When you look at the percentage of runners that start the London Marathon and then don’t finish you will see it is less than 2%. In other words, 98+% finish the London Marathon. And this relates beautifully to business.
So in this instance, we take “winning” in business as reaching a £1M turnover business. Only 4% of businesses reach £1M turnover. So imagine only 4% of people finished the London Marathon, it would not be a popular televised event.
So why do the majority of marathon runners succeed, while business owners don’t?
Firstly, if you are running the London Marathon you know where the start point is, and you know the finishing point is on The Mall, whether you run in two hours, three hours, four hours or whether you wear a rhino suit and walk it in 15 days, the only reason you would stop or not finish is if you stopped putting one foot in front of the other.
The runners know what success looks like to them, but how many business owners have a clear picture of what success means to them? Often the goal is very short term i.e. to have enough money in the bank to pay this month’s bills and payroll.
Secondly, marathon runners are committed. When they enter the London Marathon most people have a lot of sponsorship and that sponsorship spurs them on to keep going – they have that commitment to succeed. How do you as a business owner keep up your commitment over the long haul and through the hard times?
The third thing is that the runners have a route map – they have a plan. That route map shows where they need to go and if they’ve done any training then they know what they should be doing by a certain point. How many business owners have a proper plan?
Then the fourth thing is they’ve got a support system. There are people lined up throughout the whole of the marathon cheering them on and supporting them. And running a business can be lonely at times, what is your support system?
The trouble in business is that we don’t generally have these things, we don’t know what we don’t know. So the key to succeed in business as with running the London Marathon is – 1/ you need a goal, 2/ you’ve got to be committed, 3/ you’ve got to have a roadmap to get you there and, 4/ you need that support.
Those are the four vital ingredients. So if you have – the goal, the commitment, the plan, and the support then you just need to keep putting one foot in front of the other and keep going.
Eventually, you will finish the marathon and that means eventually you’ll have a £1M+ business (or whatever your ultimate goal is).
Get a free copy of my book - The Entrepreneurs Marketing System
The Entrepreneurs Marketing System has been written by myself and Nigel Botterill and has taken the best part of 10 years to hone, refine and test and is the foundation of the Entrepreneurs Circle coaching system.
It gives SME business owners a proven step-by-step system to get and retain all the customers they'll ever need.... Rhythmically & consistently - just like clockwork.
You'll need a deep understanding of the Entrepreneurs Marketing System if you are going to use it in your business and this is exactly what our new book provides. If you would like a copy you just pay the postage and packing.
One of the biggest problems we face as entrepreneurs is not knowing if we’re doing the right stuff (at the right time!) to grow our business. There hasn’t been a step-by-step guide to business growth – until now!
That’s what the Entrepreneurs Circle is currently offering with its unique ‘EC Clarity Programme’.
What To Do – How To Do It – And Help To Get It Done.
And the best bit is that you can try it completely free of charge for a month to see if it works for you!
They’ve removed the overwhelm, never ending to-do lists, distractions, confusions, and pain from growing a business and genuinely, have all the answers to get your business to where you want it to be.
Day 1, do this. And here’s the tutorial showing you exactly how to do it properly.
Day 5 do this. It’s quick, easy and will take you less than half an hour.
Day 36 send this out. Trust us, it works.
And more importantly, they’ve got the evidence to prove it AND, if you meet the criteria, they’ll guarantee your success too. It really is a no-brainer for any business owner looking to grow their business.
Get a free copy of my book - The Entrepreneurs Marketing System
The Entrepreneurs Marketing System has been written by myself and Nigel Botterill and has taken the best part of 10 years to hone, refine and test and is the foundation of the Entrepreneurs Circle coaching system.
It gives SME business owners a proven step-by-step system to get and retain all the customers they'll ever need.... Rhythmically & consistently - just like clockwork.
You'll need a deep understanding of the Entrepreneurs Marketing System if you are going to use it in your business and this is exactly what our new book provides. If you would like a copy you just pay the postage and packing.
When you have been communicating with a prospective client and then they fail to respond to our voicemail messages isn’t that annoying?
How could we leave a voicemail message where the recipient is compelled to call us back?
The trick is to create so much intrigue and fear of missing out that they are compelled to call you back.
So when you leave a voicemail then start it with your name and phone number and then pretend to get cut off mid-sentence – just as your getting to the important part. Isn’t that a nifty idea?
