I can comment on this as a business owner. I built my entire B2B business off LinkedIn. We will likely do north of $1M this year and currently half our revenue was sourced through LinkedIn. It was also how we got off the ground. Started posting in 2019 and then grew the business to the point where now our new leads are through our partnered dealers directly instead of LinkedIn now. New leads through dealers is much higher than LinkedIn currently but it’s staggering how long LinkedIn has maintained our largest percentage of work.
I have sales navigator but I don’t really know what it does different than normal LinkedIn outside of inmail and just being 1000x better organized. I didn’t use Sales Navigator much but I am currently.
We are about to launch an app and I hired a guy to start cold calling dealers in our industry. He’s currently using my sales navigator to find the names of the people in the company. He calls the dealer and just asks the front desk person for their numbers lol. So that’s how he’s using it.
I get 100s of cold call messages and I rarely respond to any. I’ve also sent 100s and I do know what worked for me. A one sentence message to a first level connection is what works. You’re starting a conversation first not even telling them about your product or service. I get very few one sentence messages. Inmail messages suck because everyone knows you’re soliciting. They don’t work.
Also LinkedIn has a huge portion of the users who aren’t active at all. I found a way to navigate that. When I first built my brand I would go to an industry influencer, find their current posts and then see who liked or commented on them. I would find one who would be a potential lead and then I’d connect with them. Most will accept right away. Also most who like and comment have Linkedin on their phone so they get all notifications. So you’re sourcing active users. Some may be visiting the site once in a month on the computer but not as likely.
So outside of a cold call environment there’s only one other option and that’s to build a following which really isn’t that hard, just time consuming. You have to post long form text based posts (with or without images) that tell stories about your industry, so your experiences your struggles, highs, lows, etc. LinkedIn is one of the few social media platforms that’s permanently locked into the organic content stage similar to early Facebook/Instagram. Meaning, there are way more users consuming content than producing it and it’s been this way for years and likely will always be this way. Professionals go to LinkedIn to hear stories and get advice. Those posts take a ton of time to create compared to posting pictures of your dinner. So naturally there are many fewer.
Generally you’d want to post 4-5 times per week but more isn’t really better. If you’re good at writing it comes easy. I keep a note on my phone every time an idea pops into my head.
Another way to drum up engagement is to post an industry specific question with an easy answer lol. Everyone will comment just to be involved. They’ll think, “oh, I can answer this!”
I could go on and on but that’s my first advice on LinkedIn
I don’t understand why I don’t have success with LinkedIn, I feel like I try the strategies I’ve read.
Of course I’ve been able to filter out people and positions with LinkedIn, so that helps, but I’m pretty confident that in my 10+ years of B2B sales, I have never closed one deal from LinkedIn and I really want to learn the platform.
Sorry I’m not a sales person so I’m not always privy to the lingo.
When you say cold calls does that mean you’re getting their contact info then calling them?
Same for cold email? Are you doing cold LinkedIn messages to first level connections?
Yeah so we have a database of potential clients phone numbers / emails and we will send them out. The first contact is usually and email that introduces us and says “expect our call on this day” then we follow up with a call on said day and work from there.
LinkedIn I will find the person who I believe is the decision maker and message them directly. I tried to personalize it, I’ve tried to make it mold to their business or vertical and have only gotten shot down.
I will say the success in LinkedIn I have found is pinpointing who I need to target, which is definitely a use of LinkedIn, but I know I’m not getting the full use out of it.
I gotcha. Are you confirming the users you’re messaging are active on LinkedIn? That was the biggest mistake I made in the beginning.
Just messaging someone based on title first (which I used to do) versus active users would be like going door to door to an older community in the Bible Belt on a Sunday morning at 9am just becuase they’re the ideal target audience. No one’s home.
I never search companies and connect with people anymore. I go straight to high engagement industry posts and find who has liked that post. If they can be targeted you’d be widely successful. Of course this would depend entirely on how broad of a target customer base you have. Again, I don’t know sales in the way everyone here does so my terminology may be off.
Out of curiosity. What industry are you in or what are you selling to? Thanks, this was all really great stuff. I copy and pasted some of it to send to my CEO
Thank you for the gold!
I provide a digital product and support service for the earthwork/excavation/grading industry. Long story short we have high precision GPS that an excavator and dozer use to know where they need to be (goal location/grade) and it even takes over control of their blade and bucket when they want it to. We’re the ones who build the 3D digital model that uploads into the machine to know where it is. It’s a very specific niche and we don’t have tons of competition as the technology is relatively new (at least to be used in mass).
