If you ask any sales leader what they need the sales team to transform into over the next six months, the answer will probably be: better prospectors.

B2B Sales prospecting is not an easy task. In a market paradigm that has shifted dramatically in recent years, where increased competition makes it more and more difficult to stand out from the crowd, it can be downright tough to grab the attention of B2B buyers.

Prospecting for a hot new product isn't the problem. A direct, targeted approach can create demand for a new product that fills a gap in the market and keep the sales funnel full. How do you proceed after the low hanging fruit has been picked and you've eliminated the knowledgeable, proactive buyers?

How about when the competition catches up?

To maintain revenues, the executive suite will still demand action, so new prospecting skills and mindsets will be required.

Prospect Like a Boss

Now let's cut to the chase and show you four very simple but unknown Linkedin prospecting tactics that will help you prospect like a boss.

Get Access To Your Company’s Linkedin Page

That's right, you heard me correctly. Sales should also have access to the company's Linkedin account, not just the Marketing team.  

You don’t need to have admin access, but at least request a “Curator” or an “Analyst” level permissions to your company’s Linkedin page.

The reason why you need access to your company’s Linkedin page is because it will allow you to see all the people who follow the page. 

These are people who are interested in your company, and want to keep a close eye on it. Of course, I am not referring to just about anyone, but all the job titles that are part of your sales target segments. 

This is what you will see when you have permissions to the company’s Linkedin page -

This is a perfect audience with the right brand awareness to connect with them. Take advantage of this goldmine and connect as many people as you can. 

By the way, the biggest growth for followers on any company’s Linkedin page comes from paid advertising, the beauty of paid advertising is - those ads are very targeted so the people who end up following the company page are most likely to be your target audience.

If your marketing team is running paid advertising on Linkedin, getting the right permissions to the company’s Linkedin page is a MUST!

Get Direct Links To All Your Linkedin Ads

To maximize your paid marketing spends, this is the number one tactic, which sales and marketing teams should practice every day.

Paid ads on Linkedin allow your marketing team to target your buyers at the best possible level. This means that outside of the people who convert to the ads, there will be a set of people who engage with those ads. 

The engagement on Linkedin Ads is very much similar to how you see on any post on the Linkedin platform: Reactions, Comments, Likes, etc. If you as a Sales representative have a direct link to those ads, you will have direct access to people who engaged with your company’s content (ads).

Even though there is not a marketing conversion, but from a prospecting perspective, this is a great opportunity for you to connect with the person and have a personal conversion. Now tell me, isn't that awesome?

Check Out What Your Competition is Advertising

Reviewing what your competition is advertising is a great way of refining your own pitch. So, this simple tactic is about checking what paid advertising the competition running on Linkedin. 

You can visit your competitor’s Linkedin page, and click “Posts”. After you click the “Posts”, click on the option that is labeled: “Ads”. 

And that’s it!!

Now you are seeing all the paid ads run by the competitor.

Steal From Your Competition

Can you recall a time when you visited a website and then saw their ads all over social media?

Thanks to ad-tech, it’s called retargeting. 

Linkedin is also capable of retargeting people who engage with links on its platform. So, if your competitor is running paid advertising, which you can check by following the instructions I mentioned above, go ahead and click a few ads that take you to their website. 

You will notice within a day or two, your competition is showing you ads on Linkedin. This happens 90% of the time. 

Now you could see the people who are engaging in your competitor’s ads on Linkedin. You will now have free access to connect with any of them. 

This is like a masterstroke where your competition is spending money on those paid ads, and targeting your buyer, but you are taking advantage of engagement on their ads, and widening your prospecting net. 

I call that a genius move, don’t you agree?

Well that’s it for this quick post. I hope you found it useful, if you did, please share with your networks, and get me some new email subscribers :)

Cheers!