Stewart Hirsch, The Daily Record Newswire
A colleague recently asked me how I handle LinkedIn invitations from people I don’t really know. Another asked about connecting to people whose reputation is questionable.
When people ask me questions about whether or not to “link,” they are usually not asking about the business benefits; they’re often concerned about the business and personal risks associated with accepting the invitations.
Here are some risk scenarios that may result from accepting LinkedIn invitations:
• Connecting to a person with a questionable reputation simply for the sake of possibly doing business not only can put your firm at risk, but also can reflect badly on you in the LinkedIn community.
• Some people are concerned about connecting with competitors; however, such hookups might increase the opportunity for collaboration. Stay on top of these connections to ensure that competitors do not misuse your contact list or take advantage of other points of access that they may have gleaned from their connecting with you.
• I do not block my connections from seeing who my other connections are, but others do — leaving such avenues open does present the risk of your connections reaching out to your other contacts without your permission. I’ve been told that because of this risk, recruiters block access to their connections.
• While it may seem logical to make as many connections as possible in order to maximize your potential reach, having a lot of connections to people you don’t know may seem disingenuous to onlookers. Still, of the many reasons not to accommodate an introduction request, one should not be that “I really don’t know that person.”
There are three typical scenarios I encounter when I receive an invitation on LinkedIn. I quickly assess the risk while simultaneously looking for ways to increase the business benefits of the potential connection.
1) I already know the person or we have met, in person, by phone or online.
I think about how comfortable I will be connecting the individual to other people I know. I have fairly liberal standards, and generally opt in favor of connecting. I may have met the person briefly at a conference or we may be in a virtual group together. Before accepting the invitation, I may reach out to the contact and ask for a phone call so that I can increase my comfort level and trust.
2) I don’t know or remember the person, but we have common connections.
For these potential connections, I investigate further by reviewing their LinkedIn profiles and tracking them through Google to check their online presence. Generally, I am likely to connect based on my investigation, relying in part on the transferred trust from the person I know. Sometimes I even write to our common connection and ask if and how he or she knows the person. And again, I am likely to reach out and ask the person to have a phone call with me so we can establish or enhance our relationship. If the person doesn’t want to have a call with me, that’s a bad sign.
Once I received an invitation without a personal note reminding me of where I met the person. It turns out she was a student in a class I taught on coaching. I emailed to ask her if we knew each other, and we then had a follow-up call. We built a relationship, and now I would not hesitate to introduce her to my other LinkedIn connections.
3) I don’t know the person and we have no connections in common.
I suspect some of these requests are spam, but just in case, I usually investigate further by reviewing the person’s profile and researching them on Google. Recently, I’ve been receiving invitations from people who have high-ranking titles and appear to be part of solid companies, usually from outside the U.S. — yet they have only a very few connections and their invitations do not indicate how they know me or why they want to connect. I ignore these.
Some invitations do not appear to be spam but look like they’re from people using LinkedIn’s service to connect to everyone in a group, or every single person in their email database. While these types of requests need not necessarily be ignored across the board, use common sense in assessing each individual connection.
A final piece of advice when inviting someone to connect on LinkedIn: Don’t just use LinkedIn’s template. Personalize it. And unless there is no question that the person knows you, remind him or her how you met and why you want to connect. In a world of ever-increasing emails, alerts and junk mail, the less guesswork from a sender, the better. Make it easier on both of you.
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Stewart Hirsch is a business development and executive coach and trainer and a former in-house lawyer. He is managing director at Strategic Relationships and heads the trust-based coaching practice at Trusted Advisor Associates. Contact him at (781) 784-5280 or s.hirsch@strategicrelationships.com. Follow him on Twitter @stewartmhirsch
