You will be able to add proof to your profile that a sceptical buyer will believe.
Open your LinkedIn profile and scroll past the headline and about section, the way a stranger would, and look at what sits underneath. In lesson 1.2, "Headline and about section for one buyer", you wrote those two parts to tell a buyer you work on their problem. Before going further, confirm they still speak to one buyer. Once a buyer sees that you work on their problem, their next question is whether to believe you, and proof answers it. On LinkedIn, proof sits in three places: recommendations, the featured section, and the examples in your about section and experience entries.
Wei Ling, from lesson 1.2, sells clinic booking and reminder software that reduces no-shows. She has written a new headline and about section. A practice manager reads them and is interested but wary, because every software vendor says its system cuts no-shows. She scrolls down to see whether anyone else vouches for Wei Ling, and what she finds there decides whether she replies.
A recommendation is a note someone writes about working with you. When someone gives you one, you can see it by clicking the Received link in the Recommendations section of your profile, and you choose whether to display it on your profile. Most people collect them from colleagues and former managers because those people are easy to ask, and buyers read these with only mild interest. A manager calling you hard-working tells a buyer little about what it is like to buy from you.
A client recommendation counts for more, because the reader can picture themselves in the writer's place. For Wei Ling, the ideal one would come from a practice manager at another clinic, saying she set up the system around their front desk's routine and answered their questions in the first month. A practice manager reading Wei Ling's profile can imagine having written that note.
The best recommendations describe a situation the writer was in. Vague praise is pleasant but easy to forget, and a sceptical reader believes specifics. Suppose a client writes that their front desk spent most of the morning on reminder calls, and Wei Ling helped them set up automatic reminders in the first week. A reader can picture that clinic and its mornings. You can't write the recommendation for the client, but you can make it easier: when you ask, mention the problem you worked on together and what changed.
Ask people who know your work with clients. A happy client from the last year is worth more than a senior name who barely remembers you. Pick three people, and include at least one client if your industry allows it.
Some industries restrict how testimonials and client stories can be used, and financial advice in Singapore is one of them. Arjun, the financial adviser representative from lesson 1.2, can't simply ask happy clients for LinkedIn recommendations and publish them. His firm has its own rules on testimonials and on what representatives may post publicly, and those rules apply on top of the regulations for financial advisers.
His first step is to ask his compliance team what is allowed: recommendations, case stories, product mentions, or none of these. He then collects only what the answer permits. If client recommendations are not allowed, he puts more weight on the featured section by pinning a firm-approved educational post, and in his about section he describes the problems he helps with rather than outcomes. The course "Selling financial advice in Singapore: needs-based and compliant" covers the testimonial and public-posting rules for financial advisers in detail.
Property agents, healthcare professionals and others have their own codes too. Whatever your field, check before you ask anyone, because a recommendation you later have to delete does more harm than one you never asked for.
The featured section is the area near the top of your profile where you can pin posts, articles, links or documents. Most salespeople pin a company brochure or product video. This adds nothing, because the buyer already knows what you sell from your about section. What the buyer wants here is evidence that you know their world.
Wei Ling pinned a post on the three reasons patients miss appointments and what clinics can do about each. It mentions her product once, at the end. Other good choices are:
a post explaining a common mistake buyers make a short case story about helping a type of client, written so the client can't be identified unless they agreed to be named a one-page guide answering a question you hear every week
You'll write useful posts like Wei Ling's in Module 2. If you have nothing suitable yet, pin your best existing post or leave the section empty until you do. An empty featured section costs you less than a sales sheet in it.
Sellers like general claims such as "proven track record", "trusted by hundreds of clients" and "delivering results". Buyers have read them all and give them no weight. What they believe is a specific problem you solved, described plainly. Take a three-doctor family clinic in Tampines you worked with last year. Its front desk kept double-booking afternoon slots. You moved its bookings online and set up reminders, and the double bookings stopped. The example has no statistic, but it convinces more than a general claim because the reader can see it happening.
Your own examples must be real, and you need the client's permission if anyone could recognise them. Where possible, put one or two in your about section and in each experience entry.
The hardest part of collecting recommendations is asking for them. LinkedIn's default request usually gets no reply. People do answer a short personal note of three or four sentences that reminds them what you worked on together and mentions one specific thing they could describe, such as the problem and what changed. Keep the note personal and tell them it's fine to say no.
So pick your three people now, and include at least one client if your industry allows it. The activity below has you draft that note for each of them.
Write down three clients or colleagues you will ask for a recommendation, and draft the short request you will send to each.
Junxiong-WFG Organisation is an authorised representative of AIA Financial Advisers Private Limited (Reg. No. 201715016G).