Ever heard ‘I don’t need LinkedIn’ from a sales rep? Or maybe a team member saying, ‘That’s not my job’? Join Coach Michelle J Raymond as she tackles the seven most common objections to LinkedIn and reveals how to flip the script to get your team on board.
Today's episode is sponsored by Metricool. Make sure to register for a FREE Metricool account today. Use Code MICHELLE30 to try any Premium Plan FREE for 30 days. https://i.mtr.cool/NEDXVZ
Key moments in this episode:
00:00 Overcoming LinkedIn Objections
02:27 Common LinkedIn Objections and How to Address Them
04:23 My Customers Prefer Calls
05:50 I Already Have an Established Network
06:53 I'm Too Busy for LinkedIn
09:16 My Customers Aren't Active on LinkedIn
11:35 I'm Successful with Email Marketing
13:45 LinkedIn Didn't Work for Me
16:06 LinkedIn - It's Not My Job
18:19 Flipping the Script on LinkedIn Objections
ABOUT MICHELLE J RAYMOND
Michelle J Raymond is an international LinkedIn™️ B2B Growth Coach.
To continue the conversation, connect with Michelle on LinkedIn™️ and let her know you are part of the community of podcast listeners.
Connect with Michelle J Raymond on LinkedIn™️ - https://www.linkedin.com/in/michellejraymond/
B2B Growth Co offers LinkedIn™️ Training for teams to build personal and business brands and a LinkedIn™️ Profile Recharge service for Founders/CEOs.
Book a free intro call to learn more - https://calendly.com/michelle-j-raymond/book-an-intro-call-15mins
Social Media for B2B Growth Podcast is a fully accessible podcast. Audio, Video, Transcript and guest details are available on our podcast website - https://socialmediaforb2bgrowthpodcast.com/
Subscribe to our YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/@MichelleJRaymond
#LinkedIn #SocialSelling #B2BSales
00:00:00
Michelle J Raymond: Have you ever heard a sales rep tell you they don't need LinkedIn?
00:00:04
Or maybe one of the employees in your team, when you ask them to support your
00:00:08
content plan, said, Hey, that's not my job.
00:00:11
I know it can be a struggle to get teams active on LinkedIn.
00:00:14
So in today's episode, I'm going to share the seven most common objections that I
00:00:20
hear, and more importantly, how you can flip the script to get the team on board.
00:00:42
G'day everyone.
00:00:42
It is Coach Michelle J Raymond and welcome back to another episode of the podcast.
00:00:47
So glad that you can be here because this one's going to be an important one and a bit of a follow
00:00:52
up episode to the one that we did two episodes ago, where we are planning our marketing for 2025.
00:01:00
And one of those tips that I gave in that episode was all about, getting your team active,
00:01:05
getting personal brands of your employees and the company brand all working together.
00:01:10
Now, if only it was that easy that you write down on a piece of paper, strategy for 2025.
00:01:17
Get the team active and then you go away and speak to your colleagues only
00:01:21
to be whacked with, it's not my job.
00:01:24
I don't need LinkedIn.
00:01:26
LinkedIn's for marketing, not my problem.
00:01:28
Yeah, no, I'm too busy for that, and all the most common objections that you will
00:01:33
probably hear that I hear regularly as well.
00:01:37
This came out out of a conversation with a client of mine, shout out to Alastair for his
00:01:43
permission and allowing me to use this for an episode because I think it's a brilliant idea to
00:01:48
set yourself up for these difficult conversations and have some prepared answers so you can go
00:01:54
in strong and really get to understand what's going on for the person on the other side.
00:01:59
What might they be thinking and how might you be able to support them through this initial stage?
00:02:06
You know, LinkedIn can be quite overwhelming, intimidating, and
00:02:09
often people are fearful of LinkedIn.
00:02:12
Keep this in mind.
00:02:13
Remember, we have empathy for the people that work around us.
00:02:17
Social media may not come natural to many people within your team and it doesn't matter about age.
00:02:22
It doesn't matter about seniority.
00:02:24
It doesn't matter about experiences.
00:02:27
So keeping this in mind, I'm going to quickly tell you seven objections and just a quick
00:02:33
idea on how I think you can flip the script.
00:02:36
But before we do that, I just want to share a quick word about our podcast sponsors, Metricool.
00:04:12
The objections that I'm going to be sharing today are in no particular order,
00:04:16
but I have absolutely every confidence that they are really going to help you.
