LinkedIn Lead Generation In 6 Easy Steps

 The L.I.N.K.E.D. Daily Process

So this is your daily checklist on LinkedIn, and it’s easy to remember cos it’s an acronym

Look For Prospects - accept new connection requests ONLY if they are in your target market.  STOP accepting connection requests from any old contact – only let them into your pool if they meet your ideal client criteria, OR you think they will be a good fit.

Look at the connections of your connections [your 2nd level]  So that means click on someone’s profile, then go to their contacts – look at all the ones who are in your 2^nd level, so they know someone who knows you.  Then go down and connect with the ones that fit your IDEAL client criteria.  Your contact has already found all of these ideal clients and brings them to your door! 

Invite 10 to connect – do a search and find a batch of ideal clients, then connect with 10 sending a personalised approach 

Always send a personalised note and use their first name.

Here’s an interesting fact – when you get a new connection, you don’t get just ONE person – you are adding all of their 1^st and level connections into your pool.  Think about that.

So if you weren’t already connected to me, once you do, you get my 4195 connections

Nurture The Relationship - have a non-salesey conversation and build trust and rapport the way you would in person

Make it all about them.  Imagine you’re at a live networking event, what would you talk about?  As simple as “How’s business?”  Another one I’ve had success with is “So do you get much business from LinkedIn?

No selling.  No sales close.  In fact, you’ll actually stand out because you didn’t attempt to sell them, I actually got a message the other day saying “And thanks for not hitting me with a sales pitch!”

DO WHAT YOU’D DO AT A LIVE NETWORKING EVENT

ONLY move into the next step when you feel like there’s a good rapport and connection between you.  Would you want to have this person as a client based on the past interaction?

Probably 4-6 messages by the time you get to this stage.

Key Questions To Find A Need – Now every product/service/treatment business has certain questions that the provider will ask a prospect to establish if there’s a need for your p/s/t, right?  Think about what you ask a prospect in the initial conversation?  Ask whatever questions you would normally ask to see if there's a need for your product/service.

YES you’re a problem solver, but you FIRST have to be a problem FINDER!

THINK OF IT THIS WAY – who does a Doctor want to see?  Healthy patients?  Or Sick patients?

So as I’m in marketing I might ask How’s business?  Are you getting plenty of new leads coming in?  Could you handle any more right now?  Are you happy with your social media?

A great question is What’s your biggest challenge right now?

Do you have any problems with your sales and marketing?

If they say no, they probably don’t need me.  I’m looking for a need.  No need = move on.

I call these Key questions – mainly cos I needed a word that started with a K J

Once you find a need, you ask simply: WOULD YOU LIKE SOME HELP WITH THAT?

Explain How You Can Help - if you uncover a need and your connection wants help, take it offline.  In other words, suggest that they have a phone call or Zoom call or a 121 with you to discuss it further.

DO NOT try and close deals on LinkedIn. The LINKED process is a marketing process.  Now you take them into your SALES process.

Diary The Appointment - schedule a meeting/call and invite them to become a client

This what really counts.  This is the ONLY thing that counts. 

Involve yourself - by Liking, commenting, and sharing.  Also known as engagement, but another E would have ruined my acronym J

I’d recommend you LIKE at least 3 posts

Comment on those posts – the algorithm likes more than 7 words, and use their first name

Share at least 1 post you like.

This not only tells the LinkedIn algorithm that you’re a serious player, it also helps your connections get more visibility, so you’re helping them too.

New post – valuable, informative, that will attract your target market

EDUCATE – INSPIRE – ENGAGE THEM

Posts make you VISIBLE

This is where you put something up that will resonate with your target market. 

LET ME EXPLAIN MY THINKING AROUND THIS

So you’ll see that contrary to most people’s approach to LinkedIn which is like a few things, comment a couple of times, and fling up a post that I hope is relevant, the emphasis here is we do that stuff LAST.  The emphasis here is making the connections with the right people, building the relationships of know, like, and trust, separating the high probability prospects from the low or no probability prospects, and then we do the engagement stuff.

I was asked recently by a prospect  “How many views will my LinkedIn posts get?”  I told him that’s not the key performance Indicator to watch.  That’s vanity.  What matters is how many appointments are in your diary, and how many of them turn into paying clients.  If my diary is full, I don’t really care how many views my post gets.

You want the right people seeing your posts and engaging with you, so that’s why we find them first and fill your LinkedIn pool with the IDEAL prospects, who then see your posts and comment.

Is that making sense?

Different mindset = different results.

P.S. - We're currently looking for beta users to join our new LINKEDLeads platform. After spending over 23 years working with over 5,000 clients, we are releasing this one-of-a-kind platform to help awesome Coaches & Consultants like you map out every step of an awesome sales and marketing strategy. We're talking about your target audience, polishing up your profile, a daily process, and more!

