Can you manage a sales team’s LinkedIn activity?

One of my mentors taught me to “inspect what I expect” when I was a manager. I’ve been mulling over the idea of managing LinkedIn activity as I’ve been writing all the LinkedIn Effectiveness posts and the Chip off the Block newsletter.

When you’re starting to encourage salespeople to use a new tool, they are nervous and worried. Unsure not only what you expect from them but also what results they should expect from themselves!

My suggestion is to begin having questions you ask in the regular course of your daily interaction. If they are excited about a conversation with a new contact; “wow I’m wondering what else we could find out about him/her on LinkedIn?” A new business opportunity might sound like “Have you had the chance to look up all the key players profiles yet?” Begin to teach the members of your team that this is one of your expectations.

This is also a great time to have them set goals for themselves; are they trying to create credibility… expand their network… connect with higher level decision makers… enhance their position as a subject matter expert? Their LinkedIn behavior will be driven by what goals they set for themselves; please don’t let them pick EVERYTHING at once! Encourage them to take one step at a time.

There will come a time when you will see lost opportunity for connection, a salesy post in a group discussion, an update that doesn’t promote that person’s brand image. Take a moment to gently remind them what their online goals are (this does mean you need to know what those are….)

I think the key though is to catch salespeople doing the right things. Make sure you look for opportunities where they are doing a good job using LinkedIn as a sales tool.

This means in addition to praising them when you’re having one of those daily conversations and they’ve done the right things that you need to inspect what they are doing on LinkedIn. Not daily, but at least monthly look at their profile, the updated they post, and their group discussion behavior. Give kudos where it is due!

Yes this is “one more thing” you need to do as a sales leader, if you believe that LinkedIn is an important part of your teams success – you have to inspect what you expect.

Fred’s picture was used with his permission… I paid him in Pup-Peroni®