Blog: General

Is Video Messaging on LinkedIn Set to become Hottest New Sales Trend As social selling continues to evolve and with daily traffic on LinkedIn continuing rise due to the pandemic, video is becoming the number one sales tool in a social sellers toolbox. Those who embrace video messaging on LinkedIn can be assured of setting themselves up for huge success on the platform. Unlike with traditional sales methods such as cold calling, LinkedIn enables you to side-step gatekeepers, connect with decision makers, build rapport, nurture relationships and reach out directly via LinkedIn messenger. Whilst there are those who use the messenger feature to send relationship building messages, the vast majority use this feature to send poorly formatted sales pitches. This represents a massive opportunity for early adopters of video messaging to set themselves aside from everyone else on the platform. The problem with Direct Outreach on LinkedIn As it stands, anyone can cobble together a message of some description and send it to one of their prospects on LinkedIn. Whether it’s a relationship building message or a sales pitch more often than not, the message falls flat on its backside due to its lack of personalisation. Direct outreach on LinkedIn has always been lacking in personalisation and thoughtfulness. As soon as you receive a message from someone on LinkedIn you just know it’s a templated message. You can tell it’s just one of those copy/paste jobs. So, the main problem with standard messaging on LinkedIn is that it lacks the human touch. This is why I believe video messaging on LinkedIn represents a massive opportunity. Alberts Mehrabian’s Rule of Personal Communication In my professional opinion, video messaging on LinkedIn is about to completely revolutionise social selling in 2021. Those who utilise this hot new sales trend while it’s in its infancy are sure elevate themselves in the eyes of their prospects. It all comes down to Albert Mehrabian’s 7-38-55 Rule of Personal Communication. This rule defines the way people communicate. It may surprise you to learn that a person’s spoken/written words only make up a small fraction of their communication effectiveness. Albert Mehrabian’s Rule of Personal Communication is divided into 3 segments: 7% – Words – Email and standard LinkedIn Messenger 38% – Voice and Tone – Cold Calling 55% – Body Language – Video Messaging on LinkedIn When we examine Albert Mehrabian’s Rule of Personal Communication, we can quickly understand why video messaging on LinkedIn represents such an exciting opportunity for social selling. Using words to convey a message with email or LinkedIn messenger is OK but it’s not possible to hear the persons voice or tonality. You just can’t get a sense of someone’s personality which makes it more difficult to build rapport. You have no idea whether they’re happy, sad, enthusiastic, motivated, driven etc. In addition, it’s so easy to misconstrue the purpose of a message and things can get lost in translation. With voice and tone, we see an improvement of 31% when compared with the use of just words. This explains why cold calling, under normal circumstances yields better results than emailing or LinkedIn messaging alone. I think it’s clear to see that body language has a significant impact on the effectiveness of personal communication. So you should now very excited about the prospect of video messaging on LinkedIn. With video messaging on LinkedIn, you’re getting 100% of the benefits of Albert Mehrabian’s Personal Communication Rule. When you reach out to one of your prospects, they can hear your words, your voice and your tone but they can also see your body language. They can get a feel for you as a real human being. It’s easy for them to get a sense of your personality and how sincere you are. Your prospects are able to see for themselves that you care about them. Instead of a copy and pasted message, they can see that you’ve taken the time to actually record yourself delivering a message. It comes across as hyper-personalised, genuine and massively authentic. At the end of the day, if people can see you, they can relate to you. How to Leverage video messaging on LinkedIn So, with any luck, I’ve convinced you that video messaging on LinkedIn is set to become the hottest new sales trend as we go in to 2021 and beyond. This is all well and good but how can you become one of the early adopters? How can you start using video messaging to improve your direct outreach effectiveness? Currently, you can’t send video messages from your laptop or desktop. You have to send your video messages natively from your mobile phone but it’s realy easy to do. How to send a video message on LinkedIn in 4 simple steps Step 1. Navigate to your messenger feature on LinkedIn and select the person you wish to send your video message to. Then click on the plus icon in the menu bar. Step 2. On the next screen, click on the video camera icon. Step 3. Now you’re ready to record your first video message on LinkedIn so make sure the camera is facing you, then click on the red record button. Step 4. Now just record a meaningful message and when ready, click on the blue arrow icon to send it. Simples! Conclusion I predict that video messaging on LinkedIn is set to shape the future of social selling. I firmly believe that video messaging is going to help good sales reps become great, help great sales reps become exceptional while making average sales reps become obsolete! So, I’d love to know your thoughts. Do you agree or disagree? Let me know in the comments below whether you’re going to start sending video messages on LinkedIn. Let me know how your prospects react to this approach too. If you enjoyed this post and found it useful, please click LIKE and click SHARE to share it with your network. Please take time to read some of my other recent posts

