Читать книгу LinkedIn Profile Optimization For Dummies - Donna Serdula - Страница 52

Now that you have a list of people to ask for a recommendation, don’t let shyness get in your way. People love helping other people and you may discover that most people are honored that you asked them to recommend you.

The best and most successful approach when asking for a recommendation is not to simply request a recommendation, but provide the person with a recommendation already written for them.

People often balk when I suggest providing a pre-written recommendation. The truth is, rather than being insulted, more often than not the other person is going to be overjoyed. The vast majority of people out there don’t have the time or ability to write you a strong recommendation. Because this person is doing you a favor, it’s important to do them a favor by making it as easy for them as possible to help you. And as you struggle to come up with the words for your own recommendation, imagine how difficult it would be for the other person!

The other reason I suggest writing the recommendation yourself is to ensure the recommendation is written with all the points you want covered. Just because you think your leadership ability and unwavering commitment to customer service is what sets you apart, the person writing your recommendation may instead focus on something else entirely.

In addition, by writing the recommendation yourself, you can infuse the recommendation with keywords that help optimize your profile’s searchability. All those keywords can be infused into recommendations to make your profile rank even better. (Refer to Chapter 2 to find out even more about how to get found on LinkedIn.)

If my arguments to write the recommendation yourself failed to persuade you, at the very least provide the person with some criteria as to what you’d like stated in the recommendation. Consider including language similar to this:

  Dear Dave,

  I have enjoyed working with you. Would you be open to providing me a recommendation of my work that I can include on my LinkedIn profile?

  When you write the recommendation, I would love it if you’d mention my strength in social selling and how I often acted as a trusted advisor to my clients. Perhaps you can even mention how I saved the Wiener deal using my extensive knowledge of widgets and ended up renewing them for an extra two years, which resulted in a $2M uptick in revenue?

  Thanks so much! I appreciate it! —Hal