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Selling

How a Simple Piece of Paper can Transform Your Success at Selling

Posted by

Ian Brodie on March 25th, 2010.

Tick tock, tick tock.

You're standing outside the boardroom waiting to meet the Senior VP of Operations for your #1 target client.

Tick tock, tick tock.

It's a vital meeting, crucial to your firm's success this year, and even more so for your own career.

Tick tock, tick tock.

The butterflies inside your stomach are bouncing around like competitors on ‘So You Think You Can Dance'. But you're well prepared. You know what questions you're going to ask. You know your “best realistic objective” and how you're going to close. You've rehearsed the objections you might face and gone over your case study anecdotes time and time again.

“Mr Jones will see you now”.

Great. Time for action. The adrenaline begins to pump as you head into the room.

You're ready. This is going to be great.

But it isn't.

Somehow, you get taken off track. He starts asking questions about your methodology. You spend too long talking about a potential issue that turns out not to be relevant.

And then your time is up. He has to leave 5 minutes early to get to his next meeting. You haven't asked half the questions you needed to – let alone achieved your objective.

“Very interesting” he says, “we'll give you a call if we need help in your area”.

And that's it. It's over. You're never going to hear from him again. You blew it.

It's not that you said anything stupid. It's just that in the heat of the moment and under pressure, you lost where you were.

It happens to all of us. And the more important the meeting, the more likely it is that you'll forget something. You won't ask about the decision-making process, or whether he's used consultants before, or how this impacts his overseas plants, or whatever critical questions you were going to ask.

And that's where the simple piece of paper comes in.

This is trivially simple. But it works. You'll probably read it and think “I don't need that”. But you do. I've been selling for over a decade and I still do this. It's got me out of a number of holes.

All you do is take out the notebook you're going to use to make notes and turn to a clean double page.

On the right hand page. Write what you normally write when you're about to have a meeting. Maybe the name of the person you're meeting, the date and an outline agenda. As normal, leave plenty of space for notes.

But on the left hand side, list all the questions you're going to ask and the things you need to remember. You can use my sales meeting planning guide to figure out what these questions are.

And since it's on the left hand page, it's not going to get in the way of your note taking. In fact, the person you're meeting with won't even know you've got a crib sheet – it'll look like the remains of a previous meeting.

See? I told you you'd think “I don't need that”. You're probably mumbling “I can remember a few simple questions” right now.

But you can't. In the heat of battle, under pressure, you will forget something vital. The more vital the meeting, the more under pressure you'll feel, and the more likely to forget you are.

It won't feel like it at the time. You probably won't go blank. But you will get distracted and sidetracked. You'll lose the flow, and you'll skip something vital. You'll only notice it afterwards, and then you'll kick yourself.

So try it out. It can't hurt, and it may well do you a load of good.

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Marketing

Are You Exploiting This Key Strategy To Get More Clients?

Posted by

Ian Brodie on March 23rd, 2010.

Campaign Plan We've all heard multiple versions of the “it takes 6 touches before a customer will buy from you” saying. But how true is it?

In my experience it's very true.

But it's also very misleading.

You see, it kind of gives the impression that all you need to do to win a client is communicate with them in some way 6 times.

But if you got the same advertising flyer from someone 6 times would it make you more likely to buy? Or if you met the same person at a networking event 6 times, but your conversation never got beyond what they did?

To make an real impact on a client, rather than 6 (or more) random, unplanned or ad-hoc communications, you need a planned sequence of communications with each one furthering your relationship with them.

You need a campaign.

You can only really run campaigns for your highest potential clients. They require detailed thought, planning and preparation. You must think through what your clients need to know and feel about you before they'll feel comfortable hiring you (or initially meeting with you if that's the goal of your campaign). They you need to deliver a series of communications which focus on addressing each of these “know and feels”.

A classic example would be a direct mail campaign.

