Everyone in the tech industry knows it, but no one ever really talks about this dirty little secret. As you compare your business & industry to other industries….You know it’s the truth and you have been struggling to understand why and how to fix it.

Here it is….If you are in the technology industry, most of your sales & marketing efforts fail. Selling and lead generation are hard enough, but it is WORSE for the tech space.

That said, you can fix it. Read below to learn the five little- known actions you can take right now on LinkedIn to overcome this tech industry ‘secret’ hurdle.

The Truth About the Complication

In deconstructing the overall landscape called sales and marketing (aka lead generation), wow is it complicated… always changing, and an area that needs to be tended to regularly. To this end, it is not as simple as buying a list of ‘targets’ and hiring a cold caller to pound on the list for nine months. What??! No sir, it is just not that easy. Why? I could go on and on and on, but this is for another article…

The bottom line is that if you are in the tech space at all, you know very well how competitive it is and how hard it is to generate valuable leads. In fact, studies show this to be the number one challenge for the technology industry. Further, lead-generation strategies evolve continually, so you are forced to shift tactics every 6-12 months.

The Truth About The Tech Space

Given the complexities of finding the ideal consumer at the right time to buy your product or service is even more complicated for our friends in the Tech space.

Why is that?

Well, I suggest that there are three reasons for this.

First, the tech space is ever-evolving. There is no time to focus on marketing and message, and so there is a ton of confusion for the consumer. To make matters worse, tech companies are usually run by the founder and founders are not salespeople and do not think like a salesperson. Most companies rush to get the product to market, rush to get the required features and benefits one-pager published, rushed to get the website up, and then….crickets.

Second, most tech companies are new and focused on disruption so many look for a community of early adopters. There is the issue: most of the early adopters do not even know they have an issue or problem (yet) that can be solved by whatever technology you are offering. You have to lead them down a path of awareness then consideration…

Third, most tech companies rely on their website way too much, as they allow their website to serve as an online catalog of products and services. Your site must build customer relationships, produce qualified leads, and preach the marketing vision 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Huh? Yes, you need an engine to do this in the background. The problem here is that it is easier said than done and most companies do not do this right or tend to the website ‘ecosystem’ effectively.

So, what can you do now to have an impact?

Well, it’s right in front of you on LinkedIn, NOT your website, NOT the one-pager that you are spamming out to some email list you bought, NOT the poor sales guy you hired for $10k a year and that you have going to networking events, NOT to the ‘lead gen’ firm you hired from India.

LinkedIn is the easiest, more efficient and affordable mechanism. With some thought, clarity and a few keyboard clicks, you will be on your way to a systematic approach to delivering relationships that will ultimately lead to business.

As I have purview over 100s of my clients, I know first-hand that LinkedIn is a genuinely underutilized tool for communication. With 500 million people on LinkedIn, it is still shocking to me how folks leverage the platform so ineffectively.

Five Easy Steps

Here are five areas where you need to focus on. Just five. Let me unpack them for you.

1.Transparency

LinkedIn allows you the opportunity to be genuinely transparent and to share your ‘why’ on a personal level. Let’s be honest people do not want to be sold to anymore. It is not the same as it was 20 years ago. People want to know you first – I am not talking about taking everyone out for coffee or dinner, to a baseball game or to play golf. That approach, while fun and necessary, is not scalable.

LinkedIn is a Social Media platform (yes, I said it) and it has changed the game for professionals. So, communicate with people as you would if you were on that golf course (minus the beers).

For example, give the audience a vision of why you started the company or created the product. What were your frustrations? What are your insights?

What does this look like on LinkedIn? Writing articles and creating Videos that are native to LinkedIn. Put videos up of you and your team talking about why you started the business or how you have helped people with your product. Do one video a week then write an article discussing the video.

2.Buyer Persona

Along with genuine communication, you need to dissect and understand your buyer persona thoroughly. You cannot believe how many clients I work with that say “I can work with any business and can help all industries.” Ummm, no you can’t and why would you??

You need a niche!

When you are doing the videos or posting articles, really speak to your buyer persona. Once you have determined who your buyer is and what problems they have, build the messaging of your product and service around the pain points of your buyer.

Hint: Upgrade to Sales Navigator to get the benefits of filters, notes and tags to build a list of targets so that you can invite them into your network.

3.Title and Summary

Now that you have thought clearly on your buyer persona, write your LinkedIn summary and title from a perspective of how you can help your buyer. No one cares if you are a serial entrepreneur or a CEO or how many degrees you have. Do not make your profile about you. Make it about how you can help your prospects.

Your title should be something along the lines of “I help logistics companies gain

Three parts to your title: Target, Solution and Time Frame (Or another metric).

The summary should tell a story of your why and how you can get customers. Do not make it about how many degrees you have or how many companies you have started. That is not what people want to know. They want to see how you can help them and why you want to help them.

4.Lead With Value – Pay It Forward

Have an attitude of generosity and concern to help and educate your audience. Do not look to them just as dollar signs and potential buyers.

Join relevant groups where your buyer will be, be sure and remain active in the group and engage in comments and posts. Share plenty of free educational content that will help and educate people. Helping people is how you build trust with your audience.

Marketing begins with your knowledge of your prospects. It’s vital to understand what question or problem they have. Once prospects get educated about their problem and possible solutions; they usually look at several potential vendors and guess who they will go to FIRST?

To differentiate from the competition, focus on developing high- level content like white papers or case studies that show the unique value your products offer. By focusing not only on what you do differently but why your way is best, you change the paradigm.

5.Create a LinkedIn Group

Create your own group that your prospects will want to join. Offer them an open forum to share their upcoming initiatives or solutions to problems. Create a suitable tile, solid mission statement and a logo (use Canva.com for this) for your group.

Build your new 1st-degree database and invite them into your forum. People then get to see you on a more personal level into of the group you founded.

Conclusion

There you have it ….The five easy tasks you can do on LinkedIn right now to build relationships that will drive business. Rewrite your summary and title; Join relevant groups and remain engaged in those; Find your prospects in Sales Navigator; Have an attitude of generosity and invite your new connections into a group that you just created. I wrote an article to augment this and it goes into more detail.

All of this, taken together, will present you in a much better light and allow you to attract the right people and build long-lasting relationships, thereby generating a massive amount of business opportunities.

Obviously…..

I’m happy to help you design a custom LinkedIn plan for your business, show you how to identify your perfect target market of prospective buyers and show you how to present you and your business to them the right way. This way you’ll be able to focus on running your business while having a social selling (aka lead generation the NEW modern way) machine in place 24/7.

And I do give a lot of free advice….no cost & no obligation of any kind. I am actually a very straight to the point person and if you listen carefully, I will hand out lot of GOOD advice – if I think your tactics are wrong, I will tell you and I will tell you what to do instead. And no I do not try to sell my services to everyone I talk to…frankly I am very picky and honestly cannot help everyone….and yes I will tell you if we are not a good fit for one another.

If you want to schedule a planning session for free advice or to consider our services, simply click the link below. When you click, you’ll see a form with a few questions about you, your business and what you’re looking to accomplish. Once I have that information, I’ll do some research and be ready for when we speak. Click Here for Free Consultation.