how to get more business using linkedin how to get new business with linkedin.pdf · title:...

How To Get More Business Using Linkedin Copyright 2012 Induron Protective Coatings Inc. All rights reserved. www.induron.com 2

© 2012 by Induron Protective Coatings Inc.

All rights reserved.

www.induron.com

This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information with regard

to the subject matter covered. It is provided with the understanding that the publisher is

not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional advice. If legal advice or

other expert professional assistance is required, the services of a competent professional

person should be sought. From a Declaration of Principles jointly adopted by a Committee of the

American Bar Association and a Committee of Publishers & Associations


A note from Davies Hood, Induron

President:

We are so pleased that you have made the decision to

download our eBook!

Induron Protective Coatings, which has been around

since 1947, has seen a lot of changes in the engineering,

fabricating and coatings industries during that time. But probably the

most profound change has come from figuring out the best electronic

way to keep up with the great professional relationships that we are

all building in real life.

As a business owner, I have found no better tool to do this with than

Linkedin. It allows our salespeople to keep in touch with every single

person they meet on a daily basis. It allows our employees, through

our private Linkedin group, to have internal conversations and com‐

ments about articles we read. And it allows our company to share our

weekly blog post article links from our Linkedin company profile,

with our customers and prospects.

We hope the tips and tricks we share with you in this eBook will help

your business grow in much the same way that it has helped our

business.


TableofContentsA note from Davies Hood, Induron President: .......................................................................................... 3

What is Linkedin? ..................................................................................................................................... 5

Why you should use Linkedin .............................................................................................................. 5

How others use Linkedin ...................................................................................................................... 6

Building your personal Linkedin profile ................................................................................................... 8

Building your Linkedin network of connections .................................................................................. 9

How to invite someone to join you on Linkedin ................................................................................... 9

All about contacts and degrees............................................................................................................ 10

Healthy Linkedin habits to build .......................................................................................................... 11

Building your Company Page on Linkedin ............................................................................................. 12

Creating a Company Page ................................................................................................................... 12

Products & Services Tab ..................................................................................................................... 12

Tips on maximizing benefit from your Company Page ...................................................................... 13

How to prospect using Linkedin ............................................................................................................. 14

Finding new prospects using Linkedin ............................................................................................... 14

“Warming up” your leads .................................................................................................................... 15

Final Linkedin Tips & Tricks .................................................................................................................. 17

Establishing good habits that last ........................................................................................................ 19


What is Linkedin?

If you are not using Linkedin by now, you have at least heard

or read about it. It is considered the number

one business Social Networking site.

Linkedin is often thought of as the electronic

tool that allows salespeople, business

development folks, engineers and business

owners to maintain relationships with other businesspeople

who are important to them or their company.

The goal of this chapter is to give you the 50,000 foot view of

Linkedin and get you excited about how it can help you

advance in your career and help you market your business

more effectively.

Why you should use Linkedin

There are many different reasons why people use Linkedin.

Perhaps one of the more important reasons is your digital

reputation. You should understand that Search Engines (like

Google) love Linkedin content. What that means to you as an

individual is if you have a Linkedin profile, then usually it’s the

first thing that comes up when someone “Googles” your name.

Likewise, if you have a Linkedin business page, that business


page is the second things that comes up when someone

“Googles” your business (2nd only behind your company

website). So, by just having a profile in Linkedin, your

visibility online increases dramatically.

Still other people use Linkedin to make sure that they are easily

found by someone looking for their type of service. For

example, if you have work experience in the arena of Potable

water treatment or storage, sewer pipes, Transmission and

Distribution of electricity or horizontal directional drilling,

then someone looking for someone with your expertise could

find you easily within Linkedin. So it is a terrific reference site

for people looking for other people who do what you do.

How others use Linkedin

So as you can see, there is a lot of opportunity for the giving,

sharing, and receiving of valuable information. Besides all of

this, Linkedin has incredible search functionality built into it.

This allows you to search for different people, different

businesses, and different keywords that might lead you to the

product or service you need.

In the search box in Linkedin, you will notice that you can

search by people, companies, or any other variety of different

categories. There is even an advanced search feature which

allows you to narrow your search down. For example, let’s say


that you are looking for someone who produces Ceramic

Epoxy Coatings or coatings for use in horizontal directional

drilling, thrust bore, and rough terrain applications. You

would simply choose your geography and choose your

keywords and that way the search will be narrowed down.

The search function in Linkedin is also a terrific way to search

for former colleagues, vendors you have worked with in the

past, former clients, prospects you have lost track of, and any

other number of people that you should now be Linkedin with.

Remember, if you have someone’s business card, that

information is only as good as the length of their employment

at that one company. But if you are Linkedin with someone,

that contact information stays updated forever.


Building your personal Linkedin profile

Creating a personal Linkedin profile is easy.

