Social Selling Through LinkedIn

OPEN NEW DOORS Meet Your New Sales Assistant…

The prospecting landscape has changed drastically in the past few years. The

cost, in terms of time, has risen sharply while the rate of cold calling success

has dropped. Buyers use the Internet to research your products and services,

voice mail to screen your calls and filters to block your emails. Yet, when they

begin thinking about buying, they want to talk to an expert. How can you be the

top of mind expert in your field? Are you connected to your buyers when they

are most ready to talk?

With more than 300 million registered users, LinkedIn is the undisputed king of

business networking. It is the modern-day business card. This eBook offers 15

ways you can use LinkedIn to master the process of finding the right prospects

and converting connections into sales opportunities to improve your sales

results.

2

Thoroughly Complete Your Profile

Prioritize Your News Feed Everyday

Post Daily Status Updates

Connect with People You Know

Join at least 10 Groups

Follow Companies of Interest

BEFORE YOU BEGIN PROSPECTING

3

COMPLETE YOUR BUSINESS CARD PROFILE

What makes LinkedIn so powerful is that both

individuals and companies have a unique identity.

For individuals, it’s our profile. For companies, it’s the

Is your photo still missing?

Take a selfie with your most

engaging smile against a

neutral background, crop it

to just your head and resize

it to 200x200 pixels and

upload it.

company page. As individual members, optimizing your profile is the place to start. Be

sure to have a recent headshot photo, preferably smiling. Use keywords in your

headline that represent your professional specialty. Complete the summary in an easy

to read manner. Be sure to include your achievements. There are many other ways to

optimize your profile. Be sure to have these basics covered before going much further

with your LinkedIn activities.

4

LINK TO YOUR COMPANY PAGE Be sure to add your company name in your profile. LinkedIn will recognize the name

and ask you to click it so that your individual profile is linked to your company page.

Follow company pages of those companies that interest you. You can also follow their

Showcase page. For example, if you sell into the Microsoft Dynamics community, you

can follow the Dynamics Showcase Page. Microsoft has more than 10 Showcase

pages, allowing you to follow or “subscribe” to the products that are relevant for you

to follow.

Review your company page. Does it showcase your products and services? Have all

your work colleagues linked to the company page? Team up with your marketing

department to become a brand ambassador.

5

PRIORITIZE YOUR NEWS FEED WITH PULSE Schedule 10 minutes per day (at least) to review your news feed to keep up

with your network’s activity. It’s a great way to find and share articles that

others in your network have posted. It’s also a great way to discover other

people to add to your network. Join groups that align with your professional

interests. Don’t overlook the opportunity to engage with people in your news

feed by liking or commenting on their status updates. One simple way to

engage is by sharing other people’s status updates. Another way to engage with

people in your news feed is to add comments to other people’s status updates,

or congratulate people on job changes. You can also tag

other people in your network by typing their name in a

an update or comment. LinkedIn recognizes the name and will notify

the person of your mention. If you have not been in the

habit of engaging in your news feed, this tip alone will

begin to show you the power of LinkedIn by transforming

you from a passive user to an active user of LinkedIn.

Try this early in the morning before 8am. No matter your

time zone, you might be surprised by how many people

are active on LinkedIn before 8am.

6

DAILY STATUS UPDATES If you actively follow your network in your news feed, you’ll probably get

inspired to create your own status updates. The status update field is at the top

of your Home screen on the desktop version of LinkedIn, or in the top right on

the mobile version. The easiest way to power up with status updates is to share

links to articles that are relevant to your professional interests. Be sure to make

a comment to engage with your individual thoughts about the article.

7

CONNECT WITH PEOPLE YOU KNOW There are many LinkedIn features not known by infrequent users. One such feature is

the ability to save someone to your “contacts” and organize people using tags. As you

reach out to people that you know and connect with them, you can create a custom tag

to organize contacts for future follow up. You can also add notes about your

conversation(s). Of course, your approach should be focused on ways to connect and

engage with people in a meaningful way. That takes times. Using the tag feature in

contacts allows you to stay organized. You’ll notice that LinkedIn also tracks your email

correspondence provided you use the email address associated with your LinkedIn

login.

8

MOBILE APPS As a sales professional, you are probably connected to your mobile device more than a

gun-slinger’s six-shooter from the old wild west. LinkedIn is predicting 50% of users will

be using LinkedIn on mobile devices by the end of 2014.

LinkedIn is available for mobile users on smartphones and tablet devices. You can do

nearly everything you do on LinkedIn desktop on the mobile versions. Through LinkedIn’s

multi apps strategy, you will see more specialty mobile apps rolled out across all devices.

One of the popular ways to use the mobile version is to skim your news feed and engage

with other people’s status updates. You can use LinkedIn mobile anytime, anywhere while

moving about including while standing in line at Starbucks.

If you have not yet done so, download the mobile version that suits you:

• Mobile for Phones (Available for iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Windows)

• Mobile for iPad

• Contacts for iPad

• Pulse News Feed (Available for iPhone and Android)

9

ENGAGE WITH INFLUENCERS The LinkedIn Professional Publishing Platform had previously been available only to an

exclusive list of approximately 500 business influencers who publish unique content there.

Anyone can subscribe to their content. To do so, either click under the “share an update”

field on the home page of your profile (Pulse recommends this news for you) or go directly

to Pulse under your Interests tab.

For example, you can subscribe to read articles written by people like Bill Gates, Arianna

Huffington, Jack Welch, Richard Branson, Guy Kawasaki, Joe Pulizzi, Jeff Weiner, Tom

Peters….It’s tempting to list all 500 influencers but I won’t. You get the idea. Once you

read an article from any of these influencers, you can leave a comment and share it.