Obviously, the message has to be relevant to the prospect. But here are a few examples to get you thinking about how you could deploy this tactic.
I have a deal for you that could deliver you a hundred thou…
I’m interested in your…
I have information about your…
Are you [prospects name] who…
Hello, I’m calling for [prospects nam….
Just one word of caution – if you are making a number of calls then be sure to note down your messages so that when the callbacks come in you know what you’re talking about.
And this idea sits nicely alongside our Alligator Email tactic -which we can deploy when a prospect fails to respond to our emails. Learn about the Alligator email here.
Give it a try for yourself next time you have a prospect who is hard to reach on the phone.
Get a free copy of my book - The Entrepreneurs Marketing System
The Entrepreneurs Marketing System has been written by myself and Nigel Botterill and has taken the best part of 10 years to hone, refine and test and is the foundation of the Entrepreneurs Circle coaching system.
It gives SME business owners a proven step-by-step system to get and retain all the customers they'll ever need.... Rhythmically & consistently - just like clockwork.
You'll need a deep understanding of the Entrepreneurs Marketing System if you are going to use it in your business and this is exactly what our new book provides. If you would like a copy you just pay the postage and packing.
When you are talking to someone, and you begin with “Good news…” you pre-frame their brain to feel good and positive about what you say next.
It’s the oldest copywriting technique in the book.
Of course, when it comes to writing copy – whether to prospects or existing customers you can literally begin your text with the words “Good news…”
And here’s the biggie… you can do that even when you are sharing bad news!
It’s all about how you pre-frame your reader/viewer.
For example, I recenty fancied a fish and chip supper and popped to the local chippy.
As I walked up to the counter, there was no one else there, and I ordered my fish and chips.
“I’m sorry,” the fish fryer said.
“The chips have only just gone in the fryer, and they won’t be ready for another five minutes, so you’ll have to wait.”
Just read those words again. Look at how he ‘pre- framed’ me. He was ‘sorry’.
Contrast this very mediocre, apologetic experience with what he could have said…
“Good news! I’ve just put some new chips in the fryer, they’ll be super fresh and piping hot and you’ll be the first customer to get them.
I’ll have them out for you in just a couple of minutes.”
Exactly the same situation. But a completely different way of presenting it to your customers because of how it was pre-framed.
Even if you don’t use the words “good news,” you can write your message as if it was proceeded with the words “good news.”
Being seen or perceived as the Good News messenger isn’t a bad place to be.
People like people that make them feel good. People are drawn to positive people. Spreading more good news (even when it might not be!) could be a super-smart thing to do..
Get a free copy of my book - The Entrepreneurs Marketing System
The Entrepreneurs Marketing System has been written by myself and Nigel Botterill and has taken the best part of 10 years to hone, refine and test and is the foundation of the Entrepreneurs Circle coaching system.
It gives SME business owners a proven step-by-step system to get and retain all the customers they'll ever need.... Rhythmically & consistently - just like clockwork.
You'll need a deep understanding of the Entrepreneurs Marketing System if you are going to use it in your business and this is exactly what our new book provides. If you would like a copy you just pay the postage and packing.
*************************************************************** UPDATE MARCH 2022
I am currently inviting established consultants and coaches to trial my “Keap for Consultants” marketing and sales system as Beta testers. I will give beta testers a proven marketing and sales system worth £5000 and all I ask is that you provide feedback to enable me further improve the system.
You have probably arrived at this page because you are looking for lead generation services for your consulting or coaching business and to buy more new sales leads for your business. But is this really the case?
So do the numbers stack up? If you double the number of new consultancy leads then you will double your sales and grow your firm. That is true, but at the same time, you will probably more than double the cost of your advertising. (It will most likely cost you more than double as you will no doubt already be using the most responsive advertising medium, so you will have to start using less responsive advertising and so use more of it. So your costs will be higher).
And there are other factors at play too. Take a look at these sales rules.
So if you have a new business sales team then the sales team will first focus on the easy sales and they will not consistently follow up with the lukewarm/ colder leads as these may not enable them to meet their new business sales target for the month. As a result, those leads who are not ready to buy now will quickly get forgotten about and “fall between the cracks”. As I mentioned above, as you go to “weaker” advertising in order to generate new leads, so you will generate less responsive leads and so you see the issue – you are generating lower value leads that are harder to close, that the sales team do not want and they cost you more money.
