Selling to Big Companies Blog

LinkedIn & High Growth Entrepreneurs

If you want to do business with rapidly growing small & medium-sized businesses (SMBs), you'll find them on LinkedIn. According to Warrillow & Co., a consultancy that helps big companies reach the SMB market, a whopping 67% of these high-growth firms are more than 4 times as likely to be registered members.

Why would this be important for you? Here's what they say:

Warrillow research shows that SMBs with more than 10% annual growth comprise just 15% of the market, yet account for 60% of spending on a core group of high-value products and services, including business credit cards, lines of credit, hardware, software, telecommunications and office management supplies/services.

Since high-growth small businesses are 4 times as likely to be registered on LinkedIn, enterprises have an unprecedented opportunity to intercept a large segment of small business owners with the propensity to spend more – and more often. What's more, LinkedIn company profiles (numbering more than 100,000 in the small business segment) offer a more in-depth business overview that helps you truly understand the people behind the business: who they are, what drives them and how to reach them.

If you're interested in learning more about selling to the SMB market, Warrillow offers weekly webinars on this topic.

Quick Start LinkedIn Tutorial

Last month I presented a workshop on how to leverage online thought leadership strategies to attract the attention of corporate decision makers. Of course, I talked about the importance of LinkedIn.

Many of the attendees were unsure of its value so I suggested they download my ebook on Can LinkedIn Increase Your Sales?

Tech guru Patrick O'Malley was also at the conference, presented an excellent session on on Advertising with Google AdWords on a $50 Budget. He LOVES teaching people how to get the most out of technology.

When I got back to the office, Patrick sent me an email with several suggestions on how to improve my own LinkedIn profile. He said to include:

• Common misspellings of my name & my maiden name, so I immediately added Jill Conrath, Jill Conrad, Jill Konrad & Jill Ulseth to my profile.
• Keywords people might use to find someone like me in the summary area. So wihout wasting a moment, I added a paragraph that included words like "sales training programs, sales seminars & keynote speaker."

For more of his excellent advice, check out his LinkedIn Quick Start Tutorial or his other Time Saving "Pat Tricks."

Get Free Contact Data for 1+ Million Companies

I was in the midst of writing Selling to Big Companies when Jigsaw first contacted me. They'd just launched a sales portal where salespeople could buy or trade business contacts.

Since my book focused on the challenges of cracking into corporate accounts, I was immediately interested in learning more. I liked what I saw - and even recommended Jigsaw in my chapter on how to find decision makers' names.

Now Jigsaw is on the move again. They’ve just launched the Open Data Initiative—a fast & free way to download thousands of company records in just seconds. What does that mean to you?  In short, no more:

• Searching the web for one off company data.
• Renting costly company directory lists.
• Subscribing to expensive data services.

With the Open Data Initiative you can quickly ID companies in your target market and build your list in seconds. Free company data starts on June 4th. Check it out.

Cool Sales Tools You Can Use

NetProspex, a website where sellers can buy/exchange leads, just released the Sales Lead Toolkit with some cool tools you might find helpful:

Company Email Pattern Lookup: Use this tool to select a company and find the email pattern for that organization.

Email Checker: Use this tool to evaluate the validity of an email address without actually sending one to a recipient. It can also be used to verify a group of email addresses.

Leads by URL: This tool helps you quickly find contacts in your target companies just by inputting a target company URL. Use the search feature to select your leads by title, job function or geography.

Hopefully, they'll help you find the right person to contact in those big companies.

Linked In Resources

Since my recent article series on how sellers can use LinkedIn to increase sales, readers have shared these resources with me:

Jan Visser of SalesTeamTools provides a contrarian perspective on the value of LinkedIn in his article called 3 Reasons LinkedIn Won't Help You Sell.

Rob Kingma of Ernst & Young Revenue Growth Services recommends listening to the Connections podcast, hosted by Stan Relihan. It focuses on using LinkedIn and other networking sites to build business and personal profile.

