How to Leverage LinkedIn as a Powerful Sales Tool

LinkedIn has been long recognized by recruiters and job seekers alike as an excellent resource for finding candidates. It has also gained significant traction among sales professionals. As one of the top social selling tools, LinkedIn is quickly becoming an indispensable component of any sales organization’s toolbox.

Are you struggling with any of the following?

• Generating quality leads
• Engaging prospects with meaningful conversations
• Closing deals

If so, LinkedIn could be the missing link.

In this guide, we’ll look at how to leverage LinkedIn as a sales tool.

Adjust your Linkedin profile to attract prospects

Rule number one in sales is to leave a favorable impression on potential buyers. Your LinkedIn profile serves as a potential employer's initial impression of you.

As a sales representative, you should promote your organization and its offerings. But also, promote your own professional accomplishments.

The goal is to appear kind, real, and trustworthy. Use a professional photo, write a compelling summary, and list your professional achievements. These quick steps will help you to strengthen your profile as a sales tool.You should also make sure that your profile is up to date at all times.  Think of your profile as a street sign. It helps your prospects navigate your LinkedIn profile and learn more about you and your work.

Use LinkedIn groups

A fantastic approach to getting to know your prospects before reaching out to them is through LinkedIn groups. Find out what kinds of communities your present and prospective clients belong to by conducting market research.

Create a spreadsheet detailing all these groups. Include their membership counts, activity levels, and status as open or closed communities.

Decide on two or three organizations to actively take part in. Keep in mind that you should join as many organizations as possible, but you can only contribute meaningfully to a select few.

Even though it will take time and energy, the goal is to become a respected member of these communities. Doing so will elevate you as a trusted resource for the people that frequent them. Then, when you do reach out to them, they will recognize you and know you are trustworthy.As an added bonus, having common ground with a potential client is the ideal pretext for initiating communication. Being a part of a group on LinkedIn makes connecting with new people much simpler.

Export your contacts for a multichannel approach

After investing time and energy into establishing meaningful connections with others, you may choose to take the conversation offline.

LinkedIn allows you to download your connections. You can also export LinkedIn contacts using external LinkedIn productivity tools. The benefit of using these tools is that they will help you quickly download a list of your contacts, organize your network and manage your LinkedIn inbox.

Once you’ve exported your contacts, you are free to invest in your relationships off of LinkedIn.

Get to know your customers

Performing effective market research on LinkedIn is a lot like outbound sales. Identify key accounts, conduct research, and understand the decision-makers in your target accounts.

Tools like LinkedIn's Sales Navigator can help you research target accounts and decision-makers.

One tip for conducting market research on LinkedIn is to view your connections’ connections. This method helps identify decision-makers and their connections, giving you many opportunities to expand your network.LinkedIn also lets you see everyone that has viewed your profile. It can be useful for identifying leads.

Take Advantage of LinkedIn’s InMail sales tool

LinkedIn's in-house email system is InMail. It allows users to directly contact any other member on the platform. It basically guarantees that your message will get in their mailbox.

InMail is an upgrade from the regular LinkedIn messaging system. So, members are far more likely to open your message but you will need to be a premium subscriber to use it.

InMails are particularly useful for sales professionals who are contacting people outside of their network.

Create fresh and useful content

If you are just getting started with personal branding, creating fresh content for LinkedIn is a terrific first step. Consider creating content related to your expertise and industry. Establishing yourself as a thought leader will help further your LinkedIn presence.

After releasing an article or video, promote it and interact with other content on your social network. Remember, engaging with other peoples' content will encourage them to do the same with yours.

Over to you

LinkedIn is a valuable platform for sales professionals. It can help you establish your brand, network, and engage with prospects. But to do so, you need to optimize your profile, research potential prospects, and connect with others.

Once you have a robust profile, you can leverage LinkedIn as a powerful sales tool.

The tips outlined above can help you establish a solid presence on LinkedIn.