Are You Worried People Will Steal Your Clients or Employees Through LinkedIn?

November 19, 2014 / in General Information, LinkedIn / by Jason Terry

Written by Jason Terry

Hello friends!  It’s time for another blog post from Blue Gurus about LinkedIn.  For those of you that don’t know, we do LinkedIn training for sales teams all over Kansas City.  And because of that, we get all kinds of questions.  Some of those questions we hear more often than others, and one of them is, “should I connect to my clients or employees on LinkedIn?  I am worried that our competitors might steal them if they knew we were connected.”  We get this question more often than you might think, especially from business owners.

Will They Steal My Clients or Employees?

My answer to this question is that as long as you are taking care of your clients and your employees you have nothing to worry about.  If they do leave, it’s probably something that’s outside of your control anyway.  Let me explain my perspective a bit.

Taking Care of Your Employees

Most employees want to work for a company they can be proud of.  That they can make a difference in.  That gives them a voice.  They want to enjoy their work and get paid for doing it.  If your company is set up that way, most people will work hard for you and be loyal.  When they feel that way about the company they work for, it takes a lot for them to even consider going to work for someone else.

If you take good care of your people, it would take a lot for them to think about working for someone else.

Taking Care of Your Clients

We treat our clients like family.  We do our best for them, knowing that our business and ultimately our paychecks depend on each and every relationship.  Over the years they have told us that they respect us, appreciate us and feel they are getting great value for the dollars they are spending with us.  I think it’s because of the way we treat them and the quality of the work we do for them.

Let’s assume that a competitor of Blue Gurus finds the people or companies we are connected to on LinkedIn.  And then they proactively start calling on them.  If we weren’t doing our jobs, then our clients might be open to the conversation.  But because we are doing good work, they probably won’t have the conversation.  And if they decide to have the conversation to be polite or because they are curious, they usually end up sharing the proposals that they get with us for competitive intelligence.  Awesome.

If you take good care of your clients, it would take a lot for them to think about doing business with someone else.

To Wrap This Up…

I believe that you should connect to the people that you know, trust and respect on LinkedIn.  That would include clients, employees, vendors, family, college buddies and anyone else you like and want to be associated with.

I also believe that you shouldn’t let fear drive your behavior.  I do my best for my employees, my clients and my vendors (in that order).  If someone is going to leave for greener pastures, it won’t be because of something I’ve done or had control of.  And I will help them on their journey because they will still be family to me.

Would you like me to write more in the future about common questions we get about LinkedIn?  If you have a specific LinkedIn question you would like me to address, please let me know in the comments!