According to a Forbes article from earlier this year, the “who viewed my profile” section of LinkedIn was the site’s most popular feature among all users. Additionally, it is reported that profiles with pictures receive 11x to 14x the number of views as profiles without pictures. What continues to amaze me is that many LinkedIn users still walk around with a proverbial brown paper bag over their head. Go checkout your own “who viewed my profile” section and note how many users are either browsing anonymously or do not have a picture. From a high level sales perspective, we need to look at LinkedIn as an online channel for making an old school door knocking cold call. 50 years ago, salesmen would knock door to door in suits and ties, selling everything from insurance to vacuum cleaners. I doubt any of them did so with a brown paper bag over their head hiding their face. Yet there are millions of professionals on LinkedIn who do this same thing every single day. [caption id="attachment_572" align="aligncenter" width="734"] Surfing LinkedIn in the full anonymous mode or the semi-anonymous mode is pretty much the equivalent of walking into someone's office with a brown paper bag over your head[   The simple fix is to get a current professional picture and upload it to your file. Once you have done that, navigate to the settings section of your account and click on the "Select what others see when you've viewed their profile". Clicking on this will open a pop up box where you can now adjust setting. [caption id="attachment_573" align="aligncenter" width="591"] It is important to make sure that your LinkedIn profile visibility settings clearly display your name, location, and headline[   Allowing other users to view your information when you have viewed their profile is a critical component to being successful on LinkedIn. Combined with a powerful headline, a great picture and the right visibility setting while greatly improve your LinkedIn cold calls. If you have been struggling with getting profile views and connection requests on LinkedIn, taking the brown paper bag off your head is a great place to start. This post is the third part of our LinkedIn Profile Tips series. These posts cover various aspects of the LinkedIn profile and provide a wide array of tips and strategies designed to help individuals build a great profile. For more information on how AltaVista Strategic Partners can help your sales professionals create great LinkedIn profiles that can be leveraged to generate sales on LinkedIn, please fill out the contact form on this page, email us, or call us at 410-760-6680.