How to Book Hundreds of Sales Meetings on LinkedIn

As you build your network on LinkedIn, you also need to engage with your connections and book meetings to get acquainted and find out if they're a qualified lead.

When you do this, remember to put yourself in your prospect's shoes. They're not ready to buy from you yet...they don't even know you.

So don't try to sell. Just focus on getting acquainted and establishing a professional friendship.

I was able to book 125 virtual getting-acquainted meetings in 6 months by being totally chill in my messaging. I didn't book meetings to sell to them. Instead, I booked appointments to get acquainted and trade thoughts on market trends.

B2B buyers want information that gives them an edge

Did you know that 82% of B2B buyers will accept meetings with sellers EARLY in the buying process?

I realize that this flies in the face of what inbound marketers have been teaching for a decade. But it's true. B2B buyers WANT to talk with sellers who bring insights that are useful to them. 

So what kinds of insights can you bring to an initial sales call?

These buyers want to know what their competitors are doing. They want to know how trends are likely to affect their businesses and their jobs. They want to learn about best practices that are in your company's area of expertise.

You have a lot of valuable insight in your head, and the more calls you get on with prospects where you talk trends, the more valuable insight you'll collect.

Each sales call generates more insights for the next call

When I first got started with my prospecting on LinkedIn, I reached out to firms in the commercial real estate technology (CRETech) industry. I primarily targeted CXOs and heads of sales and marketing.

If you've ever talked with me, heard me speak, or follow my blog, you've probably heard me harping on the importance of focus. By focusing on that niche industry in commercial real estate, I was able to collect trends that were super relevant to my target prospects.

Every call I had increased the value I could offer for my next call.

After my 5th call with these CXOs, my value proposition for the 6th was, "I've recently talked to 5 other CXOs of CRETech firms and heard some interesting insights from them on recent trends impacting the industry. Would you be interested in hearing what I'm learning?"

The more calls I did, the higher my number of prior calls went. Eventually, I was able to say, "In the past 3 months, I've talked to more than 100 senior executives in the CRE industry...."

The more conversations I had, the more valuable my insight became to the next person I reached out to. It steadily became easier and easier to book the next call.

Turn the insights you're collecting into thought leadership

I also turned those insights into some thought leadership content by writing LinkedIn updates and blog posts about what I was learning. That helped to further build my credibility. 

I also quoted (with their permission) several of the people I spoke with. Of course, I selected some of my best sales prospects to quote in my articles. So this gave me a really great reason to get back in touch with those people. I needed to get their permission to use their name and quote them. 

This is like a gift to them that keeps on giving. I gave them valuable insight in the first conversation. Then I gave them an opportunity for some good press by quoting them and linking back to them in my article. The articles also gave them new insights, with more depth than we could go into in a 30-minute call.

Can you imagine how much this elevated their opinion of me as a trusted advisor? I've created some great relationships with people by doing that, and I've won quite a few new clients.

Publish that content in an industry trade publication

Because I based my content on so many conversations, it represents high quality thought leadership. Honestly, I talked to more people than industry analysts usually talk to for research reports that they sell for 1000's of dollars. So I was able to get my content published in an important trade publication. That gave me even more credibility with my leads. (here's a link to an article that performed really well.)

Use the thought leadership to stay in contact with leads

Once I had the thought leadership articles published, I could also get back in touch with dozens of my prospects and share that content with them. Since it was directly relevant to the conversations I had with them, they were very interested in reading it. That allowed me to nurture leads that weren't ready. It also spawned several conversations with leads that were sales-ready, and I closed a couple deals based on that.

Convinced that this effort is worthwhile? 

If you're ready to start booking meetings with your LinkedIn connections but need some coaching on how to make it happen, join our master class. I'll teach you EXACTLY what I did to accomplish what I've described here. 

About the Author: Candyce Edelen is founder of PropelGrowth, where she teaches B2B entrepreneurs and sales professionals to build authentic, human-to-human relationships on LinkedIn. Her strategies have helped clients shift from spammy automation to genuine outreach, resulting in higher-quality leads and increased sales. Candyce is passionate about helping professionals build trust and create a reliable, predictable sales pipeline. She's also a firm believer that you can't automate a relationship.