APAC TEAM is a group of veteran sales guys based in Singapore with successful sales experience all over Asia. Let APAC TEAM (www.apac-team.com) be “Your A-TEAM in ASIA.”
Many of us have all been on LinkedIn to find old friends and colleagues and to look for a JOB!!! But at APAC TEAM we are still amazed at how focused the site is on helping connect people and jobs as we have been using it for years for another purpose.
We have found the site key to making us better sales and business development guys as well as assessing potential partners. As any good sales guy will tell you there is nothing better than going into a meeting with a view to your audience as well as potential connections. Going to the same school or working for an old company can make all the difference. The cold call becomes warm and warm calls are ALWAYS better then cold calls.
So the program goes like this for us: who are we meeting? Prep up by searching LinkedIn to find commonalities and maybe most importantly who do we know who knows this guy / gal? A phone call to an old colleague or friend can make all the difference in the world, positive or negative. If it all looks good then nothing starts a sales call like “do you know so and so?” And now we are buddies and deals flow!!!
As importantly, the system works just as well with potential partners. Most companies we have worked with use both direct and indirect channels as well as partners to fill in other needs. We can’t tell you the number of times we have been told by folks that I can “do this and do that” only to find out later that they can do neither. LinkedIn has become a key tool to sort the “pretenders from the contenders.” This saves a ton of time and in many cases via degrees of separation can give huge insight into the negotiating process.
By building a strong presence on LinkedIn and keeping current with former colleagues and classmates you only empower yourself. From a selfish standpoint the more touch points we have the better chance we have of knowing the guy / gal we are selling to or partnering with.
The bottom line is LinkedIn is more than a site to get a job or find a job seeker. LinkedIn is a critical business tool to increasing your effectiveness on your sales calls and finding better partners. We have found it amazing that other colleagues don’t see this. Get a profile up, encourage partners to do the same and make those COLD calls WARM.
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