Monday 29 August 2016

LinkedIn Tip # 59 - Why should I be on a Paid Platform?

What does a paid platform give you that you cannot get from a free one?

Sales processes have changed drastically to what they were 20 years ago.

People are searching online to gather the information they need to educate themselves about products and services. It is when the customers have gathered all their information that they reach out to a sales rep. This leaves the sales rep with a totally different way of selling.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator has been designed to help the sales reps build the needed relationships they need with prospects.

Many companies have eliminated cold calling all together with the new LinkedIn Sales Navigator.

I never thought I would hear myself saying anything like this. I was pro-Free platform and used it for years. I was able to occasionally send out up to 400 free InMails to people I did not know through my searches on LinkedIn.

Then a year ago LinkedIn flipped a switch!

You could no longer send any free InMails! They opened it up to 15 Free InMails a month for a short time. Now they have closed them out altogether. People on the Free LinkedIn platform can no longer send any Free InMails.

No Free InMails limits what you can do with the Free Platform, and to be the most effective, one needs InMail.

With the Executive Platform that I use, I get 30 paid InMails a month. -And most months I use these up before the middle of the month!

There are other key assets to being on LinkedIn Sales Navigator.

1. It helps you stay informed with key updates and build trust with people, finding the right people, engaging them with warm insights and building trust through relationships.
Having access to our connections and their networks today means that we need to get laser focused on our ideal client base with the leads and accounts and the insights that we need to sell.

Sales Navigator helps us find prospects by helping us focus on the people and companies we care about with Lead build, advanced searches and lead recommendations.

            a. Boolean search terms using AND, OR and NOT eg: renewable AND energy.

            b. We can choose companies, title, size of company and find exactly the people within the company that we want to target. We can sort by location, current title, seniority level, company size. LinkedIn will give you a list of your search results. Then you can "save as lead" and Navigator will save these leads for you in a special file.

            c. We can use the lead recommendations on Sales Navigator to find exactly the people that we want to target. We are trying to find the 5-7 decision makers within an account. Sales Navigator gives you the other key decision makers within the account. The search results can be saved from a search results page or on a profile page.

            d. It is great because it does not notify the prospect, nor does it require them to make a connection on LinkedIn.com. This is a great way for sales teams to gather information and build a file on them before they are ready to start building warm conversations.

2. LinkedIn Sales Navigator makes sure that we are staying informed on the updates with our leads and accounts. This is done through Sales updates, Teamlink and Introductions.

            a. Sales Updates: These updates are sent to us from LinkedIn on our saved leads to help keep us up to date on job changes and the like. The best time to reach out to someone in our sales funnel is when they are encountering a job change. They are the most receptive at these times. You can check these updates on Android or iPhone apps as well.

            b. Teamlink: Stay informed on key updates at your target accounts. It will leverage your network and your team network and more to make sure that you're identifying the best way to get in the door with that account.

            c. Build Trust through Introductions: Find people on your team, on LinkedIn, or the company who can introduce you to the key decision makers on the account. You can do this through InMail.

3. Sales Navigator also helps you measure your success with your sales efforts. It comes with analytics that have resulted from LinkedIn's own research. It is still all about building relationships.

You build the relationships online, but real business gets done face-to-face.

Thanks to Nick Solano at LinkedIn for sharing this great information with me! Here is the full video:

Christine Till
The Marketing Mentress

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