So what is the solution? Before you spend any more money on buying more consultancy sales leads you need to implement an automated sales and marketing system that will work in sync and support your new business sales team. A system that does all the hard work in following up with prospective clients and nurturing them to a point where they are “warmed up” sufficiently to make it worthwhile for a salesperson to speak with them. This way the leads that have cost you money do not “fall between the cracks”.
So let’s look at the maths with a quick calculation.
Say you are currently getting a 1% conversion rate from your sales leads, and leads are costing £1 each. So the Cost per Acquisition (CPA) is £100. OK, let us say you implement a marketing automation system to automatically nurture those leads and then pass them over to the sales team when they are ready to buy. So we still get the initial 1% conversion. But then say we consistently follow up with the remaining 99% (who did not buy) over the longer term so that they begin to know, like and trust us. Now, say over the next 2 years we follow up automatically and gain another 2 sales from the initial 99 leads. So now then numbers look like this. We have 3X our conversion rate and so we have tripled the size of our business. Because we did not spend any more money on lead acquisition, so our Cost of Acquisition has come down from £100 to only £33. And this is without spending any additional money on advertising and lead generation.
Now at this point, you have a sales and marketing machine that efficiently converts consulting sales leads. And now you can start to look at buying from lower value/ higher-cost sources of leads because you have a finely tuned sales lead generation and marketing machine that can profitably convert poorer quality leads. At this point, you can effectively afford to outspend your competitors on advertising and marketing.
And all this is before we even consider the best AND lowest cost of leads for your business. Referrals from existing clients of your consultancy. Are you actively asking your existing clients to refer you to their business contacts? The chances are that you are not proactively harnessing this source of leads. Once you have an efficient sales and marketing system in place then referral marketing can also happen consistently on autopilot.
So – do you really need to buy more new sales leads for your consulting or coaching practice -or do you need a system to convert more effectively the leads you are already generating? If you are interested then this is exactly where I help my clients. If you would like to book a free Discovery call at a mutually convenient day and time then click here.
Get a free copy of my book - The Entrepreneurs Marketing System
The Entrepreneurs Marketing System has been written by myself and Nigel Botterill and has taken the best part of 10 years to hone, refine and test and is the foundation of the Entrepreneurs Circle coaching system.
It gives SME business owners a proven step-by-step system to get and retain all the customers they'll ever need.... Rhythmically & consistently - just like clockwork.
You'll need a deep understanding of the Entrepreneurs Marketing System if you are going to use it in your business and this is exactly what our new book provides. If you would like a copy you just pay the postage and packing.
I am now a big fan of LinkedIn automation -for me, it’s now on a par with Keap/ Infusionsoft! It’s exciting, like having the automation power that Infusionsoft brings, but what Infusionsoft lacks is a huge, searchable, built-in, up-to-date database of business people.
I was on the Growth Mindset Movement Podcast with Paul Greig-Smith the other day with a new strategy – if you were starting with a new LinkedIn account – how would you quickly add contacts to get say 2500 1st degree connections, and as a result get a universe of millions of 2nd and 3rd connections you can then reach?
In the podcast, I show you how to achieve this manually, the time-consuming way or automatically – which of course frees up your time. Check out the recording below.
TRANSCRIPT
Paul Greig Smith 0:00
Welcome to the Growth Mindset movement interview series. Now, if you are listening in today and maybe you’re a business owner, or you’re a coach, and you want more leads, this is what we all want. It’s increasingly tougher and tougher to get leads these days and cut through all the online clutter. You’re going to want to listen to this interview. Because I’m speaking with a good friend and a marketing automation specialist. His name is Julian Mills, and he helps business owners take a lot of the heavy lifting out of marketing. And over the years I’ve always loved my conversations with Julian because I’m non techie. So if you’re non techie, as well, you definitely want to listen to this because he really he’s got a great way of simplifying marketing, removing a lot of the heavy lifting, and helping automate and helping kind of free up you as a business owner as a coach as an entrepreneur to do what you do best. But anyway, I will let Julian introduce a lot of it as well but yeah, so if you want to get more leads, get more sales. And you need help doing this through LinkedIn. You are in the right place. So without further ado, welcome, Julian.
