5 Steps to Making LinkedIn Your Sales Weapon

While LinkedIn has become diluted by canned marketing materials and personal content, it’s still the most powerful tool in a sales person’s toolbelt.?

I've been a user for 18 of LinkedIn's 19 years, so I’ve had the benefit of time to build a contact-rich network. It has allowed me to be successful in my career.

Here's some examples of things the tool has allowed me to do:

• Identify when members of my network are looking for new jobs
• Learn who my customers/prospects are buying from, and what they’re buying
• Determine where my competitors are engaged and whether they're active in my accounts
• Recruit the best sales and technical people in the market
• Know when a compelling event is about to happen in my customer base or in the market
• Make entries into Fortune 10 companies by sharing original content

Any good tool needs to be sharpened to be effective. Similarly, your LinkedIn network needs to be nurtured on a daily basis.

Here are just a few things you can do today to maximize the value of LinkedIn:

1. Make sure you connect to your contacts at current customers and partners. This is the obvious first step, but if you haven’t focused on your network in a while, make sure you’ve reached out and connected with your current contacts. One habit I’ve created is to send LinkedIn connection request after every meeting. Do it right away to ensure you don’t forget.
2. Connect to other key contacts within your customers. You haven’t met your customer’s CFO? That’s OK. If you have an established relationship within IT, send a request to the finance lead. Personalize the invite (important step), letting them know what you do for their company and ask to add them to your network.
3. Follow your customers’ Company pages. You need to know what’s going on with their business - their Company pages will let you know. You’ll be notified about press releases, acquisitions, new products, and new executive hires. You’ll pick up information that might be an indicator of new needs that your products and services will fill. Being knowledgeable about your customers will allow you to bring value to your clients.
4. Connect to competitors. Few do this, but I’ve found great value in connecting with my competitors. You never know when you might want to work with them in the future - a connection will make it easier to recruit them or potentially seek employment at their companies. Additionally, you’ll be able to see their network…are they connected to your customers? If so, you might have a competitive risk to address.?
5. Share custom content that provides value to your audience. Too much of today’s LinkedIn content is shared content from the marketing department. A more effective way to attract an audience is to create your own content, or at a minimum provide some specific thoughts around the content you share. This will take some time, but you’ll get better results from the platform.

To be successful at sales, you need to put in the legwork. Investments in LinkedIn (time, not money) will provide a great ROI to your career.