James Potter October 6, 2020 There are over 430 million (yes I checked) articles with tips about your LinkedIn profile and , whilst I don’t want to add to that morass, there are some aspects that are mostly overlooked and hence here are four key things you need to include within your profile – Differentiation, Value, Likeability and Trustworthiness.
Differentiation
What is it that makes you different? Why do your clients’ like you? What do you do or what service do you offer?
There is no good reason to talk about your business if you’re just another one of “those” types. For example, if I’m an accountant and simply say I’m an accountant then what makes me any different to the other 379,000 UK or over 10,000,000+ accountants globally?
When you’re different there is something to talk about in your profile, something about you, your role, how you do things and make sure those noteworthy things are in it.
Value
How are you valuable to the clients or people you help? What is it that you do that makes their lives easier or businesses better in their terms? Is it the knowledge you have? The outcomes you unlock? The solutions you offer?
Don’t hide that value or assume others will work it out but state it, make it overt and obvious – a great example might be me as an accountant – let’ s be honest no one cares I’m an accountant if I say just that, but if I say that “I help busy entrepreneurs and leaders to focus on the profitable bits of their businesses whilst managing their costs and paying the right amount of tax” then suddenly I appear interesting right?
Likeability
If people don’t like you, your style, the way you talk to them, message them or come across in a profile then they won’t work with you – it’s that simple!
It really helps to be nice, so think about this in your profile when you write about how you work with people or for people, how you put customers at the centre of all you do or whatever it is that your clients or partners like about – make sure you write it within your profile.
Trustworthiness
Conveying that you are someone who gives trustworthy advice, someone that can be trusted to work with or to deliver is really important and LinkedIn gives you a number of ways of doing this with recommendations and skills but it amazes me how often people overlook the obvious other areas.
Have you talked about how your “clients trust me to …..” or “been trusted by X to …..” for example? No, well perhaps now is a good time to look at that profile again?
These are the human factors that people often focus on and relate to when they look at a LinkedIn profile – think about it next time you go looking at LinkedIn for someone to help you in some way.
This is most often before they want to engage with you for any reason or think about you before introducing you to others they know! You had better make sure you have these well represented in your profile so that it is a good reflection of you – more people meet your profile than meet you so it had better be good – but if you need a little help check out our free profile test as it will help you to think a little.
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