How to get a recommendation from someone not on LinkedIn

When Scott Allen was my guest during the teleseminar “How to Use LinkedIn to Promote Anything—Ethically and Powerfully,” he urged LinkedIn users to collect as many recommendations as possible.

That’s  one of the very best ways to flaunt your expertise and really stand out from your competitors.

But what if the person who you ask for a recommendation doesn’t have a LinkedIn profile and doesn’t want the hassle of creating one?

Here are two options, which I discovered today in the Linked Strategies group on LinkedIn.

If you live near the person who you want to recommend you, you can visit his home, help him set up an account, and show him how to post the recommendation he has written for you. (Then, buy him lunch.)

If he lives too far away, here’s the next best solution. Create an account at Box.net, which lets people access and share their content with others, from anywhere. You can sign up for a free trial.

When your account is created, you upload the recommendation in a secured PDF to Box.net. Follow these instructions if you want the site to post the recommendation to your LinkedIn profile:

• Log into your LinkedIn account.
• Privacy Settings.
• Authorized Applications.
• Find Box.net in the list of applications.
• Hover your cursor over “about” and click.
• In the lower right corner, you can check the box that says “Display on my profile” or “Display on LinkedIn homepage,” or both.
• Update settings.
• You’ll see your “My Box” folder. You can upload files here.

If someone is searching your profile and you’ve clicked on “Display on my profile,”  they can download the recommendation. Then Box.net sends you a notification that your file has been downloaded.

Watch a demo of how Box.net works below. If you get confused, like I did, call their technical support desk at 1-877-729-4269. The woman who helped me get set up was wonderful.

It’s worth noting that Box.net also has an application for Twitter.

A hat tip to Bruce Bixler, Russ Knight and Glen Loock on LinkedIn for sharing these tips. Watch this video to understand how Box.net works: