April 2021 – Croixstone

Improve Your LinkedIn InMail Game

Tips to Optimize LinkedIn InMail

Fast Company magazine recently published an informative article with tips on how to drive outcomes with InMail (LinkedIn’s messaging platform). The article shared insights based on an analysis LinkedIn completed of tens of millions of InMails sent by recruiters globally between April 2020 and February 2021. Interestingly, the study revealed which InMails were likely to get a fast response.

Here’s a recap of the key findings:

Shorter is better. Those that delivered their InMail messages between 201-400 characters got a 16% higher than average response rate and 41% better than InMails with more than 1,400 characters.

Monday is the best day. Monday gets a 2% higher response rate while Saturday accounts for 13% fewer responses.

Personalization matters. Personalized InMails perform 20% better.

Learn more here.

We are Purple Podcasting!

Listen to Croixstone’s leaders on the Project Purple Podcast

For our CEO, Patti Weber, it is her father.
For our Senior Manager of Business Operations, Grace Lynch, it is her niece.
For our Managing Partner, Mark Weber, it is his mother.

To know Croixstone is to know that each of our three leaders have been touched in a very personal way by pancreatic cancer, the USA’s third leading cause of cancer-related deaths.

In January of 2020, Patti, Grace and Mark launched the Charlotte Pancreatic Cancer Alliance, a nonprofit community group that raises awareness for the disease. Last week, the three leaders shared the stories of their loved ones and their new community group on the Project Purple Podcast, ranked #1 on Feedspot’s “Top 10 Pancreatic Cancer Podcasts You Must Follow in 2020.”

Listen here.

Insights into the Middle Market

Croixstone is laser focused on providing expertise to serve the middle market, defined as those companies with annual revenues between $10 million and $1 billion. T he National Center for the Middle Market recently published new data and insights on this important sector of the economy that we found interesting.

While representing barely 3% of all U.S. businesses, the middle market is responsible for 1/3 of private sector GDP and employment.

If the U.S. middle market were its own country, it would be the fifth-largest economy in the world.

During the pre-pandemic era from 2012-2019, average revenue growth for midsize companies was 6.5% and average employment growth was 4.3%.

A Q4 2020 middle market survey showed that average revenue declined by 1.2% and employment dropped by 2.2% over the prior 12 months.

While the pandemic negatively impacted the middle market, the sector overall performed better than small businesses and large corporations.

Middle market companies are typically very resilient, however, the ongoing pandemic presents a serious challenge on how to maintain customer engagement and connectivity.

Learn more here.

The Rise of the PORTFOLIO Career

Much like COVID-19 has accelerated the pace of digital transformation, future of work experts are seeing a rise in the pervasiveness of professionals with “portfolio careers.”

Ben Legg is an engineer, serial CEO of global digital businesses, former COO of Google Europe, and former McKinsey consultant. He believes the portfolio career is a continuation of the automation of work and is here to stay.

Croixstone’s business model is built around our deep understanding of the portfolio professional. So what is a portfolio career?

A portfolio career isn’t reliant on a single source of income.

Income is derived from serving multiple clients that might include project work, consulting engagements, interim roles and/or board roles.

Unlike a “gig economy worker,” a portfolio career is thoughtfully put together and is focused on offering differentiated services in order to maximize earnings.

Learn more about portfolio career insights from Ben Legg.