Episode 106: LinkedIn’s Providing Services Feature is Essential for Social Sellers

Bob Woods  00:00

Greetings, everyone and welcome to Making Sales Social Live. I’m Bob Woods and with me as always is co-host and LinkedIn whisperer Brynne Tillman, how are you doing today, Brynne?

Brynne Tillman  00:11

I’m great, Bob. How are you?

Bob Woods  00:14

Doing pretty good. Doing pretty good. Thank you. 

Bob Woods 00:19

Welcome to Making Sales Social Live, as we share LinkedIn and social selling training, strategies and tips that will have an immediate impact on your business. Join Brynne Tillman, and me, Bob Woods every week, Making Sales Social Live!

Bob Woods 00:135

Today’s kind of exciting for us, because as Steven has already said, this is kind of new stuff for us to explore here, but it’s very important. So as LinkedIn members, we’ve all had access to a section called providing services. Now this is where you can detail what specific services you offer to prospects and potential customers. 

Unfortunately, LinkedIn doesn’t really talk about that feature but as I just said, we think it’s an essential one that all salespeople and especially social sellers should be using. Recently, though, the providing services feature has been upgraded, so that now you can take in requests for your service and you can even reply with a proposal. Pretty cool, ey? so Brynne and I we’re just going to talk up this ourselves. So Brynne, I’ve just scratched the surface about why it’s important. Any additional thoughts?

Brynne Tillman  01:29

Absolutely. So providing services for a while, and I actually had this where there were very few people that could do this, this now seems to have been rolled out to everyone. If you don’t know that you have it, there is an open-to blue button on your profile, and when you click there, there are typically three or four options, which could be finding a job that you’re hiring.

One of them is providing services. So if I click on that, it now opens up this whole new world where you can add 10, predetermined, unfortunately, but predetermined services from a list. And then there’s an about area where you… This is really an anyone that knows us is going to be like, I can’t believe she just said this but this is where you pitch. Yes. And I know we say never, never pitch, never pitch.

Bob Woods 02:33

Yeah, this is one area.

Brynne Tillman  02:35

Yes, this is the section. And the reason is, this is where people will go and request for a proposal. If they don’t know what you’re selling, they don’t know what to request. If you’re not sure what to put here. Consider going out to your website, and looking at the solutions that you offer on your website, copying that information, you’ll probably have t… you only have 500 characters. So you’ll have to kind of bring that down but you want to highlight your solutions. Did you want to add to that?

Bob Woods  03:10

Yes. So I mean, and when you say solutions, it could literally be your products, it could literally be certain specific services that you have branded, and that you go out into the marketplace with. So I mean, this is like Brynne said, this is where you want to pitch however briefly, but you do want to pitch.

And also keep in mind that even though you’re pitching and it’s a little uncomfortable, the way that we recommend people build profiles, all of that is already going to be in your profile. So people can actually go back and forth as well so that they can get the rest of your message and how you can help them and all of that type of thing. This specifically is for pitching which feels weird, but trust us, this is where you want to pitch 

Brynne Tillman  03:57

Yeah and to Bob’s point, the rest of your profile is earning the right, the rest of your profile is being a resource. It’s bringing value but when they go to providing services, they want to see the services you provide. That’s the purpose of this section. 

Now, interestingly, you know, based on the things that you put in there when someone clicks through, there is a little blue button that says “Request a proposal” they can then choose from the drop-down of your up to 10 keywords that you put in there to request a proposal. Now I want to make sure that you guys not only are check marking that you work locally but there is a checkmark for working remotely too. This is an opportunity that a lot of folks may not check not recognizing how very important it is. So unless you’re a plumber where you actually literally have to go to someone’s place of business or home to fix something, right, we want to make sure your check marking that.

When the proposal, so I did this, we played with this and I did this for Bob, I requested a proposal, there’s an opportunity for me to talk about what I’m looking for and when he receives this, it’s in notifications and it says that a proposal has been requested. The other thing, I’m going to backtrack for a second, make sure that you’re offering a free phone consultation, that’s another checkmark when you’re setting this up. And this is now an opportunity to really tell people how you can help them and what you can do and, you know, this is something we haven’t spent a lot of time on. 

