Purposeful Business Development

Upskilling technical specialists in purposeful business growth

Tom Watkin standing in front of blue sea container
Business development is a core skill for every technical professional.  I prepare you in the foundation of consistent and purposeful work winning.

Download my free guide to learn the fundamentals.

LinkedIn

Unlock the 3 P’s of LinkedIn Mastery

By Tom on

There is no doubt that the best, free tool for business development (B2B) is LinkedIn. Finding and engaging with contacts while creating touchpoints for your customers is deceivingly easy. However, gaining LinkedIn mastery takes a bit of thought and process.

Get Started in Business Development: Get Your Guide

LinkedIn Mastery

Last year I filmed this LinkedIn masterclass as an addition to my upcoming online course. But I thought it was worth sharing with you, my readers as free content.

The premise of the masterclass revolves around the 3 P’s of LinkedIn.

  • Profile
  • Propagate
  • Promote

A simple yet effective way to achieve LinkedIn Mastery.

As always I’d love to hear your thoughts. Reach out in the usual way.

LinkedIn Mastery

If you want to get a head start on systemizing your business development download my guide below. It contains all the key elements you need to get your customer facing activity on point, right now.

If you’re asking what is business development? My definition can be found here.

If you want to give your team the tools they need to create consistency and repeatability in their work winning, I can help. For a simple framework to base your business development activity around I recommend checking out my new book Business Development Begins Here. You can Order on Amazon now.

Available for Pre-order now!

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If you want a more proactive and personal approach to your business development I am available to help. Through face to face video calls I’ll set you on the right path and keep you accountable to future activity. I currently have space on my 1on1 personalized coaching program and my flagship course Business Development Academy. To learn more click the button below.

Coaching for Revenue Growth

Simple LinkedIn Marketing in Three Easy Stages (part 3)

By Tom on

Welcome to my third post discussing a simple LinkedIn marketing system. The last two posts explored Profile and Propagate, if you haven’t read them yet I suggest having a quick look before reading further. Now it’s time to look at promoting your business on the platform.

Promote: the Third P of LinkedIn Marketing

Each time someone connects with you or views your profile it can be considered a touch point for your brand. Developing your burgeoning network and providing further touch points around your brand and company offering, is an efficient way to begin sourcing leads. You can do this in two simple ways by:

  • engaging with accepted connections
  • posting value-add material.
Systematically engage with your connections

Engaging with Connections

If someone accepts your invitation to connect, it indicates that they have some interest in what you have to offer. Developing a simple conversation script that generates further touch points is a quick method to uncovering leads. A simple script, where you only move down the process following a response from the contact, might look like the following:

1. Hi, Thanks for connecting, Regards, Chris.

Customer response: No problem. My pleasure.

2. How are you finding the market at the moment, keeping busy?

Customer:  Pretty busy at the moment.

3. We’re pretty steady at the moment. How do you manage your contaminated land issues?

Customer response: We manage it well at the moment, but could do with some extra field staff.

4. If you need any advice on contaminated land investigations, feel free to give me a call.

Making the messages short keeps things to the point and incites a reply. No one wants to read long boring messages on the platform. While each response is tailored to each of the Lead’s reactions, a simple script like this can maintain consistent messaging and speed up interaction times.

Regularly posting content helps generate interest in your brand

Posting Value-Add Content

Regular posting on LinkedIn for your target audience is another simple way to keep your company offering front of mind. These posts should not be sales focused but rather adding value through teaching, providing new information or looking at things from a different perspective. Use this opportunity to cement your position as a specialist within the industry or niche.

Relevant posts centred on your offering form valuable touch points that get your customer base thinking about what you do and not what you sell. This is a small but significant difference in gaining the trust of the buyer. Consistently posting two posts a week is enough to start gaining traction and leads. Don’t forget that results won’t happen overnight, consistent action is a must to achieving growth.

Donald Millers StoryBrand can really help with your messaging

Messaging

If you are not sure how to message your offering appropriately, I’d advise reading Donald Miller’s book, Building a Story Brand (Miller 2018), and following his methodology to define your customer, cementing yourself as a guide and mentor around the problem you are helping them solve.

Reading the book and completing the Story Brand Script will set you in the right direction. It recommends putting the customer at the centre of the messaging not yourself. Posts should be about how you make the customer the Hero and what their world will look like with you guiding them. Do not post about how great you are as a business, people aren’t interested in that.

Consistency

Being consistent in adding connections and posting within LinkedIn will yield leads. It is crucial that when someone shows interest in your offering, you respond quickly. Make sure to take the conversation off LinkedIn as quickly as possible. Transfer to email first and face-to-face once the lead is qualified as an opportunity. The discussion should form part of your systems and not be held within a third-party platform.

Final Thoughts

This ends the final part of my series on simple LinkedIn marketing. I think you will agree that getting your company brand recognised on this platform is actually pretty straightforward. Put some time aside this week to revisit your LinkedIn strategy and let me know how you go.

Download my business development LinkedIn Mastery Road Map, Business Development Checklist and other free resources from the link below.

If you need help with your business development, spaces are available on my personalised coaching program. This a one on one service will let us do a deep dive into your business development planning, market assessment and daily activity. I’ll personally keep you focused and accountable.

Simple LinkedIn Marketing in Three Easy Stages (Part 2)

By Tom on

In my last post we looked at the Three Ps of LinkedIn marketing and discussed ways to get your Profile in to shape. This week we will look at the second P: Propagate. That is developing a network of connections who are interest in the services you offer.

