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Part II: Can LinkedIn Increase Your Sales?

Written by: Jill Konrath

Article Overview: In Part II of this series, eight people share how they use LinkedIn to connect, create sales, and more. For those of you still trying to decide if it's worth your time to be on LinkedIn, it's an eye-opener. For those of you already on LinkedIn, you'll discover great strategies that you might never have thought of on your own.

Part II: Can LinkedIn Increase Your Sales?

LinkedIn, the online business networking site, connects over 17 million experienced professionals from over 150 countries. Yikes! That's so many that it makes my head spin. While I'd love to think that potential customers would flock to me once they read my profile, the truth of it is – they haven't.

Yet many sellers have learned how to leverage LinkedIn to drive more sales. They view it as an additional resource that supports their prospecting efforts. Here's how your peers are using LinkedIn to grow their business.

Launching Account Entry Campaigns


Kent Speakman of Suitcase Interactive says: We're very deliberate in pursuing certain targeted accounts. LinkedIn is a tool that allows our business development department to look for connections or contacts within their network they already know.

For example, when creating an account entry campaign for larger organizations, my team generates a list of people within the organization to be contacted to discuss our value proposition. By spending a short time span looking at the contacts they have, and who their contacts know, we can then ask for introductions to people at the target account. We usually have a much warmer response if we do it this way.

Connecting with CxOs

Stu Garrow, Managing Director of Software Traction Pty, Ltd adds: I've used Linked-In a few times to discover that the CxO who I was trying to meet with was a contact of one of my direct contacts. It certainly opened some doors when I needed it, but it isn't a replacement for proper research. Accessing second level contacts works, but 3rd, 4th and 5th level contacts would be a very long shot at success.


Inside Information

Nick Ehrman, Director of New Business Development, VOLTAGGIO JOHNSON says:
I always look everyone up. You can glean all sorts of info this way. You can learn where someone has worked, where they went to school, hobbies and more. You can also find out who they're linked to. Knowing "who knows who" is powerful. Plus, the idea is to become a subject matter expert, right? Well, LinkedIn is a cool tool to help that along.

Replacing Cold Calling

John-Erich Mantius, Director of Business Development at Arvato Digital Services offers this advice: While not everyone you'd like to know is in LinkedIn and the database is only as reliable as those users who keep their profiles updated, I find that it's an indispensable part of my sales tool kit.

I'm pretty methodical about using it regularly to determine if anyone in my network "knows somebody who knows somebody." I'd prefer not cold-calling. Even if my network comes up empty, I'm sure to find someone at the company I was going to cold call who can help me navigate into an organization.

An example: At a conference last month, I was looking for the head of supply chain at one of the leading headset manufacturers in the US. I got the name, but the person was not sure of the spelling. Back in the office, I tried a few different ways of spelling his name on LinkedIn and voila ... confirmed I had the right person.

Alas, his profile was out of date. A quick Google search eliminated any doubt who I needed to call as a press release confirmed he'd left and where he was working now.

Sure, a Google search could have eliminated LinkedIn altogether, but what it could not do is tell me who within my network could connect me to my targeted contact. Continuing my search within LinkedIn, I found additional relevant contacts at this manufacturer. Now that I had the e-mail protocol, I could add their names to my contact manager and begin strategizing my sales approach.

Assessing Interest

Dan Coates, Co-Founder of SurveyU - The Voice of the American Student writes: I recently started a company that provides marketing data on the college student population. We're a new entrant within a new space. It's tough identifying prospects as not all marketers have an interest in collegians.

Sending InMails via LinkedIn is a great way to qualify interest. Rather than cold calling into an organization and pestering people, we simply send InMails that ask if the target knows of anyone within their organization that would be interested in knowing more about college students. It's easy for someone to ignore an InMail if they aren't interested.

Three out of ten InMails result in a response. One out of three responses lead to an actual conversation with an interested party. Results like this simply can't be achieved via telephone.

Making a Connection

Michael Siersema, Managing Partner/CEO, Phoenix2000 Group LLC, says: We are a small consulting company and needed to reach the VP of Sales of a larger company. Repeated attempts to connect had failed.

