Month: May 2024

Categories
Uncategorized

How to optimize your LinkedIn profile for prospecting

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How to optimize your LinkedIn profile for prospecting

In today’s issue, I’ll share a 3-step system you can follow to optimize your LinkedIn profile if you work in sales. Most salespeople I see on LinkedIn have optimized their LinkedIn profiles to find a new job, not to help prospects start conversations with them.

If your LinkedIn profile is filed with details about your sales achievements, how many times you went to President’s Club, and how you managed to extract money from difficult clients, then you’ll have a hard time booking meetings on LinkedIn.

Here’s how to optimize your LinkedIn profile, step-by-step:

Step 1: Update your banner

See the banner below:

Image #1

Every LinkedIn user has a space where they can display a customized banner. The one above doesn’t provide any valuable information. I like to think of your LinkedIn banner as a highway billboard. It’s free real estate on your profile, and it can be used to attract your prospect’s attention.

When prospects go to their “My Network” section, this is what they see:

Image #2

If your banner isn’t optimized to attract your prospect’s attention, then you’re missing out. Here’s what to do instead:

  • Respect the banner format: 1584 x 396 pixels
  • Use catchy, homogenous colours
  • Use large text and CTAs

Go check my LinkedIn banner to see a concrete example.

Step 2: Write a clear headline

Your LinkedIn headline has one goal: get prospects to understand you aren’t a threat to them (so they can accept a connection request). Your headline will be displayed everywhere your profile appears on LinkedIn. For example, prospects will see it in your connection requests (as seen below).

Image #3

Below is a simple structures you can use to optimize your headline.

  1. What you do: I train and coach
  2. Who you help: SDRs and AEs
  3. What’s the outcome of working with you: to book more meetings and close bigger deals faster.

“I train and coach SDRs and AEs to book more meetings and close bigger deals faster.”

Step 3: Optimize your featured section

Now that your banner and headline are optimized, you need to provide additional resources to help your prospects solve a problem they want to solve. You can do that by adding links in your featured section.

I often see salespeople highlighting a viral post in this section. It’s completely useless.

Instead, think of a simple resource to help your prospects. Here’s a list of resources that can be useful for your prospects:

  • A checklist
  • A one-pager
  • A link to a webinar
  • A link to book a meeting with you

If you can gate these resources (ask for an email in exchange of the resource), you’ll be able to follow up with your prospects. I recommend checking Distribute if you want to create a lead magnet and create your own content engine (even as an SDR or AE).

Pro tip: When you add a link in the featured section, leave the description empty. This will directly open the link in a new tab, instead of displaying an intermediary validation page (always done when linking outside of LinkedIn).

And this is how you can optimize your LinkedIn profile for sales. When you stop using it as an online resume, and start using it to help your prospects solve a problem, you’ll start more conversations, and book more meetings as a result.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Thibaut Souyris

P.S. When you’re ready, here are 3 ways I can help you:

→ Enroll in The Prospecting Engine

→ Need to train your team or invite me as a speaker? Book a call here

→ Sponsor my content & get 45K+ eyeballs on your ad

Subscribe to the Newsletter

Get my free, 4 min weekly newsletter. Used by 5.900+ salespeople to book more meetings.

Subscribe to the Newsletter

Get my free, 4 min weekly newsletter. Used by 5.900+ salespeople to book more meetings.

Categories
Uncategorized

Use this hidden feature to book meetings on LinkedIn

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Use this hidden feature to book meetings on LinkedIn

In today’s issue, I’ll share a hidden LinkedIn feature you can use to book more meetings. I recently polled my LinkedIn audience, and 39% of the poll participants shared they weren’t getting replies because prospects didn’t pay attention to their outreach:

Image #1

It’s a common challenge I see with salespeople doing outbound. They can’t find a way to get prospects to open their emails, or reply to their calls. As a result, they keep missing their targets.

The reason prospects ignore your outreach

The main reason your prospects ignore your outreach has to do with the amount of emails, LinkedIn messages, and cold calls they receive. A study from Jeremy Donovan shows that you need to touch an account five times more to source a cold outbound opportunity, compared to five years ago.

As a result, your prospect’s mailbox looks like this:

Image #2

The human brain is designed to use cognitive shortcuts to help reduce the energy required to make decisions. When humans see a mailbox like the one above, they quickly scan the screen, and they ignore anything that doesn’t stand out (or interrupts a pattern).

How to get prospects to pay attention

Meet LinkedIn voice notes.

These voice notes may not be immediately apparent. They can’t be sent when using LinkedIn on a computer; you need to use the LinkedIn app on your mobile device. The app is available for both iOS and Android, provided the operating system isn’t too old.

Remember, you can only send voice notes to people with whom you have a 1st degree connection. Navigate to the messaging section, find the person you want to contact, and look for a small microphone icon, as shown below:

Image #3

Hold your finger on the microphone icon and you’ll be able to record a voice note (max 60 seconds). When you’re done, a confirmation popup will appear, it will be sent to the recipient, and the voice note will look like that:

Image #4

Imagine receiving this. Your first instinct will be to hit the play button, as you’ll be curious to know what’s behind this blue bar.