It just requires that you set aside some time

to make sure it is filled out properly, so that

you can be more easily found.

The key to Linkedin is really taking the time to

fill out all of your professional information as completely as possible,

and then making the time to update it as your career moves and

changes. ʺView Profileʺ to find the link you can give others so they

can come right to your profile on Linkedin. You might even think

about including this link in your email signature.

Here are the items that should be filled out as an absolute minimum:

1. Photo – adding a profile photo makes your profile SEVEN

TIMES more likely to be found in searches. This is very im‐

portant; people will get a first impression of you through

Linkedin without the benefit of verbal clues. A picture goes a

long way toward establishing your personal brand.

2. Job experience – having your 2 most recent positions listed in

this section makes your profile TWELVE TIMES more likely to

be found. Add at least your current and past two positions.

3. Education 4. Websites – list your company URL, and your company’s blog

URL.

5. Contact settings – make sure people can see how to get in touch

with you – list your email address and your phone number.


Building your Linkedin network of connections

You should begin right away getting Linkedin with everyone you

work closely with at your current job. Then, go to your past employ‐

ers and become Linkedin with people there, as well. Finally, do

some searches for people youʹve worked with in non‐traditional

ways, such as in church groups, PTA committees, etc. and get con‐

nected with those folks, as well.

Linkedin is MEANT to be a collection of your own personal net‐

work, so itʹs perfectly acceptable to ʺturn downʺ or ignore solicita‐

tions from people who are a ʺfriend of a friendʺ.

How to invite someone to join you on Linkedin

Let’s say you met someone today at a professional event that

you’d like to connect with on Linkedin:

1. Check to see that they have a Linkedin profile. Do this by going to the “People” search box, and typing in the person’s

name.

2. Once you have found the person’s profile, click the orange “Connect” button to send them an invitation to connect.


3. Sometimes, you will have to know the person’s email address

in order to connect with them. This is entirely up to the

privacy settings that each individual user sets up for his or her

own account.

All about contacts and degrees

Linkedin has a unique way of helping you see visually you’re

your connection with another person stands in terms of “degrees”.

Anyone with whom you have extended a Linkedin invitation

and they have accepted is considered a 1st‐degree connection.

All of your 1st‐degree connections’ connections are now

considered your 2nd‐degree connections.

All of your 2nd‐degree connections’ connections are now

considered your third‐degree connections.

So you can start to see how quickly your extended network can

build on Linkedin!


Healthy Linkedin habits to build

In order to be truly successful with Linkedin long‐term, you’ve got

to form consistent habits of adding all new business contacts you

meet to your Linkedin network.

Over time, as your network grows, this is where the true value of

your Linkedin network comes into play.

Every couple of days, gather up the business cards from all the people you met that week. Send them all a

Linkedin invitation. Bonus: once you are Linkedin with

someone, you can download their vCard into your email

system, instead of having to type in their contact

information from their business card!

Every day, spend 5 minutes on your “Linkedin Wall” – the

front screen of Linkedin that contains all of the updates

that your connections make to their profile. Find

opportunities to congratulate people for promotions, or to

comment on articles they have posted. This shows that

you are engaged and active in your electronic network,

and it keeps you “top of mind” with your clients and

prospects.


Building your Company Page on Linkedin

Your Linkedin Company page is a

centralized location where millions of

Linkedin members can go to stay in the

loop on company news, products and

services, business opportunities and job

openings.

Creating a Company Page

1. Click here to be taken to the “Add A Company” page:

http://www.linkedin.com/company/add/show

2. Next, enter your company name, and your email address.

3. You will be prompted to confirm this through an auto‐

generated email Linkedin will send to that address.

4. Once you have confirmed your email address, you can begin

filling out information about your company.

Products & Services Tab

After you have filled out the basic Overview section for your

company, you’ll want to turn your attention to the Products &

Services tab of your Company page.

This is a section where you can really highlight the products

and services that your company offers. This tab enables

companies to build their brand through network‐aware


recommendations, giving members rich, credible insights into

how any given product (or service) is perceived by their fellow

professionals.

Tips on maximizing benefit from your Company Page

Rather than just listing each product or services, create a bulleted list of features and benefits for each product or

service you list.

You can also include a link to a landing page for each product or service, so make sure to take advantage of this

targeting.

If you have a company expert that is different for each

product or service, make sure to showcase that person’s

name next to each product or service listed.

Make sure to ask existing customers for recommendations

for each product or service once you have fully listed out

the features and benefits. As we all know, a

recommendation from a qualified source is worth more to

your company than all the creative marketing descriptions

in the world!


How to prospect using Linkedin

In the day and age of Linkedin and other digital marketing

tools, the age of “cold calling” is hopefully

drawing to a close. Using tools like Linkedin to

“warm up” your leads will be some of the best

time you’ve ever spent on the computer!

