkedIn already knows, so I already know.

Social media isn’t just a way to have a bunch of trivial relationships; used properly, it’s a way to treat more than 150 people that you truly care about like you treat those 150…like you would if you were smarter, or had better memory.

This isn’t a new concept, by any means. It’s the same principle behind The Mackay 66, a collection of 66 questions that uber-networker Harvey Mackay used to build the strong relationships that allowed him to build a phenomenally successful company in the face of much larger competitors. It includes information such as the client’s college fraternity/sorority, children’s interests and birthdates, their immediate and long-term business objectives, health conditions, etc. Before every call, Harvey would pull out the client’s file so he could have that information at his fingertips. As he gleaned little bits of information during the course of the conversation, he would note it in their file.

As a result, his customers were constantly amazed at his apparently great memory, and the remarkable personal interest he took in them.

Cynics might say that it’s just a brilliant ploy to manipulate people. Harvey will tell you that it’s just the only way he could keep track of the information that helped him show how much he truly cared about people. And that’s also good business.

So this is why you should wish your Facebook friends happy birthday. Congratulate your LinkedIn contacts on their promotion or new business venture. Comment on their blog about how adorable their new baby or puppy is. It’s not being manipulative. It’s not being trivial. It’s acting like you want to act towards people you truly care about, and like you would on your own, if you were just smarter. Let social media make you socially smarter.

P.S. In the 30 minutes it’s taken to write this post, 7 more people have posted to my Facebook wall and 4 more have Skyped me. What a great way to start the day!

Others have asked the same question in person, but I’ve never had the opportunity to put it in writing before. So here’s my response:

I won’t quote you a zillion studies – let’s just accept it as fact that for most businesses, referrals are both the least expensive and most effective source of new business. Referrals are also the best source of leads for job seekers and employers. There are customers and jobs and employees out there – . . .
Read More: Make a Referral Week 2010 Is March 8-12]]>

I won’t quote you a zillion studies – let’s just accept it as fact that for most businesses, referrals are both the least expensive and most effective source of new business. Referrals are also the best source of leads for job seekers and employers. There are customers and jobs and employees out there – referrals dramatically accelerate the matching process.

With that in mind, last year my friend John Jantsch created Make A Referral Week, a week-long event designed to educate people on making and encouraging effective referrals, and to drive people to action by making 1,000 referrals during the week.

There are several ways you can participate:

1. Free webinar Wednesday, 3/10, at 1pm EST with John Jantsch hosting a panel with Ivan Misner, founder of BNI and author Masters of Networking, Bob Burg, author ofEndless Referrals and the Go-Givers Sell More, Ben McConnell, author of Creating Customer Evangelists. Register here.
2. Make a referral (or two or three) and post it on the MARW Referral Counter.
3. Read guest posts from a long list of referral/networking/word-of-mouth experts all week at the Duct Tape Marketing Blog. Posts are already up by David Meerman Scott on The Referral Multiplier Effect and a podcast with Andy Sernovitz on Word-of-Mouth Marketing.
4. Join the conversation on Twitter using the hashtag #marw.
5. Keep up with the goings-on at the MARW blog.

I contributed a guest post for later in the week on “selfish networking”.

Let’s make our own economic stimulus package!

I suppose you still have to have a way to give people your LinkedIn URL, but this is definitely a step in the right direction. Save the trees!

Most of my recent webinars have focused on a particular tool (e.g., LinkedIn) or a particular business function (e.g., recruiting). The primary focus of this program will be how to do more with . . .
Read More: Webinar 9/23 – Using Social Networking & Social Media to Grow Your Business]]> This Wednesday, 9/23, I’ll be conducting a 90-minute webinar on how to use social networking and social media to grow your business.

Most of my recent webinars have focused on a particular tool (e.g., LinkedIn) or a particular business function (e.g., recruiting). The primary focus of this program will be how to do more with less, i.e., how to get the highest returns from your virtual social interaction with the least (or at least a manageable) amount of effort.

As much fun as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, blogging and so on are, it’s easy sometimes to get lost in all that activity and lose sight of the fact that if you’re devoting all that time, you’re hoping for some kind of results!

As we put it in The Virtual Handshake:

People who know how to leverage their networks are called successful. People
who just know a lot of people are called socialites. Do you want to be a successful person or a socialite?

All cocktail parties come to an end, but on the Internet there is always another person with whom you can connect. This can be both healthy and hazardous; it’s very tempting to spend far too much time chatting with far too many people. We recommend focusing only on building your network to the extent that your marginal benefit equals your marginal cost. Otherwise, you will be so busy maintaining your relationships that you will have no time to leverage those you have formed.

So if you find yourself spending a lot of time in social media, but are still wondering when the payoff is going to come, you’ll want to be sure to attend this webinar.

Your investment is 90 minutes and $99, which includes a few cool bonus items and comes with a risk-free money-back guarantee if for any reason you’re not completely satisfied.

Register now

While this is kind of funny, there’s a lesson here too…it’s important to be memorable, in any way that’s not negative: Italian cowboy boots, a pink feather in your hair, a distinctive business card, an interesting story about how you got started in your business, etc.