You may be on LinkedIn, but are you making the most of it? Used to full effect, it can be a very powerful tool for business generation.
Here are ten reasons why every B2B sales leader should take LinkedIn seriously.
1) To give leads to your sales team…
Sales people continually need leads of the right quality and quantity. LinkedIn can be a highly effective way of generating new senior-level opportunities.
‘We won a deal for £1m for a major financial company – LinkedIn played a key role in getting us onto the tender list.’
2) …because the old ways don’t work so well any more
Cold calling is getting a bad name. So it takes more effort, and cost, to generate each lead. Even old-style networking isn’t as effective as it used to be. LinkedIn groups provide a much more targeted and efficient way of networking.
3) Your clients and prospects use LinkedIn…
LinkedIn is the most prominent, and most trusted, social media tool for business users, with 28% of its 200 million members at director level or above. In the IT sector, for example, 95% of decision-makers use LinkedIn and 73% have used it to engage with a vendor.
4) …so make use of your sales team’s LinkedIn profiles …
When your clients are about to meet one of your sales people, they may well look them up on LinkedIn. So encourage your team to use LinkedIn as a client-oriented portal, not a recruiter-oriented one, to give a positive image to customers. This may mean changing their photo, personal summary, skills, etc.
5) …and their personal networks
Your network of business contacts, and those of your sales team, constitutes a massive resource. It’s like a massive emotional bank account of contacts. The real power of LinkedIn is using your network to gain introductions.
‘I got in to see the IT director at a major target company through LinkedIn.’
6) To speed up the sales cycle
Personal recommendation leapfrogs the barriers that stand in the way of getting through to prospects, especially at senior level. The warmth of a personal referral can dramatically speed up the sales cycle.
“I found out through LinkedIn that their chairman and I had a mutual friend. So rather than a cold first meeting we started discussing how we could work together.”
7) To make sales meetings more effective
Encourage your sales people to look up clients on LinkedIn before meeting them for the first time. The quicker you can build trust with a new client and get onto serious discussion of business challenges, the better.
‘I looked through LinkedIn and was connected via a colleague at a previous company. He contacted the client and recommended me. When I met the CIO, he said “You must be Sean – I saw your profile on LinkedIn”. It made the meeting much warmer and more positive.’
8) To network effectively and map their accounts
There are some powerful search tools on LinkedIn that help your sales team identify exactly the people they need to talk to – e.g. by vertical, geography, and seniority level.
9) To send targeted messages
LinkedIn offers many different ways of sending out promotional messages: targeted inmails, status updates, groups, and even targeted advertising.
10) To be ahead of the game
Although many companies use LinkedIn, most are unaware of its real power and don’t use it to the full. There is a window of opportunity to use it before it becomes saturated. Be an ‘early adopter’ and get ahead of your competition
The race is on for sales teams to become competent in using LinkedIn to create significant business benefits. Orbit offers tailored in-house workshops and open courses on LinkedIn to help you and your sales team make the most of it. People who have attended our courses have benefited straight away, as the quotes here testify.
ORBIT IS RUNNING A SERIES OF LINKEDIN WORKSHOPS FOR B2B SALES LEADERS AND THEIR TEAMS.
