Short answer: Linkedin’s Sales Navigator will help increase relevant lead generation, sales professionals productivity and CRM log activity – and management satisfaction.

© Photographer: Suprijono Suharioto
Agency: Dreamstime

You know it’s true: Sales professionals Don’t Like CRMs. Sales people enjoy client face time, talking to prospects, the “freedom” of getting out of the office on working hours, the hype of closing a deal. They bore the administrative work, logging their activities into the CRM- email, phone calls, client visits … they think it’s a waste of their time, most of the time duplicating work: p.e. actual calling and then logging the call details. And managers may concur that their logging time is not the most productive use of their -expensive- time.

You also know it’s true: Managers LOVE CRMs. It’s the reporting “manna”. Every sales rep would log its activity, pipeline, maturity of opportunities, size of potential deals, number of visits, calls … And C-level officers have a single, consistent source of information on actual sales and visibility on forecast and future sales. Only if those sales reps where diligent enough…

Now let’s picture this: A sales pro logs into the corporate CRM. A set of new leads is already in his inbox – the Linkedin Ads campaign and Intelligent Lead Generation has worked well this past night and has identified those targets that have clicked on the Ads. Every lead comes populated with its Linkedin profile, title, organization, and it’s within the sales representative target group. The Lead was assigned based on connections and social proximity. From within the CRM, he gathers intelligence on the lead, sends an InMail with a soft introduction, at the same time checks responses from past interactions with other leads. Linkedin’s Inbox is accessible from within the CRM, and every activity is registered in the lead record. The sales cycle phase is followed within the CRM and all other interactions with the leads are logged on the system as well – IP phone calls are just a click away on the lead profile’s number; emails and web conferences are launched within the CRM, … At the same time, cost is under control: Linkedin licenses are managed centrally, and are property of the corporation -so not every sales representative expenses its own premium membership. The company is managing a large number of licenses and therefore driving overall cost down and avoiding paying for memberships to professionals that may no longer be with the company.

Result: Sales pros will be comfortable using the CRM since it truly enables their productivity and the system automatically logs their activities; and managers are even more satisfied with results since they have a more reliable and updated source of information while managing overall costs.

This is not far from becoming a reality.

Linkedin Sales Navigator already enables:
- Marketing campaigns (Linkedin Ads)
- Generation of lists of targets and leads (Saved Profiles, Automated Searches)
- Display of Linkedin Profiles within CRMs (Salesforce, Dynamics)
- Gathering of Intelligence: Teamlink lets you benefit from your colleagues network
- Management of multiple memberships

What’s the opportunity:
- Creation and launch of campaigns – Linkedin Ads- from within the Campaigns section of the CRM
- Enabling of access to WVYP (Who has viewed your profile) from the CRM
- Integration of Linkedin’s Inbox and InMails with the CRM
- Integration with Sales Cycle Management, Social Media add-ons, and other pieces of software for complex sales solutions management – or development a product of their own
- Corporate Licenses to manage access to Linkedin’s platform from corporate CRMs

Linkedin Sales Navigator can, and will be, the single most relevant piece of software to drive revenue growth that large corporations will acquire in the coming three years.

At Tomsawyer (www.tomsawyer.es) we anticipate that 90% of Fortune 1,000 will use Linkedin’s Sales Navigator by 2016.

Would you agree? Any comments?

I will be presenting on Sales 2.0 tendencies and state-of-the-art strategies for the Full Time MBA candidates at ESADE Business School in the coming days. Here’s the presentation.

Highlights:

• How to build a Sales 2.0 Plan – It is NOT a marketing 2.0 plan
• New Social Selling tools need to be integrated with CRMs
• The revolution of active generation of Leads with Linkedin’s Sales Navigator, and
• Detecting advanced buying signals within Linkedin (Signal) and Twitter (Socedo)

For Online presentation:

Ideas, comments?

These days we have been discussing about Selling using Social Networks. The key question is: Where do I need to be in order to be found, so my clients can buy my product?

This is one of the most important questions that we need to address for your Social Media Marketing Campaign.

The short answer is: I need to be where my clients are.

Internet and Professional Social Networks have disrupted the selling landscape. Up until the beginning of the XXIst Century, it was very difficult (or expensive) to place your product in front of every potential client. Your potential client could be very disperse geographically. Up until then, if you wanted to place your product in front of them you needed to open a physical location near their place.

The first revolution was the origin of internet and web pages, where some companies were able to break the physical (distance) relation with a potential client and present their products to the whole globe. Now your audience is the world.

Short after that, Google disrupted the selling practices by launching the Google Ads and Adsense products. It allowed companies to launch targeted campaigns by segmenting the global audience. The success of online selling campaigns grew exponentially. Now your audience is a segmented World.

The third revolution is Social Media Selling, in our case Professional Social Networks or, let just say so, Linkedin. We’ll see why we say (i) it’s a revolution and (ii) Linkedin is the social network to focus on. You are allowed to have one-to-one presentations of your product. You can target a single individual. Now your audience is ONE PERSON.

Would you agree?

In 2002, bass player Jason Newsted left the heavy rock band Metallica and the band were left out there figuring out who his replacement would be.

One of the most popular music bands ever, a high performance team under a different light, lost one of its key members.

They faced a Talent Acquisition situation and engaged a Search and Selection process. 7 Finalists [1] made it past the “headhunter” and were put in front of the Client – Star-band Metallica.

All the finalists had great technical skills, impressive career tracks, but only one would get the “we offer you 1 million dollars to join our band right now” line from Lars Ulrich.

What made the difference? A single word: Passion

On the DVD “Some kind of Monster”, there are 8 minutes of the interviewing process. It is quite similar to the usual talent acquisition process that you would find at a common company. It can be very interesting to watch in full.

One of the candidates, the amazing bass player Danny Lohner, struggles with some songs [2] (heavy rock listeners only!) and they even have to tell him how the songs go. How would he think that he would get the job if he didn’t know his part? He was just not ready to get beyond the technicalities and make the connection on a different level. The level that the band needed someone at: trust, communication, friendship … to help make the band better.

Another candidate, Robert Trujillo, was also on the list. In different passages of the video [3] you can see that Rob goes beyond the technical skills and takes it into a whole new level, one of his own that he CREATES, while distancing him from the rest of the candidates.

On the recap meetings show in the DVD, not only “He was the first guy that really looked like he was not struggling with it” – sound technical skills – but “you make us play better man. You make the band sound so much better.” He was able to connect on a different level.

No wonder why he was chosen.

Conclusion: Deliver Passion

Your technical skills are a GIVEN. Otherwise you would not be there at the interview. Demonstrate passion to Get the Job. Be prepared, know the company in advance, anticipate the questions, do the homework, anticipate scenarios. Anticipate action plans. The interview is FOR REAL, demonstrate how you would perform TODAY if you would be given the job. Don’t act as “I’ll learn …”, but “SEE HOW I DO IT …”

- Be the “Master of Puppets”

[1] Scott Reeder (Kyuss), Twiggy Ramirez (Marilyn Manson), Pepper Keenan (Corrosion of Conformity), Robert Trujillo (Ozzy Osbourne, Suicidal Tendencies), Chris Wyse (The Cult), Eric Avery (Jane’s Addiction), Danny Lohner (Nine Inch Nails)

[2] minute 5:08

[3] from minute 3:03 to 3:24, minute 4:06, from minute 5:18 to 5:20