I had a call last week with a founder I work with.
We were talking about how to find new clients.
He told me he wants to try social selling...
“I want to do things one-to-one,” he said. “Not automated emails or sequences, I want to be relevant”.
I liked that. That is the right approach!
But then I asked him: “What are you doing today to reach new people?”
“I post on LinkedIn sometimes”.
Me: “Do you also reach out to prospects?”.
Him: “Nope, sometimes some blank connection requests”.
That is a start, I thought.
But it is not social selling.
Your personal brand on LinkedIn and Sales Navigator.
Both at the same time. Most founders I work with do one and think they are done.
The part that most do is posting.
You share what you think.
You talk about what you see in your work. Some founders do this very well.
They build an audience. They build followers.
People start to know who they are.
But then the month goes by, and your pipeline has not moved.
I had another founder tell me this recently.
He said one post generated 3 new discoveries.
She was happy.
Then she kept posting again and…no leads. Impressions down, reach down.
LinkedIn was pushing out her first post, but the following…dead.
Sales Navigator is where you go looking if you want to really implement social selling.
You save the people who could be good clients. You follow them.
You watch what they write about, what they are thinking about.
And when you have something real to add, you add it.
A comment. A different point of view. Something small that shows you were paying attention.
Then, when there is a real reason to reach out, you reach out.
Not because it has been two weeks and you feel like you should.
Because something happened. A post they wrote. A job change.
A problem they mentioned that is exactly what you help with.
Something that gives you a natural reason to say something.
The founder I was talking about before - he was right.
He wants to talk to people one-on-one, not send bulk emails or cold call someone.
He wanted to build trust and reach out to warm leads.
I truly believe that if you are selling high-end SMB - MM contracts, that makes lots of sense nowadays.
But without Sales Navigator, he does not know when people are active, what they are thinking about, or when the right moment is.
He is waiting for something to happen instead of looking for the moment.
The content builds trust. Sales Navigator finds the moment.
If you have been posting for months and your pipeline has not moved, this is probably what is missing.
You are doing one half of the work and expecting it to do both.
Start the second half.
Thanks for reading this far - see you all next week.
(of couse I'm not sponsored by Linkedin 😉)