Imagine you have a prospect list which includes ten really high value potential clients. Winning work with any of those ten could start a relationship which could set you up for life.

Unfortunately, you don't know any of them. You've searched, but you can't find anyone you know who could refer you in to them. So you're considering writing or calling them directly.

Rather than a one-off letter which has a small chance of being read and acted upon (even with great copywriting) you should instead create a tailored campaign for each of the key clients.

Create a sequence of letters – each demonstrating something you need them to know before they'll be comfortable meeting with you. And each adding value.

For example, in your first letter you could send them a recent whitepaper you've written highlighting your expertise in an area you believe they need to focus on.

The next could include some case studies – each one providing useful information while showing you've done this before and are a safe pair of hands.

The next could be a link to an online video where you talk about how to make results from improvements in the area actually stick. Here they'll get a sense of your personality and a feeling for whether they'll be able to work with you.

The next could be some research you've done, a selection of related articles, etc.

Each letter includes something of high value to the potential client. But each item of value also doubles as a proof point that you're an expert in your field, that you get results, that you'd be great to work with – whatever it is you want them to know.

Now using a campaign like this is relatively high cost. Not exorbitant, and you should have a lot of material you can reuse for it. But it does require thought and planning.

But for your very high potential clients, the ideal ones you really want to work with, it's well worth it. If you were on the receiving end of such a campaign, would you be more likely to respond to it than a series of random sales-oriented letters or cold calls? I'm sure you would – and so will your clients.

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Selling

Have You Forgotten How To Listen?

Posted by

Ian Brodie on March 16th, 2010.

We're sorry, we've decided to go with someone else.

Aargh. The worst words any professional wants to hear.

You did a great job, it's just we decided to go with a training solution rather than the coaching you proposed.

But hang on, I do training. In fact I'm great at it. Let me tell you about the training I do…

But it's too late.

Has that ever happened to you?

The chances are it's because you weren't really listening to your potential client. Or more accurately, you didn't ask the right questions and you made too many assumptions about what they wanted.

Listening is Sales 101. It's one of the basics. The stuff they teach in your first few days in a role with business development responsibilities.

Listening allows you to properly understand what the client really needs and how to position your services to show they meet those needs. And clients need to feel listened to. If they feel you're not paying attention to them they'll assume you'll be like that to work with and they'll decide it won't be a pleasant or successful experience.

So why do so many of us do it so badly?

Well, there are two types of people who struggle with listening: The enthusiast and the expert.

Enthusiasts are often business owners or the ideas person behind a particular service. They're passionate about their services, they truly believe in them and they're convinced that their potential clients will benefit from them tremendously.

Passion's great when you're selling. In fact it's essential. If you don't believe in your services, how can you expect your clients to?

But sometimes passion can get in the way of selling. Passion can turn into evangelising, into a one way monologue rather than a dialogue where you do most of the listening.

Experts struggle because they assume they know what the client needs without asking. The minute a client mentions the first symptom of their problem they'll jump straight to the solution. They've heard it all before and they think they don't need to know anything more for their diagnosis.

The trouble is, they're often wrong. And even if they're right, the client doesn't feel as if they've really understood the issue. And the clients themselves, because they haven't been involved in a process of mutual discovery about the issue, don't feel any ownership of the solution.

Unfortunately for us professionals – especially those of us who run our own businesses – we're often both enthusiasts and experts. It can be a deadly combination.

After experiencing a number of “I'm sorry we're going with someone else” incidents many years ago I learned to bite my tongue. I learned to pay full attention to what the client was saying, not to focus on the next clever thing I was going to say. I learned to probe their problems fully and to explore the impacts. I still make mistakes and I'm far from perfect – but it works.

In short, by learning to listen, I learned to sell.

Make sure you do too.

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Strategy

How to Escape Marketing Overwhelm

Posted by

Ian Brodie on March 11th, 2010.

Do you ever feel overwhelmed when you look at your pipeline and think about what you need to do to fill it?

