Many people think of LinkedIn as just another social networking tool that lets them connect with people who share their career interests. Those in the know, however, can take advantage of powerful LinkedIn tips to generate sales.
Follow these 4 tips to start making your LinkedIn profile work for you.
1. Join Discussions, Groups and Associations
Discussion Photo via Shutterstock
The more connections you make through LinkedIn, the more people you’ll meet who might want to buy items from your company. That means you should get involved.
Join discussions, groups, and associations so you can find other people working in your industry. You can even start a group to attract people who might want to buy from you.
Make sure that sales is your secondary goal. Making connections should always be at the front of your mind. If you make the right connections and get involved in the community, then the sales aspect will become much easier.
2. Select an Account Type That Meets Your Needs
The standard LinkedIn account is free, but it doesn’t give you access to many tools. If you really want to connect with more people to boost your sales, you should consider upgrading to a premium account.
Good account options for businesses include:
- Sales Basic
- Sales Plus
- Sales Executive
Even if you choose a Sales Executive account, which is the most expensive, you’ll spend less than $75 a month. That’s worth it if it helps you make more sales. Of course, you can start with the cheaper Sales Basic option ($15.95 a month) to see if it works for you.
These premium accounts let you:
- See who has viewed your profile
- Manage your leads to close deals
- Have LinkedIn introduce you to people who might help grow your business
- View full profiles
3. Display Your Expertise
Stand Out Photo via Shutterstock
LinkedIn has over 200 million members. That means you face a lot of competition from other people using the site to make connections and sales.
How do you plan to stand out from the crowd?
Displaying your expertise is a powerful way to get noticed. Post insightful, well researched information in discussions. If you can teach something to other people in your industry, then they will start to see you as a leader.
Once you become an industry leader that others rely on, you should have a much easier time converting leads into sales.
4. Manage Your Flow of Information
Manage Information Photo via Shutterstock
People want to buy from a company that offers good customer services and reliable products. That doesn’t mean they want a barrage of information from you.
Don’t use LinkedIn as your personal advertising forum. That will make people dislike you. After some time, it will even make them disconnect from you. No one likes to get spammed. If you become a spammer, then you will lose potential sales.
At most, you should send updates only once every two days. Anything more than that is overkill.
What are some of the most successful ways that you’ve used LinkedIn to generate sales?
Stand Out Photo via Shutterstock
Ray Paule Patrick
Fantastic & Enlightening !! ..as I have written on many websites of this subject …….social media has always been an intrinsic part of the human condition we just never knew it or were given the eyes to see beyound the every day world ….. We need to tune into it quick and fast, if anyone looks at it for the SOUL sake of making money then you may as well lock yourself into a room back in 1983 somewhere ….as people all over the world are waking up to the long-term prospects of being able to find a way out of what was once a ‘ rat race ‘ …use it to your advantage but never take advantage of the reason why you are using it as that only leads to destruction of the self and the ultimate output of public mistrust in how they too can enhance any seed of growth for a new direction in their own lives .. in these meteoric times of change :
Related to #1, start a group. I started a LinkedIn group call Conversion Rate Optimization Pros and now it has over 1000 members. It takes some time, but it’s totally worth the effort.
TJ McCue
Would love to hear about how the group members convert into paying customers for you, Robert. No pun intended.
Joining the conversation is a great way to generate sales and get connections. I have had that suggested to me many times and it serves its purpose.
Regarding joining and being active in groups:this is a very good idea, but choose your group wisely as some groups are not moderated and are loaded with marketing rather than helpful information. When I find that a group is useless as it’s all mareting or has little participation, I opt out of the group and join another. However, I don’t simply hop around. I choose groups as wisely as I can. Most of my groups give very useful information about event and meeting planning.
Michael Neuendorff
Hi. I totally disagree with point #4 that you should only post at most once every two days. Much data suggests that many of your Connections don’t even log on every day. Thus, if you post only every other day you could be missing a large chunk of your network. I make an effort to post once per day and since then my connections have grown, appearances in search has grown, endorsements have taken off, and business opportunities have increased.
Charles Barnes
Excellent Ideas. I’m also learning alot about using Linkedin from “How to Really Use Linkedin” by Vermeiren and Verdonk.
tiffany boucher
Thanks for posting this one. It enlightens me to be successful in my career. I will follow all your instruction detailed herein.
Thanks for sharing. I never thought what type of account you had influenced your overall profile.
Bethaney
#5 using colorful, interesting pictures 🙂