Entrepreneur’s Journal: Taking LinkedIn to the next level

03 03 2008

Entrepreneur’s Journal: Taking LinkedIn to the next level

Posted by: in Small Business

Filed under: Yahoo! (YHOO), Small business

LinkedIn has become a great tool to help improve your business. For example, Brant Bukowsky, the founder of LakeRentals.com, used the online service to locate a prospect for a management buyout. Or take MyBlogLog. The company found its CEO with LinkedIn and a year later, the company sold to Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO);

So, how can you use LinkedIn for your business?

Well, I recently had a opportunity to meet up with Allen Blue, the Vice President of Product Strategy of LinkedIn and the company’s co-founder.

In fact, he provided a framework on how to use LinkedIn. Let’s take a look:

Startup Phase: If you’re thinking of launching a business, then LinkedIn can be a huge help. Essentially, you’ve a pool of 19 million knowledgeable users to work with.

“You can test your idea,” stated Blue, “and get valuable feedback. You can do this by searching the profiles on LinkedIn.”

In other words, you can get information on the competitive environment as well as strategies on the business model, go-to-market strategy and so on.

Running Your Business: No doubt, you need to build a solid foundation for your new business. To this end, you can poll the LinkedIn network by using the Q&A feature.

Based on my experience, you are prone to get great responses to your questions. Some things you might ask include: What is the ideal payroll service? How do you put together an employee handbook? What about stock options?

What’s more, you can search your network to hiring key employees or contractors.

Sell, sell, sell: Yes, this isn’t easy - but it’s totally critical. With LinkedIn, you can search your network for possible customer leads. “Our platform is based on the importance of trusted sources and connections,” said Blue.

Actually, one approach is to find those people who are moving to a new company. That’s a great segue to contact the person. Perhaps, the company might be interested in your product or service.

Or, suppose you are prospecting a new company — and want to learn more. Well, you can visit the profiles of some of the company’s employees to get a superior sense of the organization, which can be critical in closing a sale.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates DealProfiles.com.