Why Not Use LinkedIn for Lead Generation? Four Objections to Overcome

You may find this unusual, or perhaps not at all, but as a daily user of LinkedIn, with searches everywhere and with contacts from associates in both large and small companies, I find that those at large companies hardly use LinkedIn for anything. I can tell by the lack-of-freshness of their profiles (even the total lack of existence) and the number of connections and recommendations. Peers from smaller companies, however, seem to be more rigorous users based on such criteria. What is clear from experience with companies of all sorts, however, is that sales people are reluctant to use it for lead generation. This is a shame. (By the way, I’ll let you define the line between small and large companies, you’ll see it if you look for the same things I have!)


How come? Well of course, social media is all relatively new to all of us. If you are in sales management and wonder why your sales people won’t use the tool for lead generation purposes, consider the following reasons that I have uncovered, not through scientific study, but through discussion and observation of sales people in all types of companies:

1. It is perceived as “unethical” to prospect into a LinkedIn contact unless they are a “first level” contact

2. It is only a place to start discussions, for which sales people have no time

3. It might only be good for building a profile, just in case there becomes a need for a new position somewhere else

4. It might be good for something but I don’t know where to start

To my earlier point, I believe that “large company” sales people will point to #3 and #4 as their chief reasons to object from LinkedIn. They’ve got large lead generation programs and probably a large brand name behind them to draw interest. They don’t need LinkedIn for lead generation. So they think. Read on.

Sales people from smaller companies apparently see more value in creating a network with this tool, thus more connections and more investment in their profiles, but they may offer up #1 and #2 as reasons to stay restrained in its use. On the point of #2, by the way, ever notice how it seems to always be the very, very small business, or “one-man/woman” shops that start these discussions? Most often, however, they are great discussion opportunities. They likely have “been there, seen that and done that”.

Allow me to overcome the resistance to all four of these points, for your professional improvement, if I might - whether you are a sales person or a sales leader.

1. “It is perceived as “unethical” to prospect into a LinkedIn contact”: I have had this one thrown at me many times. I say “bunk”! What good sales pro that started out knocking on doors paid any attention to a “No Soliciting” sign? What good sales pro did not join an old-fashioned networking group(s) 10 years ago to become friends with a friend for the purpose of his/her own lead generation? LinkedIn is the “new hotel club meeting room for networking” to meet that 2nd and/or 3rd level contact. What’s different? The degree to which the sales person feels compelled to get an introduction first is up to the sales person. And, of course, there should be much thought and research put into how that contact is initially approached. In the end, LinkedIn remains a no-cost, extremely valuable way to reach out to a new prospect as a warm call, with far greater success than a cold call. For those nay-sayers out there who still believe this practice unethical and also have a “No Solicitation” sign/policy in their own offices, how would you expect your own revenue-generating sales personnel to act in such a situation? I hope that you would not advise them to “leave the area”! Otherwise, you will be out of a job soon!

2. “It is only a place to start discussions”: These discussions should become a part of your own professional development. We used to espouse reading trade journals and attending classes. Who can afford to do that anymore? Here lies an effective way to overcome time and cost to get what is truly needed, i.e. continued professional development.

3. “It might only be good for building a profile”: For those large company sales people out there, this is a mistake. Social media and Sales 2.0 will turn big company conventional lead generation and branding on its head. It already is. Who reads direct mail, email blasts and newspaper ads these days? Very few, and fewer and fewer. You need new sources of lead generation activities. Get with the program!

4. “Don’t know where to start”: Here is one place to start: make use of the Group feature of LinkedIn and appropriately advertise value-added, no cost events/products/services that you and your company may be sponsoring. Join and participate in the groups that your target profile prospect/customer belongs to for an appropriate advertisement and/or discussion on a topic of interest. They are not hard to find. Be careful, however, not to be seen as selling a product or service. The Group lead will likely ask you to abstain. If used correctly, this can be a warm and comfortable way to start a conversation with the tool.

An even better use of LinkedIn for the true sales pro, would be to use it as a place for warm introductions, with a value-add approach from the sales person, to people who are associates of associates, i.e. effective and efficient lead generation. Thanks to the internet and LinkedIn, you know something about your prospect. You know their company and perhaps its challenges. You can build rapport before you even walk into their office. There is no reason not to use this tool for lead generation, and every reason to do so. Today, we, as sales pro’s, are so much more fortunate that our predecessors who had nothing more than a telephone to make a very chilly cold call. We are fortunate, let’s use the technology. If you don’t, your competitor will!

Soft Words and Hard Words

Despite the existence of the English dictionary, though now albeit banished to the internet and out of hard print in many circles, words often have different meanings to different people. In any professional and personal communication, it’s important that we recognize this. In the sales profession, it can make or break our income if we are not careful with the words we hear.


