we all know that statistics only represent a percentage of reality; however, they provide a very unique insight into some of the common themes and trends in the industry.
1 90% of decision makers NEVER answer a cold call, but 75% of B2B buyers use social media to make purchasing decisions – LinkedIn
2 82% of prospects can be reached ‘socially’ via online networks – Inside View
3 84% of C‐level and VP‐level buyers use social media for purchasing – IDC
4 IBM increased their sales by 400% thanks to their inbound social selling programme – HubSpot
5 78% of salespeople using social media perform better than their peers – Smart Insights
6 Sales teams who embrace social experience report 18% more pipeline (volume) and 28% velocity increase – IDC
7 Salespeople leveraging social selling experience 31% higher ROI than those who stick to traditional tactics – HubSpot
8 90% of top sales professionals report that they use social selling tools – LinkedIn
9 31% of B2B professionals say that social selling allowed them to build deeper relationships with their clients – Inside View
10 Social sellers gain 57% higher ROI from social selling vs 23% using traditional (cold‐calling, call lists, etc.) – Sales for Life
11 98% of sales reps with more than 5,000 LinkedIn connections meet or surpass their quota – Sales Benchmark Index
12 77% of B2B purchasers said that they would not even speak to a salesperson until they had done their own research – LinkedIn
13 Companies with consistent social selling processes are 40% more likely to hit revenue goals than non–social sellers – Sales for Life
14 81% of buyers are more likely to engage with a strong, professional brand – LinkedIn
15 62% of employees at large companies agreed that social selling enables them to build stronger, more authentic relationships with customers and prospects – IDC
16 93% of sales executives have not received any formal training on social selling – Laine
The reality is simple: LinkedIn and social selling are a key part of sales now and the salespeople and sales teams that are using them are ahead of the curve.
This book will help you understand how to get more from LinkedIn; the key is to not only read it, but APPLY it.
PART 1 ABOUT LINKEDIN
‘Reading gives you knowledge; applying that knowledge is how you get results’.
CHAPTER 1 THE HISTORY OF LINKEDIN
LinkedIn has well over 600,000,000 members and is growing every single day.
The network started off in the living room of co‐founder Reid Hoffman (previously on the board of Google, eBay and PayPal). LinkedIn's founders were Reid Hoffman, Allen Blue, Konstantin Guericke, Eric Ly and Jean‐Luc Vaillant.
Launched officially on 5th May 2003 it was mainly used for professional networking and connecting job seekers with employers. At the end of its first month of operating it had just 4,500 members. In 2004 they added a key new feature, the ability to upload your address book and invite people to connect with you. This helped boost membership to 1,217,647 members.
In 2005, they launched jobs and also paid subscriptions. As the team and platform grew, so did members, growing to just over 4,000,000. The year 2006 was the first year that LinkedIn turned a profit and was also the year that they added the recommendations feature (one of my personal favourites) and also the ‘People you may know’ function.
Between 2007 and 2008 membership continued to grow and reached over 33 million members. Then, in 2009, as membership grew past 55 million, Jeff Weiner joined as President and CEO. After settling in, moving into 2010 saw LinkedIn grow past 85,000,000 members, 10 office sites and over 1,000 staff.
In 2011 things started to get very serious as LinkedIn got listed on the New York Stock Exchange at a value of $45 per share. They had now grown to over 135,000,000 members. The years 2012 and 2013 saw the professional network grow even more, jumping to 186 million and then to 225 million members. When it got to 2014, they had 5,400 staff and over 300 million members.
Jumping to 2016, Microsoft acquired LinkedIn in a deal worth $26 billion with the following year seeing LinkedIn grow to 500,000,000 members.
LinkedIn is now used by job seekers looking to secure their next role, by employers searching for the best talent, salespeople trying to reach their prospects, businesses looking to reach their target audience, marketers sharing content and entrepreneurs building their brands.
It's become THE professional social network, the place where professionals can share, engage and do business. It's like attending a physical networking event, but with over 600,000,000 attendees. It allows anyone in the world access to so much opportunity through their laptop, PC or even their phone.
CHAPTER 2 LINKEDIN FREE VERSUS PREMIUM/SALES NAVIGATOR
One of the biggest questions many companies, sales leaders and salespeople ask me when using LinkedIn is: Do I need LinkedIn Sales Navigator to be good at social selling?
LinkedIn Sales Navigator, for those who don't know, is LinkedIn's premium upgraded sales option. You pay a monthly or yearly subscription fee and get access to a whole host of additional features that aren't available on the standard free LinkedIn account.
There are actually two questions that you need to ask with two very important answers:
Do you have to have LinkedIn Premium or Sales Navigator to be successful on LinkedIn in generating leads and sales?
The answer is a very strong no. No, you do not need to pay to upgrade to a premium LinkedIn account to generate leads and sales from LinkedIn.
The second question that you should ask is: Is LinkedIn Premium/Sales Navigator valuable?
The answer to this is a very strong yes. Yes, because these platforms are packed with features that offer an immense amount of value.
The key is knowing whether they are right for you and when it's the right time to use them.
This might surprise you, but most of what I have achieved over my years using LinkedIn has been done on the free account. When I say most, I mean literally 95% of what I have achieved. The huge number of followers, the sales, the revenue, the personal brand, all done without upgrading and paying for Sales Navigator.
I'll show you exactly how I've done that in this book, and how you can use LinkedIn to its full potential with a free LinkedIn account.
As my business has grown, I utilise LinkedIn Sales Navigator (and have done for over two years now) as it helps me significantly.
Sales Navigator for many is the next step you take when you're using all of the free functions to their full potential and are ready to take
