‘Your Network on LinkedIn is your Net‐WORTH’.

I like to think of a network on LinkedIn like a river of fish. The question I ask salespeople is, would they rather fish in a river that only has 50 fish, or would they rather fish in a river that has 500 fish?

With the river of 50 fish, the maximum you can ever catch is 50. Whereas with the river of 500 your limit is 500.

The more fish in the river, the more you can catch, just like the more people in your LinkedIn network, the more sales opportunities you can create.

AVERAGE LINKEDIN NETWORK SIZE

After reviewing well over 2,500 LinkedIn profiles of salespeople around the world, the average network, in my experience, is around 900–1,000 connections. Some have more, some less, but the majority sit around that number.

Sure, 1,000 sounds like a big number, but that's only a fraction of the total amount of connections that each user is allowed. To put this in perspective, on Facebook you are only allowed 5,000 friends. You can only be connected directly to 5,000 people. On LinkedIn you can have a whopping 30,000 connections.

And that's only direct connections; you can have unlimited followers.

IMPORTANT – ONE CONNECTION IS NOT JUST ONE CONNECTION …

One of the most common questions I get asked is, ‘I don't want to connect with people I don't know. Should I connect with anyone or only people I've worked with?’

Here is the thing with LinkedIn, an individual connection is not just an individual connection. Every time you connect with someone you also connect with THEIR connections. If you were to connect with me, you'd be connected to my 30,000 connections and 39,000+ followers.

Back in the day, LinkedIn used to show you this on the main page. A small tab on the right‐hand side would read:

‘You have 5,500 connections; your total reach is 156,952’.

Whilst LinkedIn doesn't tell you that anymore, it is still very much the reality. You might look at someone and think, ‘They don't look like they'll ever buy from me’, but there is a good chance that they are connected to someone (or a few people) who will.

Every time that they click Like, comment on or share your content, their network sees it.

It's about finding the right balance. Obviously you can't just connect with anyone and everyone as you do have a limit, however big it may seem. But I would encourage you to make sure you have a more open mind when it comes to connecting with people. Don't just look at them as individuals; look at the network they have as well.

THERE ARE TWO WAYS TO GROW YOUR NETWORK …

There are two ways to grow your network on LinkedIn which are actually exactly the same as the two ways you can generate leads on LinkedIn – Inbound and Outbound.

You can add your own connections on LinkedIn (outbound) and you can attract people to add you (inbound).

When you share good content, build a personal brand and engage with content in the right way, people will want to connect with you or follow you to get more value from you. (You'll find how to do this in the content and personal brand chapters of this book.)

Equally, on a regular basis, you should be adding your own people to your network as well. Prospects, new customers, other people within prospective companies, industry peers, thought leaders, anyone relevant to your role, your prospects and your industry.

DON'T TRY TO TAKE SHORTCUTS …

It can seem like quite a daunting task, growing a LinkedIn network from 1,000 to 30,000. The temptation to want to get there quickly can mean you start looking for shortcuts or ‘hacks’. I'd like to discourage you from doing these things.

Firstly, my network has been 100% organically grown, both my personal followers and the 700,000+ followers that I have on The Daily Sales. They were all grown organically – no paid ads and no third‐party platforms used.

Secondly, using any platform or service to gain large followings quickly comes with a very high risk, in fact the highest risk possible. Over the last few months alone I have had several people reach out to me distraught because LinkedIn has given them LIFETIME bans.

It's understandable. A lot of the time these platforms and hacks are only used to spam‐sell to people, which is not in the interest of the user on LinkedIn.

Slow and steady wins the race …

The best way to grow a valuable network on LinkedIn is to take your time and do it with authenticity. Build a strong, credible personal brand, create and share content of value to your network and add people on a regular basis.

ADD NO MORE THAN 20–25 PEOPLE PER DAY

When adding people manually on LinkedIn, I'd personally recommend adding around 20–25 per day max. This, in my experience, should keep you under the radar and growing at a healthy rate. LinkedIn will get concerned if you're adding too many connections too soon, especially if they're not accepting quickly enough.

If a user doesn't accept your request, then LinkedIn will see it as potential spam. The more people that you're connecting with that don't accept, the more likely (in LinkedIn's eyes) that you might be a robot or planning to spam them.

HOW DO I KNOW IF THEY DON'T ACCEPT?

You can actually see all of your outstanding connection requests. Simply go into ‘My Network’, click on ‘See All’, and go to the ‘Sent’ tab.

This will show you all of the connection requests that you've sent that haven't been accepted yet.

YOU CAN WITHDRAW REQUESTS …

If your list of outstanding requests is growing, I would recommend withdrawing some of them. Personally, I would consider withdrawing anyone who hasn't accepted within two to three weeks (it is very unlikely if they haven't accepted by this point that they are ever going to).

Don't panic though, this is okay.

NOTE – It's worth remembering that, just because they haven't accepted your request, it doesn't mean they don't want to connect with you! I've seen many people who simply just don't manage their connection requests very well, often racking up hundreds of requests before they actually start accepting.

So, my recommendation would be to withdraw the request, then follow their profile and use the three‐week gap to engage with their content and get your name known to them in a positive way.

Don't like and comment on everything they post (that's just creepy), but every few posts click Like and add a relevant contributing comment. Then, when you add them again after those three weeks, there is a much higher chance they'll accept as they should now recognise you and after all of the positive engagement you've given them, feel more inclined to accept.

There is another option, which I'll explain in the next chapter when we look into personalised connection requests.