How To Get 10X More Connections On LinkedIn?

We all want and use LinkedIn for your business growth.

But where it starts?

I mean sales on LinkedIn…

To simplify, we can think of basic triumvirate:

PROFILE – CONNECTIONS – POSTS

With none of these pieces, we just out of the successful business game on LinkedIn.

No way you can be successful on LinkedIn with none of them.

As the name of the post suggests, we will talk about CONNECTIONS. How to get more of them w/o killing ourselves or our time or our bank account or whatever it takes to get more connections to grow our business!

REMEMBER. For the moment being, we are looking for connections only, not a number of followers.

Why?

Because we in a business game here on LinkedIn.

When we post regularly and engage with our community, we make our connections our leads, and our leads – our customers

CONNECTION => LEADS => CUSTOMERS

Followers are just a one-way relationship.

We want “friends” on LinkedIn. Connections. We want to talk to them to have a dialogue.

Here, we better understand and engage with them (our connections) that will lead us to highly qualified leads and happy customers! Isn’t it outstanding?

Let’s start! Dive in.

Stage 0. Prerequisites and Planning

We need to start with our profile (prerequisites).

When it’s done correctly, it simplifies the entire process of connection. People like to be connected to professionals. I won’t elaborate further as this is not the main idea of the post.

But we MUST make sure that after first 3 sec looking at our profile, our prospect or LinkedIn user can quickly get the idea:

Who we are
What do we do
Why they should connect to us
How we or our product or service might help them

DONE.

Next it planning.

Here, before we do anything, we should understand some rules – LinkedIn limits – that shape our activity on LinkedIn + some statistics.

So here they are:

100 connection requests per week that come to around 20-25 a day (assuming we connect on business days only) – LinkedIn limit.
Connection request acceptance rate ranges from 45% to 70%, depending on whom and how we connect – Statistics.

And there are also three things to always consider:

LinkedIn wants us to send connections requests only to people we know. In case we don’t know the person, we should tailor our message to increase the odds of successful connection and/or start discussion with them beforehand, so at some point we won’t be strangers anymore – LinkedIn general rule
Gradually come to the level of 100 connection requests per week. LinkedIn is very cautious with newly created accounts and the ones that are not active enough – LinkedIn general rule (otherwise LinkedIn will limit our weekly connection request limit)
Clearing our pending connection requests weekly – Proper message to LinkedIn that we are not spammers… (otherwise LinkedIn will limit our weekly connection request limit)

Knowing that we can roughly estimate the timing we need to grow for every stage on the way. I would present the details of the calculation under section for every stage. Please read further.)))

What We Should Do:

Optimize our LinkedIn profile
Gradually and consistently come to the level of 100 connection requests per week
Send tailored connection requests to the ones we don’t really know
Clear pending connection requests weekly

Stage 1. From 0 to 100

I think this is the easiest one of all stages, but maybe daunting.

Why?

Cause we are just starting out. We don’t know what to do first.

Here we should sit and think.

Write 3 lists, should take us about 15 min:

The list of our friends who must be on LinkedIn – FRIENDS
The one of our colleagues, current ones and former ones. The ones we know and they know us – COLLEAGUES
The one of our classmates and other university friends – CLASSMATES

No matter how old we are, whether we are shy or are truly a networker, the total amount of names would be from 70+)))

a) Remember the limits – 20-25 per day (LinkedIn limit of connection requests if send only on business days)?

Sure we do!

b) We know the people on the lists.

We know each other personally. Therefore, connection request acceptance rate here should be over 70%, even over 85%. To be on a safe side, let’s plan 70%.

c) We have to “warm up” our LinkedIn account (activity), so we should start slow. Not from 20 request per day, but:

1^st week (5 days) – 5 connections per day
2^nd week (5 days) – 10 connections per day
3^rd week (5 days) – 15 connections per day
Thereafter – 20 connections per day

We do it slowly.

Why?

We are not in a rush. We are here for business.

And business is a long game, not short! We are not hustlers! We are not hustlers!!!

So how many days will it take us to get to 100 with such logic?

I guess you know already know the answer.

21 days.

3 weeks

But this is just the start.

Here is the calculation:

(5 days * 5 requests + 5 days * 10 requests + 5 days * 15 requests) * 70% acceptance rate = 104 connections (~100!)

Yes, but how would you get from 70 people on the list to 100 connections?

Happy you asked)))

As soon as we start search our friends, classmates, colleagues on LinkedIn and send them connection requests on methodical and slow way, two things will start happening:

LinkedIn already in the search will start proposing to us other people we might know (some of them should have been on the list, but we forgot. The others will be “almost” our friends, for example, friend of a friend, the professor in funny glasses, the colleagues from accounting I saw two times during lunch etc.) => our close potential network of “friends” will be way above those 70 we wrote. Maybe 200 or maybe even 320. I don’t know, but you will see.
LinkedIn will start showing our profile to connections of your connections, recommending them to connect with us. And you know what? Some other people will start approaching us and sending the connection requests to us. Which doesn’t count towards our weekly limit + we still might haven’t thought of that people before.

