7 Easy Steps to Staying Top Of Mind With Top Prospects on LinkedIn

 LinkedIn is a great tool for finding prospects for your business.  But then what?  You found someone, you might have even use Account Researcher to get their phone number and email and reached out to them.  But what if they don’t respond?  Or even if they respond, what do you do with them?

 The best way I know to keep a prospect active and engaged is by keeping in touch with them on a regular basis (and by regular I mean 2x a month – not 2x a day!)   I don’t mean hounding their answering machine – but rather, stay in touch and top of mind with them by sending – sparingly – information they might find useful.  And the best way to do that is to use LinkedIn Contacts.

7 Easy Steps for Staying Top Of Mind With Top Prospects on LinkedIn

1. Find your prospect (through LinkedIn’s Advanced Search or through Account Researcher.)
2. Do your research!  Read their profile, look them up on Google or use Account Researcher to find PR about them and their company.  If you have the paid account, make copious notes in the “Notes” section of their profile (under “Relationship”.  If you have the free account you have to wait until they accept your invitation to use the Notes section – so keep your notes in a word doc of CRM if you use one.
3. Invite a prospect to connect with you (through a group is usually the best way).
4. Try and set up a meeting with them  - informational interviews work best.  Remember – you want to find out about them – not pitch your product or service. Make notes about that conversation right in their profile as well.
5. Set a reminder to once a month to send an article of interest to that top prospect.
6. Find a blog post or article using LinkedIn’s new Influencer Article search (see below) and share it.
7. Rinse and repeat (a few times a month)

Its not rocket science – but it sure is effective! (PS  - to learn more about LinkedIn Prospecting, check out this video at http://LinkedProspecting.com)

 Influencer Content Search

With LinkedIn’s new Article Search the ability to find useful content to share just got easier! LinkedIn recently released its new Article Search option (You can read more about it here: http://blog.linkedin.com/2013/12/16/introducing-a-new-way-to-search-for-influencer-content-on-linkedin-slideshow/) that allows you to search through Articles In Pulse (https://www.linkedin.com/today/) by keyword, by author and by the month it was posted. 

A New Signal?

While this new search feature sure doesn’t replace Signal – it does help us more easily find and curate useful content to our network.  And of course educate ourselves in the meantime as well!

 All Things Being Equal…

Remember – LinkedIn is about building relationships, not selling your stuff.  (Of course once you have built a strong relationship, it’s easy to share your product or service with a Prospect)

 One of the best ways of building relationships is to show your top prospects that you were listening to them when they spoke or wrote about their interests and issues, and then send them content (not necessarily your own) that help solve their problems.

 Bob Burg says in his new book “Adversaries into Allies” that “All things being equal, people will do business with, refer business to, and allow themselves to be influenced by those people they know like and trust.”

 Use LinkedIn's Contacts CRM and new Article search to become that person they know like and trust using the above 7 steps!