Worst Practices | Sales Strategies | New Rules of Sales & Service | Best Practices | Business to Business
When a customer begins the buying journey for a complex sale, he or she usually wants to learn about their sales representative. This is true of both big-ticket consumer purchases as well as B2B products and services.
The first place they are likely to go is LinkedIn. What will they find?
Most salespeople display egotistical nonsense that reads like a resume showing how great a salesperson they are. These typical salespeople are using LinkedIn to target a new job, not to win new customers.
What works much better is when salespeople showcase who they are as an individual and how they help customers.
I frequently see salespeople feature accomplishments like “Exceeded quota for seven quarters” and say things like they are “a hard driving sales executive”.
Personally, I’m intimidated if I look at my salesperson’s LinkedIn and it says how they bring in tons of sales. It makes me think I’ll be taken advantage of.
It’s okay to discreetly mention membership in a “Chairman’s Club” in a bio or, better yet, list successively senior job titles, but the key is to focus on buyers not the next employer.
Create a LinkedIn profile for buyers
It’s much better for salespeople to write a bio showing they are knowledgeable about the industry. Buyers want to work with an expert in what’s important to them. I suggest writing a LinkedIn profile in the first person.
Instead of typical profile:
Experienced Sales Director with a demonstrated history of exceeding sales quotas with B2B technology and service providers targeting the auto industry.
Show how you help buyers:
I work with auto industry executives to help them understand how to best apply complex technology to grow business.
This kind of simple change can help turn buyers into fans. Imagine the fandom when all your salespeople make this shift.
