My friend Jefre Outlaw shared with me a great LinkedIn anecdote about the importance of keeping your profile up-to-date.
Jefre is a many of many talents, with a diverse array of business interests and experience. Among other things, after more than 20 years as a real estate investor and developer, he decided to actually go get his own real estate license and join his cousin Blake’s agency.
“At first I completely forgot about updating my LinkedIn profile,” he said. “But I got a request to forward an introduction and it reminded me that I should probably go update my profile to include my new gig as a realtor.”
Good thing he did!
Just a couple of weeks later, one of his extended network found him in a search on LinkedIn for realtors and contacted him about listing his home for sale. Well, they did end up listing with Jefre’s agency, who got the home sold pretty quickly. $170,000 home x 3% commission = about $5,000 to the brokerage.
Now, Jefre was careful to say, “Let’s not overstate what happened. Being on LinkedIn didn’t get me the business. We were one of several realtors the client talked to, and I brought in my cousin, who’s a great closer and more experienced than I, to meet with the client. But the fact that I was in there, that my profile was up-to-date, that I have over 20 really good recommendations on my profile — all that put us on the short list.”
Is your profile up to date on everything you’re doing? If not, plan to update it right away — no telling how much it’s costing you in missed opportunity if you don’t.
Scott Allen is a true social media pioneer, helping turn virtual relationships into real business since 2002. He is coauthor of The Virtual Handshake, the first book on using social media for business, and contributor to over a dozen books on social media, marketing & entrepreneurship. He is currently Director of Client Solutions for Momentum Factor, a social media and online marketing management firm specializing in the direct selling industry.
Excellent post! This is exactly the reason I use LinkedIn. It’s a subtle, constant advertisement – much like email signatures, etc.
I’m now going to revisit my profile and see what changes I can make to it, to make my LinkedIn profile a “$5,000 profile”.
Regards,
Mary Stewart McGovern
President
Stewart McGovern Enterprises
www.stewartmcgovern.com/
Are we “Linked”? If not, please send me an invite at www.linkedin.com/in/stewartmcgovern!
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Nice story.
If you were looking for someone who’s an expert at what you do, would you bother to investigate yourself based on the profile and recommendations you see on LinkedIn?-)
steve