Mastering LinkedIn Sales: Building Relationships and Closing Deals

LinkedIn is the first tool that comes to our minds when discussing professionals. It has evolved its presence for salespeople, not just for job seekers. However, LinkedIn as a sales tool is also highly effective. LinkedIn has become the most powerful and effective sales tool for connecting with new and more significant prospecting audiences and building strong and authentic relationships with potential buyers.

LinkedIn is the most popular social media platform right now; therefore, it is fitting that people can get many qualified leads from here for their business. But there are sellers in the market who need clarification on the process of where to begin for LinkedIn sales. So let us move ahead in this article below and understand how to get started with LinkedIn sales and tips to make the best use of it. 

What do you Mean by Sales on LinkedIn?

Sales on LinkedIn typically means the process in which you would use LinkedIn to identify and then engage with potential customers for your business. This can be completed in several ways:

• Direct messaging the potential prospects
• Lead-generating campaigns running on the LinkedIn platform, and
• Some other relationship-building techniques.

Business owners can use LinkedIn most to target customers from specific backgrounds, similar job profiles, or similar locations. Various other in-built tools with LinkedIn can be used for identifying your relevant people. Along with the identification, they can also track the activities of those qualified prospects. 

The research has proved that 44% of the prospective customers are social media connections who engaged with your brand through LinkedIn only. 

Ways of Using LinkedIn for Sales Prospecting

As we all know, LinkedIn has become one of the most powerful tools to promote your products or services and work for your sales. However, this whole process is a long one, including all the below steps:

1. How to Prospect on LinkedIn?
   

Prospecting on LinkedIn means that you are using LinkedIn to connect and engage with your potential customers to sell your products and services to them. Below are the tips you should surely follow to understand this prospecting process on LinkedIn:

• The first and foremost step is to understand your target audience. And for this, you need to filter them based on location, job profiles, company sizes, and other factors.
  

• The next step is to do some next-level search on the customers per your requirements to understand them better.
• Now that you know your ideal customers, the next step is to make some personal connections with them, get engaged, and let them know the reasons behind your contact with them.
• The next one is to get more engaged by sharing relevant and valuable content with them. Also, explain to them about your products and services that can be beneficial for them in which manner.
• Use LinkedIn sales tools to look into the engagement rate and track the customers' progress toward your business. 
• The last and most important one is constantly being consistent and regular with your routine or selling posts on LinkedIn. This helps in letting the customers stay connected with you and your products or services. Also, you can refer the Smartlead AI for getting tips on becoming an expert in LinkedIn prospecting. 

2. How to Research on LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is the only social media platform with information about several individuals, the target companies, and industries. You need to go through the below steps while performing the research on LinkedIn:

• The first and most essential is that you should be aware of your objective. For example, what is the exact result you expect from this research for yourself or your business? 
• Then, when you know what you want, it becomes easy for you to use regular or advanced search filters to get the search results per your expectations. For example, if you are looking for a job in Delhi NCR related to project management, you can put filters about location, company size, and job title.

• After the filters, the next step is knowing more about the company. You can look for their reviews and websites to understand their vision, mission, work environment, products, and services. 
• If you find the company suitable for you to work with, you should start researching the job postings depending on your skills and qualifications. 
• Along with the above simple research, you can also perform advanced analysis by looking into the profiles of those already working in that company. This helps you understand their job roles, responsibilities, and skills. 
• While conducting your research, you can also join the LinkedIn groups relevant to your search. For example, you can join groups related to project management to check if there are some job postings in that. 

• Last, you can also use LinkedIn learning courses to enhance your skills and knowledge. Hundreds of online classes on LinkedIn are available on technical and practical knowledge.

You may also read: How to write an effective LinkedIn Headline?

3. How to Enhance your LinkedIn Profile for Better Sales?

The primary benefit of optimizing and improving your LinkedIn profile is attracting many potential clients, which further increases sales. With this, you can quickly increase the viability of your profile on LinkedIn and show your expertise to visitors. To do this, you need to follow the below steps:

Improvise your LinkedIn headline

The first crucial task in optimizing the LinkedIn profile is improvising the headline. It would be best if you wrote your LinkedIn headline clearly and in short using relevant keywords per the market requirements and standards.

Profile Picture

For your LinkedIn profile, always ensure that you are using a professional profile picture. This helps establish your credibility in front of the customer's eyes. 

Summary

In the summary section of your LinkedIn profile, you can highlight your expertise, skills, and overall professional experience. Using keywords from the relevant market can help the customers to look for you easily and quickly. 

Try to get Recommendations.

When it comes to LinkedIn, recommendations work like magic here. So getting recommendations from other colleagues on LinkedIn demonstrates your expertise in a particular field to the customer. This way, they tend to trust you more.

