In this Accelerate Local How-To Series session, I provided tips to harness the full potential of LinkedIn as a lead generation tool. I guided participants through the essential strategies for transforming LinkedIn from a networking tool into a revenue-producing machine.
From identifying “suspects” to turning them into prospects, participants walked away with insights and real-world examples to help sellers and sales teams achieve their sales targets for upsell and new business opportunities.
During the session, participants discussed the importance of lead generation to drive new customers and revenue sources. Cold calling is still relevant, they said, but the techniques to reach decisionmakers have changed.
Using LinkedIn, the goal is to interact with strangers (suspects) and make warm introductions (prospects) without coming out of the gate with a “salesy” pitch. One goal is to establish quality conversations as a basis of growing your network of prospects who will ultimately become clients.
As sellers identify specific verticals to attack, I suggested ways to identify senior- to executive-level decisionmakers for outreach. By doing so, the quality of leads will increase. To close this session, I conducted some live exercises demonstrating how to search for prospects on LinkedIn.
Takeaways included:
- LinkedIn is a powerful lead generation tool.
- LinkedIn profiles should be high-quality and compelling.
- Prospect information is at your fingertips.
- Sales closing ratios will increase when LinkedIn is used properly.