Linkedin is a beast.
562m+ members and growing.
Perfect to reach business owners, senior executives and decision makers.
If you are a Financial Adviser that is not leveraging this huge well of leads and potential clients.
Then listen up.
In this article I am going to break down how to use Linkedin to get more high-value leads as a financial adviser.
There are 4 key areas that you need to get on top of.
(Fully GDPR compliant of course!)
Lets dive right in…
1) Get Your Profile In Order
Your profile is the most important piece of content that you have on Linkedin. It is the first place anyone is going to go to see who you are and what you have to offer. Regularly I see Financial Advisers who have a Linkedin profile that reads like a CV. This is a massive mistake and is losing you business.
Your profile should speak to the problems that your target client has and show them that you can offer them a solution. There are 3 key areas that you have to sort out:
Your Photo
This has to be a good photo of you. Ideally professionally done with you looking friendly and approachable. If you wear a suit everyday, you should have your suit on. If you take a more casual approach it should reflect that. Profiles without good quality photos get a lot less clicks and engagement.
Your Headline
This single line is key because it shows up everywhere when you have activity on Linkedin. It is the first thing someone sees at the top of your profile page, it also shows when you comment on articles or posts, if you check out someone’s profile or if Linkedin recommends to someone to connect with you. It should not say Managing Director or Financial Adviser but should be clear about the problem you solve and who you solve it for. A good formula that might help you is:
I help (niche) with (problem) using (solution).
For example for our business it is “I help financial advisers to attract more clients using online marketing”. It is simple and cuts to the chase.
Your Description
This needs to address the problem that your prospect is dealing with and show them that you understand it. Then it should offer a good quality solution, with a call to action to take the next step.
2) Be Clear About Your Audience
When you are targeting an audience the biggest mistake that you can make is to be too broad. As in: everyone who lives in Manchester is my target market. Much better than this would be: Business owners in local home services companies, aged between 45-60, based +5miles from my office location.
When you are formulating your audience think clearly about who you want to reach. Then make sure your profile and your messages are designed with them in mind. So that they speak to their specific problems and position you as the solution. (Too many Financial Advisers are “Generalists” rather than “Specialists”.)
Linkedin has a great tool called Sales Navigator that lets you really drill down deep into your target audience. See screenshot below for an example.
3) Drive Traffic To Your Profile
You might have the best business, with the best products/services and even fantastic customer service, but if you are on the quietest street no one will ever find you. The same goes for your Linkedin profile. If no one ever goes there it is not performing for you.
There are 2 key ways that you can drive traffic to your profile…
Connection Requests
You need to send connection requests to 50-80 people per day consistently. On average you should be able to connect with 20-30% of these. Assuming your profile is well optimised and your message is friendly. (Not salesey) This should grow your connections by about 100 per week.
Connection Message Example: (Customise for your business, never use the generic Linkedin message)
Profile Views
You can also view up to 500 profiles per day. The reason this is valuable is Linkedin will notify the person that they have had a view from you. We are all naturally curious and little bit vain. So we want to know who has been checking us out. This gets them to click through and check out your profile. If only 5% click through you would be getting 25 new views per day.
Important note: You need to play by Linkedin’s rules. I would recommend starting with no more than 80 connection requests per day or 500 profile views per day. If you push it too much Linkedin will shut down your account. It is also really worthwhile to get a Linkedin Premium or Sales Navigator account. Yes they do charge for it every month, but it lets you have a lot more account activity per day. Trust me it is money well spent.
4) Follow up
Typically this takes the form of 3-4 drip messages sent out after someone connects with you.
It is structured like this:
- Thank you for connecting
- Provide value
- Make simple offer
- Follow up on simple offer
These messages would go out over a 10-14 day period usually. The tone is very friendly and not salesey at all. Don’t be this guy, “Hello, nice to meet you. Buy my stuff!”
The reality in any industry that you are dealing with, is at any one time there is about 3% of the market that are ready to engage your services right now. And a further 5-10% who like your services but are not ready to convert at this very moment. The goal is simply to start a conversation and gauge interest.
Here are some message templates that may be useful. But you will need to customise them based on your business and approach:
Message 1 – Thank You For Connecting:
Message 2 – Provide Value:
Message 3 – Make Simple Offer:
Message 4 – Follow Up On Simple Offer:
Results
If you use the above approach on average you will get 3-5 high-value leads per week. In our experience it can be a lot more. But it requires effort, planning and persistence. There is no silver bullet.
It is also interesting to note that this system is 100% GDPR compliant and does not raise compliance red flags. (As verified by numerous Compliance Depts)
Final Tips To Make It Happen
- Be persistent – 2-3 hours per day minimum.
- Respond back to messages received promptly.
- Always use the prospects name.
- Graduate prospects onto a 15 minute discovery call when they show interest.
- Keep on top of the leads that you are communicating with using a CRM or Google Sheets.
- Use tools to help you. There are a few different automation tools that may assist you with this process, these include: Linked Helper, Dux-Soup and eLink Pro. They all have pros and cons, none of them are the perfect solution.
- You could hire a Virtual Assistant to do it. But that takes ongoing training and management to make it work over time.
Or…
You can speak to us about our new Done-For-You Linkedin Lead Generation System. We will do it all for you.