Last Updated on July 19, 2017
Optimize Your Profile
One of the first things you should do to start using LinkedIn as a sales tool is make sure your profile is complete and delivers a professional impression of you and the company you work for. Of course, always include a high quality photo of yourself and include links to the company website, as well as your Twitter and Facebook pages to encourage inbound prospects to follow you on other social platforms. Make sure all sections of your profile are filled out with up-to-date and relevant information that aids in upping your reputation.
There are three main areas of your profile page that can be optimized for sales prospecting:
- Your Headline: Instead of using your headline to display your current job title, utilize this area as a value proposition that captures your audience’s attention. It should showcase what you can do for and how you can benefit the reader. “If you sell medical equipment, a good tagline might be – “I help hospitals improve efficiency.” (http://blog.ring.io/8-actionable-ways-to-use-linkedin-for-b2b-sales)
- Your Summary: Don’t use your summary as a list of job responsibilities and daily tasks. Use this area to tell people about the company you work for, who you are, and why you do what you do. Explain what makes your company so great and why you are passionate about your work. This is an opportunity to make a great first impression and pitch your services to people who visit your profile page.
- Your Projects and Media: LinkedIn allows you to showcase your projects and media. Use this section for videos, photos, and text about some of your successful clients and to highlight your skills. You could also use this section to demo a product or service.
Start making your LinkedIn profile work for you by optimizing these three areas of the page.
Add Every Customer and Potential Client to Your Network
Connections breed more connections. A great way to scale your network is to connect with any potential client you meet, online or off. You should also add every customer you close to your connections. This can help you find a good referral to another prospect when the time comes. All you have to do is visit the new prospect’s profile and see if they are connected with any of your current customers. You can then ask that customer to refer you to the new prospect. This is also a great way to maintain a close relationship with your clients and stay up-to-date when they move to a new company or get promoted, which opens up opportunities to sell your product to the new company or suggest an upsell.
When connecting with clients and potential clients, always use a personal, unique connection message. Avoid using the default “Hi, I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.” Find something better to say. Putting in the extra effort of making the message more personal and relevant to the receiver can help persuade the potential client to accept the invitation. Comment on an article they recently published, congratulate them on an achievement, or mention a mutual connection. Outbound sales is about building relationships.
Join and Participate in LinkedIn Groups
Another way to connect with potential clients before sending them a cold email is to join the LinkedIn groups they participate in. Browse the list of groups your current customers and ideal prospects are a part of and conduct some research about each group: how many members it has, how engaged are participants, and whether it is an open or closed group. Choose 2 or 3 groups and become an active participant in each group. Create a plan for posting useful content, commenting on other people’s posts, asking questions or asking for help, and so on to ensure a good mix of content and stay active, helpful, and valuable within the group. Try to limit your posts about products and services you offer so you don’t come off as a pushy salesman.
By becoming an active member in LinkedIn groups that your customers participate in, you can easily expand your LinkedIn network and set yourself up as a trustworthy thought leader in your industry.
Publish Content to Your Profile
Publishing helpful, regular content to your profile can also help to establish yourself as an industry thought leader. Do research on topics that are relevant to your target customers and write articles that help promote your services. Interview one of your customers about how they use your product. Analyze a new trend in your industry. Post about product updates. After you’ve published the article, share it on your other social media accounts and email it to prospective clients. When you set yourself up as an expert in your industry, you not only help prospects by providing helpful information, you also become more trustworthy as a salesman and encourage clients to purchase from you.
View Potential Client Profiles
The natural reaction to someone viewing your profile is to go visit their profile out of curiosity. Looking at prospective client profiles in your industry can be a great way to be minimally intrusive and share a targeted message through your headline and summary. When you view other people’s profiles, they can see that when they click on “Who’s Viewed Your Profile?.” A good proportion of those people will look back at your profile, which gives you a good excuse to reach out to them with a connection request. By viewing a large number of relevant profiles, you will start to get more profile views and open up more opportunities to connect with prospects.
