Casual non-greedy approach to LinkedIn prospecting
I call this the casual non-greedy approach to LinkedIn prospecting because it keeps things casual and resists the temptation to go in for a hard-sell right away.
My target customers for Hypothesisly.com right now are startup accelerators. So, I went where they hang out - the NACO Atlantic Summit 2020 last Thursday.
I monitored the chat in the conference for startup accelerators introductions, and added them on LinkedIn.
I then focused on building rapport with the individual by establishing common ground and offering to be helpful. I resisted the urge to lead with what I'm working on and instead let the prospect come to me. The key is that I kept chatting with them on LinkedIn, which led to me booking a demo call in under 2 hours.
My back-up plan was to engage with the prospect a few days later and ask who the best person would be to talk to about the tool I built. This way the prospect wouldn't have felt like I had added them just to get a demo booked.
I wrote a detailed thread about this yesterday: https://twitter.com/LenaSesardic/status/1338535605836255234?s=20.
I tweet about my entrepreneurial journey transparently so follow me on Twitter if you like this sort of stuff.
PS. This is my first ever Indie Hackers post. 🥳
Thanks for the examples. It is super important to go on platforms like LinkedIn with a lead-with-service mentality.
Agreed - getting greedy and trying to book a sales call immediately is the wrong way to go about it. Much better to play the long game and build rapport first.
Sure the long game has its merits, but I’m not convinced it’s always appropriate.
Sometimes people do actually just want a quick purchase. The long game in those situations is just wasting their time (and yours!).
I think it depends on what "long game" means to you. In this specific case, I was playing the "long game" as in if I didn't land a demo with her that day, I would have messaged her a few days later and been more direct.
For me, I'm still not 100% sure what the value of Hypothesisly is to startup accelerators so am not at the point of being able to push for a sale. So playing a longer game works for me.
If you have something with a clear value prop and clear target customer, then definitely beating around the bush will just annoy serious buyers. It's all about reading the room!
I really like this approach. I throw pretty much every LinkedIn message straight in my mental bin because it's so obvious that it's sales, so kudos for doing something different, more genuine, and less pushy. If I ever get round to LinkedIn marketing, I'll do something similar (not a good channel for my product). Have followed you on Twitter.
Please let me know if you do need any help in the future! I've done a lot of LinkedIn prospecting this year. One podcast I'd recommend for sales outreach in general is the Predictable Revenue podcast. It's awesome, the speakers provide such clear actionable advice with real examples!