How LinkedIn Profiles Can Make or Break Complex Sales

When a customer begins the buying journey for a complex sale, they usually want to learn about their sales representative. This is true for both big-ticket consumer purchases as well as B2B products and services.

One of the first places they are likely to look is LinkedIn. What will they find?

Most salespeople publish egotistical nonsense on LinkedIn. The content reads like a resume intended to show how great a salesperson they are. Fair enough, many people use LinkedIn that way.

But think about this content from a potential buyer’s perspective: Are you likely to be impressed or encouraged to learn that your assigned salesperson seems to be looking for a new job? Probably not.

I frequently see salespeople feature accomplishments like “exceeded quota for seven quarters” and personal descriptions like “hard-driving sales executive.” Personally, I’m intimidated if I look at my salesperson’s LinkedIn and learn that they bring in tons of sales. It makes me think I’ll be taken advantage of.

It’s okay to discreetly mention membership in a “Chairman’s Club.” Better yet, you can simply list successively senior job titles. But the key to succeeding in sales on LinkedIn is to focus on buyers, not the next employer.

What works much better is when salespeople showcase who they are as an individual and how they help buyers. An ideal bio shows they are knowledgeable about the industry and helpful to people trying to learn more about it. Buyers want to work with an expert! And as I will detail in chapter 12, I suggest writing a LinkedIn profile in the first person.

Instead of a typical salesperson LinkedIn profile:

Experienced Sales Director with a demonstrated history of exceeding sales quotas with B2B technology and service providers targeting the auto industry.

Show how you help buyers instead:

I work with auto industry executives to help them understand how to best apply complex technology to grow their businesses.

This kind of simple change can help turn buyers into fans. Imagine how powerful it will be when all your salespeople make this shift.

Speaking of which, consider this: you should think of everyone on your team as contributing to sales. Back in the day, only people in the sales department worked with potential customers. Most big companies still do it this way. However, with the popularity of instant engagement via social networking, we’re all in sales now.

If you work at a big company and you’re on LinkedIn or another social network, you can instantly engage with potential buyers. Your job title matters much less than your demonstrated expertise.

If you’re an accountant at a technology company and somebody you follow on LinkedIn happens to mention that they are researching a technology like the one your company makes, bingo! You can point the person to a video on your company’s YouTube channel.

Even though you’re not formally in the sales department, you can still drive your contacts into the buying process and improve your business’s bottom line.

If you run a small company, you’re in sales.

If you’re a doctor or lawyer or accountant, you’re in sales.

And entrepreneurs are in sales too, of course. Everybody who lives by their wits by going independent or starting something new should always have their sales hat on.

You should educate and inform instead of interrupting and selling. I’m not talking about spamming your network.

The new world is about being helpful to anyone trying to learn, no matter how your business card describes your role in your organization.

This article is an excerpt from the new 9th edition of The New Rules of Marketing & PR.