Look at the “People Also Viewed” Sidebar
If you want to find connections similar to your best clients, visit their profile pages and look over to the “People Also Viewed” sidebar. This section of the website shows people who are similar to the profile page you are visiting. This is a great way to find prospects that match a certain description and connect with more qualified leads. There is also a section called “People Similar To,” which works well for researching potential clients and companies.
Use LinkedIn Search
LinkedIn has a very advanced search tool that helps you find people by title, company, location or keyword. Using Boolean search operators, you can find many new prospects that fit certain criteria, like a specific job title in a specific country. Here are a list of commands to help you get started:
“OR: Placing OR (it has to be all caps) between two words will return results with either the 1st keyword or the second keyword.
Example: “director of sales” OR “sales manager” OR “VP of Sales”
AND: Adding AND (all caps) between two words will return results that include all terms in the query:
Example: “Facebook” AND “Twitter”
“ ”: Placing quotes around a string of words will return an exact match for that string.
Example: “Sales consultant”
NOT: Entering NOT or – (a dash) before a word will remove results containing that term.
Example: Google NOT Analytics (this returns results of people who worked on other Google project, like Google+, Google Fiber, Google Glass, etc., but not Google Analytics)
( ): Putting parentheses around a functions like an algebra equation – the operators in the command will be executed before the ones outside the command:
Example: “Sales Manager” AND (Google OR Yahoo)
*: Often called a wildcard, the asterisk acts as a placeholder and will match any word in the phrase.
Example: “VP of *” ” (http://blog.persistiq.com/6-advanced-linkedin-prospecting-tactics-for-the-outbound-sales-rep)
By utilizing multiple modifiers in a single search, you can better pinpoint a target prospect and find the right customers for what you are offering.
Browse Users Who Have Interacted with Your Posts
People who view, like, and comment on your posts have expressed interest in your content and are more likely to respond if you request a connection or send an email. To see people who have interacted with your posts, to go “Who’s Viewed My Profile” and then choose the “Who’s Viewed Your Articles” tab. Connect with these prospects, thanking them for their comments and asking them if they are interested in learning more about your services.
Use InMail to Connect with Potential Clients
Upper level decision makers are notoriously hard to get in contact with. Because they get so many emails and phone calls everyday, they tend to screen call, ignore emails, and use a gatekeeper to prevent unwanted sales approaches. InMail is LinkedIn’s internal email system that ensures your email gets through to their inbox. “LinkedIn claims that an InMail is 30 times more likely to get a response than a cold call.” (https://www.salesforce.com/uk/blog/2015/12/ten-tips-for-using-linkedin-for-sales-prospecting.html) Make your message personal by pointing out a mutual connection or congratulating them on a recent achievement. Use these messages as relationship-building opportunities instead of sales pitches, which will most likely be ignored. Once you get a response and establish a connection, you can start to discuss your offering. You can only send InMail to 1st degree connections, but you can work around this limitation by joining a common group of a 2nd degree connection or purchasing InMail credits.
Never Make a Cold Call Again
Making a sales call totally cold is usually a waste of time. LinkedIn allows you to make a connection and build a relationship before you reach out to the prospect via email or phone. Pay attention to changed in profile, status update, and connections you have in common. An easy way to start building a meaningful relationship with a potential client is to use LinkedIn’s suggested actions as touch points. Everyday, LinkedIn suggests ways for you to reengage with your connections if they’ve been promoted, changed positions, or are celebrating a work anniversary. If you keep up with these suggested actions regularly, you can start strengthening relationships with potential clients and have something to refer to when you make that first phone call.
Resources
https://www.salesforce.com/uk/blog/2015/12/ten-tips-for-using-linkedin-for-sales-prospecting.html
https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/little-known-ways-to-find-new-prospects-on-linkedin
http://blog.ring.io/8-actionable-ways-to-use-linkedin-for-b2b-sales
http://blog.persistiq.com/6-advanced-linkedin-prospecting-tactics-for-the-outbound-sales-rep
https://www.biznessapps.com/blog/ways-use-linked-in-sales/
