Phil Risher demonstrates a step-by-step LinkedIn B2B prospecting strategy: build a filled-out profile, search for target people by company or job title, filter to 2nd-degree connections and relevant locations, then connect and engage (like/comment, message) to open conversations. He emphasizes adding value (custom videos, helpful templates, offers that make the other party money), steadily growing connections (example: ~100 invites/week in the free LinkedIn version), and converting relationships into referral partnerships or direct collaborations.
Chapters
In this video we're going to look at a business to business strategy and how to find leads or new contact people using LinkedIn. And so this comes up a lot our agency, we mostly focus on business to consumer leads and that's like organic traffic or people searching online or seeing an ad and going to your website. And people ask us all the time like hey, how do we find more business to business relationships? And so I'm going to show you a strategy on LinkedIn of how to do this. So what you want to do, you want to get a LinkedIn profile, you want to fill out most of this stuff, you know, to make sure that you have some things going. I do recommend posting stuff on here, whether it's about what you currently do or just general things more business related. But specifically I'm going to show you this strategy and this works. A lot of restoration contractors, they ask this a lot. So but it works with any industry. So think about the people that you want to meet, whether that's in a specific company or a specific job title. I'm going to show you two examples. So let's say that you wanted to meet people that only work at servpro, for example and obviously you could do any business name. So it could be servpro, it could be Chick Fil A, you know, whatever. And then it's going to show you people that work at servpro. And we're going to, we're going to narrow down. We don't want companies, we want people. And then we also want people that are connected to us. So we want second connections. So let's make see if LinkedIn gets our stuff together. All right, people. And then we want second connections so we could get first connections with the people that are connected to us. But we want people that are connected to people that we know because when we try to connect with them then they're going to say, oh, you know this person. Okay, I must, you know, it's okay to connect back because they know this person. So we're going to go serve pro people and second connections and we could even go a step further and, and we could look at in the Washington D.C. area for example, or whatever your market is. And so if you see Here we have 233 results of people that are second connections to us. And so if you see I've gone through and connected with some requested connections. Some of these people I'm following some of these people. But other people I could follow, for example, a vice president of operations. Yeah, that could be A decent connection for me. And you see their connection, a second connection. They're connected with all these other people. So I could follow this person. CFO ServPro in Baltimore. Sure, yeah, that's a good one. So I'm just going to send this person a connection and then when they connect back with me, I can see who's connected back with me. And so if I wanted to, I could shoot them a message or, you know, we don't want to be spammy, or we could start liking and commenting on their posts. So that way when we do reach out to them, we could say, hey, I saw that you did X, Y and Z. You know, that's pretty cool. How did you get that job? Or would love to, you know, talk about this, this and this, because I have people in this field or something like that. And maybe you even know someone that knows this person. So if you know some of these people, like, reach out to Patricia and say, hey, how do you know Brent? I'm trying to, you know, get lunch with him or, you know, get on the phone with him or have him interview for my podcast or whatever. All right, so that's one way to find people at a specific company. But let's say you wanted to see people that have a job. Let's say you wanted to find insurance adjusters or realtors or whatever your target is. So similar thing, we want insurance adjusters that are people, we want people that are second connections, and then we want people that are in a specific area. So let's say this is going to be Washington, D.C. again, and then we're going to show results. It gives us 207 people. So similar thing, we're going to go through and connect with these people if this is our target. And then when they connect with us, we might say, hey, you know, you're at Erie and you're a property claims adjuster. Awesome. How do you usually get most of your leads? Because we come across people that are looking for, you know, adjusters, just throwing out ideas of ways that you can start a conversation with them, but liking and commenting their stuff. But the next layer to this that I think is very important is that we're looking at these second connections. And so when you connect with this person, for example, then you're going to be opened up to all of their second connections that fall into this category as well. So this is just 207 results that are second connections. We could do third seconds and first connections. And now you see that's 1600 results. And this is Only going to continue to grow as we're connecting with people that are our target audience. And so in the free version of LinkedIn, I think you get 100 connects per week, which is pretty strategic. If you go through and connect with 400 people a month and then maybe, let's say half of them connect back with you and then you're engaged with them, whether you're liking, commenting, maybe sending them a message of some sort. Of the whole goal is obviously to start conversation, to build relationships and then move off of LinkedIn and actually work together in some capacity. One way that we have seen this work is by either sending them something that's custom to them, like a custom video, kind of like this saying, like, hey, just wanted to introduce myself, we do blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, that works really good. Or giving them something that's really advantageous. So I'll give you one example. So with insurance restoration contractors, maybe you could offer them something that would be advantageous for them, that makes them money. So like, hey, you, when you get a loss, if you can't get out there in time, call me and I'll get out there in time. For example, for like a furniture restoration company or hey, you know, you can't text your customers or what have you. So here's three text message templates that you should use and here's, here's a strategy that might be able to help you. So regardless of the work with me or not, or if they, you know, want that free information or not, they're going to get free information and hopefully it's going to help them grow their business and make them money. One of the biggest things that I found for B2B strategy is not how can I make money, but how can I make someone else money? And if you can articulate that in a way that is like, wow, this person, you know, they really helped me out. It goes a long way. Instead of taking, taking, taking, give, give, give, jab, jab, right hook. So give, give, give. And then if it works out that we can work together, great. But really this is about building your relationships. And so what we could do is we could take this person, Cameron Butcher, and look up Erie Insurance and try to find their email address, for example, and send them an email. Or when we connect with them, we can message them and so we can start to use this conversation and building these relationships. So what's going to happen is all the people that you've connected with on here, you're going to go through like, here's a realtor that we connect with. I don't work with her, but I've connected with her. And so I could go comment on her stuff, I could like her stuff, or I could send her a message like, hey, congrats on, you know, this home that you just sold. You know, way to go. Keep crushing it. Happy Spring. And you're just constantly building these relationships with people and over and over and over again. Eventually they're going to say, wow, you know, you're going to ask for something. And they might say, yeah, that sounds great, or, or, hey, do you know any other people that do X, Y and Z that might need this service? And so this is really the power of LinkedIn. I hope that this helps you from a B2B perspective, building these relationships with people, finding new people in your network to go and try to develop relationships with to become referral partners. If this video is helpful, be sure to drop a like and subscribe to our channel. We post videos about helping local service businesses grow, and this is one way through the B2B space. Thanks and I'll see you in the next video.