What I want to say is that in 3-week time we should definitely get 100 connections.

And even though this stage 1 would be over, we still can get way more connections thanks to our friends, colleagues and classmates.

Honestly, I would assume at least 240 connections in 5 weeks in total.

Week 1. 17 connections = 5 days * 5 request * 70% acceptance rate

Week 2. 35 connections = 5 days * 10 request * 70% acceptance rate

Week 3. 52 connections = 5 days * 15 request * 70% acceptance rate

Week 4. 70 connections = 5 days * 20 request * 70% acceptance rate

Week 5. 70 connections = 5 days * 20 request * 70% acceptance rate

+ the ones (I didn’t calculate them here) who send requests themselves that don’t count towards the LinkedIn limit and we can eagerly connect with them two! Accept their invitations to connect!

By the way, you remember we were very safe with 70% acceptance rate?

It’s almost our friends, people we know, we normally should be around 85%.

If we get 85% acceptance rate with the same approach and the same overall timing of 5 weeks, we can get almost 300 real connections (to be precise 296!)

Hope you get the logic.

What We Should Do:

Create lists of friends, colleagues (incl. former ones), and classmates
Start slowly, but constantly (every business day w/o any breaks) to send connection requests to the ones in the list within our daily limits (5 -> 10 -> 15 -> 20 -> 20 -> …)
Check the invites to connect you got and also connect with them (these connections don’t go to our weekly limit of 100 connections requests)
Clean pending connection request every Friday. The ones we sent one week ago.

3 weeks and we get our first 100 connections. Congrats!

Well Done!

Stage 2. From 101 to 500

Right now we are on the 2^nd stage.

We’ve got our first 100.

We’ve already warmed up our LinkedIn account to sending connections request.

So here on this stage, stage 2, we can influence:

The pipeline of people to connect by prioritizing whom to connect
The acceptance rate by targeting whom to connect and how to connect
The visibility of our profile that attracts connection invites from others

What we don’t influence is 100 connections requests per week we can send. We will still have 20 requests per day. But the game is just starting out))))

So let’s dive in into every step we can influence.

THE PIPELINE.

What is pipeline?

It is a kind of prioritized lists of people we want to connect. Whom and how we will approach in near future.

But before we will go for them, especially find the sources and lists. We should first understand and decide whom overall we need as connections. Believe it’s important.

Not that important on stage 1 (from 0 to 100), because we just started. But here, we already need to think strategically.

We can have different perspectives and objectives, but knowing who we are after will save us a ton of resources and get us a lot of customers in near future.

Honestly, it’s YOUR call. You should decide!

I will just describe how potentially to form this pipeline and where to look.

First, it’s LinkedIn groups. The ones where people already share same interests, profession or industry. It’s really a great way to start. LinkedIn search will be of a help here.

Second, it is influencers in your vertical or professionals whom we might benefit and/or learn from. Or it also can be particular people we want to connect (we have our reasons for that, don’t we?). LinkedIn search will be useful here too.

Third, it’s LIONs (LinkedIn Open Networkers). LIONs are the ones who accept any connection requests they’ve got. We can imagine the quality of their connections (not the one we’ve dreamed of), but the acceptance rate will be 100%))). So why do I mention them even here? The question is simple, we can choose based on vertical and profile the LIONs we need that can serve us all the issues:
- the pipeline (which LIONs worth connecting),
- the acceptance rate (will go up, 100% from LIONs)
- and our visibility (after connecting to them, our activity and profile will be potentially shown to way bigger audience, audience of these LIONs).

So where to find them? Search for keyword LION in LinkedIn search + add needed industry or niche.

Fourth, “People You May Know”. When LinkedIn automatically suggests connections based on employment, education, industry, and we can imagine. It’s so valuable automated source of potential connections, we should definitely use it.

Last, but not least. We must check the other section on LinkedIn – “Who’s Viewed Your Profile”. Here we will find the LinkedIn users who viewed our profile (as the name suggests)))). And among them, potentially the ones who are worth connecting!

After we know where potentially we can look for the interesting future connections, we may go further and think about connection request acceptance rate and how to increase it.

THE ACCEPTANCE RATE.

We recall LinkedIn wants us to connect to the ones we know. It always checks what is our overall connection request acceptance rate and how many pending connection requests do we have. It knows everything.

We do also have a limit of 20 connections per day, so it’s our duty to be careful and do everything possible to have the highest possible acceptance rate.

With these regards we have several tools/options. Each of them can be used either by its own or in combinations.

Here they are:

Commenting, taking part in discussion. Can be used in groups or when attracting influencer, for example.
Personalized tailored message to connect (not just standard connection request). Can be used for professionals, influencers, “People You May Know”.
Standard connection request. Can connect with LIONs or, for example, “Who’s Viewed Your Profile” at least 2-3 times.

With such an approach, we can count on at least 60% acceptance rate.

However, if you really want to be on a safe side – go with 50% in your calculation.

THE VISIBILITY.

This is very, very interesting and useful part of our connection equation.

It’s so powerful…

10X powerful in right hands!

