In this podcast, we had the opportunity to speak with Adam Houlahan from Prominence Global. He’s here to share his experiences on what small and medium businesses can do on LinkedIn to reach to corporate clients. Adam has published three books and he has a team of 18 rock stars like him helping clients all around the world.
Getting the Attention of Corporate Clients
According to the digital marketplace, the way businesses need to get the attention of corporate clients as opposed to small businesses is quite different. In the corporate world, we can only imagine the amount of approaches and pitches they are getting into. So as an SME, we need to trust our perspective and do our research on how to get to them. You have to know them and know what they are looking for. Once you’ve done this you’ll be able to come back with a tailored solution based on what they were looking for and what they needed.
Degree of Transparency on Expected Outcomes
There’s this belief that corporate clients have big, deep pockets and will pay more than other clients. Now, do they have bigger budgets than small businesses? Of course, they do. They also have way more pressure on that budget and way more accountability. So someone, whoever you’re talking to is more than likely accountable to someone in the line. With this, comes the need to clearly define your value proposition—corporate clients need to see that there’s transparency and defined value of your products and/or services for them to choose it. Give them enough of an outline so they could see a path to what they could expect on the other side of that process.
LinkedIn Profile and the 3 Elements
Trust, rapport, and integrity. These are the three important elements when dealing with corporate clients. One of the things that a potential corporate client would do if they hear about you is to check out your LinkedIn profile. If you want to get that meeting request or acceptance, then you have to build your LinkedIn profile. They are expecting a certain element of information on your profile—display your expertise, experience, and have information about your business as well as what you do. They’re going to see whether you’re active. Are you engaged in other people’s content? Are there people in similar industries that you are connected to and others.
Online Visibility and Credibility
LinkedIn is a great sale and lead generation tool. However, 95% of people get lead generation on LinkedIn wrong. There’s this paradigm shift that you can do on LinkedIn to generate leads and position yourself as an industry leader. Once you make these little shifts, it changes everything. Every social platform is driven by algorithms, however, LinkedIn is different than most platforms. LinkedIn aims to build a community and they are looking for people that can serve in that community. Predominantly they are looking for content creators that are sharing content in a certain context that helps them with their business model. You need to think about what LinkedIn needs and how you can align your needs with theirs.
At the end of the day, the efforts that you put into LinkedIn should help you stand out and not try to be part of the 95% that’s all doing the same thing. Think of leveraging LinkedIn to make the most out of the platform. Have a good presence, engage with other’s contents, release helpful contents and make your profile professional. These are the little things that will make the biggest impact.