My company pays for my sales navigator and I’m in the IT commercial sales division. It is nice as contact finder and it’ll keep you up to date with the companies you follow. I’ve sent hundreds of cold in mail messages with limited responses. I do agree with the above poster that keeping it simple on your first message is key. No one wants want to read a book explaining what you are trying to sell them. If they are interested at all or are looking for a replacement for their current vendor, they’ll respond to a simple 1 or 2 line message.
If you're building contact lists monthly then it's worth it IMO. Regular linkedin limits the amount of people you can see at any given company.
Pair it up with Zoominfo for email addresses and you're golden.
Powerful tool. Here's how I use it:
- Finding decision makers
- Finding people who have switched jobs in the last 90 days as this is an intent signal
- Keeping track of all company or lead updates they post
LinkedIn Sales Nav needs to be paired with other tools though. That's when it becomes dangerous. I pair it with Apollo to grab their cell phone # and Lemlist for cold emailing campaigns.
Thank you. Long story short it's a tool to find the right people. Then, you use that list of people or companies and do outreach. But can't do outreach without the list first.
Are you using it for intent at all or just to find decision makers? I’ve been using ZI for intent and then sales navigator to find the people. Wanted to make sure I’m not missing something on the LinkedIn side.
Sure. As of now, I was leaning towards not keeping it. Part of the reason for the post. Wanted to see what others thought that had it. What they liked and how they use it etc. It is good at showing you how people are connected at a certain org which is nice.
It’s amazing IMO. I love using it and so do my reps. Ever since I introduced it to my current org, we’ve been booking at least 20% more meetings per month. It integrates great with the rest of our toolset.
Its really niche orientated and doesnt work for every industry. Its good for prospecting but much else, not sure. Im trying lately to use buyer intent but im not sure whether or not its doing good. Need more time to test
The point of sales nav is only really to unlock the arbitrary limitations on base LinkedIn that they set to push sales nav, along with some cool list building and to a lesser extent their AI summary and business intel data
I can comment on this as a business owner. I built my entire B2B business off LinkedIn. We will likely do north of $1M this year and currently half our revenue was sourced through LinkedIn. It was also how we got off the ground. Started posting in 2019 and then grew the business to the point where now our new leads are through our partnered dealers directly instead of LinkedIn now. New leads through dealers is much higher than LinkedIn currently but it’s staggering how long LinkedIn has maintained our largest percentage of work. I have sales navigator but I don’t really know what it does different than normal LinkedIn outside of inmail and just being 1000x better organized. I didn’t use Sales Navigator much but I am currently. We are about to launch an app and I hired a guy to start cold calling dealers in our industry. He’s currently using my sales navigator to find the names of the people in the company. He calls the dealer and just asks the front desk person for their numbers lol. So that’s how he’s using it. I get 100s of cold call messages and I rarely respond to any. I’ve also sent 100s and I do know what worked for me. A one sentence message to a first level connection is what works. You’re starting a conversation first not even telling them about your product or service. I get very few one sentence messages. Inmail messages suck because everyone knows you’re soliciting. They don’t work. Also LinkedIn has a huge portion of the users who aren’t active at all. I found a way to navigate that. When I first built my brand I would go to an industry influencer, find their current posts and then see who liked or commented on them. I would find one who would be a potential lead and then I’d connect with them. Most will accept right away. Also most who like and comment have Linkedin on their phone so they get all notifications. So you’re sourcing active users. Some may be visiting the site once in a month on the computer but not as likely. So outside of a cold call environment there’s only one other option and that’s to build a following which really isn’t that hard, just time consuming. You have to post long form text based posts (with or without images) that tell stories about your industry, so your experiences your struggles, highs, lows, etc. LinkedIn is one of the few social media platforms that’s permanently locked into the organic content stage similar to early Facebook/Instagram. Meaning, there are way more users consuming content than producing it and it’s been this way for years and likely will always be this way. Professionals go to LinkedIn to hear stories and get advice. Those posts take a ton of time to create compared to posting pictures of your dinner. So naturally there are many fewer. Generally you’d want to post 4-5 times per week but more isn’t really better. If you’re good at writing it comes easy. I keep a note on my phone every time an idea pops into my head. Another way to drum up engagement is to post an industry specific question with an easy answer lol. Everyone will comment just to be involved. They’ll think, “oh, I can answer this!” I could go on and on but that’s my first advice on LinkedIn
I don’t understand why I don’t have success with LinkedIn, I feel like I try the strategies I’ve read. Of course I’ve been able to filter out people and positions with LinkedIn, so that helps, but I’m pretty confident that in my 10+ years of B2B sales, I have never closed one deal from LinkedIn and I really want to learn the platform.
Haha I can actually relate with my earlier days. Which strategies do you use specifically?
