How to Leverage LinkedIn for Business Development
Why did I choose Dennis Brown (AskDennisBrown.com) as the expert for this topic? He went from $0 to more than $20 million in sales by leveraging LinkedIn and social selling. I was mesmerized hearing his story from his first sales job in college to selling his multi-million-dollar business.
According to Dennis, “I was the worst sales guy they had ever hired. I was terrible. Probably because I lacked confidence and was awkwardly introverted. I fumbled and I stumbled every step of the way. I was so nervous I almost quit daily during my first couple months.” As his confidence grew, so did his results: by the end of his first year, he was one of the top salespeople.
After six months, he left the financially failing company thinking he could do it himself... only to struggle for years. In 2003, with no experience or industry background, Dennis started a third-party logistics company. As he puts it, “We provided freight management services to manufacturers and distributors. Basically it was like owning a trucking company without any trucks.”
This is when it got interesting. Dennis was generating leads online through content marketing but was a total naysayer when it came to social media. His Facebook account was under the alias “James Bond.” When he stumbled across LinkedIn, he decided “to give it a try for a few months to prove that I was right and social media for B2B was nothing more than BS.”
Within a couple months of signing up, he landed a client. A six-figure client that would go on to do close to $1 million in sales with him over the next few years. A new believer, Dennis created a LinkedIn marketing system, which became his primary way of generating new business. From 2008 to 2013, his company generated more than $20 million in new business, most of which was annual recurring revenue.
After using LinkedIn to reach more than $80 million in sales, Dennis sold the business. Now he helps clients around the world generate more leads and sales through LinkedIn and social selling. We developed these seven tips based on his three Cs approach:
Create. Design a compelling profile focused exclusively on your target market.
Connect. Profile, find, and connect with your target market.
Convert. Engage and convert prospects into an offline meeting.
Seven Tips to Leverage LinkedIn for Business Development
Define Your Exact Target Market. You can’t sell unless someone wants to buy. Who needs your offering? As Dennis puts it, “It is virtually impossible to hit the target without first being able to see it.” He suggests you “take one sheet of paper and start writing down your exact target market. Consider industry, geography, job titles, internal divisions, company size, etc.” Branding expert Maria Ross suggests you create an avatar, or persona, of your ideal customer. She explains, “You have to know your ideal customer intimately or you will never be able to serve them.” Name your avatar, give them a specific age and lifestyle. Maria wants you to “be as specific as possible to create one real person. Think about what their life is like from hobbies to fears to causes.”
Optimize Your Profile. Dennis warns you not to treat your profile like a résumé: “Treat it like a personal branding website that is designed to speak to your exact target market.” A few key areas to tweak:
Photo: Wear attire that reflects what you want to reflect—a suit if you’re working in a banking field, or a hip T-shirt if you’re going for jobs in a creative field such as music, graphic design, or even at a start-up. I always recommend choosing a colorful top or tie as it helps you stand out. I believe in a smile, but you have to be comfortable—you have to be you. Think about what the photo says about your brand. I am fine with the outdoor shot if it is related to your work. LinkedIn is a professional platform.
Headline: “Your headline should not be your job title,” advises Dennis. Instead he wants you to “focus on the value you can provide your target market.” His is a great example of that stating, “Over $20 Million w/ LinkedIn & Social Selling Ask Me How?” I have changed mine so many times trying to implement this advice!
Summary: I have received many tips about writing a compelling summary and have received both positive and less than glowing feedback about mine. My favorite advice was to write in the first person. I believe a conversational tone starts the connection unlike those that read like a bio in the third person. Dennis wisely recommends “formatting in short one to two sentence paragraphs with bullet points so it’s easy to consume.” A key point in the age of mobile consumption. To keep your profile fresh, include what you are currently working on. For example, when I was writing this book my profile included, “In 2019, I am releasing my fourth book, The Connector’s Advantage.” You can also include multimedia such as video or SlideShare presentations to your summary and experience sections, which are a differentiating factor.
Interests: I know I just said it is a professional platform, but that doesn’t mean you can’t explore and show hobbies, interests, or nonprofessional groups. Remember the Laws of Similarity and Association: we connect based on commonalities. A great conversation starter can be about the influencer you both follow or the charitable sector you both support.
Leverage Sales Intelligence. There is a wealth of information in a person’s profile that can be used to build rapport. Dennis urges you to take one or two minutes to learn more about your prospect. Review details about their work experience; the schools they attended; content they post and engage with; influencers and companies they follow; where they are from, live now, or worked in the past; and any common connections or groups. Any one of these areas can create a conversation starter that builds connection.
