LinkedIn is the social network to favor to find customers. Nevertheless, to take advantage of it, you need to have the right approach. Which one? I present it to you in detail in this guide.
I have been leading LinkedIn pieces of training since 2013. There was clearly a before and after lockdown. I have trained nearly 1000 people since the first one. Not a week goes by without being asked for help finding clients on LinkedIn.
The need is always twofold:
- Improve far too weak results;
- Improve them without spending the week there;
Clearly, you need a strategy that allows you to find customers on LinkedIn by integrating it into your already busy agenda.
That is what I am proposing to you today.
In this guide, I will introduce you to the method that I implement in my clients and that allows them to find customers on LinkedIn by allocating less than 2 hours per week.
To follow it, you have 2 possibilities.
You can continue reading this guide or sit back and start the video version:
But before that, let’s see the fundamental point to keep in mind.
The key point for finding customers on LinkedIn
Today, there’s a good chance you’ve already tried to find customers on LinkedIn. You most certainly went there in freestyle. In other words, without thinking about your approach.
This is not a criticism, simply an observation.
As I told you before, I have been leading LinkedIn training since 2013 and 100% of companies have started like this. The lockdowns have not helped anything since they have forced them to invest LinkedIn in a hurry.
The salespeople then arrived with their big hooves and started prospecting on LinkedIn as they prospect cold, by phone or email.
Naturally, it can’t work. For a simple reason:
LinkedIn users don’t log in to the social network for you to sell them your sauce. They are there for many other reasons:
- Develop their professional network;
- Conduct business intelligence;
- Increase in skills;
- Find a job;
- … Or find customers (like you);
If we put it simply, your customers are on LinkedIn but they are not there for you to sell them your products/services. They are there, at best, to buy them. See the nuance?
To find customers on LinkedIn, you don’t have to sell. You have to help.
To find customers on LinkedIn, you need to understand the 3 steps they go through. You will then be able to send them the right messages, in the right way.
These 3 steps are as follows:
- Awareness of the problem/need;
- Research and comparison of solutions;
- Purchasing decision-making;
Keep these 3 steps in mind: they will be essential for you to attract the attention of qualified prospects on LinkedIn, contact them and convert them into customers.
This brings me to the next point.
Finding customers on LinkedIn: what does it mean?
When we say we find customers on LinkedIn, we can think that it will be done effortlessly: we will connect and hop as if by magic, we will come across customers.
Of course, that’s not how it happens!
The method you will have to put in place to win customers on LinkedIn will take place in 3 steps:
- Attract the attention of qualified prospects;
- Engage the relationship;
- Convert them into customers;
For each of these 3 times, you will have specific actions to take. The ideal, if we refer to the title of this guide, is to allocate 2 hours per week to cover these 3 times:
- 45 minutes to be attractive;
- 15 minutes to start the conversation;
- 1 hour to convert your LinkedIn prospects into customers;
Naturally, we are not up to the minute and all this has given you as an indication. It’s up to you to organize yourself as you wish.
7 Steps to Find Clients on LinkedIn
To find clients on LinkedIn, you need to take the right approach by following these 7 steps:
- Optimize your profile for prospecting
- Work on your message sequence
- Share content
- Identify potential customers
- Send your contact request
- Enter into the business relationship
- Feed the purchasing reflection
Let’s detail each of these steps.
1. Optimize your profile
To find customers on LinkedIn, you need to be attractive but also reassuring.
The people you are going to approach do not know you, so you must put all the chances on your side to hold their attention.
I wrote a complete tutorial to create the perfect LinkedIn profile right here.
To make it short here, you need to work on 7 things on your profile:
- Put an optimal profile picture ;
- Add a cover photo reflecting your added value;
- Write an impactful title;
- Fill in the “Info” field in copywriting mode ;
- Integrate keywords into the main fields;
- Add your skills in the reserved field;
- Solicit customer testimonials;
To go further, profile optimization is the first module of my online training “find customers with LinkedIn” accessible here:
2. Work on your message sequence
By working on your message sequence, I mean 2 things:
- Messages that will allow you to be visible;
- Messages that will allow you to connect and convert your customers;
For point 1, we can detail this in the next step.
The idea here is that, in order to find customers on LinkedIn, you need to regularly share content that will allow you to get their attention.
This is what I do every week on the social network, with some success:
What you need to do first to attract customers to you is define your editorial line: what to post on LinkedIn.
However, unless you specifically develop this skill, it will not be enough to allow you to achieve your turnover.
You will then need to identify potential customers – we will see this in step 4 – and get in touch with them. Here too, you will have to work on a sequence of messages:
- What messages to get in touch with?
- What messages to engage the commercial relationship?
- What messages to feed the purchase reflection?
3. Share content
The huge advantage with LinkedIn is that you can make sure that it’s your customers who find you, rather than chasing after them.
For this, you must set up an inbound marketing strategy, based on content sharing.
You share content that meets the expectations and problems of your target to attract their attention and position yourself as an expert in your field of activity.
Now, this question must come to mind: “Ok you’re nice Ludo, but what do I post concretely on LinkedIn?”
This is where I tell you that yes, I am nice and that this video should please you:
What to post on LinkedIn? 2 simple methods to set it!
4. Identify potential customers
Here we are, that’s the heart of the problem: how to find customers on LinkedIn? What features can you use for this?
Again, I’ve written a comprehensive guide showing you the 8 ways to identify qualified prospects on LinkedIn.
There are 3 ways I love most of all:
- Commitments to my publications;
- Advanced search;
- Focus groups;
For the first, the idea is to scrutinize the contacts who like, comment, and share your publications and contact the most qualified.
Regarding the advanced search, you will have to use the filters offered by LinkedIn and fill it in according to the characteristics of your Persona.
