The past few weeks. more so than ever before, I have been receiving unsolicited attempts to connect to me on LinkedIn via a pitch to do business.
Unabashedly, overtly.
They meant not to do business with me as an entrepreneur, but for me with the sender as his/her client:
- For SEO development with multiple individuals in India.
- With a fellow college alum to invest in her hedge fund.
- And the most blatant moving violation, my name spelled incorrectly and the industry they were pitching to nothing like mine.
Sometimes I respond politely (wrong name/wrong industry) or in some cases. not at all (SEO). I am not that easy.
The hedge fund salesperson receive a finger-wagging reply that it’s improper that anyone would offer investment services with no degree of trust and relevance preceding the deposit of funds with a stranger.
Nigerian princes need not reach out to me to invest in London for the same reason.
That’s just the wrong way to connect.
The right way to connect is a process: establish common ground via an introduction by someone else or following up on your meeting face-to-face. Offer something you can help the other person with, subtly and professionally. Meet in person or over the phone to evaluate the degree of relationship that might ensue. As I always say, “caveat connector.”
This takes work, savvy, and patience.
Don’t be a rogue, hurtling the wrong way on an uphill, one-way street.
PS, I’ll be taking tomorrow off from the blog to observe Yom Kippur. See you Thursday.