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TO MAKE SELLING
EASY WITH
LINKEDIN
NOAH RICKUN
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction ........................................................................................................ 3
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INTRODUCTION
13 WAYS
NOAH RICKUN
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The book that you hold in your virtual hands will unlock the door to
limitless sales success. It’s not a magic pill. It’s not the Holy Grail. It is,
however, the key to optimizing your sales activity and to evolving from
salesperson to sales pro.
13 WAYS
I’m going to assume that you already have a LinkedIn account, or that
you can gure out how to create one on your own. I’m going to dive
right into the meat – and share how to best use LinkedIn to support
your sales efforts. Don’t worry, though, 13 Ways is not a LinkedIn
mastery book; it’s a sales mastery book. I’ll provide links to resources
along the way that will show you the LinkedIn basics if you need them.
For instance, if you have not yet created an account visit
https://www.linkedin.com/nhome/join-create and do so now.
Most LinkedIn users are passive users. They sign up, they ll out a few
prole details, they connect with a few people they already know, and
then they wait.
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Sales success comes down to one thing: putting yourself in front
of the most (and the best) prospects. Once you’re there, your
ability to sell is directly proportional to your ability to connect.
LinkedIn’s value to the sales process stems from the fact that
LinkedIn centers on connections. Your connections.
During your journey, I’ll be here to help you every step of the way.
Connect with me at http://www.linkedin.com/in/noahrickun and be
sure to join my group, “Selling is Social” on LinkedIn as well.
Yours in Sales,
13 WAYS Noah
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Note: Everything in the rst 12 sections can be performed with a
free account. There’s no need to pay for a premium account until
you’ve fully maximized the opportunity herein. There are some very
compelling reasons to subscribe to a premium business account
(full disclosure: I’ve been a subscriber for several years), but I’d
recommend that you upgrade only after you’ve read this entire
book and mastered the techniques I am going to share with you.
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1 SHOW UP PREPARED
“80% of success is showing up.”
It’s like getting to the 80-yard-line and then not scoring. It doesn’t count for
much. And, it’s the equivalent of getting 80% through your sales cycle and
nding out your prospect is going with your competition.
I don’t know anyone in sales that wants to be 80% successful. If you are
happy with almost winning the sale, stop reading now and go back to
watching Dancing With The Stars or American Idol.
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I’ve started with preparation rst because I want to show you impactful
results immediately. If you do nothing else, I implore you to follow the
steps in this section and cash-in on the strategic advantage that you
will have given yourself.
•
•
How youre connected to your prospect. Often, you’ll
nd that you are a 2nd or 3rd degree connection and that
you have a mutual connection that you can reach out to
for insight and the inside scoop.
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•
•
•
•
Twitter. Many LinkedIn users list their Twitter account.
Click on it and uncover what your prospect likes to tweet
about. Is it something related to business or does your
prospect tweet about a hobby or personal interest?
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• Additional applications. Some LinkedIn users will turn
on the Amazon.com, Wordpress, LinkedIn Events, TripIt,
or SlideShare applications (to name a few). If so, you’re in
luck. Check to see what books your prospect has read
recently and be prepared to ask engaging questions
about how your prospect has used something he’s
learned from that book in his business. Has your
prospect traveled somewhere you have been (or perhaps
to your birthplace)? What events has your prospect
attended recently?
And it’s all on one page, right in front of your face. With a little practice
it will take you only a few minutes to uncover enough insight to warm
up a prospect at a rst meeting.
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I’ll make you one guarantee: you walk in armed with the information
you gather from your prospect’s LinkedIn prole and you will instantly
differentiate yourself from the 98% of salespeople (think, your
competition) that show up and “wing it.” And, being prepared with
engaging questions sure beats looking at the walls in your prospect’s
ofce trying to come up with something pithy to say about bass
shing.
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2 ALLOW YOUR
REPUTATION TO
PRECEDE YOU
Just as you research your prospect,
your prospect will research you.
