Last week I “met” hundreds of people at 3 events I spoke at.
At each session I teach, and I’ve been doing this for years, I always explain the fact that you must ask someone to connect on LinkedIn with a personalized message giving the context in which you met, and especially how you can help them.
And I tell them if you do not do this and I do not see the context immediately, I will not reply.
And after each one of the sessions I can count on one or more connection requests using the boilerplate, drab, boring, no-context, nonhelpful “Please connect with me on LinkedIn.”
They are compliments to me, but someone was asleep at the switch. I do not connect to people I have not gotten to know in business.
LinkedIn agrees with me, although you may not.
Indeed after one of last week’s sessions a woman came up to me to apologize for asking me to connect in the middle of my presentation before I mentioned my admonition. She looked so remorseful and thanked me for teaching her something so easy and important.
The next day after another session, there it was, another impersonal connection request. So whoever you are and wherever I spoke to you, this blog post is dedicated to you.
