LinkedIn Just Made a Savvy Business Move – And Nobody Noticed

With 420 million members in 200+ countries, and adding 2 new members every second, LinkedIn already is one of the best places online to locate, engage and sell your products and services to your ideal clients and customers.

But things are getting even better.

LinkedIn’s New Move – ProFinder

LinkedIn recently (and quietly) launched its new “ProFinder” service a few months back, and it’s quickly gaining momentum.

Modeled after popular “freelancer-for-hire” sites such as Fiverr and Upwork, LinkedIn’s “ProFinder” matches customers looking for a specific type of product or service with a qualified professional.

Because of its treasure-trove of user data, LinkedIn is able to quickly and easily show you the best prospects for a freelance project or ongoing service you need based on keywords, categories or search terms you type into ProFinder.

LinkedIn can even filter search results based on your network (who you’re already connected to at a 1st or 2nd degree level), recommendations those professionals have, their physical location (if that matters) and more.

Some of the services you can find help with on LinkedIn’s ProFinder right now include:

• Accounting
• Business Coaching / Business Consulting
• Design
• Insurance
• IT Services
• Legal
• Marketing
• Photography
• Real Estate
• Software Development
• Writing and Editing

The list goes on, but you get the idea. And it’s easy to see how this service becomes “win-win” for customers, vendors and LinkedIn alike.

A “Revenue-Ready” Model

As of this writing, ProFinder is completely free to use for customers and vendors alike.

LinkedIn could (eventually) make money by taking a cut of any financial transactions between parties (such as Fiverr does), or by charging service service providers a fee to be featured more prominently in certain categories, or in a myriad of other ways.

The “win” for customers inside LinkedIn’s ProFinder is that you can (ideally) find a a higher-caliber, more trustworthy professional than you might on various freelance sites, given the extra credibility and professionalism that comes with the LinkedIn experience.

(Note: If you didn’t already have incentive enough to create a killer LinkedIn profile, you do now!)

For professionals looking to land more clients via LinkedIn, ProFinder is a potential godsend – the ability to get direct, warm leads delivered into your inbox every day. It’s a great “passive” lead generation method you can pair with daily, organic efforts to find and engage your ideal prospects on the network.

The Party’s Started

LinkedIn is actively courting users to sign up for the program, and even provides tips on how to get noticed inside ProFinder.

It’s a brilliant business move – one that opens up another new line of potential revenue for LinkedIn while adding even more value to the network for its users.

Most if all, it’s yet another indication that LinkedIn remains poised to further dominate the “professional networking” world online. No other business-to-business, professionally-themed social network has the track record, power, user data and membership growth that LinkedIn does.

It’s all there for the taking, and it’s encouraging to see LinkedIn moving beyond its core offerings (finding an employee or posting a job opening) and moving more deeply into the global, online-driven marketplace so many professionals now call home.