You’re not alone.

I think it’s the curse of business owners and executives these days. You look at how many new clients you need to bring in to hit your targets and then you try to think about how you’re going to do it.

But it’s so difficult to know where to start. What will actually work?

Back in the day, you pretty much had the choice of networking, direct mail, telemarketing or advertising when it came to marketing. Each with their own established best practices and rules.

Today we’ve got organic and paid search, social media, social media ads, video marketing, email marketing. And it all seems to be changing all the time.

I’ve lost count of the number of “next big thing” emails I’ve had trying to convince me to buy the latest and greatest method for getting a so-called flood of clients with some newfangled technique.

And that’s just Facebook!

When you’re just starting out – or even if you’re fairly well established – it can all be so overwhelming. So difficult to know what to do.

It was a big issue for me when I set out on my own. In some ways because I focus on marketing and sales it’s worse – because I deliberately keep tabs on all the newest approaches.

Every time I tried to think of what I should do I couldn’t get a clear picture in my mind. And all the stories of other people succeeding with this method or that method just confused me further.

So how on earth do we figure out what to do without spending every waking hour networking, phoning, tweeting or blogging?

Well, what follows is an approach I evolved that worked for me to clear the fog of uncertainty and give me some clarity on what to do.

I can’t promise it will work for you – but give it a try – it’s been helpful to a number of people I’ve shown it to.

The key to is to break down your marketing into manageable chunks. Ones you can think about sensibly. Too often, when we think about how we’re going to get new clients we lump all our potential clients into one amorphous blob.

And you know what? You can’t market to an amorphous blob.

So I found it helpful to split my clients into Top Clients and Others. For me, Top Clients are the top 10 clients I’d really love to win over the next 6 months. Clients who – if I got to do business with just one or two of them – could set me up for the year. For you it might be a top 5 or a top 20. But essentially it’s a small number of ideal clients you can think about individually.

You could go more sophisticated and split into A/B/C or suchlike. But let’s keep things simple for now.

The “others” are clients I’m not going identify specifically or do a specific plan for – too many of them. But I do aim to win a number of them via more general marketing.

Then I split my marketing into short term and long term.

Long term marketing is all about building “gravity”. Doing the things that will attract clients to you so you don’t have to actively seek them out. Thought leadership, stuff with your website and the like.

But long term marketing takes time before it pays off. So you also need some short term activities to try to bring in clients right now. The kind of stuff that pays the bills while you work on the long term side.

Then – because I’m a consultant and it’s part of the union rules – I draw a little 2 x 2 matrix to represent this. Client types on one axis and time frame on the other. Rather like this:

Client Categorisation Matrix

Then I think through what marketing activities would be the most appropriate in each box for each client type/time frame combination.

Splitting it up like this makes it much easier. Instead of struggling to see what marketing will magically work for all clients in all circumstances, I can take a “horses for courses” approach. It’s much easier to see what marketing will work in the short term for my top 10 clients, or to nurture relationships with the thousands of “other” prospects who visit my website for example.

Usually, I end up thinking about referrals and extending existing client relationships for my top clients in the short term. And I develop unique, personalised nurture plans to build my relationship with my top prospects in the long term.

For the broader set of target clients, I’ll may pencil in approaches like webinars or direct mail in the short term – and I’ll focus on using email marketing nurture campaigns in the long term. Here’s an example of what the matrix might look like for a typical client:

Client Categorisation Matrix Example

Of course, your matrix will look different depending on your analysis of what marketing approaches will work for your specific clients – and what you’re good at.

But the key is that by breaking it up into this matrix rather than trying to eat the elephant all in one go, you zap the overwhelm.

As I say, I can’t promise it’ll work for you – but it’s worked for me and many others – I suggest you give it a go.

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News

Linkedin Funnies

Posted by

Ian Brodie on March 5th, 2010.

My latest tips on building a Client Winning Profile for Linkedin are now on a free, short video – click here to watch it.