Just as you research your prospect, your prospect will research you. And,
you can actually encourage it by including a link to your LinkedIn prole in
your email signature. Try sending your prospect an email prior to the meeting
that offers your LinkedIn prole as an “introduction” so that you can spend
more time at the meeting talking about your prospect’s needs rather than
“getting to know one another.”
You have the opportunity to establish yourself as an expert in your eld and
as someone your prospect is excited to meet with. Spend the time required to
make your prole something you can be proud of. What do you want your
prospects to know about you? What picture best represents who you are and
what you stand for? What interesting items can you add that will spark
interest, conversation, or differentiation?
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I want you to walk in with the condence that comes from knowing that
your prospect respects you before you have even met. I want you to
walk in able to focus on the sale you’re after, not the sale that must be
made rst. You see, before your prospect will buy what you’re selling,
your prospect has to “buy” you. Sell yourself in advance of your
meeting, and you’re one step closer to the deal.
Here’s how:
•
•
Complete your prole. Do what LinkedIn says you have to do
to get to 100% completeness. You can learn all about that here:
http://learn.linkedin.com/proles. Or, you can dive in and start
lling out the elds under “Edit Prole” and not give up until
LinkedIn congratulates you.
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and recommend:
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•
•
•
TripIt. I travel a ton. Connecting TripIt to my LinkedIn prole
allows my network to know where I’m going and when I’m
going to be there. It leads to meetings and appointments,
and it often gives my prospects something to talk about with
me in person (as in, “Looks like you travel often. What’s your
favorite city?”).
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The video is the single best way I know to make your prole
standout and to create an impression on your prospect. It’s
also the most personal element you can add to your prole.
So make it count. Shoot it with an HD camera (the $100 ip
will do) and do as many takes as you need to look and
sound good. Then upload to YouTube, embed in Google
Presentation or SlideShare, and voila! (Here’s the complete
explanation: http://blog.slideshare.net/2009/06/22/add-a-
video-to-your-linkedin-prole). More to come in
One nal tip: You might want to ask your customers and peers to
evaluate your prole and to provide feedback as to how to make your
prole better or more representative of who you are, what you stand
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for, and what it’s like to do business with you. Sometimes (ok, most of
time) it’s difcult to write about yourself – let the people that know you
best help!
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3 REACH OUT
AND APPOINT
SOMEONE
OK, let’s pretend you’ve identied a prospect but you can’t get past the
gatekeeper. Or that your prospect won’t return your calls. Or that you don’t
know the right way or the best way to approach your prospect.
Let’s even take it one step further and pretend you’ve identied the company
that you’d like to call on, but you don’t know who to talk to yet. Or, you know
you have to get to the Director of Operations (or any other specic title) but
you don’t have his name.
Find a name and prole (you can skip this part if you already have the info):
• The best place to start is by looking up the company you want to call
on in the Search Companies box on your prole. On every page in
LinkedIn (once you’re logged in) you’ll nd a search box in the upper
right corner.
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•
•
Most of the time it’s on the default “People.” Just click the
“People” button and change it to “Companies.” Then enter the
company you’re looking for, and you’re off to the races.
Select the name of the person you’d like to reach out to. You’ll
notice that the rst results page that LinkedIn displays
employees in your network. You may want to start here. If you
have a direct connection, or you know one of these employees
in your “real” life, this can be a great way to uncover the real
decision maker: call your friend and ask! Let’s say your network
is a bit thin; just select the “Employees” tab to see everyone at
the company. Pick the prospect you feel is most appropriate.
Now:
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•
•
If you can’t reach your prospect quickly via telephone, now
comes a crucial moment in your decision making process.
LinkedIn has a “Request an Introduction” feature that I will be
discussing later in this book. LinkedIn also has a feature it calls
“InMail” (note: it’s a feature available to paid subscribers only). I
have found, however, that both of those features pale in
comparison to what I’m going to show you next. More on that in
a minute. The reason I referred to this step as “a crucial moment
in your decision making process” is because you must decide
which one of the six ways LinkedIn allows you to connect to
your prospect is best for you.
