Building a structurally strong skyscraper starts with a strategic plan and a strong foundation. Social selling is no different. But building a strong selling foundation doesn't need to be a towering endeavor, especially if you have access to effective social selling tools. Here is how sales reps on large teams can use LinkedIn Sales Navigator to find the right people, build trusted relationships, and inform with insights in as little as 30 minutes a day.
Find the Right People
Gaining the ability to quickly identify the right people - those who can help you meet objectives, such as prospects, leads, and partners - can greatly improve your day-to-day productivity. The advantage of working on a large sales team is the ability to leverage organizational connections. This advantage should not be taken lightly, especially when you consider that buyers are 5x more like to engage when outreach is through a mutual connection.
The Premium Search with Lead Builder feature within LinkedIn Sales Navigator allows you to search for prospects among LinkedIn's 300 million+ professional profiles. Sales Navigator users can use both basic and premium filtering options to identify highly qualified prospects that meet the specific criteria you set. Since searches can yield long lists of results, it's important to prioritize. The TeamLink feature lets you immediately identify the prospects who are connected with someone in your organization, allowing to you focus on high-probability opportunities first.
Another powerful feature of Sales Navigator is lead notifications. Once you have saved a search, you have the option to receive email notifications whenever a new prospect meets your search criteria, making the process of finding new leads almost effortless. Use LinkedIn search tricks to your advantage and continue to refine your searches to improve results. Once you become an adept searcher, finding the right people should take you no more than five minutes per day. If you have notifications setup, you can discover new, qualified prospects in no time at all.
Build Trusted Relationships
Once you have identified the right people, you will need to initiate and develop the relationship in order to meet your objectives. Your LinkedIn feed, along with the News Stream within Sales Navigator provide real time insights you can use to personalize your engagement efforts. Liking, sharing, or adding thoughtful comments to your prospects' status updates can allow you to achieve top-of-mind awareness among those who are in the consideration or buying stages.
When a warm path does not exist, a carefully crafted InMail message can help you capture the attention of prospects outside your organizational network. Clarity and relevance is the key to InMail effectiveness, so it's important to take as much time as you need to ensure quality communication. The time spent crafting InMail messages will vary based on priorities and prospecting workload however monitoring your LinkedIn feed and News Stream can be accomplished by simply "checking in" for a few minutes, two-to-three times per day.
Inform with Insights
Informing with insights goes hand-in-hand with relationship building. With 86% of B2B purchasers reporting that they are likely to engage with sellers who provide insights or knowledge about their business, the importance of leading with insights cannot be understated. Prospect research, along with real-time updates from the News Stream can help you become more strategic with your messaging and content sharing.
Here are a few ways you can strategically share content on LinkedIn in less than ten minutes each day:
- Share industry related content (from your company and third-party sources) while adding your insights. If you are able to establish a first-degree connection with a prospect, you can share content directly, with a personalized message
- Provide thoughtful comments on status updates to show you are an active participant in industry discussions
- Engage in relevant LinkedIn Group discussions, offering to help whenever possible
For sales reps on large teams, finding the right people, capturing attention with insights, and building relationships doesn't have to be a daunting task. Using LinkedIn Sales Navigator, sales professionals can build a social selling foundation that supports monumental growth in only a few minutes per day.