Social Selling Series: LinkedIn

Social selling, that buzz word that gets thrown around by people posting videos where you literally feel like they're yelling in your face. No wonder most sales people can't figure out what "social selling" really is, how it's different from marketing, or even where to start. We're not on the marketing team, we're not SEO experts and we can't justify spending all day on SM platforms when our bosses definitely haven't bought into the idea of bringing in sales through social media. I get it, I have been there, I had that boss a couple times... there are effective ways to start bringing in leads and customers through social media. 

I started doing this effectively about four years ago on LinkedIn. There was definitely some trial and error in the beginning, then came an understanding of what needed to be done. Over the last year I've started using Instagram and Facebook to generate leads as well. Social engagement is a great way gage who is interested in your products. Today we’ll focus on how I use LinkedIn to connect with the right people in a more effective way than I can over the phone or through email.

1.) Know your Decision Maker (DM): Who is yours? We’ve discussed this before. I have two, one is the VP or C level with sales teams of 10-15 people, when I sell to businesses. The other is Becca, my go getter 28 yr old entrepreneur who is still working a full time job, she’s who I’m selling to on other social media platforms. Today we’re focusing on my business DM’s.

2.) Make a list of target businesses. You can do this quickly using Sales Navigator, but for those of you who don’t have an extra $1000 in your budget this is how I did it. I looked for lists of startups with series B funding in target cities, mostly just google searching. Some of the cities I started with were San Francisco, LA, San Diego, Austin, Nashville, Charlotte, New York and Boston.

3.) Once I had those lists I searched for those companies on LinkedIn and connected with their sales leads. I did not try to sell them right away. I thanked them for connecting and learned about their products. This is how you can start to build relationships on social. After I learned about their product I started asking questions about their sales training programs. My ideal customer doesn’t have a sales trainer or consultant working with their team.

4.) I ask for a 30 minute call for a demo. Sales managers are busy, they appreciate skipping intro calls most of the time. This works about 50% of the time for me and enables me to be able to get to a sale quicker. Most of our LinkedIn inboxes are not flooded like our email inboxes.

5) I post my blog as a LinkedIn article. This is an easy way for people to research Perfrm and me. I find that this helps a lot with being able to skip the intro call to a demo.

This is the first in a series all about social selling. Next week we’ll tackle Instagram and then a three part on Facebook. Please leave your suggestions and comments below!