4 Tips for Selling on LinkedIn

Take Advantage of the Featured Section

One often overlooked yet powerful tool on LinkedIn is the Featured section of your profile. In the featured section, you have the ability to place a call to action so it stands out on your profile.

You can put multiple links in the featured section, so all your events, giveaways, and lead magnets are easily accessible and visible to your customers.

Here's how: 

Step 1. Go to your profile and click this button:

Step 2. Select ‘Add featured’ from the dropdown menu.

You have the option of featuring a post, a newsletter, an article, a link, or media.

If you are featuring a link, you can create a thumbnail to accompany it. I recommend using Canva to create a thumbnail that is correctly sized. Do not add a description. If you do, clicking the thumbnail won’t take you straight to the link but instead will simply bring up the description, requiring a secondary click to reach your content.

You can feature multiple pieces of content in this section. It will look something like this:

By curating this section thoughtfully, you can instantly grab the attention of your profile visitors and present a compelling snapshot of your expertise and accomplishments. Craft a narrative that resonates with your target audience, reinforcing your credibility and leaving a lasting impression.

Posting

Regarding posting on LinkedIn from a sales standpoint, reposting company content is excellent, but the posts that perform the best are content that drives value to your customers.

Customer success stories are perfect for salespeople because they demonstrate the value of your product or service. 

You don't have to mention any customers by name; talk and share how you solved their issues.

So, when crafting a post, write content that is valuable to your audience rather than necessarily valuable to you. The more specific and the more pertinent, the more valuable your audience will find it.

Have a Commenting Strategy

Posting is one of many ways to put yourself in front of your audience on LinkedIn. A commenting strategy is also vital to selling on LinkedIn.

When you engage and comment on the posts of your partners, vendors, and customers, your comment is shown to a wider audience of your followers and connections on LinkedIn. 

In addition, if a third party engages with your comment, then your comment is lifted and put in front of their audience.

You should comment on at least 3 posts every day of the workweek. 

When you comment, aim to further the conversation, spreading the power of your brand and the message of the company you represent.

Sales Navigator

Sales Navigator is an incredibly powerful tool.

Instead of thinking about Sales Navigator as a fishing rod where you catch individual customers, think of it as a net where you can catch many leads at once.

Let me give you a quick exercise:

Start by identifying four companies you have had success with in the past and enter those companies into the search filters. 

Then, expand the filter to include your ideal customer profile (ICP) — whether that's a specific title, seniority, or geography.

In my example, I'm looking for sales executives from four companies I've had success with, and my ICP needs to be a VP of Sales and in their position for less than one to two years.

Sales Navigator will show me who fits my ICP and who has also left one of those companies and gone elsewhere.

I may not know who they are or anything about the company where they went, but Sales Navigator will tell me, and I can reach out to them based on my previous experience with their previous company.

I recently did this exercise, and 51 names popped up, giving me 51 leads that I can pursue. This is a fantastic way of using the power of Sales Navigator to find prospects.

By harnessing the full capabilities of Sales Navigator, you can efficiently navigate the LinkedIn landscape, identifying and engaging with multiple prospects simultaneously, thereby maximizing your sales opportunities.

Conclusion

Let me give you some statistics about some of our clients and the success they’ve had after going through our social selling training.

Take your time to build your profile, comment, engage, and find ways to build a rapport with your prospect, and then once that rapport is built, send that connection request.

They'll be much more open to connecting with you after they have an idea of who you are and the value you bring to the relationship. 

About the Author

Richard Bliss is the founder and president of BlissPoint, a social media consulting company that helps improve executives’ online communications and sales teams’ social selling behaviors. A LinkedIn Top Voices Influencer, experienced executive communications manager, and social media coach, Richard has helped thousands of people master social media tools and become fluent in social conversations, building their platforms and confidence to reach their audience and define their brand effectively.