00:04:21
So let's start with the first one.
00:04:23
My customers prefer calls, might be something that the sales team pushes back.
00:04:30
That's great.
00:04:30
We love that you and your customer enjoy those calls, but what happens
00:04:35
if you have too many customers and can't always stay in contact with them?
00:04:40
I fell in love with LinkedIn 10 years ago when I first started social selling,
00:04:44
because I was given a client portfolio of 80 customers spread around Australia.
00:04:49
I was selling 10, 000 different products.
00:04:52
It was as simple as the maths didn't add up.
00:04:56
What I loved is that I could do a post on LinkedIn after inviting all of my existing
00:05:01
customers, past customers, potential customers into my LinkedIn community.
00:05:07
I could create content that spoke to them all at once at a time that worked for them.
00:05:13
And as today's roles are busier and busier, resources are getting
00:05:17
stretched further and further.
00:05:19
Even if somebody does enjoy taking calls, it doesn't mean they're always available.
00:05:23
By creating content on LinkedIn, they can consume it at a time that works for them.
00:05:28
And then that means when you are on the call with them.
00:05:31
Often you will hear them say, Oh, I saw your post about this.
00:05:35
Can we talk about that some more?
00:05:37
So it really warms up those conversations and most importantly, keeps you top of mind.
00:05:43
It's so easy to fall into the out of sight, out of mind.
00:05:47
Let's talk about LinkedIn objection number two.
00:05:50
What do you say to the person who says, I've already got an established network?
00:05:55
You say this.
00:05:57
That's really cool that you have that network established.
00:06:00
And we are just opening up LinkedIn to discover what other opportunities might be out there.
00:06:07
Who haven't you connected with that might be new to the industry?
00:06:11
Is it possible to connect with previous clients?
00:06:14
What about referral partners?
00:06:15
Have you considered who else we can partner up with within the industry?
00:06:20
LinkedIn is a great way of keeping a track of who's moving around, who started
00:06:25
new roles, and this can really help you keep up with your market intelligence.
00:06:30
LinkedIn is a great way to stay relevant with your audience, top of mind and
00:06:34
demonstrate your ongoing expertise.
00:06:37
Don't look at LinkedIn just as a tool to nurture existing relationships.
00:06:41
How else can you use it to expand your network?
00:06:50
Here's another great one that I would hear all the time.
00:06:53
I'm too busy with insert X traditional selling methods.
00:06:57
So what do I mean by those?
00:06:58
Let's think about calls.
00:07:00
Let's think about emails.
00:07:01
Let's think about events, trade shows, customer visits, all of these kinds
00:07:06
of things that a typical sales role would be busy taking these actions.
00:07:12
Once again, not asking you to give up those actions, but saying, Hey, why don't you
00:07:17
use LinkedIn to keep in touch with more people, a broader audience, and help you
00:07:23
to promote some of those events in advance.
00:07:25
One of my favorite things that I fell in love with LinkedIn very early on in my
00:07:31
career when I first started social selling was the fact that I would go to trade shows.
00:07:37
Everybody had their booths.
00:07:38
And at the end of the day, there's only so many freebies that you can give away.
00:07:42
And I would have a lineup of people wanting to see me, while everybody else is trying to entice
00:07:48
people to come, come and grab a free mint.
00:07:51
And what I loved is that they would be standing at the booth and they
00:07:55
would come with an idea in mind.
00:07:57
And they would come and say, Michelle, I saw your post about X products
00:08:01
on LinkedIn rah, rah, rah, rah.
00:08:03
And they want to know more about it.
00:08:05
And that post could have been two months ago.
00:08:07
It could have been six months ago.
00:08:09
And sometimes it was even longer.
00:08:11
And that to me made my job so easy.
00:08:15
My bosses loved it.
00:08:16
We've got a higher ROI from the investment in setting up at those trade shows.
00:08:22
This isn't about taking away from those things.
00:08:25
This is about how can you get even better results from the things that you're doing?
00:08:30
When you think about it, LinkedIn is here if you use it right to just increase the results that
00:08:36
you're seeing from the activities that you're doing already, because you can replicate yourself.
00:08:41
You can be a one to many, as opposed to some of these other things, like a customer
00:08:46
visit is only a one to one relationship.
00:08:49
And there's only so many hours in a day.
