®

SOLUTIONS FOR SALES MANAGEMENT

SAP CEO Bill McDermottHow to Handle Setbacks

Social Metrics (+ Video)

Moving SalesForward

(AKA Sales Enablement)

Spend MORE Time with Customers

6 Steps to Improved Productivity

Links in Your Sales Chain

June 2015 • SellingPower.com

So, you’re on LinkedIn. You’ve connected with hundreds (maybe thousands) of business leaders and others who might be interested in connecting with you. You want to leverage these connections for increasing sales. Where do you start? How about looking at your LinkedIn ranking? What? You ask. Is there such a thing? Well coincidentally, yes there is and here’s how it works. Start with this question.

On a scale of 0 to 100, how would you rank your LinkedIn profile?

You can actually use science to answer that question, thanks to LinkedIn’s Social Selling Index (SSI). The algo-rithm grades LinkedIn profiles based on a composite score (out of 100 points) that indicates how well each profile aligns with LinkedIn’s four pillars of social selling.

And the scores aren’t just vanity metrics – they corre-late to real results. “We’ve seen that reps with an above-average SSI score find 45 percent more opportunities per quarter and are 51 percent more likely to beat quota,” says Mike Derezin, vice president of sales solutions at LinkedIn.

Here’s more information about the four pillars of social selling, plus four examples of standout profiles in each area.

1. BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS (25 POINTS)

Excellent salespeople have always been great at building rapport and relationships. In the social era, you should cultivate a large and influential network so you can sidestep the difficulties related to cold calling.

If you want to leverage your network for warm introductions, your best bet is to invest in the

TeamLink tool (part of LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator solution). “Buyers are five times more likely to take a meeting from a warm introduction than a cold call,” says Derezin.

2. PROFESSIONAL BRAND (25 POINTS)

Does your profile incorporate pictures and multimedia, such as videos? The Social Selling Index loves to see these elements in a profile.

“Sales reps are taking market-ing content and embedding it directly into their profiles, which can have fantastic results,” says

Derezin. “This means that prospects are already learn-ing about you based on the content they see on your profile.”

3. FINDING PEOPLE (25 POINTS)

If you want to succeed in sales, you need to connect with the right prospects, but this is getting in-creasingly difficult. Research from both Gartner and CEB indicates that the average buying decision now involves anywhere from five to seven people.

“Because there are so many more decision makers involved

in the buying process, it’s important to branch out and map out the organization,” says Derezin. “A lot of salespeople are ‘single threading’ their efforts, mean-ing that they have just one key relationship. If that per-son changes roles or moves to another company, you’re left hanging.”

To keep this from happening to you, take advantage of LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator, which provides lead recom-mendations to help sales reps see who else in an organiza-tion might be critical to the decision-making process.

4. ENGAGING WITH INSIGHT (25 POINTS)

On LinkedIn, it’s not enough to just do outreach. You also need to participate in the online con-versation by contributing your own insight.

Derezin says this is less intimi-dating than it might seem at first. If you’re not ready to start writing blog posts or creating videos, share the content that other

people have created. “The best social sellers are liking, sharing, and commenting on articles,” he says. “This doesn’t have to be about creating content, necessarily. It’s about curating great content.”

Derezin emphasizes that all four of these elements are critical to a high SSI score.

“The scores prove what we’ve seen anecdotally,” he says. “Sales Navigator users get a boost in succeeding in all four areas. It really helps take sales teams to the next level of performance.”

Create a High-Ranking LinkedIn Profile SELLING POWER EDITORS

social selling

MIKE CHIAPPETTALINKEDIN.COM/IN/CHI-APPETTAMICHAEL

TERI TURNER LINKEDIN.COM/IN/TER-ITURNER

LINDSEY BOGGSLINKEDIN.COM/IN/LIND-SEYBOGGS

20 | JUNE 2015 SELLING POWER © 2015 SELLING POWER. CALL 1-800-752-7355 FOR REPRINT PERMISSION.

CASEY MCGINTYLINKEDIN.COM/PUB/CASEY-MCGINTY

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