Do You NEED LinkedIn?

I’ll save you the trouble of reading the article.

The answer is…it depends.

(Isn’t that the worst? When the author asks some big bad question to start and won’t give you a straight answer?)

If you look beyond all the irrelevant selfies, manufactured beef and ass kissing, there IS value on LinkedIn, when you know how to use it.

The reason I said “it depends” is because salespeople are typically trying to do one of two things on LinkedIn:

• Sell
• Build a brand

Selling on LinkedIn

This is the holy grail.

Build a list – send connection requests to all – pitch slap –> Profit

Look – there are plenty of nuances when it comes to social selling, but that’s a topic for a different article. For now, let’s focus on how you’re leveraging LinkedIn to do this.

As with any other sales channel, the goal is to get your prospect’s attention. You want to leverage LinkedIn because it’s not quite as saturated as email or phone (though it’s getting close).

Infiltrate their communities – engage with their posts – be ever present and top of mind, without being overbearing.

That is the beauty of LinkedIn…unless your prospect isn’t on the platform.

The largest professional network in the world and your prospect may not even be active, but all isn’t lost, it’s normal, not every prospect has an enormous digital footprint.

What if your persona or ICP as a whole doesn’t engage with LinkedIn? I’ve seen it happen. Not everybody is as obsessed as us salespeople are.

Then you have a new mission – Go where your prospects are.

• Maybe their love language is events?
• Local meetups?
• Reddit?

LinkedIn is the default, but not the be all and end all.

…if your prospects aren’t on LinkedIn…you probably don’t actually have to be there either.

Unless you want to…Build a Brand

And I’m not saying you need to build a brand like you’re trying to be the next Gary Vee, but there are serious benefits to being active on LinkedIn.

• Larger Network
• Greater Career Opportunities
• Brand Partnerships

Once you get past the fact that it’s not the “cool” thing to do and your friends may poke fun at you for posting to your 8 followers, I promise there are reasons to do it. Heck, you don’t even need to post. If you’re feeling a bit icky about the whole thing, you can start by simply engaging with others. Comment on posts, send them DMs telling them you appreciate their content and maybe even go out on a limb and propose a coffee chat?

All these things will help you organically build your network.

You know when people say “Your Network is Your Net Worth” *barf* – it is very true.

When I was laid off at the end of 2023, I posted about it on LinkedIn. The following I had built over nearly 2 years came out to support me, 200+ comments later I had set up 35 interviews/coffee chats/potential opportunities.

The role I ended up accepting turned into a bit of a disaster, but that’s a story for another day.

If it isn’t a new role you’re looking for, maybe it’s coaching, a mentor, or even to offer these services to others. It could be a sweet brand you’re looking to partner with, so you can sing their praises and line your pockets. All of these things become possible when you start engaging with others.

So I guess, to answer my question, with a question…
(there I go deflecting again)

….instead of asking “Do you need to be on LinkedIn?”
Maybe the question should be….”Do you want to be on LinkedIn?”