The more people (particularly the ones who fit our audience) see our profile and our activity on LinkedIn, the more connection invites we get. These invitations come on top to our weekly limit of 100 connection request))))) It’s fantastic!

So what can we do to be visible and get more and more connection invites?

Please pay attention it is invites, not requests.

Add LinkedIn profile (URL)* to our business touch points:
- To Our Business Card
- To Our Email (signature)
- To Our Website (about, footer, contacts)
- To Our Business materials, we create/distribute (presentations, booklets, price lists, etc.)
- Etc.

Promote LinkedIn profile (URL)* on other social platforms. For example,:
- Facebook
- Tweeter
- YouTube

Engage with other people’s content, especially 2^nd and 3^rd level of connections. By engage I mean commenting (not liking, however it also might work, but on a different level), and we must comment something valuable either to the community or to the author. We should avoid general comments like “outstanding”, “great post”.

So what? Such comments bring nothing to the table. We can do better than that. Idea is to add value, and when LinkedIn will show our activity to the author and community, they would be interested in starting discussions and/or check our profile and potentially send a connection invite. DONE!

BONUS! Start posting content on LinkedIn – 1-2 times a week. Ideally, the relevant content to our target audience, the one we want to do business with and be connected on LinkedIn, our ideal customer profiles, sort of. Why bonus? Cause we should take this point seriously on our next stage, right now we should just start practicing))))

*we must be sure that our LinkedIn URL is custom. Just our name. No numbers and other strange strings of who knows what. Please take care of that!

So we’ve figured out how we can “play” with the pipeline, acceptance rate and the visibility.

Let’s do some math.

The pipeline. I am sure we have the prioritized list according to our understanding of target audience and strategy on LinkedIn – DONE!

The acceptance rate. If everything is done correctly, it will be over 60%. DONE!

The visibility. Mmm, interesting. It helps with acceptance rate + it gives connection invites. Let’s estimate for the time being that it should give us on top 20% to our base of connections on that stage (Believe me, I am very conservative with these numbers. In reality, they are way higher!) – DONE!

Connection request limit – unchanged, 100 per week.

So how much time will it take us to reach 500 connections?

Your guess?))))

Yes, you are right, just another 6 weeks.

Week 4. 72 connections = (5 days * 20 requests * 60% acceptance rate) * (1 + 20% connection invites) – stage 2

…

Week 9. 72 connections = (5 days * 20 requests * 60% acceptance rate) * (1 + 20% connection invites) – stage 2

Total = (17 + 35 + 52) + 72*6 = 536!

9 weeks and we SURELY get 500 connections.

Less than 2.5 months passed and we are very promising LinkedIn user.

Better than 54% of all LinkedIn users! Well Done!

You must think, ok, but what is the point?

You’ve promised to show how to get 10X connections…

For the moment, this post is more of a math class than on LinkedIn outreach.

Disagree! Fully!

The whole magic happens on stage 3, when we really need to grow…

We need to grow, let’s say, to 3000+ connections.

Or do you want to have more?

Let’s talk about it in the next section.

What We Should Do:

Strategically decide what profiles (connections) we are after on LinkedIn and why
Form a pipeline of those to connect with (LinkedIn groups, Influencers, Professionals in our vertical, LIONs, “People You May Know”, “Who’s Viewed Your Profile” etc.)
Choose and prepare the ways to increase the connection request acceptance rate, depending on whom we are going to approach (Commenting, taking part in discussion; Personalized tailored message to connect; Standard connection request)
Take care of our VISIBILITY to attract connection invites (Add LinkedIn profile (URL) to our business touch points; Promote LinkedIn profile (URL)* on other social platforms; Engage with other people’s content; Start POSTING)
Plan our week when and what we should do every single day!
Constantly send connection requests to the ones we’ve put in our plan. 20 connection requests daily, only business days.
Check the invites to connect you got and also connect with them
Clean pending connection request every Friday. The ones we sent one week ago.

Stage 2 is over, after 9 weeks we are ready to come to the real connection growth hacking)))

Stage 3. 500+ and far beyond

Magic stage.

Everything happens here!

After stage 1 and stage 2, we are well-equipped to sell courses on how to grow your connections on LinkedIn.

Why?

We’ve covered 97% of what people normally:

don’t know,
don’t do,
don’t do methodically!

Honestly, with all things I’ve mentioned above, we can grow further and further, no problem with that at all. We are all set!

We know

WHAT,
HOW,
and WHEN to do.

We even know how many connections we can get weekly.

Yep, around 70+ per week. I mean actual connections, not requests.

So with that rate, how many months or weeks do we need to come to let’s say 2 000 connections?

3 000 connections?

5 000 connections?

Yes, it would take us:

2 000 connections – another 5 months (on top of 500 connections)
3 000 connections – another 8-9 months (on top of 500 connections)
5 000 connections – another 15-16 months (on top of 500 connections)

Wow! It’s a proper game. Long game.

Is there a shortcut?

Trick?

Secret?

Maybe, but I am not into it, any of it.

I know how we can double our weekly connection rate: from 70+ to 140 per week.