LinkedIn is an incredibly useful tool when it comes to making sales online. Not only are you able to find and connect with potential prospects, but it allows you to engage with them and organically build a relationship. However, when you are targeting corporate level connections, your selling process needs to change. That’s because selling to corporates is completely different to selling to lower-level employees.
But why is this? There are two main reasons:
They get tonnes of Sales Calls
You have to understand that the decision-makers and key stakeholders at large companies will receive multiple sales pitches every single day. Not only are they likely to ignore most of these, but they have been trained how to spot them from a mile off, no matter how hard you try.
Therefore, it is very unlikely that you will have any success trying to shallowly strike up a conversation and immediately dive into a sales pitch. Even if you take the time to warm them up a bit it is likely they will know where the conversation is going.
Plus, it goes without saying that they will not respond to template messages – that’s just not how they work.
The decision making process takes longer
With larger companies, there are often more people involved in the decision-making process. This means that it takes longer for a decision to be made than in smaller companies. Therefore, you will need to invest more time and effort into turning a corporate deal around or creating a business opportunity on LinkedIn.
In short, you will have to play the long game. If you want to get people to sign a deal, you have got to build their trust long before the sales process starts. If you’re just relying on cold messaging corporates on LinkedIn, your strategy will not work. And on the off chance it does, this will be once in a blue moon.
Instead, you’ve got to put the time and work in – but the payoff will be bigger! This is because you can sell higher-value services once you have built that trusting relationship with your connection, allowing you to upscale and sell to corporates.
Account based social selling
At Maverrik we use a process called account-based social selling. Essentially this is a hybrid of account-based marketing and account-based sales but done digitally. It focuses on building relationships ahead of time to ensure a higher success rate when it comes to pitching sales.
These meaningful relationships can take months or even years to nurture and reach fruition. For example, it took three years of working on an account to secure one of our FTSE clients. However, the outcome was worth the effort.
You can say you don’t have the time to utilise this strategy, but the reality is if you want the sales you need to put in the work. No one is going to accept a pitch from a stranger. They’re going to want to trust you so you’re going to need to play the long game.
This strategy can be implemented on LinkedIn and it can be very successful if used correctly. But if you think those cold messages or connection requests that you are currently sending out are going to cut it, you’re mistaken.
Whether you’re looking to connect with corporates or just wanting to know how to use LinkedIn for sales, get in touch. I can help.