Finally, the last way, the idea is to identify LinkedIn discussion groups that your customers are in and answer the questions they have.
In the right way. I insist and detail it in the video below:
5. Connect these potential customers
Once you’ve found potential customers on LinkedIn, you’ll need to send them a connection request. There, I will surely surprise you.
What I recommend you do here is to send a simple contact request, without personalizing your message. The studies are clear on the subject: 70% of requests for “simple” contact on LinkedIn are accepted against less than 50% for requests containing a personalized message.
It’s strange, I grant you but do the test. You’ll see.
I think it comes from the fact that your customers are regularly approached on LinkedIn and therefore, they automatically associate a request of this kind with a commercial ambition.
6. Start the business relationship
We are now at the crucial point!
You can add thousands of LinkedIn contacts, if you miss yourself here, you will not be able to convert them into customers.
As the saying goes, you won’t have twice the opportunity to make a good first impression. I’m pushing an open door, but it’s appropriate here 🙂
To start a business relationship on LinkedIn, you need to do 2 things:
- Thank your new contact (yes, that’s the basis!)
- Define your level of maturity in your purchasing thinking
As for the thanks, I don’t think I need to elaborate.
As for the level of maturity, it’s something else: everything will play out here. If you do not identify at which stage of his reflection he is located, you will not be able to engage your new contact.
Remember the 3 steps we saw in the intro: problems/solutions / purchase.
How can you meet this challenge? Difficult to explain in a few lines since I present all this in an entire module of my online training LinkedIn pro.
7. Feed the purchasing reflection
99% of the time, the customers you find on LinkedIn won’t be ready to buy. They will be either in the problem phase or in the solution phase.
Therefore, presenting them with your offer or offering them a commercial appointment will not work. Your LinkedIn leads won’t be engaged enough to accept. So what to do?
The key here is to conduct a lead nurturing sequence.
Concretely, you will have to send them the right messages to make them progress towards the next step: from problems to solutions and then from solutions to purchase.
What are the right messages? Well, these are the answers to the questions they ask themselves in the relevant step! And to identify them, you will have to have worked on the following prerequisite!
The 3 prerequisites to achieve meaningful results
We have just seen the 7 steps to follow to find customers on LinkedIn: if you follow this process, you will get results. However, they will remain random if you have not worked on the following prerequisites.
Mapping purchasing thinking
You have grasped the challenge to succeed on LinkedIn: you must send the right messages at the right time.
In other words, you need to identify the level of maturity of your contact to send him a sequence of messages gradually leading him to the purchase decision.
We have seen that to do this, you have to answer the questions they ask themselves according to the problem/solution/purchase stage in which it is located.
Users’ expectations and behaviors on LinkedIn vary depending on these steps. The key to success is to have a clear vision of what’s going on in your customers’ heads, throughout this journey.
How do have this vision? How to properly map the purchase thinking to convert your LinkedIn contacts into customers?
I tell you everything in this free training:
Persona’s work to properly map the purchase thinking
Create content
To carry out the 7 steps we have seen, you must be able to rely on a minimal stock of content.
You have 2 options:
- Store third-party content found on the web;
- Create your content;
The first option works but your results will be more meaningful if you share your content. There are several reasons for this:
Already, you will position yourself as an expert, able to deal in depth with the priority topics of your customers.
Then, you can best contextualize the messages and encourage your LinkedIn contacts to buy from you. This will of course is not the case for Le Figaro or Le Monde content.
Finally, you will be able to track the behavior of your LinkedIn contacts: if you share your content with them, using the right tools, you will be able to track the clicks and actions they have taken on your website.
You will have a precise vision of the level of maturity and engagement of these prospects and increase your chances of converting them into customers.
Collaborer avec le service marketing
These aspects of content creation and Lead Nurturing will take the most time. If you have the opportunity to collaborate with Marketing to carry out these actions, do so.
Today, sales reps need to dedicate their time to processing the most qualified and mature leads. Marketing is there to bring others to maturity.
Marketing can create content. Marketing can create message sequences optimized for nurturing.
Another important point, marketing animates your company’s page on LinkedIn and therefore has a direct impact on the perception that customers will have of you.
3 mistakes to avoid when finding customers on LinkedIn
I don’t need to convince you anymore: today, you have to use LinkedIn to win customers. Nevertheless, make sure that you do not make the following mistakes at the risk of not getting the expected results.
1. Prospect in copy/paste mode
What could be more annoying than copying and pasting? On LinkedIn or elsewhere.
I can’t count the number of times I’ve received a message in my private LinkedIn inbox that called me by a name other than mine.
Or, just as frustratingly, a private message describing a context that is not mine…
Your customers are drowned under the messages in their messaging. Minimal effort is required to hold their attention.
2. Invite everyone (and especially anyone)
Tapping into the crowd thinking that, mathematically, you will win a few customers is not a profitable strategy.
Posting naked on the square of the town hall of your city screaming your offers may also allow you to win a customer. But it’s not scalable.
To find customers on LinkedIn, you need to prioritize quality over quantity.
This will allow you to offer your contacts a more contextualized approach.
There are a lot of sales reps on LinkedIn who invite hundreds of contacts without ever talking to them. What do you believe? That because they accepted you they will come themselves to ask you for a quote?
3. Give up too soon
When I form a team at LinkedIn, I inevitably give them a topo on the adoption curve.
This curve consists of 4 stages: denial, questioning, remobilization, and commitment.
To put it simply, throughout this curve, you go through moments of doubt that are natural but can make you let go at any time.
When you’re tempted to give up, take a step back and focus on successes. There are necessarily some if only in the answers you will receive.
If you identify points on which you need to increase your skills, do not give up: call me and we can fix it Train yourself to find customers on LinkedIn and make it 😀
a real lever for growth:
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