LinkedIn prospecting.

These are two important words in B2B marketing that oftentimes get a bad rep (especially when done wrong).

Dear , here’s the truth about LinkedIn in 2022: it’s still the world’s biggest gold mine for B2B Marketers regardless of what some folks say.

Check these stats for yourself:

• 4 out of 5 people on LinkedIn “drive business decisions” in some form; (The B2B House)
• More than 55 million registered companies are on LinkedIn; (Hootsuite)
• 80% of B2B leads come from LinkedIn Vs. 13% on Twitter and 7% on Facebook; (Foundation Inc)

That’s not the end of it.

If you ever consider engaging with Fortune 500 companies, business executives, and professionals, no other social media beats LinkedIn.

Even so, most B2B marketers spend time on LinkedIn and channel huge budgets into that platform just to have horrible results. Some even have a hard time getting their connection request accepted.

In this issue, we will showcase Thibaut Souyris’ proven LinkedIn prospecting cadence that will help you make the most of your LinkedIn outreach and turn conversations into opportunities.

Specifically, you’ll learn:

• Four (04) things that are broken in modern sales prospecting
• How to find relevant triggers to start a conversation with prospects
• How to turn conversations into opportunities             

Before we dive in, here are some remote positions from our job board that might pique your interest or that of someone around you.

TRENCHES JOB BOARD

INTEGRATE IS HIRING A Sr. GROWTH MARKETING MANAGER 

Your mission? 

• Humanize all things marketing (and have fun while you’re doing it).
• Lead and operationalize Integrate’s category-leading Precision Demand Marketing (PDM) approach. 
• Orchestrate connected buying experiences by segment (solution, persona, industry, etc.) for some of the world’s leading brands including Adobe, Red Hat, Slack, and VMware.

Learn more about this role and apply here. 

FILEBASE IS HIRING A SENIOR DIGITAL STRATEGIST (REMOTE), $75-125K

Your mission?

• Develop, test, and iterate on the company's digital content marketing strategy;  
• Work collaboratively with other departments to create a regular cadence of content for lead generation (ebooks, webinars, blog posts, etc);
• Plan and manage a promotional calendar across all content assets to ensure a high level of activity.

Learn more about this role and apply here. 

P.S. If you’re on the lookout for B2B marketers with proven experience, submit a job offer here. 

Now let's get to the meat of the matter. 

I. Four (04) things that are broken in modern sales prospecting

1. Lack of ICP

SDRs make a list of contacts and accounts based on broad firmographic data (job role: founder, industry: computer technology) and end up with a junk list.

Why junk?

Because the majority of the selected accounts have zero intent to buy and/or are a bad fit, which leads us to the 2nd problem.

2. Lack of personalization

To reach out to a big volume of contacts, SDRs are usually not able to do proper account research and personalize their messages. More often than not, they send generic pitches copied from sales blogs. As a result, they get ghosted.                                                                                                                                      

3. Lack of context.

"I saw you are the founder of a SaaS company. We help SaaS companies to ... Let's have a call" is the worst way to do outreach and definitely the fastest way to get banned from LinkedIn.

Why?

Because the majority of people we spoke to about this, simply replied: what made you think I want to talk with a random dude from an unknown company? Just because I'm the founder?

Next up, they block and delete the connection.

4. Lack of conversation.

It’s no secret that people buy from people they know, like, and trust. To meet these 3 criteria, SDRs should do thought leadership and learn more about starting conversations.

Thibaut Souriys put it well when he said: “If you can't get prospects to reply, you won't book meetings. If you don’t book meetings, you won't get revenues. If you can’t get revenues, your company will go bust.”

The underlying message here is crystal clear: what matters the most is your capacity to start conversations. If you’re unsure how to do that, consider applying one of these strategies.

II. How to find relevant triggers to start a conversation with prospects

First thing first, a trigger is a public piece of information that indicates someone may have a problem that needs to get solved or that someone needs to talk with you.

Here are some ways you can find triggers.

Strategy #1: Find LinkedIn Posts that attract your ICP and use them as a magnet

A LinkedIn magnet is someone or an event who is addressing your ideal customer profile (ICP).

For instance, let’s say you target VPs of sales or heads of sales of US-based startups that raised over Series B. These kinds of people have specific problems, needs, and pain points.

So, check the post of one of the most influential VPs of sales in your network. Go over the list of those who liked and commented on that post, and select some interesting and relevant profiles to contact.

Strategy #2: Find LinkedIn Events that attract your ICP and use them as a magnet

Let’s assume you target SaaS companies. 

1. Search for SaaS sales and filter the results by events. 
2. Select the most relevant events and look for those who are attending. 
3. Go through the attendees’ list and choose some contacts that fit your ICP.

Then use the event as an excuse to contact them.

The beauty of these two strategies is that if you find 20 good fits who engaged with the post or are attending the event, you can craft the same message for everyone and scale your personalization.

How to craft and send the right connection request message?

Here you can use two frameworks. Either trigger a question or a call to action. 

Case #1: Let’s take the example of an event on how to build a Start-Up sales machine

Your trigger can read: Hi John Doe, noticed you're also planning on attending the event on how to build a Start-Up sales machine. 

Then, ask a smart question. You can talk about a problem people who are building sales teams often face.

I'm curious how you are making sure your reps are not putting off prospects with horrible outreach messages? 

Case #2: Let’s take the example of this post of Richard

Your connection message can read: 

Hi John Doe, noticed you also liked Richard’s meme on sales leaders being annoyed by cold callers when they ask their teams to call. If you're interested, I have a simple tip you can share with your team to avoid putting prospects off with cold calling.

Keep in mind that while this approach might not be perfect, it is a pretty good balance between personalization and scale.

III. How to turn conversations into opportunities?                                

If you do your homework and reach out to the right contact at the right time, they will reply if they have an actual pain point. If not, it's a shot in the dark.  

So, the thing here is that you want to go and tease your resource to people so they reply. 

Step #1: Personalize your connection request and make sure it cuts through the noise and doesn’t get ignored.

Step #2: Once you get the reply and you’re aware of your contact’s pain point, ask if they're interested in reading your step-by-step guide on how to do X, or how to prevent Y. Some will say yes and some will reply with a negative.

Step #3: If you get a positive reply, share the resource and navigate the conversation. 

Give them one or two days and then follow up on what they think. Ask if it is something they feel they could apply with their team or something they think could solve one of the problems they’ve been dealing with. 

Step #4: At this point, you got the conversation started. So, check with the prospect in one or two weeks.

You could send a simple message as: Hey John Doe, any results? How are things going? Would it be a bad idea to hop on a 15-minute call so you can tell me about the challenges your team is facing? 

When you get in the call, establish yourself as a thought leader or a trusted advisor. Share expertise and deliver value from the get-go. 

Step #5: When they have the result, you can ask if they wouldn't mind sharing it on LinkedIn or Twitter and tag you. 

This will allow you to have a public testimony that can attract the attention of strategic accounts and other people that might be interested in your offer.

Quick announcement 

Gagan Biyani (the former co-founder of Udemy) and Wes Kao (who built the altMBA from the ground up alongside Seth Godin) guided us in building the best LIVE LinkedIn Bootcamp on the market. 

If you need help building your "LinkedIn muscle" and consistently raise brand awareness, nurture & activate target buyers — without spammy or salesy outreach, this Bootcamp is for you.

Upcoming community events

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• How to develop a full-funnel content strategy with Amanda Natividad - Thu. 24th March, 05:00 PM - 06:00 PM (UTC+1)

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Adechina D. Odjo,

Content Editor @Trenches