00:08:51
So again, trying to give you some of that time back and get you better results.
00:09:16
Objection number four, this one is a classic and this is all about when
00:09:22
someone comes back to you and says, but my customers aren't active on LinkedIn.
00:09:29
My immediate thought to that goes, how do you know?
00:09:33
Because LinkedIn doesn't tell us who's active and who's not.
00:09:38
In Australia, I know that 51 percent of our population has a LinkedIn profile.
00:09:43
That's practically every working adult has one.
00:09:47
Who's on the platform and who's not, I have no way of telling unless they're
00:09:51
posting content or being active.
00:09:54
And you might make the assumption that because you don't see someone posting content, you
00:09:59
don't see them liking and commenting, you haven't heard from them for a while that they're
00:10:04
automatically not active on the platform.
00:10:07
I'm here to blow that misconception out of the water, because there are so many studies that
00:10:12
have shown that we have what's called LinkedIn lurkers, which are roughly nine out of 10
00:10:18
people that log in, take a look around don't touch any buttons, just consume what they need
00:10:25
to keep up to date, and then they disappear.
00:10:28
And quite often, if they're in senior roles or the decision makers that are often the
00:10:32
target of spammy sales type messages on LinkedIn, they're the ones that tend to
00:10:37
hide and I don't blame them for the record.
00:10:40
So don't.
00:10:42
assume just because they don't post content that they're not active.
00:10:46
I've seen it far too many times.
00:10:48
And these are those same people that I was just mentioning at the trade shows
00:10:52
that would come up and speak to me.
00:10:54
And I'd be like, Hey, you didn't like my post.
00:10:56
You didn't comment.
00:10:58
Can't you just press a button from time to time, but just keep in mind.
00:11:02
LinkedIn is a scary place for many people and there could be all kinds of reasons.
00:11:06
They may not want their boss to know that they're active on the platform.
00:11:09
You don't know what's going on for them, but please don't ever connect your thoughts with,
00:11:15
you can't see them doing things with they're not active because they're two very different things.
00:11:20
And you will be very surprised that with a little bit of effort on LinkedIn, what you'll uncover on
00:11:26
who's checking it out on a pretty regular basis.
00:11:35
Objection number five could be something along the lines of I'm
00:11:40
really successful with email marketing.
00:11:43
I like to send emails to my clients.
00:11:46
Okay.
00:11:46
That's great.
00:11:47
Again, we're not trying to take away from what works, but introducing other ways that might
00:11:53
work for you on LinkedIn to further enhance that.
00:11:56
And if you're really good at sending emails off LinkedIn, perhaps sending direct messages
00:12:01
to people might get you better results.
00:12:04
Think about your own work inbox.
00:12:07
If you have a think about your emails and think about how many emails that
00:12:12
you're getting on a daily basis.
00:12:14
I used to get so excited when I worked in corporate land that if my inbox had under a
00:12:19
hundred unread emails or at least unactioned emails that I was having a good day.
00:12:25
That's a hundred.
00:12:27
I worked with people that had way more than that.
00:12:29
They didn't even read them.
00:12:31
They couldn't even get to them.
00:12:33
They would maybe at best skim or scan them.
00:12:36
This is happening everywhere.
00:12:37
Nobody, I'm going to say nobody needs another email in their life.
00:12:41
But the thing is when people are consuming content on social media, when they're logging
00:12:47
in and scrolling, it's quite often in downtime.
00:12:50
So think about it.
00:12:51
They're choosing when they want to be on that platform.
00:12:54
And it could be a time when they're happy to hear from people.
00:12:59
They're happy to receive your message.
00:13:01
And it's much easier to stand out because maybe they don't get the volume of traffic in
00:13:07
their LinkedIn inbox that they do off there.
00:13:10
One of the greatest ways that you can stand out and get yourself an
00:13:13
advantage over your competitors is to be of service to people on LinkedIn.
00:13:17
So instead of sending those emails over on the inbox, why don't you think about,
00:13:21
could you be sending a direct message with similar content, something that's in service
00:13:26
and say, Hey, I was just thinking of you.
00:13:29
Here's something that will make your life a little bit easier.
00:13:37
Objection number six, I think many people will relate to as individuals and also
00:13:43
hear back from their teams the most.
00:13:45
And that is, I tried LinkedIn, it didn't work for me.
00:13:50
This is such a common objection that comes up and I get it.
00:13:55
Many people have given it a try.