Present your Experience

The experience column should showcase all your achievement or accomplishments in your professional career. In this section, bullet points highlighting the numbers would be best.

Showcase your Skills

Ensure that your skills are always up-to-date and relevant per market demands. 

Use the LinkedIn Sales Tool

Using the interesting LinkedIn sales navigator tool helps the best in searching for new warm leads for your business. It makes use of the advanced filters on LinkedIn to perform your search.

Relevant and Original Content

The most crucial tip for engaging through LinkedIn sales is ensuring that the promotional content you share on your profile should be relevant and valuable for prospective customers. You can also refer Smartlead AI to learn about LinkedIn content marketing.

How to Sell Your Business on LinkedIn?

Social selling on LinkedIn is the most powerful way of bringing more qualified leads to your business. For this, you need to follow the below steps:

• The most essential part of a social selling campaign is the look of your LinkedIn profile. Because whenever any customer comes and visits your brand, the first impression would be their last impression about you and your business. So always enhance your LinkedIn profile by highlighting your experience and skills.

• Building up your LinkedIn high-quality network is another crucial step because you need to connect with many potential clients and contacts to get into selling business. 
• Sharing relevant and valuable content helps grab the eyes of potential warm leads worldwide. 
• It is rightly said that communication is the key to success. However, staying in regular contact with your leads helps build strong and long-term relationships with them.
• Personalization helps the most in increasing your sales. Personalizing your LinkedIn outreach messages shows them that you care about them and their needs. 

For reference, you can consider Smartlead's as a guide for personalization.

• Measuring the performance of your high-quality content is the key to checking whether the sales tactics are working. So for the posts, blogs, or anything you post on your LinkedIn profiles, you can track how many people viewed it, how many got engaged with it, and how many further shared it. So with this tracking, you can also look out for the performance and the areas of improvement.

Insights of the Sales Profiles on LinkedIn

Are you constantly thinking about what is a sales profile or how to make it right? Then you are at the correct spot. Simply put, a sales profile on LinkedIn provides you the details and information about sales professionals, their skills, achievements, and experience. 

So below are the insights that you get to know when you talk about any sales profile on LinkedIn:

👉Experience

The sales professionals first showcase their experience related to sales professionals on their LinkedIn profiles. Details about the locations they have worked in, their social selling tactics, and the type and categories of products and services they sold.

👉Skills

Next comes the sales professional's skills, like their negotiation skills, forecasting of the sales process, and in the end, the essential one, the ways of lead generation. For lead generation, you can get tips from Smartlead.ai about high-quality lead generation methods. 

👉Expertise

Expertise is also essential because presenting your background improves your credibility. So you can see the type of industry the sales professional has worked for, including medical, finance, IT technology, and healthcare.

👉Track record

Highlighting your previous work experience and track records in your LinkedIn profiles is important because that helps the customer know about your ability to meet the sales targets.

How do I Write a Sales Profile on LinkedIn?

Writing a sales profile on LinkedIn is challenging and fascinating as well. So below are some practical tips that can be used while writing these profiles to make them leave the best impressions on clients:

• Start your LinkedIn sales profile with a strong headline about yourself, including the relevant keywords from the market standards.
• Create a mesmerizing summary of your skills, expertise, and experience on your profile. 
• Highlight the category of products or services you have sold, your experience with the type of sales industry, and your social selling tactics.
• Demonstrate your skills with the keywords from the target market so that the customer knows about your plus points and can immediately get attracted to your business.
• Use as much as relevant keywords from the target market.
• Please stay in contact with your leads, and do not ghost them.

What Makes a Good LinkedIn Profile for Sales?

Below are some of the essential elements that make your sales LinkedIn profiles look the best of all:

• A compelling headline that demonstrates your previous experience in sales.
• A descriptive summary of your skills and what you have in you to serve potential clients.
• Your appropriate and detailed sales experience, skills, and accomplishments.
• Add some interactive and high-quality content like images or videos describing the products and services you have sold in the past.
• Get recommendations from your previous customers to showcase your social proof.

What is a Headline in LinkedIn Sales?

A headline in the LinkedIn sales profiles is a short and straightforward declaration shown directly below your name on your LinkedIn profile. In this short sentence, you mention your expertise and value addition to the prospective customers. It tells your potential customer what you have in you for their benefits and needs. Therefore, your LinkedIn headlines must be attractive, attention-grabbing, and include relevant keywords. A well-written headline will surely get your business more warm leads and sales. 

What is the Job Title for Sales on LinkedIn?

