intro
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How do I turn LinkedIn connections in to actual clients? This is the question I'm going to answer today on this episode. if it feels like it's this thing you hear that happens, but never happens to you. Stay tuned.A lot of people think, how does that actually happen? Like it's some unknown thing. And I really want to take you through a very simple three step process to help you understand how, in fact, to turn those LinkedIn connections into clients.
podcast intro
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Welcome to the Sales by You podcast, where I talk about all things sales, mindset, LinkedIn, and how to build a lead to client sales process that works for you.
I'm your host, Celina Guerrero, sales and LinkedIn coach. I help consultants and service providers attract high quality leads that become their best clients. Okay,
pre-intro
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all right, so how do we turn LinkedIn connections into clients? I think the best way to answer this question is to start by answering a different question. Okay, so how does anyone get clients ever?
Right. How does it actually happen? And the interesting thing is, is that I think a lot of people think, okay, this is how I buy something. This is how I hire someone. But when it comes to LinkedIn, it's this other mysterious thing that I don't fully understand, right? And I just want to say, you probably already have the answer around how to turn connections into clients, in a sense, because you do know what Is required to be able to make a decision to hire someone yourself, right?
You have hired people you buy things all the time, So what I invite you to do now is to Take a little journey with me into three different steps that probably you go through yourself To make a decision to invest your money for some type of solution So let's just walk through these three basic steps i'm going to go through them and then we're i'm going to talk a little bit more in detail about how To use LinkedIn to enable these three steps,
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Okay? So let's start with number one. They need to know you exist. Okay. Surprise. Please. Can you agree? This is important. I think, I think you can, right? This is important. They actually need to know you exist. And I think this is a step that a lot of people take for granted.
Like, I don't know about you, but I'm thinking about myself all the time, because I'm with myself all the time, and I'm working on my business all the time, and so it's really this internal bias that I assume everyone else knows exactly who I am, who I serve, how I serve them, all about me, and it's just not true.
So the real question then is, do you have enough of the right people knowing you exist? so let's break that out a little bit. For example, if you have a thousand connections, and those thousand people are in the Um, Cyber security industry, but you serve the finance industry, then yes, a thousand people know you exist, but they're the wrong people.
They're not people that are going to become clients, When we talk about quality, what we're really talking about is, do they have the criteria by which they would likely become a client? And if they're in the cyber security industry and you Only serve people in the finance agency. That's the mismatch.
Okay? So when we think about people knowing you exist, it's gotta be the right people. Now let's take that same thousand people, and let's say they're in the finance industry. So you have the quality piece, and then it's really about quantity.
so if you have a thousand people in your network that are in the finance industry, only a percentage of those people are going to become clients because some, even though they're in the finance industry, they're not going to have the problem that you solved.
So, some are not going to have money to invest in, in hiring you. Some are going to have other more pressing priorities in their business, There's so many different reasons why, even though on the surface they seem like quality, leads, they're not in a position to hire you.
In summary, you need enough of the right people to know you exist. I think a lot of us take for granted, we're like, oh, I have this huge network, but how many of those people have the criteria of an ideal client?
And then secondly, even if you do have a number of people, is it enough on a percentage basis to get the number of clients that you need. so that's step one, right? People need to know you exist.
2
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So let's say people know you exist What is next? The next thing is that they need to learn about you they need an opportunity to learn about you and to learn from you. Okay? So, for example, let's say someone meets you at an event, okay, or on LinkedIn, whatever the case may be, and they're in the finance industry.
Well, they're still going to need to learn about you, What is your expertise? Who do you serve? What specific challenges do you help people solve, There's all that information that people are going to need to get from you before they consider hiring you,
So, Let me just be very clear when I talk about people need to learn about you. There's two primary ways people are going to learn about you. they're going to need to learn about you in either one to one conversation via DM, email, or one to many marketing
So those are the, you know, your LinkedIn posts, your free guides, your webinars, And if you in some way are not Educating and being present in front of those people that you've met You're going to have a problem.