Read more

Your personal profile on LinkedIn is the perfect place to showcase your experience, skills and personality to your prospects and existing clients. However, if you want to truly represent your business in a professional manner, you really should claim your free business page. Unlike company pages on Facebook, most of your leads and sales enquiries are still likely to come by way of your personal profile. Despite this, having a LinkedIn company page is the perfect way to demonstrate to your prospects that you’re proud of company. In addition, when you add a company logo to your company page, the logo pull through to your personal profile on LinkedIn. This gives your personal profile a completed look which is great for branding consistency. Another reason you may want to claim your LinkedIn company page is that you will then be eligible to do paid advertising on LinkedIn. This will enable you to drive even more leads to your business. So how do you create a company LinkedIn page I here you ask? Let me show you step by step How to Claim your Company Page on LinkedIn To get started with claiming you company page on LinkedIn you first need to navigate to the menu bar at the top of your LinkedIn homepage. Then simply click in the ‘Work’ option and when you see the dropdown list, scroll to the bottom and click on the ‘Create a Company Page’. You will then be presented with 4 options so you will need to decide what type of LinkedIn company page you want to build. You will have the following 4 options: Small business (fewer than 200 employees) Medium to large business (more than 200 employees) Showcase page (sub-pages associated with an existing page) Educational institution (schools and universities)   When you’ve chosen the option that is best suited to your company needs, a new page will open. This is where you have to enter your company name. Just be mindful that you’re limited to 100 characters in this section but that should be more than adequate. It’s also important to note, you might be required to provide additional information about your business if another company with the same name as yours already exists on LinkedIn. This is just to help LinkedIn verify you as a company. Your public URL (also known as a vanity URL)will also be auto-completed as you enter your company name. My advice is to leave this as it is. Altering it could make it difficult for potential prospects to find your page in future. Now the only other thing you need to do in this section is add your company website. Just leave it blank if you don’t have a website yet.   Now it’s just a case of completing your company details. You can also add your company logo and a tagline if you like. The logo requirements are300 x300 pixels and should ideally be a JPEG or PNG file. The final step required is for you to check the tick box that confirms you’re the official company representative. On the right-hand side of the page, you will see that LinkedIn has generated a preview of your new Company page, if this all looks good to you then just click ‘Create’ in order to finalize it. Conclusion That’s it…. You’ve now successfully claimed your company page on LinkedIn. That being said, it doesn’t end there. Now you need to keep it updated with valuable content. You will also be able to take advantage of the more advanced features that come with owning your own company page on LinkedIn