Brandon Hull of SalesTeamTools suggest checking out 100+ Smart Ways to Use LinkedIn on the LinkedIntelligence blog. This article has ideas from tons of different users.

Hope this helps! If you know any more resources to help sellers assess if they should get involved with LinkedIn, please add them in the comments below. Thanks!

Part III: Can LinkedIn Increase Your Sales?

What can I do to be more effective? It's a question that's always on my mind. That's why I began this exploration of LinkedIn. I wanted to find out if and how sellers were leveraging this technology to improve their sales results.

In the final article of this 3-part series, you'll discover even more ways you can use this tool to create more opportunities, connect with decision makers and win more business. Again, real sellers and real results.

Strategic Visibility & Connecting
Tim Hayden, President of Game Plan Marketing & Events shares what he's trained his team to do with LinkedIn:

1. Focus on connecting. Anytime you receive a business card from its owner, you then "know" this person. While not everyone is a valuable link, search for that person on LinkedIn right away. Because you have their email, you can send them an invitation to connect.

2. Increase your visibility. Don't simply add people to your network. Ask or answer questions on LinkedIn. Make sure your public profile is complete. But most of all, recommend people in your network and ask them to recommend YOU!

Anytime you do any of the above, LinkedIn posts updates online or in weekly updates to everyone in your network.

3. Make LinkedIn your homepage. Whenever I open my browser, I can immediately review my "LinkedIn Home Page" which shows what others in my network are doing and who they're connecting with. I also check every 2-3 days to see "Who's Viewed My Profile." Just as you can use web statistics to see what companies are looking at your website, you can also see with about 80% accuracy who's been checking out your profile.

In the past two months, I've used these strategies to identify more than 20 new business leads –and converted two to clients!

Part II: Can LinkedIn Increase Sales?

LinkedIn, the online business networking site, connects over 17 million experienced professionals from over 150 countries. Yikes! That's so many that it makes my head spin. I'd love to fantasize that a few of these people would stumble onto my profile, be suitably impressed and initiate contact. But so far, it hasn't turned out that way.

Yet many sellers have learned how to leverage LinkedIn to drive more sales. They're not sitting around waiting for their phone to ring. Instead, they're using it as an additional resource that supports their prospecting efforts.

Here's how your peers are using LinkedIn to grow their business. True stories. Real results.

Can LinkedIn Increase Your Sales?

As a self-professed technophobe, using social media such as LinkedIn is not second nature to me. I force myself to experiment with these new mediums knowing that ultimately they'll have an impact on the selling profession - even though I'm still unsure what it might be.

About 2 years ago, I set up my profile on LinkedIn. It was sterile & boring, conveying only enough to enable me to say I had an online presence. Then last year I read entrepreneurial guru Guy Kawasaki's blog article on his LinkedIn Profile Extreme Makeover and felt compelled to redo mine based on what I learned.

Since then, I've accepted numerous invitations to connect, yet fretted if I should since many came from total strangers. I've written a few recommendations and received a few.

Mostly I was a passive observer - waiting for some sales miracles to happen. Of course, they never did and I began to doubt LinkedIn's ability to deliver real tangible results.

Help for Forgetful Sellers

I have too much to do. That's the reality of my world. I suspect you're having the same problem.

When I launched the Sales Shebang this fall, life got even crazier. I had more details to remember than was humanly possible - literally. Post-It notes were layered on top of my computer screen. My To Do lists had babies. I couldn't keep track of everything.

But finally, help has arrived! Last week on the Sales Team Tools blog, I came across an article called, "Why Our New Admin Will Never Get a Raise."

They've been using Sandy, so I decided to give her a try too! I'm liking her!

When I'm busy working at my desk and a random thought comes to me such as: "I need to follow up with the printer on Monday", I quickly jot Sandy a note about it.

Sure enough, bright and early Monday morning, she sends me an email to remind me. She even keeps a list for me of all the To Do's that I've sent to ensure I keep organized.

My next step is to send Sandy a note to make sure I remember my kid's birthdays. They just hate it when I forget!    ;-)