Sparked by reading a colleague's rather amusing recommendation on Linkedin, I've decided to start collecting “Linkedin Funnies”. If you spot something funny on Linkedin – either in a profile or recommendation or wherever – then please leave a comment on this post.

Here are the funnies I've found so far:

The first recommendation, to my mind, is a work of sarcastic genius:

Next is a rather nicer recommendation:

The third is perhaps not laugh-out-loud funny – but is quite well done:

So do you have any better examples of funny profiles or recommendations? Drop them on a comment or email and I'll get them up here.

Thanks!

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Marketing

Are Traditional Websites Dead?

Posted by

Ian Brodie on March 4th, 2010.

Are Traditional Websites Dead? I recently recorded a podcast interview with Raintoday.com entitled “Is the Traditional Website Dead?” (You can listen to it free here).

The focus was specifically on websites for professional service firms – and reflected my experience with the success of my own site over the last 9 months. Despite being a rather small outfit (and determined to stay that way) – my site attracts more traffic than the sites of some of the top 30 consulting firms globally.

Why is this?

The primary reason, in my view, is that my site focuses almost completely on content. If you come to the home page, what you see is the latest of my articles or videos – and not a pitch for my services.

This helps me in two ways.

Firstly, it means I have lots of content indexed by google, with lots of keywords that potential clients may be searching on. And it's much easier for related sites in my field to link to a resource site like mine or specific articles on it than it would be to link to a corporate website that focused on pitching it's services. Sure, I do a lot of Search Engine Optimisation work and have a little bit of “secret sauce” I sprinkle around, but none of this would work without having a content rich site.

Secondly, once visitors arrive at my site, they're much more likely to stay than with a traditional site.

If you think about most professional services, the reality is that our clients don't need our services all the time. No one redoes their strategy every week, takes over a company every month, gets divorced every fortnight or changes their accountant daily. They use our services intermittently.

And if you think about the buying cycle for our services, our clients rarely wake up with a sudden need for our services that they weren't aware of before. The problems or opportunities that trigger the need for them to hire us usually start off small. They're a minor irritation or perhaps a glint of an idea.

Then, over time, the irritation gets bigger or the idea begins to firm up. They start looking around to find out more and to see what can be done. Years ago, they'd speak to colleagues and friends – maybe even dip into a book. Today, of course, they search the web.

So the first time a potential client visits my site (or any professional service firm's site) the chances are that they're not in buying mode. They're looking for useful information. And if they don't see useful information on the first page they come to, they're going to click away pretty quick.

Even if you have a blog or articles page just one click away from your home page, it's too far. You're not going to catch the attention of most visitors.

The BBC's website is always a good place to look for best practices. What do they have on their home page? Lots and lots of content. In the BBC's case it's primarily clickable headlines linking through to news, sports, business, entertainment or other stories. But the main point is that it has useful information rather than just a list of the BBC's services. You're encouraged to dig further and engage with the site.

So it should be with professional services websites. 90% of the time, your visitors will be early in their buying cycle. You need them to engage with you, get value from your site – and in the process discover that you know what you're talking about and you could be someone they could work with.

What's needed for this is not a traditional website with clever copy showcasing your services. it's a content-rich website that puts value for the visitor front and centre of its approach. Faced with this sort of website, your potential client is much more likely to engage with you and to keep coming back for more value.

Then when their initial irritation turns into an unbearable pain they need a solution to – you'll be the first on their list to contact. You may not win every time, but you'll be in pole position.

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Selling

Downselling

Posted by

Ian Brodie on February 23rd, 2010.

In the latest version of the Outside In newsletter I discuss a number of things that professional services can learn from internet marketers. Each of the strategies is something I've adopted myself or seen results from with clients.

To subscribe to the Outside In newsletter to read the article click here.

One strategy which internet marketers use a lot is the “downsell” – it's something I've rarely seen professional service firms use.

