Is LinkedIn really the answer to your marketing challenge? 

LinkedIn is an extraordinarily powerful professional platform with every client you could ever want listed right there. 

In fact, LinkedIn could be considered the biggest open-source professional database on the face of the planet. 

So, when it comes to driving engagement and receiving quality leads, why do so many professionals fail? 

They fail because they don't understand what LinkedIn actually is or how to use it. 
 
OK, so what is LinkedIn? 

Well, basically it's an old-fashioned face to face, live networking event, only this networking event is virtual, never ends, and there are hundreds of millions of people attending, and the attendees stay there 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. 

Now here's a little secret that seems to escape sooo many who have a LinkedIn account. 

The vast majority of LinkedIn accounts are actually, wait for it, real people. Actual people. 

Which means, just like a real networking event, everybody has something to sell, whether that be themselves, as in looking for a new job or career opportunity, or they have a product or service they want to promote, everyone is there for the same reason, otherwise, why bother.
 
Now, some will want to talk to you, some won't, some will be too busy at the moment, some will already be in a conversation and don't want to be disturbed. Just like a live networking event.
 
It also means that some of these people are going to be a little nuts, some will be arseholes, and some will be complete lunatics, because, LinkedIn, is the real world, full of real people and in the real world some people are nuts, some arseholes and some are complete lunatics. 

However, thankfully, most people on LinkedIn are genuine, professional decent people who want to engage and share, and this is the answer to the second part of the question, why do so many professionals fail when it comes to LinkedIn. 

Because in their genuine attempt to serve more people, by connecting and growing their networks they bump into a few arseholes on the way, some people call them trolls, but let’s call them what they are, arseholes, they get discouraged and decide LinkedIn isn't for them.
 
But this then robs the genuine, professional decent people they could have served of any chance of working with them and therein lays the problem.
 
We all know that nobody wants to be sold anything, not you, not me and nobody cares what you can do, until they understand what you can do for them. 

So, my advice is to ignore the arseholes and continue to seek out the genuine, professional decent people on LinkedIn, connect with them and then add a bucket load of value to the relationship.

To misquote a famous American President, with apologies to JKK: “Ask not what your LinkedIn connections can do for you, ask what you can do for your LinkedIn connections”
 
Everyone is famous for something, what are you famous for?