Podcast: How To Generate Sales Using LinkedIn Networking

Announcer: Hello and welcome to the The Business Growth Agency podcast where we bring you short, actionable guides that help you and your business to grow. In episode number four, we speak to Joanna Martorana, a business coach, about using LinkedIn to generate sales. We’re going to ask her all the questions about LinkedIn that you’ve secretly wanted to ask. How do you connect with people you don’t already know on LinkedIn? How do you do that in a way that’s authentic and helpful for those people? What exactly does Joanna write in that first message that makes her so successful?

Margarida: Welcome, Joanna!

Joanna: Hello, Margarida! How are you?

Margarida: Very good, very good. Tell me, how important has LinkedIn been in growing your business?

Joanna: Yeah, it’s been huge. It’s one of my main strategies to growing my business. In the early days when I started out as a coach, I was fortunate to receive some early referrals to get me going in my business. Once those referrals run out, it’s like, okay, what next? Having learned the sales process, in those days, initially it was all about telemarketing and cold calling. It wasn’t really me. Telemarketing and cold calling isn’t really my style.

I really jumped onto the LinkedIn strategy very quickly because I feel that LinkedIn turns a cold call, or what used to be called a cold call, into what I call a warm call. For me, LinkedIn is all about asking permission to be able to contact and speak to people. That’s why I went to the LinkedIn strategy.

Margarida: Can you tell us, in terms of numbers, what impact LinkedIn has had?

Joanna: Yes. It takes – like with any marketing strategy – you need to give it a few months. I’ve been using a marketing company to do the grudge work for me. I was getting on average 200 strong connections a month, targeted connections. After that, I would say I was getting 20 to 25 leads a month. That’s a good 10 to 15 percent conversion from prospect to lead.

Now, what I call a lead is somebody who says “oh, yes, great to connect. Here’s my number.” In my first message, I’m actually asking permission and saying something like along the lines of “hi, great connect. Thank you for accepting my request to connect. I’ve looked at your profile, and I’d be really interested to learn about you and your business. I think you look very interesting. Would it be okay, with your permission, to give you a call to have a chat sometime?” That would go out to however many people. What I would then be receiving is a message in return saying “yes, that would be great, or yes, here’s my number.” When they give you the phone number, to me, I now have what’s called a warm lead.

Many people won’t even respond to the message at all. I would nurture those. They’d get another message probably a week later to say something like “hi, Margarida. I know you’re busy. Just wondering did you get a chance to read my previous message?” Even off the back of those nurturing messages, I may get somebody who turns around says “actually, yes. Thank you, sorry, I’ve been so busy. Would you mind calling me in a couple of weeks’ time? Here’s my number.”

The way I look at it, it’s definitely a mindset thing. You just think of people being very, very busy. People aren’t rejecting you by not responding. You just got to keep nurturing. I was getting around 25 leads a month. Then the key thing, obviously, is following up those leads. Then it’s all about conversion.

Margarida: What does your daily routine look like on LinkedIn?

Joanna: These days, because I use somebody else to do the messaging itself, for me my daily routine is my phone will send me a message every day, every time somebody either accepts a connection or is responding to one of my messages. I’m quite reactive. Every day I will get LinkedIn messages, but what I do is I try to save them until the end of the day. Instead of getting distracted by that, I’ll wait until end of day. Then I’ll have a look at all the ones that responded.

Some of them will say “no, thank you, I’m not interested.” Whatever it might be, I go in, I check out the ones that have responded. Actually, the team that I use, they update my lead list. They will update it with the individual’s number and everything else. Then the next step is simply following up and making that initial phone call.

Margarida: Any tips on profile pages?

Joanna: Yeah, in fact, part of the training that I provide for Engage & Grow coaches is around branding yourself. Your LinkedIn profile is key. It’s really important. That is your shop window. One of the things that I always recommend is make sure that you’ve got an exciting header, something different other than business coach or whatever you might be, but tell them a little bit in a very short, few words in your header on what you’re about. For instance, on mine, it tells you that I inspire leaders, evoke performance, productivity, and profit.

I’ve coined myself as the People’s Coach because the message that I want to get across to everybody on LinkedIn and Social is that look, I’m not just about coaching one-to-one, the man at the top or the woman at the top, the CEO, or the MD. I am about people. It doesn’t matter what walk of life you come from or what level of an organization that you’re in. I can help, and I can impact you. That is the purpose of me coining that title for myself because I want to get across the message that I am here for people. I don’t care what you have, what you don’t have, and where you are in an organization because every single person is as important as the next. That’s really important for me.

Then, in my summary, I really want to get across my why, so rather than just talking about what I do, which again can be quite boring; they don’t care. You need to get across your why. What is your purpose? Why do you do what you do? That’s another key part of my profile. Also, I recommend that you update your profile quite frequently, so at least, probably, once a month or even once every other month just so that you get your listings higher up on the LinkedIn. If people are searching, they’ll find you, a bit like Google, where you’re updating AdWords and getting your profile seen higher up the pages.

Also, very important, go out, ask people for recommendations, people you’ve worked with, and ask people to endorse you as well for certain skills. That first page is really key when people are looking. Make sure it stands out, that it’s exciting and inspires people to want to connect with you and to message you.

