Linkedin Sales Guide: How to sell using Linkedin & Sales Navigator

?? Linkedin is one of the most powerful, and misused sales platforms available. In this article I'm going to share the tactics I've learned that achieve measurable results in meetings booked, page growth, deals started / closed and brand awareness, whilst also sharing some common mistakes I've seen people make.

?? This article will help you get the most out of Linkedin and avoid you wasting your time, effort and money on the platform.

The Post-Connection Message Funnel

This is the most important section of this article. This is how you actually sell high value ticket products and services to decision makers on Linkedin.

Here is the most optimized lead generation funnel I have uncovered using Linkedin to book meetings and close deals.

Step 1, using Linkedin sales navigator, navigate to the lead tab.

Here, you want to add in filters that segment out your target customer avatar. Id suggest using industry, location, and seniority, and perhaps add a keyword in the search bar as well for users with a certain topic in their profile.

Then, simply max out your connections each week. Linkedin gives you approximately 100 connection requests per week.

The most common mistake is using Inmail messages / pre-connection messages. The reply rate on these are terrible, and seem spammy and not organic.

What you want to do, is wait for them to accept your connection, making them somewhat warm, and then sending each of your targeted new connections each week an organic regular message.

To be clear,

Regular Organic Messages = Good

Inmail / Pre-connection Messages = Bad

Approximately 50% of your connection requests will accept. Meaning 50 new connections. A good message will get around a 50% reply rate, meaning 25 new targeted conversations per week at a minimum.

The key to the message is to show how replying will bring them value, and make it feel like you aren't just trying to get their money and sell.

Eg:

"Hey name, Im y name from x Company. What you are doing looks really interesting to us and our clients. Would love to jump on a call to build the relationship here"

Rather than

"Hey Name, I'm y name from x Company. We help clients scale their revenue 20x in the first 30 days. 8/10 people that work with us just like you say that they have achieved measurable results. Would you like to hear more?"

Unfortunately, the second example is far more common, and receives positive replies very rarely.

Get them on the call first. And then look for opportunities.

How to leverage Linkedin's Job Posting Feature to Grow

Linkedin is one of, if not the most powerful job advertising platform for corporate roles in the world. To make it even better, it also helps you market your company and grow your brand. Here's how:

At Hashlock, we are always scouting the industry for talent, even when we don't need it yet, so we have it ready when we do. However we have noticed that when we have paid job postings, our follower count on our company page grows day to day.

Thats right. Paid Linkedin Job Posts helps to grow your company page, because your company gets marketed to the rest of the industry in return for your ad spend, and the listing includes a "follow page" CTA button.

It also simply helps you get in front of more eyes.

How to always have easy organic content to post

We at Hashlock get asked all the time, how do you have so much content to post? Who manages your page?

The answer is, it is actually very easy to manage and have organic content to post multiple times a week. There are two low hanging fruit categories to leverage.

1 Documenting Events

2 Celebrating your Clients / Contacts

The first is quite common, but many people miss it. Posting about events, or even meetups, get great engagement on Linkedin, because other attendees, or people who know of the event / people involved, often interact with it. It also provides you with easy photo ideas, because you simply post photos or videos you take at the event.

The second is another killer. Resharing your client's / contact's posts about their successes subtly shows the industry the great people you work with, but also gives people an incentive to work with you, because they will likely get posted about!

If you go to events or in person meetups once or twice a month, and have a good network of connections and clients, you should rarely run out of things to post and promote.

We at Hashlock usually struggle to find enough time to post all of these things!

Documenting the growth of your company and your clients, focusing on your authority, is key.

Creator Mode and Page Optimization

This is extremely fundamental, but I rarely see people do it right. Simply optimizing your personal and company pages is the most high leverage activity you can do on Linkedin, because it will result in more output from all of your other activity on the platform.

A few simple ones that are often missed;

1. Creator Mode. Almost everyone should switch their personal account to creator mode. This makes your account display that you have "Followers", rather than "Connections", and prompts people to follow you. Also, by default you will cap out at "More than 500 connections" until you turn on creator mode, in which case you can display thousands of followers. It also gives you far better page analytics.
2. Using all features to their fullest. This goes without saying, but you should fill up your optional page sections like the recommendations section, Featured, Skills, Interests. And your likewise for your Company Page.

This leads me into my next tip.

Linkedin Newsletters are Currently Overpowered

As you can see, by both myself and Hashlock having their own Linkedin Newsletter, this feature is an absolute game changer, and the return on time spent is insane. Here is why.

1. Linkedin Newsletters are indexed on Google. Meaning, that your content can gain traffic from people searching for your subject online.
2. Easy Initial Followers. When you post the first edition of any newsletter, Linkedin will invite all your connections or page followers to subscribe to the Newsletter. You will get anywhere between 10-50% of your connections / followers to subscribe to your new Newsletter within days.
3. Linkedin promotes you passively. All of our newsletters slowly gain followers daily, even when we post less, because Linkedin is pushing this feature as an area of growth for them. Users often get reccomended new newsletters to subscribe to, meaning your name and brand is getting promoted constantly by Linkedin for free, to people outside of your network.
4. Notifications. When you post a newsletter, it sends a mobile notification and email to everyone who subscribes. This results in Newsletters gaining 100s of opens within minutes of posting, and is one of, if not the best type of post on Linkedin to get engagement.
5. An additional asset. This is a newsletter you own. Yes you rely on the linkedin platform, but as long as it exists, you now have another asset to reach and expand your audience.

To Wrap Up

In summary, Linkedin is the most powerful commerce and sales hub on the internet, if used correctly. Unfortunately, so many people think that a cheesy, un-thought out approach will cut it. Using a good funnel, and taking advantage of Linkedin's best features, will result in it being a positive ROI platform for the time you spend.