This week’s episode of Good Girls Get Rich is brought to you by Uplevel Media CEO and LinkedIn expert, Karen Yankovich. In this episode, Karen shares how to accumulate LinkedIn Recommendations.

LinkedIn Recommendations show the world who you are and why they can trust you. The more Recommendations you have, the better. Karen shares how to accumulate Recommendations.

#GoodGirlsGetRich

We want to hear your thoughts on this episode! Leave us a message on Speakpipe or email us at info@karenyankovich.com.

About the Episode:

Most likely, you already have testimonials on your website. Testimonials are an important tool to show others that they can trust you and your business, but what if there were an even more effective way to utilize those testimonials? Enter LinkedIn Recommendations.

When reading testimonials on a website, there’s no way to know if those testimonials are genuine or if they came from that person’s family and friends. LinkedIn Recommendations, however, are written by LinkedIn users, so you know who is writing the Recommendation. Another benefit is that once someone reads a Recommendation, they can then click through to the profile of the person who left the Recommendation and ask additional questions about the person they’re looking to work with.

How to Accumulate LinkedIn Recommendations

You might be wondering, “How do I get Recommendations?” The most effective way is to give genuine Recommendations strategically. Think about who it is that might write a Recommendation for you if you write a Recommendation for them.

Another way to get Recommendations is to ask for them. If someone is complementing your work, try asking, “Would you mind popping that in a LinkedIn Recommendation?” More often than not, they’ll do it. It’s also okay to cold ask.

Start giving LinkedIn Recommendations, accumulate them for yourself, and watch your business opportunities skyrocket.

Episode Spotlights:

  • Where to find everything for this week’s episode: karenyankovich.com/125
  • Introducing this episode’s topic (1:53)
  • The confidence to use LinkedIn Recommendations (3:45)
  • The power of LinkedIn Recommendations (4:45)
  • What is a LinkedIn Recommendation? (5:24)
  • How to get Recommendations (6:49)
  • How to give great Recommendations (12:15)
  • Episode recap (14:27)

Resources Mentioned in the Episode:

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Read the Transcript

Karen Yankovich 0:00
You’re listening to the Good Girls Get Rich Podcast Episode 125.

Intro 0:06
Welcome to the Good Girls Get Rich Podcast with your host, Karen Yankovich. This is where we embrace how good you are, girl. Stop being the best kept secret in town, learn how to use simple LinkedIn and social media strategies, and make the big bucks.