Julian Mills 1:20
Hi, Paul. Thanks for having me on the podcast today. Delighted to be here and hopefully add value for your listeners. Fantastic. So I’ll jump straight in. Today I’m going to talk about LinkedIn first degree connection building. So who is the strategy for so basically, if you are selling B2B to other businesses. You obviously need a LinkedIn account to make this work and you want to increase your sales. So I think that’s pretty much most businesses unless you’re b2c. Yeah. So who am I, I’ve been helping entrepreneurs now for over 25 years in the trenches working with offline and online marketing. For the last 12 years, I’ve specialised really in marketing automation with a software called Keep, or Infusionsoft as it was called. And then more recently, coaching clients with marketing via the entrepreneur circle marketing marketing system, and if you want more information on me to find my details at www.Julianmills.co.uk. So I learned this years ago, but it takes about 300 LinkedIn profile views to generate an opportunity on LinkedIn.
Paul Greig Smith 2:35
So an opportunity is someone you know, sending you a contact request or something like that.
Julian Mills 2:40
Yeah, someone putting their hand up and enquiring about what you do, Paul. Yep, got it. Got it. It takes 300 profile views. So then that’s interesting because then we can go and look at our LinkedIn and see how many profile views we’re getting. So I went and had a look at mine before and in the last month I have 277 views.
Paul Greig Smith 3:00
Okay, and I think I had something like 11 in the past 90 days.
Julian Mills 3:04
If work out the maths for that Paul . I did it on 10 recently if you’ve been getting 10 profile views every 90 days. That equates to about seven half years before you’re generating any meaningful opportunity.
Paul Greig Smith 3:19
I’m not a LinkedIn specialist. So I’m not getting leads from LinkedIn right now. So I’m really looking forward to this conversation.
Julian Mills 3:28
So that would explain why. So if you want to find out how many views you’ve had simply, you see here, go to your dashboard in your LinkedIn and see your 277 views in the last 90 days. So check out how many profile views you’ve had and see where you stand. So to get LinkedIn profile views theres two ways to do it.
Unknown Speaker 4:16
So there’s the easy way and the hard way, the hard way, I’m guessing is what most people do and that’s the manual kind of way of typing it out. Hi, how you doing? I’m Paul whatever want to connect. very slow, very laborious, but not efficient.
Julian Mills 4:32
And there’s also you know, spending half your day on LinkedIn, looking at other people’s posts, posting yourself, commenting, liking and some people like that but its time consuming. I haven’t got time for that, but I will occasionally when I’m writing a newsletter post or a blog post, copy, paste and stick it in a LinkedIn post, but it’s not my day to day thing.
Paul Greig Smith 4:54
And what I would say for anyone listening, Julian gave me a sneak peek of this and it always blows my mind with it because essentially, to be able to kind of set up this marketing kind of automated reaching out to people but in an organic non spammy way, as a great way of building your profile connecting with people, but setting it up in the background. So so you’re not doing it manually the hard way, which is what I would do as a not kind of techie person. So so yeah. Anyway, sorry to dive
Julian Mills 5:26
You stole my thunder there Paul. Okay, the manual way, the traditional way that everyone knows is that you shoudl be manually should be connecting with people. The other way is to connect with other users and become visible visible to them when they search for what you do. Connecting and building your database on LinkedIn, it becomes a very valuable database we looked at a campaign recently, the LinkedIn Dream 100 where once you’ve got this database, it opens up so much other opportuniities. The key to it all though is getting that list to those 1st degree connections. So 500+ first connections is a minimum but I would say because even your profile when your profile says 500+. That’s quite powerful. If it says 101 connections, it looks like a bit of a weak profile, you’re not very well connected, you know, but we found that the first thing is this strategy will solve that problem. You’ll have 500 plus connections, you can do it very quickly, actually. Two and a half thousand or more woudl be ideal. Im up to just over 10,000, most of that in the last year so you know, when you plug into this, it’s very powerful. Those 1st degree connections, I might connect with somebody today and they don’t they don’t do anything I’m interested in, you know, I’ve never gonna sell anything to them or they’ll never be interested in what I do. That’s fine by me because what I’m really interested in is these second or third connections, who they’re connected to, and who those people are connected too.
Paul Greig Smith 7:09
So its tapping into all these networks, isn’t it? That’s incredible.
