A wrong approach to the Platform leaves the SALES TEAM high and dry and also annoys the decision maker on the other side.
If used well, LinkedIn is an exceptional tool for your sales network: you can search for and contact potential customers, grow your accounts or secretly monitor the competition.
Thanks to LinkedIn, it is easier than a few years ago to map company nigeria whatsapp number data 5 million organizational charts, find information or contacts that were difficult to discover, bypass the classic telephone filter and speak directly with the decision maker.
For those who work abroad, LinkedIn is a formidable support to reduce travel costs – I qualify prospects before I set off – or make trade fairs productive – I set appointments weeks in advance to get a return on investment.
So why is it so difficult for companies to get their sales team to use LinkedIn professionally?
Tell me if these sound familiar:
“I'm not social”
“I don't have time”
“our clients are not on LinkedIn”
No but you know my sector is very particular
and other amenities..
Yes? These are some of the most common excuses I hear from companies that prevent your salespeople from making more money through LinkedIn.
As beautiful as the theory is, in practice your team doesn’t use it, uses it badly or with an unstructured approach that brings results only thanks to the “C factor”.
Many salespeople, especially in B2B, admit that LinkedIn has changed the way they work and made them more productive for their benefit and that of their company.
Unfortunately, these good “social” sellers often remain isolated cases and the company is unable to replicate the successful model across the entire sales team.
Please note: The wrong approach leaves the sales team high and dry and also annoys the decision maker on the other end.
53% of B2B salespeople have a bad opinion of both the salesperson and the company that employs them.
For all these reasons – business development and corporate image care – it is imperative to train your salespeople in the correct use of LinkedIn by removing any reservations they have towards the medium.
Read on and I'll show you how to demolish them one by one.
“I don't have time”
The mother of objections.
Your salesman pulls out all his arsenal and slaps you in the face that he doesn't have hours to waste playing on social media, he has to grind out miles and make appointments.
He already has his own budget to reach, which you generously raised for him at the beginning of the year, he just can't fit in space for LinkedIn in his agenda.
And you believe him.
You believe him because deep down you think so too, and you don't insist. Go and invoice, we'll think about LinkedIn another time.
You believe him because you lack a sense of what LinkedIn can do for your business:
How many potential customers are there on the platform?
How many respond and in how much time?
How many connections do I need to generate a useful contact and turn it into an appointment?
What is the return on investment I expect from the time my children spend away from other activities?
Armed with awareness and considering that the average Italian spends 2h30 min on social media every day, you can answer like this.
“Do you want to tell me that…”:
Do you have 60 minutes a day to comment on bullshit on Facebook but you don't have 5 to ask 2 potential clients for contact on LinkedIn?
Do you have 60 minutes to look at the jokes and dirty photos you send to friends in WhatsApp groups but you don't have 5 to follow up on a prospect who asked to contact you on LinkedIn?
Do you have 30 minutes a day to watch autoplay YouTube videos but not 1 to share and comment on the latest thing the company posted on the LinkedIn page?
If that’s not enough, take that good “social” salesman and prove to the skeptic that time generates results.
Having overcome the first, another objection is already ready.
“I'm not social” / “I don't know how to tinker”
Don't Be Social in 2022
“Eeeeeeeeh yes, no, you're right.
No, I understand, really, it's just that I'm not social. I don't know how to tinker, it takes me time to learn, for me the computer is email and word and internet and that's it."
The most daring try to lunge: “You should give us a course on how to exploit it.”
Sneaky. But then again, that's their job.
PS. If you want a great one, here's ours:
Linkedin Effective includes methods, tools and techniques for professional social selling.
“Be careful what you wish for,” you reply. “You might get it.”
Let's break down the objection. The alibi plays on the (high) probability that you are not clear about what kind of return you expect from LinkedIn and reinforces it with the killer word "course" that opens the following ancestral wounds:
boring trainers who tell you how to push buttons for 8 hours;
pages and pages of slides you will never reread;
your salespeople stuck in a classroom for 8 hours for n days instead of on the street invoicing;
resistance from the classroom which then doesn't apply and complains to you;
the day someone comes to ask you about the money you spent on training and you won't know what to say.
5 letters of pain and pain: for you, the matter ends there.
Let's start with "tinkering".
On LinkedIn you don’t “fiddle around”: on LinkedIn you work.
Profile management, activity and engagement on posts, contacts etc. are as professional actions as a phone call or email.
Just like these tools, on LinkedIn we are not talking to Mario Rossi, Silvio Bianchi or Giuseppe Verdi: we are talking to the CEO of ABC, the Purchasing Manager of XYZ, the HR Manager of Y.
Equating LinkedIn with “tinkering” is like driving a Ferrari at 30 km/h.
“Smanettare” is also a reference to an activity that one tries to do but is not an expert in: it is the fear of trying and failing, of questioning oneself.
Sure, it’s easier to stay warm in your comfort zone rather than try new tools; but when these tools – telemarketing, cold calling – lose their effectiveness, you either work twice as hard or you work smarter.
Reassure your sales person: if they know how to use the internet, Facebook, the phone, Whatsapp and email, they also know how to use LinkedIn.
His problem is not finding the right key – you too can rest assured: a good LinkedIn course is NOT a technical course – but understanding how to exploit the relational mechanics in an online environment.
How to bring back to LinkedIn the strategies that make him a successful offline salesperson?
