Tag Archives: referrals

Critics of LinkedIn Endorsements or People Who Should Switch to Decaf.

Lately, I’ve been reading from people who are ripping heavily on LinkedIn for the new Endorsements feature, which enables one to endorse a colleague for certain characteristics they’ve listed. You can list in the neighborhood of 50 or so traits that someone can endorse you for.

The argument is that:

1) Endorsements take away from someone supplying Recommendations

2) They’re not of real value

3) LinkedIn is trying to be more like Facebook with their own version of a “Like” button

Only one of those has any possible validity and that’s only because I haven’t talked at length with the people at LinkedIn to know what’s in their brains.

Let’s take the first issue. If I ask someone for a Recommendation, they’re going to give it. Recommendations aren’t hard. Around 3-5 sentences should do it. If you really have a hard time writing 3-5 sentences about someone who has provided you exceptional service, I have questions about your ability to conduct business at all. It must not be important for you to write emails, letters or any other kind of communication. Because really, it’s only a nice note that’s needed here. You don’t have to write “War and Peace.” It’s the fact you are sharing a positive statement about someone. That’s it.

The point of me saying this is that if they’re asked explicitly and your service is good, few if any are going to say, “I’ll just give them an Endorsement instead.” What they will do if they’re not explicitly asked for a Recommendation – and if you’re good – is give you an Endorsement. Like me, you may have some Endorsements from some people who you’ve never even worked with. Some will say that’s a flaw and makes Endorsements less than authentic.

Sorry, is a bad thing if you’re a social media marketer to have many people endorse you for Blogging? No. Are you going to reject their endorsement? No. That’s stupid. And that’s the point some critics are missing. There are at times different sets of people who give Endorsements vs. the set of people who give Recommendations. The latter is often a person who has greater intimacy and knowledge of your services, the former is not. But Endorsements give the acquaintance an avenue they never had before. If you think that this means you can somehow game the system with having 100 people Endorse you, you’re giving far too much weight to this function.

Great for Our “At A Glance” World

I have a buddy who is so good at what he does, he has over 80 Recommendations. That’s certainly impressive and he’s earned every one of them. But do you want to know something? There’s no way in the world I’m going to read every one of them. It’s actually a deterrent to me reading much else in his profile after a while because fatigue sets in. You scroll and scroll and scroll and…we get it. Lots of people like you.

On the other hand, if I look at his Endorsements, I can get an ideal snapshot for what he does best. It’s not an accident that we’re often endorsed for the things we’re most known for. So anyone can check out his Endorsements, see what he’s strongest with and move on. If we didn’t have Endorsements, it would be more daunting for some of us to go through Recommendations alone. Let’s face it. We’re in a world of short attention spans. We need to get it quickly and now. Endorsements help us absorb one’s strengths in a few seconds rather than reading too much. You go to my page, you see Social Media Marketing, Creative Direction, Blogging, Copywriting, Content Marketing, etc. right away thanks to Endorsements. You get that that’s my thing. My core strengths. Easy enough, right?

The LinkedIn version of the “Like.”

Was the Endorsement feature absolutely necessary for LinkedIn to create? Let’s put it this way – do you find the Facebook “Like” button necessary? To me, I have a sense of what the Like button is and isn’t. I know it’s not hard to “Like” anything. It’s not a rousing endorsement. It doesn’t tell the whole story. It’s a little click of minimal commitment. That’s it. Nothing more, nothing less and maybe some people noticed you Liked something along the way.

I have the same perspective about Endorsements. Does it have as much weight as someone going in-depth in a Recommendation about their challenges and how much they enjoyed working with me? Of course not. In that instance, they’re giving me a real semi-case study. The other avenue doesn’t. But is having another way for someone to express a positive sentiment about me a bad thing? Nah. That’s sort of looking a gift horse in the mouth if you ask me. It is what it is – a light thumbs-up. Which is better than no thumbs-up.

Better yet, Endorsements serves an “intro” section of sorts before we get into the other sections. Which makes it all the more important to put more energy into beefing up everything else in your profile. What video, eBooks, articles and PowerPoints can you attach to your summaries? Why do you have any hangups about asking for a Recommendation from someone you worked with 7 years ago (the relationship was good back then, wasn’t it?). These are the big credibility builders. And the elements that often get neglected.

Now, if you want to get into the true benefit to LinkedIn in competing with other tools?

That’s a whole other story. If I think Endorsements ramps up the functionality of LinkedIn and makes it that much better of a tool, the answer is I don’t. For all intents and purposes, it’s a fluffy section. It doesn’t rock my world or change the game. Kind of how I feel about the LinkedIn redesigned layout, which is perhaps cleaner but isn’t profoundly better. Does it make it identify prospects better, communicate with others more efficiently, find the best communities and encourage greater interaction, etc.? That’s what LinkedIn could do better.

And if it’s not careful, Google Plus will nibble away at it, bit by bit.

The “Word of Mouth” Trap

Let’s get this out of the way: Positive word of mouth is terrific. I can think of nothing more powerful than an instance where one reliable source tells another person how great a product or service is. It’s instant credibility for your brand.

Unfortunately, there are people who don’t know how to make word of mouth all that it could be. Word of mouth can build business but it can also build complacency in people that benefit from it because those same people believe they don’t need to do anything else or that everything they’re doing currently is just fine. But in time, that kind of philosophy can result in decreased market share or worse.

Still, maybe you don’t see the big deal. All is right with your world. Good things are being said about you, customers seem to be consistent…so who needs anything else when word of mouth is pulling in people for you and the numbers are up?

Well, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that you’d rather have more money than less of it. Which is why I offer forth this little scenario about two companies for you.

Company A has 200 customers. Company A provides great service and a great product but does nothing to encourage its customers to put in a good word about Company A to someone else, like a friend or family member. Still, let’s say that every single customer tells 1 other person about how great Company A is. Those people become customers too.

Company A’s year-end total: 400 customers.

Company B has 200 customers as well. They provide great service and a great product. But they implement a referral program that rewards its customers for referring three friends to become qualified customers – Company B offers a pretty good-sized prize for doing so, but then, the return on investment in getting three new customers for every one is well worth it. PLUS for every successful referral, the customer gets a smaller, intermediate prize. PLUS Company B’s program allows each successful referral to count as one entry into a grand prize drawing, which means the more referrals you make, the better your chances to win.

Company B’s year-end total: 600 customers (at least).

I’d say the difference between doubling your customer base and tripling it can be mighty big, wouldn’t you? Everybody’s company is different, but my point is that while both companies shown here use word of mouth, one chose to cultivate its customer relationships off of that word of mouth with far better results than the one that stuck to the status quo and did nothing.

And by the way, the referral program idea is only one potential way of building on what you have.

Remember, word of mouth is a foundation, not the end result. It’s a springboard for even better results to occur because what you have is a happy customer base – however, just because that’s something that many other businesses would be jealous of doesn’t mean you should sit still.

Specifically, think about two things:

1) Where does your audience interact with your brand?

2) What will your reward for making a successful referral be when you get in front of them?

A better reward does not have to equal more money either. It can be a discount off of one of your products or services (perhaps a discount off of a new product or service you’d like to introduce?).

Word of mouth gives you the opportunity to be proactive and make that goodwill work for you even further. Otherwise, there’s only going to be so many words about you passing through so many mouths.