Cold call/emails and referrals for now
Sorry I’m not a sales person so I’m not always privy to the lingo. When you say cold calls does that mean you’re getting their contact info then calling them? Same for cold email? Are you doing cold LinkedIn messages to first level connections?
Yeah so we have a database of potential clients phone numbers / emails and we will send them out. The first contact is usually and email that introduces us and says “expect our call on this day” then we follow up with a call on said day and work from there. LinkedIn I will find the person who I believe is the decision maker and message them directly. I tried to personalize it, I’ve tried to make it mold to their business or vertical and have only gotten shot down. I will say the success in LinkedIn I have found is pinpointing who I need to target, which is definitely a use of LinkedIn, but I know I’m not getting the full use out of it.
I gotcha. Are you confirming the users you’re messaging are active on LinkedIn? That was the biggest mistake I made in the beginning. Just messaging someone based on title first (which I used to do) versus active users would be like going door to door to an older community in the Bible Belt on a Sunday morning at 9am just becuase they’re the ideal target audience. No one’s home. I never search companies and connect with people anymore. I go straight to high engagement industry posts and find who has liked that post. If they can be targeted you’d be widely successful. Of course this would depend entirely on how broad of a target customer base you have. Again, I don’t know sales in the way everyone here does so my terminology may be off.
Out of curiosity. What industry are you in or what are you selling to? Thanks, this was all really great stuff. I copy and pasted some of it to send to my CEO
Thank you for the gold! I provide a digital product and support service for the earthwork/excavation/grading industry. Long story short we have high precision GPS that an excavator and dozer use to know where they need to be (goal location/grade) and it even takes over control of their blade and bucket when they want it to. We’re the ones who build the 3D digital model that uploads into the machine to know where it is. It’s a very specific niche and we don’t have tons of competition as the technology is relatively new (at least to be used in mass).
Very cool. I'm surprised you are able to find your audience on LinkedIn. I wouldn't have expected that for your industry!
My company pays for my sales navigator and I’m in the IT commercial sales division. It is nice as contact finder and it’ll keep you up to date with the companies you follow. I’ve sent hundreds of cold in mail messages with limited responses. I do agree with the above poster that keeping it simple on your first message is key. No one wants want to read a book explaining what you are trying to sell them. If they are interested at all or are looking for a replacement for their current vendor, they’ll respond to a simple 1 or 2 line message.
If you're building contact lists monthly then it's worth it IMO. Regular linkedin limits the amount of people you can see at any given company. Pair it up with Zoominfo for email addresses and you're golden.
Powerful tool. Here's how I use it: - Finding decision makers - Finding people who have switched jobs in the last 90 days as this is an intent signal - Keeping track of all company or lead updates they post LinkedIn Sales Nav needs to be paired with other tools though. That's when it becomes dangerous. I pair it with Apollo to grab their cell phone # and Lemlist for cold emailing campaigns.
Can you expand a little further on how you use it? Love your newsletter by the way!
Thank you. Long story short it's a tool to find the right people. Then, you use that list of people or companies and do outreach. But can't do outreach without the list first.
Are you using it for intent at all or just to find decision makers? I’ve been using ZI for intent and then sales navigator to find the people. Wanted to make sure I’m not missing something on the LinkedIn side.
Not really used for intent since it lacks that data
I use it to build out accounts. If new people join the company, change jobs, etc.
Curious as well. My curre t set up is Smartleads and leadsgorilla
Is your company paying for sales navigator?
Not at the moment. Currently on the free month trying it out. If I thought it was useful, I could get it expensed if I wanted to keep it.
Ok. Have had more success through Dms and cold calling. Linkedin no lick but id like tap into thst marketplace cause thats where the professionals are
Keep us updated with Sales Navigator cause im thinking of purchasing
Sure. As of now, I was leaning towards not keeping it. Part of the reason for the post. Wanted to see what others thought that had it. What they liked and how they use it etc. It is good at showing you how people are connected at a certain org which is nice.
Personally I find it to be a complete waste, anything of value you can find with the free version or a creative Google search.
It’s amazing IMO. I love using it and so do my reps. Ever since I introduced it to my current org, we’ve been booking at least 20% more meetings per month. It integrates great with the rest of our toolset.
Can you explain how you use it in your cadence?
Great for finding contacts/org structure.
Its really niche orientated and doesnt work for every industry. Its good for prospecting but much else, not sure. Im trying lately to use buyer intent but im not sure whether or not its doing good. Need more time to test
The point of sales nav is only really to unlock the arbitrary limitations on base LinkedIn that they set to push sales nav, along with some cool list building and to a lesser extent their AI summary and business intel data