When I set up my marketing consultancy after leaving my corporate career as an accountant, I decided to offer marketing solutions to professional service providers such as accounting firms, as it was a natural fit for me. I realised all my ideal clients used LinkedIn and decided it was the best platform to grow my client base. It was important to me to use LinkedIn the RIGHT way. Through trial and error, I found that the best way to get results was not by chasing sales, but by chasing relationships instead. I prefer to spend my time relationship building as I genuinely enjoy this way of working.
The Wrong Way – Chasing Sales
There’s a misconception that LinkedIn lead generation is about reaching out and pitching to people straight away as soon as you are connected. There are plenty of so-called experts who promise to help you get rich quick on LinkedIn by doing just that.
Let’s dispel that misconception straightaway! We’ve all been on the receiving end of those horrible spammy approaches. In my opinion, there’s no bigger turn off than the ‘connect and pitch’ approach. You can’t expect to connect and sell something to a complete stranger without the important step of relationship building.
Unfortunately, that’s what many people do on LinkedIn – and that’s why they’re not getting results. It’s a bit like walking up to someone in the street and trying to sell to them. They don’t even know who you are or what you can do for them. It’s important to remember that there is a human being behind every LinkedIn profile. That’s someone who wants to build a trusted relationship with those with whom they are planning to do business. And relationship building takes time – it doesn’t happen at the touch of a button.
It’s also not spamming your connections on LinkedIn. I see this all the time on LinkedIn, unsolicited messages offering me free trials and all sorts of demos. They haven’t even bothered to check out my LinkedIn profile or get to know me!
In many cases, people get it wrong because they don’t understand the principles behind social selling and think they have to go into hard-selling, cold-calling ‘sales mode’. However, for me, there’s no bigger turn-off, and this kind of approach can do untold damage to your professional credibility.
The Right Way – Chasing Relationships!
I much prefer to spend my time and energy on relationship building rather than chasing sales. I genuinely enjoy this way of working, and it gets results. I’ll share the approach that I’ve developed and refined over the years with you. It’s the same approach I’ve used to grow my own business from scratch to a five-figure monthly income.
Having a high-quality service or product that is tailored to your ideal client profile is incredibly important. But it’s not enough to win clients over and convince them to buy from you.
If you come across as an expert in your field without being over-confident or pushy, with an approachable and friendly manner, and a trustworthy style that builds confidence – your prospective clients are much more likely to want to engage with you.
Relationship building is at the heart of Social Selling – building a rapport with a prospect, then nurturing them until they become a quality lead, utilising social media such as LinkedIn to initiate and build a relationship with your prospective clients until they are ready to engage your services or buy your product. But it doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time to get them to know, like and trust you, and for you to demonstrate that you can provide a solution to their pain points – the business issues holding them back.
My ‘4C Method’ for Prospecting Like A Pro
It’s always been important to me to use LinkedIn the RIGHT way, by relationship building and nurturing, and this is the heart of my ‘4C Method’ for Prospecting Like a Pro.
It’s a simple 4 step approach that takes you from identifying prospects to your ultimate goal, to CONVERT:
Step 1. ‘Collect’ – finding and gathering the right people – your ideal clients – on LinkedIn. It’s worth spending the time to find the people most closely aligned to the services or products you provide, and finding prospective clients you are excited to work with and help.
Step 2. ‘Connect’ – start the relationship as you mean to go on by sending a personalised connection request, followed by a welcome message a couple of days later. Aim to get the conversation started – no pitching or selling!
Step 3 – ‘Converse’ – engaging with prospects and providing value to build the relationship, through a series of relationship-building messages. The key is to be friendly, personable and offer value by personalising your messages so they feel natural. Failing to keep the conversation going is one of the biggest mistakes people make on LinkedIn. Don’t be one of them!
Step 4 – ‘Convert’ – adding more value and then moving the conversation offline when the time is right with a view to converting to a sale.
Whatever you do, don’t pitch too early as it can burn the relationship. It’s better to wait for weeks or even months and play the long game. If you get the messaging right and focus on relationship building by nurturing your prospects you’ll build rapport and trust. At that point, speaking directly to your prospects is incredibly powerful. You are much more likely to convert them to become valuable, long term clients with whom you genuinely enjoy working.
What’s Next?
Done correctly, selling on Linkedin can be a pleasant and rewarding experience for all concerned – it’s worked for me! I’m passionate about helping other business owners benefit from my tried and tested approach using the art of relationship building.
If you’d like to learn more, I’d recommend you check out the resources on my website, including my free LinkedIn Masterclass, where you can find out more about me and my approach to social selling.
And if you’re serious about getting the most out of LinkedIn, and would like to see how I can help you, including finding out more about my Complete LinkedIn Mastery Course, then I’d be delighted to hear from you. If we’re already connected on LinkedIn, you can drop me a DM, and if not, I’d be delighted to connect with you (don’t forget to personalise your connection request!), or simply drop me a line at [email protected]
If you remember to keep these words front of mind while looking to grow your business on LinkedIn – Don’t Chase Sales, Chase Relationships – then you’ll be off to a great start!