A Consultant's Framework for Finding Your Ideal Prospects on LinkedIn
Originally posted 11-13-22 on Typeshare
Conducting a LinkedIn prospect search seems straight forward on the surface, but try to take too many shortcuts and you can end up with a very dirty list.
Over the past 12 years, I've conducted thousands of ideal prospect searches, for myself and for clients
Here's my 3-step framework:
Develop a very detailed description of the ideal prospect, who it is you're looking for, as detailed as you can possibly get it.
Allow Sales Navigator or LinkedIn to build a list for you based on the searchable criteria in the ideal prospect description.
Apply a human filter. Before you send anything out, go through the search results and eliminate everyone who should not be there.
The human filter happens in two parts.
Do a quick accuracy review of the list itself to catch mistakes. For example: wrong title or wrong company.
Then go deeper to find things about the prospect a search engine can’t find. Things like values, interests, and actual experience. This means looking at individual profiles and often websites.
Judging by the number of irrelevant messages we all see in our LinkedIn inboxes, I’d be surprised if even 20% of people conducting LinkedIn outreach do an accuracy check.
Almost no one does the deeper research, where you’re looking for things a researcher can’t find.
That’s where the magic lies.
It's these things that really help you connect with people. It’s how people subconsciously know you’re not a robot.
It also protects you from being a spammer.