By Cliff Gately
At the LMA Midwest at Chicago brown-bag presentation on February 5, 2015, Kathryn Rudey, relationship manager at LinkedIn Sales Solutions, and Andrea Crews, the director of marketing and business development at Levenfeld Pearlstein, gave an overview of LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator to a packed room. Billed as a presentation on how to use Sales Navigator to boost your firm’s business development, social media marketing and cross-selling efforts, Kathryn emphasized that the presentation was not intended to be a sales pitch. Having Andrea on the panel ensured that.
Kathryn discussed how Sales Navigator could help attorneys grow their LinkedIn networks, engage their contacts and groups, and get “warm” introductions to prospects. “The era of cold calling is basically dead,” she said.
Andrea focused on how Sales Navigator was being used at Levenfeld Pearlstein – the rollout of the firm’s program and the firm's overall social media experience.
So, what is Sales Navigator? You can start to think of it two ways: 1) a “Lead Builder” that provides deeper access to LinkedIn’s data, and 2) a “Team Link” – a way to create an internal LinkedIn group so that team members (licensees) can see the relationships of other team members to the second degree of separation. In regard to the latter, Andrea commented that the effect was to foster greater sharing of contacts and possible warm introductions. “You are forcing a collaborative environment,” she said.
Kathryn explained that Sales Navigator provides increased access to prospects’ profiles, which can be used to mine information and to schedule and prepare for business development meetings. She also pointed out that LinkedIn is often the most updated source for contact information. Both presenters discussed the metrics that Sales Navigator provides. “LinkedIn is a built-in way to show we are increasing opportunities and to track them,” Andrea said. “A lot of these analytics are built-in and can be packaged in ways our leaders can understand.”
At the end of the presentation, Andrea emphasized that most law firms have not yet learned how to harness the enormous amount of data LinkedIn has to offer. “Cheers to the law firm that does it first and does it well,” she said.
This presentation was one of a quarter-long series of presentations and events for members of the LMA Midwest Chicago City Group relating to the development and execution of law firm strategy. The first Thursdays of every month will be dedicated to educational programs, and the third Thursdays will be keynote-speaker programs.
Cliff Gately is the business development director at Heyl Royster. In his role, he supports the 120 attorneys in this Midwest firm in developing those activities that will lead to new business opportunities, strengthen existing client relationships, and raise the firm’s profile overall.