I Know You Looked at My Profile, but Your Eyes Must Have Been Closed?

Articles, Marketing, Social Selling,

Because … if they had been open … you would know something about me instead of asking me to tell you about me. Perhaps even worse is that you seem to think that you know something about me when there is no indication anywhere that any of that is true. Just because I live in Idaho, that does not make me a potato farmer.

For the life of me, and I could be wrong, I’m pretty sure that some automated systems for LinkedIn conduct profile views, triggering that notification, prior to sending out connection requests. Either yours doesn’t or you are using it incorrectly.

Which explains why I still get connection requests where you tell me that you have looked at my profile yet there is no evidence that you actually did? I guess that I just don’t get it. This phenomenon is not limited to LinkedIn alone.

Every day I get a number of emails, most from either marketing companies or from a company’s marketing/sales staff, wanting me to consider their offerings. In most cases …

  • You didn’t get my name right or just say “Hey there!”. BTW … my name is Craig M. Jamieson. LinkedIn does not recognize middle names or initials, therefore, 90% of my connection requests are directed to Craig M.
  • My business name is pasted in in a different font or not even the name but instead my URL.
  • Your services are not relevant to what I do. If you looked at my website and/or got my email address from there … where do you see that I am a potato farmer?

While I don’t pretend to understand marketing, I am currently attempting to become better informed. Based on my own negative experiences, I am struggling with …

  • Does quantity trump quality? Don’t sweat the details. Throw shit against the wall and, if your numbers are high enough, enough of it will stick?
  • Should I be worried about what my lame messaging says about me and about my company?
  • Is personalizing messages for relevant content and accurate names just not worth the effort?
  • Is there really no way to target folks who really can use my services?

To be clear … I am asking sincere questions. All of my above concerns will very likely affect how I will approach marketing. Perhaps this is stupid and self-centered of me, but I can’t see myself marketing to folks in manners that I myself find to be abhorrent, insulting, and ineffective.

The salesperson in me views these approaches as being similar to prospecting companies that do not meet my target buyer personas. Since I don’t sell widgets that everybody needs, I think that the scale of my campaigns will likely be quite small. In this way, I can take the time to make every touch count.

What am I missing here?

Craig M. Jamieson

Craig M. Jamieson

Managing Member at Adaptive Business Services
Craig M. Jamieson is a lifelong B2B salesperson, manager, owner, and a networking enthusiast. Adaptive Business Services provides solutions related to the sales professional. We are a Nimble CRM Solution Partner. Craig also conducts training and workshops primarily in social selling and communication skills. Craig is also the author of "The Small Business' Guide to Social CRM", now available on Amazon!
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