LinkedIn #3: Recommendations, endorsements

(Last of three parts)

Linkedin-gente-npStuff, or fluff? Praise, or craze? Sincere, or cheer? Those are the kinds of questions you should ask about any LinkedIn recommendations or skill endorsements that pop up in your e-mail stack before you accept them into your LinkedIn profile. That’ll make it a professionally credible statement of your skills and achievements, rather than a touchy-feely flurry of Facebookish pats-on-the-back and right-ons.

Consider the following about all would-be recommenders and endorsers:

  • How well do you know those people?
  • What was the nature of your professional relationships with them?
  • How closely did you work with them to give them a full, clear, well-rounded idea of the skills or talents for which they’re endorsing you?
  • Would you use them as references for job interviews?
  • Would they have enough to say about you if your job interviewer were to contact them?
  • Do you feel you possess a significant level of the skills or talents for which they’re recognizing you to give you true credibility in those areas?
  • How are they wording and phrasing their recommendations? Do they sound like the right stuff to advance your standing, or mere puff pieces to please and appease you?
  • How much is too much, in terms of the number of skills (strong or weak) for which you’re being endorsed, and the number of people who are endorsing you for particular skills?

LinkedIn-Skills

An endorsement page like this may wow your Facebook friends but may give pause to potential employers, partners or clients who may suspect an attempt to gussy up your profile with the equivalent of Facebook fame. So be careful whom and what you include in your LinkedIn laudations.

In his Personal Branding Blog, career development expert Jacob Share recommends these criteria in choosing who to recommend you:

  1. The best recommendations are from people who actually employed you, e.g., a client or boss, because they directly observed, received and evaluated the work you did for them.
  2. Useful recommendations can come from co-workers or business partners who witnessed your achievements firsthand or were directly affected by them in a positive way.
  3. Sometimes useful recommendations can be provided by a friend, family member or fan who was impressed by your work — but be cautious of conflict-of-interest issues that could turn their recommendations into mere puff pieces.

Also be careful about how you solicit a recommendation from a LinkedIn connection. It’s a good idea to ask that person, “Do you feel you know enough about my skills and achievements in this company to recommend me on LinkedIn?” That way, you’re letting them think about what they want to say about you — or whether they’re qualified to say anything at all — before deciding whether or how to recommend you. Thus their recommendations would appear more sincere and would present your skills more believably in your profile.

Pencil checklistBe equally careful about how you recommend or endorse others. If you want to recommend someone in the hope s/he’ll reciprocate, do the following:

  • Think carefully about your answer. Rewrite it several times. Ask yourself if that would be the kind of recommendation you would want to receive.
  • Back up your points about the person with actual achievements and/or skills in action you observed in that person as a client, boss, co-worker, business partner, etc.
  • Keep the recommendation brief, say, 2-5 sentences of varied lengths. After all, short paragraphs rule in the attention-span-challenging world of cyberspace. Also, overlong recommendations may rouse suspicion of overpraise in viewers of your recommendee’s profile, particularly potential employers, clients, consultants and partners.

LinkedIn recomm. O.-Yagan1

This recommendation is strong (worthy of its frame!), because it comes from the recipient’s client (“the best” on Jacob Share’s list) — who is also a 1st-level LinkedIn connection to her — and describes in specific detail the type of service she was performing for the client (immigration visa applications), the process of her service to the client (“answering every single of my questions”) and the product the client was happy with (“they have written all the reference letter drafts for me”). This lets the visitor know how well the recommendee works with her clients. The checking off of her “Top Qualities” adds extra gravy, as attributes for which to remember her.

LinkedIn recommendation

This one is weak, indulging in generic generalities and canned clichés (“Industry Leader,” etc.) with no specifics about how the recipient “brings a wealth of knowledge” about the named subjects, or to what or to whom she has brought them. It is also overlong, forcing the visitor to click “more” to read the rest of the ramble. Moreover, the recommender’s relationship to the recipient isn’t specified, thus may not make Jacob Share’s “useful” category.

LinkedIn-endorsements-2Finally, please be careful about your endorsements of others. It’s tempting, when the menu at left pops up on your profile, to simply click “Endorse all 4,” then click the same for the following foursome, and the next, and the next, and the next… to ballyhoo the brands of your buddies.

Yours Truly used to do just that, until one of my endorsees bade me to stop, because that person did not possess many of the skills I was endorsing to no end. Since then, I have been very selective about my endorsements. I question whether someone truly does “know about” the area of expertise below his/her name before clicking the “Endorse” button. That way, endorsements can be as credible as well-written recommendations from professional sources.