Now, it does show up as a gray box. It’s not all that obvious necessarily on your profile but you really want to be prepared and make sure when people are clicking to see details that you’re prepared to take business to get business. It also allows us to manage our requests. So on the left-hand side, you’re going to see your requests that you’ve put out and the requests you’ve received, you can even follow up with client projects. The last thing I want to talk about is review status. Now, very much like Google reviews, this is an opportunity for you to reach out to, I believe we have up to 10 people, I have to look to actually review your services. 

This is huge, guys. So I’m sure you’ve got lots of recommendations on LinkedIn. If not, we can talk about that on another day but this is an actual review of your services. So reach out to clients that have experienced your offerings, and even offered to write that for them. Right, so that they can then review. So it’ll say invite past clients, it’ll ask you which service did they use, right? So you’re going to choose that and then you’re going to type in their name and once you do that, you can send, you can invite them.

Now, there is no personal message that goes with this. So make sure you’re reaching out first. So, “ Hey, Bob, you know, I’m building out my LinkedIn providing services. I know you went through our, you know, our 12-week LinkedIn Sales accelerator program, and you had all kinds of successes, would it be okay, if I, you know, I send over… Would you be open to writing a review?” Now, unlike a recommendation, when I send this, I don’t have a place to add a personal message. So I want to make sure I’m emailing him, “If you’d like Bob, I can be happy to write that for you that you can use it, tweak it, but I want to make it as easy as possible.”  so that when he gets that request, he’s prepared. 

So we’ve got some, let’s see, Joe, “what is the screenshot of where the LinkedIn page you’re referring to?” So I don’t have the screenshot but when you are on your profile, your LinkedIn profile, there is a button if you don’t see providing services, which is a gray box, there is a button that will say open to it’s underneath your follower count.

Bob Woods  08:21

So imagine that that open to button is in the same place where on other people’s profiles, you’ll see, connect or follow, it’s in that same spot, except it says open to because you’re looking at your own profile, essentially. So you’ll click on that what most people will see is finding a new job, and then hiring. And then if you don’t have providing services active yet, you’ll see providing services, you’ll click on that and then you’ll go through the steps, LinkedIn will walk you through exactly what you need to do there.

Brynne Tillman  08:53

Yeah, so we’re really encouraging this as an option. Now, normally, we have very long or very long twice as long 20 minute podcasts, you know, we’re kind of wrapping up the importance of this right now at about 10 minutes in or so. But ultimately, what we want you to do is we want you to create your providing services, go through all of the options, and then reach out to Bob or myself. We’re happy to test it for you. We’re happy to go through the motions, so you can see what happens. So is free phone consultation of profiles section, or do you mean to mention it in your about section, there’s actually a checkbox.

Bob Woods  09:38

right, and then you can also mention that in the text of either the initial thing that everyone sees or in the proposal, you can propose a phone consultation in that text that you reply to them as well.

Brynne Tillman  09:53

Yeah. And there is also, by the way, allow LinkedIn members that you are not connected with to message you for free, make sure that you’re checking that box as well. So really just go through the motions, if you have any questions reach out to Bob or myself, and we can take a look and you know, even put through a test proposal so you can see what it’s looking like.

Bob Woods  10:20

Yeah, so besides all of the mechanics behind all this, I think that probably the most important, there’s, there are two points here, one, this exists, and you can use it. And two, you can pitch your services here. That’s this is the one place where pitching your services and pitching yourself is not only cool but it’s encouraged. 

Brynne Tillman  10:44

It’s expected. Yeah. If you don’t do it here, they don’t know how to hire you. So perfect.

Bob Woods  10:51

And they don’t know what you do and how specifically you can help them with the services that you have listed in the providing services area. 

Brynne Tillman  11:00

Well, this was great, I think in a short and sweet and to the point. And Bob, thank you so much.

Bob Woods  11:06

So everyone. Thanks again for joining us on Making Sales Social LIVE! If you’re with us live on LinkedIn, YouTube or Facebook right now. We do this every week. So keep an eye out for our live sessions. If you’re listening to us on our podcast, and haven’t subscribed, go ahead and hit that subscribe or follow button. If you want more information about our podcasts in general, it’s socialsaleslink.com/podcast again, socialsaleslink.com/podcast We actually do two shows weekly, this one and our Making Sales Social interview series, where we talk with leaders and experts in sales, marketing, business, and many many more. 

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