INITIATE CONNECTIONS
WHAT SEPARATES SALES FROM MARKETING?
Marketing makes it easier for people to find products and services.
Sales initiates relationships with people who could benefit from products and services.
Some people argue that sales shouldn’t exist, but the reality is that there are many situations where buyers are not likely to recognize opportunities for value creation on their own.
THESE INCLUDE:
SUBJECT MATTER EXPERTISE:
Salespeople are experts in the application of tools and services to meet user requirements. The feedback loop of deployment and seeing how these products are used in the field puts sales professionals in a unique position to identify what products are most likely to fit any given set of requirements. They can also focus on keeping up with the changing capabilities and use cases for those products and applying that knowledge as needed.
VALUE BY PROXIMITY:
Sometimes, there are people you just want to know. If you have a bunch of trees on your property, you want to know a local tree cutting service provider who you’re familiar with and can call during an emergency. If you run a business that you hope to sell someday, you want to know investors and potential buyers who you can secure more bids from when the time is right. You generally don’t initiate these relationships on your own, and when these professionals are needed they aren’t always easy to find.
TARGETED EDUCATION:
The world is changing, and buyers need to be educated when tools they didn’t know existed become available and address their needs. Sales professionals are the conduit through which this knowledge travels, especially in situations when a new capability is built to serve niche or complicated requirements in specialized fields.
It’s clear that there are many scenarios where salespeople can add value by proactively initiating relationships.
But how do you initiate relationships in a value-added way?
We believe LinkedIn Sales Navigator can be an effective conduit between salespeople and the people they would like to meet, so long as that outreach is approached at every step from a heartfelt commitment to proactively adding value. This drives everything from targeting and list building to use of language and calls-to-action.
The details of how that is worked out in practice are highly contextual. If you would like to have a more specific conversation around how a LinkedIn outreach strategy might be built for any particular situation, set up time with Chris below.