Margarida: After a connection request has been accepted, what’s next?

Joanna: If I’ve asked somebody specific to connect with me and they have accepted that connection request, I simply send out my first message, which is the message I described earlier. It’s basically asking them permission for me to get in touch with them and contact them by phone. That’s pretty much it, but it’s the way you put it. I always ensure that my interest is in them. It’s very important that you make them see or understand that you’re interested in them, talking about them.

Margarida: LinkedIn groups, how important are LinkedIn groups for your business?

Joanna: To be honest, I am a member of some LinkedIn groups. If I’m totally honest with you, I’ve not really used them in any way to max out the opportunity as of yet. I think I’ve got so much interest and response just purely through this one-to-one LinkedIn strategy that I’ve not actually had time to explore further the group LinkedIn. That is definitely something that I want to look into a bit more as part of my marketing strategy next year. I couldn’t really comment too much on that, but it’s always great to be part of a group in line with what we do at Engage & Grow. It’s great to be members of HR groups, CIPD accredited groups, any kind of business group that you’re interested in. Yeah, I haven’t really explored that enough as of yet.

Margarida: Can you really generate sales from the LinkedIn connections?

Joanna: Yes, 100%. In fact a number of the clients that I have this year, 90% of my clients this year come from LinkedIn, so 100%. The thing is LinkedIn, in and of itself, isn’t what’s going to get you the sale. LinkedIn is just going to get you that lead. What you do with that lead, carrying on from there, that’s really then where we’re talking about sales. That’s now really talking about your sales process, but definitely as a generator of leads, LinkedIn, to me, is number one strategy.

The only other thing I would mention as well is that there are ways of getting higher volumes of leads, and that would be through an automated system. I’ve not used one as yet. Again, it’s something I’m looking to explore next year, something like Linked Helper. I know other coaches have been using that, which has been extremely importable, and less costly, and actually getting even better results in terms of volume.

We just have to be careful with automated tools that we don’t over use them because, obviously, LinkedIn doesn’t like them. They’re not actually LinkedIn add-ins. They’re external add-ons. Anyway, it’s a great tool. That’s all I can say to you. If you’re not using LinkedIn today, you’re losing because other people out there using it are winning.

Margarida: What are the most common mistakes that people make on LinkedIn?

Joanna: I think one of the biggest mistakes people make is when people connect with me, then they send me a really long-winded message telling me all about them and what they do. It bores me to death, and I’m not interested. I never, ever respond to those people. For me, it doesn’t resonate. It’s Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. One of the habits is speak first to understand and then to be understood.

That’s why my message is short. It’s sweet. It’s asking them permission. It’s about them. It’s not about me. That’s the number one mistake you could make is talking about yourself and sending somebody a long-winded message to somebody who doesn’t even know you. That’s really annoying. I actually find that quite irritating. How about you, Margarida? Do you find that irritating? Does that happen to you a lot?

Margarida: It doesn’t happen to me a lot because I’m not using LinkedIn like you, but maybe in the future, yes. I think if it’s from someone that we don’t know, it’s a bit weird to get all the profile, a long story about the past. It’s like, what? I don’t even want to read it. You know, what I do here is to connect with brands that I love already so I can say something about the product. I think this kind of generates empathy. I’m trying this kind of approach.

Joanna: Yes, I’d say that’s the only thing. Don’t talk about yourself. Also, we’ve got to be mindful of the fact that we don’t know the people that we’re connecting with. We don’t know what their communication style is. When we think about DiSC, we have no idea if they’re a Dominant, an Influential, Steady, or a Conscientious. Different messages will appeal to different styles. I always start with the short, and sweet, and the interest in them because that one there will appeal to all of them.

If you send a long-winded message talking all about me, me, me, your Ds are going to switch off straight away, your Is aren’t even going to read until the end because they’re too impatient, and your Cs, they’ll have a lot of detail, but they won’t be interested because detail may be just so off the mark it doesn’t hit what they need. The Ss, they’ll probably read it because they’re nice.

Margarida: Sum up your take-home lessons on using LinkedIn in a few short sentences.

Joanna: My lessons are this:  number one, short and sweet first message, make it about them, and ask permission to call. Number two, when you receive the message and they give you a number, follow up within 48 hours or respond and ask them and set a time for you to call them. Number three, just make sure you have an outstanding profile that is going to appeal, and my recommendation there is ask somebody else to read it and critique it for you.

Margarida: Last question; is there anything you would like to plug or anywhere people should go to find out more about what you do?

Joanna: Yeah, LinkedIn, of course. First of all, if anybody would want to find out what I do, you can go onto my LinkedIn page, Joanna Martorana, The People’s Coach. Also, I have a YouTube channel as well if you look up Joanna Martorana. My YouTube channel, I have a few testimonial videos and promo videos on the Engage & Grow program. I will have more posted on there very shortly, like in a couple of weeks’ time, as I just completed a seminar last week. I do have a website coming soon as well. It’s joannamartorana.com.

Margarida: Thank you very much, Joanna.

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