Read more

If you’re like most people on LinkedIn, you probably send lots of messages without much in the way of replies. Even the ones who do reply don’t tend to lead to anything meaningful. Yet you’re told that consistency is the key so you carry on despite only getting a 5% response rate if you’re lucky. You’re not sure what you’re doing wrong… You’re personalising your messages, your friendly, you’re asking lots of questions. You’ve been trying to offer lots of value in the form of articles, ebooks and videos, even offering to get on the phone with people. You’re doing everything the so called LinkedIn gurus say you should be doing but for some reason it’s not working. You know you can’t carry on like this. It’s even crossed your mind that perhaps LinkedIn just doesn’t work for your business model. You may have even thought about giving up completely and getting a real job instead of running the business you had always dreamed of. Perish the thought! First things first… I want you to know that this isn’t your fault. You have simply been mis-informed and no doubt you’ve just been doing what the so called experts have been telling you to do. Let’s look at 4 messaging mistake that are killing your response rates when it come to direct outreach. The Vile Value Message “Hey, my name’s Craig, I’m a LinkedIn Expert. I’ve helped hundreds and hundreds to unlock the power on LinkedIn. Check out my free download to the top 10 things you should be doing on LinkedIn to generate a flood of leads to your inbox. If you’ve got 15 minutes, check out this short video too. It show you how I help my clients close more deal and make more money. Click this link to book a call with me if you want to learn more. Would love to speak to you this week or next. When is best for you?” Sound familiar? Put yourself in your customers shoes. Would you honestly respond to a message like that?Who in their right mind is going to respond to that car crash of a message? I totally understand why some people do this. They hear other marketers telling them that they need to offer value but they don’t say offer vile value do they? The problem with this kind of vile value message is that it’s not orientated to the prospects pain points. You ‘re offering what you think is great value but without finding out what the prospects pain points actually are you’re simply wasting their time with irrelevant trash. Here you are trying to offer your prospect value but the truth is, you know absolutely nothing about them. So what seems like great value to you is actually vile value to them. You have to first find out where they are in they buying cycle and understand their pain points before you try offering anything. It’s no wonder your messages aren’t converting. Forcing reciprocity Now this is actually related to the vile value message. Reciprocity is a classic marketing concept. The idea is to give someone something to motivate them to give something back to you. You give them “value”, they give you a reply, a phone call, their email or maybe even money. But when you send vile value messages as in the example above, it comes across as forced reciprocity. You’re trying to force the reciprocity effect onto someone… without truly caring about them, their pain points or whatever the hell it is they’re struggling with. It’s a bitter pill to swallow when someone realises you’re forcing reciprocity. So much so, they’re actually put off from reading your free guide or watching your video. No one likes feeling obligated to do something for someone they hardly know. Especially when it’s clear they have no interest in them as a person and the problems they have. Zero call-to-action I get sent messages all the time and this is something I see frequently. For example: “Hey there. Saw your profile, liked what I saw. Thanks for connecting.” So what next? Unfortunately, as humans we’re lazy if we can get away with it. If we can get away with out thinking about certain things and taking action then we will. If you don’t tell someone exactly what to do next, guess what they’ll do? A BIG FAT NOTHING! Complex questions If your questions are too complex, people aren’t going to reply. It’s too taking and like I said before, people are lazy. For example, if you ask someone for their opinion is on the state of the economy and other complex questions like this, you’re gonna get IGNORED. Why? Because replying to a complex question requires 1 of 2 things: Either the person writes a simple reply and looks stupid. They write a long reply and it takes them precious time that they could be doing something more important. As a result, most people choose option 3, which is to ignore your message so they can move onto more important things. So now you know what 4 things you should NOT be doing with your messages on LinkedIn.

