Why 87% of LinkedIn Leads Do Not Convert

Have you been sold the dream - you just sign up to LinkedIn, invite people to connect with you and they will fall over themselves to knock at you door? Has that dream faded somewhat? Well here's how to turn that dream into a vision of success for your business sales.

In last month's Marketing Insider Group's blog, written by Kristina Jaramillo, a couple of startling statistics were quoted;

• 87% of LinkedIn leads do not convert (from LinkedIn)
• 18% of a salesperson's time, only, is spent actually interacting with prospects and customers and 27% of a salesperson's time is spent on-line looking for useful content to share with prospects and customers (according to SiriusDecisions)

You could just as easily replace the word 'salesperson' with 'business owner', although I'd suggest that figure of 18% would be then be even lower. What these figures suggest and in particular the 2nd point, is that most are not applying themselves to using LinkedIn in the right way and many are just not investing the time. These figures certainly back up my experiences, in working with hundreds of sales people and business owners, all of who wanted to use LinkedIn to generate more sales.

LinkedIn is not the silver bullet

Unlike the image at top of my post, LinkedIn is simply not a silver bullet, it will not convert leads for you - you have to do that and one of the ways to achieve this is that you must articulate value to those you intend to connect with!

Why should your prospect connect with you, why should they accept that Inmail you sent them? You see, they probably looked at your profile and couldn't see how engaging with you would improve their life in any way, shape or form?

According to Sirius Decisions, the global B2B research and advisory firm, for the past 4 years in a row, sales leaders have stated that the No1 reason why most sales people fail to achieve their targets is 'their inability to articulate value to their intended prospects'.

Take a look at your own LinkedIn profile, what do you see, particularly if you were to put yourself in the shoes of your intended prospect? Is your profile simply a CV of where you've worked, together with a list of your skills and the school you attended? What value is that to your prospect, if you invite them to connect? I'll tell you what value.....zero!!

If you want to engage with more of the right kind of business prospects and one day meet with them to show them how wonderful your services are, then you need to let them know the following.

Why

Why should they deal with you, why are you different to any other printer, solicitor, consultant, accountant who has already invited them to connect? In his Ted Talk video, Simon Sineck, explains how people are more likely to buy why you do what you do, rather than how you do it. Let me share an example, from my own experience.

I recently worked with a business owner who consultants and provides training in the area of disabled access for commercial buildings. As we worked on Ian's profile, I asked him why he did what he did? At first, he found it difficult to answer this question but after a few minutes he explained that actually, he should have been following a completely different career as the owner of a fish and chip shop.

Ian's why is that his family ran 3 fish and chip shop businesses in Yorkshire and when his father became ill and subsequently faced challenges accessing the shop, Ian and his family were placed in a position where they had to deal with changing many aspects of their business to accommodate his father's disability. In time, dealing with all the red-tape and challenges they faced, Ian recognised that other businesses must be going through the same kind of problems and it was at this moment that his decision to change career was formed. 

Given the choice of engaging with 3 possible disability access consultants, all of whom have the same skill sets, all are local to you and all are quoting similar fees, would you make that decision based on skill sets or would you choose to engage the consultant whose why was stronger?

Outcomes

Once a client has engaged your services and trust has been built, they often don't care or even want to know what you're going to do on a day-to-day basis or how you're going to do it, just as long as you deliver the outcomes you were hired to do in the first place.

The same applies with your LinkedIn profile. Very early on, you need to get across what will change if your prospect engages with your company. How will they benefit - what pain will you remove, what will they gain, specifically, by working with you? Make sure you demonstrate this on your profile and include case studies where possible.   

What, How and Where

Tell me what you do. Be clear and concise. If your profile's professional headline tells me your a 'Sales Director at XYZ Training Company' then I might have already made up my mind that I don't want to be sold any training, long before I even read your profile's Background/Summary section or watch that amazing video you've attached to your media section. This is why my profile's professional headline doesn't read 'Managing Director at Linked2Success' and instead says 'Helping Take The Fear & Uncertainty Out Of Using LinkedIn & Social Media Since 2009' Your prospect wants to know if what you do will be of value to them.

Explain also, how you deliver your services, so I understand. Do you provide training or coaching, consultancy or mentoring, office stationery or office planning, do you come to my business or do I have to travel to experience what you do? Are your services face-to-face or delivered on-line? This kind of information helps me assess if what you provide and how you deliver it, fits with my requirements.

Substantiate

Once they appreciate what you do and why you do it and then understand how you deliver your services, your prospect's next question might be; "Why should I believe you?"  This is where listing, in your Summary, the names of companies (where appropriate), you have worked with, is important and most importantly, making sure you have a healthy number of current, personal recommendations displayed on your profile. Not only can you utilise LinkedIn's own 'Recommendations' option but why not get video testimonials from happy clients and upload these to your profile's media section, which can be found at the foot of your Summary and Experience sections?

Place yourself in the Top 10% of great LinkedIn profiles today.

The good new is that most studies reveal that 9 out of 10 LinkedIn profiles fail to articulate value to their target audiences, which means that all you have to do is apply the recommendations from my post today and you'll immediately place yourself in the Top 10% of LinkedIn profiles that add real value when used to connect with others on LinkedIn and increase your chances of converting more LinkedIn connections to become customers of yours in time. 

Many thanks for viewing my post, I hope you found it useful? If you did, would you share it with your network who might also enjoy it and before you go, would you use the comment section, below, to let me know what you found most interesting about what I had to say – how was it relevant to your own circumstances? 

If you have any private questions on the subject matter you can connect with me on LinkedIn and send me a message, or else you’ll find my contact details on my LinkedIn profile uk.linkedin.com/in/stevephillip. 

If you need help to improve your sales and marketing skills, particularly using LinkedIn and social media, then please get in touch and check out our website  www.linked2success.co.uk. 

You can also follow me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Linked2Steve or https://twitter.com/stevejphillip