Lesson 11 is about using LinkedIn to search for potential CEOs for your group. You can filter your searches by geography around distance from specific zip codes. You can filter by industry. You can also filter by size. You can also filter through keywords or phrases.

In the example attached to this lesson, you’ll notice that I am searching for CEOs in a 10 mile radius around my zip code of 90505 in Southern California. Note that X number of “hits” come back.

Now the hard part. I have to go through each record to determine is this someone worth contacting. I’ll want to look at that profile, click on the company name to get a sense of dollar volume, specific location, and number of employees.

This screening of potential CEOs is a little tedious and mind-numbing; however, you’ll end up with a list of probably at least a couple of hundred prospects through this effort.

The next stage would be to sort the list by degree of separation so that you could first go after the low-hanging-fruit of where your Members/TAs/contacts know the targeted individual. I find 3rd degree connections to be a little bit of a waste of time – unless they are in the same LinkedIn Group as you/your member or have some other strong affliation to you/your member.

You can keep refining the searches. For example:

1. You might consider searching on the term “President” instead of CEO. Or you might search on “Entrepreneur” or “Founder” or “Partner”.
2. This is also a good strategy to flush out your TA group (whether that be a formal group or informal group).
3. You could expand/restrict the range around the zip codes you are searching in.
4. You could vary the keywords for industry sector.

I conduct searches by starting broad and then narrowing my criteria into a manageable outcome. For example, I might go through the following sequence in narrowing my search. I just keep playing with the parameters until I find the right size target group.

Here's a couple of other tips as your searching for CEOs on LinkedIn.

1. Use the profile organizer to put them in your folder for prospects. Then you can come back and review them at a later point. You might even create different folders for different types of prospects segmented by size of company, type of business, industry, etc. Remember that you do NOT have to be a 1st degree connection to use the the profile organizer. You MUST be a 1st degree connection to use the tagging function.

2. Keep a journal/excel spreadsheet record of the searches you've conducted and the results/effectiveness so that you don't keep re-doing the same search over and over.

Here's my approach:

1. Start in the advanced search mode.

2. Enter CEO into the keyword box - this will get me anyone with the word CEO on their profile.

3. Set location to be near a zip code of X and 10 miles

4. Refine the search by switching CEO from keyword to title for current job

5. Enter Entrepreneur into the keyword box - re-search

6. Refine by company size

7. Refine by level: Owner or CXO

The variations on searching are infinite. This Lesson should provide enough leads and targeted CEO candidates to fill your pipeline for the next two years - everyone of which you are already connected to through others in your existing network.

This is the primary rationale of why having a large network in your local community is so important. As you start to search for potential CEOs – you’ll begin to see that many people within your network are ALREADY connected to your targeted individual. This will make the process of an introduction/referral quite easy. When you have a small network, not only will those people NOT pop up in your LinkedIn Network, but it will be very similar to making a cold call in trying to connect with them.

I did this exercise the other day with my Chair - Steve Elson. We selected the search criteria of CEO and a 10 mile radius around his home zip code. In just a couple of minutes we had identified numerous potential CEOs  - almost all of which were connected to Steve through current members, former members, trusted advisers, other chairs, and other key contacts he was already connected to in LinkedIn. As I mentioned in one of our previous lessons/blog posts, there was one prospect that was connected to Steve through 10 other people Steve knew very well. In just a few minutes, he had fired off 10 notes asking how well his contacts knew this prospect and if they would be willing to make a personal introduction (NO MORE COLD CALLS!).

This is an on-going process of searching and then refining your search and then contacting the potential CEO. It’s very similar to what I do in Executive Search. I don’t start with everyone who could be a potential candidate. I start with around 100 targets and I work those targets. As my list begins to dwindle, I’ll do another search – perhaps with different keywords or parameters – then I’ll work that group.

I do recommend setting some time aside each day or week (perhaps 15 minutes a day – 2 hours a week) and using it for searching for potential Members/TAs on LinkedIn, along with determining the best path to obtain a referral to that individual.

Lesson 11 Action Steps

1. Search for potential CEO Members using the Advanced Search capability of LinkedIn
2. Search for potential "super breed" TAs using Advanced Search
3. Track how much time you spend on this activity daily/weekly.
4. Put together a simple spreadsheet to determine if this is a worthwhile investment of your time. The spreadsheet might have the following columns:

• Name of Prospect
• Company
• Phone Number
• Email Address
• How many existing contacts on LinkedIn know this person
• Warm/Hot Referral to Prospect from ______
• Prospect Accepted LinkedIn invitation
• Prospect Accepted Your Pre-qualification Phone Call
• Prospect Accepted Your Invite to Meet
• Prospect Joined Your Group

In 30 days, I would like to touch base with you on the phone and find out what your spreadsheet looks like. Within 30 days, I would expect to see a minimum of 100 names in the Prospect column that you've identified through LinkedIn.

Lesson 11 Discussion Points

Here are some questions/thoughts/comments that would provide some useful benchmarking information for the participants in our e-Course.

Have you done searches on LinkedIn before for potential Members? What result have you obtained?

Once you identify a potential target, what do you do with that contact information? What’s your process to get a referral/introduction to that individual?

Do you have an organized system for tracking/managing your leads/potential member list?

What was your experience in searching for CEOs? Are you connected to some of them already through a 2nd Degree Connection? Do you recognize the name, but never called the person in the past? Is the potential member you found on LinkedIn already in your pipeline?