Read more

LinkedIn recommendations are probably one of the best forms of social proof you can get. A well-written recommendation on your LinkedIn profile contributes to proving you’re a credible source who can be trusted. One thing is for sure, you can’t have too many LinkedIn recommendations on your profile. The more recommendations you have the more credible you will appear and the easier you will find it to develop trusted relationships with your prospects. The more the merrier! The great thing about LinkedIn recommendations is that they’re seen as the one of the most authentic testimonials you can get. Why is this the case? Well unlike with a standard testimonial that you might find on a website, LinkedIn recommendations have a direct link back to your connections profile who left the recommendation. A well-written recommendation will probably offer some insight into what it’s like to work with you. It will likely contain details about how you have helped one of your connectiond to solve a particular problem. So, when your prospects read your LinkedIn recommendations, they will hopefully get a sense of reassurance. Recommendations on your LinkedIn profile work very similar to the reviews you see on Amazon. Before you buy a product on Amazon, you tend to check out how many 5 star rated reviews it has. How many good reviews the product has influences you buying decision by offering you complete peace of mind. LinkedIn recommendations have EXACTLY the same effect. How to ask for LinkedIn Recommendations So, now we understand why gaining recommendations is so important, we now need to know how we go about getting them. As with most things on LinkedIn, there are right ways and wrong ways of gaining recommendations. The wrong approach could potentially damage your personal brand if you don’t go about it in the right way. Let’s look at the best practices when trying to grow your LinkedIn recommendation portfolio… 1. Only get recommendations from people you know Now I don’t want to teach you to suck eggs but you would be surprised at the amount of people who make this rookie mistake. Believe it or not, some people on LinkedIn send unsolicited LinkedIn recommendation requests to people they have never met or done business with. In a bid to improve their social proof on LinkedIn they think nothing of clicking on the ‘Request a Recommendation’ link on a strangers profile and requesting a recommendation. The quality of your LinkedIn recommendations count for so much. When you read a recommendation from someone who has truly experienced your service you can tell it’s authentic. In comparison, a recommendation from someone who has never had any dealings with you whatsoever, stands out like a sore thumb. This can be so risky and damaging to your personal brand because it causes you to lose all credibility. So, my top tips for requesting recommendations are as follows: If possible, forewarn you client by phone or email to let them know you will be requesting recommendation on LinkedIn. Only ask for recommendations from people who appear credible in the eyes of your ideal prospects. Before you ask for a LinkedIn recommendation, check to make sure they have a completed LinkedIn profile. Do you due diligence to make sure the person you ask is trustworthy Only request recommendations from clients, colleagues, co-workers, previous employers and thought leaders in your industry. 2. Transfer your Testimonials to LinkedIn A good way to get off to a flying start is so visit existing testimonials. You might already have lots of testimonials on your website. If this is case then by re-visiting these happy clients, you can convert their testimonials into a Linkedin recommendations. Obviously, they will need to have an active profile on LinkedIn but if they do, you can ask them to simply copy the original testimonial and paste it in as a recommendation for you. TOP TIP: Make it as easy as possible for your connection to approve To do this: Click on the ‘Request a Recommendation’ link Copy and paste the original testimonial into the message box Ask your client to approve it 3. Personalize your LinkedIn Recommendation Requests When you click on the ‘Request a Recommendation’ link, LinkedIn first asks you who you want to request a recommendation from. So, you simply enter the name of the connection. Then LinkedIn asks you to provide what kind of relationship you have with the connection you’ve named. Finally, you select the position you held at the time of knowing the connection named. Once this is completed, LinkedIn generates a generic recommendation request as shown below: Hi NAME, could you write me a recommendation? Please make sure you don’t use this standard, default message! You MUST, MUST, MUST personalise it. Here is a template that has always served me well in the past: Hi Client Name, I am currently trying to build my trust and credibility on LinkedIn. Ideally, I would like to build a portfolio of recommendations from clients who appear credible in the eyes of my prospects. Could you help me by writing me a short recommendation? Just a few short sentences about the value you received from the service I provided you would be much appreciated. Thanks so much in advance Your Name Feel free to use this template as a guide and amend it to suit your own purpose. 4. When to Ask for a LinkedIn Recommendation So, when is the ideal time to request a recommendation from a client? Basically, whenever you received praise, positive feedback, a testimonial or when you know for sure you’ve delivered exceptional customer service. You take this opportunity to thank them for their kind words. Then, almost as an after-thought, you ask if they would be prepared to provide you with a LinkedIn recommendation. The way to do this is very similar to the recommendation request template I provided above. Take the time to stroke their ego a little. Explain that you’re trying to gain recommendations from those who

