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How Social Sellers Build Their Pipeline
with
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Cold Calling is
ineffective because no one
answers their
phone.
3
Your customers are too smart to respond to
SPAM or generic emails
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Today’s successful Sales Reps excel with LinkedIn on several fronts:
• They position themselves to win the deal they’re working on now.
• They understand the individuals who compete for their business.
• They expand their personal network to fill their sales pipeline through customer referrals.
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LinkedIn currently has 200 million members
worldwide
65.1% have held director-level or above positions
These are the decision makers YOU need to access.
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Referral-based Connecting
Successful people tend to work together.
A referral from a successful customer legitimizes you.
Our research shows an average 65% win rate on
referrals!
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LinkedIn provides tools that facilitate social gifting
Social Debt Economics
Endorsements, recommendations, mentions, and idea sharing are the currency in social debt economics
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3 Steps to Use LinkedIn to Build Your
Referral Pipeline
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Step #1 -Position Yourself as a
Thought Leader
Your LinkedIn profile represents your personal
brand. This is where Content Marketing meets
Social Selling.
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You cannot afford to simply digitize your resume.
Demonstrate thought leadership through your connections and
profile content.
Learn more detail about social selling here and here.
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Step #2 Connect to Your Customer
Customer connections are an ABSOLUTE MUST!
This is where the social debt economics can pay huge
dividends.
If you are good at your job, your customer will facilitate
introductions.
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Step #3 -Expand Your Personal Network
Build your customer-centric pipeline around the referrals from your
customer.
Use their profile as your window into their connected world.
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When researching your customer’s network, look to find the decision-makers
• The Customer Decision-maker: Look at their LinkedIn profiles to understand how influential they are. Are they connected to potential prospects?
• Your Customer’s Competitors: Chances are someone in your organization has worked for their competitor. Find the link.
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A good partner may be willing to collaborate with you. Look at partner profiles to find common connections. See “how you’re connected” to individuals in the company.
Research your customer’s Suppliers / Vendors / Channel Partners:
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These are the industry watering holes.
Research your Customer’s Industry Associations
To find future customers like the
one you have, look at ASSOCIATION
MEMBERSHIPS.
Then find the contacts within the
organizations that can help you most.
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Execute the PlanTo be successful, you MUST
execute!
Successful Sales Reps master the art of Social Selling over
cold calling.
When these Reps deliver success to their customers,
they create their sales pipeline.
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6 Tips to help build your pipeline
using
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Start by downloading the
Account Networking Tool
to centralize and
categorize your referrals in one place.
Tip #1
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Adopt a ‘Pay it Forward’
attitude.
Social debt is the currency of building your referral-based
pipeline
Tip #2
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Always ask, sometimes get. Sometimes ask,
never get.
Don’t hesitate to ask your customers for
introductions
Tip #3
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Make this effort a part of your daily habit.
Tip #4
Building a quality database takes time and commitment.
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Success does not happen overnight.
Tip #5
You won’t immediately know if what you did resulted in a referral.
This process requires patience.
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Integrate your effort with your current sales tools
Tip #6
Export your referrals into Salesforce.com
(or whatever tool your company uses)
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Need Help?
Download the Account Networking Tool
to build a referral database around your customer
GOOD LUCK!
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Learn More
If you don’t have a content management process or need help optimizing your current one, Contact us to hear the rest of the story...
Email - [email protected] - 1-888-556-7338Web: http://www.salesbenchmarkindex.com
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