LinkedIn Lead Generation: Making Connections That Count

 Today we’re going to look at ARGUABLY the most important part of the whole LinkedIn lead generation process – how do you nurture and follow up your connections, and begin to steer the conversation towards an appointment off of LinkedIn?

There’s an old saying that your network = your net worth

The more connections you have, the more of an Influencer you become, the more widely known you are and therefore the more likely you are to make money from your services.  The more people who know, like and trust you, the more likely you are to get referrals and recommendations to people. 

But you need to actively build those relationships, by being proactive.  Like any relationship, it takes energy and effort, and time to nurture it.

So you’ve been building all these new connections - now what?  What do you say next to turn your contacts into contracts?

You want to have a pool of ideal prospects who know who you are, like what you do, and trust you enough to either recommend you to their contacts or do business with you themselves.

Imagine if there were 5 hot customers hiding in your LinkedIn contacts right now…

Because there are.  At least!  You just need to reveal them.  And the way you’ll do that is what in sales is called “Qualify the prospect” by asking the right questions to elicit a need.

Someone out there in LinkedIn land needs what you sell RIGHT NOW – you just have to find them

AND they will buy from someone within the next 12 months. Question is, will they be buying from you?

So it’s not connect then pitch.  You don’t send them a brochure, you don’t jump on them and say” You don’t need some LinkedIn training, do you?”  You don’t tell them all about you and then try and get them to agree to a phone call in the first message.

I’m sure you know the sort of thing I’m talking about?  

Your new connections want to be

• ·      Heard
• ·      Understood
• ·      Remembered
• ·      Respected

·      They want you to “get them” Only then will they be happy to do business with you.  Or recommend you to their friends, family, and colleagues.

So your initial conversations are all about THEM.  Go into your inbox each day and sort by UNREAD. 

Try and reply to every message within 48 hours, otherwise they start to go cold.

Be yourself, but always remember to talk about their issues, their headaches, things they will resonate with.  

If you uncover a need – they have a problem that you can help them with, you ask them the magic question:

“Would you like some help with that?”

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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 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 :-)]