How B2B Sellers Can Use Community Engagement for Pipeline
Pipeline, pipeline, pipeline.
If you’re a seller, you’re thinking about this constantly.
Right now, this is the case for Jenna Tice, a Sr. Account Executive at PayTrace and founding member in our revenue community.
Several days ago, Jenna posted in the community:
“My pipeline is drying up and I have never done LinkedIn outreach. I need to pivot… but I don’t want to be another spammer in someone’s DMs. What are some best practices for LinkedIn outreach, and how have you seen success?”
It’s tough out there.
Cold tactics are less effective these days, making it harder to reach your prospects.
However, leveraging LinkedIn can be a super effective way to break through the noise and build credibility.
Jenna received some highly actionable replies from some other great sellers.
If your pipeline is dry and you need solutions now, these are for you:
The Customer Approach
Mafalda Johannsen, Business Development & Growth Leader
Your customers are some of your greatest assets.
Mafalda uses her customers to ensure she’s as relevant as possible with prospects. Here’s how:
- Interview 5 customers
- From those interviews, try to understand: main challenges and main unique selling propositions from your solution
- Write a LinkedIn cadence based on these insights (avoid pitch slapping and focus on the person’s challenges)
- Use voice message and video prospecting on that sequence
Your current customers were once prospects – use their insights to your advantage!
The Video Approach
Dane Miller, BDR at Beehiiv
Voice and video messages spark curiosity and are unique to you.
Whether you’re sharing clips of your product or recording yourself, these channels bring out the human element in ways simple text can’t.
Dane creates videos that show his ideal client:
- How to use his product, and
- How it can help them in their current role
Consider creating video content for your personal brand on LinkedIn as well.
Teaching your followers how to solve their problems on camera builds credibility and can help attract new business.
The Conversational Approach
Roy Schuhmacher, Enterprise AE at ERIN
Start conversations with your buyers on LinkedIn.
Roy builds 95% of his own pipeline without cold calling or emailing. Here is how he breaks down his approach:
- Build a lead list of your ICP at your top accounts
- Send InMails to those who are open to communication and send connection requests
- Start the conversation in InMail or a connect request with curiosity, avoiding the pitch slap
- Here is Roy’s example: “[Name], thanks for the connect. Do you know who heads up [function] at [their company]? Or maybe that’s you?”
- If it is them, great! If not, they may give you a warm handoff. Otherwise, keep up the curiosity. Aim to make a friend!
- Finally, if all goes well, Roy suggests taking the conversation live: “Seems like we have a lot to chat about given all these messages! Open to continue this live?”
Did I mention Roy builds 95% of his pipeline without cold calls or email? 🤯
My biggest takeaways?
Don’t pitch slap, be curious and conversational, and… video, video, video.
If you end up using any of these approaches, have already seen success with them, or have some other suggestions, please let me know!
Until next time,
Mac🦕