I used LinkedIn to find the individual and found 5 different paths that connected with her. I sent different messages through 2nd, 3rd and 4th level connections to get to her. I sent out my requests to have people forward my request to talk with her on Thursday. Tuesday she called me and asked why four different people suggested she call me and ask me the question I had posed to all five connections.

Finding the Decision Maker

Anonymous adds: I use LinkedIn as a "people finder." For example, I wanted to get into technology company in my area. I typed their name into the company search field. Then I perused who came up. I found a guy who was Director of Financial Services.

I then "cold" emailed him using their corporate email pattern. He wrote back and told me he was leaving, but I should contact his replacement. He then gave me the replacement's email address, I wrote him an email and was successful in getting an appointment. This lead to an initial project of $35,000 with more to come.

I've done this before with similar results at other companies. I'm a HUGE fan of LinkedIn for this reason. It only really works well if you've got 50+ contacts though.

Research & Relationships

Rennie Filler, an account exec from Austin shares: I use LinkedIn to research the background and career experience of my customer. LinkedIn tells me where they went to college and their major. It details their past career experience and positions held, and it reveals their specific personal interests and unique expertise.

Through LinkedIn, I've discovered that my customers and I share the same interests or know the same people. I leverage those interests and connections in my rapport/trust building phase of the relationship.

Even better, I'm now aware of how they got to their current position, how long they've been in that position, and what their job responsibilities are at their current company. I leverage that knowledge to help me understand my customer's role in the organization and his/her role in the final decision making process.

Most importantly, after the deal is won, I invite my new customer to join my LinkedIn network. This helps me keep in touch with them for up-selling opportunities and to keep an eye on their network for referral selling.

An finally, if my customer leaves the company I am able to find out where they are going and I am provided the opportunity to continue to engage with them and sell to them throughout the rest of their career.

My success comes from building lasting friendships with my customers. LinkedIn provides an excellent platform that assists me in this success.

In Summary

Savvy sellers are using LinkedIn to research their prospects, find decision makers, assess interest and build relationships. They're leveraging this information and their connections to crack into corporate accounts and win big contracts.

LinkedIn is a tool that augments your business development efforts. It also can shorten the time it takes to get your foot in the door. Finally, it's a great way to keep in touch with your customers when they move on.

Hopefully you're starting to see the potential in this online network – because it's there, waiting for us to embrace it.

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Don't forget to check out the other 3 articles in the Can LinkedIn Increase Your Sales? series. You'll be glad you did!

Related Articles
  Part IV: Can LinkedIn Increase Your Sales?
  Legal Marketing: More LinkedIn questions and answers
  Legal Marketing: LinkedIn's professional growth
  The Referral Habit - Sales and Marketing Training
  Growing Your Business Using LinkedIn – Interest and Participation

Article Tags: additional resource, business development department, business networking, cxo, ehrman, experienced professionals, introductions, managing director, new business development, peers, pty ltd, short time, speakman, stu, suitcase, target account, targeted accounts, time span, value proposition, voltaggio



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Re: On Which Social Media Sites Are You Most Active? - I'd be curious to hear how you guys use LinkedIn. I have close to 3,000 connections and never use it. I've been told the secret is to use groups (which I don't) so I'd love to hear how you guys are benefiting from LinkedIn.
Re: Twiiter an sales - [quote="soldlab":1ycb8vnm]I guess though LinkedIn is better for actual leag generation and personal contacts. What do you think?[/quote:1ycb8vnm] I've had a lot more success (thus far) with Twitter than LinkedIn or Facebook.
Re: Online Sales and Marketing vs Traditional - [quote="ltrahan":31w9r2iz]Hi Evan, I am noticing that many of the posts in the Sales/Marketing section deal with online marketing, SEM and and SEO and Affiliates. I was wondering if it might be a good idea to separate that section into two; 1) Online Sales and Marketing; 2) Traditional Sales and Marketing[/quote:31w9r2iz] I second the request...
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