I\u2019ll explain how you can find prospects on LinkedIn<\/a> and build authentic <\/b>relationships with them. I\u2019ll also highlight four excellent tools<\/a> that can amp up your LinkedIn sales prospecting efforts.<\/p>\n (Click on links to jump to specific sections.)<\/em><\/p>\n Let\u2019s begin.<\/p>\n LinkedIn <\/b>prospecting<\/b> is a form of prospecting<\/a> that focuses on identifying your ideal clients on LinkedIn and building authentic relationships with them. You sift through LinkedIn to uncover sales leads<\/b><\/a> who can benefit from your offerings and then try to convert them into customers.<\/p>\n Think of it this way:<\/p>\n LinkedIn prospecting is like cold calling, only it\u2019s <\/b>much less<\/i><\/b> intrusive and a <\/b>lot more<\/i><\/b> effective.<\/b><\/p>\n With over 810 million users<\/b> worldwide, LinkedIn is a gold mine of B2C and B2B buyers.<\/p>\n And since it\u2019s a professional<\/b> network, people mostly use LinkedIn to build their network and nurture professional relationships<\/b>.<\/p>\n This makes it an appropriate setting for a sales professional to send out a connection request or an InMail message to a potential client you\u2019re not<\/i> familiar with to discuss your solutions.<\/p>\n However, just because you can connect with people you don\u2019t know doesn\u2019t mean that you should reach out to hundreds of people at once<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n Now, back to why LinkedIn is so helpful.<\/p>\n LinkedIn is perfect for sales prospecting since it helps you:<\/p>\n Check out my <\/i><\/b>ultimate guide to prospecting<\/i><\/b><\/a> for more information about why prospecting is so helpful.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n Here are the steps involved in LinkedIn prospecting:<\/p>\n Before you can start prospecting on LinkedIn, you\u2019ll first need to define <\/b>what a good-fit lead is.<\/p>\n A good-fit lead is someone who can benefit from your product or service and can offer long-term value to your company.<\/p>\n Creating an ideal customer profile and detailed buyer personas can help you identify a good-fit lead:<\/p>\n When used together, the ideal customer profile and buyer personas help a sales professional narrow down prospective buyers based on their:<\/p>\n Using your customer profile and buyer personas, pick out contacts who are most likely<\/b> to become your customers \u2014 a.k.a. your prospects.<\/p>\n To find such contacts, you can use various LinkedIn outreach and discovery features like:<\/p>\n After identifying a prospect, it\u2019s time to make it to their LinkedIn inbox. (Or, even better, reach them in a multichannel fashion both on LinkedIn and via cold email.)<\/p>\n For this, you\u2019ll need an effective cold outreach strategy<\/strong> that answers critical questions like:<\/p>\n Send personalized messages<\/a> to your LinkedIn prospects to see if they\u2019re interested in learning more about your product or service offerings.<\/p>\n Once you\u2019ve had a few conversations with them and established a rapport, it could be time to move your conversations out of LinkedIn<\/a>. This way, you can ensure that your outreach efforts eventually end in sales.<\/p>\n Now that you know what the prospecting process involves, how do you go about finding these LinkedIn prospects?<\/i><\/p>\n Finding prospects on LinkedIn isn\u2019t complicated if you know where and how to look<\/b>.<\/a><\/p>\n You can use the following techniques to discover a new prospect on LinkedIn:<\/p>\n LinkedIn has a powerful built-in search engine<\/b> that lets you zero-in on promising businesses and individuals. This way, you can quickly find prospects who are a good fit for your business.<\/p>\n After you perform a search on LinkedIn, you can filter<\/b> the results based on:<\/p>\n Filtering helps you find qualified prospects (that fit your ideal customer profile and buyer persona) who are more likely<\/b> to convert, letting you focus your efforts on them.<\/a><\/p>\n Additionally, with a LinkedIn Premium account, you also get to filter search results according to company size, groups, seniority level, and so on.