LINKEDIN PROSPECTING WORKFLOW 2.0:

BENEFITS OF USING LINKEDIN AS A PLATFORM:

• It is super easy to target the exact avatar. ( company size, year in business, niche, etc)
• You can target decision makers
• You can sell high-ticket products/services
• You end up build an audience ( this becomes super valuable over time)
• You can build lists of qualified leads using sales Nav ( we have someone who can offer it for 20-30$)

CONs OF USING LINKEDIN AS OUTREACH PLATFORM:

• Users on the platform may not actively be using it, so the response rate may be low and the delay to get a response may be pretty long.
• The platform isn’t as user friendly as it should be - at least not for those who leverage it for outbound prospecting, biz development.

I’ll share some mechanisms that help us lower the impact of these issues!

THE PROCESS:

In order to pull everything, all the potential out of this channel, it will be crucial for all these steps to be done consistently and at the same cadence.

You can’t focus too much on a few steps and ignore the others, or else this system won’t work as well as it can.

• Step 1: Hunting phase
• Step 2: Blanketing
• Step 3: Spearing and Gathering info
• Step 4: Converting
• Step 5: Circling back
• Step 6: Farming at scale

STEP 1: HUNTING PHASE

During this phase, your sole focus is to find communities or a large number of qualified leads who can benefit from the solution that is being sold.

1. Finding Groups: finding qualified communities of ideal customers can be done through the following methods
1. Finding groups where a lot of our ideal customers are in: using the search bar, simply add in the keywords of the niche you’re targeting: “Real estate investors” Or “ Solar professionals” Or “ Ecommerce CEOs”. OR “Email marketing agencies” OR “ Conversion rate optimization agency”

It is important for you to try out as many keywords as possible as Linkedin isn’t the best at suggesting you the right groups that you’re looking for!

The amazing thing about prospecting in groups is that you will be finding prospects that have a higher engagement on the platform than other platform users who have never made the effort to join a LinkedIn Group!

1. Finding groups of thought leaders in our industry: Search for thought leader names or company names and use the Group filter, and see if you can find some LinkedIn Groups that they own.

You want to join LinkedIn Groups owned by the big experts in your industry because you want to know what they’re up to and what kind of questions their audience is asking!

You can use the insights you get from his group to create content around what the market wants to know and share it on your feed.

1. Leveraging sales navigator to build lists and find groups:

If you have access to sales navigator, you can leverage the search mechanism to build lists of and find the groups in which these leads are in!

You want to make sure to save the list of leads that you end up finding!

Once you’re part of the group, simply message the people from the list!

You can use the little drop down menu to find Groups that you’ve successfully joined!

STEP 2: BLANKETING PHASE

In this phase, all you need to do is to connect with as many prospects as you can every single day.

The goal with this blanketing process is to help us find the prospects who are open to learning more about the mechanism/solution that can change their business.

• Start with messaging 25-50 prospects every day
• 100+ Messages per day once your account is warmed up ( after 2 weeks of 50 DMs)

Of course if you don’t have the ability to do this amount of volume because you lack the leads, then just stick to doing as many outreaches as you can per day with the amount of leads that you have access to.

Message example 1 :

Hey [first name],

I see that you’re [running a specific niche biz], how are you [dealing with a specific situation that only businesses in such a niche would be aware of] ?

The goal with this message is to create familiarity with the prospect and get them to trust you.

Message example 2 :

Test the message above with this one that is more straightforward:

Hey [first name], I had a quick question for you.

How are you going about [solving the problem that you help them solve]?

We specialize in helping [specific niche business] achieve [desired outcome] without [having to leverage the common solutions that everyone else has tested and failed with]

I’d love to share with you a short personalized video going over how we achieve this outcome. Let me know if I can share it with you.

Thanks.

The only thing we’re focusing on at this stage is the response rate %, avoid being distracted and focusing on other stages/steps of this funnel before you get your response rate above 10%

Test both messages and see which one provides you with the highest response rate and run with that one.

STEP 3: SPEARING AND GATHERING INFO PHASE

You’ll get to this phase as soon as a prospect responds to your first message.

The difference between step 3 and step 2, is that in the spearing phase, you’re focusing on one prospect at a time, you forget about doing volume for a second and you put as much emphasis as you can on a single prospect.

You may need to look at their profile, do a bit of research and look at all their social assets, trying to find the best angle to leverage when sending them the next few messages.

Please make sure, you’re not just sticking to a script, personalize the messages to their company and bring up some personal stuff.

Message example 1 :

Thank you for answering [first name]

[ ask them about the performance of their current mechanism]

[share your opinion around the thing] i.e: We’ve noticed that not having x or solely relying on Y can really be an issue for most [companies in specific niche]

Message example 2 :

Thank you for answering!

[ personalized line about what their companies does and compliment their work if you can]

[ Tell them what you specialize in and what your solution helps companies similar to his achieve]

[ add some proof - using a case study]

[ offer an educational piece of content]

STEP 4: CONVERTING PHASE

Once you’ve gathered information about the prospect in step 3, you want to focus on getting them to convert on a call!

You do that by leveraging the knowledge gap you found by learning about what they’re currently doing to solve the same problem that you solve and then offering them a value call ( AKA a discovery or a sales call) Make sure that the prospect is answering your questions before you try to pitch a call, since people will most likely not get on a call with you if they haven’t answered your messages.

You can spend more time in STEP 3, since you want to find out the most potent knowledge gap that will make the prospect want to jump on a call with you.

Once you’ve found it, simply send the following message: Message example:

• If you’re free for 15 minutes sometime this week, we can hop on a call where I walk you through the process?

STEP 5: CIRCLING BACK

98% of all the conversations that you start on linkedin won’t amount to much UNTIL you follow up a few times with the prospect!!

On linkedin - the saying that Money is in the FOLLOW UP couldn’t be more true, especially that most users aren’t on this platform every single day. I recommend using the following cadence for your follow ups:

• First follow up - 2 days
• Second follow up - 3 days
• Fourth follow up - 5 days
• Fifth follow up - 5 days
• Sixth follow up - 15 days
• 7th follow - 30 days.

It is going to get harder to manage the follow ups as you start talking with more and more prospects every day, so I recommend leveraging an automation tool like We-Connect and simply automate all these follow ups.

Message structure for follow ups:

• Follow up + Value content
• Hey [first name],

Just wanted to follow up on my last message, not sure if you saw it?

BTW:

Here is a video walking you through exactly [how we achieve x for companies just like yours]

Let me know what you think of it,

Thanks

• Simple follow up:
• Hey [first name],

Just wanted to follow up on my message above. I hope you’re having a great week! Thank you.

Try to mix these structures together and in your last follow up message simply add a call to action for a value/discovery call!

STEP 6: FARMING AT SCALE

The only way for you to have impressive results when doing outbound prospecting is to mix it with content, sales assets that warm up every prospect who is part of your audience before you even start a conversation with them.

I will recommend that you make sure to post at least twice a week on the profile that you’re using for outreach. Types of posts:

• Case studies
• Showcase the work you’re putting in.
• Share valuable content about how you actually go about solving your prospect’s problems
• Leverage stories

Content format:

• Written content performs better than any other format on Linkedin.
• But I still recommend throwing in some video content!

When should you create the content?

• I recommend creating your content for the whole week over the weekend or during a day where you can focus! Avoid not having the content ready every week.