I have to admit, when I first saw this title I thought the same thing you might be … Hyperbole Alert!
But trust me, these stats are indeed eye opening and in some cases, mind-blowing as well.
Here’s the story: I recently came across a SlideShare presentation from HubSpot titled, “107 Mind-Blowing Sales Statistics That Will Help You Sell Smarter.”
Here’s the full presentation:
(Are your “Hyperbole” or “Clickbait” alarms going off again? Just keep reading.)
I’d like to pull out three of the more shocking findings and how they should change your thinking when it comes to using LinkedIn to generate more leads, clients and revenue for yourself or your business.
Ready?
Shocking Statistic #1: 44 Percent of People Give Up After One Follow-Up … Yet 80 Percent of Sales Require FIVE Follow-Ups!
How it applies to your efforts on LinkedIn: If you take the time to track and organize your daily LinkedIn interactions with a tool like Dux-Soup, you can easily export and sort Excel spreadsheets or lists of which prospects you’re talking to, what you’re talking about and when you last talked.
That sets you up for the ability to place, ahem, follow-up “Reminders” directly on LinkedIn or via your online calendar. That way, you can reach back out to targeted prospects at the appropriate time with your follow-up messages and notes ready to go!
(FYI, the “Reminder” feature on LinkedIn is easy to use. When you’re on the individual profile page of a prospect, right under his or her photo and headline area is a box that has “Relationship” and “Contact Info” tabs. Click on “Relationship” and then “Reminder” and you’ll see how to have LinkedIn automatically remind you to reach back out to that person within a specific period of time:
Shocking Statistic #2: Research shows that 35-50 percent of sales go to the vendor that responds FIRST.
How it applies to your efforts on LinkedIn: Here in the always on, 21stCentury, we are always impatient and want instant replies and responses to our queries on social media and elsewhere. (This is especially true here in the United States, where “fast-food” type service is expected anywhere you go!)
Case in point: I recently needed to hire a Virtual Assistant (VA) for a project. I put out some feelers to VA’s I’m connected to on LinkedIn, and ended up selecting the one who replied first. I did so because I was in a hurry, her experience/references/etc. looked great and I was ready to cross this item off my “To Do” list as fast as possible. The other VA’s who replied were just as qualified and had similar backgrounds and costs, and even though some responded within a few hours, it was too late – I was on to my next project!
Here’s the part you can pay attention to: The VA who won my business responded from her mobile phone while riding home in the car from a family vacation. Even though it was just a quick message saying she was traveling, she was very interested and would send more information to me later, it triggered me to go look at her LinkedIn profile, which impressed me and cemented in my mind she would be the person I needed.
See how this works? I’m not saying you need to be online 24/7 to land every deal, but I can tell you that responding fast to alerts, notifications or inbound LinkedIn messages (made especially easy if you use the LinkedIn mobile app or enable notifications on your laptop computer) makes all the difference in landing those critical clients and deals we all crave.
You might not like it, and certainly I don’t live as a slave to my devices and notifications, but it’s how business gets done these days!
Being an early bird not only gets you the worm, but it also garners people’s attention and respect. And even if you don’t land the client on this particular go-round, you can bet they’ll remember you the next time they need something in your wheelhouse.
One more bonus stat from the HubSpot presentation before we leave this topic: If you follow up with a lead within 5 minutes, you’re 9x more likely to convert them!
Shocking Statistic #3: After a presentation, 63 percent of attendees remember stories. Only 5 percent remember statistics.
How it applies to your efforts on LinkedIn: I’ve said before that storytelling is the secret sauce of sales and marketing.
At our core, no matter how professional people appear or how stuffy their industry is, they are still human beings.
And, as human beings, we are hard-wired to love a good story. More important, stories make us emotional – they engage us, move our hearts … and open our wallets!
One quick example not related to work: Our family recently volunteered for an hour at a Feed My Starving Children (FMSC) food-packing event. You spend an hour in a hairnet, scooping various dry ingredients like rice into what becomes a pre-made, ready-to-eat meal pack that looks like a steak dinner to a starving child.
Afterward, we sat down for a presentation where a FMSC volunteer shared some statistics about worldwide hunger and how many kids are in need of nutrition. (I can’t remember any of that, by the way.)
Then, he played a short video that told the story of one family of homeless kids in Africa who literally saw their lives saved and their future brightened because of these meals – just like the ones we were packing – being delivered by caring volunteers.
The story moved me to tears, and as soon as I finished crying my face off, the lights came on and the FMSC volunteer told us if we felt so moved, we could donate additional money on the spot to help buy more ingredients to feed more kids like the ones we’d just watched in the video.
I couldn’t pull out my credit card fast enough!
The same is true in business – we buy when we’re emotional, and we use reason later on to justify our purchase.
I made an impulsive, emotional choice to give a bunch of money to a charity, and later, sitting at the kitchen table with my wife, I cited statistics and data about FMSC’s high-marks with charity watchdog groups and the tax write off as additional reasons to feel good about our decision.
See how story works?
You need to be employing it all across LinkedIn – with the posts you write, the videos you share, the images you utilize and more!
Parting Thoughts
I realize I only hit on 3 or 4 of the 107 “Mind Blowing” statistics mentioned above, but trust me when I say more are coming soon in a future post!
For now, these tips should have you motivated to rethink your process and approach on LinkedIn, so get after it!
Want More LinkedIn Tips Like This?
Download my free eBook “8 Secrets to Selling More on LinkedIn” and register for my Free Webinar on using LinkedIn to generate more sales leads, clients and revenue:
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