LinkedIn chocolatesIt’s nice to sweeten up your LinkedIn peers’ profiles, hoping they’ll follow suit for you. But, as candy can give you cavities, flattery can make you fall flat in the eyes of those you seek to do business with or hire you. So credibility, not candy, and surety, not sugar-coating, are key to LinkedIn leverage, rather than Facebook fanaticism, in all professional social media profiles.

— Todd Larson

Thank you for visiting. I welcome your comments!

LinkedIn #2: Searching and making connections

(Second of three parts)

linkedin-iconWhether set up as a website prelude, chat channel or notice board, LinkedIn company profiles enable firm project managers or principals to link up with and learn more about other firms they might be interested in forming strategic alliances, proposal teams or development partnerships with, to see if they’d be a good fit.

LinkedIn’s new “Advanced Search” option (see below) lets you track down by job title the specific staff members of those companies you want to connect with, that would have the authority to build the team with you.

linkedin_slide2_copy1For these and other purposes, LinkedIn has a database of connections at your fingerclicks, and a search engine for direct linkage to your desired contacts — which antiquates the Rolodex, that spinaround shuffledeck of card chaos that took up valuable desk space and took you weeks to slog through a thicket of names and numbers from 10 or 20 years ago to find the contact that was hiding from you.

LinkedIn also puts to rest (and to shame) that ’60s connect-and-followup method, as sung by George Harrison:

Carve your number on my wall
And maybe you will get a call
From me, if I needed someone.

LinkedIn Search BarIf you need someone now, just type in the name in the Search bar at the top of your LinkedIn home page, click the magnifier icon, and presto, an instant roster of John Smiths or whomever you were tracking.

If you need someone by title for recruitment, consultant hiring, design-build teaming or general networking purposes, “Advanced Search is the coolest part of LinkedIn,” said Patrick O’Malley at the May 22 Boston Society of Architects Marketing/PR Wizards meeting. “It allows you to search for people by anything, not just by name — for instance, Vice President of Finance or CFO. Your second-level connections, or friends of friends, will show that so-and-so was vice president of finance and you know him through a first-level connection.”

“LinkedIn is a useful way to make a cold call warm, through a common bond, or through someone you’ve worked together with,” added Julia Corbett Tanen.

Linkedin-Advanced-People-Search

To do an Advanced Search, just click “Advanced” at the right of the magnifier, and the Advanced People Search page will come up (click pic for full page):

slide-5-1024

Then you can type in the title of your desired connection (and the company that person works for, if desired), click Search, and up come folks with that title and company:

LinkedIn_Advanced_Search_Operators_Example_Search_1

At the bottom of each listing is the number of 1st-degree LinkedIn connections you share with that person, for the possibility of being introduced to those title-holders through your direct contacts. Beside each name is the degree of your connection to that person, if any.

hands-crashing-through-laptop-computer-screen-to-grab-us-dollar-money-notes-oHowever, 3rd-degree connections appear by the person’s first name and last initial only, unless you’re willing to shell out for a LinkedIn Premium account for $24.95/month (Business plan), $39.95/month (Business Plus plan) or $74.95/month (Executive plan). Patrick showed us how to ferret out that last name for free:

  1. Open the 3rd-degree connection profile of the person you wish to contact.
  2. Open a separate Google Images window on your website browser.
  3. Drag the 3rd-degree connection’s profile photo into the Google Images search bar.
  4. Click the magnifier icon beside the bar.
  5. Click “Search by Image.”
  6. Up will pop a list of links with that photo, some likely containing the connection’s last name.

linkedinSomething to remember about all LinkedIn connections: “Be careful,” said Patrick. “Too often people link in with people they don’t really know or know well. Connect with people you really know and trust, but not with anyone and everyone.”

linkedin-1“Start with the human connection,” said Julia. “Search through people’s profiles and create something they’ll instantly bond with. Exchange messages back and forth before you can say, ‘Let’s have coffee.’ I read profiles in depth, and I look at who recommended them.” She recommends LinkedIn school alumni/ae group pages as safe, trusted ways to connect with individuals who already have something in common with you.

Above all, a LinkedIn connection means little without human substance behind it. Just because someone is LinkedIn with you doesn’t mean s/he’ll remember you later without regular contact with that person over time, in the form of e-mailing articles of interest, e-mail or phone conversations, coffee meetings, offers to help that person, etc. If you connect on LinkedIn but then fall out of touch with someone, that person may end up being like just another name and photo on an overstuffed Rolodex, thus of little or no value to your business or job search goals.