Julian Mills 7:13
Yeah. Now when I got my first 1000 connections on LinkedIn, in those days, LinkedIn used to say your connected to 1000 people. This opens up an extended universe of about 26 million, if I remember correctly. And that was some years ago. So unfortunately, LinkedIn doesn’t show you anymore but just shows you how the multiplier effect of the network is.
Paul Greig Smith 7:35
So that really kind of tapping into like the compound effect in terms of increasing your profile, your reach, connectivity, all that kind of stuff.
Julian Mills 7:42
Exactly, if one of these 3rd degree connections does a search on what you’re do the chances are your going to appear. If you’re not connected you probabaly won’t appear. So what LinkedIn connecting strategies are out there. The first one, alot of are very closed minded and will only going to connect with people who I know my customers, my clients, my staff, my colleagues, whatever, which is quite a narrow view to give you maybe a couple of hundred connections that way, it’s just gonna limit your opportunities doing it that way. The other way is to connect to what we call LinkedIn L.I.O.Ns. I asked you before if you knew what a LinkedIn L.I.O.N is and you had no idea. Yeah, but L.I.O.N stands for LinkedIn Open Networker. So, these are people that understand the value of network and will connect to anybody. You ask them to connect, they will. If you go out to somebody trying to reach out to somebody who is your ideal client and ask them to connect. Chances are they won’t. But open networkers do want to connect. That as I said, they are probably not interested in what you do and that is fine. As I said, its the second and third connections were after her. So they will have other other active people want tonetwork like you and they’re the . LinkedIn open. That was two ways to do the manual way. I’ll show you that in a minute. We could do the manual way. As Paul said before, we can set the automation to do the heavy lifting for us and make our job so so much easier. Okay, so LinkedIn L.I.O.Ns, yep. So let me show you how to find LinkedIn L.I.O.Ns. The key to it is to do a search. And obviously, I’ve dealing with a database of over 10,000 connections, so you will probably see different things to me but if I put in the search here L.I.O.N, go to People. Okay, so I do a search online, so in my database I have access to 315,000 L.I.O.Ns. These people will all connect with me. So the manual way. You go and ask them to connect, often a L.I.O.N will have a premium membership of LinkedIn that lets people request to join with them. So you see here – Connect – Connect. So you can manually do this. You can manually do it that way. Yep. Okay, or as I say, if you want to let the automation take the strain this is just one strategy in the automation there is a suite of campaigns you can build with the LinkedIn automation tools available, lots’s available here is some of them Social Pilot, Linkedhelper is one I’ve used, Expandi the Meet Alfred, IFTT
Julian Mills 11:22
So there is a whole series of tools available. If you want to do it manually then you can or you can use automation then you can, this is just one strategy of a whole series you can deploy on your LinkedIn account. But the key to making all the strategies work is to have a huge database of second and third connections. Got it? And this is what we just talked about how to get those so the ideal way is LinkedIn L.I.O.Ns that is the secret. That’s the end for today. If you want more information on any of this then please visit my website www.JulianMills.co.uk, if you want any help I’m available. Love to hear your feedback, any results you achieve with this strategy, and what’s really important to me I’d love to hear any of your ideas you’ve got or improvements were I’m missing something. I’d love to hear those as well.
Unknown Speaker 12:17
Fantastic. Thank you so much for that Julian and what I would say as well to anyone listening, because here’s the thing when it comes to creating marketing campaigns I’m something of an ad hoc marketer, I’ll be like, oh, I need some leads. So better create a marketing campaign. So I’ll do a marketing campaign. Then I’ll be wrapped up in sales and operations and all that kind of stuff. And then I’ll get back in that cycle of, oh, actually, I need some more leads. But obviously, what we’re talking about here is is setting up a campaign an automatic campaign, which is running in the background, almost like a rhythmic acquisition of new leads. So rather than having this feast or famine cycle that most business owners go through my myself included, to be able to set this up in the background. Imagine how powerful that would be for your business to set it up once set it and forget it. You carry on going about your business and then just having a drip, drip, drip, new supply of leads coming into your business. So well. Yes, reach out to Julian, check out a whole load of his free kind of trainings on his website and so on, but by all means, you know, contact Julian with any kind of feedback or anything like that because I mean, yeah, I for one, never tire of Julian’s tips. He’s my go to guy whenever I kind of need help with this. So thanks for listening guys. And yet, check out Julian’s website and I hope you found this valuable
Julian Mills 13:46
Thanks Paul for having me on the podcast today.
