LinkedIn: A Changing Landscape
LinkedIn has finally decided to impose connection request limits on all accounts. The exorbitant amount of spam that hit our inboxes every week prior to this change was a problem. To thrive in this new LinkedIn sales game you need to focus on making every LinkedIn connection request count through better targeting, more thoughtful messaging, and a more enticing personal brand.
We’ve all heard the age-old expression “sales is a numbers game.” Now, I’m not one to disagree with such prophetic statements. Also, we here at Tangoo are quite aligned with this notion. Sales is a numbers game. Apart from knowing how to actually “sell” - that is, getting a signed check in hand from a new customer - sales are very much about knowing your conversion rates at every step of the sales process.
How many conversations do you need to have to generate meetings, how many meetings need to be had to generate an opportunity, and how many opportunities lead to sales being closed? Then you adjust your volume to match your sales quotas. Luckily, we’ve had LinkedIn and up until now, we’ve been gifted with an unlimited amount of reach outs to hit the numbers we need to hit our quotas.
For those that are using LinkedIn for the above and have been utilizing automation to reach out at large volumes, this change by LinkedIn has forced a substantial shift in strategy. Below are 3 major changes you can make to your LinkedIn strategy to mitigate the changes made in reaching out to the volume:
(BTW For those in the B2B space that are not using LinkedIn to spark conversations, build relationships, and generate opportunities - what are you waiting for?!)
1. Find the right people: quality over quantity
As the volume of reach outs has been capped, It’s now more crucial than ever to focus these limited new connection requests on the right people.
Here’s what you’ll need to ensure you reach them:
Buyer personas
If you have yet to develop buyer personas for your company, make this a top priority. Buyer personas (aka customer avatars) tell you everything you need to know about your target audiences. From demographic info to behavioral tendencies, buyer personas paint a picture of who your ideal customer is, what their motivations are, what their major challenges and pain points are, and other relevant information that will help you sell better.
Pro tip: create buyer personas for referral partners too, and use LinkedIn to build referral partner relationships.
Sales Navigator
Use Sales Navigator to target people who match your buyer personas. If you haven’t used Sales Navigator in the past, you’re in luck. LinkedIn will give you the first month free!
We can’t stress enough how important Sales Navigator is. Yes, it’s a little on the pricey side, but it’s a worthwhile expense. There is no other platform that offers the ability to reach out to targeted business professionals quite like it.
2. Differentiate
Many LinkedIn members are using their profile as an online resume, which is a good idea... if you’re looking for a job. However, If you own a company, or work for a company under a sales capacity, your profile should be a sales tool - not to flex about the fact that you’re a CEO/founder/VP/etc.
Use the elements of your LinkedIn profile to your advantage. As an example, your title should be used to communicate what you do, who you help, and the major benefit you provide. Your banner image is a valuable piece of real estate you can use to communicate your major services or value proposition.
We could go on about this for a while, but it would be its own post. Feel free to reach out if you’d like to discuss your profile with us!
3. Focus on relationship building
The right approach to leveraging LinkedIn to help you sell is not about brute force sales tactics. It’s not about shoving products and services in the faces of your leads upon your first interactions. You will get few results that way. Nobody likes unsolicited sales pitches. Instead, focus on genuinely getting to know your connections and building meaningful, lasting business relationships. Be interested in them as people. Find common ground to connect over. Understand what they do, their ambitions, and their challenges.
When you do this, the doors to meaningful conversations open up and opportunities will present themselves to you much more organically. That way, the trust is there, and if you have a solution that fits their needs the odds of you generating a sale go through the roof.
LinkedIn is doing what it can to protect the integrity of its platform. We understand that the recent changes have created obstacles for those of us who have been leveraging it for sales. But follow the above advice, and you’ll see that it is still the best platform to generate meaningful connections, which will turn into meaningful business opportunities.