So LinkIn, and KeepInTouch!

— Todd Larson

Next post: LinkedIn #3: Recommendations, endorsements

LinkedIn #1: Design and use of company pages

(First of three parts)

LinkedIn HQAre you LinkedIn?

By that I don’t mean, “Have you set up your LinkedIn company page?” because many of us already have. (If not, what’s stopping you?) I mean:

  • Are you promoting your firm and its brand to best advantage on LinkedIn?
  • Are you sharing ideas, articles and blogs on it?
  • Are you making desired business connections on it?
  • Are you researching clients, companies and competition on it?
  • Are you recruiting employees, consultants and partners through it?
  • Are you really in on how far LinkedIn’s capabilities have come in 10 years?

These were key points raised at the May 22 BSA Marketing/PR Wizards meeting, where Julia Corbett Tanen of Riot Media and Patrick O’Malley of 617-PATRICK Social Media Training & Consulting gave us the skinny on getting the most out of LinkedIn as a marketing and networking tool, not merely a “Facebook for work” or a “resume on steroids,” in Julia’s words. For starters, here’s a link to Patrick’s PowerPoint presentation of LinkedIn as:

  • profile of your company or your personal work history and brand
  • a discussion forum, ideas-sharing and blog-sharing channel
  • a database of connections, recommendations and endorsements
  • a ‘friends of friends’ network easing the referral/connection process
  • a search engine for, say, prospects for CEOs of local companies

linkedin-groupA LinkedIn profile is now much more than a company logo intro, services rundown, nutshell history, awards presentation and employee database. It’s an adventure through company milestones, project completions, new hires, promotions, blogposts, thought-shares, and virtually everything including the kitchen sink.

Patrick, however, said a LinkedIn profile’s proper role is to introduce the company and drive traffic to its website for a closer look at the firm’s products and services — an appetizer before the entrée, in a way.

One such example is this profile I coordinated for Pressley Associates Landscape Architects (click pic for full page):

Pressley Associates Landscape Architects- Overview | LinkedIn_Page_1

The page begins with a concise overview of the firm, listing the types of landscapes they design, their most prominent works, awards won, and service specialties. The firm’s website link, http://www.pressleyinc.com, is clearly placed in the center column below to direct the user there for more company info, with no ancillary content to divert the user from getting to the main event, the website.

To the right of the info box are pic links to firm employees that have “LinkedIn” their personal profiles, which visitors are free to check out for potential LinkedIn connections, networking, project teaming, etc. — but a company page’s staff database should be handled with discretion if losing an employee to a competitor is a concern. “Competitors can see your Rolodex, so you must decide how private your Rolodex should be,” said Patrick.

Elkus Manfredi Architects, however, go more public with their profile. They introduce the firm as if we were to enter their office, then bring in the big news:

Elkus Manfredi Architects- Overview | LinkedIn_Page_1

The splash photo of their reception area does make us feel welcome to the firm — then wowed by the Boston Globe announcement of the approval of their big Convention Center hotel project, with a link to that article and a comment box to kick off the congratulations and conversations. This way, they’re presenting themselves as a successful firm that welcomes your business, comments and congrats, in the hope of expanding by becoming the “talk of the town.”

By doing so, the visitor can easily follow the firm’s latest developments — and be awed by the string of successes Elkus/Manfredi has been having, as shown by its multiple project announcements, groundbreakings and completions to “like” and comment on as you scroll down the page.

Burns & McDonnell, a civil engineering firm based in Kansas City, Mo., really pushes the LinkedIn envelope by bragging, then blogging:

Burns & McDonnell- Overview | LinkedIn_Page_1a

Leading off with a banner ballyhooing their “100 Best Companies to Work For” accolades from FORTUNE magazine, they jump right down into links to articles of general public interest — e.g., the benefits of reading every day (as “liked” and commented on by Yours Truly), job search issues and strategies, job interview techniques — as well as pieces of industry or company relevance.

“You must have a posting strategy that makes sense, that’s not spam, but caring about what’s relevant in your field, what a lot of people will be interested in,” said Patrick. “If you post that one interesting article that people want to read, they will follow you for that. The goal is not to promote your company, but to give something of value to the community.”

You are doing so by educating and informing your readerbase on the latest industry trends, tips and techniques, as well as tips for greater personal success in general. This makes you a thought leader in your field, hence heightens your industry credibility.

