Tag Archives: LinkedIn for Business Development

I saw three website – LinkedIn Advent Calendar (Day 5)

December 5, 2020 by ,

Here’s an easy win for you on your Profile.

The Contact Info section has a prime position at the top of the page. It automatically contains a link to your Public Profile – you know the one that can be seen anywhere on the web. (You can personalise the link, BTW!)

And …

Well for many people, there is no ‘and’. That’s the only thing in there, which is a bit of a waste.

What other contact info would be good?

Well, at the very least, give visitors to your Profile a nudge as to where they can find out more.

A link (more…)

Article Categories: Business Development on LinkedIn, LinkedIn Advice, LinkedIn Training
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What is LinkedIn’s Social Selling Index & how to benefit from it

March 25, 2020 by ,

Social Selling Index SSIfor the past few years, we have had access to an online tool called the Social Selling Index which is designed to give a snapshot of where you are in using LinkedIn as part of your sales – your social sales – activities. The details are displayed on your own page with references to how you rank in comparison to others within the same industry and your perceived peer group.

It is also couched with a number of references to LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator account – this is one of the premium account levels and the stream which is designed to help the sales professional to prospect and develop more business using social channels, and LinkedIn in particular.

What is the Social Selling Index?

The Social Selling Index (SSI) was a metric that LinkedIn introduced back in 2015 initially just to those with the upgraded Sales Navigator account but subsequently to all of LinkedIn’s members.

Your SSI is represented as a score out of 100 with 4 different key areas each marked out of a maximum of 25 – these areas represent and try to measure the four pillars of Social Selling according to LinkedIn (ones that I broadly agree with) which are: (more…)

Article Categories: Businesses using LinkedIn, LinkedIn Training, Social Selling
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Sales Navigator – is it worth it?

November 28, 2019 by ,

As the name indicates, the Sales Navigator account is aimed at Sales Professionals and Sales Teams and is one of the many Premium level accounts that LinkedIn offers along with its general Business, Jobseeker and Recruiter streams.

It is more than just a few extra bells and whistles on the normal account and so the first thing you will note when opening Sales Navigator is that the interface that you are faced with is totally different – Sales Navigator essentially acts as an additional layer on top of the main site, the area that LinkedIn refers to as Linkedin.com, which is designed to help sales, business development, channel and account managers to identify, manage and communicate with their prospective clients or partners.

Key Difference

There is a core underlying difference between LinkedIn.com and Sales Navigator which underpins all of the activity on it and is key to where our effort needs to be focused if we are to get the best from it.

The premise of LinkedIn.com is essentially to (more…)

Article Categories: Business Development on LinkedIn, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Sales Navigator
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5 Steps to Success on LinkedIn

March 30, 2019 by ,

Using LinkedIn: 5 steps to successThere has been much written about LinkedIn over the years and how it can work for you in business. Given that I have spent the last 10 years training companies and individuals on it, you are likely to expect that I’m going to be positive about what it offers. You’d be right, I’m a fan.

Having said that, I also recognise there is no single way to benefit from it – from job seeking to recruiting, networking to online training, business development to inbound marketing, the potential uses are many and very varied.

There are, however, some key underlying elements that we can all tap into – key steps to success if you like – and what we are going to look at below are some that will prove beneficial to using LinkedIn effectively, whatever your motives are for being on the site.

1. Decide what your current objectives are

LinkedIn is such a potentially wide-ranging tool, that you can use for a whole host of different reasons. Indeed, during your career as you enter different phases, your use will be radically different according to your current needs, situation and role.

Therefore, our first challenge is (more…)

Article Categories: B2B Advice for LinkedIn, Business Development on LinkedIn, LinkedIn Strategy, LinkedIn Tips, LinkedIn Training
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Do you want Followers or Connections on LinkedIn?

October 10, 2018 by ,

There was an interesting addition to the site functionality that LinkedIn has just announced and which I spotted a couple of weeks ago in the Settings area. It’s all about the difference between “connecting” with and “following” someone – you see, you can do both (which is the norm) or either (‘follow but not connect’ or ‘connect but not follow’) or neither of course.

Confused? Well, let me help. (more…)

Article Categories: Advanced LinkedIn, LinkedIn Advice, LinkedIn Updates, Using LinkedIn
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3 things to have in place before you buy Sales Navigator

August 19, 2018 by ,

I run lots of training sessions on using LinkedIn for Business Development, many just using the free account. I also do so on LinkedIn Sales Navigator and, while I wouldn’t have recommended it 3 years ago when it first came out, I certainly do now. However, not unreservedly.

My reticence is not because of the software, which is ever improving, but rather on the supporting elements we all need to ensure are in place around it which are key to it being a truly useful sales tool.

Personally I would highlight three elements to work on that are all things that you require when prospecting, whatever account you have on LinkedIn. If you can get these three things right and use all of the capabilities of the free account, then you can get a great deal out of it. However, putting them successfully in place, means that they can really come into their own when Sales Navigator is added to the equation. (more…)

Article Categories: B2B Advice for LinkedIn, Business Development on LinkedIn, Sales Navigator, Social Selling
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