You're gonna end up with a situation called the missing middle
let me give you a specific story. This happened to me literally a few days ago. Okay. So someone. They knew that I existed, because they found me through LinkedIn services. They were looking for someone to help them with LinkedIn,
Now this guy definitely fit a profile of a good client of mine, He understood business already, but he didn't know how to use LinkedIn. He was business to business and he, um, uh, was looking for someone to support him, right? So we scheduled a call. And then I heard a little bit about his situation and then I explained a little bit about how I work.
And then, at the end, he's like, So, how long have you been training people on LinkedIn? And like, it was just this weird moment when I was like, Are you serious? Like, I'm thinking to myself like, Okay, so, he didn't look at my profile, He didn't listen to any of my podcast episodes. He wasn't already on my email list.
He Likely did not read any of my posts. he just went from knowing I existed via LinkedIn services that's like the Yelp of LinkedIn and getting on a call with me and there wasn't enough trust built, there wasn't enough understanding, You know what I'm saying? So, this is why it's so important that just getting people to know you exist isn't enough. You then have to Make sure that you're giving them ways of learning about your expertise. So that when you are in a sales call, they're already thinking, okay, she's totally right for me.
I like the way she thinks about LinkedIn. I like the way she talks about it. I like the way she explains things. She has a lot of experience. All of those things, right?
So it's not uncommon for people to know you exist and then if you're not providing them with email, podcasts, posts, something, then One of two things is going to happen.
They're either going to not get on a sales call with you ever, or they're going to get on a sales call with you and what's going to happen is what I just described, which is like, this guy didn't know anything about me. I clearly wasn't the right fit for him. And then we've been spent all this time on the phone and it didn't work out.
So this is why that missing middle is so important. 80 percent of the decision making process about hiring someone to, to solve a problem is online and you are going to, struggle if you're always trying to get people directly into a sales call.
You've got to have that middle juicy part where you're sharing a little bit about who you are and how you serve and all of that stuff.
It's a heavy lift, friends, to get someone from knowing you exist to paying you four or five figures,
Okay. This is where you're earning people's trust and you're getting people to filter in or out of whether they're the right fit for you. Okay.
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So step three is now they need to be offered something, right? So let's say they know you exist and then they start learning about you and they learn your point of view and they're Thinking wow, she really understands this issue I have and wow like I think what she's talking about this is really enlightening and it makes more sense to me now and And then the step three is you need to offer them something.
you need to say this is how you can work with me You can join my membership you can Get an audit. We can be in a 6 to 12 month consulting engagement, We can, um, do some coaching calls. What is the mechanism by which you are going to provide that solution to them?
*The* thing that might happen if they go from knowing your exist to offer is that you're going to feel spammy and they're going to feel like you're spammy. Let me explain.
So let's say I connect with someone on LinkedIn and all of a sudden I'm like, Hey, I have this membership, you want to join it?
Well, they're going to feel like, I don't even know who you are. Like, why are you Pitching me, What do we call it? Pitch slapping, right? they're going to be totally turned off and they're not going to want to hire you when if you had just given them time to learn about you and everything you're doing and your point of view in the world,
Then that's when the offer is like, they can't wait to take it. They can't wait to accept your offer. Because they're like nurtured, they're warmed up, they've understood, yes, this person really excites me and I want to work with them. And if you don't give the offer, right, then they don't have anything to grab onto, but, um, all three pieces I hope I've explained are really important.
Okay. Next, I just do want to spend a little time getting a little bit specific about how you apply LinkedIn in this three step process.
SPONSORED BY
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This episode is sponsored by the Connect membership. The mission of Connect is to give solo consultants and service providers a place to build their sales skills and sales process in community.
If you're a consultant or service provider and you use LinkedIn as your primary social platform, Connect provides knowledge, community, and accountability so you can sign more clients. Sales should not be done alone. For more information, go to joinconnect. co. That's joinconnect. co.
Recap LI and CTA
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Okay, so let's talk about how we use LinkedIn in these three phases, okay? Number one, they need to know you exist. The easiest way for people to know you exist is to connect with them, okay? And the most important reason that you want to connect with them is that connecting with someone on LinkedIn positions you to be in that learn phase.
