Phases of Prospecting: From Cold to Sold

Phases of Prospecting: From Cold to Sold

For years, I’ve utilized the principles outlined in “The Lost Art of Closing” as a cornerstone of my sales strategy.

What I particularly admire about this book is its focus on the internal commitments required in a sale, effectively separating the human experience within the sales process.

This approach has been instrumental in guiding clients through their decision-making journey in a way that’s both empathetic and effective.

However, I’ve noticed a gap when it comes to prospecting, especially on platforms like LinkedIn.

“The Lost Art of Closing” begins with the commitment to time, but in the realm of prospecting, the commitment for time is at the end not the beginning.

Recognizing this, I’ve adapted and expanded the framework to better suit the early stages of prospecting, emphasizing the gradual development of a relationship before seeking a commitment to time.

Connect:

Focus: Establishing a genuine connection with the prospect through LinkedIn groups, Sales Navigator, etc.

Emphasis: Building trust and rapport, setting a foundation for meaningful interactions.

Questions to Ask: “What inspired you to enter your field?” or “I noticed your recent post on [topic], what’s been your experience with that?”

 

Engage:

Focus: Actively participating in conversations and showing genuine interest.

Emphasis: Demonstrating involvement and investment in the prospect’s interests.

Questions to Ask: “What challenges are you currently facing in [a specific area]?” or “How do you see the industry evolving in the next few years?”

 >See more in my LinkedIn Prospect Primer<

 

Uncover:

Focus: Understanding the prospect’s needs and challenges.

Emphasis: Showing empathy and a deep understanding of their situation.

Questions to Ask: “Can you tell me more about your current priorities?” or “What has been a significant obstacle for you recently?”

 

Discover:

Focus: Identifying relevant topics or challenges the prospect is actively engaged with.

Emphasis: Initiating a conversation that feels natural and relevant.

Questions to Ask: “I noticed your interest in [specific topic], how are you planning to implement that in your strategy?” or “Your recent project on [topic] was intriguing, what were your key takeaways?”

 

Consider:

Focus: Encouraging the prospect to contemplate a deeper engagement.

Emphasis: Facilitating their consideration of how your offerings can meet their needs.

Questions to Ask: “Would you be open to a call to discuss how we might address these challenges?” or “Can we schedule a brief meeting to explore potential solutions for your current needs?”

If you’re looking to customize this strategy further to suit your specific situation or if you’re seeking faster, more direct assistance, I encourage you to book a call with me. This one-on-one consultation will allow us to dive deeper into your unique challenges and opportunities, tailoring the approach to fit your exact needs.

5 Ultra-Simple Steps to Dominate LinkedIn and Land 5 Qualified Calls EVERY Single Day

5 Ultra-Simple Steps to Dominate LinkedIn and Land 5 Qualified Calls EVERY Single Day

Did you know there’s a goldmine sitting right under your digital nose?

That’s right.

I’m talking about LinkedIn, the networking platform you’ve likely been underutilizing.

It doesn’t have to be difficult.

With a little consistency, you can get great results in just 20 minutes a day.

1. The Magnetic Profile: Not Just Another Face in the Crowd

Ever wonder why some people on LinkedIn seem to get all the attention while others fade into obscurity?

It’s all in the presentation.

Your photo, your achievements, your pitch – make every pixel count.

Click here to get a free LinkedIn Profile Audit.

2. Playing the Numbers Game Right: It’s All About Precision

Aim, fire, connect.

Sounds simple?

That’s because it is, even though it’s the #1 reason people fail on LinkedIn.

But the magic?

It’s in aiming at the right targets.

So, who are these “right targets”? They’re not just any professionals on LinkedIn. They’re those in decision-making positions in companies relevant to your industry. Think CEOs, CMOs, or even managers overseeing departments you cater to. Moreover, they are professionals who have recently engaged with content similar to yours or have shown interest in topics related to your niche. By focusing on these individuals, you’re not just connecting; you’re building valuable, future-focused relationships.

Quality trumps quantity.

Every. Single. Time.

 

3. From Lurker to Thought Leader: The Art of Engagement

Don’t be a wallflower.

Start discussions on your profile and others..

Join LinkedIn groups..

Share insights, and, more importantly, listen.

Position yourself as the go-to person in your niche.

When you are seen as the expert or the leader in your space, you not only grow your network but have people wanting to learn more about how you can help them.

That’s the sweet spot.

4. The Power of Automation: But Remember, Robots Don’t Close DealsThe Devil is in the Details

Use tools to streamline, but ensure it’s your voice, your passion, your authenticity that shines through every message.

