How To Generate Leads From LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the professional networking platform which allows you to manage your professional identity whilst building and engaging with your relevant network.

When used correctly it has a huge potential to generate a possible 6 – 8 soft leads for your business weekly! We attended an online webinar to learn a few of these tricks and hopefully you will benefit from them as well.

The foundations covered were:

  1. Fully optimising your profile
  2. Understanding who your ideal customer is – decision maker of the company, find their job title, definition of who you want to be in business with
  3. Set time aside daily for prospecting

Personal profile


Firstly ensure your personal profile is optimised correctly and looks visually appealing to potential customers. It is important that it is your personal profile and not a company profile – people buy from people! Therefore in your profile image always use a photo of yourself rather than a logo. You can make this stand out even more by adding a red circle around your photo using the website www.canva.com. Simply upload your photo, go to elements and select a hollow circle, change the colour to red or any other colour you would like and download. You can now update your profile photo and it will immediately stand out against your competitors. Also ensure you have upload an image relating to your product or service in the banner image.

In the header text just below your name this is where your job title would go. This doesn’t mean anything to anyone! Instead start with a key word – describe what you do. This will allow your profile to appear more frequently. This should be followed by a one line statement with the benefit your service will provide to the potential customer.

Summary section – this is not a list of your skills, you are not aiming to attract interviews. Instead list your company’s services and explain what the benefits and features are using bullet points. Don’t be afraid to use emoji’s! This area only allows for text so to make it look more interesting incorporate appropriate emoji’s to add a pop of colour. Go to www.emoji.com to find any emoji possible!

At the end ask ‘How can I help you?’ And add a call to action, where this is a link to your website or your email address.

How to spy on your competitors?

This is useful as you want to see what your competitors are doing, but you don’t always want to draw their attention to your profile. Review their profile, what posts are they uploading, comments they are making, their activities – should you be doing the same?

If you go to your profile, account and then privacy settings, select ‘how others see your LinkedIn activity, you can select private mode. It will then just say anonymous LinkedIn member every time you view a competitor.

Remember to change back however when you are contacting potential customers!

Expert Positioning

Your aim on LinkedIn is to position yourself as an expert within your field. Good, relevant content is key

Post relevant, popular content which your followers will be interested in. Try BuzzSumo.com – this is a search engine for popular content. It is a paid service but you can use it for free for a 30 day trial. It is the quickest and easiest way to discover the most popular content being shared in your industry. You can share this content and add your own opinion.

Share your knowledge and expertise through hints and tips

Showcase case studies, testimonials and results from your services

Ask questions to start a debate – on the topic of your expertise.

You should really aim to post daily on LinkedIn, if this isn’t possible at the very minimum weekly.

Timewise inside business hours and preferably around lunch time.

Profile Growth – How do we get more people to your profile?

Find and add previous / current clients

Add future clients (those in the pipeline)

People you meet networking or professionally

Import contacts from outlook / Hotmail address book – Go to ‘My network’. Your contact import is ready on left hand side – continue – all of email contacts from entire address book.

If you don’t have your contacts list ready to import – click on more options then type in your work email address or use of the icons accounts

The LinkedIn Prospecting System – How do you find clients?

This is a three step process that must be repeated.

  1. Search for your ideal client – who do you want to do business with?
  2. Connect with them – send a connection request with a message
  3. Send a follow up sale message

Then repeat.

To search for your ideal client understand what the job title is of the decision maker you want to sell to and their location

Search the job select and select people. You are looking for specific individuals.

Step 1 – Use the filters at the top to make it more specific. I.e. locations. Click all filters, and you can look for a particular company. Hone in on specific people. Search industries. Then Apply

Step 2 – Connect with them. Don’t ‘send now’, always add a note – and include a personal message. You can copy and paste a pre written template. However ensure to include their name, twice! This makes the message more personable, and at this stage you do not want to come across as a sales pitch.

For example –

Hi NAME,

Hope all is well?

I’m currently looking at growing my professional network, and came across your profile.

Anyway, I thought it would be beneficial for us to connect?

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Thanks NAME,
Your name

Copy and paste this message, just changing the name each time. Aim to send 5 – 10 of these messages each day, you will however notice that with the free LinkedIn profile there is a monthly limit. You can upgrade to the paid premium profile if you want to contact more people each month.

Step 3 – The follow up message. Send a private one to one direct sales message pitching what you sell. Here are two examples –

Follow Up Sales Template 1

Hi NAME,

Thank you for accepting my recent connection request, I hope you’re well?

Just a quick follow up message to introduce XYZ Ltd.

We help TARGET MARKET achieve BENEFIT, through FEATURE.

If this may be something you’re interested in, I can send over further info?

Thanks NAME,
Your name

Follow Up Sales Template 2

Hi NAME, thanks for connecting!

Just a quick introduction… I / WE specialise in BENEFIT, through FEATURE.

For example, RECENT TESTIMONIAL.

Would this be of interest? Let me know, and I’ll send further details over 🙂

Thanks NAME,
Your name

Rules of Thumb

Be friendly, conversational and personal, remember its 1-2-1

Try not to be overly salesy

Be relaxed, not overly dominating

Communicate the benefits more than the features of your service or product

Have a soft call to action – don’t nail them down, ask them if they are free at any point, do at their pace not yours

Good luck!

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