Downselling in Internet Marketing

We're all familiar with upselling and cross-selling. The downsell as used by internet marketers is where someone has declined your product or service offer (sometimes by simply clicking the close button on the web page) and you offer them an alternative product at a lower price.

The advantage of a downsell is that even if a customer doesn't buy the product you'd ideally like them to buy, they are at least buying something. That means you get some return for your sales effort. And since they're now a customer they will hopefully have a good experience with you and be much more likely to buy higher priced items in the future.

The problem with downsells is twofold.

First, they can be annoying. If you've pondered over a purchase and decided not to buy, it can be rather annoying to be held up and made another offer. And it might even seem desperate.
Secondly, they can encourage bad buying behaviour in future. If a customer comes to believe they will be made a “better offer” simply by saying no to the original offer, then they will always say no.

To counter the annoyance issue you need to make the downsell relatively pain free. Some marketers might argue that if you're going to lose a customer anyway, who cares about whether you annoy them. But in reality they may still be potential customers for the future, and they may also create bad publicity if they find the process very annoying.

To avoid encouraging bad buying behaviour, the downsell must not simply be a cheaper version of the original offer. It must be significantly different in some way which justifies the lower price.

For example, a common offer in internet marketing is a free DVD with training material on it. A downsell could be for cheaper, downloadable versions with no physical DVD.

Or it could be for less advanced training material that may be a better fit for the potential customer.

A good way to decide what the downsell should be is to survey customers to find out why they didn't by – what their main objections were. Was it price? Was the offer too simple? Or too complex? Are they actually more interested in a different area? Once you know the main objection you can offer a downsell which addresses it.

Downselling applied to Professional Services

In professional services we have the advantage that we're selling face to face – so there shouldn't really be a mismatch between what the client is looking for, and what we're offering.

But no one is perfect. Sometimes we offer a service that's more than the client was looking for. Sometimes it's just not quite focused in the right area. Sometimes they realise they just don't have the money to afford the service we're offering. And sometimes they're just not quite convinced we're right for them – they haven't seen us in action yet.

In these cases a downsell can sometimes help.

For example, if you've been discussing a consulting project with a client, and they decided not to go ahead – perhaps a downsell to a training course in the same area for some of their team would get them to bite. After doing a brilliant job with the training course, the consulting project may get put back on the agenda.

Perhaps you've proposed a major lead-time reduction programme across all the clients major factories – and it felt like too much to them. You might be able to downsell to a pilot in one factory.

When to Downsell

A downsell is most appropriate when you realise a client is not going to buy what you're currently offering. Don't introduce it too early – it may be you just need to work through some objections to confirm the original sale.

But if you know a client is not buying, then a downsell can work. It's best to visibly rewind the discussions. “John, it sounds like what I'm proposing doesn't fit well with what you're looking for. Do you mind if we backtrack a little and go back to some of the things you were saying about the problems you were having with your lead times?”. Then rework the problem and solution and introduce the downsell.

A downsell can also be introduced later. For example: if you ran a campaign to sell a 10 day analysis project to a qualified list of companies, try contacting the ones who turned you down a week later with an offer of a couple of places at a half day workshop you're running on the subject. It could be they were hoping to work with you – but just weren't yet convinced enough to justify the 10 day project. A half day workshop is much easier to buy – and may give them the confidence to hire you for the big piece.

In this case you must be careful and have a logical reason why you're proposing something new which you didn't throw into the original proposal.

For example, “John, we've had a number of clients express an interest in a half-day workshop on lead time reduction. It wasn't the right time to start up the analysis work together – but would you like to come along to the workshop?”

Creating downsells like this can reopen the dialogue with a client who may not have been ready to buy – but who may have been pretty close. Certainly closer to buying than a completely unqualified lead that you might be working on instead.

What's your experience?

Professional service firms often downscope an engagement if it's just too much for the client to buy. But wider downselling – particularly coming back later with a different offer – is a tactic I've not seen many firms use.