<\/p>\n After you’ve found good prospects, it’s best to get them into a Google Sheet. Check out our section on tools<\/a> later in this article where we cover how to do so using Magical.<\/em><\/p>\n Another way to uncover potential customers is by joining different LinkedIn Groups<\/b>.<\/p>\n Relevant groups contain professionals who might be a good fit for your business and share common interests.<\/p>\n However, when joining groups, choose less populated ones<\/p>\n Why?<\/i><\/p>\n In an over-populated LinkedIn group, it\u2019s challenging to stand out and be perceived as an expert in your industry or niche.<\/p>\n Bonus Tip: <\/i><\/b>To find prospects on a <\/i>LinkedIn group<\/i> easily,<\/i> publish <\/i>relevant content<\/i> in the group on a <\/i>consistent basis<\/i>. This way, you can identify <\/i>potential customers<\/i> based on how group members interact with your <\/i>posts<\/i>.<\/i><\/p>\n An invaluable tactic to find LinkedIn prospects is by using the \u201cPeople also viewed\u201d list<\/b>.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a column on the right side of a LinkedIn profile you\u2019re viewing.<\/p>\n The list features profiles that:<\/p>\n Essentially, it contains people with traits that are similar to the prospect you\u2019re viewing \u2014 people who are also likely to fit<\/b> your buyer personas.<\/p>\n But that\u2019s not all.<\/p>\n The \u201cPeople also viewed\u201d list provides insights into a prospect\u2019s network. It helps you identify the people who could influence<\/b> the prospect\u2019s decision-making process.<\/p>\n You can also find quality prospects by going through the LinkedIn network<\/b> of a sales rep or sales leader in a competitor\u2019s<\/b> company.<\/p>\n A competitor’s salesperson might be connected with people who qualify as a good-fit prospect for your company. Besides, selling your solution to a competitor\u2019s customer<\/b> is much easier than identifying people who are unfamiliar with your product or service type.<\/b><\/p>\n If you can convince a competitor\u2019s customer that your solution is a better alternative, you might have gotten yourself a customer and potentially poached one away from them.<\/p>\n Note: <\/i><\/b>This approach doesn\u2019t work if a competitor has hidden their connections on their <\/i>LinkedIn profile<\/i>.<\/i><\/p>\n You can leverage Google\u2019s Boolean search capability to find prospect profiles on LinkedIn. Here, you type keywords related to your prospects into the Google search bar with some operators to discover LinkedIn profiles that match some of your criteria.<\/p>\n It involves using Boolean operators or modifiers like AND, OR, <\/b>quotation marks, and more<\/b> to narrow your search for LinkedIn prospects.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a brief look at how each operator works:<\/p>\n All you have to do next is go to the Google search bar and type site:linkedin.com\/in <\/b>and combine your keywords with the operators to discover LinkedIn profiles to pursue.<\/p>\n For example:<\/p>\n Now that you know how to<\/i> find<\/i><\/b> LinkedIn prospects, how do you build relationships with them?<\/i><\/p>\n After identifying your prospects, the LinkedIn outreach stage of your prospecting strategy begins.<\/p>\n Although your end goal as a salesperson is to close a deal, never <\/b>start your conversation with a sales pitch or demo offer. If you do that, your prospects will get the feeling that you\u2019re just here to push a sale and don\u2019t really care about their goals and challenges.<\/p>\n Instead, use this stage to get to know your potential client better.<\/p>\n Find out how you\u2019re uniquely positioned<\/b> to help a target prospect overcome their challenges and achieve their goals. Your goal must be to build a genuine relationship that continuously adds value to a potential client.<\/p>\n Here are some ways in which you can build and nurture relationships with your ideal prospect effectively:<\/p>\n The objective here is to find a new prospect who\u2019s in the awareness<\/b> stage of their buyer\u2019s journey<\/a>.<\/p>\n What\u2019s that?<\/b><\/p>\n In this early stage, the potential prospect is aware that they have a challenge that needs to be addressed to achieve their goals.