Newsletter #18: 5 Stages That’ll Increase the Conversion of your Sales on LinkedIn

Over the past two years, substantially more people have turned to LinkedIn to sell their products and services. Like traditional sales, social selling is also based on trust and credibility.

?And, in many cases, this is where it goes wrong.

We tend to forget that many buying decisions are made based on referrals, peer network information and credibility. The right timing, combined with the right message and a relevant hook will make your outreach 4x more successful.

Why do many reps struggle? Because they lack relevant insights on who to connect, which challenges to address and how to convert to an initial meeting.

Implement these 5 stages in your Social Selling process to generate more leads, build more credibility and in the end increase conversion.

1. Identify the right People

What do almost all sales reps have in common? They want to speak and sell to the executive (as a decision maker) as soon as possible. Two years of pandemics have made many "buyers" (even) more reluctant to answer phone calls or messages from sales reps. So it might be wiser to identify other people who can play a role in the buying process.

We can identify:

·?????“decision makers” – for example the CIO who needs to sign the deal in the end, but often is not involved in the earlier stages of the buying process

·?????“influencers” – for example the IT Manager whose life is made a lot easier by implementing your solutions

·?????“champions” – for example someone you know who works at the company and can provide you with a lot of insights / introductions

·?????“mirrors” – people who have a lot in common with you, for example the people working as sales reps(*)

In Sales Navigator you can create a Lead List and save all the above as possible Leads, so you will be notified whenever they publish content on LinkedIn.

?(*) Fact, 90% of sales people accept invites from other sales people! So this could be an awesome opportunity to start engaging with employees at your target companies.

2. Hear, hear: Social Listening

You probably recognize it. You're finally sitting down for dinner and get a call from a telemarketer with an offer you can't refuse. Irritating, because often irrelevant and badly timed.

Social Listening on LinkedIn turns you from a bad telemarketer to a trusted advisor. Knowing what is going on, knowing what challenges your customers experience, what successes they celebrate, makes your first contact so much more effective.

How to use LinkedIn for Social Listening(*)? There are various ways:

?·?????In Sales Navigator you can check for alerts that provide you with relevant information that can be used as hooks to sparkle a conversation.

·?????On an individual level, if you are already connected with decision makers, ring the Bell on their Profile to get notified about all their new updates

·?????Not connected yet? Don’t worry! Visit their profile, find and click the Follow button to make the bell appear. So now, you will receive a notification of non-connections publishing content

·?????Follow the Company Pages of your potential customers and look for the right content to engage with.

(*) Fact! Obviously Social Listening is not limited to LinkedIn. You can follow other individual or corporate social media channels (Twitter), keep an eye on the website (look for News or Publications) or subscribe to newsletters if there are any.

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3. Start Engaging

?Make no mistake. Sending a connection request to a prospect is often experienced as "cold calling" if it lacks relevance and credibility. Research shows that acceptance rates are higher when the prospect has seen your name, posts or comments before.

?Once you have identified relevant posts as possible conversation starters it is worthwhile to engage first before a 1-on-1 approach. Preferably do that by commenting below the post, rather than just 'liking' it.

?What makes a comment stand out in the feed? For sure we want to avoid short comments like “Great post” or “Interesting Read”, in stead:

?·?????Add value by providing additional insights on the topic mentioned in the original post. This emphasizes your own knowledge and expertise

·?????Summarize the most important take-aways from the post. This will make it easier for your network to understand the learnings of the post

·?????Give compliments by explaining why this post is insightful. This will send some respect and positive energy to the author

Another method of warming up the prospect is to have Marketing run an advertising campaign on your targets at the same time. In this way they also become familiar with the name of your company.

4. Outreach: The 1-on-1 approach

After the prospect has seen our name (or our company's name) several times, it is time to reach out via a message. InMails (in Sales Navigator) or invitations to connect are great ways to reach out.

Research (e.g. HubSpot, Just Connecting) shows that the first contact moment is not yet suitable for selling. In fact, using words like "introduction, meeting, video call, demo" lowers the acceptance rate by almost 90%.

So what do we mention in the first message?