The Boston Society of Architects‘ profile finds a middle ground between LinkedIn as LeadIn and LinkedIn as LearnIn:

Boston Society of Architects- Overview | LinkedIn_Page_1

Starting with a shot of the BSA storefront (a good “introduction” to the organization), the page presents the “Recent Updates” as optional click-ons, thus leading the eye down to the company profile and weblink more immediately. As a bonus, below the BSA’s key contacts is a link to info about ArchitectureBoston, their magazine, for more information about the industry in general as well as “BSA Currents.” This page sets a good example for presenting a lot of content with minimal window-dressing — “less is more,” in Mies van der Rohe’s words.

— Todd Larson

Next post: LinkedIn #2: Searching and making connections

Proposals, like buildings, demand teamwork

Gehrytower091009Much as we like to credit a building solely to its “starchitect” — Frank Gehry, Norman Foster, Renzo Piano, etc. — a work of architecture is never the work of one man. It’s the product of a complex, multilayered, multifaceted team of designers, drafters, engineers, contractors, developers, site planners, surveyors, project managers, attorneys, financiers, construction workers, manufacturers, inspectors, client reps, graphic designers, IT technicians and, yes, marketers.

(Did I miss anybody?)

The same goes for project proposals. I just read an interesting piece about the importance of teamwork in proposal production on LinkedIn’s Proposal Development and Writing Secrets group page. Though intended to promote the author’s proposal streamlining and price quotation service, this piece has many good pointers on how to put several heads together to craft and draft a proposal so all stakeholders in the project get in their two cents’ worth. This yields a more professional proposal than if they dumped the whole thing in one person’s lap.

For starters:

7c80ff704366443ccc162cdb3997812b.wix_mp_srz_400_270_75_22_0.50_1.20_0Select, collect. In a firm meeting or a special proposal powwow, determine up front who all the project’s players will be. Then make up a top-down chart of this project team in a “family tree” format, from principal to project manager to associates to assistants.

This will clarify the who, what, when, where and why of each player’s role in the whole. Which in turn will make it easier for each to contribute key content to the proposal in a more structured way.

Appoint a point. To give credence to the project in the client’s eyes, make the project manager the client’s main point of contact. This way the team’s channel of client communication can consistently come from one point person, rather than a confused cluster of contradictory chatter coming from one member one day and another the next.

d9c490aa8f045b5bd23afaf95d64bf60.wix_mp_srz_400_270_75_22_0.50_1.20_0Collaborate, communicate. For a more fleshed-out proposal with input from all sides, the PM should contact the project team several times to continually get their insights and input prior to, and in the course of, the proposal writing process.

Retrieve, receive. The PM might begin by sending a group e-mail out to the team with as complete information about the potential client as can be gathered from the Internet, newspapers and library research: the client’s website, LinkedIn and Wikipedia profiles, Twitter and Facebook info, YouTube videos, news coverage, ratings on NASDAQ, Moody’s, Standard & Poor, Dun & Bradstreet, etc.

In this e-mail the PM should ask all team members to e-mail back any additional info about the client and/or its industry they can dig up, and any questions they have about the project. This will prompt the PM to think of more questions to extract more specifics from the client about the project requirements.

Drill, distill. The PM then interrogates the client with this comprehensive list of questions, allowing the client’s answers to provoke further questions about the project’s technical details and overall aims. Once satisfied with the resultant information, the PM synthesizes it into a bullet-point list of the client’s project requirements and needs to make it easier for the team to peruse and ponder.

520237256391310fbb4b0c9c2d9673a9.wix_mp_srz_400_270_75_22_0.50_1.20_0Brainstorm, form. Based on this point list that arose from their questions, the proposal team has meetings of the minds to form thoughtful solutions to the client’s project demands. More heads involved mean more issues examined, hence a broader, deeper project proposal.

These issues should include:

  • How will our service benefit the client, business-wise?
  • How will it benefit the users or occupants of the building, in terms of personal well-being and space efficiency?
  • What will be the project’s long-term value to the client and generations of users, occupants and/or customers?
  • Is our proposal convincing, compelling, competitive?
  • How should graphics and images be arranged with texts to communicate our project aims more powerfully in the proposal?
  • Are we really addressing the client’s needs, or just trumpeting our track record?
  • How can we put our track record to use to meet the client’s specific architectural, social, environmental, economic and civic requirements for this project?
  • How will our service qualify the structure for LEED certification?
  • What level of LEED certification are we aiming for (silver, gold, platinum)?
  • What specific sustainable building materials, cosmetics, construction techniques, material recycling plans, etc., that would make us eligible for LEED certification, should be mentioned in the proposal?
  • How could BIM, Revit, etc., be employed to ferret out more specific details of the construction process and product to include in the proposal?