If you have the responsibility for new business development,

then you certainly have goals for how much new business

you’d like to bring into your company. But have you also set

goals for how many new businesses you have to call on in

order to make that happen? Setting this goal will go a long way

toward helping you be more analytical about how many phone

calls, lunches, sales calls, and presentations you need to make

each month to be properly pacing toward your goal.

Once you are armed with this data and you have a clear figure

in mind, let’s go to work on finding people for you to call on!

Finding new prospects using Linkedin

One of the best ways to find potential new prospects on

Linkedin is to search for specific keywords.

The first thing you’ll want to do is to compile a list of keywords

related to both your business and to the people you want to


connect with. Then, you’ll want to become very familiar with

the “Advanced Search” section of Linkedin! This is where you

can narrow down the geography of where you want to look,

and you can search on keywords related to job titles or a

particular industry.

The good news is, you can really drill down pretty far with

these searches, allowing you to target the specific type of

Linkedin members who would be the decision‐maker for your

products and services.

“Warming up” your leads

When you are about to attend a meeting with a potential prospect,

take time to review the attendees’ Linkedin profiles first.

There are a few valuable pieces of information you are looking

for:

How many degrees away from you

Who do you know in common

What groups you share in common

Next, you’ll want to look up the prospect’s Company Page as

well, and look for some of the same kinds of information.


You will certainly go into this upcoming meeting armed with a

whole lot of valuable information that will allow you to establish

a more intimate connection with those prospects within 5

minutes of the meeting.


Final Linkedin Tips & Tricks

Now that you have some of the basics covered on Linkedin, you

will want to encourage others in your organization

to engage in much the same way you have.

After all, the sooner you engage others in your

organization, the more exponential your progress will be in

growing your mutual networks and propagating your Thought

Leadership outward to all of your networks.

If you really want to get the most value from Linkedin as a

“thought leader”, you should also think about establishing a

blog, and posting helpful articles each week.

Once you’ve done this, you and your team have some incredibly

valuable information to now post weekly on your personal and

Company wall!

Here’s what we personally do to make this happen for Induron:

Every week, we post an update on the company’s Linkedin

page. It’s usually our weekly blog post, but it can also be a press

mention we’ve received.

We encourage our sales folks to “Share” that link out to their

personal connections (there is a “Share” button right below the


article on the company’s Linkedin Business Page – all they do is

click the button, and add a personal note about the article.)

An example of how this can work:

We have 23 people following our Company Page.

When we post an update of any recent press, or our weekly blog post,

it goes onto the wall of all 23 followers. That’s not too bad.

However – next, Davies Hood, our President, also “shares” that same

update on his own personal Linkedin wall, and it goes out to 477 peo‐

ple (that’s how many connections he has).

We have 16 other people involved in Business Development – and

not one of them has fewer than 200 contacts (many have more).

You can see how when each of them do this very simple task, it turns

into exponential results.

Also imagine the added benefit for each individual sales/biz dev per‐

son in terms of their growing thought leadership reputations!

This is a fairly simple but POWERFUL way to use Linkedin. It doesn’t

take anyone a lot of time, but the return on time investment is signifi‐

cant.

Don’t forget that you can measure your traffic increase by looking at

your own Google Analytics. Try it for a month, and see what happens

to your website traffic – and your prospecting efforts.


Establishing good habits that last

One of the other things we did at Induron to establish good

habits (i.e., sending out Linkedin invitation every day to new

people we met; re‐posting blog posts on our Linkedin wall, etc.)

is to create a friendly internal Linkedin contest.

The contest should last at least 9 weeks total. This should be

enough time for new habits to be developed among your sales

staff. Also, there should be some kind of “grand prize” given at

the end of the contest that is very motivating for your team.

We named our contest “Gimme Five”, and it required our sales

people to make a minimum of five (5) new connections each

week. Once they reached their 5 for the week, there were other

things they could do to earn “bonus points”, such as:

Posting a weekly update on your Linkedin wall (1 point – limit 1

per week)

Getting non‐reciprocal recommendations (1 point per recom‐

mendation)

Writing a recommendation for someone in a non‐reciprocal way

(1 point per recommendation)

Answering a business‐related question on the Linkedin ʺAn‐

swersʺ section (1 point – limit 1 per week)


The one “catch” to the contest is that they HAD to have the

following items filled out on their Linkedin profile before they

were eligible to enter the contest:

Profile picture Company Website (http://www.induron.com)

Company blog (http://www.induron.com/blog )

Telephone number

Email address

At least two jobs (including present)

Selection of the right company

We published the results each week. We also offered bi‐weekly

cash rewards along the way, as well as a “Grand Prize”.

This contest truly resulted in helping all of our business

development folks establish some needed rigor in spending 5‐10

minutes a day on Linkedin. Even better, our blog posts are now

being published to a very large pool of people, and our sales

folks are maintaining and networking with contacts in a much

better way going forward.

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