LinkedIn: A Helpful Tool or a Time-Soaking Distraction? (Part 2 of 3) How is This Relevant to Me?

James Potter — November 9, 2016 Follow @thelinkedinman

Part 1  

Through running training sessions and talks I have spoken to countless businesses across the country and indeed around the world. We all understand the value of generating new business, so one of my favourite exercises when talking to someone is to take five minutes to demonstrate the potential from their perspective alone.

Let us assume you are a firm of accountants based in London. You want to work with construction companies located in Manchester. So you need to connect with people that are Director level and above of such companies, particularly where they have more than 11 staff and are located within a 10-mile radius of the centre of Manchester. Based on a LinkedIn search which takes me less than 5 seconds, I can tell you there are over 1600 prospects right now, on LinkedIn, who meet these criteria. If I widen the search to 25 miles I can tell you there are over 3300 prospects.

Let’s change the location to London and see what happens. A 10-mile radius nets 6900 results. At 25 miles, you get 11800 results.

Or basing your search around Bristol you get 726 people at 10 miles and 1400 people at 25.

These numbers are real, from searches conducted as I write this blog. They clearly demonstrate that right now, as at today, there are more than sufficient people on LinkedIn who are relevant to you, and could make great clients. If you conduct other, similar searches, you’ll get even more results to back this up.

Generating these kinds of figures from searches conducted on LinkedIn works for most key sectors, business types, in over 200 countries. As you’ll see, this is significantly more targeted than attending a conference or event, where you might go with the hope you encounter a decision maker and get the chance to speak to them in any meaningful way. LinkedIn is a network which can be leveraged with enormous success, and I know many professionals across a wide range of sectors who have done just that. You can read about their success here.

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