Consider two leads qualified in the same way… Which one gets priority?

The one that is closest to you in your network. Why?

Because close targets are most likely to trust you.

Searching for leads with LinkedIn

100% of Fortune 500 CEOs are now on LinkedIn. This is the largest database ever of decision makers and thus the best source for prospecting. Hoover’s and other databases like pals are dinosaurs!

LinkedIn offers a great advanced search feature:

• Run searches to find targeted contacts as leads and save your searches to receive new results as they happen.
• Search for leads from the sales reps‘ LinkedIn accounts.

This may seem tricky but it is proved to be highly profitable because you can look up within their extended network (their Level 2 connections).

And at the end of the day, the sales reps are the ones who will build a relationship with the prospect. If you search only with your account, you see a small percentage of the overall sales potential of your company.

Distribute leads to the best sales rep

One of the main issues when dealing with lead generation is delivering the right lead to the right salesperson. As we build a strategy based on trust, and use referrals to maximize call-to-meeting conversion rate, it is critical to identify which rep in the sales team is the closest to the lead. This is a form of “flexible territory assignment”.

With IKO, co-workers can combine their networks to work as a sales TEAM, so you can generate leads across all sales reps’ networks and dispatch the lead to the sales rep who has the best connection.

This article is an extract from the eBook “B2B Marketing on LinkedIn for advanced users” (available for download here).