Our private clients know we only help them customize the best tools that are suitable for their business.

It’s not the tool that matters, but rather how it’s used to fit into your business model.

Be human.

 

5. Adapt, Rinse, Repeat: The Cycle of Continuous Growth

The digital landscape is ever-evolving.

Your strategies should too.

Record, reflect, refine.(Like a heat-seeking missile)

There are no great marketers, ONLY great testers 🙂

 

There you have it.

The roadmap to transforming LinkedIn from a list of connections to a powerful engine delivering 5 calls a day.

It’s not rocket science.

It’s just understanding the game and playing it better than anyone else.

If you’ve got the drive to revamp your LinkedIn, we’ve got the roadmap.

Interested in finding out more?

Click here to book a spot with a member of our team for a free LinkedIn Discovery & Strategy Session.

Let’s uncover some low-hanging fruits for you on LinkedIn 🙂

 

6 Strategies to Master LinkedIn Like a Fortune 500 CEO

6 Strategies to Master LinkedIn Like a Fortune 500 CEO

I was having lunch with a friend. 

“This is what we want to start focusing on offering” he said.

They were wondering if LinkedIn was a good place to find active business owners that are more established. 

Their service evolved.

So did their target audience.

Not only are small business owners actively using it, 94% of Fortune 500 CEOs use LinkedIn.

It’s no wonder why.

LinkedIn is a powerful platform for business owners to connect with clients, network with peers, and grow their businesses.

But how can you, as a business owner, capitalize like those CEOs have?

In this article, I will show you how you can make the most of LinkedIn and use it to:

  • Become an industry authority
  • Build relationships with your audience
  • Book more calls
  • Land more clients
  • Grow your business.

We’ll cover 6 shifts to help you learn, connect, and close more clients on LinkedIn.

1. Fishing

Landing clients on LinkedIn is similar to fishing.

“Fish where the fish are”

If you know where to fish, you won’t have a problem catching fish.

Want help with this? We will do the analysis for you to help you start on the right foot with a Free Target Market Mini-Analysis.

2. Bait

You know where to fish.

Now, you need to know how to make your prospects “bite”.

  • Creating posts that are relevant to them
  • Reaching out with Personalized messages.

It all comes down to using the right “bait”.

Want help finding the right bait? Get a free market demand analysis where my team and I will personally research this for you for free.

 

3. LinkedIn Activity – Last 30 Days:

There are 800 million people using LinkedIn.

Sales Navigator’s “Last 30 Days” feature gives you access to prospects currently active on LinkedIn.

Reaching out to active vs inactive prospects will increase your reply rate on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn last 30 days

Reaching out to active vs inactive prospects will increase your reply rate on LinkedIn.

4. Curiosity:

You want to stimulate curiosity so your prospects respond to your DMs.

This is marketing 101.

You aren’t selling in the DMs.

You’re getting prospects to book calls with you.

To pique interest and capture attention, ensure your messaging is highly relevant.

See our Prospect Primer Template Pack.

5. OFFER

When pitching your offer to clients, it should make them feel like they’re losing out by saying “no”.

Create a dull offer – your prospect says “no”.

Create an “irresistible” offer – your prospect says “yes”.

For the past 3 years, after thousands of tests in 20+ industries, we’ve averaged 45%+ opt-ins.

6. booking calls

If you want to book calls and land more clients, offer free value.

  • Give them a resource you saw that would be helpful for them
  • Write a LinkedIn article and send it to them.
  • Tips
  • Resources you’ve made
  • Engage with their content to nurture the relationship.

Now you know how to make the most out of LinkedIn, just like 94% of Fortune 500 CEOs.

With these 6 mindset shifts, you can become an industry authority, build relationships with your audience, book more calls, land more clients, and grow your business.

 Want to go faster? 

1. If you’re looking for traction on LinkedIn, the best place to start is with a free audit so you can know what you personally should focus on: → LinkedIn Audit 

2. Level up your messaging: → Prospect Primer Pack

3. Don’t miss out on potential clients on LinkedIn due to small details. Our white-glove service and proven frameworks ensure that no opportunity goes unnoticed. →  Blueprint Session 

The #1 Reason Businesses Fail at LinkedIn Prospecting

The #1 Reason Businesses Fail at LinkedIn Prospecting

It’s not their strategy, financing, lack of marketing or sales effort…

You could be putting in all the effort in the world, but if you don’t have this step right, you’ll hear crickets in your inbox.

