Building a LinkedIn Profile That Attracts Wealthy Clients

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Today’s blog is a guest blog written by my colleague and friend, Donna Schilder, MCC, Leadership Coach:

Building a LinkedIn Profile That Attracts Wealthy Clients

“61% of (Financial) Advisers claim to have generated at least one lead directly from their LinkedIn^® network.” (Survey by Hubspot)

As a Financial Advisor who wants to build your business, you want to get your marketing message out to potential clients. And even more importantly, you want to attract the right kind of potential clients to contact you. And for most of you, the right kind of client is a wealthy client.

LinkedIn is a great place to attract wealthy clients. (Review this post to learn how to create a LinkedIn Marketing Plan for prospecting for new clients).

“Twice as many high net worth clients use LinkedIn as use Facebook, Twitter and Google+ combined.” (Cogent Research Survey)

You may have heard these LinkedIn statistics before:

• 200 Million Members
• 59 Million Members in the U.S.
• 39% of its members are business decision-makers: Manager, Director, VP, CEO, Business Owner

Here are some LinkedIn statistics you may not have heard, that may interest you:

• Most common Market sectors: high tech, finance, manufacturing, and medicine
• Positions: Sales (12% of LinkedIn Members), administration (10.4%), engineering (95), IT (8.3%), Entrepreneurs (10%)
• Professions: Legal at 2.4%, Consultants at 5.4%, PR at 4.3% and HR at 3.8%
• College Graduates (93%),
• Post graduate work or degrees (37%)
• Between the ages of 35 – 54 (36%)
• Male (51%)

So here’s a composite of someone you might find on LinkedIn:

A 44-year-old male VP of Sales for a high tech company who holds a post graduate degree

Sound like someone you’d like to educate about your service offerings?

Being on LinkedIn gives you access to these types of people. And having a strong LinkedIn Profile, will enable you to attract them and to share your marketing message with them.

The first step in being found and to engaging your target market on LinkedIn is to choose keywords that will attract them. The second step it to put those keywords in the appropriate places in your LinkedIn Profile.

I’m sure you have your target client profile, but if you don’t, now is the time to create one.

1. The right words or phrases to use on LinkedIn

Step 1: Create a list of the right words and/or phrases (Keywords) to incorporate into your LinkedIn Profile.

I’ve seen too many entrepreneurs miss the boat by referring to themselves on LinkedIn with terms that don’t help them get found by their target market. Some examples are:

1. IT Consultant without including Information Technology Consultant
2. Graphic Artist instead of Graphic Designer
3. Web Optimization Developer instead of Search Engine Optimization Consultant

To choose the right keywords that will attract the right people, you should select keywords that you believe your target client would use to search for a Financial Advisor on LinkedIn. If you have more than one target client, then you will want to brainstorm a list for each type.

Be careful to include not just industry terms that you and your colleagues use to describe yourselves, but words your client would use. You may call yourself a Financial Advisor, but what do your prized clients call you? Some possibilities might be: Financial Planner, Financial Consultant, Investment Consultant, or Retirement Planner. What you want to do is include all of the terms, so that more different people find you.

Another thing type of keyword I would suggest you add to your LinkedIn Profile is words the describe the services you offer. I would include the terms that you usually use to describe your services, but I would include terms your clients may use also. For example, you might use the term “401K Management” and they might use the term “Retirement Fund Management.”

So now that you’ve guessed which terms your clients would use, I would also use the best strategy to find out what they would use: ask them! I would suggest you interview your clients and other people who fit into your target profile, to find out which words they would use to find someone who offers your services.

And yet another way to identify keywords would be to look at your competitor’s LinkedIn Profiles (especially those that come up high in your own LinkedIn People Searches).

Once you’ve done this research, pull all the terms together in one list and get ready to do Step 2.

2. Place the right Keywords in the right places on LinkedIn

Step 2: Place the right Keywords in the right places. There are three sections of your LinkedIn Profile that are believed to have a strong impact on the LinkedIn Search Algorithm (the formula LinkedIn uses to return results in People Searches): your Headline (also known as your Tagline), your Job Titles, and your Skills & Experience Section.

The highlighted area below is your Headline:

Your Job Titles appear in the Experience Section of your Profile.

The image below shows what your Skills & Experience Section looks like and Leadership Development, highlighted below is an example of a Skill.

Make sure that when you choose your skills, you use the terms that appear in the drop down menu automatically (which were put there by LinkedIn). Don’t input new words. The words that LinkedIn has populated in the Skills section will impact the Search Algorithm. Words you input yourself may not.

In addition to placing your Keywords in the high impact areas of your LinkedIn Profile, I would suggest you also place them throughout the text in your Profile. Words in the text areas of your Profile will impact the Search Algorithm also, just not as much as the words in your high impact areas.

So there you have it! A roadmap to making your LinkedIn Profile more attractive to wealthy clients. Soon, you will be receiving calls from potential clients that found you on LinkedIn!

About Donna Schilder, Master Certified Coach

Donna Schilder is a Leadership Coach, Career Coach, & Business Coach who provides a place for her clients to stand back, assess situations, reconnect to their goals, and choose the best approach to achieve business and personal success. Donna is also a LinkedIn Expert who offers a 6-Week Video E-Course on How to Use LinkedIn for Business.