I use LinkedIn Groups quite a bit. I haven't gotten work from there, but I've connected with a lot of other virtual professionals and asked lots of "how do you...." questions and gotten some great answers back. I chime in with answers where I can, too. It's a good place to meet your peers, I think.

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Deb Howard Greenleaf, Certified QB ProAdvisor
Virtual Bookkeeping & QB Consulting

WOW! Thanks everyone for the great input on LinkedIn. I appreciate all of the help and suggestions.

I use Linkedin and one thing to make sure is you complete your profile as much as possible. There's a percentage bar that shows how complete your profile is. You need 3 people to recommend you to reach 100%.

I love the CommonCraft (In Plain English) youtube videos!

I also have a friend that received work based on the connections he has in his Linkedin network. They had something in common and that made the "link" for him.

It's also a nice way to be introduced to someone you have not yet. Say you want to talk to someone at IBM. You are more likely to get to talk to someone higher up in the chain if one of your links can introduce the two of you. It's a difference between being a stranger walking up to someone and getting introduced.

Have you ever seen Chitty Chitty Bang Bang? Professor Potts was getting shooed out the door instead of being able to talk to Lord Scrumptious. Truly Scrumptious had met Professor Potts before and encouraged her father, Lor Scrumptious, to see the professor. It's the same premise.

While I only have 42 contacts there currently, through those contacts, I can be introduced to more than 8,700 other contacts. If I wanted to get in touch with someone at Disney, there are several dozen that are contacts of my contacts.

Best Wishes!
Kim

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Kim Wesley
www.kimawesley.com

Hi Kim,

I have never seen Chitty Chitty Bang Bang but the explanation was GREAT! I love the breakdown you give and now that I have purchased my domain name and have started to work on my website starting with LinkedIn is perfect.

I did review your mentor's site by the way. I just never got a chance to respond. He seems like a very nice and smart man. You are lucky to have such a great mentor!

Best of luck to you!

Sarah

Although I have been a LinkedIn member for years -- I found this presentation very informative and helpful and will be using some of the ideas to find prosepcts for my VA business.

How to Use LinkedIn for Prospecting

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Cindy
www.eoseasy.com

There are a few opportunities coming up where you could meet him, too. He's having business mixers - July 8th in Bethesda, MD and July 29th in Ellicott City, MD (www.bestbizmixer.com). He's working on another that will either be in Linthicum, MD or Hanover, MD.

Kim

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Kim Wesley
www.kimawesley.com

I use LinkedIn, although not to the fullest extent either. What I like is they have a Twitter like feed where you can tell people what you are working on. That way all of your contacts see that and I believe that gets put in to the email updates as well.

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Doreen R. Patrick, MVA, ACS, CIVA
www.virtualbusinesspartners.net

I use LinkedIn and made quite a few connections. I update my status on a regular basis and I also subscribe to quite a few groups. It is a great networking tool.

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Myrlene Hoyte
www.vpadmins.com

There are ways to use linkedin to market your business. A few have been listed here. I am taking a class next week on how to use linkedin. I'll post what I found out that is interesting.

Janet

Janet, is the class you're going to take online?

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