At LinkedIn, we are constantly trying to make professionals “more productive and successful.” For sales professionals – especially at this time of year – the definition of success is simple: you need to beat your number. And we want to help you do that. So, we conducted a global survey of several thousand sales professionals to understand how top-performing, quota-busting sales reps use LinkedIn. Their secrets are below!
Reps focused on new business who exceed their quota are finding the right prospects, building relationships with them, and engaging with them to strengthen these relationships.
Reps who are focused on existing business and who exceed quota connect with decision makers at their accounts, share valuable insights to engage them, and leverage connections within their own company.
Methodology of research:
We ran a survey of ~ 5000 sales professionals and asked them to identify if their business primarily comes from new accounts (Hunters), existing accounts (Farmers), or a mix of the two (Mixed). We also asked how they performed against their number in Q3 and how successful they felt their quarter was on a scale of 1 – 5. Reps who “exceeded quota” were those that both exceeded their number and felt their quarter was very successful.
After cleaning out B2C sales professionals, job seekers and respondents with inconsistent answers, we ended up with a sample of 2,286 reps – 643 Hunters, 554 farmers, and 1,108 Mixed reps.
We then matched survey respondents to their LinkedIn.com profile and examined their usage habits over the quarter. These usage stats are based on their activity in August 2013.
Topics: Modern selling
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