The Trick To Stress-Free LinkedIn Requests

At one of my new LinkedIn Meetups, a recruiter friend of mine shared her favorite trick for connecting on LinkedIn: she has a few different scripts she uses when reaching out to people she’d like to connect with. Although she tailors those scripts a little, it’s mostly copy and paste…which really takes the stress out of requesting connections.

Cast your eyes up here, folks! I’m going to show you how the magic is done:

1. Categorize your connections.

Think about the types of people you may invite into your network: friends, family, casual acquaintances, coworkers, industry colleagues, clients, customers, LI group members… the list goes on.

2. Come up with a script for each category.

Don’t tell me I’ve lost you already! I promise it’s easier than it looks. In fact, I’m even going to give you a few examples to get you started. Let’s say you want to connect with former coworkers or key customers or potential clients. Try sample scripts like these when sending requests:

Former coworker: “Hi (Coworker), I was excited to see you’re still working for ABC Company. They’re lucky to have you in charge of (X function). I’d really like to stay in better touch from now on – would you like to connect on LinkedIn?”

Key customer: “(Customer), I’ve enjoyed getting to know you and your company’s needs these past few months, and would love to connect on LinkedIn so that I can become an even better resource for you.”

Potential client: “Hi (Potential Client), From reading your profile, I can tell that (X topic) is really important to you. It’s important to me, too, so important that I’ve built my business around it. I’d love to connect with you: not so I can pressure you to become a client, but because you’re the kind of smart person I can continue to learn about my target market from. I hope you’ll feel free to reach out if I can assist you with anything in return!”

3. Tweak the scripts to sound like you.

In other words, don’t use phrasing or vocabulary just because it sounded good when I said it, or because you’ve always wanted to be funny like Dwight Schrute from The Office. Be yourself.

4. Copy.

The next time you find someone you’d like to connect with, pull up the script for the category of connection they belong to.

5. Paste.

…the script right into your connection request.

6. Presto, change-o.

This is where the magic really happens, where you substitute their name for (Customer) and their interests/job function/company name, etc., in the appropriate place in your script. This is also where you can feel free to ad-lib, to depart from your script! Add a whole extra sentence in if you’d like to reference a shared experience or something you remember about them.

Sometimes you may have to read over the person’s profile first to make sure you know enough about them to complete this step, which is exactly as it should be. The end goal is to have a personal, mutually-beneficial relationship with each of your connections and that requires knowing personal information about them.

7. Check your request.

Re-read what you’ve written and make sure you’ve: 1) spelled the person’s name correctly, 2) substituted the relevant info for any placeholders you had in your script (some people like to highlight these placeholders to draw attention to them so that they’ll have a hard time overlooking them and sending a generic request like “Dear Customer;”), and 3) personalized your script so it reads like it was written just for them.

8. Hit send.

Easy, peasy, right? Even novice LI users can quickly master this type of connection magic.

Don’t Be Afraid Of Changing Your Job Goals

You see, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about goals—how to set them properly, how to see them through, how to keep your perspective about achieving them.

As most of you know, I’m kind of a goal junkie. But recently, I’ve had to make some… corrections, and it’s been hard. In many ways, it makes me feel weak. Like I’ve failed. But I realized this morning that I’ve been looking at it the wrong way. I’ve been acting like “changing my mind” is the same as “quitting.”

And it’s not.

You see, changing your mind is YOUR RIGHT. No one can take that from you.

The trick is not to be fickle. Give your decision the thought and attention it deserves. But give yourself the freedom you deserve.

Here are a few questions to consider before changing your mind:

1. What’s Changed?

Life is full of unexpected twists and turns. Circumstances change, priorities shift. The world as we know it never stands still. At times, your choices have to adjust accordingly.

Think of it this way: If you’re planning to quit your job and go back to school, and then your spouse is suddenly laid off, you almost have no choice but to at least consider changing your mind (in most cases and for most people this would cause some major reconsideration).

It doesn’t mean the goal of going back to school has to disappear completely. It just might need to be adjusted in some way. The timeline would shift, perhaps.

Or maybe YOU are the one that’s changed. Maybe what used to be right no longer resonates. Maybe you’ve grown in an unexpected direction.

Now, it’s also important to recognize when the thing that’s changed is good old-fashioned fear disguising itself. That happens a lot. Fear has a clever way of convincing us that we can’t do things. It tricks us into thinking we never really wanted to in the first place. So be careful and be honest.

If fear is what’s holding you back, pause for a moment. Typically, decisions made out of fear tend to backfire. Don’t change your mind just yet. You might feel stronger tomorrow (this has happened to me many, many times and I’m always grateful when I follow this advice and simply pause).

2. What’s Your Heart Telling You?

The process of changing your mind doesn’t only happen in your head. As a human being, you are filled with infinite wisdom. It’s there inside you. All you have to do is listen.

I wrote about emotions and their impact on decision-making recently. You see, sometimes, your brain is able to connect the dots of the information it receives in a way that’s so subtle, it’s not even understood by the conscious brain. It’s simply translated into a “feeling” instead.

So, stop and listen. What is your heart saying? What is your body saying? Respect what you hear.

3. What Have You Learned?

The act of starting something—whether a project, a goal, a job, a New Year’s resolution or anything else—is a learning process in itself. Shifting course and “ending” something is just as valuable a lesson.

What do you know now about yourself (and about the world around you) you didn’t know before? What, if anything, will you do differently next time? How will this experience and this decision change you?

As I’ve said before, this kind of thing isn’t “giving” up, it’s growing up. So, focus on the growth and don’t beat yourself up.