Three Ninja Tips for Prospecting with LinkedIn

LinkedIn has become one of the most effective tools that salespeople use for prospecting. Not only is it an incredible database for your prospects, but it also provides a vehicle by which to prospect directly to those people.

Three Ninja Tips for Prospecting with LinkedIn

#1. Go through your connections. You have connections on LinkedIn and those people also have connections. LinkedIn has a very simple feature that allows you to search through the connections of the people you’re linked to.

Search through those connections, and in the search bar type the keywords for whom you’d like to be connected with. What LinkedIn will then provide you with is a list of, for example, all of the CEOs whom one of your connections knows. This will allow you to cut down your list and focus on only the most likely prospects whom your particular connection knows.

#2. Ask your connections for introductions. LinkedIn is a tremendous tool for receiving introductions to other connections. After you’ve searched through particular connections, ask your connection for a specific introduction to an individual whom they’re linked to.

So do your homework, find out who that person is connected to and then ask for an introduction: either through LinkedIn, by email, through the phone, or even face to face. Nevertheless, use LinkedIn as a tool to research whom the people you know also know.

#3. Get your prospect’s full name by using the Google Image search. Sometimes when you’re looking through connections on LinkedIn you don’t get the full name. This is easily solved by using a Google Image search.

Suppose you find a prospect but only have his or her first name, but you also have the individual’s photo. Copy and paste that image into Google’s search bar. Google will scour the Internet for anywhere else this image appears; chances are high that a picture that a LinkedIn user uses will also be elsewhere online.

Often, the Google results will provide links to pages where this image appears—and not uncommonly, with it will be the individual’s full name. This method eliminates having to pay LinkedIn for increased access to that prospect’s information.

A successful salesperson works smarter, not harder. By applying these three very simple but effective ninja tips for prospecting with LinkedIn, you’ll discover that your Internet prospecting is far more efficacious than it ever was before. Which of these tips did you find most useful? Please share below in the comments.