To request an invite go to https://www.linkedleads.co.uk/authority-amplifier-no-pixel1607017757257

How Coaches, Consultants & Speakers Should Really Use LinkedIn For Lead Generation

 One of the questions I get asked all the time by my Coaching, Consulting or Speaker clients is: What are the best ways to generate leads?

 In the old days we would get a list of Companies, or pick up the phone book, cold call them, find out from the gatekeeper who the decision-maker was, then write them a letter, then follow up with a phone call, get rejected by said gatekeeper several times, and maybe [if you were persistent] get a phone call with them to pitch your business to them.

 Thank God for LinkedIn – now I can set up a free account, do a search for my ideal clients, pull up a list of thousands of them, send them a connection request, at least half will say yes and then I can message them to start a conversation.  From my sofa.

 
Here are some fascinating statistics for you…
 
According to a 2020 global survey by the International Coaching Federation, the average life Coach earns around £42,000 per year.  The average income for a UK Business Consultant is around the same.
 
A lot of Coaches and Consultants TRY and use Social media to generate leads.  In fact, 80% of all business to business leads generated through Social Media come from LinkedIn.
 
On Facebook, the average age of a user is between 20 and 29 years old.  The average income of a Facebook user has been measured as between £15 - £25 k per year.
 
On LinkedIn, the average age of a user is between 35 and 55 years old.  The average income of a LinkedIn user has been measured as between £40 - £50 k per year.
 
So assuming you know who your ideal target market is, the older audience with more disposable income is on LinkedIn.
 
You know yourself, generating new prospects for your Coaching or Consulting business is an endless task.  If people can’t find you, they can’t buy from you, so marketing is a daily requirement.  You’ve probably burned money on expensive ads that didn’t work.  This is a free alternative that’s tried and tested in the real world.
Break out of the feast or famine cycle.  Stop worrying about the future and all of the uncertainty.  If you hate sales and trying to be pushy, let me show you how to make the most of your time and use a clear and easy path to generate new leads from the comfort of your own home.  And it costs you NOTHING.
 
Here's all it takes:

1. Describe exactly who your IDEAL client is – their job title, their location, which industry

1. Do a search on LinkedIn in just your home city and see how many show up.  Connect with 10 a day.

1. Save that search on LinkedIn so they send you an email every week with new leads that match your criteria.  

Simples.

If any of this resonates then  I’d recommend you book a call with me – let’s have a free chat and let me help you build a solid LinkedIn lead generation plan – let me walk you through the exact steps I’m talking about on a Zoom call.   You leave with a step by step plan to get leads from LinkedIn every day – in the comfort of your own home – at no charge.

Sound good? Book a call at 

https://calendly.com/instantedge/fic

CLARK’S HIERARCHY OF LEADS

 

Let me introduce you to what I [humbly] call Clark’s Hierarchy of Leads...

 - this is a tool that I have developed over the last three years which enables me to diagnose where a business client is. While I explain this I would invite you to ask yourself which stage are you on because that gives you strategies and tips on what to focus on next.

The four stages are called surviving, striving, thriving, and inspiring and they are measured by annual income.

Surviving is classed as up to 20K, striving is between 21 and 40 K, thriving is between 41 and 80 k, and inspiring is 81 to 100k per year and up.

 Now at the bottom of the pyramid people I speak to typically have more time to spare than money. The guys and gals at the top of the pyramid have the opposite situation – they have plenty of money, but they have no time.

 The survivors are typically overwhelmed, they never have enough time or money, but they usually have more time than money. They have goals but they are starting to believe that it's just a pipe dream, so they market sporadically. They often live on self-help books and follow all the gurus, spending the money they do earn on courses and training which they hope will increase the income. Very often they are qualified and extremely good at what they do - perhaps even world-class, but they have few if any clients who know that.

 My recommendations are that they start by setting very clear and specific goals , they identify who their target market Avatar is in specific detail and they get to know the marketplace i.e. what is selling, what’s their competition doing, what are people buying, what do people want? It’s much easier to give the marketplace what it wants than invent something and try and find someone to flog It to.

 

 The strivers have had some success but their head is full and they're still overwhelmed, jumping from Shiny Toy to Shiny Toy. They may have some marketing and sales and operational systems in place but these are usually like jigsaw pieces rattling about in a box, a bit here and a bit there so they experience months of drought and months of abundance in a feast or famine cycle which makes it exciting… but stressful. As a result they are often feeling a bit jaded, as if “what's the point?”