When your prospect says, “Your “price” is too high?” what are they really saying about your “price”? Is it the price of your widget or is it the total cost of ownership? When your prospect says, “I need better “service”.” What does “service’ really mean to the prospect? These are words we call “soft” words – they mean very different things to different people, and as sales pro’s we need to be sensitive to words like this.

In fact, most of the words in our vocabulary could probably be considered “soft” words. A “hard” word means the same to all of us. But think about it, what word does mean the same to all of us? What does a “No” mean? To some prospects, it means “not now”, to others, it is “Not now, not tomorrow, never!” To some sales pro’s it says “try harder”. It is, quite often, not a clearly defined negative response despite the apparent simplicity of the word “no”. What is a “win” in the mind of yourself and most important, your prospect? A win for the home team is clearly defined, but what is a win for your customer/prospect. Hmmm. Be careful before you craft a response for your customer or prospect to a collection of soft words. Those soft words deserve some probing.

While you are in the discovery phase with your prospect/client, it never hurts to keep asking questions. Probe on those “soft” words. “What did you mean by that?” “Does this mean that you feel xxxx?” “Help me to understand your use of the word xxxx. Does it mean that……”.

In life, we tend to take some things for granted. Someone else’s choice of words is one of those. We jump to conclusions based on what our clients and prospects say, without additional clarification. But don’t, if you are a sales pro. Learn to recognize a “soft” word when you hear one, and let the alarm bells go off. “Gosh I have to question this a bit!” You’ll be far more successful!

Five Ways to Improve Your Proposal Win Rate

In many ways, I’ve viewed my sales efforts and resources much like a CXO would view his/her precious assets – I want to use them just-in-time and at the right time, every time. One of the biggest and most precious assets in the sales process is the writing and delivery of a proposal. Because I’ve viewed proposals this way, I have enjoyed very impressive win rates throughout a long career once my proposals have been delivered. Here are five tips to live by if you’re looking to increase your win rate or that of your team:

1. In naval aviation circles, Navy pilots are taught to “get a good start” at the beginning of their landing approach to have any chance at catching the aircraft carrier’s arresting wire. We, as sales people, need “good starts” as well. So hire a lead qualifier tasked with three critical objectives to accomplish before any efforts at proposals are begun:

     a. Develop and identify a compelling reason for the prospect to act on your goods and/or services (not from your perspective but from that of the prospect)
     b. Identify each member of the decision-making group
     c. Gain commitment for at least two members to be at an initial discovery meeting before any proposal is considered

If it’s not in the business plan for such a resource as a lead qualifier, do these things on your own before you start committing too many resources.

2. Avoid boilerplates at all costs. Yes, you’ll win some of those and maybe save some time, but you won’t get the improved results you need. Willy Loman Street is littered with boilerplate proposals thrown out by the prospect because:

     a. A former prospect’s name is spread throughout the proposal
     b. It shows no appreciation for the prospect’s unique challenges, i.e. “they didn’t listen to me.”
     c. It shows no effort, i.e. “how will I be treated as a client?”

3. Show only the following in your proposal:
     a. Summary
     b. Findings
     c. Feature-Benefit
     d. Cost-Benefit

Remove the “fluff’. “Fluff” is “fluff” and it is rarely read or appreciated. If you’re hoping to “catch an eye” with some written word, that work should have been done at the discovery stage. Anything outside of (a)-(d) above is “fluff”.

4. Check, double-check and then triple-check for grammar, spelling, formatting etc. And always with at least a second set of eyes involved somewhere. If you are not good at this kind of attention-to-detail, hire someone who is, just like you did in college to type up your term papers!

5. If at all possible, deliver the proposal in person. GoToMeeting and tools like it are impressive and can be tremendous resource-savers, but there is no substitute for reading a prospect’s body language as the proposal is delivered. And it gives your prospect more trust in you to see you delivering points and answering questions with supreme confidence. If you send a proposal via mail or email, you are an amateur fisherman who saw some fish biting in that spot earlier in the day, and has no clue that the fish may have “moved on”.

If you follow these steps, you’ll deliver a resource-hungry asset known as the proposal to the right prospect, at the right time, every time, and improve your win-rate. You may even get back some precious personal time for you to go off and improve those fishing skills!

Five Probing Questions to Test Forecast Validity

Our last blog post suggested five attributes of good pipeline management. Follow those suggestions religiously and you will meet your quota AND your forecast more consistently. But try as we might as individual contributors, sometimes we are not totally honest with ourselves. As sales managers, we might not be supremely confident with the forecast picture that has been painted for us. The following five questions can work for both the individual contributor and sales management to build transparency through the sometimes over-optimistic forecasts we might deliver!

