Here’s a great question from Tracy Haas, a professional corporate trainer in Atlanta:
I am in the process of adding targeted companies and want to keep track of the requests to connect in LinkedIn so I don’t request it again, and to show what I action I have taken with that company. I was thinking of putting it in as a Log Entry… should I just do one and include all the names, or is it better to do a separate one for each individual (hope not as that would be extremely time consuming). Or is this even necessary in your opinion?
Also once I have connected with them, what is the easiest way to record my LinkedIn messages to them?
I’m going to share what I would do… you can determine if this is too much (or too little) for your needs. Let’s go into each of the questions she has:
>> “and want to keep track of the requests to connect in LinkedIn (at each of her target companies)”
This is a great idea… the fast and easy way to do this would be to create a Log Entry under the Company, and say who you invited to connected (or had any interaction with). Once you make contact with someone, though, with someone you think you will network with, I would create a new Contact record for that person. Just make sure you associate that Contact with the Company (super easy to do).
For example, let’s say I invite Jane and John to connect on LinkedIn. Both are from Acme Widgets. I would create a Log Entry under Acme Widgets saying “I invited John Doe and Jane Doe to connect on LinkedIn…. here was my message: __________________”.
John accepts my invitation to connect, but Jane doesn’t. I meet John in person… and start a professional relationship. I’ll create a new Contact record for John, but no need to do that with Jane yet… until we start our relationship. I could, but I have too many things happening to capture everything… and right now I’m okay to let Jane slide.
The reason I would do the Company Log Entry is because you said you want to “how what I action I have taken with that company.”
Note that most of my records are Contact records, not Company records… it’s probably 20 to 1, or more.
>> “should I just do one and include all the names, or is it better to do a separate one for each individual?”
Do one Log Entry on the Company record… if you get to the point where it makes sense to do a separate one for each person, then just create a new Contact record for them.
>> “once I have connected with them, what is the easiest way to record my LinkedIn messages to them?”
First, my recommendation is to get OUT of LinkedIn messaging as soon as you can. I hate LinkedIn messaging for various reasons… it just doesn’t do the job, and it is one more place that I have to monitor. So, as soon as I can, I transfer the conversation to email or on the phone.
Having said that, if there is a relevant conversation in LinkedIn messaging that you want to capture, I would suggest you copy-and-paste to a Log Entry under the Contact. It’s kind of a pain… which is one reason I get to email (so I can use JibberJobber’s Email2Log feature).
So there you go … it sounds like Log Entries will take care of you.