3 Things You Must Know Before Hiring a LinkedIn Trainer

Good LinkedIn sales trainers help sellers produce measurable increases in sales—not better proficiency at using the tool. Are you considering investing in a LinkedIn trainer or LinkedIn training for your reps? Ineffective training will cost you dearly. Here's a quick guide to hiring a LinkedIn trainer that will help sellers set more appointments, faster. Avoid failure by: Considering if you really need LinkedIn training; Evaluating trainers with criteria that produce behavioral change, not learning; Measuring results of your training in hard numbers. A sales rep's success on LinkedIn has little to do with mastering LinkedIn. It has everything to do with presenting prospects with messages they cannot resist acting on. Do You Need a LinkedIn Trainer—Really?Do you need what you think you need? Maybe you've decided, "I need a LinkedIn trainer." However, what do you want more? A sales prospecting coach—or a LinkedIn trainer? Do you want to increase leads or proficiency with a social platform? Assuming you value leads more, be sure your trainer shows reps how to create an urge in potential buyers. Because a rep's success is based on their ability to create dialogue with prospects. That's more important than knowing how to use LinkedIn's system. A B2B sales rep's goal is to create an urge in the potential customer to talk. If you don't create that urge, you don't get to talk with the prospect. Period. Mastery of LinkedIn's platform is secondary to your reps learning an effective, copy-able process to get more appointments, faster. This requires learning a way to help prospects get curious about how a sales rep can help them. The idea is to help customers wonder, "How can this person help me solve a problem?" Or, how can the rep relieve a pain, help the client avoid a risk, or fast-track a goal? A sales rep's success on LinkedIn has less to do with mastering LinkedIn. It has everything to do with presenting prospects with messages they cannot resist acting on. And marketing cannot always be relied upon to do that! Evaluate: Choose Trainers Based on What They Create, not TeachAfter short-listing a handful of potential trainers put them into two buckets: LinkedIn trainers (who teach how to use LinkedIn) Sales trainers (who teach how to generate response and appointments using LinkedIn) If your goal is to learn LinkedIn hire an expert. There are literally hundreds of trainers who are self-appointed "LinkedIn experts." Their qualifications: They've used LinkedIn more than you. However, this does not make a good LinkedIn trainer for sales reps, in most cases. In fact, it can be disastrous. "I recently encountered a couple of people in LinkedIn groups claiming to be LinkedIn experts and LinkedIn trainers, who were giving out poor advice and clearly breaching the terms of the LinkedIn User Agreement," says Gary Sharpe of Blue Dog Scientific. Gary says any trainer who does not teach clients how to play by LinkedIn's rules is not doing a very good job. In fact, many LinkedIn trainers are, themselves, often unaware or knowingly breaking the User Agreement. Avoid all of this. Make the primary criteria for evaluating your LinkedIn sales trainer: If they teach a practical, repeatable communications approach that produces leads and Results that approach is creating for clients. (or lack thereof) Measure: Good Trainers Measure ROI in Measurable LeadsThis is an investment. Your investment. Good sales trainers help sellers produce measurable increases in sales-not better proficiency at using tools. From a management point-of-view, your LinkedIn trainer should create better proficiency with LinkedIn. However, they must also help reps: Develop prospecting lists—faster Target & qualify potential clients—faster Earn demos/appointments with leads—faster It is not enough to measure how many sales reps or distributors attended the training—or how deeply they engaged with the LinkedIn training. Nor is it enough to measure how many reps refreshed their LinkedIn profiles. Training must be measured in terms of how many leads your team is producing now—versus before your training investment. Yes, it makes sense to measure your reps' mastery of how to use the LinkedIn or Sales Navigator search function... when prospecting for new customers. Research is an important piece of prospecting and LinkedIn is a new, unfamiliar tool. But ultimately their success relies more on mastering the ability to earn a conversation with prospects. Your LinkedIn trainer or training program should be structured to teach both "how to navigate" LinkedIn and a communications methodology that creates appointments, demos or meetings, faster. Questions? Let me know in comments. I also welcome your criticisms of what I've presented here.

Personnel/HR/Career Management

3 Things You Must Know Before Hiring a LinkedIn Trainer

Jeff Molander

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Jeff Molander