 

Typical solutions I recommend is that they get very clear on their origin story and why they are uniquely qualified to do what they do, they develop a clear message that will resonate with their target market, and they do everything they can to increase their visibility and outreach – that means social media, networking and the other 52 ways of getting clients.

 

 The thrivers are typically making 41 k and above anywhere up to 80k – these guys are impatient -  they are making money but they want to take it to the next level so they are restless, always looking for the next edge, the next smart strategy. They have success stories, testimonials, they may even be known in their field for what they do, but it's still not enough.

Keys to success include sharing their success stories when they’re networking, in video, on podcasts, endorsements on LinkedIn, reviews on Google and Facebook to prove their credibility. They're still working an hour at a time for an hour’s pay – linear income - so it is smart to introduce them to multiple income streams – residual income - including creating a product like a book, or an online course that makes them money while they sleep so they don't have to work harder but they can make more money in the same time. This is the level where the business grows and develops solid marketing strategies so there is a funnel in place, there is constant prospecting, there is a sales process, referral systems and customers are looked after effectively.

Earning 81k and above are inspiring - these guys are well known in their fields, they have a good reputation and they are proud of the impact they are having on hundreds if not thousands of people – there may even be a waiting list to get on board with them.

To grow even further then it's time to look at scaling-up - in particular their marketing so that more people in more markets know who they are. That may mean vertical marketing going deeper into their chosen niche, or horizontal marketing where they help different avatars with similar issues. Collaborating with other businesses such as Joint Ventures and host relationships, outsourcing a lot of the work to the team who can multiply the efforts of the owner. Perhaps they can automate their existing systems to free up manpower and let the computers and robots do what they're built for, as well as developing systems that make the business run more efficiently and effectively.

 So having covered the four levels  - you’ll know your level of your income in the last 12-months, you should be able to identify what level you’re on and I'd be interested to hear your comments or feedback on Clark’s Hierarchy of Leads?

How James Made £30,000 Through Lockdown Using LinkedIn

http://linkedleads.co.uk/

How to use LinkedIn to win clients with sniper-like focus

http://linkedleads.co.uk/ The 6 Things You Need To Be Doing On LinkedIn TODAY To Get 3-5 New Clients Every Week...

How To Use LinkedIn For Business

 Imagine if you were getting 3-5 new customers or clients every week who were eager to speak to you...

 If you were fully booked and you did it all at your keyboard.  You could stop burning money on expensive and risky advertising and instead only speak to quality people who have a genuine need for your service.  No Starbucks, no petrol expense, no commuting.  And anyone can learn how to do it in half an hour a day.

Here’s a true story - we have a client who ran a business with 2 other staff members.  Their average sale was £2000.  If he got a sale he was delighted with that £2k.

He’s been using this approach for 3 months now, he now employs 9 staff members and his last two sales were for £22k and £45k.  Not bad for spending half an hour a day on his laptop!

You know yourself that the world has gone online in a huge way since Covid19 hit.  Businesses that weren’t online before needed to pivot [hate that word] quickly.  Those that were already online needed to up their game.  Everyone was stuck at home buying from Amazon, networking online, and learning online.  

If you were in a business that relied on face to face appointments with customers, or you ran workshops, seminars, or training, then you were screwed overnight.  

Most business networkers went virtual and learned how to look up people’s nostrils on Zoom.  But even so, most of them weren’t working it correctly and sales plummeted.  Meanwhile, the professionals who knew about LinkedIn started spending more time on it, and they did so much better.  If you honestly think LinkedIn doesn’t work, or you’ve never used it before, I’d invite you to think again.  There are 600 million business owners on there right now and it's growing.  And you can message any one of them for free…

So before you ask “How do I use LinkedIn?” my advice is to take a step back.  Decide how much you want to earn in the next 12 months.
Based on your average sale, how many sales do you need to hit that?
Based on your current conversion rate, whether it's 1 out of every 10 or 1 out of 3, how many appointments do you need to book?

And breathe!  OK, so there’s this amazing social media site called LinkedIn where business owners and decision-makers show up every day and connect with people.  You can network, chat and uncover potential prospects all day long.  BUT you need to know what you’re doing.  Before you start pitching people and connecting with everyone and anyone cos that must work right? [wrong]  you need to decide what you want out of this – get 100% clarity on your business goals so you go into the online networking arena fully informed.  

This is step 1 in my LINKEDLeads process and you need to set your sniper scope on the target first.  That’s step 2 – just who exactly are you trying to reach?

So what are your next steps? Start by working out your numbers – target income for the next 12 months, how many sales needed, how many appointments needed.  Then you might want to get in touch and I can help you with a personalised game plan so you use LinkedIn to earn what you need to earn.  

Email me at admin@instantedge.co.uk [or look me up on LinkedIn :-)]