Karen Yankovich 0:24
Hello, I’m your host, Karen Yankovich. And this is Episode 125 of the Good Girls Get Rich Podcast. And we are brought to you by Uplevel Media where we teach simple relationship and heart based LinkedIn marketing to women that gets you on the phone consistently with your perfect people, people who you can’t wait to have the opportunity to chat with people who can change your business, your life and your bank balance for ever. Basically, what we teach is digital marketing with the human touch. We want you to actually get on the phone with people because we know that’s where the money is. So if you’ve listened before or if you love what you hear today, you know, we love to hear from you. So take a quick screenshot of this episode as you’re listening, share it out on your social media. tag me I’m @karenyankovich so that I can see it and I can share it with my audience. You know, we love your ratings and reviews. Also, they help us get a better handle on the kinds of shows you guys like to see. So also in the show notes for this episode, there’s a link for Speakpipe where we you can leave us an audio review, I would love that. Just go to karenyankovich.com/125. And you’ll see the blog for this page, you’ll see the link to Speakpipe and I can play it on the show. Give you a shout out to my audience. Check that out and leave us a review. Or maybe you just want to leave me a message. Tell me something you loved about the episode Tell me somebody that you think we should interview on the show, whatever, whatever you think we want to hear from you. So we’re going to be talking about today is LinkedIn Recommendations, and we’re living in a virtual world right now. And frankly one I think we’ve been living in For a long time, I think we’re just all starting to see the power of our virtual world. It’s been there forever. But when we’re only looking at the virtual things in our life, it becomes more visible and more powerful and more obvious to us. Right? And you know, mainly because we’re seeing doing so much less than person, we’re really seeing the impact of what our first impression is digitally, right? If you want to work with somebody, anybody that you want to give your money to, the first thing you do is a search on them. Right? See what comes up, you know, and people doing that for you, right? People are searching you before they invest in you. Hopefully your website will come up, right and hopefully on your website, you’ll have some testimonials, nice things that people say about you. But you handpick them, right? Of course you did. I did do right. That’s what we do. We handpick the testimonials that we want to have on our website. And we know that when we’re looking at other people’s websites, we know that they handpick their testimonials. You know even when someone asks you for references before They work with you. You can pick them, maybe you call them ahead of time and say Is it okay? If I, you know, give your name out to someone as a reference? Of course you do. That’s what I do. That’s what we should do. That’s what you should be doing right? So can you relate? We’re good soldiers, right? We learn digital marketing. We do what our website designers tell us to do. We handpick some great testimonials and put them on our website. Listen, I don’t hire a plumber and tell them how to fix my pipes. Right? So when I do what my website designer says, what all of the digital marketing mentors I’ve had have said over the years, right from Marie Forleo, two coaches, I’ve had two mastermind, buddies, right, everybody says, Put some testimonials on your website, and that’s what I do. And probably that’s what you do, too. Can you relate to that? But imagine in addition to that, if the next time somebody asks you for references, you have the confidence to say, just go on over to my LinkedIn profile. There’s 25, 45, 55, 85 Whatever LinkedIn recommendations there, and you’re welcome to reach out to any of those people, you can just click right through to them. And, you know, ask them anything you want about the work that we’ve done together. That, my friend is confidence, right? Yes, you can still provide a list of references. But when you can confidently send people to your website, when they’re looking to find out more about working with you, or confidently send people to your LinkedIn profile, when people are looking to work with you, that is powerful stuff. That is powerful stuff. And that is going to make you stand out from everyone else. Maybe you’ll still give them a list of references because you don’t want to make them have more work to hire you. Right? You want to make it easy for them. But the difference too is they can click right through to that recommendation to the person’s profile that left the recommendation. See how credible they are. You know, we can give references and we don’t know if they’re your brother or sister or cousin or uncle or next door neighbor, right? We don’t know That. So, you know, by by using LinkedIn recommendations as a way for people to check you know to check into the work you do, they can click right through the recommendation to see the profile of the person that left the recommendation. They can reach out to them right there on LinkedIn makes it really easy. And it is super, super powerful. Can you see that? So let’s talk about what our LinkedIn recommendation is. So a LinkedIn there’s two different ways that you can kind of get support from other people or leave support for other people on LinkedIn. One is endorsements and skills and endorsements. We’re not talking about that. That’s when people click on that they are endorsing you for a skill that you have listed on your on your profile. We’re not talking about that today. I love that. Okay, but don’t, don’t look at that. Like you’re being helpful to someone. You are being helpful to them, but nowhere near as helpful as you if you’re leaving them a recommendation. So if you want to do something nice for someone By all means, write them a recommendation, don’t just take the easy way out and click that endorsed button endorse away. I think endorsing people is a great way to just build goodwill. In LinkedIn, I kind of call it sprinkling fairy dust on your LinkedIn network. But recommendations, that is something really powerful you’re doing for someone I recommend recommendation is, was where you say, you know, I’ve worked with Mary, and we worked on a project together. And it was so beautiful to work on the project with her because I just, it was so nice to work with somebody where I knew that whatever was in her lap was going