After November’s poll, I extended the thought from job search to sales and marketing. The results show an equally interesting pattern.
Some have decided that LinkedIn is pretty darned good for sales opportunities…
Others not so much – but let’s look closer.
Most spent little time!
I normally don’t get to re-use bold lines from post to post, but the data holds true. More users spent no time on the site in sales activities in the month immediately preceding their vote.
So perhaps most LinkedIn users are not in sales – searching on the term sales finds just under 4 million profiles.
If you’re in design, development, production, or many other roles, you may not consider yourself in sales, and answered accordingly.
Job seekers
Last month I pointed out that a third of the respondents spend nearly all of their time on LinkedIn looking for a job.
All of those people should have answered that they also spent all of their time using the site to sell – themselves!
(perhaps this is a personal point for me – but getting a job is making a sale…)
The light sales users
A good chunk of the respondents said they used the site from 10-30% of the time for sales
That’s a realistic figure and supports my own intuition.
LinkedIn is not the be-all end-all of sales, but it certainly makes a nice relationship and support tool.
The in-between
Again this month – it’s quite interesting that there’s nobody in the middle…
no use, a little use, or huge use.
Huge use
Oh – did I mention the few people that devote their entire use of LinkedIn to sales activity – yeah, they’re there.
And I expect they use LinkedIn because it is simply effective.
Charts and such
This poll is displayed just like last month’s – interesting pattern, no? Visitors were asked to respond to this question:
Of the time you spent on LinkedIn last month, how much of it was related to sales or marketing activities?
Yeah – sales
It might come as a shock to the average reader, but sales and marketing organizations are my #1 client for training sessions…
Because if I can show 10 sales people how to make more warm introductions through trusted contacts, they expect to see sales results.
And that shouldn’t be a surprise.
Next up – What do you think of the changes?
LinkedIn has extended their pay-to-participate formula. They used to introduce new features and require paid accounts to access those features. Lately they’ve been tinkering with the established features – restricting access to last names, limiting profile visibility…
I try to keep an upbeat face about the site, but yes, I’m concerned as well. So my question – what do you think about it?
Check it out – just over to the right and up.
To your continued success,
steve
—
Steven Tylock
http://www.linkedinpersonaltrainer.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/stevetylock