Three Degrees of LinkedIn

Now that your profile really highlights your offering and can act as an interesting landing page, it is time to start making relevant connections. LinkedIn has three degrees of connection shown in the figure below.

Three Degrees of LinkedIn Connection

These are described as follows:

First-degree connection: Contacts that have connected to you. You either know these people directly or have something in common. Preferably industry and geography.

Second degree connection: Contacts who are connected to your first degree connections. Generally, you don’t know these people, though you will have acquaintances in common.

Third degree connection: Contacts outside of your immediate network. To connect with them you will need to broaden the reach of your second degree connections.

LinkedIn connections must be relevant
Make sure your LinkedIn connections are relevant

Not All Connections Are Equal

For your LinkedIn marketing to be relevant do not fall into the trap of connecting to everyone. This is completely counterproductive and will significantly dilute your efforts. Connections need to be hyper focused on individuals who are relevant, who may have an interest in, or a need for, your offering. To clarify, they should be potential customers or stakeholders.

Revisit the work done on your ideal customer, and look at the key customers in your operational plan. Within this group, which roles have the most interest and influence around your company offering? Once this is established, a simple LinkedIn search will yield gold. For example, principal water engineer, Washington, would generate a list of principal level water engineers in the Washington area. I have found that the more specific the search criteria is, the more useful the results will be.

Use the filters to refine you search by region, company or industry. Within minutes you will have a list of relevant contacts. Then simply click connect.

Building your network is key to leveraging the power of the LinkedIn platform. Committing to connect with thirty relevant second degree connections every day will expand your network dramatically.

What’s Next

The third post in the series will explore the third P of LinkedIn: Promote. I’m always keen to hear your thoughts. Tell me how you use LinkedIn to successfully market your company.

Download my business development LinkedIn Mastery worksheet and other free resources from the link below.

Simple LinkedIn Marketing in Three Easy Stages (Part 1)

By Tom on

Looking back at the Sales Funnel, the first stage in creating a pipeline of opportunities is filling the funnel with leads. A key component of keeping it full is through systematic marketing. Where the GDBD can have real impact and complete control of their activity, is by leveraging the power of social media, and in particular, LinkedIn.

Although LinkedIn originally began as a tool for recruiters, it has firmly established itself as the social platform for business. As such it lends itself as the perfect tool to initiate business-to-business marketing. Marketing, NOT selling. I cannot emphasize this enough. The platform is there to grow and nurture a network of business connections, and the quickest way to lose these connections is to directly sell to them.

Utilizing LinkedIn systematically, day-to-day, is an excellent way to generate brand awareness, develop leads and position both the brand and the business developer as subject matter experts in their niche. Taking ten minutes a day on the platform and spending an hour crafting two posts a week, can begin to generate results relatively quickly.

There are many courses and experts pushing their LinkedIn expertise and charging a lot of money for the privilege. However, starting with the platform is not that difficult. Over the next three posts, I highlight a simple daily system that you can follow.

What is your LinkedIn goal?

Your LinkedIN Mission

Before we start developing your LinkedIn system we need to consider what the aim of the campaign is going to be. In my opinion the overall objective should be:

Provide a steady source of leads to the top of the Sales Funnel.

This translates as the marketing effort adding opportunities and revenue into your sales pathway. The specific mission that supports the objective can be broken down into three tasks:

  1. Position the Business Developer and Company as a subject matter experts within the niche surrounding their offering.
  2. Generate regular touch points for the Company brand, building recognition over time.
  3. Develop a network of connections who are interested in your company offering.

The Three Ps of LinkedIn Marketing

The actions required to achieve this mission tasks can be divided into 3 Ps:

  • Profile – create a great first impression for yourself and your company
  • Propagate – develop a network of connections who are interested in your offering
  • Promote – generate touch points and value-based content to produce interest, brand awareness and trust in your offering.

Profile is discussed further below. The second and third Ps will be examined in later posts.

Get your LinkedIn profile working for you!

Profile

If you have a quick scan through the LinkedIn profiles of your connections, it is obvious that most people have structured their profiles like an online resume. Seeing as LinkedIn was originally designed as a tool for recruiters this makes sense. However, the profile of a GDBD should focus on your offering.

Think of your profile as your customers’ first impression of your company and the opportunity to highlight the unique aspects about what your offering comprises. When redesigning your profile, use the following four points to guide you.

Stand out and be compelling. Highlight your company offering in your headline and make sure your photograph conveys professionalism.

Add detail around your company offering. In your ABOUT section make sure the reader can understand the key ways that you can help them, following a quick scan of your profile.

Use key words throughout your profile. Think of these as words that potential customers would type into Google if they were looking for your offering. For example, if your niche was flood modelling, you would include words and phrases like, flood modelling, flooding, flood specialist, flood mapping etc. Mention these a number of times throughout your profile.

Make it easy for the connection. The aim of using LinkedIn is to get a steady stream of leads entering the Sales Funnel. So, make it easy for interested connections to learn more. Put your contact details in the about section, phone number and email address and add a link to the relevant pages of your company website.

Further Action

Take time to look through your profile and adjust it to reflect what you offer your customers. Stop thinking of it as a resume. In part 2 we will look at systematic ways to use LinkedIn to assist your business development efforts.

Download my LinkedIn Mastery worksheet and other resources from the link below.

Let me know how do you set up LinkedIN to support your business development efforts?

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