Five Minutes a Week Can Help Two Friends for Life

My blog post was delayed today because I was waiting for permission to include someone's name and company. I didn't anticipate that this would take hours and therefore found myself in a self-created dilemma: should I continue to wait or write a new blog post. Posting on Fridays is a personal commitment so here I go.

A week ago, I received an email from someone who had just bought Change with Confidence. Reading his note gave me an immediate energy boost. His taking the time to reach out to me meant a lot. 

In his note he said he was looking for change help from someone with experience in his specific industry. Since I didn't have it I started looking for someone who did. Fortunately, I identified two people who had excellent experience and skills that could meet his needs. Excitedly I wrote him to share the good news. 

My final step in professional matchmaking was to make introductions. LinkedIn seemed the best medium given its excellent personal profiles and ability to make connections. My first exploration into the help site was unsuccessful. All I could find was instructions on how to request an introduction to someone in a connection's network. Not what I was looking for.

My next attempt directed me to a chat stream about introductions. Margaret A. Ost provided the solution. Uncannily, the person who posted the question wanted to know how to request an introduction to someone in a connection's network. I could have helped.

Courtesy of Margaret, here are the steps to introducing two connections that could benefit from knowing each other:

• Search for one of the connection's profiles from the top of your home page
• From results, click their name
• Click the share icon from the profile overview section
• Enter each recipient's name
• Modify the message to explain how they could benefit from knowing each other
• Click send message

A new relationship can help each person gain perspectives, information, opportunities, money and ongoing support they need to be successful. Can you imagine the good you could do by connecting two of your friends each week? I have decided to invest five minutes each week to connect two people in my network. 

My friends are worth it and the energy boosts will be great too.

Phil