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Why LinkedIn?

The better question is Why Not?

LinkedIn is the world’s largest business platform and the #1 channel for most B2B marketers to distribute content and generate leads. 

It has over 575+ million users, with more than 260 million monthly active users. Of those LinkedIn users who are engaging with the platform monthly, 40% access it on a daily basis (Source: LinkedIn).

LinkedIn is an especially good source for discovering leads. Hubspot found that LinkedIn is 277% more effective at generating leads than Facebook and Twitter.

How is this related to your business and why you should care at all?

Imagine you have a marketing system in place that is continually running in the background delivering more leads but more importantly better leads. It develops relationships with thousands of cold prospects, converts them into warm leads, and then customers over time.

The system allows you to market to them in a specific way that culminates in a request for a short phone call or a discovery session. Then all you’ll need to do is bring them into your sales process and close the sale.

But how to do that?

We have learned a 4 Step Process to be used with LinkedIn that we call it F.A.S.T.™ Formula.

What is F.A.S.T.? 

LinkedIn F.A.S.T.™ Formula is our social selling proprietary method that puts you on track to hunt down your ideal clients and comprises of four steps:

  • Foundation
  • Attraction
  • Selection
  • Targeting

Step 1: Foundation

In Foundation phase it is all about positioning you as an expert and leader that people want to engage with. 

At this stage you increase your authority as a leader in your industry using the LinkedIn platform so you were able to create meaningful conversations with your ideal prospects and convert them into high-paying clients.

Creating your authority and leadership on LinkedIn goes hand in hand with four elements of social selling.

What is social selling?

Hootsuite defines social selling as the art of using social media to find, connect with, understand, and nurture sales prospects. It’s the modern way to develop meaningful relationships with potential customers so you’re the first person or brand a prospect thinks of when they’re ready to buy.

In simpler words social selling removes the pitching component of sales and creates conversation around your products or services by teaching your potential customers about their benefits. 

Now that we know what social selling means, let’s get clear on what the main elements of social selling are on LinkedIn.

Establishing your professional brand, which involves completing your LinkedIn profile with a customer in mind. Your LinkedIn profile is NOT about you, it’s about your clients.

Finding the right people is what separates a smart marketer from a marketer. You don’t need to talk to everyone – you simply need to identify the best prospects who are qualified to work with you.

Engaging with insights is sharing and participating in conversation- worthy updates to create and grow relationships on LinkedIn.

Building relationships is the holy grail of B2B marketing today which strengthens your network by connecting and establishing trust with decision makers.

One of the ways to be seen as an authority on LinkedIn is to start optimizing your LinkedIn profile by turning it into a client attraction magnet.

Step 2: Attraction

Those in need of your solutions will be attracted to your profile and will check you out to see if you can help them.

At the end of the day marketing is simply attracting those clients you want and repelling those you don’t want. 

As Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation states the closer something is, the bigger the force of attraction becomes.

Similarly, in order to attract the right clients you need to get closer to them by knowing who they are and where they are.

Creating “marketing gravity” simply means crafting the message that cuts through the noise and resonates with your market. 

Attracting ideal clients can be done by crafting a right, distilled and razor sharp message, which is tuned-in on the same wavelength with theirs.

To do so you start talking to prospective clients’ needs and desires through meaningful conversations and position yourself as someone who can help them solve their problems. 

As a rule, it actually takes 7 to 13+ touches before most prospects will even consider doing business with you. But the problem is, most businesses don’t even make it to 4 touch points.

Microsoft’s study shows that by the fourth contact, 89% of salespeople have given up and have not moved on.

To win at selling now means helping your customers win too, fostering a discussion that uncovers their needs and proposing solutions that best fit them (Source: Salesforce).

And, this is why we pay attention to creating meaningful conversations and positioning yourself as someone who can help them solve their problems in the first place.

Step 3: Selection

In the Selection phase, you decide on which clients to target and how to reach them. 

You don’t want you to talk to everyone – you simply need to identify the best prospects who are qualified to work with you.

By selling your products and services you are improving your clients’ lives and profiting from that by growing and scaling your business.

But do you know exactly in which shape and form your product or service improves your clients’ lives? 

Knowing core benefits and competencies of your services and products will help you attract those clients who you want to work with

Here are some powerful practical tips on how to discover core benefits and attributes of your solutions and decide which clients to go after:

  • What are the top 3 strengths you believe your product/service has? (ask customers)
  • What are the top 3 weaknesses you believe your product/service has? (ask customers)
  • What is the UVP (unique value proposition) that makes your product/service the best in the world?

Answering the questions above should help you identify the main benefits and attributes of your solution. 

Then, you need to identify your ideal client. Who are the best people you are going to help? 

During your customer’s journey your product and/or service is supposed to help your clients shortcut their transformation from current reality to desired future.

Once you identify the destination where your ideal clients want to arrive at based on the intelligence and data you already have about them, you can now reverse engineer core benefits and attributes of your solution and match them with the desires and wants of your clients.

Every solution whether it is a product or service combines three main variables that help to determine which clients to target and how to reach them. 

Your ideal client is at the intersection and perfect overlap of these three core elements – passion, expertise, and market demand.

Step 4: Targeting

In the Targeting phase, you build a database with your high-value prospects implementing sniper rifle strategy.

The key here is knowing how to target potential buyers and build long-lasting business relationships with them through educating, supporting, and guiding them during their buying process.

Here are few search and targeting hacks you can use to improve your prospecting. 

Finding quality leads and building relationships with them takes time. We recommend starting with something in common to make better content and establish a common ground.

If you filter in the search and find someone who attended the same college, university as you did – this already puts you on the common ground with a prospect.

And guess what?

People like to be connecting and having conversations with people who share common interests, preferences, and education.

Another tactic from sniper rifle targeting is to put a filter for job change in the recent month or two. People who recently took over new positions in the company are expected to improve and make changes in the organization. 

Therefore, they are more open to new ideas, taking actions and partnering with you.

What’s Next?

If you are an educational entrepreneur (i.e. expert entrepreneur, coach, consultant, speaker etc.), or executive of an educational service provider, you want to discover the faster, easier way to get prospects and sales qualified leads on LinkedIn today.

At LinkedFormula we help our clients sell their digital products and services on LinkedIn and shorten the sales cycle.

This system and processes we have at LinkedFormula can put you on track to hunt down your ideal clients relatively FAST.

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