Get a free copy of my book - The Entrepreneurs Marketing System
The Entrepreneurs Marketing System has been written by myself and Nigel Botterill and has taken the best part of 10 years to hone, refine and test and is the foundation of the Entrepreneurs Circle coaching system.
It gives SME business owners a proven step-by-step system to get and retain all the customers they'll ever need.... Rhythmically & consistently - just like clockwork.
You'll need a deep understanding of the Entrepreneurs Marketing System if you are going to use it in your business and this is exactly what our new book provides. If you would like a copy you just pay the postage and packing.
Print this image and keep handy for inspiration when times get tough.
Jeff Bezos Amazon
Get a free copy of my book - The Entrepreneurs Marketing System
The Entrepreneurs Marketing System has been written by myself and Nigel Botterill and has taken the best part of 10 years to hone, refine and test and is the foundation of the Entrepreneurs Circle coaching system.
It gives SME business owners a proven step-by-step system to get and retain all the customers they'll ever need.... Rhythmically & consistently - just like clockwork.
You'll need a deep understanding of the Entrepreneurs Marketing System if you are going to use it in your business and this is exactly what our new book provides. If you would like a copy you just pay the postage and packing.
Hotjar is a great little tool that gives you a real feel as to how website visitors are using your website – and what they experience while on your site.
So it records the visitor’s screen and shows mouse movements, clicks etc. So giving you a real feel for what the visitor experienced – were there broken images or links for example
It can also create heatmaps of web pages to show you the areas where visitors focus on – or avoid.
Both tools can give you some valuable insights as you optimise your website.
I am using the free version which records 35 visits per day (which is enough for me), or the paid version with more visit recordings start at 31 Euros a month (as of Jan 2022). The HTML code was simple to install in the Header of my website pages and it was good to go – literally took a couple of minutes to set up.
Give it a go and let me know what you think.
Julian
Get a free copy of my book - The Entrepreneurs Marketing System
The Entrepreneurs Marketing System has been written by myself and Nigel Botterill and has taken the best part of 10 years to hone, refine and test and is the foundation of the Entrepreneurs Circle coaching system.
It gives SME business owners a proven step-by-step system to get and retain all the customers they'll ever need.... Rhythmically & consistently - just like clockwork.
You'll need a deep understanding of the Entrepreneurs Marketing System if you are going to use it in your business and this is exactly what our new book provides. If you would like a copy you just pay the postage and packing.
Have you got a Linkedin marketing automation strategy that will generate sales enquiries? (or do you struggle to employ workers? – that’s a whole other topic. Click here).
Most people never tap into the full sales potential of LinkedIn because it is hard and time-consuming work. Writing, reading, commenting and liking posts, writing articles, sending invite requests (that often get ignored). I am sure you know what I mean and I certainly do not have time for all that.
And so your LinkedIn account is left to languish with the odd flourish of activity.
Did you know it takes on average 300 LinkedIn profile visits in order to generate a high-value sales opportunity? Go and take a look at your profile and see how many visits to your profile you have had over the last 90 days.
Here is a quick video on how to do this.
So, say you are generating 20 profile visits every 90 days, then that means it is going to take you on average 3.75 years(!) before you generate a useful sales opportunity on LinkedIn. And so it is no wonder you think “LinkedIn does not work for me”
One way that LinkedIn members often restrict their success on LinkedIn is to only connect with people they know – friends, colleagues, clients, prospects. Doing this will mean you have a very low number of 1st-degree connections and hence limited LinkedIn success.
On average 70% of LinkedIn members have less than 1000 1st Connections. Which is just not enough critical mass to make LinkedIn work for you.
But, there is an answer
LinkedIn Marketing Automation – let the automation take the strain.
Here are the top automated LinkedIn marketing strategies that I deploy when working with clients in order to build a complete LinkedIn sales strategy bespoke for the client.
1/ 1st Connection Builder Strategy
In LinkedIn, it is not just about the number of 1st Degree connections you have. What is key is the number of 2nd and 3rd connections. The more 2nd and 3rd connections that you have then the larger the searchable universe of contacts you have available for future marketing campaigns. Imagine having at your fingertips an up-to-date database of people that you can reach who are connected to businesses.