Many business owners think connecting, DMs, and a good profile are enough for LinkedIn prospecting.

They don’t realize what’s holding them back from reaching the next level.

Leveraging the data they already have.

Here are 4 ways to leverage data when prospecting on LinkedIn:

  1. If you aren’t talking to the right people, the rest doesn’t matter.
  2. Your customers don’t want personalization, they demand it.
  3. Measure what matters
  4. Follow the yellow brick road to unstoppable results

1. If you aren’t talking to the right people, the rest doesn’t matter.

If you talk to the wrong person, your messaging wont be aligned and they won’t be interested.

It’s not your fault either, as LinkedIn’s search tends to include a lot of profiles you did not ask for.

A large majority of people believe it is “just a numbers game” and don’t know they are using “dirty” lists (or don’t care to clean them).

How do you solve this?

2. Your future clients don’t want personalization, they demand it.

I doubt approaches like this make a good first impression. 

I don’t know about you, but I love getting something that’s personalized. 

positive linkedin reply

Messaging that’s authentic and relevant will stand out more than any post or ad.

With content, you are appealing to the algorithm, for prospecting, we are using personalization.

Find things you can bring up in conversation that would make it relevant.

Roll out the red carpet to your ideal prospects.

Stimulate intrigue.

Spark sales.

3. Measure what matters

At APEX Conversion we look at just 3 numbers.

  1. Acceptance Rate – How many people accepted / how many we sent a connection request to. ie. 86 new connections / 100 connection requests sent = 86% Acceptance Rate
  2. Reply Rate – How many people replied out of those that accepted? ie.72 replies / 86 new connections = 83.8% Reply Rate
  3. Interest Rate – How many conversations turned into them opting in? ie. 57 opted-in / 72 replies = 79.2% interest rate

 

For example: If your average sale is $15,000, you just added $855,000 into your pipeline.

Your pipeline will increase by almost a million dollars every week.

This is what we have set as our targets with our clients, and the opportunity that is possible when you systemize growth.

 

4. Follow the yellow brick road to unstoppable results

 Ever feel like you are shooting darts while blindfolded?

We should just “know” what to do next, right?

Recent studies show that even professionals only predict winning variants 52% of the time.

Without a systematic way to test, your chances of growth is left up to sheer luck.

    1. Find the golden nuggets in your data through data analysis
    2. Define the minimum test needed to prove out
    3. Sort ideas in order of impact and ease
    4. Prioritize
    5. Create a culture of consistent testing

 Want to go faster? 

1. If you’re looking for traction on LinkedIn, the best place to start is with a free audit so you can know what you personally should focus on: → LinkedIn Audit 

2. Level up your messaging: → Prospect Primer Pack

3. Don’t miss out on potential clients on LinkedIn due to small details. Our white-glove service and proven frameworks ensure that no opportunity goes unnoticed. →  Blueprint Session 

REACHING OUT: Not Your Average LinkedIn Guide

REACHING OUT: Not Your Average LinkedIn Guide

If you’re reading this, most likely you are in one of two situations.

1. Thinking of starting using LinkedIn and want to know the best way to do it.

2. Currently utilizing LinkedIn and doing some outreach, but may not be getting the results you feel you may deserve.

In 2016, I began using LinkedIn for outreach as phone calling and door knocking was effective, but I wanted something more efficient.

I fell in love with it and soon became my main way to land high-ticket, high-caliber, dream clients.

Not only for myself but in 2020 I went all in and built APEX Conversion, where we help industry leaders land incredible clients.

After tens of thousands of tests, we realized that there are three outcomes needed to be successful when it comes to LinkedIn Outreach.

  1. Focused Targeting
  2. Irresistible Personalization
  3. Unstoppable Results

In this no-holds-barred guide, I’m going to share with you the key factors that will have your LinkedIn inbox bursting at the seams with messages from high-caliber clients.

Focused Targeting

The thing we need to have effective LinkedIn outreach is focusing on your target audience.

This means narrowing down your search to individuals who are most likely to want or need your product or service.

Identify industry-specific groups and organizations, or individuals with similar job titles to your ideal prospects.

Determine your target audience

Market research helps you understand your ideal customers so you can tailor your products or services to meet their needs.

Analyze clients you have had success with to determine what demographic or psychographic factors they share and build a profile of your target audience.

Conduct surveys, focus groups, and analyze social media demographics to gather data on your target audience’s age, gender, income, interests, and preferences.

In Jim Collin’s book, Good to Great(would recommend), this is one of the first steps they take.

