Does Direct Messaging Work?

There are different schools of thought with cold outreach for B2B ranging from:

0 - NEVER do any cold outreach at all to

10 - Cold pitch and spam everyone you can get your hands on.

Somewhere between these extremes lies the science and art of outreaching cold to key decision-makers on LinkedIn and email and booking regular conversations.

After all, everyone in your network EVER was a cold contact at some point.

You GOT TO KNOW them - that is how they became a warm lead, a client, and then an advocate of your work.

Filling up your pipeline with cold leads is the best way to keep the business generation engine going in your business.

Here is an outline of lessons I have learned over the past few years building my network on LinkedIn and securing 10 calls a week with regularity.

Know your audience:

1. Target with precision. The more specific you are with your outreach the better your message will resonate and land.

2. The more senior your target, the more people around them you will have to engage. For this reason, know the top 3 or top 5 decision-makers in any given department or company. In larger firms, you will have to engage middle leadership and have them internally refer you up the ladder to the right person. Be ready to work slowly on multiple leads and conversations. The more senior you are targeting the more personalized your outreach must be.

3. The more independent, agile, and autonomous a decision-maker the more direct you can be. Don’t beat around the bush, offer them something of high value within the first messages and allow them to say ‘no thanks and have a good day.’ You do not need to nurture all leads for weeks and months before you make offers.

Offer Value:

1. Speak about their pain and their challenges, their goals, and desires. Establish relevance. People are trading their time for information so offer them value to win their attention and time. Only after you have established value can you position yourself for a sale.

2. In the same vein, do not lead with anything about yourself, your work, or your bespoke methods unless you’re doing so to establish the results you create for people like them. Certainly do NOT offer a paid service or pitch for a sale on the outreach message. Move offline to in-person conversations where you can understand more about your target and position your offer as a logical solution to what they’re struggling with. Even if you’re a not-for-profit that is seeking funding partners, you must lead with the value you create for them rather than your own story and purpose.

3. Be conversational, show you’re a human and give them an out. Acknowledge they might be doing super well in business/ life and could teach you something. Connect with their humanity while not skimping on an offer.

Be Regular

1. Make it a habit to add and message a certain number of new connections each day, each week, each month, and each year. The regularity of this rhythm will relieve you of any attachment to an outcome of any one conversation. Keep the leads flowing and if someone is not interested, move on.

2. Follow up old leads who expressed interest but didn’t book a call, or didn’t buy when you made them an offer. Keep the relationship going with updated offers of value. A good CRM or tracking tool will help you keep on top of conversations and leads.

3. Systemise this process by delegating to a virtual assistant who can follow a set process for list building, client research, outreach messaging, response handling, appointment setting, and relevant follow-up and lead scoring. No automation tool can compensate for a human being handling all of these steps and a virtual assistant can complete these tasks at a fraction of the cost of your time, releasing you be the CEO of your company, handle clients and team and work on the strategy of growth.

If you’re interested in creating a cold outreach process to engage B2B decision-makers on LinkedIn and email and book 5-10 calls per week with precision, then my 3-month boot camp might be the right fit for you.

We get hyper-specific about your target, your offer of value, and your systematic processes to bring in regularly $10k - $100k clients onto your calendar.

Message me for more information.

Does Direct Messaging Work? | lead generation agency london

The Power of Networking And Authority Building

In the B2B space, paid ads are not the most common way of securing business.

Why so?

Because when businesses need services they tend to think about:

• who they know,

• who is an authority in their space,

• who they have done business with before,

• who their competitors are doing business with

Business-to-business search and decision-making are generally done by a committee - the direct budget holder, the person they report to, the finance department, the procurement team, and sometimes more.

Basically, you need to convince the committee.

How better to convince the committee than to become the ‘known entity"?!

This is why building your authority, becoming the known go-to person, building relationships, networking, and thought leadership is so critical in the B2B space.

This is also why conferences and PR yield so much business opportunity.

Becoming a thought leader in your sector creates an instant demand and trust in your abilities.

Moreover, the opportunity to meet and build relationships with people means you become the ‘’known entity” therefore, more likely to be shortlisted for your services.

This is why LinkedIn is such a powerful B2B tool.

LinkedIn more than any other social platform, is a networking and authority-building tool, like conferences 24/7.

The search and filter features of Sales Navigator mean you can find business decision-makers with extreme accuracy - based on their:

• role in the company,

• the length of time in their role,

• their department growth,

• department budget,

• their relationship to other decision-makers, and more.

Few other tools permit such refinement and access to specific tiers of leadership.

Once you have your ideal client dialled in, you can connect and offer value, create relationships and persuade the committee.

It's like a 24/7 conference event for networking and authority building.

If you would like to secure inbound leads via LinkedIn and build your network then simply reach out and message me.

We can set up a chat and discuss a road map for you to bring in $10k - $100k clients over the next quarter and set up your pipeline with business for the next year.

The Power of Networking And Authority Building | Jen Bishop consulting lead generation agency london

Optimsining Your Profile On LinkedIn

All LinkedIn lead generation strategies start with one foundational element - optimise your profile.

By this I mean, fill out your LinkedIn profile in such a way that within 30 seconds of looking at it, your target audience will know exactly how you can help them.

There are a few elements to an optimised profile that will help with such immediate recognition:

1. Don’t make it about you, make it about them.

By this I mean, your LinkedIn profile is not a CV or a bio.

Emphasise who you help and what benefits and outcomes you create for your target demographic.

There is no greater place to state this than in your bio, the short sentence that sits under your name and profile pic.

This bio is the first thing people see when you comment, like, or share a post or when your profile is recommended to them as someone they should connect with.

This bio is not your role title or your skills - this is a sentence stating who you help and what outcomes you create.

2. Use your real estate

Use your banner image, your profile picture, your featured articles, your about section, your experience section, your skills, and your recommendations.

Use every single inch of real estate on your profile to back up the fact that you create benefits and outcomes for a distinct group of people.

Your ‘About’ section is a great space to add how you work with people, your methodology, and a list of the results you have created with past clients.

Your ‘featured articles’ section is a great place to link testimonials, case studies, and other key content about how you create results.

Use every possible inch of your profile to advance the message about the results you create.

3. Have a call to action

List your email address or telephone number and invite people to contact you if they want to find out more.

Make it super easy for people to engage with you, talk to you, book a time in your diary, check out more about you etc.

It’s amazing how many people do not simply invite visitors to their profile to connect or give instructions on how to find out more.

Be invitational and you will be surprised who reaches out to you to find out more.

These are just a few simple steps of how you can optimise your LinkedIn profile.

Optimsining Your Profile On LinkedIn | Jen Bishop consulting best lead generation agency