When you click “Add [prospect name] to your network,” you’ll
be presented with the following radio buttons in answer to the
question, “How do you know [prospect name]” (my notes are in
red):
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•
•
I pretty much only ever select “Groups” or “We’ve done
business together.” I use “Groups” whenever possible, because
I have found it’s most effective in getting a response from my
prospects – and because it’s a completely kosher method of
connecting according to LinkedIn. If you don’t have a common
group with your prospect, visit her prole and nd out what
groups she belongs to and then
…join! You can be a member of
50 groups, and you can always drop the group later.
• In your note, include a sentence or two about what you feel you
can offer your prospect and ask for the meeting right there.
Don’t be sneaky. Don’t wait until you connect to ask for the
meeting. Put it all in immediately.
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You might be wondering why you need to use a LinkedIn invitation as
your initial point of contact with your prospect. You don’t have to. You
can try email or InMail if you prefer. My experience, however, has been
that emails are ignored or devalued because they sit in the same inbox
with your competition, distasteful jokes, and 372 to-do items your
prospect is facing. In other words, your email is clutter and it’s in the
way. InMail has become nearly synonymous with “cold call,” though I
know people who swear by it. I don’t use it. I’ll explain more in Section
13, but I promised I would show you how to use the free version of
LinkedIn rst, so you’re best option now is an invitation request.
1.
2.
3.
Do I know this person?
Does this person know me?
Why do they want to connect with me?
3
4. Why would I want to connect with them?
5. What’s the personal note say (i.e., is it personal or is it the form
letter)?
6. I wonder what this person is all about
…I think I’ll check out his
prole.
7. Wow, lots of recommendations, impressive prole, great video,
interesting product/service, good picture – looks like a worthy
business association.
8. OK, I accept.
The point here is that if you’ve done your homework, written something
engaging in your invitation request, and established a reputation on
LinkedIn that serves as social proof of the value you provide,
prospects will want to connect with you. If you’ve failed on any level,
you’re missing a powerful opportunity.
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4 JOIN A GROUP
It’s the easiest method of connecting
on LinkedIn, and it’s a method that
most salespeople ignore.
On the main navigation bar of nearly of LinkedIn page, you’ll see a Groups
button. Hover over it with your mouse and select Groups Directory. From
there you can browse or search.
Start by joining groups that your customers and prospects belong to. How do
you know which groups your customers and prospects belong to? You visit
their proles, scroll all the way to the bottom, and their groups will be listed
right there! You can join up to 50 groups and my suggestion is you do so as
soon as possible. Once you join a group, you can invite group members to
connect with you in two clicks (see Section #3 for more details). It’s the
easiest method of connecting on LinkedIn, and it’s a method that most
salespeople ignore.
I’d also recommend that you look to see whether your ofine associations run
LinkedIn groups as well. For instance, if you’re a member of Toastmasters,
Rotary Club, Chamber of Commerce, etc., you’ll likely nd a relevant LinkedIn
group. This helps to build your presence and connect you to people with
similar interests.
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Begin to search for professional groups in your local community or
industry as well. These can be great resources for timely information,
industry trends, sales leads, and upcoming events. Which leads me to
my next point: if you see that a prospect is a member of a local group
in your community, and that the group is holding an event – reach out
and ask your prospect to go to the event with you. It’s a great way to
get a prospect out of the ofce into an environment in which you can
have an engaging conversation.
In his Little Black Book of Connections, Jeffrey Gitomer writes “It’s not who
you know, it’s who knows you.” On LinkedIn, its who knows YOU and who
THEY know!
The best way to become known on LinkedIn is to create your own group. Find
a topic that you are interested in (you don’t have to know anything about the
topic – but you do have to be willing to dedicate a signicant amount of time
researching, sharing, and discussing it), search LinkedIn to ensure that
somebody else hasn’t already created the exact same group, and then you
create it. I’m going to tell you why to do it and then I’m going to tell you how to
do it.
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2. People will want to connect with you as the Owner. I receive new
invitations daily from group members who nd the discussions
interesting. It’s an easy way to grow your network.
