Sales prospecting with LinkedIn

With over 670 million users globally (March 2020), LinkedIn is recognised as the world's largest B2B professional networking site. Many of these users visit the platform on a daily basis to research purchasing decisions.

There are few sales professionals who don't understand the scale of the opportunity that LinkedIn represents. Yet so many of us are still applying 'analogue' techniques on a 'digital' platform. We're adopting passive techniques (being social) or at best our efforts are marketing-led (social marketing), and we're left perplexed as to why our efforts are not yielding results.

The fact is, neither of these activities sell. They raise awareness, but they don't drive deals into your pipeline.

Ultra high performing salespeople recognise this. They recognise that 'how' they make new connections and engage with their network is significantly different on a digital platform. They know how to use LinkedIn to help them connect and engage with prospects effectively, apply robust sales methods and ultimately win more business. Their colleagues are envious of their success. Their competitors are left bewildered. These are the individuals who have successfully transitioned from being social or social marketeers into social selling.

If you recognise that traditional 'analogue' sales and prospecting methods are dying a death in a B2B environment, and you've been trying to understand how to transition into the world of 'digital' sales and prospecting, our blended training provides the fundamentals to allow you to make the transition quickly and effectively.

This course is structured into three key elements:

1. Network Growth
   Understand our proven iterative processes for building out your LinkedIn network with highly-targeted connections, which provides a platform of relevant connections to engage with on a professional level.
2. Effective Engagement
   Traditional 'analogue' engagement techniques do not work on a 'digital' platform, and the mistake many organisations make is the assumption that they do. We take you through effective engagement processes for social selling, identifying the habitual behaviours sales professionals are required to adopt to become successful social sellers on LinkedIn. It's a dynamic place to be, with LinkedIn constantly adjusting its 'algorithm'. Sales professionals who understand this piece are the sales leaders on the platform. They are the ones generating direct, inbound, leads.
3. Gap Selling
   Whilst sales methodologies are abundant, and no one method is suited to every situation or business, we believe Gap Selling is one of the most effective sales methods of our time for high value, consultative, solution sales. Given that the primary focus of this course is focused on Digital Sales Prospecting, training around sales methods is beyond the scope of this programme. However, many of our delegates do not have access to formal sales methods and we feel it worthwhile to provide an introduction to Gap Selling.

The intended audience for this learning includes anyone involved in selling or influencing in a B2B environment and has identified the need for a sales-led approach to drive sales velocity, revenue growth, market diversification and/or revenue security through new business acquisition.