With over 150 million members, LinkedIn is the world’s largest social network for professionals. In addition, all of the Fortune 500 companies are represented on the network at executive level. Chances are that your ideal clients use LinkedIn for networking purposes also. One of the most important questions when formulating a robust LinkedIn strategy is: “How do you measure your return on investment (ROI) from LinkedIn use?” Being able to measure your ROI helps you track your performance and reach your goals. If you fail to plan with this, you plan to fail.

LinkedIn ROI

There are various classifications of metrics for measuring LinkedIn ROI. Two of the main distinctions that can be drawn are ‘quantitative measurements’ and ‘qualitative measurements’.

Quantitative Measurements

Quantitative measurements are somewhat easier to track as it’s more about numbers than anything else. Relevant metrics which can be monitored on a weekly or monthly basis include the following:-

1. Number of LinkedIn Connections (1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd degree connections)
2. Number of new invitations to connect
3. Number of new company followers
4. Number of views of your LinkedIn profile
5. Number of times you appear in LinkedIn’s search results

Qualitative Measurements

Qualitative measurements are related to the quality or value of performance on LinkedIn. They are generally more complex but equally if not more useful to monitor. Relevant metrics, again best monitored on a weekly or monthly basis include the following:-

1. Value of private message discussions
2. Value of new or existing business connections
3. Value of referrals
4. Value of keyword optimisation
5. Value of engagement with you in LinkedIn Group(s)
6. Value of the community you are building through your LinkedIn Group(s)
7. Value of new recommendations

Conclusions

Building up a credible and valuable LinkedIn presence and strategy takes time and effort focussed on the right metrics. It’s not all about quantity of your connections – quality is just as, if not more, important than quantity. If you’d like to discuss these with me in more detail please do connect with me on LinkedIn here.

Further Reading

Viveka von Rosen has published comprehensive analysis of some of these ROI metrics for LinkedIn use and her blog is recommended for further reading on the subject.

Fifty percent more women made partner in the magic circle law firms this year than last. Great news! But it set me to wondering.

I am, of course, pleased for those concerned, and for the boost for women in business generally, but I just wonder whether, long-term, anything really has changed. Simply ushering women into the boardroom because they have managed to fit in with the current culture means nothing for the millions of women whose mindsets – and lifestyle choices – follow a different path.

There is no getting round the fact that men and women are wired differently. They think in different ways.

The classic description is that men are task focused and solutions driven, while women are relationship focused multi-taskers, but the truth is that there are many shades of grey in between: some men will show more people-orientated feminine traits, while some women will veer towards the spatial, process thinking end of the spectrum.

Business culture – particularly in traditionally male-dominated professions such as the law – rewards the male style of work. In the past this was understandable: the culture was created by men, after all. But times have changed and the system is failing women and men who have a slightly more female approach to work. It is poor talent management, makes little business sense, and I don’t believe it is the only way. Nor, according to recent research, do men.

Consultancy firm Corporate Heart recently carried out a survey of business men to assess the male perspective on women in business and work culture. Eighty-three percent of the men surveyed expressed a desire “to present a sensitive, more relationship-style collaborative leadership manner.”

According to Pauline Crawford, CEO of Corporate Heart, the ‘hurry up and get into the boardroom’ approach isn’t working.

“Women just aren’t coming through, and why would they want to? Most of them are, necessarily, on a different journey to men, and few can make the same choices,” she says. “The end result is that managers carry on the way they have been doing, and nothing really changes.”

She suggests that the way forward is to encourage all players – men and women – to express their view of the ideal work culture. Only then can we figure out how we are going to achieve it.

“Otherwise,” she says, “we are simply building on sinking sand.”

Do you agree?

‘Image courtesy of bluedharma ‘

Statistically, the future of law is definitely female.

A quick look at Law Society figures from north and south of the border reveals that the majority of people entering the legal profession are women. Sixty-nine percent of Law Society of Scotland members under the age of 25 are women, while in England and Wales 62.7% of the new trainees registered in the year to July 2010 were female.

The future, you would think, is set.

Not so.

It has long been recognised that while an increasing number of women are entering the profession, a large percentage of them leave within five to ten years. The recent International Women in Law survey, commissioned by the Law Society and LexisNexis, confirmed that for all but the youngest women, the percentage of admitted women who actually hold practising certificates is consistently lower than that for men.

In all experience bands, according to the survey, higher proportions of men achieve partnership status than women.

The reasons for this are equally well known. A report by Insight Oxford Ltd for the Law Society on the ‘Obstacles and Barriers to the short and long term career development of female lawyers’ highlighted five main issues discouraging women in the legal profession:

• The lack of flexible working practices;
• The organisational culture of firms;
• The structure of the firm, in the sense of management style and career development;
• The way in which professional achievement is measured – in particular billable hours; and
• The approach women take in tackling the problem.