6. Your prospects will reach out to you – if you create the right
group, lead the right discussions, and present yourself as a
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resource.
3. Fill out the elds on the next page. Be sure your description and
summary are complete and compelling. This is how your group
will be found on LinkedIn via search. You can adjust and modify
most of these elds later, and you may want to experiment to
see what content gets you the best results. There are two areas,
however, that you should think hard about now:
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a. Access – Do you want to control membership or allow
any LinkedIn members to join your group? I prefer to
select “Request to Join” so that I can manually review
each member, send a personal note welcoming him/her
to the group, and ensure the requestor is not a spammer.
While this is an important decision, LinkedIn does allow
you to change your mind later. Try both ways to
determine what works best for you.
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5. Invite others from your email database. Let’s say you have
hundreds of contacts in Outlook that you are not connected to
on LinkedIn, but that you would still like to invite to your group.
No problem! Export the contacts from Outlook to a .CSV le and
then click “Upload a le” on LinkedIn just below the
“Connections” eld on the “Send Invitations” tab from Step 4
above.
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5
Begin your response with a sincere appreciation and
then help move the discussion forward. Sometimes you’ll
be answering a question, sometimes you’ll point the
member to a help forum, and sometimes you’ll simply say
“Right on!” Whatever you do, though, don’t be silent.
You’ve created a group, you’ve asked people to join, and
you’ve asked them to contribute. When they actually do
post, reward them with your time and your feedback. This
alone will do wonders to make your group successful.
8. Moderate. Yes, it’s possible that one of your members will post
something irrelevant or offensive. Yes, it’s possible that one of
your members will only be interested in shameless self-
promotion. Yes, it’s possible that one of your members will
violate the group rules you’ve created. So, can you simply
delete the comment or in extreme cases, kick the member out?
Yes, it’s possible! You can delete and comment you’d like, you
can ag comments as inappropriate, you can block a member
from contributing, and you can even go as far as deleting a
member from your group altogether. Since creating my group, I
have yet to use any of the above moderation features. LinkedIn
is a very professional forum and I nd that most users are
professional in their activities, but it’s good to know that LinkedIn
itself has given Group Owners the tools if needed. Just don’t
abuse your police powers – your members will be less likely to
contribute if you delete opposing viewpoints rather than discuss
them!
Follow the steps above, and you’ll be well on your way to owning and
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mastering your group. If you’d like to learn more feel free to join my
group, “Selling is Social,” to see what I’m doing.
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6 EARN
RECOMMENDATIONS
The LinkedIn recommendation
is the new testimonial.
The LinkedIn recommendation is the new testimonial. It’s credible, powerful,
and instrumental in establishing your reputation. It’s also the hardest element
of your prole to complete – chiey because you don’t get to write your own
recommendations
…you actually have to get others to do it for you. LinkedIn
only requires that you earn a handful (two or three, I think) in order to get your
prole to 100% completeness, however I would challenge you to set your
target MUCH higher. The more recommendations you have on your prole,
the less you’re going to have to prove yourself to your prospects. Something
said about you by a satised customer is innitely more powerful than
anything you can possibly say about yourself. Aim for a recommendation
from every single one of your accounts. If you have fty customers, get fty
recommendations. If you have 5,000 customers, don’t worry about getting
5,000 recommendations. Shoot for a hundred and be proud that you’ll be
among the top 2% of users on LinkedIn.
Most people have very few recommendations (if any), and don’t know how to
go about getting them. If you follow LinkedIn’s instructions, you’ll use their
“Ask to be endorsed” feature and then ask (eh, beg) your network for
recommendations with a default message, “Can you endorse me?”
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If you follow LinkedIn’s instructions, you look desperate and you will
get lackluster results. I know, I tried doing it years ago. I sent 100
requests, and received exactly three recommendations back. I can
imagine the other 97 people seeing my pathetic attempt to make
myself look good and thinking, “I’m not going to waste my time
endorsing this sales guy
…nice try, chump.”
There’s a secret that I’ve learned over the years and it’s so simple I
can’t believe I didn’t realize it sooner: in order to get recommendations,
you have to give recommendations. Duh!