Influencer posts average more than 80 comments each. You can gain valuable insights and

expand your own network by engaging with people who engage with these influencers.

10

EMBRACE EMPLOYEE AND CORPORATE BRAND CONVERGENCE

LinkedIn is so much more than an online resume. It has become a content marketing

platform. In fact it is the definitive publishing platform for professionals. What does

publishing have to do with sales? Everything. It creates an opportunity for you to share

your expertise in a non-direct selling way that resonates with today’s savvy buyers.

On some social networks you spend time.

Whereas on LinkedIn, you invest time,

(via Jason Miller). Your activity on LinkedIn

reflects on you individually and on your

employer or your business. The results

professionals produce for their employer /

business speak for themselves. In 2013

65% of B2B marketers and 51% of B2C

marketers respectively acquired a customer

through LinkedIn.

Source, page 6 of The Sophisticated Marketer’s Guide to LinkedIn.

11

CURATE CONTENT WITH PULSE

Pulse is a news aggregator application which was acquired by LinkedIn. Pulse

aggregates content as a real time news feed of articles that interest you by topic or by

media outlet or by influencers you follow. Pulse is available on LinkedIn desktop as well

as mobile. Pulse is also a dedicated mobile app. You can customize the content you want

to see. As you consume content, you can share it on LinkedIn and Twitter through a

status update. Pulse and LinkedIn are separate (yet integrated) apps you might want to

have on your mobile phone’s home screen.

12

FIND YOUR VOICE People see your activity on LinkedIn and form impressions of you by what you share,

what you say, where you say it and how you say it. Think about how you want people

to think of you as a professional. LinkedIn is not the social networking platform to

share your cat or dog pictures. Be authentic, and consider the image you are building

for yourself. Be consistent and professional in your conversations.

13

SPONSOR COMPANY STATUS UPDATES Sponsored updates on company pages are one of the best ways to reach your target

audience. LinkedIn provides many options for targeting including by geography, industry,

title, seniority and more. Another targeting option is by company. Identify companies you

want to get in front of and select them as your target audience in your sponsored

updates. According to Jason Miller of LinkedIn, there are three common use cases for

sponsored updates:

1) lead generation

2) brand awareness

3) event registration.

Does your company page display status updates with relevant content that

demonstrates thought leadership? If not, get with your marketing team and let them

know what the sales team needs to strengthen your sales efforts through a strong

brand.

14

BECOME A GROUPEE

LinkedIn provides anyone the ability to create a group. If you create a group, be

sure to be committed leading it. Successful groups call for daily monitoring to

ensure the community you build gets value from your group. A strong group has

people who help each other. Of course, you don’t have to create a group. You

can join up to 50 groups. Most of us don’t have time to participate in 50 groups.

Select the groups that will be time well spent for you and become a valuable

member of those groups. Look for groups that are relevant to your industry and

also verticals where your product and services intersect with your target

audiences.

15

WARNING: LINKEDIN IS NOT A SPAMMING TOOL LinkedIn is a networking tool that allows you to build connections and

relationships outside your immediate network. If you try to use LinkedIn as a

direct sales or spamming tool, you will get restricted

forever. At a cocktail party, you would not jump up

on a table and shout “listen to me – I am going

to sell you something.” Instead, you would

mingle, listen to what people are saying

and share in the conversation when

appropriate.

LinkedIn Don’t Rules:

Act dishonestly or unprofessionally

Publish inaccurate information in the designated fields on the profile

Create a Member profile for anyone other than a natural person;

Harass, abuse or harm another person, including sending unwelcomed communications to others using LinkedIn;

Invite people you do not know to join your network;

Upload a profile image that is not your likeness or a head-shot photo;

Use or attempt to use another's account or create a false identity on LinkedIn.

16

PROSPECTING By following the tips we have covered so far, you have already been “prospecting” in a

social selling paradigm through your engagement! If you are doing the activities listed

below on a daily basis, you are ready to take prospecting to the next level:

• Posting Daily Status Updates

• Connecting with People you know

• Engaging in conversations through groups, Pulse, comments

• Sharing content

17

FOLLOWING THROUGH ON SEARCH RESULTS As you find prospective buyers, your goal should be to build relationships. Discover

their interests, engage in conversations within groups that they participate. Learn about

their company and where and how they use LinkedIn.

Send people a personal message with your request to connect with them. Your note

should demonstrate that you understand something about them.

Use LinkedIn as a prospecting tool, but do it through thought leadership and

relationships. Get to know people. Understand who they are and what motivates them.

Solve their problems.

18

LinkedIn FREE VS PAID

Up to this point, everything we have covered is available with LinkedIn’s Free Account.

In order to use LinkedIn’s advanced features, you might want to consider an upgrade to

a paid subscription. Under the Upgrade menu, select For Sales Professionals. Consider

upgrading to SalesPlus first. Spend some time using the SalesPlus features before

deciding if you need the Sales Executive features.

19 19

WHAT’S NEXT FOR YOU? We help professional sales teams find the right prospects and convert them into

sales opportunities through advanced coaching and social selling software used

by sales teams at companies like KPMG, Prudential, Comcast, Lexis Nexus and

others…

Yes, I want to convert my sales team to thought leaders, brand ambassadors and lead generators through LinkedIn.

20

FIND, ENGAGE, CONVERT

21

We help B2B companies find the right people, engage with them and

convert them into opportunities through digital and social business

strategies.