Get a Demo
Bigtincan Logo

4 Ways to Help Sales Reps Optimize Their LinkedIn Profiles

Jul 10th, 2017

 

According to Forrester Research, 74% of B2B buyers conduct over half of their research online before making a purchase decision. So if buyers are looking at your website and product reviews, chances are they’re looking at your sales reps’ LinkedIn profiles too.

Your reps’ profiles are a representation of their own personal brand, but more importantly, it can be the first impression of your organization as well. It’s up to the sales enablement department to guide the sales team and ensure their LinkedIn profiles are complete, consistent and an accurate and positive representation of your company.

Here are 4 tips for sales enablement leaders to help sales reps improve their LinkedIn profiles.

Offer professional headshots

A LinkedIn profile picture is often the first thing a prospect will see on your reps’ profiles.  As good as someone may look in a photo from their sister’s wedding five years ago, it doesn’t belong on their LinkedIn profile.

Schedule a time every year for all reps to have their photo taken. This will ensure they all have an updated, professional profile picture.

Develop copy for LinkedIn summaries

The best way to make sure sales reps are accurately representing your brand voice is to create copy for them to use in their profiles.

A well-rounded summary should include a brief description of the rep’s role, your company, and how your rep helps clients. Here’s an example:

The summary should include how you help your clients, as well as detail around the processes your company can help them improve and the results they should expect to achieve with your services.

Provide content for reps’ profiles

LinkedIn allows users to embed content and videos right into the ‘experience’ and ‘summary’ sections of the profile page. This is a great place to display promotional videos, demos, whitepapers or eBooks that your company has created.

Since we already know that most prospects prefer to do more than half of their research online, be sure to provide specific content for your reps to include on their profiles. This way you can make sure reps are using content that is updated, consistent and best represents your brand.

Create a profile checklist

The most professional LinkedIn profiles are complete profiles. In fact, 50% of buyers avoid sales professionals with incomplete LinkedIn profiles. To simplify the process for your reps and maximize the adoption of social selling, provide them with a checklist of each key area of their LinkedIn profile to fill out.

Here are the key areas reps should be focusing on:

  • Headline – This could be a rep’s title or details around who they help and how they help them. Provide guidance for reps and encourage consistency across the sales organization.
  • Contact Information – This one may seem obvious, but is often overlooked. Reps should provide their email, phone number, and links to other social profiles to make it easy for potential prospects to contact them.
  • Experience – The ‘experience’ section (where current and past positions are listed) should be written with the buyer in mind. What are some results they’ve helped your clients achieve?
  • Honors and Awards – Reps can use this section to showcase any professional awards they’ve received. This demonstrates their level of experience and dedication to prospects.
  • Education – Listing the educational background has the potential to spark a great conversation! “You graduated from Boston College in 2010? Do you know my cousin Suzy?”
  • Groups – Reps should join and participate in groups in your target industry to show buyers that they understand and care about their pain points.

Is your sales enablement strategy built for mastery? Take this assessment to find out if your program makes the grade!