Important to show that you have done your homework. Mention updates of your prospect or his company, refer to how they match with your knowledge. Also mention powerful commonalities, such as previous employers, interests, or shared contacts.

Introduce yourself with a Soft Pitch. Stay away from concrete solutions (we're not in a conversation yet) but describe your expertise and how your network can benefit from it.

Now for the most important part! We need content that offers instant added value to your prospects, packed with new relevant insights addressing their challenges. End your message with this call to action

?Do you want me to send it to you?

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5. Convert to your first Client Meeting

?If you send InMails like above only two things can happen. Either you receive a response or you hear nothing.

?In the latter case, rejections are part-of-the-job for every sales professional. Take your loss and aim for someone else within the same company. The average DMU in 2022 consists of 7.8 people (source: LinkedIn), so there are many roads leading to Rome.

If you do receive an answer, there are again two possibilities.

It may be that the prospect takes the trouble to respond but is not open to receiving your content (yet). Too bad, for now! But if you send your prospect a connection request based on this response, there is an 80% chance that he will accept. And from that moment on, there is an increased chance that he will see and read your valuable updates.

But what if your prospect is open to receiving your content? Again, several possibilities:

?·?????For the Sales Navigator users, try to send your content via a Smart Link to track the activity on the content. Has the prospect clicked on the link, downloaded it, forwarded it? All valuable information that may help you following up more successfully.

·?????Try to move the conversation of LinkedIn and into e-mail as research shows that an e-mail conversation leads to twice more conversions than a conversation that stays on the socials channels

Now, we are almost there.

Schedule a follow-up action one week after you have sent the content to check whether the prospect has had the time to read your content. If so, ask questions like this:

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“How are the insights provided in this content going to help you or your company with….?”

“Do you want me to send you more content addressing these topics?”

“For whom in your organization would this content also be valuable?”

If your client is providing you with answers this is the right moment to ask for a brief introduction via (for example) a video-meeting(*).

?Tip! Asking for a 15 minute videocall to get to know each other leads to 3 times more meetings than asking for more than 30 minutes (source: Calendly).

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Take away

Hectic and turbulent times require a lot of patience from sales reps to convince their customers to reward them with their time.?The temptation - under pressure of time, KPIs or an impatient manager - to go for the quick win is great. Yet everyone knows that without trust and credibility there is no sale.

So make sure you implement these 5 stages in your LinkedIn Social Selling process. Investing in building trust, sharing insights and subtly probing your prospect, rewards itself with higher conversions at the bottom.

More Inspiration Wanted?

Does your organization want to leverage the power and success of Virtual Selling? Please feel free to contact me via: ? +31 6 55 11 72 82 or ? [email protected]

Also we can have a *free* 15 minutes call to Boost LinkedIn within your company. Just schedule it yourself via the link below

Calendly Richard

About the author

Richard van der Blom (1977) is the founder of Just Connecting HUB, an international organisation of experts on LinkedIn & Virtual Selling. The HUB offers a wide range of LinkedIn related training and consultancy, like Marketing (Organic & Paid), Social Selling, Employer Branding and Recruitment.?

Since 2009 Richard has been working as an independent trainer and (strategic) consultant on all aspects of LinkedIn. He developed the B.E.S.T. Social Selling Method (Brand, Expand, Share and Transaction) for individuals and the S.T.E.P.S. strategy (Strategy, Tooling, Enablement, Pilot, Scale Success) for companies. Since 2015 Richard is a member of a European LinkedIn Think Tank, and often asked as a keynote speaker for LinkedIn clients to adopt new solutions and tooling.

Over the past years Richard has trained over and spoken to over 200.000 professionals at more than 750 companies worldwide. Amongst his clients are companies like Nestlé, InterSystems, NetApp, Deloitte, Banco Sabadell, Teva Pharmaceuticals, Mercedes, Adecco and many more. In 2020, triggered by the pandemic, Richard created a Virtual Selling Program (6 modules of 2 hours online training) that was implemented by companies like Nestlé, InterSystems and Pitcher and resulted in an instant and sustainable growth in conversion, leads and revenue.