For me, as a non-lawyer and business woman, the striking thing about the issue is the waste. What a waste of time, talent and opportunity.

If you think about it in business terms, anything that encourages a good employee – man or woman – to leave is bad for the bottom line. Managing talent in a poor way results in lost productivity and profitability, largely through:

• The cost of recruitment and the settling of new staff – it is thought that it takes at least six months for new employees to settle into a company.
• Loss of knowledge and skill – knowledge of the firm and the way it operates, on top of the loss of specific legal knowledge.
• Loss of network and client base – as the departing lawyer closes off a pipeline of work. This has a knock on effect on partners, who sometimes become wary of cross-selling client work. This then has an impact on their ability to be strategic, and is a real waste of potential and capacity for growth.
• Inability to innovate and be creative – caused by a lack of consistency in the team.
• Inability to stay close to developments in online thinking – such as social networking, which is very much part of the younger talents’ world.
• The impact on the firm – the departure of ‘top talent’ often has an effect on the value and perception of the company (although this is not always bad). Talent leaving also makes everyone else unsettled and restless, impacting on morale and creating a sense of not being valued.

In general, organisations that are known for poor talent management are not positioned well for profit. They cannot be agile and will find it hard to position themselves for recovery. Sadly, the legal profession doesn’t have that option if it wants to compete against the many players moving into the market place.

I think change is therefore inevitable.

The UK Law Societies have already recognised the problems created by the current system, and are trying to come up with solutions, but I believe that legal firms, faced with the perfect storm of economic downturn, Alternative Business Structures and advances in technology, will have to adapt quickly if they wish to survive.

Working practices, culture, structure and approach are among the likely areas of innovation – and opportunity. The end result will be a more flexible, client-centred and female-friendly profession, benefiting all lawyers, men and women alike.

What about you? Do you think that a more balanced legal profession is inevitable?

A Cognisance Learning Masterclass hosted by Shepherd & Wedderburn

Through clever use of LinkedIn we will help your market KNOW you, LIKE you, TRUST you and more importantly BUY from you.

Following this half day workshop with Norma Corlette Director of Cognisance Learning Ltd, you will:

• Have created a compelling LinkedIn profile that stands out, builds credibility and gets you found!

• Have the Know-How to locate and target the perfect prospect

• Understand 1:1 Social Prospecting that puts lead generation, cold calling and e-marketing to shame!

• Become aware in using some of the apps and tools LinkedIn offers to help your market themself and your business effectively

• Delivering high volume 1:1 personalised messages
  • Using influential language
  • Building social credibility
  • Achieve impactful F2F business meetings

• Learn the significance of finding, joining, building and managing successful groups:
  • To stand out from the other 1.2 million
  • Gain stickiness and engaging communications
  • Community trends and offline transactions

This workshop is suitable for all professionals with a desire or responsibility to market themselves and their organisation to a business audience.

Event Information

Venue: Edinburgh, Shepherd & Wedderburn, 1 Exchange Crescent, Edinburgh, EH3 8UL

Date: 25th May 2012

Time: 13.00 – 16.30 pm

Cost: £120 plus VAT per delegate

Venue: London, Shepherd & Wedderburn, Condor House, 10 Pauls Churchyard, EC4M 8AL

Date: 18th May 2012

Time: 13.00 – 16.30 pm

Cost: £150 plus VAT per delegate

Book Now

£120 plus VAT per delegate for Edinburgh & Glasgow Workshops

£150 plus VAT per delegate for the London Workshop

 

Choose the location & time of the workshop you want to attend

Edinburgh – 13:00 to 16:30 £144.00 GBP London – 13:00 to 16:30 £180.00 GBP

 

Previous Feedback

“LinkedIn is now a key component of my communication strategy as pur organisation goes through exciting innovation and growth”

Morag Taylor, Business Sales Manager Scotland, O2

“This programme created a step change in my use of online profiling, developing leads and winning business…. It has been a massive success”
Julie Hill, Recruitment Consultant, Enigma People

that Engages and Wins Work

Colin Gilchrist has been involved in social media longer than most. During his time he has turned a £35k marketing budget into a £1.2 million sale, taken a client from 6,000 “Likes” to 40,000 in 7 weeks with resulting increase in income and now shares his blog comments with thousands.

Join him on this 3 hour Masterclass to learn:

- Easy to use tools, and blogging software that can make creating and marketing your content as easy as writing text

- How to make your blog engaging and gain that much dreamed of following

- Which approach with twitter works best for you and your business

- How to present your company on Facebook and engage a community

Event Information

Date : 29^th March 2012

Venue : CitizenM Glasgow

Time : 1.30 pm – 4.30 pm

Book Now

1 person attending only £120 + Vat

Or Book Prior to 29th Feb and save £40 on a second staff member attending.