to get done. Not only was she going to succeed at it, she was going to exceed my expectations every single time. She picked up the ball when I dropped it a few times. And she’s been amazing to work with. That’s a recommendation, right? That’s a recommendation. And that’s what we’re talking about here. So I’m saying to you, I want you to get more recommendations, and maybe you’re thinking in your head. Well, Karen, how do I get I understand how I give recommendations. I’m going to talk more about that. But how do I know Get more recommendations. Well, one way you get more recommendations is to give more recommendations, just give more recommendations, especially if it’s somebody that you did partner with on a project. Let’s say you and another coach, were partnering on a project for a client. And at the end of it, it was just so nice to have a supportive that other coach, and you write a recommendation for them on LinkedIn, there’s a pretty good chance they’re going to say, huh, good idea. Let me write one back. Right. So, so give recommendation strategically, of course, to people that you think can will possibly write one back for you. But don’t just do that. Because I want you to be just really, really generous with this. If you had, you know, I mean, I wrote a recommendation one time for someone that did a facial I was at a estheticians place and somehow we got talking about LinkedIn and she was so excited about using LinkedIn that I wrote her a great recommendation after I left there because she was awesome. And I loved that she was using LinkedIn right now. It’s not gonna help me But where it does help me is like that social karma stuff, right? So don’t just give recommendations in an attempt to get one back, give them generously freely. I have a client one time that wrote a recommendation for their medical doctor and the medical doctor just truly because he was a good doctor, right. And the next time she went to the medical doctor cuz she was sick or had a checkup or something, right, just a general doctor visit. He said to her, you know, thank you so much for the recommendation, which was so nice that he remembered that right, hopefully, he made a note of it. And then said to her, I didn’t know you were a health coach. And that was they had a whole great conversation around that. And by the time she left his office, she had an appointment to do workshops for his patients, right, some workshops around the coaching that she does, simply by just providing value to somebody in her life that she thought was doing a great job for her. So the first way you can get more LinkedIn recommendations is to give more LinkedIn recommendations. And then the second way That you can get more recommendations is literally to just kind of have your ear out for opportunities to ask for one. You know, I don’t typically ask for them cold, although I’m going to give you an example in a little bit. But if somebody says, You know what, it’s been great working with you, you really over delivered if they’re saying nice things to you, it should be in the back of your mind to flip that and say, thank you so much. I’m so happy I love you know, I love happy customers, whatever nice things you would say as a result of that and then say, how would you feel about popping that on LinkedIn as a recommendation for me, because that’s really helpful to me. Now, they’re already saying something nice to you. They already want to, you know, they are looking for a way to help you, right? So nine out of 10 times they’re wishing they thought of that first. So by saying that, it’s just it’s okay to do that. Just say, I’m so glad it was helpful would really be helpful to me is right, and I bet they’re gonna do it. Very often they do it. So sometimes it’s in an email that you get after a job is finished. Sometimes it’s in the middle of a job, right? You don’t have to wait till the end, but by all means, what you can do is kind of like if you have like a wrap up checklist, you know, that’s typically when the conversation comes around to tell us how this oh, you know, tell us, what are we, you know, what are the next steps? And typically what happens when you talk about the next steps is you go over the previous steps, right? And if they’re saying nice things about you, maybe even put it on your checklist, look for an opportunity to ask for a LinkedIn recommendation. because let me tell you something. It is not just powerful to send people to it. It’s powerful when people see them when they’re checking you out. Right on their own. People check you out and said, Oh, my gosh, you have 60 LinkedIn recommendations. That’s amazing. That’s powerful, even if you’re not sending them there, right. So be an accumulator of LinkedIn recommendations. And then the last way, there’s probably 10 more, but the last one we’re going to talk about today is literally flat out asking for them. You know, I had an opportunity to pitch for a paid speaking engagement at a chamber of commerce in another state and I’ve done a ton of talks to Chamber of Commerce’s here in New Jersey. And I’ve just never really followed up to get LinkedIn recommendations from them. So I reached out to a couple of them. And I said, You know what, I’ve got this opportunity, I’d really like to send them to LinkedIn to see some nice things from other chambers, you know, that are said from work I’ve done with other chambers, which How would you feel about throwing a LinkedIn recommendation up for me? They’re happy to do it. Right there. We’re happy to do it. I mean, I didn’t you know, you could flat out ask certainly after speaking engagement, if they say nice things, again, all part of the say nice things. And but in this case, it was a year later. And and what happened was, I had an opportunity that that recommendation was going to be helpful to me if I had it. So I reached out to them specifically for that and they were happy to help. So what I want to do is go back to giving more recommendations, okay, because that’s really the power most powerful part here because yes, we want to get more recommendations. But let’s talk about giving more recommendations. You know, I already mentioned that it’s just good social media. Karma, right? When you’re giving recommendations, it’s just good social karma to, you know, to be giving out recommendations all over the place. Like you’re kind of putting the you’re filling up your social state karma savings account by doing that, right. So when you’re writing LinkedIn recommendations, you don’t want to just write Hey, I loved working with Joe, or I loved working with Mary. Right. When