Let me explain what that means. So when I connect with you, listener, I can now DM you, you can DM me, we can message each other,
It also allows you to see my content in my feed and me to see content in your feed. Feed, right? So, wait, did I say that right? To see your content in my feed and my content in your feed? So, the idea there is that if I'm posting then you can see my post and you can say, oh, wow, that's interesting and the same thing, happens in reverse so I can see your post and I can comment on them, I can learn about you, we can get to know each other, okay?
So, again, when I talk about they need to know you exist, we're talking about connecting on LinkedIn, which sets you up To get to the second phase, which is they need to learn about you, which is through posting and DMing, hopefully DMing some back and forth questions, but also DMing opportunities for learning, like free webinars, free guides, podcast episodes, your email newsletter, all of that,
Not an offer yet, but a bridge to the offer.
And then of course, The third step is to Provide that offer. Now the offer is gonna come in the end of your post it could come in a DM for sure But ideally it's after somebody has downloaded your guide. So let's say someone downloads my free guide They learn about me and then I can go to the DMS and say like what did you think?
And it's like oh, well if that's of interest I happen to be have this great membership, maybe you would want to join it. But, I'm not going to DM someone a pitch about my membership until I know that they've learned something about me. Okay? Now, again, I just have to emphasize one more time.
What happens if you do not share content or you do not DM people free resources or answer their questions? One of two things is going to happen. A, nothing is going to happen. Okay? Nothing's going to happen. I mean, what's the point in connecting people if you're never going to DM or share content?
You're going to be nowhere, you'reyou're going to be planting the seeds, but then you're not watering it so nothing grows, okay? The second thing that might happen if you don't share content or DM is that people will take sales call with you and then they can spend the call learning about you.
But that's not the efficient or productive way to get clients, Your ghosting rate is going to go through the roof because they're spending all of that time learning about you when the learning is supposed to come in the middle with the digital marketing content, the one to many content, okay?
Every time you have to explain who you are, who you serve, how you serve them, all the things you've done, In a one to one call, you're putting a lot of pressure on your time spent when it could be done more efficiently in that digital marketing so that when you're actually on the call, that person's already raised their hand and said, yes, I think I really want to work with this person.
I just know that I need to get on a sales call to have a conversation. Okay? So let's recap. How do you turn connections into clients? You got to take them through three stages. And if you're going to do it on LinkedIn, number one, they got to know you exist.
That means you need to connect with people. Number two, they need to learn about you through content and DMs. Again, Again, if you don't share content and you don't share DMs, it's not going to be pretty for you. You're not going to get them to third stage, which is when you offer something, they have something that they're ready to grab onto because they're already excited about what you do.
Okay? So you've got to go through all stages. If you connect with people and you don't share content or DM, you're not going to have connections turning into clients. If you share content, but you're not Connecting with new people. You don't have enough people that know you exist. You're relying on like a thousand cybersecurity industry people who are never, ever, as much as they like your content going to turn into clients.
And if you're connecting with people and then you're sharing your content and everything, but you're never telling them how exactly to work with you, you're definitely not going to end up turning those connections into clients. Okay? So you absolutely need all three stages and that is your answer to how to get people from LinkedIn connection to client.
Now, if you need help with that, I suggest you sign up for my Connect newsletter. It goes out once a week. You can also send me a question via DM on LinkedIn. You can find me,ask me a question, I'll answer it. And you can also look into our Connect membership.
That is one way I should say, you can work with me to learn, more about each of these stages and how to implement it into your business, okay? So, I hope this was helpful for you, and I'm excited to, uh, connect with you on LinkedIn,Just remember that for better or worse, you really need to have all three stages, and if you're missing any one of those that's where you're going to struggle to turn those LinkedIn connections into clients.
Outro
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Thank you for listening to this episode of the Sales By You podcast. If you heard something in this episode that made you think someone you know would really find that helpful, send them a link to this podcast episode. If you want to learn another aspect of improving your sales, subscribe to this podcast.
You can catch the next episode of Sales by You. Lastly, thank you for giving this podcast a review. What you think matters. See you next time.