If you’re receiving hundreds of daily emails, this will clearly stand out, and you’ll pay attention.

What to say in the voice note?

Now that you have the attention of your prospect, you need to be relevant and direct. I have over 25 templates you can use, but here’s my favorite for a LinkedIn voice note:

Template

Trigger: {First Name} mentioned that your worked together on {Common Work}.

Opposed: Would you be opposed to {desired outcome}?

Example

Joe, Morgan mentioned that you were hiring over 20 reps in Q2.

Would you be opposed to learning how you can prevent 30% of these 20 hires from leaving within 90 days? 

And this is how you can use LinkedIn voice notes to book more meetings. Remember, you need to be a 1st degree connection to be able to send these voice notes, so check this detailed guide to getting 60% to 70% of your connection requests accepted.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Thibaut Souyris

P.S. When you’re ready, here are 3 ways I can help you:

→ Enroll in The Prospecting Engine

→ Need to train your team or invite me as a speaker? Book a call here

→ Sponsor my content & get 45K+ eyeballs on your ad

Subscribe to the Newsletter

Get my free, 4 min weekly newsletter. Used by 5.900+ salespeople to book more meetings.

Subscribe to the Newsletter

Get my free, 4 min weekly newsletter. Used by 5.900+ salespeople to book more meetings.

Categories
Tactical Selling

Why InMails suck (and what to use instead)

Preview image

Why InMails suck (and what to use instead)

In today’s newsletter, I’m going to share why LinkedIn InMails are terrible for prospecting, and what you can use instead. Prospecting on LinkedIn is the easiest way to book meetings (if your prospects are active on it), but you have to know which tool to use, and how to be creative to stand out.

Let’s dive in:

Why InMails suck

When you google InMails, the first sponsored result looks like this:

Image #1

How many times do you see the word “Ads”? I checked, and it’s written 12 times. What it means is that LinkedIn InMails are designed for marketers (to run campaigns at scale), but not for salespeople.

For example, they are used for lead generation, to send messages at scale (like the one below):

Image #2

As you can see, a few elements are problematic with this InMail as a prospecting message:

  1. An InMail lands in a parallel inbox, it is flagged as an InMail, and a small label appears to signal this
  2. The person is a 2nd degree connection, which normally prevents them from reaching out
  3. There’s two call-to-action at the bottom of the InMail (which I never get in normal messages)

Now, how do you think prospects react when they see your InMails? Most ignore them, because they see it as ads, not as prospecting messages sent specifically for them.

What to do instead

Step 1: Optimize your LinkedIn profile for sales

The first thing you need to do is to stop using InMails as a prospecting tool. Instead, focus on optimizing your LinkedIn profile. You have a few 3 mains goals when optimizing your LinkedIn profile for sales:

  1. Catch the attention of your prospects with a banner
  2. Get them to read your headline
  3. Build trust

I wrote a full guide on doing just that. It’s a bit old, so hit me up on LinkedIn (or reply to this message) if you want to see a V2.

Step 2: Find a relevant trigger for each prospect

With a LinkedIn profile optimized for sales, you then need to find a relevant trigger to get in touch with your prospects. A trigger is a publicly available piece of information that indicates a prospect may have a problem you can help with, or an interest in speaking with you. A trigger can take many shapes, for example:

  • A reaction/comment to a LinkedIn post
  • A visit on your LinkedIn profile
  • A post from a prospect

There are countless triggers you can use to start conversations with prospects. You just need to know their problems in details, and find out where these people hang out.

Step 3: Write direct, useful connection requests (or write nothing)

In most cases, you won’t be connected with your prospects on LinkedIn. This means you only have two options to contact them on LinkedIn:

  • Send them an InMail (you know how I feel about that)
  • Send them a connection request

There’s an art to sending connection requests. Your goal is to create a short, direct, and useful message to your prospect. You want to catch their attention, and get them to become a first degree connection by accepting the request.

In some cases, you won’t have anything relevant to mention in your connection request. If that’s the case, let your optimized LinkedIn profile do the job and send it without a text. If you need some inspiration, I have a list of connection requests (and cold messages) you can’t afford to miss.

And this why InMails suck for prospecting, and what you can do instead. If you need help to build a prospecting system on LinkedIn, I recommend purchasing my Prospecting Engine. It’s the ultimate knowledge and systems to start conversations, book meetings, and generate a healthy pipeline in 2024 and beyond.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Thibaut Souyris

P.S. When you’re ready, here are 3 ways I can help you:

→ Enroll in The Prospecting Engine

→ Need to train your team or invite me as a speaker? Book a call here

→ Sponsor my content & get 45K+ eyeballs on your ad

Subscribe to the Newsletter

Get my free, 4 min weekly newsletter. Used by 5.900+ salespeople to book more meetings.

Subscribe to the Newsletter

Get my free, 4 min weekly newsletter. Used by 5.900+ salespeople to book more meetings.