8 Action Steps – Leadership Support & Encouragement

At the end of Cracking the LinkedIn Code, Ardath Albee & Jill Konrath have 8 action steps they suggest for salespeople. What your role as a sales leader and manager would be (in my opinion of course) would be to support and encourage the people on your team to take these steps.

1. Enhance Your Professional Presence
2. Research Your Prospects
3. Connect with Colleagues/Customers
4. Leverage Recommendations & Endorsements
5. Build Prospect Lists
6. Use “Saved Search”
7. Join Groups
8. Share Your Expertise

Of course the question is, how do you support and encourage your salespeople. Here are my 8 leadership action steps:

1. Make sure your profile is a shining example
2. Know where your target market is hanging out, the key words to find them, etc
3. Connect with higher level contacts in your salespeople’s top customers (if they talk to a manager – you connect with the director, if they talk with a direction – you connect with the vp, etc…)
4. Write recommendations for the people on your team for what they do REALLY well for their customers – what would set them apart from the competition.
5. Build prospect lists for the salespeople on your team – THEN teach them how to do it.
6. Ditto!
7. Join groups and become the best sales manager and leader you can be,
8. Plus show expertise in how to use groups by being active where your team’s prospects hang out.