Now, it’s not a 1:1 ratio. You won’t get ten recommendations back for
every ten you leave, but you’ll get six or seven. And, you won’t look like
a chump.
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7 STAY CONNECTED
Using LinkedIn to stay in contact with your
customers and get your message
through beats email ve to one.
Salespeople often complain that there is simply not enough time in the day. If
you’re like most salespeople, you’re balancing outbound calls, inbound calls,
account management, accounting issues, presentations, trade shows, new
customers, old customers, happy customers, angry customers
…you get the
drift. You’re judged and measured on your revenue (often only new revenue)
and rarely on customer retention. Yet, present customers are usually the most
underutilized revenue stream in any business. I’ll bet you have a laundry list
of customers willing to spend more money with you if you could just spend
more time with them. More time communicating, more time uncovering needs
and opportunities, more time sharing new ideas, new products, new anything.
The best way to stay in touch is by posting relevant industry information and
new business ideas or best practices to your LinkedIn stream. It’s very similar
to Facebook in that your post will show up on your connections’ “walls,” but
you also have the choice on LinkedIn to change your visibility settings to
“anyone.” You do this from the Home screen once you’ve logged into your
account. Just type your message in the “Share an update” box.
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How many people will actually see your update? That’s a great
question. One I didn’t know the answer to. And, more importantly, how
many people will pay attention to your update?
I decided to test the power of the status update while writing this book.
I simply posted an update that read, “I'm doing a study for an
upcoming book. Today I'm testing the power of the LinkedIn status
update. Please click 'Like' so I can count how many people actually
see this. Thank you for your help!” and sat waiting for the response.
Total likes? I’ll have to update that in a future, but I’d bet the most
visibility comes in the rst 24 hours. It’s not much of an “update” after
that point.
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The sheer volume of likes and comments shocked me. Think what
3,731 people paying attention to your message might do.
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8 INTRODUCE
YOURSELF
I’m an impatient sales guy who
wants immediate results.
LinkedIn provides the option for you to “Get introduced through a connection”
when you’re visiting a prospect’s prole. That option sits near the top of the
prole and off to the right side in the same box as “Send InMail” and “Add
[name] to your network.”
Therefore, I recommend you spend very little time (if any) requesting
introductions, and instead introduce yourself. Go back and review Section 3
for exactly how.
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Don’t swear off the introduction feature completely, though, because I
do use it as a last resort. You can, too. Start with reaching out to new
connections directly and if you nd that a particular outreach is
ignored, then try the introduction route. At that point, you’ve got
nothing to lose.
At the end of nearly every free talk I deliver (which I still do regularly in
Charlotte at non-prot organizations and networking events) people approach
me, thank me, and give me their cards. Those would be called leads. And
when it’s time to follow up, those people remember the speaker.
Even if you fear public speaking more than death (which, by far, is the case
for most Americans
…and is, in my humble opinion, the most ridiculous thing I
have ever heard in my life
…I’d take speaking in front of ten million people
NAKED before death), there is still considerable value in hosting an event at
which you bring in a speaker. You’ll still be respected and appreciated,
though you may not end up with all the leads you’re hoping for.
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Whatever the case, your event will only be successful if you can get
people to show up. In my experience, LinkedIn is the single most
powerful way to promote a public business event. I have tried
Facebook, Eventbrite, Twitter, Meetup, email, direct mail, yers, phone
calls – you name it. The best solution is a combination of all the sites
above, but I have found LinkedIn drives the most trafc to seminars,
networking events, and other business functions.
3. Arrange for good food and coffee. If you screw up your talk,
people will still come back next time for the food!
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1. Click “+Add more details” and ll out EVERY eld. The more
detail you provide, the more likely it is that your event will be
found. Pay particular attention to the “Keywords” and “Who
should attend?” elds. LinkedIn makes suggestions to users
it feels would like your event; people will come out of the
woodwork to attend if you do this right.
Wait, it’s not over! Now you have to promote your event by inviting the
appropriate people in your network.
