How Relevant is LinkedIN to small and medium-sized business owners?

If you’re in the realm of doing anything business-to-business and you have licensing or sponsorship opportunities available to you, LinkedIn can help with these.

This guy works with B2B specifically helping already successful companies find leads through LinkedIn where at the time of this seminar, there were 225 million people on there.

If you’re gonna make LinkedIn work for you, you’ve got to know who your perfect prospect is and reach out to them specifically. You can actually use LinkedIn’s advanced search function as a yellow pages and find people by title, industry, company, regional location, etc.

Any kind of marketing success with any media is directly correlated to WHO you’re talking to and whether your MESSAGE/OFFER is relevant in their world.

Another thing you can do is find people to begin interviewing to hire on LinkedIn. I know a rockstar on linkedIN. This guy has hired everyone who works for him through LinkedIn and hasn’t had to pay any recruiters nor pay to run ads anywhere.

This guy has used it to help fill events and to build his advisory board (if you prefer, you could use it to build a mastermind group). You could also use it find vendors.

How Do You Meaningfully Connect With People via LinkedIN?

You can reach out to anyone you’ve targeted with Inmail as long as they haven’t turned off their settings. Inmail is email within the LinkedIn platform. That’s the easiest way to reach out to people there but I think it costs you like $10 bucks a pop to send an Inmail there.

So of course, this is where knowing precisely who you want to be talking to is incredibly important.

This isn’t a 42 cent stamp so you better make damn sure the $10 bucks you’re spending is well spent based on you talking to the right person and saying the right thing when you get someone to open your message.

The guy I am talking about that I interviewed closed one on one has sent over 3 million messages on there and has been able to hold a five out five star rating on that site.

What he’s found allowed him to do this was to make sure that your messages demonstrate that you are trustworthy, credible, and an interesting person to talk to.

You MUST give an intriguing reason-why you want to talk to them which revolves around time or money and relieve them of feeling strong apprehension.

If you message this way, more often than not you’re going to get a nice response, even with the people who don’t want to talk to you about furthering the relationship.

The major thing you want to emphasize in one of the cold Inmail messages is what you’re doing that solves a problem for them surrounding time or money or risk, or all three.

Risk could be an issue for a CEO who’s worried about getting fired if he doesn’t consistently make smart decisions and if you’re selling a leadership event, you’re obviously speaking to the point of lowering their vulnerability by giving them skills that keep them kicking ass.

If you’re selling software to a corporation, you’ve got to look to evaporate all the risk an executive will they feel they’ll be taking by buying your software and using it worldwide in their business.

Everything when offering anything to anybody always comes down to you convincing the other person that you’re going to do what you said you would. When a prospect is convinced of this, they can feel safe working with you. And then when you deliver on your promise, they can be transformed into a raving fan.

It’s CRITICALLY IMPORTANT to put yourself into the other person’s shoes when reaching out with LinkedIn.

You want people to be grateful that you showed up in their lives so any communication that doesn’t allow for this, is dangerous because if you show up and people are hating your communication you will get a bad name via bad ratings/feedback. This means it’ll be game over for you on this platform. You’ll be run out of town.

One thing you’ve got to be okay with this method is spending this $10 bucks to get a LEAD; not make a sale. If you’re just sending these messages to directly send people to buy something from you in one shot as opposed to using this message to begin the educational marketing process that brings the person along to the point where they’re begging to give you money, you’ve gonna have a rough time.

The best results people get from LinkedIn come from getting in the door; not from closing people in one message.

This is why you need a marketing funnel to put these leads into that nurtures them along and helps them come to the logical conclusion that handing you money is one of the smartest things they could do at this moment in time.

And the people who get to the money fastest with leads generated via LinkedIn have a specific packaged product/service that is a low risk/low cost/high value offer the prospect can avail themselves of and be wowed by because it delivers something they value highly.

So here’s an example breakdown of a successful LinkedIn lead gen message . . .

Hi Bob,

My name is Abhinav Gulyani. I’m the CEO of ___________ and I would like to introduce you to _____________ on my team to talk about (name of product/service).

However, before we talk about this, I want to offer you (something that would bring value to them) as a gift which retails for (real dollar value here).

I trust that (gift) can (spell out the benefits that they can expect to show up in their life as the result of having this gift in tantalizing bullets) just as it has for (name other people you’ve used this with who preferably are well known, best if well known by the person you’re pitching) and many others I’m not naming here as to not make this message too long.

My company and I have (name the kick ass results you’ve generated for clients with your product or services in total over a specific time frame – “My company and I have sold over $500 million dollars of products and services for our clients in the past year alone”) because we (state the unique benefit that allows for people to kick ass because they have you in their life).

The only way we’ve been able to be as successful as we have been is by being very selective as to who we work with. (Next you make the point that you’ve chosen to invest in them specifically to offer your gift to, out of all the people you could).

Curiosity is core driver thatmakes this message work.

If you’re promising to reveal opportunities they aren’t taking advantage of now, that they didn’t even know we’re possible for them – that have been realized by you for other people just like them already, you’re going to get people taking you up on your offer.

The key to success with this approach to getting leads and converting them into sales is the same as with ANY OTHER APPROACH out there – 45% of your success is attributed to WHO you’re in front of . . . another 45% of your success is attributed to the OFFER you’re proposing . . . and 10% of your success can be attributed to your COPY.

If you nail the first two – the who you’re in front of and your offer, you can still win big time even with mediocre copy.

More Helpful LinkedIN Markeing Guidelines:

• Make Sure Your Perfect Prospect Is Wowed/Intrigued By Your LinkedIn Profile
  Authenticity, credibility, and mastery are what you’re looking to convey with your profile.
• Have a professional or very good picture of yourself
  I think this is especially important if you’re handsome or pretty. It’s a very easy way to help make a great first impression
• Quickest way to generate a lead?
  Go to the “advanced search” tab. Go to the “Job Title” box. Type in “VP + Marketing”. Fill out any other fields that would narrow down your search. Hit search. Find a person on that list you want to start a relationship with. Invite them to connect. Open their profile and look at the groups they’re in and send them an Inmail or . . . go into one of the groups they’re in and find them and send them a direct message.

Your problem is always the solution to someone else’s problem. Always.

When you find who this person is and you connect with them and help them see why you two should be working together, problems can go away.

The question you need to be asking right now is, “How might LinkedIn help me in my business? If what I see here isn’t directly applicable to my situation, what part of LinkedIn would be?”

It would be very easy to look at LinkedIn and think it can’t work for you. But that would be a stupid conclusion to come to if you hadn’t first exhaustively asked yourself how it’d be possible for you to capitalize on the 250 million people they’ve rounded up there for you.