2 people attending only £200 + Vat

 

Colin Gilchrist – Social Media Event

1 Attendee £144.00 GBP 2 Attendees £240.00 GBP

 

50% Funding Available

Click here to learn more. 50% Funding support from Skills Development Scotland

Winning Work with Linkedin workshop

This course will be run on Friday 10^th February in CitizenM, Glasgow.

Morning Course: 9am to 12pm

Afternoon Course: 2pm to 5pm

Please click here to book.

The half-day workshop will be led by Adam Gordon, author of Winning Work with LinkedIn and Norma Corlette, MD of Cognisance Learning, you will:

- have created a compelling LinkedIn profile that will be optimised for LinkedIn search

- have undertaken advanced LinkedIn searches using Boolean strings to refine your results

- be able to uncover all LinkedIn profiles whether in your network, out of your network or private

- understand the most successful methodology and techniques for connecting with new people

- be able to work with LinkedIn Groups to influence the audiences most important to them

- learn our 30-Point Plan for creating successful LinkedIn Groups (which are incredibly hard to find)

- be able to use all the apps and tools LinkedIn offers to help you market themself and your business effectively

- have met us and 14 other participants who will be useful contacts for you for the future

This workshop is suitable for all professionals with a requirement or responsibility to market themselves and/or their organisation to a business audience.

Please click here to book.

Cognisance was the brain child of Adam Gordon one of the foremost experts in Linkedin and online profiling. http://tinyurl.com/7fxmage

Cognisance Learning is our commercial business responsible for all learning, events and roll out of Cognisance commercially which I Manage and Direct

The Cognisance community consists of 1,800 senior professionals in Scotland. Our managers include professionals at the highest levels in organisations including Barclays Wealth, BDO, Deloitte, Dundas & Wilson, Grant Thornton, Inspiring Scotland, Knight Frank and STV Group plc. Contributors include some of the top managers at Hewlett-Packard, National Australia Group, Royal Bank of Scotland and Standard Life for example.

Through both events, training and development programmes we aim to increase knowledge and networks both nationally and internationally.

Training and Development

Cognisance Learning is responsible for all training and development programmes both in house and through open Master Class.

We have a track record record of over 20 years in the field of excellence in award winning design of training and development programmes.

Professional Online Profiling

Marketing  of yourself and your organisation has completely revolutionised  over the last few years and it is now important for all of us to actively promote both online . But how do you do it? How do you effectively building trust, creating opportunities , increase revenue and work within the time constraints we all experience?

Online profiling is something we are passionate about and we work with your organisations and individuals throughout the UK to:

• Optimise your profile to ensure maximum exposure
• Generate good will and build trust
• Create an online personality that has integrity, value and credibility
• Increase your online research skills and natural curiosity
• Use what you have to offer to generate a larger than expected response
• Maximise turn out at events
• Position yourself as an expert or thought leader
• Turn online communication into face to face meetings
• Measure your effectiveness using Linkedin tools

For our next Professional Profiling Programme “Winning work with Linkedin” click here to find out more.

Also talk to us about Creating Communities online, managing Communities online. Linkedin business development and our 1:1 Concierge service for time-poor senior professionals

Having spent 6 months last year working with INDEZ and closely with co-founder and Director Gill Mowforth I gained an insight into the  power of ecommerce to propel companies into International markets.

INDEZ is in the enviable position of being able to confidently say they are “ the UK’s highest preforming ecommerce company “ and have 14 websites with a 300% increase on sales of over 8 figures and in more than 50 countries.

Stats like that give you an indication of the high calibre of the team and the quality of leadership.

2011 saw a period of great growth for INDEZ. As Scotland’s longest established ecommerce supplier they worked hard to highlight the benefits of ecommerce to retailers and it paid off securing clients such as http://www.chisholmhunter.co.uk/ http://www.gocompare.com/ to name but a few.

Gill was a text book client and took on all the advice she felt would work in INDEZ and the results speak for themselves as INDEZ look forward to another year of growth and expansion.

“I have been working hard on the guidance that you gave me and I am feeling really excited and motivated for 2012 because I have accomplished the following:-

• Turnover up 15% to date
• Strategy in place for 2012
• More corporate, well known brands in the sales pipeline.
• Client Relations on top form
• Team structure agreed and finalised for growth
• Internal motivation and relations looking great
• Arrived at Base camp on the way to Camp 1 – hooray!

Gillian Mowforth, Director at Indez Ltd

Looking forward to watching INDEZ prosper in 2012!

The Renfrewshire Chamber of Commerce named Jenier as the “Most Promising New Business in 2011.”  Jenier Teas decided to set up an Ecommerce business selling the finest tea from around the world, to the world. The BBC has even reported on Jenier Tea’s export success.

During the planning stage, I worked with Anita on some growth strategies and business planning. I’m so pleased that their hard work is paying off!

Below is a lovely picture of Anita of Jenier Teas and Kevin McFlynn, the web designer who created the visual brand concept for Jenier World of Teas and Anita holding her award!

Congratulations everyone and keep up the hard work!!