Using LinkedIn To Start Conversations

Video transcript: So, you know, we have for years and years and years and years now I’ve had a decade of training LinkedIn for social selling for sales. 

And recently we really defined what is social selling more than a platform more than but deeply embedded is what is social selling. And ultimately, it’s using from our perspective, LinkedIn to start more conversations. 

A lot of you may have a lot of different platforms that you’re using for social selling. But for social sales links, we were really looking at social selling is about Using LinkedIn To Start Conversations. 

So our quote “Social selling is about building relationships, providing real value, and being a resource. The sales will come when the time is right.”

Sales have always been about timing.

So it’s timing and it’s positioning yourself. So when the time is right, they’re thinking about you. But even like some of the pre-chat that we talked about before we went live, there are lots of people that say, people are not interested in talking about my stuff. 

Why not? And we’re going to talk to you about why not and we’re gonna tell you, how do you get there? The key is, you want to think about it. 

This is not transactional. This is building relationships, providing real value, and being a resource. So what does it take to get a conversation? Talk about earning the right

We just can’t come right out and start selling in Brynne talked about this a little in the pre-time if you weren’t with us, we Have to earn the right to allow someone to let us talk to them. 

You know, and just having a profile on LinkedIn isn’t an open invitation for us to start trying to talk to someone, right? One of my big things is connecting with people authentically. 

So we have to earn the right in order for them to allow us into their world so that we can talk to them, right.

Earning the right just because they accept your connection request has not earned you the right to pitch them.

There are steps we need to do to get there. 

We’ve got to Master the Ask/Offer ratio. So this was inspired by a book by Kenan called gap selling which if you’re in sales, you need to read it is phenomenal but the Ask/Offer ratio is big.

Anything that we do where we are asking someone for their time to watch a video, read our profile, read a blog post, take a 15-minute call, 

We need to master the Ask/Offer ratio.

So for example, we’ll do a profile. We asked to come to our profile, maybe let’s connect and visit my profile. If you know if you think it makes sense. Let’s connect right? They get to the profile. They take four minutes to read your profile and at the end of that, they have one of three reactions. 

One is it’s a Bait and Switch. Like I thought there was going to be some value here and it was just a resume or it’s all pitch 

Number two is Okay. I got To learn About them. It’s Neutral. 

And three is, I am compelled to take action. action can look like a lot of things on a post, it could be alike, it could be a comment, or it could be scheduling a call with you there, but we need to live in compelling reasons to have a conversation. 

And then talk a little bit about Be A  Resource.

be a resource somewhere where people can come to find the knowledge that you have about your product or your service within your industry, not knowledge of why they need it. 

So from the point of view of selling it to them, but just giving them some knowledge so that as Brynne said, when we talk about the Profile, when they come away from reading their profile they come away with Wow, I never knew that before. 

Now if I have any questions at all about x, y, and z, I’m going to go to that person I’m going to look at, so they see you as the resource and the person to know in order to know more about whatever your specific sphere of influence is.

Lead to your Solution, Not with Your Solution, when you lead with your solution. It’s a pitch. When you lead to your solution, it’s a pathway, you’re helping them on their journey. 

It’s about dropping breadcrumbs of insights and getting them closer and closer to your solution.