LinkedIn is now used by 320 million people, and a million more join every week. Your LinkedIn profile is a shop’s window to recruiters, potential employers, and clients. Every single one of your viewers has one thing in common — stories have an impact on them.
I help people tell stories for a living. As a resume writer, I bring out peoples’ strengths and passions to the forefront of their documents by simply asking them to share their stories with me and then filtering them to create the biggest impact.
Back in 2013, I finally jumped on the bandwagon and created a LinkedIn profile for myself. It was pretty anemic at first, but I beefed it up by treating myself as a client — I filled out a questionnaire since I couldn’t do an information-gathering call with myself (haha) and filtered through my responses to create what you see here.
The response I got was good, but it was nothing compared to what I was getting from Facebook. On Facebook, my content marketing strategy was winning me lots of clients. On LinkedIn, not so much.
I knew I was doing something wrong. I knew there were lots of people on LinkedIn that needed help telling their stories. But they had no idea how I could help, or, they didn’t trust me to do a good job.
That’s when I decided to conduct The Story Experiment. I knew companies that told stories had a much higher customer engagement rate than those that didn’t. I knew I could build trust and showcase my excellent results simply by telling stories.
Before I tell you about The Story Experiment, I want to share a remarkable success story of my own that transformed a marketing manager client’s journey. My two-page, salary-doubling, exclusive resume cheat sheet delves into how they not only bagged their dream job but also doubled their initial job offer. Submit your information below to find out how we did it:
The Story Experiment:
I made a list of all my past clients and one by one, got in touch with them to ask them how they were doing. (This took a full day.) Almost all of them had used my documents to great success.
I asked a few of them to simply write me a recommendation on LinkedIn and emailed them a link that showed them how they could.
I asked the rest of my clients to tell a story about how I helped them and emailed them the same link.
Here are the results of my experiment. Which of the following two recommendations stands out to you?
The second one tells a story and uses numbers to show exactly how I helped Raheel, while the first uses vague and generic language that doesn't really differentiate me from my peers.
Asking my clients for recommendations did two things:
I got some great, keyword-rich recommendations that helped solidify my brand and helped win the trust of clients who were previously on-the-fence about my services.
It reminded my clients what a great job I did for them, and therefore, I got a ton of referrals.
The trick to getting a good recommendation is to NOT use the default message. Instead, ask your recommender how they are doing. Remind them of a project you worked on together, or something else that will refresh their recollection of your professional skills. Then ask your recommender to tell a clear, positive, specific story or two about you. Examples of how you handled a situation, what you accomplished, or how you helped someone are always more informative and interesting than generalizations!
Remember, errors and poor writing reflects poorly on both you and the recommender. If there are errors in your recommendation, simply edit it and send it back to the recommender, saying, “Thank you so much for that thoughtful recommendation! Do you mind correcting a few minor typos I found in it? I’ve pasted the corrected text.”
If you have any questions feel free to reach out to me on my LinkedIn.
Recommended Reading
- How to Write A Great LinkedIn Summary (With Examples)
- How to Use LinkedIn Learning Effectively
- LinkedIn Profile Tips Every Job Seeker Should Know
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