<\/p>\n You can try out these tactics to connect and engage with qualified prospects:<\/p>\n The best<\/b> way to build rapport and trust with your LinkedIn prospect list is to provide value<\/b>.<\/p>\n For this, you can create and publish helpful content related to your industry or niche like:<\/p>\n Once you\u2019ve created value-added content, feel free to share it with your prospect list directly or in a relevant LinkedIn group.<\/p>\n If you have a hard time coming up with original content ideas, that\u2019s okay.<\/p>\n You can share<\/b> posts created by other<\/b> business professionals or thought leaders and then credit <\/b>them by tagging their names. Doing so offers the additional benefit of potentially building relationships with influential industry leaders.<\/p>\n Additionally, you can offer some free <\/b>insights that your current connections and followers might benefit from \u2014 like pointers to improve their social media traffic, tips and tactics for better negotiation, and so on.<\/p>\n The goal here is simple: you want to stay on top of their minds<\/b>.<\/p>\n This way, when an ideal prospect faces a difficulty specific to your industry or niche, they\u2019re likely to approach you for guidance, and you can use this opportunity to help them explore your offerings.<\/p>\n Many sales reps use LinkedIn Messaging to send generic<\/b> messages to their prospect list. For example, \u201cI\u2019d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n Such generic messages aren\u2019t built for engagement and can affect your company\u2019s reputation.<\/p>\n When reaching out to someone on LinkedIn, always<\/b> personalize your messages.<\/p>\n I\u2019d recommend that you go the extra mile in learning as much as you can about a new prospect. You can go through their LinkedIn profile, check their company\u2019s press releases or blogs, and other public sources to find info.<\/p>\n Next, leverage this info to craft personalized LinkedIn messaging that:<\/p>\n Your prospects would appreciate that you took the time to learn more about them and created a message tailored<\/b> to their specific interests \u2014 ultimately increasing your chances for conversion.<\/p>\n When your prospects hint that they\u2019re interested in exploring your solutions, it\u2019s time to move your conversations out of<\/b> LinkedIn.<\/p>\n Why?<\/i><\/p>\n LinkedIn is a social media platform like Facebook and Twitter. This means that it too can get bogged down by unproductive discussions that distract your prospects.<\/p>\n So it\u2019s best to move your conversations to a more focused channel like email<\/b>.<\/p>\n Emails are a great medium to nurture an ideal prospect and amp up your sales conversion rates.<\/p>\n Fortunately, nurturing prospects through email is easy with GMass<\/b><\/a>.<\/p>\n What\u2019s GMass?<\/b><\/p>\n GMass is an email <\/b>outreach<\/b> and <\/b>marketing<\/b> automation <\/b>tool<\/b> that\u2019s perfect for approaching and engaging with prospects.<\/p>\n Its ease of use has made it a popular tool used by employees in tech giants like Google and Uber and even those working at large social media companies like LinkedIn<\/b> itself!<\/p>\n Moreover, GMass is also perfect for small businesses, solopreneurs, consultants, and more.<\/p>\n And the best part?<\/p>\n GMass works completely inside Gmail<\/b>, so you don\u2019t have to worry about getting familiarized with a new tool.<\/p>\n GMass lets you:<\/p>\n 1. Automatically personalize<\/b><\/a> the paragraphs<\/a>, links<\/a>, and images<\/a> in your emails to create messages that feel tailor-made in no time.<\/p>\n 2. Send out automated follow-up <\/b>emails<\/b><\/a> to your prospects until they open, reply, or click on a link inside.<\/p>\n 3. Evaluate your email deliverability through detailed analytics reports<\/b><\/a> generated in your Gmail inbox.<\/p>\n 4. Schedule bulk <\/b>emails<\/b><\/a> to go out at optimal times, so they reach your leads when they\u2019re most likely to engage.<\/p>\n 5. Send out behavior-based campaigns<\/b><\/a> that build on how a potential prospect responded to your older outbound sales emails.<\/p>\n To start engaging your LinkedIn prospects through GMass, simply download the Chrome extension<\/b><\/a> and sign up for free<\/b> with your Gmail account.