The team as a group should ask the right questions and come up with the right answers to make the proposal client-centric, not egocentric. Thus the client becomes the true architect of the project by dictating the design s/he desires.

bd5d4c4a9bf89862ceb7073801d6bd62.wix_mp_srz_400_270_75_22_0.50_1.20_0Stimulate, formulate. E-mail is no substitute for the face-to- face team meetings that stimulate the open discussion needed to formulate not only specific solutions to the client’s project problems, but also collective action plans for preparing the proposal accordingly.

In-the-flesh meetings also prompt unasked questions that raise unresolved issues about unexplained details that could affect the project’s progress and viability. Furthermore, these get-togethers reaffirm the camaraderie and common bond among the team that is essential to both proposal and project success.

Involve, resolve. It’s also important to involve in the proposal development process the subcontractors, consultants, designers, landscapers, engineers, and anyone else that would be involved in the project itself. This way, each party would get a sense of how the others functioned in the project process so that conflicts within the team could be resolved faster and no one would feel “left out” by not being informed of what was going on every step of the way. And this team spirit would be reflected in the proposal, presenting the project as a collaborative effort, not a soup of supers and subs.

826aa8f7c93c73e4222d4cb5f99716fe.wix_mp_srz_400_270_75_22_0.50_1.20_0Glean, clean. Notwithstanding that collaborative effort, the writing process demands leadership from the proposal manager, coordinator or writer, as marketer Michael Sweeney deftly describes it in his blog, The Design Marketer’s Workstation.

This person must receive all e-mails and attend all meetings of the proposal team, take rigorous notes all along, and play journalist, even detective or cross-examiner, in probing the PM and others with additional questions to clear up confusion or glean missing info. Then s/he can synthesize all salient points into a first draft of the proposal, cleaning up any vague, wordy or cryptic language to make the text terse, fluid and readable.

But the collaboration doesn’t stop there: the proposal manager/coordinator/writer must confer with the PM and other key people to make sure their project intentions are being communicated properly and precisely.

Chop, crop. The proposal scribe should by all means put the brakes on the document if it’s getting to be legal-doc length. But s/he must first talk with those key proposal teammates if s/he feels something needs to be cut from a text or cropped from an image to make the proposal flow better, get to the point faster, or consume less paper. For what lands on the cutting-room floor could make or break a project’s chances of success.

bb579bc6c50f369f182c4bd0bddf32dd.wix_mp_srz_400_270_75_22_0.50_1.20_0Rake over, make over. Before the proposal is sent to the client, each team member should take the time to read it over carefully to fill in gaps, eliminate inessentials, and take out tangents. Then the team should meet to make sure — as a group — that the proposal is using the right language to convey the right message about the project, and that the reader can visualize the project by reading the proposal. More sets of eyes mean fewer errors and omissions, hence a sounder proposal that demonstrates the teamwork you’re going to bring to the project itself.

Thus a “together” approach to building a proposal helps to establish and confirm the design/development team that will carry out the actual project if the firm wins it, as well as each team member’s specific responsibilities on the project.

Megan Scott, Client Services Assistant at Butler Fairman & Seufert Civil Engineers in Indianapolis, cites a fine example of proposal teamwork in a LinkedIn discussion:

ebf72ef300072eaa8d175f0bd048c271.wix_mp_srz_400_270_75_22_0.50_1.20_0“I coordinate with the business development team for help with the cover letter and project understanding. I coordinate with IT/graphics for any maps, renderings, cross sections I might need and with the technical department head for the project approach and verification of highlighted project examples.

“We also implemented a Go/No-Go system to try and help provide more information up front, along with a proposal completion schedule highlighting responsibilities and due dates to ensure the proposal gets done with sufficient time for review.”

Photo by Tee Meng, Wiki

Photo by Tee Meng, Wiki

These are examples of how teamwork can ease the burden on the designated proposal writer, who may spend as much as 25-30 hours per week on proposals, “in which case 6 per month should be ‘maxed out,’” according to Michael LePostollec, Marketing Manager at Faithful+Gould Construction Management in Philadelphia. “It’s always possible to do more, but at some point there are diminishing returns and burnout sets in.”

This reminds me of a time when I was instructed to write up a DSB form for a proposal. Putting it aside for other marketing priorities, I got the following reminder: “I’m not doin’ it, you’re doin’ it!”

The firm as a whole should be doin’ it — just like they’ll do on the project.

— Todd Larson

P.S. If you’re curious about that piece I read that inspired this post, click here.

Thank you for visiting. I welcome your comments!