Linkedin is a great platform for so many reasons. The groups can send traffic to your website, updates can keep you in front of peers and attract new business and the ads are even starting to get a little more effective for business. That being said, there are some downfalls you need to be aware of, 2 of which revolve around connecting with the wrong people. Here are 2 reasons connecting with the wrong person on LinkedIn can kill your business.
Recruiters Steal your Top Talent
Did you know that recruiters often create multiple fake profiles and then connect with people at companies they would like to steal talent from? It is absolutely true. I know recruiters who use this as their primary model. If you are a business owner, or simply someone who doesn’t want to lose good employees at the company you are at, watch out for these recruiters. They are only trying to connect with you to get access to your connections in your network. Losing good people can be devastating for a business. In our business, people are everything so this is something that we of course watch out for.
Sales Guys Steal your Clients
Much like the recruiter situation, when you connect with a sales guy, there is a chance he will try to comb through your connections and take advantage of your contacts. This might mean that he will reach out to one of your clients and try to offer them a better deal or reach out to someone you used to work with. This is absolutely something that can happen, so watch out if you are going to connect with anyone from the competition who might be interested in your clients.
What you can do About It?
Linkedin is an amazing website. There are so many great things about it. We in fact get some great leads from the website each month and it has be an excellent channel for building our business. While that is the case, you have to watch out for contact poachers. You don’t want someone going through your contacts if you can help it. So what do you do?
In the privacy settings area, there is an option to select who can see your connections. If you are going to connect with these type of people, make sure you update this area accordingly.
Outside of this, I recommend being careful who you connect with in general.
Sources
- Fake LinkedIn Profiles: Connect, Ignore or Flag? John Feldman
- How to Spot a Fake LinkedIn Profile and What to do About it, Nikkie Cripps. May 7, 2014
Great suggestion, and really simple to do!
I totally agree John, recruiters and sales people are in an extremely competitive market and this means they are ruthless. We learned this tip after having a very good employee get scouted!!!
Once connected they can still see your contacts even when restricted by selecting the “People you may know” option and scouring their second degree connections…