I would say you need 2500 1st connections to give you a valuable full universe of millions (unfortunately LinkedIn no longer shows us the total number of connections) of searchable 2nd and 3rd degree contacts. Plus from a profile point of view, anything less than 500+ makes your profile look weak when someone searches for you.
It took me 10 years to get my first 1000 contacts. With my ethical strategy, we can now build that number of contacts within months.
2/ LinkedIn Data Mining Strategy
Set marketing automation to data-mine your 1st, 2nd and 3rd degree connections to find prospects in your industry or target niche and then automatically follow up with direct messages. I recently had one client with over 3000 high-value 1st degree connections. But he could not access the contact details i.e. phone and email number from LinkedIn (the LinkedIn contact export tool gives very restricted data). We data-mined his 1st-degree connections and extracted the full contact details and a wealth of other data on the contacts and then he had a valuable list he could use for marketing purposes.
3/ LinkedIn Dream 100 Strategy
Use LinkedIn to identify your Dream 100 ideal potential clients. Then target them with direct messages in LinkedIn. And even bolt on an automated marketing tool, like Keap (learn more here) to follow up offline from LinkedIn with emails, texts, direct mail and phone calls.
4/ Direct Message 1st Degree Contacts Strategy
Imagine having to manually direct message one-by-one thousands of 1st connections. It’s not possible to do it yourself, let the automation take the strain. It’s like having an email list. Send an occasional Update message every 6 months with some news to remind contacts you are there and encourage them to check out your profile or website and give them some of your news.
5/ Direct Message Group members
Imagine having to manually direct message one-by-one the members of a group that you own or are a member of. It’s not possible to do it yourself, let the automation take the strain. It’s like having an email list. Send an occasional Update message every 6 months with some news to remind contacts you are there and encourage them to check out your profile or website and give them some of your news.
6/ CRM & Marketing Automation Strategy
From all your LinkedIn automated strategies we can push 1st-degree contacts into your chosen CRM / Marketing automation platform. For example – MailChimp, ActiveCampaign, Pipedrive or my preferred solution Keap (for transparency I am Keap Certified Partner). Imagine automatically connecting with a contact in LinkedIn – so they get automated LinkedIn direct messages over time. But then outside of linkedIn, you keep in touch via email, texts, phone calls, and even direct mail (we can do 100% automated direct mail with Keap).
7/ Remove old, unaccepted invites
If you are sending our invites to connect then they will not all be accepted. So after say 3 weeks, I would remove these old invites. You can do it manually, one at a time, or have the automation cancel the old invites.
If you are interested to learn more about how I assist clients with marketing automation then I would be happy to discuss this on a short Discovery call.
Get a free copy of my book - The Entrepreneurs Marketing System
The Entrepreneurs Marketing System has been written by myself and Nigel Botterill and has taken the best part of 10 years to hone, refine and test and is the foundation of the Entrepreneurs Circle coaching system.
It gives SME business owners a proven step-by-step system to get and retain all the customers they'll ever need.... Rhythmically & consistently - just like clockwork.
You'll need a deep understanding of the Entrepreneurs Marketing System if you are going to use it in your business and this is exactly what our new book provides. If you would like a copy you just pay the postage and packing.
Get a free copy of my book - The Entrepreneurs Marketing System
The Entrepreneurs Marketing System has been written by myself and Nigel Botterill and has taken the best part of 10 years to hone, refine and test and is the foundation of the Entrepreneurs Circle coaching system.
It gives SME business owners a proven step-by-step system to get and retain all the customers they'll ever need.... Rhythmically & consistently - just like clockwork.
You'll need a deep understanding of the Entrepreneurs Marketing System if you are going to use it in your business and this is exactly what our new book provides. If you would like a copy you just pay the postage and packing.
So what is the solution? Before you spend any more money on buying more consultancy sales leads you need to implement an automated sales and marketing system that will work in sync and support your new business sales team. A system that does all the hard work in following up with prospective clients and nurturing them to a point where they are “warmed up” sufficiently to make it worthwhile for a salesperson to speak with them. This way the leads that have cost you money do not “fall between the cracks”.
Hotjar is a great little tool that gives you a real feel as to how website visitors are using your website – and what they experience while on your site.
Have you got a Linkedin marketing automation strategy that will generate sales enquiries? (or do you struggle to employ workers? – that’s a whole other topic. 