What's your experience been? Have you had successes or failures in this area. Please share in the comments below.

To read more about what professional service firms can learn from internet marketers (and get a free copy of my Referral Masterclass ebook), subscribe to the Outside In newsletter. Click here.

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Mindset

Is it better to be Truthful, or Interesting?

Posted by

Ian Brodie on February 13th, 2010.

I've just had a rather heated argument with someone on a Linkedin discussion group that's had the side benefit for me of clarifying what I feel is the “right” way for professionals to promote their businesses.

I'll summarise the background briefly:

The person in question posts regular articles on a Linkedin group I'm a member of. His posts are pretty much “best practice” from a copywriting perspective. The headlines are always controversial and intriguing – they always make you want to read the article. And the articles are well written, opinionated and again, controversial.

Essentially, he's differentiating himself through his writing. He's not bland – he has clear points of view that I'm sure attract a lot of readers.

Last week, however, he posted on a subject I know something about. The business value of Twitter.

In a post entitled “Twitter is for Twits” he opined on how Twitter was a complete waste of time for businesses.

This is where it became intriguing for me. His headline was effective – it got people to read the article. The article was well written and got across a clear point of view.

The trouble was, I know a lot about using Twitter to get new clients. Both from my own experience and from others who I've talked to in depth about how they've used twitter to win new business. And my experience was very different.

His position massively oversimplified reality. In my experience, Twitter can work well for some people, in some circumstances, and used in certain ways. It's not a simple black or white, good or bad situation. Just like any other business development or lead generation channel, it requires careful thought to figure out if it will work in your circumstances, and to figure out how best to use it.

I wasn't the first person to answer the post – someone else posted a really thoughtful reply full of examples of how twitter could bring value. I posted my experience. I explained that I had 50,000 followers so I had some experience in the matter – and I went on to describe both how I had won (at least) a couple of clients via twitter and how others had done so with rather fewer followers but using a strategy of building deep relationships with a small number of people.

A few days later I received a Linkedin direct message from the person saying he was going to make a second post effectively using me as an example of how twitter was a waste of time because I had only won two clients despite having 50,000 followers.

I replied saying that that would be misinterpreting the facts. I use twitter for 10-15 minutes per day – and not every day. Getting two clients (and probably more, as I can't track all the clients who initially found me via twitter) and a bunch of other side benefits for 10-15 minutes per day in my spare time when there's not much else I can do for business development is actually a pretty good ROI in my point of view. Especially since I'm really, really expensive so those clients are very high value.

I also explained that whether twitter would be a valuable investment for people was not a simple question and required thorough analysis, not a blanket answer. And that I typically advised clients not to try to build large followings, but to use twitter to help build deeper relationships with a small number of potential clients.

Today I noticed he had gone ahead and made a new post on the Linkedin group exactly as he'd said. He'd completely ignored all the information and explanation I'd sent him.

Instead he made up a spurious calculation of how many people I must have touched with tweets over a year and claimed that only getting two clients from that “captive audience” viewing my tweets was an awful ROI.

Now measuring success with twitter in terms of new clients per tweet is like measuring success in advertising in terms of new customers per reader of the publication you've advertised in. Never mind that the one customer you got spent $1m and the advertising was free. Apparently it must have been a bad ROI because number of new customers per reader was low!

What he did was in many ways good copywriting. He continued to have compelling headlines and interesting, controversial and well-written material in his post.

But it was bad, bad advice. Worse, he deliberately gave that bad advice despite knowing better.

I can forgive him the initial post. We all sometimes write on a subject we're not experts on but which we feel passionate about. And sometimes we're wrong.

But I gave him detailed information which he then ignored when writing the second post.

Knowingly writing misleading information just to make an impact is wrong.

It may attract more viewers. It may build your reputation. it may make you more popular with people who share similar viewpoints.

But it's wrong.

