If you’re only adding members from your organisation, you probably don’t know what I’m about to talk about; but if you’re like me, and love to network via social media portals, then you’ll know exactly what I mean.
The biggest turn off on LinkedIn is SPAM; and there is a great deal of it. As a professional, I hate to be sent a generic sales pitch. It’s so inhuman, boring, and lacks any creativity or effort. If you really want to sell me your products and services, then talk to me; send me a message, say hello, tell me about YOU. Sales pitches have to be crafty to be effective, but with LinkedIn, I get them every hour and as a result, I delete most of the incoming messages.
How to Sell on LinkedIn
Nothing is more repulsive than connecting with someone, and moments later, you get a message telling you how much money you can make by selling “X” product. I understand that in order to really make money with these business models, you really need to push it out and get as many people as you can selling under you. When someone connects with you, instead of copying and pasting a ridiculous generic “Come and Make Millions with X Company”, why not just say something more human, like, “Hi, how are you. My name is xx, and I’m from xx company. What exactly do you do? Do you like it?” From that, you would be able to deduce what that person does, and if they would be interested in your company.
Do Your Research
I perceive messages with people offering you work outside of your portfolio, and messages asking the obvious, to be really annoying. Most people on discovering something on the internet which they are not familiar with usually Google it; some don’t, but given that nearly 50% of my messages ask what I do, it means that they have not took the time to look at my profile to discover what I do.
As an extension of that, the other 30% are offering me work in fields I have never worked in. You’re offering me work, but you haven’t taken the time to find out if I possess the capacity to do it. To me, this means that you’re hiring anyone you can find willing, and it means that the work you do means nothing but an avenue to make money; which raises red flags for me. Who knows who else is working for you.
If you put a little more effort into your sales pitches, I can guarantee you that you will get a higher conversion rate, which is always better for your business. In the long term, you will gain a genuine connection with someone, even if they never bought your pitch, but one day, they might be able to help you with something, or vice versa.
Be more human, and sell more.
