My colleagues are so creative in their careers. They want to stand out. And they do.

They have been energized (by me and others) to stand out on LinkedIn too. Most of them.

Some use LinkedIn as an outreach to their personalities. Some use it to demo their craft.

Some use it to puff themselves up. {Cue that awful denial buzzer}.

I have one main way to be clever on LinkedIn that has resulted in incremental business:

I solicit and ask the right connections for formalized LinkedIn recommendations, each highlighting a story when I demonstrated a particular skill I possess. But now with 110 recos, I recognize no one will wad through them looking for the right one to get to know me for a certain aspect of my why.

So I decided to excerpt sentences from unsolicited emails and texts I receive after one of my sessions and place them strategically in my About section:

Echoed by others:
“You are the tip of the spear in LinkedIn effectiveness.”
“Your LinkedIn™ session was bang on! Powerful, clear, to the point.”
“You’re the very first person to show me how important LinkedIn™ is. Your knowledge is invaluable.”
“Can’t tell you how much your presentation educated the newbies to LinkedIn,™ finetuned the veterans. Your engagement’s wonderful.”
“A raving fan!”
“So appreciative. I consider myself lucky to have been your client.”
“Such respect for you, you’ve plenty of charisma that would make people say, ‘Yes, he’s my person to work with!’”
“You’re the kind of guy who, every night you go to bed leaving the world better than you found it that morning, mindful, and impactful.”

and my Experience jobs too (most recently as a LinkedIn laureate) specific to that position I held.

Clever? Not really, but my own way to allow others to shine their light on me, yes about me, but from their lens, rather than me shining my glare on you.

You may steal this idea. But as a trade of ideas, now it’s your turn. No emojis. Answer us: What is your one main way to be clever on LinkedIn that has resulted in incremental business?