How To Find Clients On LinkedIn Is An Essential Component For Business Strategies In 2023

More and more professionals use LinkedIn daily to fulfil their professional networking needs. This creates opportunities for brands and companies to connect uniquely with a specially defined audience.

But beware: Traditional sales tactics don’t apply to LinkedIn, at least not without strategically adapting them. We have to understand that this is a different medium and, therefore, we must prepare properly.

This article explores the opportunities for finding clients on LinkedIn in 2023, explaining practical tips to improve our chances of success and what common mistakes to avoid.

Prepare Your Profile And Company Page Before Connecting With Professionals

Your first task is to avoid one of the most common LinkedIn mistakes: preparing your profile and company page with a lacklustre or incomplete presentation.

It is not difficult to find professionals working on positioning on LinkedIn who have their profiles not completed or optimised. But what is an optimised LinkedIn profile? A good LinkedIn profile takes advantage of each section with the right information: From the biography or professional description to the profile photo and the keywords we use to describe our work experiences.

The same goes for company pages. We see companies of all sizes investing in content creation but with critical information missing.

Fortunately, LinkedIn is very intuitive in this regard. It allows professionals to easily edit all sections of their profiles. The same goes for the company page.

Spend a couple of hours polishing both profiles. And remember: more words do not translate into more quality. Avoid writing hundreds of words for your professional bio (no one has the time to read it all) and improve your chances with a clear and concise message.

Define On Paper Who Is Your Ideal Client Before Prospecting

Before you prospect and start connecting with professionals, make sure you understand who you want to talk to. You may think you already know, but look again.

One of the most serious (and frequent) mistakes in the marketing and commercial strategies of companies of all sizes is not understanding the buyer persona. This practical exercise based on facts is frequently ignored and brands end up communicating something on social networks that do not correspond to the reality or need of the potential client.

Why is it important to define the ideal customer before prospecting? Because it is the only process that allows effective communication. The messages that we are going to send and the content that we are going to share have to be born from this knowledge about our ideal client.

Even if we want to, we can’t talk to everyone at the same time. Not all of them are your clients. We must choose and we must do so with as much attention to detail as possible.

It is not only about the message to use, but about our criteria when searching and segmenting the group of people that we are going to contact. By using Sales Navigator, LinkedIn’s commercial prospecting tool (highly recommended), we will have a wide variety of criteria to filter the professionals on the platform. Only when we have a clear image of the buyer persona can we filter and segment productively.

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Create An Effective Message To Start The Relationship

Your network of contacts on LinkedIn is not just numbers. Each professional with whom you connect is a person who offers the possibility of a relationship. Although the nature of this relationship is professional and (initially) digital, it is still a social relationship and should be treated with great respect.

Why is it important to understand this? We all get cold messages on LinkedIn from people who are only interested in selling us something. We notice immediately. In the first message, they are already trying to sign us up for a product demo or inviting us to download a guide from their corporate website. The favourable response rate for this type of message is very low.

These messages are not consistent with a real relationship, even if it is exclusively digital. We all want to be treated with seriousness and respect, also taking into account that it is a social platform whose main purpose is professional connection.

With this in mind, we must guarantee a first human contact. Let’s be as transparent as possible in our motive to connect (professionally) but let’s make a first effort to connect with the most human part of our counterpart. Ask how the other person is doing, what is their experience in their organization, and where are they in their professional journey. And only after generating that first approach and weighing the interests of both, we will be prepared to generate business according to the interests of both.

Offer Before Asking

With the abundance of free resources available on the Internet, it may seem unnecessary to offer a gesture to our counterpart. Offer a free 30-minute marketing consultancy? So that? Therefore, we end up asking for a lot before offering anything.

What do we mean by “ask”? We ask our new contact to consider our service proposal; we ask that you take the time to participate in an event or product demo; We ask you to sign up for our newsletter.

We propose an alternative strategy for finding clients on LinkedIn: Give value generously before asking for anything.

The principle of reciprocity is a valuable tool in any sales process, including LinkedIn. When we provide value first, with generosity, we activate the psychological need for reciprocity in the other person. This translates into, for example, greater receptivity in the person considering a service proposal or any other request during the commercial process.

When we work to find clients on LinkedIn, the sales process works like any other: our priority is to build trust. Only trust can guarantee successful negotiations.

So when working on your business strategy, ensure that the first step is to offer value. Depending on your industry and the product you work with, this first step can take many forms. Find out what your organisation can offer for free as a vehicle to start the relationship off on the right foot.

Have The Next Stage Of The Conversation Ready

Finally, we recommend having a clear picture of the possible evolution and treatment of this contact.

Let’s say you’ve successfully connected with a professional on LinkedIn and have been pleased with this first “taste” of value. Now, how are you going to move forward in the relationship? Will you invite him to an event or give him a product demo? Or do you want feedback from that first sample?

Of course, each individual is unique and each conversation will be different, but the process must follow, to a greater or lesser extent, a pattern. Understanding the “path” and its stages is important for a smooth sales process. Especially on LinkedIn, where we are establishing a relationship of unique nature with the contact.

Also, from time to time we will find potential customers who are ready for a product demonstration or to attend an event to which we invite them. In this case, we must be prepared to successfully build trust, even if we are skipping important steps because the person requests it.

Also Read: How To Create A Social Media Content Matrix

conclusions

LinkedIn is not a space to knock on doors massively. On the contrary, it is a platform with millions of professionals interested in connecting genuinely and productively. All commercial efforts that do not understand this will end up wasting resources.

Yes, it takes time and effort. But LinkedIn offers us the possibility of connecting with people who can translate into good clients and/or suppliers. An opportunity that the modern digital landscape offers us. And don’t forget that the power of LinkedIn in growing quality contacts is exponential. Every time a contact shares your content, your brand reaches its entire network. This is one of the biggest advantages of being present in this network.

Attention to detail, genuine treatment of other members, giving before asking, and making an effort to fully understand the person you’re trying to talk to: all of these are essential parts that cannot be excluded in the effort to find clients on LinkedIn.