<\/p>\n You can also use some LinkedIn-specific prospecting tools<\/a> that help you automate and streamline your prospecting process:<\/p>\n To simplify your efforts, I\u2019ve rounded up four excellent <\/b>sales prospecting<\/b> tools <\/b>designed specifically for LinkedIn:<\/p>\n LinkedIn Sales Navigator<\/b><\/a> is a prospecting tool from LinkedIn that helps you find B2C or B2B buyers for your product or service. Its lead generation and cold outreach capabilities make it the perfect tool to support your LinkedIn prospecting strategy and streamline your sales process.<\/p>\n LinkedIn Sales Navigator has three<\/b> pricing plans:<\/p>\n Magical<\/a> is a free productivity app that helps sales professionals speed up repetitive tasks like prospecting, messaging, or data entry as they work. No integrations, APIs, or magic wands required.<\/p>\n It’s really useful for a number of LinkedIn prospecting tasks. Here’s how you can incorporate Magical into your workflow:<\/p>\n Just open up LinkedIn profiles in different tabs, open Magical, and the app will automatically scrape all the info you need from those pages into a Google Sheet. You can then keep track of your prospecting efforts \u2014 or use that Google Sheet to directly begin a new GMass email outreach campaign.<\/p>\n You can save your outreach messages as templates in Magical, then “expand” them when you send connection request messages on LinkedIn. Magical can automatically fill them in with prospects’ info like first name, company name, job title, and more.<\/p>\n You can use Magical’s AI to write your messages (or at least your first drafts) on LinkedIn, in email, and anywhere else.<\/p>\nLinkedIn Prospecting: Table of Contents<\/h2>\n
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What is LinkedIn Prospecting?<\/h2>\n
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<\/p>\nWhy LinkedIn Prospecting Matters<\/h3>\n
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<\/a>What are the Steps Involved in LinkedIn Prospecting?<\/h3>\n
A. Develop a Customer Profile and Buyer Personas<\/h4>\n
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B. Discover Potential Customers on LinkedIn<\/h4>\n
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C. Structure Your LinkedIn Outreach Campaign<\/h4>\n
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D. Reaching Out to Your LinkedIn Prospects<\/h4>\n
5 Techniques You Can Use to Find LinkedIn Prospects<\/h2>\n
1. Leverage the Power of LinkedIn Search<\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\n2. Join Relevant Groups<\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\n3. Go Through the Similar Profiles People Have Viewed<\/h3>\n
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4. Sift through Competitor Networks<\/h3>\n
5. Make Use of Google Boolean Search<\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\nHow to Build Relationships and Nurture Your LinkedIn Prospects<\/h2>\n
1. Connect and Engage with Prospects on LinkedIn<\/h3>\n
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2. Provide Value to Your Prospects<\/h3>\n
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3. Personalize Your Outreach Messages<\/h3>\n
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4. Move Your Conversations Out of LinkedIn<\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\nTop 4 Tools for LinkedIn Prospecting<\/h2>\n
1. LinkedIn Sales Navigator<\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\nLinkedIn Sales Navigator Key Features<\/h4>\n
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LinkedIn Sales Navigator Pricing<\/h4>\n
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LinkedIn Sales Navigator Ratings<\/h4>\n
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2. Magical<\/h3>\n
Move LinkedIn prospects to Google Sheets in a few clicks<\/h4>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/magical-transfers-optimized.gif\"){kind=spacer}
<\/a><\/p>\nSave your personalized outreach message templates on LinkedIn<\/h4>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/magical-personalize-optimized.gif\")
<\/a><\/p>\nUse AI to help write messages on the fly<\/h4>\n
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