I figured out that it was probably a good idea to scour my address book for the people in my own network that were already on one or more of these sites (some I had not been in touch with for years). I found a few dozen, and decided to invite them to “join” my network. About half of those I invited joined – ok, not sure what happened with the other half, but now what to do with those I was connected to? How could I leverage this medium, what could I contribute that would be of value?

Then it dawned on me, how about making “recommendations” and/or “endorsing” the people I knew. It would be a simple gesture, acknowledging who each of these people were for me. Many I had not directly done business with, but I could certainly speak about their character – what kind of person they were. So I took a Sunday afternoon and wrote about 25 recommendations and/or endorsements for those in my “network” on LinkedIn. I spoke from the heart, in plain language, again simply acknowledging these people for their individual contributions to me, or the community around them – what ever came to mind.

What happened next frankly stunned me. First off a handful of individuals immediately recommended or endorsed me back – thanks guys! But what was more important was the emails & calls I got thanking me for my endorsement, and wanting to know how I was, what was up to, and when could we meet for coffee – lunch whatever. Now as I said, some of these folks I hadn’t interacted with in a few years, and honestly most were not aware of my career shift towards marketing.

In short the combination of relationship “re-connects”, “cross-connects”, direct business, and referred business that I received thought this simple act of endorsing others, was totally disproportionate to the relatively small effort I initially made. You see I had stumbled on a powerful secret – I made it about them, not about me. The moral of the story: Join an online social network, be authentic & generous, connect & endorse others. Business is conducted personally between people, people are personally connected to each other – get personally connected – conduct more business, personally!