I work with business professionals in sales nearly every day. I am one of those weirdos who loves sales. Most don’t, so I get to really be of help when I share ideas. My favorite part of sales is the hunt (and then of course the close!). I oftentimes ask sales people how many “at bats” they are getting per month from LinkedIn. Most the time I hear the answer: zero. This blows my mind. LinkedIn is the largest social professional platform. There are more than 500 million users. Over half of the users trust the tool for decision making. So, if you are a professional today, please use LinkedIn to connect and stay relevant. If you are in sales or have a sales role of any kind, I challenge you to learn how to use your (free) account. Even if you have the basic account, there is no reason that you should not have at least 2 (right fit) meetings per month sourced by LinkedIn.
I have a couple tips for you:
- Make sure that your profile represents you well, especially your Professional Headline and Summary (and of course headshot).
- Learn how to use advanced search and save searches that are exciting for you.
- Schedule block time for LinkedIn (at least two times per week for 15 minutes). Write inbox scripts that you can use over and over, in effort to help you get right fit appointments.
If you want my help, reach out on LinkedIn to Nikki Lewallen.
Guest Post by Nikki Lewallen
Nikki Lewallen is an accomplished business development professional, speaker and philanthropist. As CEO of Rainmakers, Nikki supports the Indiana business community by providing a platform for authentic business growth. A natural connector of people, Nikki’s expertise in business development enables her to find and nurture strategic relationships that result in meaningful business outcomes. Under her leadership, Rainmakers is one of the premiere business networking organizations in Indianapolis and serves an average of 1200 members per year.
As reflected in her leadership style, Nikki is an avid proponent of robust company culture. She believes that for people to succeed in business and life, it is necessary for them to love what they do. It is this passion for employee engagement that led Nikki to join Emplify, a company devoted to helping millions of people find meaning in their work. Nikki works nationally alongside CEOs, Presidents and key executives to build employee engagement strategy by partnering with their human capital consultants.
Nikki is the show host for Gut + Science, a podcast that convenes key leaders across the nation to solve innovate on the talent hurdles of today’s world. Guests vary from CEOs of enterprise organizations to key executives of purpose led small businesses. The idea of Gut + Science is to learn the best HR tools and strategies that have proven results (and what doesn’t work).
Nikki holds a variety of non profit board positions around Indianapolis including the Indianapolis Rotary and Purposeful Living INC. She believes that the work we do on earth to produce abundance fuels the causes nearest and dearest to our hearts.