People reading it will make bad decisions as a result that will cost them significant time and money – or worse.

And that brings me to my point.

As someone who writes a lot, I'll admit to trying to construct intriguing or controversial headlines to get more clicks to my site or readers to my articles. I've even constructed headlines to try to help my ranking in google.

But as professionals our primary duty is to our clients. We must give them the very best advice we can – not just say what best promotes ourselves.

Now sure, I may not be right all the time. And my passion may get the better of me and cause me to write or say something when I'm not in full possession of the facts.

But it is our absolute duty as professionals not to twist or ignore information to best serve our own interests.

So it's most definitely best to be truthful.

Interesting gets more readers and more traffic. But truthful is the right thing to do.

And it allows me to sleep at night.

And I like to think that in the long term, it wins loyalty and trust.

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Selling

Are You Nurturing Your Seedlings?

Posted by

Ian Brodie on February 4th, 2010.

Nurturing Seedlings The analogy between gardening and growing client relationships is an obvious one. Here's an example of how it can go wrong.

The sad looking picture to the right is of my onion seedlings. You may just be able to pick out tiny flecks of green amongst the vermiculite. But there's not much left.

I like gardening. And the two things I grow the most are chile plants (because I love chillies) and onions (which I hate).

I grow onions out of a sense of duty, and a bit of obsession. Back in the North East of England where I'm from (and particularly in Ashington), onion growing is a big thing. Growing big onions (really, really big onions) is a source of huge pride amongst men. The World Leek and Onion Growing Championships were held in Ashington for 28 years with the heaviest onion regularly weighing in at over 14 pounds.

As someone who grew up there, but moved away, I feel that i ought to keep up a little bit of tradition.

So every year, I buy seeds of either Kelsae or Robinson's Giant onions. And I plant them very carefully in the best growing medium. And I keep them heated in a propagator in a greenhouse at just the right temperature. And I use artificial lights to augment the daylight to make sure they get all the sunlight they need. And I keep them perfectly watered with water kept at the same temperature as the seedlings so as not to shock them.

But this year, I just plain forgot them for a week.

It was freezing outside, and I had a ton of work on my plate and a load of things to think about.

So when I went to check up on them earlier today, most of the seedlings had withered and died.

All my perfect preparation, the ideal conditions, my fancy equipment: all counted for nothing. They had no water – so they died.

And so it is when you're nurturing client relationships.

It doesn't matter how well you start the relationship. It doesn't matter if you give it the perfect conditions early on. It doesn't matter if you took them out to the fanciest restaurant or sent them the most insightful article ever. If you leave the relationship too long without “watering it” – it'll die.

And I'll now have to beg for a bunch of seedlings from my uncle who still lives in Ashington, and who will no-doubt gloat at my idiocy.

———-
So how about you? Have you got a gardening-related client relationship or business development story? Post it in the comment box below. Thanks!

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Strategy

How to Use Linkedin to win new business: poll results

Posted by

Ian Brodie on January 28th, 2010.

My latest tips on building a Client Winning Profile for Linkedin are now on a free, short video – click here to watch it.

As you might know, as (apparently!) a Linkedin Expert, I've been asked by Cisco Webex and Linkedin to do occasional blog posts related to the European Business Awards they're running.

One thing I was interested in finding out was how people were using Linkedin to win new business. Many people, myself included (in this article on Linkedin tips for professionals), have written on the topic and given ideas and recommendations based on our own experiences and private research.

But I wanted to know how this was playing out in practice.

Never mind the theory, how are people actually winning business via Linkedin in the real world?

Webex were kind enough to run a poll for me in the Business Awards group asking people what they'd found to be the best way of winning new business via Linkedin.

We had 256 respondents. Of course, the results have an inbuilt bias as they're not from the full Linkedin population, but from those who have participated in the Business Awards group. But they certainly give a good picture of the different ways people are actually using Linkedin effectively.

