At this point, you must know that we are big fans of LinkedIn.
To begin, almost all our professional interactions either start on LinkedIn or end up being there. In fact, 90% of our leads come through LinkedIn. (If you are on this blog, chances are that you either saw it on LinkedIn or came through a different page, but ending up here).
During this time, both the founders of Axies Digital, Taz and Harmeet, have developed a strong network of 3k connections each on LinkedIn. And, unlike many other professionals who keep adding connections on LinkedIn just for the sake of it, both our founders get impressive engagement through their LinkedIn activity.
More importantly, such engagement and activity on LinkedIn in general leads to meaningful conversations that benefit our business in more than one way.
Being a B2B business, we understand that this might be true for you too. So, it might be worth investing into LinkedIn marketing. To help you out, in this blog we will discuss how to use LinkedIn effectively, sharing how we have used this platform to form meaningful relations.
Taking a side detour, if you would like to convert more leads into paying customers, you will like our video below:
Understanding the Basics
To begin, understand that each social media platform must be used for a different purpose.
I am still amazed when people talk of tools that can post the same thing on 10 different platforms. If you ask these people of the engagement they get of each platform, the answers are usually unsatisfactory. Therefore, make sure that you have a purpose behind using any social media platform, let alone LinkedIn.
For instance, if you are selling a physical product directly to consumers, you are better off going to Facebook. However, if you want to target businesses, e.g. to build relations with a wholesaler, LinkedIn is a good place to start. On the other hand, if you are a B2B business, you need to focus on LinkedIn. This is where all the business to business people are.
Approaching a Sale
You may already be aware of our stand on direct sales on LinkedIn: you will be wasting your time.
In the past, we have compared it to going out with someone on a 1st date and proposing them. It’s simply stupid.
Connecting with someone and sending a sales pitch is worse. You are basically proposing to someone who got on the same bus as you and sat on the seat next to you.
Therefore, work on building that familiarity and plant little seeds that will clarify your values and end up attracting the right people to you that you can do business with.
Let’s look a little deeper into forming relationships through LinkedIn.
Personal Relationships vs Business Associates
The experience and journey of forming personal relations is similar to developing professional friends.
Sadly, to some it comes natural. For introverts, you may struggle a little but once you conquer the process, you may be what these connections required in the 1st place.
To begin, be selective about who you are connecting with. It is true that LinkedIn is not just meant to be for connecting with people you already know. (There’s a reason why you can connect with 30,000 people on LinkedIn).
To keep things simple here, just don’t be a weirdo who’s connecting with every Tom, Dick, and Harry. And don’t just send requests to people because LinkedIn puts them into your suggestions.
The bottom-line is, if you are connecting with anyone and everyone, all your efforts afterwards are nullified because your content and efforts will be going to the wrong people.
One thing we have employed in the last few months is: only connecting with people that you have mutual connections with; and only connecting with people who have the right job titles to match our target audience. And, if you can put a little extra effort, engaging with the content of a person before sending them a request, you’ll do even better.
We are not going to tell you to use our magic script or follow a defined conversation. Simply, produce your own framework based on your line of work. In other words, in every industry, there are acceptable and unacceptable things to say. Stick to what is acceptable in your area.
Be Driven by Value
If you are connecting with someone just because you have a product or service to sell, chances are that you’ll never reach a point where your product or service is even considered.
That is why, we suggest trying to learn about your audience better and share value before demanding or even expecting value. Also, understand that not every relation you build will lead to business success and that is okay. If you are adding true value to your audience, it will come back to you one way or another.
For instance, during lockdown, we have put together the Volta Blue community, with the intention of sharing value amongst business leaders. We arrange business Mastermind sessions, invite 10-12 businesses, and then help individuals solve their problems through sharing the collective experience of the invitees.
Things have gone so well for us that, as of June 28th, 2020, the Volta Blue community has grown beyond 250 businesses, ranging from startups to directors from Deloitte, Schneider Electric, and Rolls Royce.
Doing so doesn’t only help our connections directly, but helps them build connections with our other close connection, harnessing the power of community driven business development.
In addition, given that we are bringing highly active business leaders together, the engagement over our profiles has skyrocketed too, now ranging to other business leaders that we had no access to before the putting together of this community.
Conclusion
The simple thing to remember is: if you have the best intentions for your target audience at heart, things will never go wrong for you in business. Therefore, treat business relations like any other personal relation in your life. You don’t require anything directly back in return but, believe us, doors will be opened that you could have never gone through if you did not have the collective growth mentality.