(Assume that the sales process is built on the following progression: suspect is qualified to become a prospect who is pursued for the purpose of an appointment to conduct discovery in order to present a proposal and then close. Each bold point is a critical step in the sales process and marks an advance through the pipeline and subsequent forecast.)

1. When, where, how and with whom was the discovery appointment conducted?

Based on your sales process and sales cycle, this question will often reveal the opportunity’s true place in the forecast. For instance, if your average sales cycle is 60 days from appointment to close, and the appointment occurred 90 days ago, this opportunity is possibly slipping and may not even deserve a place in the forecast. Also, if discovery was not conducted with all the major stakeholders, then perhaps there is more work to do and a less optimistic forecast should result.

2. What is the “compelling reason to act” in the proposal?

In other words, have we clearly identified the prospect’s pain point(s) in the proposal and matched the feature(s) of our product/service to create a benefit, or compelling reason to buy? Often I hear, “well, we are less expensive” or “they don’t like their current provider”. I’ve met thousands of prospects who retained a more expensive product/service even when they didn’t particularly “like” the current provider because the provider presented benefits elsewhere. If I can’t get better compelling reasons than these replies, the opportunity is removed from the forecast.

3. Who is the key decision-maker? And how do you know?

This is my favorite! Mostly the reply is this, “Well my contact is because they told me they are.” Ugh. Everyone in business is a self-proclaimed decision-maker! If we were not, we would only be worker-bees. And the person who will sign the contract is not always the key decision-maker either. Identifying the key decision-making person or group gets more difficult with more complex sales opportunities. I like the Miller Heiman framework for help in flushing out who that person or group might be for the complex sales opportunity.

4. Who and what is your competition? How would the prospect rank you against them?

I have seen way too many 30-day forecasted opportunities swept away by the competition at the last minute. Here’s a classic reply to this question, “Well, nobody, they are only looking at us!” And another, “I didn’t want to ask for fear of bringing up the idea of shopping us.” This is capitalist America, where choice and the right and duty to pursue choice are king! You better bet there is competition, if not from a direct competitor, than at least from a decision to source the solution internally or to make absolutely no decision at all. If we have not nailed down this crucial factor, the opportunity has no place in our forecast.

5. How do you know the opportunity is closed without signed contracts in hand?

The deal is never closed until the ink is dry on your contracts. Or in some sales processes, the deal may not even be closed until the product/service is delivered. In most sales processes, there is still a long way to go between a “verbal yes” and the point at which your company measures it as truly “closed”. Ensure that your sales process and associated forecasting ladder maps each and every critical step between the “verbal yes” and eventual closing.

Over the last two posts, you now have a way to manage your pipeline and to test the validity of your resultant forecast. I hope it helps you to beat quota and forecast every time!!

Five Attributes of Strong Pipeline Management

Strong funnel or pipeline management results in the best chance of forecasting your results accurately and your best chance at exceeding your quotas. As we say in our profession, it is one thing to miss your objective. It is yet another step and a serious miscue to miss your forecast too, in the same month or quarter. The seriousness of this offense will grow the more senior in sales management you become. Do it too many times and you may find yourself in the Accounting office!

Before I suggest the five best attributes or indicators of strong pipeline management, it is important to understand the terms used in pipeline management. I see pipeline and funnel to be synonymous. Both are a depiction of each and every opportunity and its stage within your sales process (http://sellingwisdom.blogspot.com/2010/01/process.html). The stage-gate which the opportunity holds in your sales process should indicate its placement in the 30/60/90 day window since your sales process and average sales cycle should combine to become a predictor of time.

Your pipeline is not your forecast or “commit”, a term often used synonymously with forecast, although generally whatever is in the 30-day window should be your forecast or commit for the next 30 days. If at that stage in the sales process you cannot accurately predict its closure in the next 30 days, you should give consideration to placing the opportunity back into the 60 or 90-day window. Anything that could be signed in the upcoming measurement period, i.e. month or quarter, but is still somewhat tenuous in its placement along your sales process might be considered “upside” to which you are not willing to commit. Enough definitions!

Ok, so here goes. Here, from my experience, are the five best attributes or indicators of strong pipeline management:

•“The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly”. You can give good news late and bad news early. It gets real ugly if you can’t do either and you miss your quota. Even Clint Eastwood could not shed that reputation!

•“The Multiplier”. You have at least 2x, 3x and 4x your monthly revenue quota in the 30/60/90-day window respectively. Same can be said for the number of opportunities in each window, based on the average value of your sale. You need this buffer to protect against the unexpected. You have life insurance don’t you? Put those multiplication tables from the third grade to use!

