Increase Sales Pipeline With LinkedIn

Sales professionals know that social selling is about more than just cold calling and traditional advertising. It’s about who you are, what you know and who you know. It’s about generously giving much needed insights to targeted, quality customers who naturally reciprocate by connecting us to their own network.

We sales professionals utilize LinkedIn in our social selling strategy. We increase sales by finding the right connections, identifying information about people in their profile and leveraging connections in order to get introduced.

We transform our online persona and develop personality attributes that give us the appearance of being intelligent, inspiring and approachable. We aim to be the interesting person at the dinner party, a thought leader in their field who others trust to provide them with quality information and advice.

As the interesting person at a dinner party:

• We share diverse content, from career advice to business intelligence.
• We tell people why they should engage.
• Rather than "Download this!” we tell them what's in it for them.
• We have a personality.
• We have our own opinions, but are careful about being funny or ironic because it's subjective.
• We’re fresh and up to date.
• We point out relevant content we know our followers don't want to miss, but don't call it out if it's a week old or if we've shared it before.

As a thought leader:

• We arm members with the insights they need to be great at their jobs and feel a sense of accomplishment.
• We share statements, not questions.
• We’re human and conversational, avoiding business and marketing speak.
• Rather than selling, we help others buy.

How do you become an engaging thought leader?

Become a thought leader by building a LinkedIn profile, complete with relevant, quality content to share with your connections. LinkedIn increases sales by increasing connections — introducing you to your ideal customer while they’re still in the research stage. Once the customer sees you as a thought leader for their interests, they’ll come to you when they’re ready to make a purchase.

Here’s a quote by Jill Rowley, Eloqua's top salesperson, that sums it up well from our presentation, 7 Ways Sales Professionals Drive Revenue with Social Selling. When she began using social selling, her numbers went through the roof. "Everyone I meet, I add on LinkedIn," Rowley says. "Before a meeting, I’ll look up each person and find one piece of information I’ll relate to them with so that I’ll stand out from the crowd. They’ll remember meeting me.’”

We invite you to stand out from the crowd, establish yourself as a trusted thought leader and increase sales through the connections you form with LinkedIn.