The job title is the role you want to work in or have already worked on. Your job title on your LinkedIn profile should be relevant to your position in your previous industry. Below are some of the common examples of job titles related to the sales profession:

• Sales Executive
• Sales manager
• Outside sales representative
• Sales operational manager
• Sales representative's sales director

What is a Sales Profile Summary?

The sales summary exactly comes below the headline on your LinkedIn profile. It includes a detailed description of your previous experience, skills, expertise, and sales achievements. The essential thing to be mentioned in this section is to describe what you have that makes you stand out from all other sales professionals.

The sales summary on your LinkedIn profile should be brief, engaging, and catch the customer's attention. Apart from just the professional background, you can also include the categories of products or services you worked with and the brand you worked with. Lastly, using relevant marketing keywords makes your sales profiles highly visible in the search results. 

How do I Approach Someone on LinkedIn for Sales?

Reaching out to someone on LinkedIn for sales is a philosophical thought that leaves a positive impression on the other person. Below are the tips you can use while approaching someone for the same:

• Conduct proper research: Before contacting anyone, please thoroughly research that person on LinkedIn to learn about their background and interests. 

• Personalization: Now that you know about your prospect, the next step is to use LinkedIn messaging and send a personalized message to explain why you are approaching them. Ensure your LinkedIn message is free of spammy or typical words or phrases.

• Be clear about your thoughts: Keeping your LinkedIn message short and crisp is essential so that the reader keeps their interest in your business. Just let them know what you have to offer for their need and benefits. 

• Be professional: Always ensure that your messages are written professionally. Avoid using emojis or any friendly conversational tone.

• Do follow-up: Following up is essential because it shows readers that you care about them. So your follow-up messages should also be short.

How do I Attract Clients on LinkedIn?

To fascinate more potential customers to your LinkedIn profiles, follow the below steps:

• Enhance your LinkedIn profile to grab the attention of first-time visitors, and they end up messaging you. 
• Build a good and extensive network with professionals on LinkedIn.
• Ensure to share relevant content on LinkedIn showcasing your experience and accomplishments.
• Always try to engage with your audience by commenting and sharing others' posts.

Tips for Using LinkedIn for Sales

Below are some of the tips you should follow while using LinkedIn for sales:

• Constantly personalize your marketing outreach messages to quickly get potential customers interested in your business.
• Use the LinkedIn sales navigator tool to specifically target people with similar interests and requirements as per your products and services.
• Join several LinkedIn groups to stay connected with the like-minded and ideal audience around you.
• Always ask for recommendations on LinkedIn from your previous colleagues and industry experts.
• Include the market-relevant keywords in your LinkedIn profile.
• Ensure the high-quality content you share is relevant to the needs and requirements of the potential customers.
• Work closely with the advanced features of LinkedIn to understand your leads in a better way,
• Engage with your leads through the LinkedIn outreach messages feature.
• Add a high-quality and professional profile picture on LinkedIn.
• Try to get and maintain at least 500 connections to improve your credibility on LinkedIn.
• Engage with your leads frequently.
• Follow up with your potential customers.

‍

Wrapping Up

LinkedIn is the most effective social media platform where all salespeople can get more qualified leads, and connections, and build solid and authentic relationships with potential customers. So specifically, to succeed in sales on LinkedIn, it is essential to stay engaged with your relevant people and show them what you have is beneficial and needful for them. This can be done with the help of frequent valuable content posts on LinkedIn and constant connection with them.

FAQs

Is LinkedIn a good sales tool?  

Yes, LinkedIn is an excellent sales tool due to its professional network, allowing salespeople to connect with prospects, showcase expertise, and build relationships. It offers targeted lead generation, networking opportunities, and valuable insights into prospects' interests and behaviors.

How to do B2B sales on LinkedIn?  

B2B sales on LinkedIn involves optimizing profiles, joining relevant groups, sharing valuable content, engaging with prospects, utilizing advanced search filters for lead generation, and leveraging LinkedIn Sales Navigator for targeted outreach and relationship-building.

How often should salespeople post on LinkedIn?  

Salespeople should aim to post consistently on LinkedIn, ideally 2-3 times per week. Quality content that provides value, such as industry insights, success stories, or helpful tips, helps establish credibility and keeps them top-of-mind with their network.

Is LinkedIn more effective than cold calling?  

LinkedIn can be more effective than cold calling in many cases, as it allows for targeted outreach, relationship-building, and personalized communication. However, the effectiveness ultimately depends on the salesperson's approach, target audience, and industry dynamics.

How to do sales prospecting on LinkedIn?  

Sales prospecting on LinkedIn involves identifying ideal prospects through advanced search filters, engaging with their content, sending personalized connection requests, nurturing relationships with valuable insights, and leveraging mutual connections for warm introductions. Utilizing LinkedIn Sales Navigator can further enhance prospecting efforts.