I recently had a LinkedIn connection rage-quit on me. He disconnected from me on LinkedIn because he felt my free advice was not the advice he was looking for and he also felt that when I referred him to a contact who might be able to help also wasted his time.

So he asked to connect to me, with a personalised invite I will add. Nobody sends those these days and therefore he stood out for me and I gladly and willingly accepted. His question in the invitation was;

Hello Michael,

My name is …. I have some questions and need your help.

I respond to every single invitation I receive and every new connection receives a link to a hidden page on my website with some free stuff, including a 13-hour LinkedIn video course, which took me 12 months to create. I also welcomed whatever question he wanted to ask, adding that if I wasn’t able to assist him, I was sure to know someone else who might be able to.

Question 2 from my new friendly connection;

I am trying to get my business off the ground but I don’t know if my personal brand story that I paid someone to write is good enough that describes me and what I stand for.

I then shared with him some text I had written for someone who has a similar role and he never said thank you, then proceeded with sharing his signature speech (sentence). It took a day for me to respond back to that and before I could respond he said;

So your not going to help me anymore?

I then created a google doc with my sentence and his and suggested that we worked on it together. All free of charge by the way, I never asked for any money.

Again no thank you, just coming back with push-back to what I had suggested. He then shared a video by Donald Miller, see below, not bad.

But he wasn’t doing anything so I encouraged him with;

My suggestion is keep working at it. You write the next one okay?

And then this came back;

Thanks anyway, I will just do this with no support and help from anyone anymore. As I just don’t care anymore. I just won’t help anyone anymore every time they come to me and want my help. That is what the problem with everyone they care about just making money. I blame you for wasting my time recommending me to (contact name).

I said;

I understand

And he said;

Goodbye for good

And then he disconnected from me on LinkedIn.

Happy helping!

Michael de Groot