Sales Prospecting Perspectives

This is a sales blog, so if you are reading this, you’re most likely already a Linkedin pro. If not, you should check out our guide to resourcefulness, which includes basic information about how to get started on LinkedIn. This post is for a more intermediate audience, so after reading that, come right back!

LinkedIn is widely used for many different reasons, but no matter what, you should always try to maximize your return. Inside sales reps use LinkedIn for everything, from verifying data, such as a prospect’s job title or current company, to searching for any personal connections with prospects. Linkedin has a simple and easy-to-use interface, but there are some secret tricks that only some Internet users know. Here are some of the tools and tricks I use when I prospect through Linkedin.

The Marriage Between LinkedIn and SalesLoft

Salesloft has done a great job of not only integrating well with LinkedIn, but also highlighting and extracting important information. Most importantly, this tool will save sales reps valuable time by pulling all relevant information from multiple sources into a single, customized dashboard.

The Dashboard: The dashboard provides you with personal prospecting alerts such as: notifying you when your prospect has changed jobs, using crawlers from the web to pick up any sizeable event such as gaining another round of capital or new product releases, and sending notifications when your prospect publishes a new blog post. 

Building Lists: Linkedin is an awesome source for finding contacts, but if you want to use it to build a list you’re going to spend a lot of time hitting Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V. With just a few clicks, Salesloft allows you to build a super-targeted list from the massive and up-to-date data source that is LinkedIn.

The Google Plug-in: Salesloft doesn’t just make it easier to find many targeted contacts, it simplifies the process of looking for one specific contact as well. We have all googled some combination of a contact’s name, title and company in hopes of verifying data or finding additional information. What is the first link you click on when your search results pop up on the screen? For me, it is almost always Linkedin.

Salesloft’s Google Chrome plug-in sits in the top right corner of your browser. Instead of opening a new tab and googling a prospect’s name, click on the blue and white Salesloft button, type in the prospect you’re searching for, and hit enter. A new window will open with a list of links in Google, including the Linkedin profile for the contact you were looking for and related profiles.

Alerts: This tool also helps you keep your data up-to-date by alerting you with any changes in your prospect’s job position or career. It will deliver news on the companies you care about and connect with your CRM to show intelligence about your important accounts. Over time, like a velociraptor, Salesloft begins to learn, and will show you the updates and articles most relevant to you and your needs.

Syncing: You will not find very many applications that integrate well with LinkedIn compared to the copious amounts that are solely created to sync with other social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. However, you can choose to receive updates via email or have this information synced to your company’s CRM system. Combining Salesloft with LinkedIn can be a very powerful and time saving tool for inside sales reps.

Using LinkedIn for Sales Prospecting

Now that you’re using Salesloft with your LinkedIn profile, let’s look at some tips for using LinkedIn for sales prospecting and mastering LinkedIn. In these posts, Anna and Pamela make very informative points on how to maximize LinkedIn for sales prospecting. I would like to highlight tips #3, #7 and #9 from Anna's blog, and tips #15 and #27 from Pamela's. 

Tip #3: Make Fewer Cold Calls. Now, I’m not going to go so far as to say that you will never make a cold call again, but Linkedin is a great tool to help turn a cold call into a lukewarm call before you even pick up the phone. As Anna points out, “You can almost always learn enough about someone to make your call more relevant and useful to them.” Some useful things to look for would be articles they shared, connections you have in common, posts in groups or changes in their job/title.

Tip #7: Use Groups for More than Simply Keeping Up to Date. Groups can give you further insight into your prospect’s companies, they allow you to see an individual’s full name without being connected to them, and being in the same group as someone else allows you to connect with each other - even if you don’t have any shared connections!

Tip #9: The ‘Look and Look Back’ Trick. Most people don’t thoroughly understand this feature, but depending upon your settings, you can see who has viewed your profile.  Knowing that information could give you a great excuse to reach out to them with a connection request. In the same vein, if you look at someone else’s profile, most likely they will turn around and look at yours and BAM, that gives you a reason to connect.  This could be a great method to connect with prospects!

Tip #15: Export Connections. If you’ve conquered the last tip, you have a decent amount of new connections on LinkedIn. There is an easy way to obtain all of their contact information in one place. Click on “Contacts,” then find “My Connections,” and finally click “Export Connections.”  Therefore, you can easily download your new connections (prospects’) contact info into a spreadsheet and upload it to your CRM.  

Tip #27: Use Group Statistics for Better Targeting and Marketing. Not very many users realize that they can access information to better target prospects when in LinkedIn Groups.  Simply go to the group’s page, click ‘More’ in the top navigation, then select ‘Group Statistics’ from the drop-down menu. Take a look at the information and make sure that those statistics fit your buyer persona; if they do, that’s great, if not, you may want to think about which groups would be more beneficial for you.

Linkedin is one of the most valuable tools in my ‘Sales Prospecting Toolbox’.  When combined with additional tools, like Salesloft, and a few secret tricks of the trade, you are bound for success in your sales prospecting. What are some tricks you use when searching for prospects on Linkedin?