00:13:59
And when you don't have a strategic plan to follow, you haven't had someone
00:14:04
invest in you with training, It can be really tricky to get started on LinkedIn.
00:14:10
And especially when, if you don't have a strategic plan to follow and you're just
00:14:16
trying to be active, it kind of ends up spinning on the spot and not going anywhere.
00:14:22
And so many people give up after just a few weeks.
00:14:26
When it comes to LinkedIn, this is a long term game.
00:14:29
This is not something where you see immediate results and to support people through that
00:14:36
process is really important because I know from all of my experience that LinkedIn will
00:14:41
work, for anyone in any industry, in any part of the world, when they're given the right
00:14:47
framework to follow, that's why I created the G.R.O.W.T.H framework that I teach my clients.
00:14:53
When you have the framework to follow and you have the support and you know what activities
00:14:58
will make you efficient and effective on LinkedIn, it's a really powerful tool that
00:15:03
will support people to get towards their goals.
00:15:06
So it absolutely does work.
00:15:08
And I recommend that if you have someone that pushes back on that, that you ask a few
00:15:13
more questions and find out what did they try, what did work for them, what didn't
00:15:18
work for them, was it a lack of knowledge or was it some of those fears that pop up?
00:15:24
If you have someone that comes to you and says it didn't work for them, then, and you have the
00:15:29
conversation where you discover that actually it was a lack of training that's such an easy
00:15:33
win and something that I can easily fix for you.
00:16:01
We're going to come around into the last objection here, which is.
00:16:06
Oh, look, if I had a dollar for every time people have told me that this has been
00:16:11
said to them, I'd be really rich by now.
00:16:14
And that is you ask a person to help support content, either to create
00:16:18
their own support the company page.
00:16:20
I don't really care which way you go around it.
00:16:22
And their response is, I am not in sales or I'm not in marketing.
00:16:27
It's not my job.
00:16:30
Oh my God.
00:16:31
It's not my job.
00:16:33
Now I don't blame this person for saying this back to you because what's happened
00:16:37
is there's a conversation missing back at the beginning before we even try and to
00:16:43
get the team to be active and supportive.
00:16:46
And that is having a discussion around what is in it for them.
00:16:51
Why should they want to, are they even interested in being part of this program?
00:16:56
What's in it for them for contributing to the success of the LinkedIn program for your business.
00:17:02
And if you haven't had those conversations, if you just go to them and try and force
00:17:06
them because, Hey, you should, because you work for the company and why don't you want
00:17:11
to, then you're just going to get pushback.
00:17:13
What happens in this circumstance normally is that people will feel bullied or
00:17:19
pressured into being active on the platform.
00:17:22
They will start that and then as soon as they think that nobody's watching, they'll stop,
00:17:27
they'll throw it out the window and you'll be left trying to drag the whole business along.
00:17:32
It happens all too frequently and it can be really solved.
00:17:37
As I said, with a conversation up front, ask for volunteers first up, right?
00:17:44
Who actually wants to be involved in the program?
00:17:47
Then we can work our way along into those people that are really aggressively
00:17:52
pushing back for whatever reason.
00:17:54
At the end of the day, unless it's somebody's job that they've been hired
00:17:58
to do, this is almost like a volunteer program that you have to enroll them in.
00:18:02
They have to be a part of your shared vision for success.
00:18:07
And if you're the leader of a business and you're not doing it and you're expecting your staff
00:18:11
to do it, then that's not going to work either.
00:18:19
So today listeners, we have covered seven of the most common objections and how a I think
00:18:25
you can flip the script to have conversations with people and really get them to look
00:18:30
at LinkedIn from different perspectives.
00:18:32
Listeners.
00:18:33
There is something that I absolutely love.
00:18:34
And that is when I receive your direct messages on LinkedIn to let me know
00:18:40
that you've really enjoyed the podcast.
00:18:42
I have a request this week, a special request that if there is a topic or a question that I
00:18:47
haven't covered in recent episodes that you wish that this podcast had the answers that you've
00:18:53
been looking for, please send me a message.
00:18:56
Let me know what's the question.
00:18:58
What's the issue that you're having?
00:18:59
What's the problem that you think I might be able to help you solve?
00:19:02
Because I would love to include it in an upcoming episode of the podcast.
00:19:07
Thanks again, everybody for listening until next week.
00:19:10
Cheers.
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