•“Green, Yellow, Red”. From month-to-month, each opportunity moves at least from one window to the next (Green), never stalling more than 2-3 months (Yellow) in the same window. If the opportunity is stalling past 2-3 months, move it way back in your pipeline (Red). Where it is moved will depend on your sales process but I would suggest that since it is “Red” it is close to “Dead”. Find something new to work on. Better yet, ask for help.

•“Equal Opportunity”. Diversity, presented in terms of different companies or opportunities, products/services offered and revenue amounts associated, exists within the pipeline. Live by the elephant, die by the elephant if it decides to play elsewhere in the jungle!

•“Upside”. Forecast is at or near quota with enough upside to likely produce an exceeded-quota measurement period. Relying on the stretch of forecast only to get to quota is like asking for a quarter tank of gas to get you the manual-prescribed mileage for that quarter tank. Go get more gas, no matter the octane. Be safe with yourself and your passengers, i.e. your management!

So there you have it. Remember these five descriptors and paste them to your cubicle or PC/laptop for best pipeline management!

A word for sales management: if you have a closely defined sales process and stage-gates with specific criteria, and you combine this process and these stage-gates with careful probing of the sales person during forecast reviews and your first-hand knowledge of the prospect, you will meet your forecast almost every time. Just as important, you will quickly determine the sales effectiveness of your sales person, i.e. are they effectively executing the work necessary to fill the pipeline and advance opportunities, or are they “selling you on a bag-of-goods”. Many are sales people are good at the latter, far fewer are better at the former – these are our true Sales Pro’s!

Is Selling The Same as Persuasion – Part II?

Let’s replay those definitions from last week’s post:

To sell:
“A recommendation to sell a particular security.
The process of liquidating an asset in exchange for money.”

To persuade:
“To prevail on (a person) to do something, as by advising or urging: We could not persuade him to wait.
To induce to believe by appealing to reason or understanding; convince: to persuade the judge of the prisoner's innocence”.

It is amazing to me how each definition is so narrowly defined. Sales Pro’s sell more than “securities” and do more than “liquidate assets”. I hope I never catch one of my Sales Pro’s liquidating assets! According to the definition of persuasion, one can only prevail “on a person”? I persuade my dog all of the time, through much urging, to use the bathroom outside. I must admit, I am not always successful.

Some big pieces are really missing here. “To sell” is more than a single act. It is a process, a series of steps, each step performed at an appropriate time with expertise, rigor and finesse (i.e. the art and science of selling).

Persuasion, as defined above, does not necessarily cover the sales process and therefore does not make selling and persuasion equal. Show me a sales person who, during the sales process, only “advises”, “urges”, “appeals to reason” and “convinces”, and I’ll show you a sales person who typifies the very low end of our profession, the ones who give us all a bad reputation. There is no room in persuasion for listening, empathy and probing, the very acts embodied in good selling.

Sure, there is always a point or two in the sales process where we may have to perform the act of persuasion, but persuasion is not selling. Selling is a far greater cause. It is a process that combines art and science, and a bit of persuasion here and there. If you throw too much persuasion onto your sales process, you will have thrown a bit too much flame on the beef and ruined a perfectly good steak. Selling is sometimes persuasion, but persuasion is never selling! What’s for dinner tonight?!

Is Selling The Same as Persuasion – Part I?

Did you ever buy a new car and then suddenly notice how many people on the road own your same make and model?

I was asked, in question form, the title of this posting during an interview recently and suddenly, I see the topic popping up everywhere on blogs and LinkedIn groups. So I thought I would add a nickel to the thought reservoir on this topic since my earlier “two cents” during the interview apparently was not enough to get the job. I am, after all, still writing this blog. Perhaps my “nickel of thought” will provoke a “dime of thought” from you!

Before engaging in a game of semantics, I consulted my trusty source of definitions on the web, Dictionary.com. The results were not inspiring. I sought out the verb definition of selling and persuasion, i.e. “to sell” and “to persuade”. Here is what I found:

To sell:
“A recommendation to sell a particular security.
The process of liquidating an asset in exchange for money.”

To persuade:
“To prevail on (a person) to do something, as by advising or urging: We could not persuade him to wait.
To induce to believe by appealing to reason or understanding; convince: to persuade the judge of the prisoner's innocence”.

Yecchhh. These definitions leave a Sales Pro wanting much more and feeling cheap. So it is natural then, to rest our response to such a question on the “art and science of selling”, the very premise of this blog!

So come back next time to “Part II” when I suggest that selling is sometimes persuasion, but persuasion is never selling.