After a great conversation with Rick Roberge of The Rain Maker Maker, I noticed that LinkedIn has a little bit of a “Security Inconsistency” within its search application. This particular security flaw isn’t the most extreme, but it may help you when you are trying to get to the decision maker in the sales process. Let’s take an example where we are looking for an individual to sell to. Our social sales instincts tell us that we need to look them up via LinkedIn’s search function. And if you remember in my post about prospecting smarter, we have a few tools at our disposal.
General Search
For example, say we want to search for the President and CEO of Sun Orchard Incorporated (maybe they need some of your product). If we search for “President and CEO at Sun Orchard Inc.” we certainly get a profile. The problem is, the name is private. Now I know they do a lot of business with ConAgra Foods (who make the delicious Chef Boyardee meals). But we don’t know the name of the individual we are trying to reach. How the crap am I going to call on this guy/gal without a name? Great question John, why don’t you answer it?
Get a referral
LinkedIn will cough up information if you get “patched through” via another user profile. LinkedIn will also expose contact information for those profiles that are searched for via name only. Check out these screen shots to see for yourself. I searched for a few VPs and executives over at ConAgra, and after a few trials, I got a “referral” as seen above. The profile in question was Dave Olson, VP of Sales. I’m not sure if the linked profiles change from user to user or from time to time, but I think it is safe to say that there is no reliable way to mine this information. So for now, this is a manual process.
If you’re stuck trying to climb either up or down a corporate ladder, you may want to give this technique a try next time you prospect. Leave a comment on how this can change how YOU prospect.
tagged: Social Sales
