I absolutely love the personal relationship building aspect of sales. Based on building these personal business relationships, I discovered the secret power behind LinkedIn.

 

It’s the personal connection that makes the difference

 

 

Using the personal connection philosophy, I incorporate what I call the 5 C’s into my daily routine. These are Cleverly Capture, Converse, Collaborate, Connect and Convert. This allows me to start connecting with key influencers and decision makers--the same people who often times ignore my countless voice mail and email messages. Yes, I still use the phone and I still leverage email; however, the calls and emails take on a whole new meaning. These have now become warm calls based upon the relationships built with my LinkedIn connections. Within the business community, LinkedIn has become my new best friend.

 


Life is challenging in itself. I enjoy embracing personal and business challenges. Fast forward with me to late 2013. After spending almost 20 years of my sales career with the same company I decided it was time for a change. I had to let go of the fear and embrace the challenge. This opportunity was a net new sales position within the Corporate Major Account team for a global office technology manufacturer. The fact that I had a zero account base didn’t bother me as I knew LinkedIn was my best business friend.

 

During my first 90 days I was building my relationship funnel. I strongly believe in order to have a healthy sales funnel you have to engage and commit to building up your relationship funnel. From my relationship funnel, I soon started to convert these relationships into net new meetings. These net new meetings took on an entirely different meaning as I already had developed the personal connection on LinkedIn.

 

Hold on because this is where it gets crazy… Ready? Are you sitting down? I leveraged these LinkedIn relationships to bring in over $600,000 of net new business in conjunction with $1,250,000 in sales revenue in calendar year 2014! Yes, this is correct! 50% of my sales revenue I directly attribute to how I leveraged LinkedIn. LinkedIn became the core of my prospecting strategy and success.

 

Build relationships and the sales will come. Learn more from "The Funnel"

 

LinkedIn offers more context into not only what we can share about our professional accolades, but also learn about new opportunities, companies, and the people we want to be connected with. LinkedIn provides sales professionals the tools to have their own personal website to promote their personal brand and share their professional story.


The shift in the buying process has created the change


Over the past 10-12 years, we have seen a dramatic transformation in the buyer’s journey. More dramatic changes have occurred in recent years. Buyers are in control of when and how they access information during the sales process.

 

According to Sales Benchmark index, “Today, buyers are 69% of the way through their journey before they contact a salesperson.”

 

If the executive buyer is 69% of the way through their journey before they contact a salesperson, then as sales professionals we must place and position ourselves in the world they are now living in. Adapting to social selling platforms such as LinkedIn allow sales professionals to gain the attention of the new buyer in a competitive market. Social selling is the method in which sales people identify prospects, nurture them, share relevant information and generate a sales pipeline. This pipeline I like to refer to as the relationship funnel.

 

According to Forrester, “100% of B2B decision-makers are on social media for business purposes.”

 

Traditional prospecting methods of cold-calling, email and telephone have become highly ineffective. According to the Harvard Business Review, “90% of decision makers never answer a cold-call.” These methods have become turn-offs for potential buyers and executives. Executives today are most likely to engage with salespeople who understand their role, company and industry.

 

Effective use of the LinkedIn platform allows a salesperson to build out their professional image, tell their story and generate awareness in the highly competitive sales environment. In many cases LinkedIn is still being used as a resume showcase or as a self-promotion site to tout sales accolades. Why is this? In my opinion, it all starts with getting out of our comfort zone to learn new methods of engaging with business professionals. Change is difficult especially for adults. As the executive buyer is changing so should we as salespeople.

 

Your LinkedIn page is your professional profile to the business world. Are you seen as a subject matter expert? How are you positioning yourself as a thought leader? You are creating your personal brand via what you promote within LinkedIn. LinkedIn has become the largest use of a database in the world.

 

How are you promoting your professional image with your LinkedIn profile?

 

It all starts with your professional headline. This is not the ideal position for your job title. Along with your name, your professional headline travels with you everywhere you go on LinkedIn. Every comment, every published post and every group discussion your headline follows you. You have seconds to bring someone in who in turn will spend the time to canvass your LinkedIn page. With 120 precious words you have to promote value, create your call to action and compel the visitor to continue reading your profile.

 

How are you storytelling with your LinkedIn profile?

 

After drawing executives in with your headline, pay close attention to the summary section. In 2000 words or less this is your story. A great read is Simon Sinek's Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action. I use the summary section as my why. Why would someone do business with you? What do they get when they engage with you? What makes you who you are? This is your personal story-telling time. Draw in your visitor by sharing with them what they can expect by engaging with you along with your unique promise of value. Folks, this the game-changer section. “People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it. And what you do simply proves what you believe”, Simon Sinek

 

How are you generating awareness and attracting executives to your LinkedIn profile?

 

According to recent studies by Salesforce.com, 73% of sales people who use social selling outperformed their peers. There is 66% greater quota attainment for sales reps using social selling.

 

With a completely optimized LinkedIn profile you are now ready to nurture, grow and build those relationships.

 

Here are few steps to incorporate to generate awareness:

 

1. Develop relevant content and ideas to share
2. Share this content with your social network to help start conversations
3. Look at who has been reviewing your profile
4. Convert these people to 1st level connections
5. Review your content engagement section for comments to your posts
6. Mine your connections by reviewing 2nd level connections
7. Block out time to make this a daily habit

 

I encourage you to start having conversations with your LinkedIn connections. LinkedIn is about building relationships. Be authentic, add value, listen, build trust and be yourself.

 

Salespeople today must position themselves to be viewed as go-to resources for thought leadership and industry news. Incorporating LinkedIn, I firmly believe you will have less competition for the executive buyer’s attention, you will create a positive personal brand image, you will position yourself as a subject matter expert but most importantly you will consistently keep the sales funnel full of prospects.

 

This is a great time to be in sales! Be Social. Build relationships and watch what happens. To your future success!

 

If you enjoyed this post lets connect and start a conversation. You can send me a personalized invitation through my LinkedIn profile

 

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Check out some of my other posts on LinkedIn Publisher and on SlideShare

 

I enjoy sharing my LinkedIn stories. LinkedIn was my “game-changer” in the highly competitive copier world. I transform and coach copier sales professionals to grow net new business by helping them tell their story and communicate on LinkedIn. My commitment is to help independent office technology dealers thrive in a changing marketplace.

 

You can follow me on LinkedIn, Twitter, www.dealermarketing.net/what-we-do/linkedin and www.dealermarketing.net