LinkedIn Effectiveness Month

I’m declaring this month LinkedIn Effectiveness Month at UpYourTeleSales.com!

Why?

1. Today, smiling & dialing is not enough – yet more dials, more phone time seems to be what I hear most from front line sales managers.
2. If I never receive another generic “I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.”  invitation I will be a happy woman.
3. Your team can NOT afford to be ineffective anywhere in the sales process if you want them to be successful.

Important Note about #1… I’m not saying that dials or customer contact time aren’t important! It is just not enough.

Dials:  if inside salespeople don’t dial the phone – nothing happens. There are good reasons for measuring how many outbound calls someone makes, what I do want every sales leader to look at is are they dialing the right contacts? It may sound simplistic – but the number of dials to the people who CAN, WILL, and DO buy what you sell is what matters and can’t be measured by # of dials alone.

Customer Contact Time: most managers believe (and they are not necessarily wrong) that ‘phone time’, ‘customer contact time’, or ‘pay time’ is a leading indicator of salespeople having quality conversations. I throw out that it is much easier to look at this number than to monitor calls, but one without the other doesn’t actually tell you if your sales team is having those good quality conversations you are hoping for.

What to expect from this month’s focus.

• each week’s Inside Sales Leadership Corner will be about how to create an effective strategy WITH your sales team (notice I didn’t say for them….)
• each week’s Wednesday post will be a very tactical tip for the salespeople on your team
• even the A Chip off the Block newsletter will focus on LinkedIn
• at the end of the month you’ll see a full list of LinkedIn Resources from people I know & trust

LinkedIn Resource List (just a start)

The Fundamentals of LinkedIn Social Prospecting™ for Inside Sales Reps my collaboration with Janet Stucchi of The Bridge Group

Cracking the LinkedIn Sales Code by Ardath Albee & Jill Konrath

15 Ways To Facilitate A Linkedin Discussion from Paul Castain of Sales Playbook! LinkedIn group fame

LinkedIn Sales Secrets Revealed actual stories compiled by Jill Konrath