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One of my favorite things to write about is sales people. Since I am married to one, I think that gives me carte blanche, don’t you think? In my previous posts, I picked on emails from some rather ambitious sales folks, and today, I’ll do the same but with LinkedIn. In my opinion, you are on LinkedIn for one of two reasons — you’re seeking a job, or you’re looking for people to buy what you sell. Now, if you don’t fall into either of those categories, you are “the target.” (Well, there’s one more category — you are in marketing and you are managing/monitoring your company’s social media and keeping an eye on the competitors!)
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Daily, I get requests to connect. Only rarely are these connections from people I know, and almost always, they have a title that smells like “Sales.” If I do accept that connection, I am almost instantly hit with a message telling me about their product/agency/idea and asking me to set up an appointment. Can’t anyone just be friends anymore?
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Today I will pick on Alice (not her real name) and her company Boulder Software (also not the real company). Once I accepted her invitation to connect, she sent an email. Below is a portion of it:
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“Boulder is like a superhero cape for your team’s content creation. With its magical powers of interactive content and streamlined data collection, you’ll wonder how you ever survived without it. Just ask big shots like Salesforce, DHL, and Autodesk – they’ve already hopped on board the Rock Content train! Imagine having the ability to create premium experiences that convert up to 2x more leads in a code-free environment. You can go from idea to interactive with just a few clicks. It will undoubtedly boost your productivity and, consequently, save costs by the end of this year. What do you say about becoming a hero and scheduling a call?”
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I have re-read and re-read that email and I still don’t know what Boulder does. I was also distracted by the super hero stuff and the magical powers. Is this make-believe or is it some kind of productivity tool?
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Here’s my suggestion to those who want to prospect via LinkedIn. Go ahead and request to connect. View some of my posts and/or my company’s posts. Like or comment on them if you are so inclined. Send me a link to one of your posts or your company’s website with a simple message: Thanks for connecting. Here’s a bit about what I do and what my company does. If there’s any synergy in the future, let me know.
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Then just be present. Post on LinkedIn about your company. Share your literature, blogs or insights. Become a thought leader and someone I can value for your insights and knowledge. But please, don’t fill my in box with cutesy sales metaphors and goofy requests for a meeting. I’d like to think that LinkedIn is a forum where professionals can share their ideas and thoughts, and not just a way to direct message folks who seem to fit your buyer’s persona.
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Content marketing isn’t just for the marketing team. Everyone at the company should employ sharing the company’s collateral and thought leadership. Build a community. This worked nicely for a salesperson I’ll call Brian, who works for a healthcare industry conference. He posted quite a few things about the topics the conference typically discusses, and also about a call for speakers. He suggested people connect with him to learn more about the conference and sponsorship opportunities. Once connected, he didn’t bombard me with information. Rather, he continued to populate his feed with information and when I clicked on a few of them, he sent me an inbox message with information. To me, that was a very productive interaction.
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Bottom line: Be a contributor and a sharer of information. Don’t bombard people with direct messages. Listen and participate. Contribute and be helpful. Be a thought leader and provide information. That’s the kind of sales process that brings people to you and thus, are better qualified leads.