Read more

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away (actually…. not too far from here believe it or not) there are a small percentage of people on LinkedIn who win most of the business on LinkedIn. These are what you call LinkedIn Jedi. Does that sound like you? I thought as much! Are you one of those people who knows that LinkedIn is an amazing B2B tool but have no idea how to use it effectively to generate leads and sales enquiries? Perhaps you’ve tried using LinkedIn before and you’ve got frustrated with it because you just can’t seem to make it work for you. You’ve been on LinkedIn for years but you still struggle getting any business from it? Don’t worry, you’re not the only one? The truth is, it’s not that LinkedIn doesn’t work for your business. It simply means that you haven’t been utilising LinkedIn in the right way to grow your sales pipeline. You just haven’t become a LinkedIn Jedi yet! To be successful on LinkedIn, you have to have a message sequence that builds rapport and engages your prospects before finally converting them into clients. It’s my guess that if you’re not having any success with LinkedIn then you probably fall into one of the following LinkedIn types The LinkedIn Pitcher These are the people that proactively send out connection requests to their target audience but as soon as you connect with them, they send you their sales pitch. These guys are basically practicing a spray and pray approach. They’re spamming their connections at volume in the hope that their sales pitch resonates enough with a small percentage of their connections. Do not be one of these guys! This is not good practice at all. If anything, all you’re doing is burning your bridges with the vast majority of people you connect with. If you were at a networking event and you met someone for the first time, you wouldn’t walk right up to them and start delivering your pitch to them there and then would you? So don’t do it on LinkedIn! LinkedIn Pitcher The LinkedIn Ghost These are the people that proactively send out connection requests but take it no further. After you accept their connection request, you never hear from them again because they fail to follow up with you. For some reason, these people think that if they simply connect with lots of people on LinkedIn, that business will magically fall at their feet. Sorry to break it to you, but it just doesn’t work like that. Can you imagine going to a networking event, collecting lots of business cards from your ideal prospects then throwing them in a drawer and never following up with them. That’s effectively what these Linked Ghosts do. What a complete and utter waste of time! There’s an old saying… “your network is your net worth”. This is very true but only if you mine your network for those hidden opportunities. The LinkedIn Ghost The LinkedIn Socialite If you fall into this group of people, you will no doubt be a very likeable person who enjoys meeting new people, building rapport and nurturing relationships on LinkedIn. These guys will typically be the people who engage with your content by liking, commenting and sharing your posts. Now don’t get me wrong, I highly recommend you do this type of LinkedIn activity however, the LinkedIn Socialite falls into the trap of never taking the relationship to the next level. They never try to move the conversation off LinkedIn. They never suggest havinga chat on the phone, having a zoom meeting or anything else for that matter for fear of ruining the relationship that they worked so hard to build. They seem to think that all their hard work will be undone if they try to take the business relationship to the next level by moving it away from LinkedIn. One thing is for sure, closing deals doesn’t happen on LinkedIn. It happens during face to face meetings or over the phone. If you don’t know howto transition your prospect away from LinkedIn, you’ll never get business from this amazing B2B platform The LinkedIn Socialite LinkedIn Jedi The only other type of LinkedIn user is what I call the LinkedIn Jedi. These guys are superstars and make up just 1% of all the users on LinkedIn and they’re the ones that seem to effortlessly generate leads 99% of the business on LinkedIn. These guys are the ones who start out by getting the basics right first. They lay the foundations and stick to a very simple and actionable strategy. The LinkedIn Jedi is someone who knows how to do everything that the LinkedIn Socialite does but they also know how to ultimately take a prospect from cold to sold. They’ve mastered the art of moving their prospects offline and closing them to win the business. LinkedIn Jedi So, which LinkedIn user are you? Let us know in the comments below. Here at Influxeo, we’re very proud to make up part of that 1% of LinkedIn Jedis however, becoming a LinkedIn Jedi is actually easier than you may think. If you want to master the art of LinkedIn and generate a steady flow of leads into your inbox, get in touch today. May the force of Influxeo be with you.

Read more

You’ve probably heard me say this before, but it’s so important I’ll say it again… “People only buy from people they know, like and trust”. The more you nurture a relationship and build trust and rapport with your prospects, the more clients you acquire and the more sales you make. But trust is more than a vague feeling. It’s actually a SCIENCE! The man who actually cracked the science of trust is Dr. Robert Cialdini. Over 30 years ago, Dr. Cialdini wrote a book called Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. To this day, it is considered a game changer for all sales and marketing professionals. In the book, he listed seven science-based principles of persuasion. I won’t go through them all right now, but I want to mention one you need to know about today… Reciprocity – and why it’s key to building trust and relationships. Cialdini argues that we hate owing someone a debt, whether it’s of gratitude or of a financial nature. We’re likely to take any opportunity that gets us out of that perceived debt as quickly as possible. If you offer someone something of value that helps them, you’re priming them to say “yes” to you when you have that eventual sales discussion with them. Think about how you feel when someone solves a problem for you or gives you something of value for free? You like and trust them more, right? It’s the same in sales. If you offer help, you build trust. In fact, a LinkedIn study found that: B2B buyers are five times more likely to engage with someone who provides content and share insights about their industry Content shared by employees receives eight times more engagement that content shared by brand channels If you find lead generation, relationship building and content creation a hit-and-miss struggle, don’t leave it to chance… Apply the science! I have a subtle and highly effective rapport-building process that has been perfected through years of testing. It creates a stronger connection with your prospects so they know, like, trust and, most importantly, BUY from you.

