Webinar YouLynq.me #1 - The Learnings

Last week we had a Webinar organized by YouLynq.me at ProSpex with Owner Maxim Spek to talk about today's challenges and give each other tips and tricks on how to get back in business. In this article, I will give a summary of the learnings. 

It was an interactive webinar and there was an opportunity for all 20 participants to talk to each other and aks each other questions. We were a mix of freelancers, executives, sales & marketing professionals and consultancy companies with a different background in innovation, marketing, finance and IT.

Thanks a lot to all participants and especially to Maxim Spek, for inspiring the Webinar and sharing great learnings about social selling. ??

Thanks to Kevin Hesseling for co-writing this article with me. ??

Here are our main learnings.

The current situation.

What is the general impact of the Corona crises? What we see is of course that especially some larger corporates are dealing with big challenges. The impact we see is that every company is adjusting to this new situation. We also see that some companies or sectors are growing. For example, the video conference tooling business or some app businesses. On the other hand, the advertising business is hurt and this affects platforms as well. So we all have to find our way in this new situation where there will be a new balance. 

It essential to look in the mirror and ask yourself what kind of impact did you make before the crisis and what kind of impact can you make right now. It is not the strongest of the species that survives but the most adaptable to change.

Many clients and also prospects say that they are afraid and they want to postpone some actions. Try to picture yourself a situation after Corona. How can you make the current situation less bad? What’s going to be worse? An empty lead funnel and a crisis or a filled lead funnel and a crisis? 

In terms of organizational size and agility, we see that sole entrepreneurs and highly flexible companies are currently more likely to adapt fast. This is an advantage that we should recognize and use to our benefit. 

Practical tips.

Improve your website and LinkedIn profile. This is the time to reflect and improve. Take some time to review the way you present yourself. We have to adapt to the new situation and also we have to stand out. How can you distinguish your proposition and presentation from others? Your LinkedIn profile is as important as your website and maybe even more. We see that a lot of people have an outdated LinkedIn profile. If you contact your prospects via LinkedIn, your profile is the first impression of you and your company. 

Interact on LinkedIn to increase your visibility. A lot of interaction is happening on LinkedIn right now and this looks a little bit lame. But this is your time to shine. Everybody is online and you can reach them now more easily than ever before. Don’t be shy and hold on because you think it’s not cool to work hard and use the opportunity. Join LinkedIn and use it to your benefit. If you don’t others will do it and they will steal your customers. Write an article, share a post, comment on others and show that you are interested in the innovation in your field and that you even take the lead. 

This is the time to grow and strengthen your network. When you thought that interacting on the platform via posts and likes was time-consuming, we have to disappoint you. It is as important to connect with new people and even more important is to take care of your network. Invite new people in a personal and creative way, keep your promises and follow in a structured way. This asks for some discipline, time effort (which most of us have now) and some smart usage of tooling. See below ??

Strategic tips.

Review your proposition and adapt. Think about how you can help your clients by making their troubles less bad in this crisis. To do so you might need to change your proposition. Analyse the situation and ask yourself how can I adapt to this new situation.

Understand your clients’ challenges and be relevant. To make the right connection with your future clients the best strategy is to build a relationship first. You can do this by sharing knowledge to show that you understand their business and their challenges. The first step is to give, the second step is to give, the third step is to give… until your relationship is strong enough to be rewarded, the last step is to make the deal. 

Address and support your clients in a proactive way. You have to work twice as much to get the same result. Offer your clients the help they need. You can even do this without invoicing them immediately. Help them on a no cure, no pay basis for the first part of your service. This way you will strengthen your relationship with and you will stay top of mind. It will take a lot of effort, but imagine yourself without any clients in a few months. That’s a bigger problem! Think about the future and keep your pipeline filled. 

Tooling tips.

Online meeting tools. Hardware: Use a headset with noise-cancelling. The quality of your headset is just as important as the speed of your internet connection. If you have poor audio quality, it can negatively affect your calls productivity and your team's communication. There's nothing so annoying as people saying they can’t hear you. Software: Use high-quality online communication software, for example, Google meet or Zoom. These platforms deliver a perfect video and audio quality and offer several other options, for example, the possibility to send text messages or share your screen. Another advantage of a high-quality software tool is the big amount of visitors that are allowed in a conversation.

Lead generation tools. More than ever it’s important to follow up on your leads and keep track of your CRM. The right CRM system enables you to deal with enormous amounts of traffic, which will lead to more sales and higher conversion rates. A high-quality CRM system will help in finding the right customers your business needs. Some well-known examples are Slack, Pipedrive, Trello and Excel.

Platforms to Find interns. Need a hand with your work? Think about hiring interns and don’t lose any time to specific activities. If you have a good one, it could be very relevant and it is also cost-efficient. To find an intern within your brand you can visit websites like https://atsync.nl/ or https://www.integrand.nl/.

Sylvester ended:

“Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place, and I don’t care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward; how much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done! Now, if you know what you’re worth, then go out and get what you’re worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain’t where you wanna be because of him, or her, or Corona. Cowards do that and that ain’t you. You’re better than that!”

Thank you all again for your participation and great learnings! Hope to see you at YouLynq.me Webinar #2 next Thursday the 16th of April at 16h00 where we will give you more technical and functional details about how to master this challenge.