Consult, Manage, Change

Thinking about upgrading your LinkedIn account?

People are asking me more often about the benefits of moving from the basic (free) account with LinkedIn to a paid (premium) account.

First things first! What is the cost?

Basic      $ free

Business $NZD 300 p.a

Business Plus $NZD 720 p.a

Executive $NZD 1140 p.a

You will probably be saying Wow! That is not cheap! And I agree with you it is not. So let’s look at why you might want to consider a premium account with LinkedIn.

LinkedIn will try to up sell you and will give you a long list of benefits. 

Also please note that LinkedIn have the following category of premium accounts:

• Business- for general business users
• Job Seeker - for job seekers
• Sales Navigator - for sales professionals
• Talent Finder - for individual recruiters and employers
• Recruiter - for enterprise recruiters

However I am going to give you my thoughts and advice based on over 5 years of use of LinkedIn and over 3 years as a business level premium customer of LinkedIn.

My top 3 benefits of the business premium plan are:

1. Much better advanced search functionality. This allows you to be very specific in the use of the great LinkedIn search function and to save searches and get notified when new profiles fir your criteria.
2. Great analytics which show you who has been viewing your profile (except if they have blocked their name), how many times you are appearing in searches and the top search keywords.
3. Full profile visibility – this allows you to see full profiles of everyone in your network - 1st, 2nd and 3rd degree.

A note about the “InMail” message service!

I personally do not like this feature and don’t use it.  Paid accounts get an allocation of InMails per moth which allows you to send direct messages to anyone one LinkedIn. I think this is just high class SPAM!

Users in USA love it but I don’t! I will let you make up your own minds.

So I hope this update has helped you with your questions about premium LinkedIn accounts.

If you want to know more then visit the LinkedIn Help Centre, which is listed under the “more” tab on the web browser version of the LinkedIn home page.

©Onespec April 2013

10 Ways to Cut Global Food Loss and Waste | via WRI Insights

This post is the third installment of WRI’s blog series, “Creating a Sustainable Food Future.” The series explores strategies to sustainably feed 9 billion people by 2050. All pieces are based on research being conducted for the 2013-2014 World Resources Report.

An amazing 24 percent of all food calories produced today go uneaten. Reducing this loss and waste is a critical step toward generating enough food for a population set to reach more than 9 billion by 2050.

Fortunately, there are low-cost methods that can begin saving food immediately in both the developing and the developed world. WRI’s new working paper, Reducing Food Loss and Waste, identifies a number of these strategies. Some methods cut loss “close to the farm,” while others reduce waste “close to the fork.”

via insights.wri.org

This post by the WRI is worth reading. #sustainability

Do you think about the security of your food supply?

10 fun and inspiring quotations about writing | found at PR Daily

1. “I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.”—Douglas Adams

via www.prdaily.com

Social Media for Professionals - Are you harnessing the power of Social Media?

If you attended the PMI Auckland Branch meeting on 20 March 2013.

To follow is the presentation Gordon Shaw gave to this meeting.

Download SM Presentation Social Media for Professionals - Are you harnessing the power of Social Media PMI March 13

DABD! Dumb As Business Development

Are you monitoring what your business development staff are doing when it comes to engagement with potential customers?

Are you providing them specific tailored business development training? If not you should be!

I want to highlight a story for you of a recent contact I had with an Auckland Business that claims to be a business and entrepreneurial enabler!

I was advised by one of my colleagues of an upcoming breakfast meeting which was hosted by this company. I registered online for the business and received a confirmation email which included the following:

Thank you for registering for the Seminar - XXXX.

This email confirms your place at the Seminar. You will receive further logistical information closer to the time.

A few days later I get this:

Hi Gordan, (NOTE they spelt my name wrongly! It is Gordon)  Thanks for your interest in the XXXX  To ensure that you receive the most value and take away as much as you can from XX seminars I’d like to learn more about your business. The seminar is been in great demand and we would like to ensure that those businesses who are best suited for the seminar  get the opportunity to be there.  Could you give me a call on the phone numbers below? Otherwise, if you give me your number I will give you a call at a convenient time – perhaps even a coffee?  Kindly, XX

Here is my response:

Hi there, I am away from Auckland today. I was asked to attend by colleagues at XX

I was not aware of any requirements to go thru a prescreening to attend. You can check us out on the web.

Please email to confirm that I am allowed to attend!

Regards

Gordon

And this is what I got back:

Hi Gordan, (my name spelt wrong again!) You certainly can attend – sorry if I sounded like a bouncer! (REALLY!)

 

I wanted to make sure that you don’t waste your valuable time if our seminar was not of your expectation. The seminar is targeted for business owners/managers who are about to embark on a new product/service/market. They will likely be operators of companies with revenue in the several millions of dollars. (YOU MEAN THIS IS YOUR TARTEGT PROSPECTS TO SELL TO)

If you feel that you will complimentary fit and gave most value from the seminar, you are most welcome to join us. If not, one of the 20 wait-listers will be very thankful to you.

Kindly, XX

I told them that after that kind of email conversation I did not want to attend!

Apart from spelling my name wrong, do these people have any idea how to generate new business and engage with potential customers! In my opinion NOT AT ALL.

First of all don’t email me and ask “I’d like to learn more about your business”

Have you not heard of the thing called google or Linkedin?? Come on please! Do your research before you contact!

Second, I am a business enabler and advise my clients about potential service providers to use. Do you think after this I will recommend them? NO!

Thirdly, if you are using seminars to generate leads then be upfront with people! If I had known that they want specific new business prospects to attend then I would not have bothered to register.

An example of DABD!

Life time value is understood by professional service providers

Heads up: The life time value of your customers is calculated by the potential revenues generated by your customer during their relationship with your company.

Here is a scenario for you!

You use a professional services provider (recruitment firm, consultant, training organisation) to undertake a task for you. They go thru the motions, deliver the bear minimum and do not follow up. Sound familiar??

Then some time in the future you change jobs, companies or start your own businesses and the very same under performing service provider comes knowing on your door for business. So what do you do? In my case I would under normal circumstance not use them again and also tell them why.

Do you have similar examples like this? If so please let me know.

In my experience one industry gets this life time value equation wrong on a regular basis is the recruitment industry. One day you are a candidate applying for a role or contact, you get treated like a number, they never respond to emails or calls and THEN when you are in a position where you procure such services they expect you to have some magical brand loyalty! 

I think not!

In the professional service sector everyone you deal with is a potential future client.

I am sure if you start thinking like this you will see opportunities that you have been missing and you will start to create life time values relationships that lead to repeat business.