6 Tips for using LinkedIn to increase sales now
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Mon, Dec 07, 2009 @ 12:09 PM
I'd imagine most readers of my blog have at least developed a profile on the business networking website LinkedIn. But if you're not using it as an important part of your daily sales process, you could be losing sales. If you work a territory, you'd be surprised at how many of your prospects will know customers of yours. In the past we all found this out by accident, guesswork, and careful questioning. Today, the LinkedIn tool does a lot of it for us.
In my telesales training classes, I cover several of the free online Sales 2.0 tools that are becoming increasingly more important, and I'm coming to think LinkedIn (LI) is the best. Let me give you one real world example of how it can be used "out of the box," then discuss what you can do to ensure that you're working at optimum with LI.
Case Study: A network solutions provider
One of my sales training customers had been trying for months to get into a large prospect, to no avail. In a coaching session, we determined that he'd call a CIO at the company, someone that wasn't in the lead database. We found that person's name on Hoover's. Before he called that exec, he checked out his LinkedIn profile. Guess what! He knew one of our company's regional managers while that manager was employed in a previous company, working another territory. My rep made a quick call to the out-of-territory Regional Manager, and found out that he'd had a great relationship with that CIO. My rep was then able to make the call, and had a conversation. Without LinkedIn, the CIO might never have taken the call.
So let's investigate how to get LinkedIn working at optimum for you. Here are 6 great ways to get going for you right now:
1) Make sure your profile is as good as you can get it, detailing your professional background and successful accomplishments. These is essentially your résumé, and believe me, your prospects will occasionally look at it to get an idea of who you are before they trust you enough to buy from you. Additionally, if you're ever looking for another inside sales position, your potential new company will look at your LI profile before they bother with your actual résumé. Don't gloss over this important step.
2) Send a LinkedIn invitation to professional people colleagues you know well, or with whom you've had a business relationship, so you can link together. These would include your fellow Inside and Field salespeople, and all sales management within your company.
3) Call your customers that you have a working relationship with, have a conversation, then tell them you'd like to LinkIn to them. The best time to do this is right after the conversation. Caution! If you don't call first, they may perceive you as being too pushy, and won't accept the invitation. Besides, by calling them, you may also find other opportunities within his or her company that you didn't know about. If so, you've increased your sales.
4) When your invitation has been accepted, take a look at your invitee's connections. They may include people working at a company that you're trying to work with. If so, consider whether it might be worth calling your contact and asking how well he or she knows that person. If that's the case, you may get a reference!
5) When making a first time call to a prospect, especially to an exec or manager, take 30 seconds up from to check out his or her LI profile. You may discover you have mutual business associates or interests. Those can prove to be the best ice-breakers you'll ever have (see Case Study above).
6) This one's just a quick cautionary tip. Invitations from unknowns don't often result in links, and can be perceived as LinkedIn spam. Only invite people you really know. I get invitations from people I've never talked to, and I won't LinkIn to them. Most others won't either. There are other social networking sites that are great for popularity contests, but LinkedIn isn't: it's a business tool. If there's someone you'd like to know and LinkIn to, please call and say hello first.
I always check out someone's LI profile now before I call him or her. It takes hardly any time at all, and it's a great ice-breaker to spend thirty seconds or so at the beginning the call to talk about mutual acquaintances or interests. So if you're not doing all of this right now, start today. It's a great way to communicate better with your prospects, and you'll increase sales, too. And add using LinkedIn effectively and efficiently to your Best Practices Playbook.