Read more

Let me ask you a quick question… How many deals did you close last week on LinkedIn? If you answered “none”, then I’m guessing you’re making one of these 3 LinkedIn mistakes and it’s KILLING your sales. Once you crack the LinkedIn code, it becomes a non-stop lead-generation source for you. No more “feast or famine” cycles. No more scraping to get by. …just a steady stream of qualified leads who are desperate to either do business with you or hire you. Until then, you’ll have people refusing your connection requests and ignoring your messages. Instead of a packed inbox full of replies from hungry prospects, all you’ll hear is crickets. However, cracking the LinkedIn code isn’t as difficult as you might think. Most of the time, it comes down to the following 3 “sales killing” mistakes… Mistake #1 – You don’t know who your ideal client is! The first thing you need to understand is your avatar. What type of business do they have? Where are they at in the buying cycle? What are their top 3 problems or pain points in their business? You need to be able to answer questions like these at the drop of a hat if you want your LinkedIn strategy to work. Until you know WHO you’re trying to reach, even the world’s GREATEST sales funnel will fall on deaf ears. Plus, since we’re dealing with LinkedIn, you also have to eliminate inactive profiles and only focus on people who actually use LinkedIn. Once you know WHO you’re targeting, you’re a long way ahead of the competition. But you can’t stop there… you also have to avoid mistake #2… Mistake #2 – Your LinkedIn profile looks like a dog’s breakfast Did you know that you used to have approximately 7-10 seconds to catch someone’s interest with your profile? Well now that has reduced to just 3 seconds. You might know exactly who your ideal client is, but if you don’t design your profile specifically to attract that person, it’s all for nothing. The question is…What does a good LinkedIn profile look like? You have to answer the following question… “What’s in it for me?” That’s what every prospect is thinking when they hit your profile. Fail to answer that question and they’re GONE. Forget about making your profile read like a CV. Instead, design your profile to answer that single question in your prospect’s head… “What’s in it for me?” While you’re at it, make sure you’re not being spammy or salesy. Don’t just rattle off a list of the things you can do for someone. Start with THEIR problems and pain points and use that as a lead-in to talk about yourself. Once you’ve dialled into your avatar and profile, it’s time to work on… Mistake #3 – You don’t know how to reach out to people If you’re expecting to make a few tweaks to your profile and watch the leads roll in automatically, you’re in for a rude awakening. While it’s important to nail your avatar and profile, the secret sauce is in the messaging. But just like with your profile, it’s NOT about being spammy, pushy or salesy. The best messages LinkedIn feel like they come from an ordinary person… NOT a salesperson. If your messages have a sales vibe, you’re doing it wrong. So there you go – If you’re making these 3 LinkedIn mistakes, you’re KILLING your sales. Stop making these mistakes and LinkedIn will become a non-stop source of leads and deals. Want help building your LinkedIn Sales Funnel? Schedule a FREE Discovery call with me today at In your FREE call, we’ll help you figure what’s NOT working for you on LinkedIn (is it your avatar, profile, messaging strategy or something else entirely?). Then we’ll outline a personalized action plan for improving your LinkedIn profile and sales funnel, so you can finally have the non-stop stampede of leads from LinkedIn you’ve been dreaming of. Please don’t give up on LinkedIn! It’s an amazing platform for generating conversations, leads and sales, but it’s NOT going to automatically start working for you. You have to implement a proven system that’s backed by years of experience. That’s where Influxeo comes in.

Read more