How I got seven LinkedIn testimonials in one week with one message to twenty people...

[David Petherick]

It's also down to seven months of unpaid work, a trip that almost cost me my life and the power of words.

My real question is: are you really leveraging your profile and your network on LinkedIn? And is this forum relevant to that discussion?

I look forward to hearing from you.

Regards, David
http://davidpetherick.com

[Vincent Wright]

David,
Candidly, I'm a bit confused in resolving the title of your post to the contents of it. "It's also down to seven months of unpaid work..."??? Can you please elaborate on what you're referring to here?

[David Petherick]

Vincent, that's how I got the testimonials, by doing unpaid work for seven months as an editor of The Next Web Blog.

The jump between headline and content is designed to be a big interrupt - to focus attention on how one really can use LinkedIn to get results, and to build an effective network.

I've a network of less than 250 built up over three years or so, but now have more than 25 testimonials - and so I think now it's beginning to work effectively for me - and I am interested to know if there are others here who've had similar or dissimilar experiences.

Apologies if it does come across as slightly obscure.

Regards, David

[Alex_8]

Hi,

I have been trying to find some design work since I returned back from overseas. I have been wondering if doing some free design work for charitable organizations would been a good stepping stone into creating strong contacts and eventually a sturdy graphic design job. Could I use LinkedIn to approach these organisations?

[Vincent Wright]

Alex,
I definitely think that offering gratis graphics to charitable organizations is a great way to do good for both the charitable organization AND you.

Let me just add that you may also wish to look at offering your services to some of the growing social networking groups on Ning, Yahoo, Facebook, etc.

For example: at http://MyLinkingPowerForum.ning.com, I have 3,700 members and 200+ groups there. Some of those groups are starting to fill up nicely. It may be a good way to display your artistry and interact with the members of groups such as "Linking Executives", "Linking Recruiters", "Linking Job Seekers", "Linking The Laid Off", etc.

If I can be of further help, please let me know, ok?

Thanks, and Keep STRONG, Alex!!
Vincent Wright
Linkedin.com/in/VincentWright
Twitter.com/VincentWright
FriendFeed.com/VincentWright
Skype/Gtalk = MyLinkedinPowerForum