I would tick, I want to talk a little bit about how to write a great LinkedIn recommendation. The first thing you want to think about is how are you starting it, you want to, because chances are, they’re going to just read the first sentence first. And you want to hook people with the first sentence, right? Like it, you know, so some if you and by the way, look at the ones I’ve written, if you want an example, for people, and frankly, you’re welcome to write one for me, if you love this podcast, if you want practice writing one, See how easy that was to ask you. Right? But look at the ones that I’ve written. And, you know, kind of model them right. I like to try to make the first line a powerful first line. Okay. You want to talk a little bit about what your professional relationship is. You Want to talk of course about, you know, the achievements and what’s happened, right. So putting a little bit of information in about the role that you know the person was in when you worked together, right? Or that you even had to work together, they could have worked for you. You could have worked for them, whatever, you can write a recommendation, based on a PDF of theirs you saw, right? You gotta do something for me if you want a recommendation from me. But it could be as simple as I’ve downloaded your, you know, your free lead magnet, right? If you’re a great free lead magnet. That’s enough for me to write a legion recommendation, right? We don’t have to have worked together for six years, I can say I downloaded her free lead magnet and learn four things that I didn’t know before just from one thinking PDF. Right? Like, that’s amazing. So do you see how powerful that can be? Right? So you want to you know, provide some details of what you’re talking about talking about what their contribution was and how you know how that helped you in whatever way that you know that they helped you and tell me a little bit about the person Right, tell me a little about the person, maybe their energy or they’re so smart, or their, their attention to detail. Right? These are really important things that people are going to want to see, when they’re looking at these recommendations, right? Do yourself a favor and proofread them. It’s always a good idea to proofread. Because, you know, you know why it’s a good idea to proofread. Right. So those are just some ways to get started writing recommendations. So let’s just recap a little bit here to get more recommendations, you want to give more recommendations to start. You also want to kind of just put that at the end of the conversation when somebody says something nice about you. Right? How would you feel about writing that popping that in LinkedIn for me, and then the last time as you might flat out, reach out to someone and said, you know, that talk I did for you a year ago? Well, I’ve got an opportunity to do something similar and it’d be great to have a reference around that specific thing. Would you mind doing that for me? Right, so it’s absolutely okay to do that. And then giving more recommendations. Remember that it’s just great. Social karma. You know, it’s it is, you’ve heard this from me before, right? The best and most profitable strategy on LinkedIn starts with giving. Right not getting giving, the more you give, the more comes back to you. Okay, so so that social karma piece is so important. And then we went over a little bit about how, what makes a good recommendation, basically just starting off with a punch, and then you know, moving through the recommendation. So I hope that this is starting to make you see the power of these recommendations. I can tell you, I’m blessed to have lots of them. I do a lot of talks on LinkedIn. So it’s really easy for me to say, you know, like I said to you guys here on the podcast, if you need practice, by all means, I welcome all your recommendations if you think I’ve done a good job. So when when the time comes when I say just check out my LinkedIn profile, I get the I get the business and you know, almost all the time, because I’ve got so much social proof and it’s not just social proof like on your website of this testimonial. Social proof. But this is like social proof on steroids. Because not only is it the social proof, but you can click right through the profile, get right to the person that wrote the recommendation and ask them directly about how they felt when they worked with you. So I hope that this was really helpful in that you’re going to dive in I would love to see if you want to task for this week. I’d love to see you put a calendar item on your calendar maybe once a month to write to LinkedIn recommendations. That’s easy, right? I’ll probably take your half hour. So maybe you just put on your calendar make it a recurring calendaring item to write to LinkedIn recommendations once a month. I think it’d be great if you did it even more often. I know I slack on this and don’t do it as often as I intend to. So hopefully I will be able to do more of that in the coming weeks as well. And if you want more tips like this we do we have a LinkedIn Masterclass that you can check out at karenyankovich.comm/masterclass or go to my website, karenyankovich.com. There’s just links to it all over the place. It’s an on demand Masterclass. You can watch it at any time. You know, obviously if you have any questions after the Masterclass you can always email me or come to me we are you know, we try to be really responsive to your questions and your needs. But check it out karenyankovich.com/masterclass helps you get the next couple steps. And now more than ever, our LinkedIn profiles and our digital presence and our visibility is more important than ever. So this giving social karma thing right, a rising tide lifts all boats. I do this podcast to support you. I’ve got this free Masterclass to help you get started, which is the first step towards LinkedIn success. Let’s lift each other up. Help me Help you share this podcast. Take a quick screenshot of this episode. If you liked what you heard today, you know, take a screenshot on your phone share that on social media. Tag me I’m @karenyankovich. Use the hashtag #goodgirlsgetrich so we don’t miss it. Okay, and you know, I will share it with my audience and then we both get more visibility. We’re each lifting each other up. Let’s do this. Let’s kick some 2020 booty together. We still got plenty of time this year, to have an amazing year. I’m here to support you I want it to be simple. Let’s create our simple empires together. I’ll see you back here next week for another episode of the Good Girls Get Rich Podcast.