Social selling is more than just posting about your fractional consulting services on LinkedIn once daily and waiting for the leads to roll in (if only it were that easy). Social selling expert Brynne Tillman recently hosted an interactive workshop for the Mylance community where she broke down the key strategies to social selling success on LinkedIn, covering everything from social listening and content creation to nurturing connections and leveraging warm leads. (Interested in the recording? Sign up to become a member!) 

As Brynne put it in the workshop, “even though it's called social selling, it's for starting conversations with the right people that can lead to sales opportunities.” To earn those conversations with your ideal prospects, you need to detach from sales and focus on identifying prospects' challenges. Then follow up with letting them know that you not only understand those challenges but can help solve them. 

Whether you missed the interactive workshop or are just looking for a summary of key points to help jumpstart your social selling success on LinkedIn, we’ve got you covered with this blog post. 

Start with social listening and research 

Research before outreach is a vital strategy and all “social listening” means is conducting research using social media. LinkedIn allows you to learn about a person and a company before you ever send a message or set up a call. Where once you might have walked into an office to see photos you could engage with someone about- family, pets, or hobbies- now you can browse their LinkedIn posts and see what the latest news is around their company. 

The key is to find things to build rapport in a natural way that helps you start conversations and keep them going. LinkedIn is also a great place to learn more about a specific industry a key prospect is in, especially if it’s not one that you’re deeply familiar with. 

See what thought leaders in that industry have to say about trends, what your prospect has posted about the same areas (if anything), and match that with the subject matter expertise you have you offer in your fractional consulting services. How can you help them combat a negative trend in their industry, or get ahead of a good one? 

You want to keep this in mind during your conversations and work it in naturally but don’t lead with it. 

Nurture connections through engagement 

When you’re nurturing connections through engagement, you want to find those first-degree connections you connected with but haven’t engaged with since. Maybe you met them at a conference or other professional networking event but didn’t get beyond a quick initial message.

Now is the time to set up notifications for the ones you think are the best to engage with based on their industry, company, and connections. Sign up to get notified when they post (click on the little bell on the right side of their profile) then make an effort to react to and comment on those posts. 

You can also directly message high-priority contacts and ask them to engage with your content. For example, if you post a poll that relates to their role or industry, send it to them in a message saying you’d really appreciate their one-click response to be sure you’re getting data from actual experts and not just whoever comes across it on their LinkedIn feed. 

These are low-effort ways to stay top-of-mind with your connections before you ever start to leverage them. More on that in the next section! 

Leverage warm market connections 

From the first-degree connections you have, you can reach out to second-degree connections to establish relationships with warm introductions. One way to do this is to search by job title or industry and see which first-degree connections you have in common with target second-degree connections. 

Then you can message your first-degree connections to see how well they know the second-degree person you want to reach out to. For example, say you find someone named Mary Beth with the title you want to reach out to. You have 50 first-degree connections in common. You can go down that list messaging each person to ask how they know Mary Beth. One person might say they went to school together, someone else might say that she’s a former colleague, and a third person might not actually know her, but keep going until you reach someone who knows her well. 

Then you can ask for that warm introduction: “Hi X! I’m conducting a mini-poll study (work smarter, not harder, and use the same poll method from earlier) and wanted to reach out to get Mary Beth’s expert response on this topic. Do you mind if I mention you in the message and tell her that you say hello?” 

That gives you more credibility with your outreach and a higher likelihood that your target connection- in this case, Mary Beth- will engage with you. If there’s a good fit, that could lead to more conversations and eventually conversion into a client. 

While this isn’t an “instant success” strategy, sometimes you have to slow down your outreach to speed up your outcomes. This strategy will consistently fill your pipeline and once you have it down, it should only take you about 20 minutes a day. (Be sure to add this tactic to your hour-a-week business development strategy.) 

How to use Sales Navigator effectively 

LinkedIn Sales Navigator is an incredible, powerful sales tool– but only if it's used consistently, like building a workout routine. You need a daily process to see results, including building a process that’s sustainable and doesn’t lead to burnout. 

Decide how tapping into Sales Navigator can best fit your specific fractional consulting business and goals then build a routine of consistent activity based on those goals rather than simply hoping prospects will engage without you making an effort. 

Remember that small, consistent chunks of activity are more valuable than spending hours on it one day only to never return and follow-up. 

Final thoughts 

The goal is to use LinkedIn to start conversations that lead to your solution– not conversations that start with it. You want to provide content that’s of value to your target prospects, both content that you curate and content that you create. That keeps you top-of-mind as a thought leader and expert in the area you also happen to offer fractional consulting services. 

That means you’ll be the first person people reach out to in their networks when they have a need they think you can meet or the first person they recommend when they see another trusted connection with a need. 

That’s social selling without the hard sell. It’s an evergreen, innovative strategy you can use on LinkedIn to land your target prospects and keep your business pipeline full. 

Want even more? Here’s how you can leverage LinkedIn to its fullest.

Mylance

This value-added article was written by Mylance. Mylance specializes in identifying the highest quality, most curated leads for your fractional business. We use 5 different criteria to identify companies and decision-makers who are likely to need your expertise:

1. Matches your niche / unique expertise.
2. Likely to have the budget.
3. Gaps on their team in your function.
4. Are fractional-friendly.
5. Have warm connections from your network.

To apply for access, submit an application and we'll evaluate your fit for the service. If you’re not ready for lead generation, we also have a free, vetted community for top fractional talent that includes workshops, a rates database, networking, and a lot of free resources to support your fractional business.