Use Social Proof to Amplify Your Message. When Dennis said, “When you say it about yourself, it’s bragging. When someone else says it about you, it’s proof,” it resonated with me. Historically, it has been harder for women to self-promote, but it is not easy for anyone. So let someone else do it for you. After every talk, I reach out to people asking for a testimonial or recommendation on LinkedIn. I find that people will endorse my skills (without a request) thanks to LinkedIn prompts. People look at the number of recommendations and endorsements as an indicator. What do you want it to indicate about you?
Create Engaging LinkedIn Content. Dennis believes this is by far the best way to become known, build a tribe, and position yourself as a valuable resource to your clients as an expert in your niche. The two main ways to create content on LinkedIn are updates and articles. Updates on LinkedIn are intended for short-form information and can include a video or image along with up to 1,300 characters. Depending on your privacy settings, your post will be spread to some of your first- and second-degree connections. The main difference with articles is the length and accessibility. You can have up to 40,000 characters in an article and they are easier to access. Finding an old update can be a slog since there are typically more to weed through. With either updates or articles, you can include an image, video, or audio file. There are varying opinions on the frequency of posting. Dennis teaches you to “post once a day or at least two to three times per week.” He is not a fan of any posting automation tools like Hootsuite or Buffer because, as he shares, “in my experience it will limit your reach and get less engagement.” My feeling is mix it up between automated and live posts.
Focus on Relationships, Not Transactions. Don’t propose on the first date. As Ivan Misner, founder of BNI, says, “Don’t be guilty of premature solicitation.” You do not ask for a referral or for business too early in the relationship. Dennis warns, “You are selling to the most educated buyers in history with easy access to vast amounts of information about your company, products, and your competitors.” Ivan’s article title, “When It Comes to Networking, Farmers Will Always Beat Hunters,” is a great analogy. It is not about one-shot meetings. It’s about cultivating relationships—planting the seeds for future harvesting.
Be Patient. I love that this is a key tip from Dennis
and ties right back to the Law of Patience: give it time, things happen. Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither are lasting relationships. Be patient and take your time. Dennis reminds us, “LinkedIn and social selling is not a cure-all. It is a part of a bigger sales and marketing process when done right.”
More Virtual Connecting Platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest...
The abundance of social media platforms is partly thanks to social media being one of the easiest ways to build broad connections. To create a true connection, seek to transfer the virtual relationship offline. To show your interest and support of a virtual connection, like, share, or comment on their activity. As I said before, don’t just connect to them, engage with them.
Social platforms give you the ability to connect with those you may not encounter in your everyday, especially with those who are more established. Beyond the basics, you can blog about their work or create a “best of” list post on a specific topic and include many connections you admire. When sharing their content, be sure to tag them so your name appears in their notifications. Seeing your name supporting their posts will create a positive association and name recognition. Some may even follow you back, as often happened for my editor, who met many of her future clients on social media.
It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the myriad of ever-changing social media options. My advice is to pick two or three platforms that are best for your particular industry, and focus your attention there. Ask yourself, “What platform do the people I want to connect with use?” One important tip for all: saying something online is no different than saying it in person—except online, what you say can go viral. So remember that what you do on social media platforms impacts how people perceive you. Your social media presence can also positively or negatively impact your job search. A Career Builder study determined 70% of employers use social media to research candidates before hiring; 54% of employers have found content on social media that caused them not to hire a candidate for an open role. 3
Here are a few currently popular platforms other than LinkedIn. I have accounts on all but Snapchat, but I am only truly active on two.
Facebook
Facebook was originally created for college students and has evolved to all age groups. Businesses also create pages to enable communication with consumers. It is currently the world’s largest social network based on number of active users, though the demographic of the user base is aging. The largest growing sector is those 55 and over. The official purpose of Facebook is to make the world more open and connected and that it does, sometimes with oversharing. Consider limiting your frequency of posts and be mindful of volatile topics and going on personal tirades.
Twitter
Twitter is a microblogging site best for sharing news, commenting on current events, or pushing a movement forward in real time. Through hashtags, you can follow a trending topic and add to a larger conversation. It is a global platform and enables connection that may not occur on other social sites. Twitter provides a stream of quick updates from friends, family, academics, politicians, news journalists, and experts. It empowers people to become amateur journalists of life, writing in 280 characters or less about something that they found interesting. It is an easy platform for consumption of information and amplifying messages posted by people you follow.
Instagram
Instagram is a photo-sharing application that allows users to share pictures and videos publicly or to preapproved followers from a smartphone. Celebrities and style icons flock to Instagram for its image-editing tools and comment features, which provide instant feedback from followers. Some of the most-followed brands share eye-popping images (just take a look at National Geographic’s @natgeo account) and are finding significantly more influence and engagement here than on other social media platforms.