Here’s how:
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1. On the upper right of the event page there is an RSVP box.
Click the “Attending” button and change it to “Presenting” if
you’re speaking, or simply click “Attending” otherwise. This
lets your network know (via status update) about your
involvement.
4. In the “To:” eld you can paste in email addresses (if you
have them) of the people you’d like to invite OR you can
simply click the button and select the appropriate people
from your network.
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5. If you have large network, you’ll want to Narrow Your
Connections by either Location or Industry. Since you’re
likely hosting a local event, grab the drop down box below
Location and pick your city.
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I’d still recommend that you tell everyone you bump into about your
upcoming event. Tell them you’ll send an invitation via LinkedIn and
you’d appreciate their RSVP. If you’ve already invited someone you
speak to, ask if they’ve seen the invitation and if they are planning on
attending. Your goal is to get as many people as possible to respond
via LinkedIn; every time a user clicks “Attending” or “Interested” (the
LinkedIn equivalent of, “Maybe”), your event gains visibility. When a
user responds, their entire network receives an update that includes a
link to your event. Suddenly, you’ll have RSVP’s from people you’ve
never met.
Your attendee list will grow exponentially, and so will your sales
pipeline as a result.
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10
MAKE A MOVIE.
MAKE MORE
MONEY.
This is your chance to show your
personality, your communication
skills, and your passion.
“The pen is mightier than the sword.” - Edward Bulwer-Lytton
One of the most powerful ways to stand out as a person of value on LinkedIn
is by harnessing the power of video. Very few LinkedIn users have video on
their prole because it’s a little bit of a task to make it work.
For starters, LinkedIn does not currently offer a YouTube plugin – or any other
video plugin for that matter. The way to post your video on your prole is the
same way I mentioned earlier in Section 2 – you upload your video to
YouTube, embed it into a presentation with either Google Presentation or
SlideShare, and then enable one or both of those applications on your prole.
It sounds more complicated than it actually is, and I’d rather you spend your
time focusing on creating a great video than learning the technical aspect of
this task.
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It’s not something you’ll be doing as part of your regular sales
SlideShare: http://blog.slideshare.net/2009/06/22/add-a-video-to-your-
linkedin-prole/
The most important part of this strategy is not to master how to embed
a video and post it to your prole; rather the important part is to
understand what your video should look like and what you should be
doing or saying in your video.
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•
•
A product or service demo video. This could be cool IF you
have a very unique product or service that requires
demonstration or if you have a creative way of presenting it.
Check out http://willitblend.com/videos.aspx for examples of
engaging product demonstrations that will get you
appointments – if you can pull something similar off.
Make it short and powerful. A minute or two at most. Make it look good
by using a inexpensive HD camera - like the Flip UltraHD or the Kodak
PLAYFULL - and by ensuring that you’re in the right environment. Find
somewhere quiet and well lit to shoot your video and then do as many
takes as you need to get your video right. Don’t worry about editing,
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just reshoot it.
Before you post your video, take your best cut and show your friends,
relatives, and existing customers and ask for their feedback. Ask them,
“Is this me? Does this represent me well?” If you don’t like the answers
you get, ask for their suggestions on how to improve and go back and
try again. Don’t stop trying until you nail it. When you do, you’ll know.
People will tell you, and prospects will call you.
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11
KEEP
GOOD
COMPANY
I follow every company I currently do business with, every company I’d like to
do business with, every company I’ve ever done business with in the past,
and every company I consider competition. Remember, it’s only one click.
Not a lot of work.
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•
•
•
•
A little company information (aggregate info about employees,
i.e. tenure, education, promotions, etc.).
A listing of LinkedIn users that work for the company you’re now
following, with degrees of separation so you can look for your
way in.
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12
SUPERCHARGE
YOUR
NETWORK
More salespeople have downloaded
the latest version of Angry Birds
than LinkedIn mobile.
An often-overlooked benet of using LinkedIn is the power you will have in
the palm of your hand when you are at a networking function, conference, or
trade show
…IF you have a smart phone.
