February 23, 2012 / in General Information, LinkedIn, Social Media / by Mic Johnson
A year ago I wrote an an article called “10 Reasons Why Your Business Should Not Be On LinkedIn“. The inspiration for that article came from the fact that I was amazed that part of my day-to-day job involved convincing business owners, especially those in the B2B space, that LinkedIn was a viable tool to help them grow their business and facilitate culture change.
So here I am today having the same conversations with business owners and decisions makers. The education process continues. I suppose in a way I can understand it because “social media” is like a 6 year old…still growing, maturing, and changing. People in every generation are adjusting.
Some think (yours truly included) that the 6 year old has all of the potential in the world. Some think the 6 year old is cute, but has a rough life ahead. Some people think the 6 year old is like all of the other 6 year olds out there. Some people think the 6 year old will eventually grow up and move out of our lives. Some think that a better 6 year old is coming soon. Some think that 6 year old is intriguing and want to be a part of his life as he grows up. And some people just keep trying to ignore the 6 year old and wish he’d just go away.
One tool that I believe is going to be around for a very long time is LinkedIn. And since you can find articles all over the place telling you why your business should be on LinkedIn, let me humor you and hopefully open your eye a bit by taking a slightly different spin on things.
Without further ado, here is my updated list for your reading pleasure…
20 Reasons Your Business Should NOT Be On LinkedIn
1. You will take a cold call over a warm, or even hot, call every day of the week.
2. You think business can only be done face-to-face even though relationship building (isn’t that what business is all about?) happens every single day online.
3. You believe that you (and your employees) 30% complete profile with no summary, no picture and zero recommendations doesn’t reflect poorly on you or your business.
4. You don’t have time to spend a couple of hours on LinkedIn each week to research prospects because you are too busy doing the same sales techniques you’ve used your entire career.
5. You don’t want to participate in forums that make you or your business look like subject matter experts in your industry.
6. You don’t want to read blog articles and stories from people in your professional network that may help you or your business.
7. You don’t want to take the time to give recommendations to people that you’ve worked with throughout your career that are awesome because there isn’t anything in it for you.
8. When customers or prospects search for you on LinkedIn, you want to make sure they can’t find you. And if they do, you want to make sure that your personal profile and company page don’t tell them anything of value. 
9. You know for a fact that none of the 150 million people on LinkedIn are your customers or prospects.
10. You know that LinkedIn is adding 2 people every second (up from 1 person a second a year ago) but those people probably won’t ever want to buy anything anyway.
11. You don’t want to share your personal and professional brand with people because that would be bragging. Even though they want to know. Everyone knows that, in business, it’s always better to not give people what they want.
12. You don’t want to know more about people that you are doing business with or would like to do business with.
13. You believe, with all of your heart, that there is no value in keeping up with what is going on in your professional network (such as new business deals, new hires, new products and services, etc.).
14. You have all the business you will ever need and aren’t interested in generating more.
15. You prefer to limit your prospecting and sales activity to the two networking groups you belong to and the five coffees and lunches you try to set up each week.
16. You don’t see any value in updating your LinkedIn status regularly to tell your professional network about things that may help them.
17. You think tools like LinkedIn aren’t fundamentally changing the way business is done.
18. You don’t want your employees spending time on a tool that can help enhance your brand, your reach, and open up the lines of communication.
19. You don’t want to find talented people to work for you or get recommendations from people that they are connected to on LinkedIn. A two-page resume and a 1-hour interview give you all you need to make a $50,000 decision.
20. You think you’ve done your job on LinkedIn by having an “ok” profile “just so you’re out there” and see nothing wrong with having a LinkedIn inbox full of invitations and messages you haven’t responded to.
If you made it through the whole list, THANK YOU. What do you think?
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Scott Smith
Manager of Server Development at High 5 Games
I did make it through the list. It is a nice way to explain she you are missing by ignoring one of the most powerful tools to come along in a very long time.
Thanks Gary. Appreciate you taking the time to read and respond.
Mic – Enjoyed your post – many good points. Humor can be a great way to cut through the clutter and help someone understand what they may be missing.