Snapchat
Snapchat was originally focused on private, person-to-person photo sharing; the photo, or “snap,” only played for a few seconds and then it would disappear for good. Snapchat is very different these days. You can now send short videos, live-video chat, message, create avatars, and share photos and videos via a chronological “story” that’s broadcasted to all your followers. It is constantly adding features. According to my niece, Snapchat is fun, and people use it to stay in touch and share their lives with one another. She did warn me against letting my preteen get the app after accepting a friend request from someone she didn’t know and receiving an inappropriate picture moments later. Famous for its filters that will make you look like a puppy or swap faces with a friend, Snapchat is a hit with the teen population.
Pinterest
Pinterest is a social network that allows users to visually share and discover new interests by posting images and videos—known as pins—through collections known as pinboards. The site is focused on the concept of a person’s lifestyle, allowing you to share your tastes and interests with others and discover those of like-minded people. The social network’s goal is to “connect everyone in the world through the ‘things’ they find interesting.” Its membership is predominantly female. This social media platform is best for visual industries, such as decor, fashion, makeup, and food. If your career or hobby is not related to a visual industry, this platform may not be worth your time.
Manage Your Contacts with a CRM
In 2015, I was honored to be named one of Forbes’ top 25 networking experts. So what do people named networking experts do? They start reaching out to each other, of course! That is how I connected with Zvi Band, a relationship marketing pro who cofounded a customer relationship management (CRM) tool called Contactually (Contactually.com).
I have to be honest: I have never used a CRM. I thought those tools were for salespeople or real estate professionals. They seemed overly complex, and maybe in the past they were. In the simplest terms, a CRM is a database. Zvi opened my eyes to how everyone can benefit from having a system to, as he put it, “help you stay engaged with the relationships that matter to your business and your career.” Nowadays, these intelligent databases can do so much data aggregation that they make staying connected easier.
The truth is, any systematic approach is better than none. You can use an Excel spreadsheet, Outlook, or any tool designed to do some of the heavy lifting for you. Whatever your method, Zvi explains that “you have to start off by capturing everyone you know. Your CRM should track everything you do. Many systems actually pull in your email conversations, calendar events, Excel spreadsheets, and phone contacts and can even track most phone calls and text messages.” Zvi shared three things any CRM should do for you.
Make Your Life Easier. Your database should be a digital representation of the real world. A CRM can show you your last conversations, notes from you and your team, and Contactually even includes data found online about your contact. According to Zvi, “A CRM has tools that help you prioritize the relationships that will make the most impact.” Your database should tell you who to talk to and when to talk to them.
Provide Intelligence That You Wouldn’t Otherwise Have. I read an article about Contactually’s Best Time to Email tool. I asked Zvi how it increased users’ responses by 20%. He explains, “This is achieved by continuously analyzing the relationships between users and their networks.” Contactually will show you the exact best time of day to reach out, because it is tracking when your communications are getting opened, clicked, and replied to. Different systems have different types of intelligence about your contacts.
Help You Engage. I have asked thousands of audiences why they don’t follow up. One of the most common responses is, “I have nothing to say” or “I don’t have a reason to.” Telling you who to engage with is only one piece of the puzzle. The content of the reach-out is another. A CRM can make the reach-out quick and efficient. Zvi explains the ability to “help users follow up with someone by leveraging email templates, pre-built campaigns, and insights you wouldn’t otherwis
e have.”
If a CRM can do all of this, it is not just making your life easier and more efficient, it is vastly improving your connectedness. At the end of the day, the best CRM is the one you use. Zvi put is best when he said, “A CRM does a lot of things for you automatically, but your relationships still need you.” With whatever tool you use, you have to get into the constant practice of using it. The whole point of a CRM is not just to keep you organized, but to keep you connecting.
The Dos and Don’ts of Digital Connecting
One of the founders of the Authoress group, digital media innovator Sarah Granger (SarahGranger.com), truly knows her stuff when it comes to connecting online—she grew up alongside the internet and has studied the social and technical changes that have occurred during that time. She provides great advice in four major digital dilemmas for succeeding in building online relationships, personally and professionally. Sarah is an award-winning digital media innovator and author of The Digital Mystique: How the Culture of Connectivity Can Empower Your Life—Online and Off.
Privacy
I have been unpleasantly surprised when my students had access to photos other people posted of me in my teenage years. I completely agree with Sarah’s warning: “Your privacy is vital to consider everywhere, but especially on the internet.” Sarah suggests that if you’re new to online networking, you should begin with your inner circle, your real offline friends. Keep your accounts private until you build a comfort level with the technology and then begin to loosen the reins. She advises, “Don’t be afraid to share. If you hold back too much, you’ll never find people with whom you share common interests. Show who you are and what you’re thinking about, what you’re reading, why you’re interested, what amuses and frustrates you.”
The Connector’s Advantage Page 17