Empty Invitations
I’ve been spending some serious time learning about LinkedIn this past year and have grown my network considerably - which is great. My newest VA member is located in Brazil and that has come from a LinkedIn connection. And many of the new clients my team are now supporting have come from the same source - LinkedIn.
As a result of my activity I now get a lot of invitations from people wanting to connect - I’ve got a sizeable network and people want to be able to link to it, to grow their own network. But, they insist on sending me what I call ‘empty invitations’. You know, the standard canned invitations that say they want to connect with me, but say nothing about themselves whatsoever. And so I have a reply set up that tells people I don’t accept the canned invitation but that could change if they tell me a bit about themselves, where they found me (perhaps they read my blog for example 
) , and so on. It helps to open conversation and make a connection.
Some actually respond and tell me I can look at their profile but say nothing else - I reply and tell them that I have but obviously they haven’t looked at mine as I do specifically state I don’t accept canned invitations from people I don’t know personally.
But the majority don’t reply - what’s with that? Don’t they want the connection after all? Some even withdraw their invitation - seems increasing their numbers wasn’t that important after all… or perhaps they were worried they would get hit with an IDK (I don’t know for those ‘not in the know’ - and it’s a black mark against you). All it would take is a simple introduction of themselves and I would accept in most cases.
To me, the canned invitation (which is always linked to their profile) is like being at a networking event, someone rushing by and pushing their business card into your hand as they move onto the next person - not even a ‘hello, how are you, I’m… and I do …’. <shrug> Guess there will always be the hunters and farmers - I’m a farmer and in it for the harvest, some are just hunters and move onto the next prey…
hunters or farmers, invitation, networking, LinkedIn, business networks
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