How I Helped a Healthcare Startup Grow 1200% in 90?days

When this B2B healthcare startup reached out to me at 11:15 pm on a Friday night, I was having a glass of a California red blend over dinner at Louis Bossi’s. Although an unusual time for an inbound lead, me being me, I replied in less than 15 minutes. 

Within 72 hours I was servicing them in B2B growth via LinkedIn. If you’re not aware, here’s a jaw-dropping LINK between the B2B sphere and LinkedIn: 

LinkedIn generates more than 85% of all B2B social media leads. 

Meaning if you’re in the B2B space, you can generate inbound leads on this platform, ones that can compound and produce upwards of six figures (or more).

Here’s the kicker: 

Inbound lead generation is a fine art; one that many strive to master, but only few succeed at mastering. 

Why? It’s much easier to plow into someone’s messages, asking/demanding them to give you their time (their most precious resource) for “a quick chat” than it is to create consistent, well-designed content. 

But although it may be easier, it's far less effective.

The beauty of inbound lead generation is that it's proof that the people/businesses you can serve are giving your their time, attention and perceive you as valuable, before ever even speaking to you on the phone or meeting you in-person. 

You won’t have to ask for a prospect’s time, they will ask for yours. 

Below are the 5 core elements I used to help this startup do the following:

• Qualitatively grow their B2B network by 1200% in 90 days
• Generate 10–15 inbound leads a month with a > 60% conversion rate
• Produce a ridiculously positive ROI (not to mention the priceless relationships they built along the way).

I want those of you reading this article in the B2B space to apply some of these core elements to gain momentum for your business. 

Step 1 — Define Your Ideal Audience

It’s impossible to create valuable, compelling, converting content for yourself if you do not know and thoroughly understand who you serve, how you serve them and what you do to differentiate (in regards to products, or services). 

So ask yourself these tough questions:

• Who do you serve?
• How do you serve them?
• What are you doing to serve them better ?

Step 2 — Create Content to Attract Your Audience

You’re setting yourself up for disaster if you dramatically increase your brand visibility (via video, podcasts, and written copy) without optimizing your profile and content to serve your ideal target audience.

Before you experience the bloom of a rose, you must prepare the soil. The soil in this case is market research. Before anything grows, it must be nurtured.

Because the ideal target audience of my client was composed of independent pharmacies, the content I created had to be designed to serve independent pharmacies. Whatever I wrote had to be of value to the decision makers of independent pharmacies, by saving them time, energy or money.

While doing market research to outline your content strategy, ask yourself:

• What can you write about that can save your ideal target audience time?
• What can you write about that can save your idea target audience money?
• How can you write your content differently (spice it up) so that they return for more?

Step 3 — Connect With Your Ideal B2B Audience

For this particular startup, I targeted independent pharmacies in the U.S. and began to reach out to decision makers in this sector via a customized connection request. YES, looking at a profile and learning who someone is, and what you may have in common with them, and how you [ in this particular case my client’s business] can be of value to them will “make” or “break” a connection request acceptance. 

Another great way to connect with your ideal audience is to create a mix of the following types of content:

1. Articles
2. Video content
3. Written feed posts

Step 4— Engage with Your Ideal Audience

In the world of LinkedIn and business, as in life in general, it’s hard to receive anything without giving first. You must give and you must engage if you want to grow. One of my LinkedIn cohorts said it best when they said, “Engagement begets engagement.” I would recommend dedicating 1 hour a day engaging with your ideal prospects. 

p.s. ENGAGING DOES NOT MEAN SELLING. Stop going into people’s DM’s asking them to buy your product or service, without giving them any semblance of a value-add. 

Engage by liking posts and commenting on feed posts and articles with something thoughtful. This will compel your idea audience to read your comment (potentially reply to it), and visit your profile (where they should ideally find a bio and articles that pique their interest).

Step 5 — Be Consistent!

People create content for 1 week, and then quit, with claims that it did nothing. Content creation is ceaseless. It takes TIME, ENERGY and COMMITMENT. It takes tweaking. I’m always trying new things, analyzing what works and what doesn’t.

Make Time, Not Excuses

I MAKE time to help my community, not excuses. I will forfeit sleep if I need to, just to show up for my community.  

The time to commit to your growth is now. 

Will you?