Look at the current T.A.M.

Find the current and future market opportunity is in the market with T.A.M. analysis

Total addressable market (T.A.M.) analysis looks at the size of the current and future markets for your product or service in order to help you plan accordingly.

Use data from previous sales, market research, industry reports, and competitive intelligence to gather information on your current and potential T.A.M.. (If you’d like to see what we look for, DM me “Dominate” to get our Domination Plan mini-training)

Uncover crucial customer needs and desires

Market research helps you understand what customers are looking for so that you can create products or services that meet their needs and wants.

The book, The Pumpkin Plan by Mike Michalowicz, is a great supplement to this.

Ask customers directly by conducting surveys, interviews, focus groups, online reviews, and other methods of data gathering to get a better understanding of their needs and desires.

This has a major impact on messaging conversion.

Understand your positioning 

Understanding the competition will help you identify potential opportunities and threats to your business.

Analyze what they’re doing in terms of marketing, product offering, pricing, etc., and read customer reviews to uncover insights into their weaknesses and strengths.

Gain insight from industry experts

Industry experts can provide valuable insight into market trends, upcoming changes in technology or regulations that could affect your business, and other relevant information.

Once you’ve identified your target audience, take the time to research their interests, pain points, and challenges. This information will help you craft your approach and create messaging that resonates with your audience. Don’t be afraid to get niche and specific. The more targeted your approach, the better your chances of success.

Tip: Remember to make sure your profile is compelling for those you target, if you want to see where you are at, grab a free profile audit here.

Irresistible Personalization

Assuming you got the targeting right, the next step is personalization. 

You want to make your target audience feel like you’re speaking directly to them.

This means using their name and referencing specific details or pain points that you uncovered during your research.

Avoid generic messages or pitches, as they’ll likely end up in the trash bin or ignored altogether.

Instead, create personalized messages that show your audience you’ve done your homework, and you have a solution to their specific problem. Click here to get our top converting intro messages.

Tip: If you have low reply rates, consider supplementing regular posting of content to have more opportunities to test what messaging resonates with the target market.

Unstoppable Results

Never stop testing, and you’ll never stop improving – David Ogilvy

How do we measure results?

We look at just 3 numbers.

  1. Acceptance Rate – How many people accepted / how many we sent a connection request to. ie. 86 new connections / 100 connection requests sent = 86% Connection Rate.
  2. Reply Rate – How many people replied out of those that accepted? ie. 72 replies / 86 new connections = 83.8% Reply Rate
  3. Interest Rate – How many conversations turned into them opting in? ie. 57 opted-in / 72 replies = 79.2% interest rate

If let’s say your average sale is $15,000, you just added $855,000 into your pipeline.

Your pipeline will increase by almost a million dollars every week.

We have hit numbers like these many times.

Not immediately.

When it starts out, it’s not even close.

If you’d like to get an audit on your current setup, click here to get a pipeline audit

With the right targeting and research combined with the you can have an insanely successful outreach campaign.

By focusing on your target audience, creating personalized messaging, and staying consistent in your efforts, you’ll be well on your way to dominating LinkedIn outreach.

Ready to take the next step in your business? 

1. If you’re still looking for traction in with LinkedIn, I’d recommend starting with a free profile audit and strategy session: → LinkedIn Profile Audit 

2. Level up your messaging: → Prospect Primer Pack

The #1 Client-Boosting, LinkedIn Strategy for High-Ticket Coaches

The #1 Client-Boosting, LinkedIn Strategy for High-Ticket Coaches

Thinking about using LinkedIn to get clients?

You may not be as familiar with LinkedIn as you are with other social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. But this shouldn’t stop you from using it to your advantage, especially when it comes to client acquisition.

LinkedIn is the most powerful professional social media platform out there. It’s more than just a resume and contact list, it’s an opportunity to connect with people who matter in your industry. And now, we’re going to show you how to use it like a pro so that you can get the business opportunities that are right for you.

HOW TO LEVERAGE AND LEAD ON LINKEDIN

In this training that was hosted for 7 & 8 Figure High-Ticket Coaches and Consultants, You’ll learn how to leverage LinkedIn features like Sales Navigator and InMail messages so that your profile stands out from other professionals on the site.

We’ll also share tips on how best to craft your profile and optimize your settings so that potential clients find what they need when they search for someone like you.

With these tips, you’ll be able to get the clients that need you.

Explore the hour long webinar below to see how LinkedIn can be your most powerful tool for attracting quality business.

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