If you have a regular phone (ahem, dumb phone), hang up now and call your
nearest mobile device provider. It’s time to upgrade to an iPhone, Droid,
BlackBerry, Palm, or Windows Mobile device. I use an iPhone. It’s the best
data device on the planet. It also is the worst telephone I know of.
Once you install the LinkedIn application on your mobile device (LinkedIn
currently offers apps for iPhone, BlackBerry, and Palm Pre) you’ll have instant
access to information out in the eld. If you happen to have some other
mobile device with internet access (i.e., a Droid), just point its browser to
http://m.linkedin.com.
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I’m not going to spend time telling you how to use the mobile versions
of LinkedIn here.
3. Let’s say you’re out on the road and you get a call from a
prospect. Pull up the prospect’s prole on LinkedIn (if you’re
driving, pull over rst) and look for things discussed in
Section 1 of this book.
4. Standing in line at the DMV? Whip out your Droid and get to
work. You can respond to invitation requests, read the day’s
top headlines, and check out the status updates of people in
your network.
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5. LinkedIn also makes it easy to nd the contact information
(email address and often telephone numbers) of your
connections. Perhaps you’d like to reach out to a recent
connection that you have not yet programmed into your
mobile device or address book. Pull up their prole and click
to talk.
Let those status quo loving pikers have all the fun they want playing
with their phones – it just makes it easier for you to rise above the pack
and be noticed as a real player
…the kind of player that exceeds your
quota.
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13
ADVANCE
YOURSELF
If you’ve made it this far, it’s time to get out your wallet. Not to pay me; rather
to invest in yourself.
• Send InMail – Not so valuable. I don’t use it at all. LinkedIn claims your
messages will be trusted by recipients. I nd the opposite is true. Most
users see InMail as a red ag that they have no idea who you are!
• See more proles when you search – With the $29 package, you’ll get
500 prole results with every search. Cool, but not necessary.
46
•
•
•
•
•
•
Seniority Level: Find decision makers quickly!
• Who’s Viewed Your Prole: See the full list, how they found you,
and more – This won’t help you make sales, but it will remind
you how important it is to have a great prole. Once, I clicked
on one of the people who viewed my network and I reached out.
I made a new connection, but I still felt like a stalker so I don’t
do that anymore. This feature also helps you to understand
whether you may need to modify your prole to attract more
relevant visitors.
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Final note: LinkedIn claims that 50% of users expense their
LinkedIn Premium account to their business. You may want to
check with your boss or accountant to see if you can as well. If
not, however, you’re not off the hook. You’re in sales. You make
commission. It’s time to invest in yourself and increase your
income.
Noah Rickun
noah@rickun.com
www.rickun.com
704-759-6624
http://linkedin.rickun.com
http://facebook.rickun.com
http://twitter.com/noahrickun
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NOAH
RICKUN
Noah Rickun
Gitomer Certied. Audience Approved.
A Family Man. Noah shares his love for books and his positive
attitude with his wife and their two beautiful daughters. They currently
reside in Charlotte, North Carolina – although he still cheers for all
Milwaukee sports teams.
49
NOAH
RICKUN
A Passionate Messenger. Noah touches audiences everywhere as
a Gitomer Certied Speaker. He delivers customized and
personalized seminars to companies and associations on topics
such as increasing sales; earning customer loyalty; helping others
to nd and build YES! attitudes; and integrating technology and
social media into their businesses. As a frequent traveler, Noah is a
master packer, refusing to check luggage because he has “yet to
make a sale standing at the baggage claim.” He is also a guest
columnist for Jeffrey Gitomer’s Sales Caffeine ezine, which reaches
500,000 people each week.
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COPYRIGHT INFO
The copyright in this work belongs to the author, who is solely responsible for the content.
Please direct content feedback or permissions questions to the author: noah@rickun.com
13 WAYS
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
or send a letter to Creative Commons, 559 Nathan Abbott Way, Stanford, California 94305, USA.
51
13 WA YS
TO MAKE SELLING
EASY WITH
LINKEDIN
NOAH RICKUN
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