The Results: Just How Are People Using Linkedin to Win New Business?

The poll question asked was “What has been the best way you've found to win new business using Linkedin?”. Like all Linkedin polls, respondents were allowed to pick one answer only.

First up: Overall results from all respondents

That “Finding new connections” came out in 1st place is no surprise. The way Linkedin works makes it ideal for connecting with friends of friends. And that's been the main focus of most of the advice given about how to get new clients through Linkedin: using search and asking other to refer you.

But what was a surprise for me was that “Reconnecting with old contacts” was only just a few percentage points behind it in 2nd place. Remember, the question wasn't just about how you use Linkedin generally or for fun – it asked respondents about the best way they'd found to win new business. And nearly 30% of respondents were primarily getting new business from reaching out to old contacts they'd lost touch with.

When you think about it, this makes sense. Our old contacts (in the main) already know and trust us – whereas new connections don't. And the obvious initial question “what are you doing now?” can lead to interesting follow-ups: “oh really, funny you should say that, we were looking for someone to…” or “actually, I know someone who is on the lookout for…”. Although this is not something that's happened to me personally, a number of people I've spoken to have said this has worked well for them. the contacts they've reconnected with have often been in a position to pass on work to them.

Linkedin's pretty good at recommending names to reconnect with. And the more old contacts you connect with, the more it seems to recommend other, similar contacts.

So perhaps my biggest recommendation emerging from this survey is that if you want to use Linkedin to win new business, don't just focus on trying to find new connections: look at re-establishing contact with some of your old colleagues and clients.

Results by Company Size

There weren't really many differences between responses of different levels of seniority of respondents. But where there was an interesting difference was when you look at the results by company size.

You can see here a clear difference in the response of medium sized firms.

There were a significant number of responses from these firms (44), yet none of them found either contributing to discussions or deepending relationships to be good uses of Linkedin to win new business.

It's difficult to make a lot of sense of these results. Perhaps medium firms are less specialist than small ones – and hence don't get value from sharing their expertise in discussions. But then why would large firms and corporates firms see value in it?

Without knowing the answer, what is clear is that few medium sized firms have found value in this. Yet it's often a strategy recommended by experts in Linkedin.

My own experience is that I'd be wary of investing a lot of time in using Linkedin discussions (either in groups or the Q&A section) to try to win new business. Yes, you can establish yourself as an expert. But I've known many people invest a lot of time into building this expert status who've yet to see any work as a result from it. Not that no one has – but it does seem very hit and miss and difficult to predict in advance if it's going to pay off.

Results by Gender of Respondent: Stereotypes confirmed?

This is another area with markedly different results by group.

Firstly, there were a lot more men answering the poll than women: 192 to 64.

But more interestingly, the big difference is that for men, the strategy they report as being the most effective at winning new business by far is finding new contacts. For women it's a much more balanced picture. They get new business by reconnecting with old contacts more than men. They get business by deeping relationship with existing contacts more than men. And they get business by having their profile found more than men. In short, it plays right in to the stereotype of men as aggressive hunter gatherers – going out and looking for new business. While women spend more time nurturing old and existing relationships to win business.

Now this may be because we're playing to our stereotypes and if we tried alternative approaches we'd have success. Or it may be that women really are better at ‘relationship stuff” than men (I'm sure a woman wouldn't call it “relationship stuff” either). Either way, it's worth testing further.

What Does it Mean?

The main thing I've learned from this is to challenge my own assumptions. I've written quite a bit on Linkedin, discussed experiences with many people, and read widely. But it was still a surprise to me to find out how many people were using the “reconnection” strategy so effectively, or the differences between medium sized businesses and others, or the differences between the experiences of men and women.

In future I'm going to be a little more wary of assuming that because a certain strategy has worked well for me that it's the best one for others.

And, of course, I'm going to start reconnecting…

So that's my interpretation of the results? What do you think? Hit the Comments below to share – it's much appreciated.

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