If you haven’t been using LinkedIn Sales Navigator to grow your sales pipeline, you have been missing out! Most of the people we speak to have some version of a paid LinkedIn profile, but this particular platform is built specifically for those individuals wanting to focus on social selling.
Social selling is about leveraging your social network to find and connect with the right prospects, building increased trust for you and your brand, offering multiple types of touchpoint types, and closing sales faster. LinkedIn assigns a daily Social Selling Index number to your profile to keep you on track toward your social selling goals.
The Social Selling Index (SSI) is a ranking system for how effective you’re at establishing your professional brand, finding the right people, engaging with insights, and building relationships. As with any sales or marketing strategy, you need measurable metrics so you can quantify your progress and efforts.
The SSI is scored as a value from 0 to 100, 100 being the most complete and active. This number is based on the following four factors from LinkedIn. create a professional brand, focus on finding the right people, engage with insights, and build relationships.
Some interesting statistics from LinkedIn to motivate you are that 35% of sales reps who have a high SSI score get more page views than those that don’t. More page views may equate to more sales in the long run. LinkedIn says that 92% of B2B business leaders are more likely to engage with sales professionals that are known industry thought leaders.
So what does it mean to create your professional brand? Make sure that your profile is as complete as possible so that business leaders can easily find and connect with you. It is a good LinkedIn practice to include examples of your work in multimedia to make sure they get a full scope of your brand.
Make sure to Increase your interactions and visibility by posting and interacting with others content. This can be through liking or sharing others content or posting of your own. Finally, generate endorsements and skills from colleagues and clients to build trust with your connections.
LinkedIn Sales Navigator helps identify and connect with more qualified prospects and helps you be more efficient with better search and research tools. Use the sales tools to narrow in on key decision makers, unlimited profile searches, and advanced search filters. Leverage warm leads to expand your network by using 2nd, 3rd and group connections.
Use the tools to research your prospects and get a full scope of their business to turn cold leads into warm prospects.
Ready to get conversation worthy? So are your prospects! Create new leads and nurture saved leads by sharing noteworthy content through groups, messaging, posts, and updates. LinkedIn says that nearly 62% of B2B business owners report that they appreciate salespeople who have researched or have knowledge of their business.
LinkedIn also states that you are 70% more likely to get appointments with decision makers or a sale if you are a member of LinkedIn Groups. By posting relevant content it can help you set yourself apart as an industry expert and trusted resource. Make sure to also include newsworthy content that is relevant to current events, including articles, blog posts, and news updates.
Strengthen your network! LinkedIn says that 73% of B2B buyers prefer to buy from a sales professional who is referred by someone they know. They also state that 87% of B2B buyers said they would have a favorable impression of a salesperson who was a referral from someone in their professional network. The larger your network of connections the greater the reach of your 2nd and 3rd connections opening the door with additional decision makers.
You can focus on targeting senior level individuals who help with key decision making to help speed up your sales pipeline. Utilize TeamLink the LinkedIn Sales Navigator platform for teams that helps expand your reach to your team's network as well. Don’t forget that nurturing leads is just as important as making the first connection!
By having multiple touch points you can make sure you stay top of mind with your target market and keep your sales pipeline full.
Still wondering why social selling matters?
In a LinkedIn internal study, they found a correlation between achieving sales goals and sales reps with high SSI: