Being a huge Star Wars fan and continual networker I am often reminded of scenes from the film and how they play out in business life.

How many people that we meet in real life appear a bit like Darth Vader? Unapproachable, faceless and full of foreboding, hard to engage and difficult to build business relationships with.

How many times we set targets or norms for ourselves and then proceed to hold ourselves back from their potential. Use the force anyone?

Having reviewed thousands of LinkedIn profiles for corporates I am constantly reminded of Darth Vader, droids and the rest of the “dark side” at the shocking nature of profiles, the lack of personality and the lack of success that people achieve with LinkedIn. My average profile score for reviews is less than 30% using free functionality. To achieve 100% I have to ignore cleverness like presentations, video clips, different formats and languages – they get you bonus points. If you think your profile is good take a free test here.

But people simply don’t know what LinkedIn does, or can do – quite simply it is the best hidden sales and marketing tool for business out there.

Does your LinkedIn account email you lists of easy to reach referrals to tomorrows clients? Does your company page present a specific message to a specific audience when they view it? LinkedIn offers this and so much more.

So what does this have to do with Star Wars and Yoda? Well the famous line in the film is “Do. Or do not! There is no try” – make it work for you, don’t try and if you want to know more why not get in touch or come along to one of my courses.

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