Here are some of the stats that LinkedIn shared about social selling:
Social selling leaders create 45% more sales opportunities.
- Social selling leaders are 51% more likely to hit quota.
- 78% of social sellers outsell peers who don’t use social media.
- T
hose are some nice numbers, published a few years ago, but the means for achieving them are changing every month. Let’s see how to recreate this success and use LinkedIn for sales in 2021.
Optimize your LinkedIn Profile
Th
e beauty of this task is that it can be finished in a couple of hours. Grab a cup of coffee and open your profile page, and you’ll have a powerful personal sales asset in no time.
There is a high chance that your prospects will look you up if they are interested in what you are selling. When they do, your profile should give off a professional impression of you and your company.
Your headline
LinkedIn automatically populates your headline with your current job title. To stand out, change this tagline to a value proposition that captures your audience’s attention. Get creative with the 120 characters you have. It should showcase what you bring to the table.
The new headline highlights “what’s in it for you”, a benefit for the viewer. Let’s be honest, people much rather connect with someone who can do something for them.
Your summary
Use this space to give people a window into who you are and why you do what you do. In order to optimize this part for sales, mention the company you work for in a good light. See it as a short, but subtle, sales pitch for your company. Again, avoid being boring and generic, as this is your chance at a great (and authentic) first impression.
Your projects & media
LinkedIn allows you to showcase projects that you have worked on. Use this feature for sales too. Include a sales deck or a short case study - any documents you use while demoing your solutions.
Add Every Customer You Close to Your LinkedIn Network
Whenever you close a customer, you should invite them to join your network. There are various reasons for doing this. First, if you have your customers on LinkedIn, it will be a lot easier to ask someone for that quality recommendation we mentioned earlier. However, even more important is that you will be able to find the right person for a referral to another prospect. All you have to do is visit the prospect’s LinkedIn profile and see if any of your current customers are a shared connection. Finally, it is also a way to keep in touch and maintain a relationship with this customer.
If you find it awkward to directly send a LinkedIn request, ask them in person (or over the phone) with a simple “Can I send you a LinkedIn invitation?” or “Would you like to connect on LinkedIn?”. Most people will be receptive to this type of request. If you do not have an in-person opportunity, make sure to always customize your LinkedIn request. Never send an invitation with the standard text, instead explain why you want to connect with them.
Join and Participate in LinkedIn Groups
LinkedIn groups often have a bad reputation because people post a lot of content that’s too sales-y and don’t put in the time to engage with the community, or people throw in a link to their article or job ad and run away.
But guess what?
This gives you a great opportunity to stand out and establish yourself as an authority expert within the group. Obviously, this will be more time-consuming, as you have to actually create original and valuable content.
LinkedIn groups allow you to reach a targeted audience of industry professionals and establish authentic relationships with these people.
An important note: the more people are in a group, some lower quality content might slip through. And it can be hard for you to have your voice be heard among the group. So, aim for a mix of high-quality content and an active community based around your niche.
Sometimes, simply having your LinkedIn groups and interests listed at the end of your profile be a good social signal to your prospects of what you’re interested in.
In LinkedIn groups, you’ll usually find fellow authority experts and influencers.
So, once you join a group, you should start:
Creating and posting content.
- Connecting with relevant people.
- Engaging prospects and potential LinkedIn sales leads.
- Go omnichannel
Connect with y
our leads on LinkedIn, then send them a personal email.
It might seem a bit complicated, but it can be incredibly powerful as far as outreach is concerned.
After your profile is looking good, you’ve added your customers to the network and joined groups where you mine leads, go to My network page > Connections and click on the “Manage synced and imported contacts”. In the “Advanced Actions” section on the right, you’ll see an option to export your connections. This will allow you to get their email addresses (if they are available), and you can start with your email campaign, and together with the LinkedIn outreach you’ll be doing, it won’t be possible to go by unnoticed.
Use LinkedIn Sales Navigator (Paid)
If you want to
take it a step further, you can get a premium LinkedIn account with access to the LinkedIn Sales Navigator. This tool has many useful features to step up your sales game:
An advanced algorithm to find the prospects best aligned with what you have to offer.
- Sales insights from the sales navigator to ensure that you have the best information as a decision-maker.
- Relationship-building tools, allowing you to continually move closer to the final goal of making a sale.
- Overall, this t
ool helps you recognize opportunities, as well as capture the right people at the right time. The Sales Navigator starts at $79.99/month, but LinkedIn does offer a 30-day free trial to get you started.
If you aren’t using LinkedIn yet for sales prospecting, you are missing out on a huge opportunity. Many people forget that your existing network is a great place to grow your business.