Some tips for a sales team to use LInkedIn to make your selling more effective (to me at least):
1. Complete your LinkedIn profile with a professional photo and enough information about yourself so I can tell how you can help me.
2. Include a personal invite when you invite people to connect to you. Don’t just click the Connect button – tell me why I should connect with you or remind me where I have met you. At the very least look at my profile first!
3. Build a relationship with me by liking, commenting or sharing my updates. Make me notice who you are.
4. Belong to the same groups as me and participate in group discussions. Don’t use the group discussions to sell to me but to offer your opinion and perhaps solve my questions.
5. Generally give me information that I might find useful in your updates. Then when you do share an update that is a sales message, I might take notice.
6. Resist the impulse to message all of your contacts at the same time with a sales message. Think about who is likely to want to hear your message. For example, it is unlikely that I want my inbox cluttered up with news about a competitor’s Social Media workshop! Use LinkedIn’s tools to tag and sort your connections.
What do you think? I’m sure you will have suggestions to add to the list. Please share.
Ofcourse if you want some help improving your use of LinkedIn, have a look at my LinkedIn online course.