When it comes to finding and winning new business, you could play the long game and work your way up the food chain, but this is only going to stretch your deal cycle out unnecessarily, and more likely than not going to end in doughnuts.
Far better to go straight to decision makers, where possible. But how?
If you haven’t got an existing relationships or know anyone that does with decision makers at an organization you’re interested in working with, what do you do?
Fortunately, LinkedIn can help with that.
LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator tool offers sophisticated search capabilities that can help you filter LinkedIn users by the following categories (and more):
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So the first way to find decision makers it to search by title and/or seniority level.
If I’m interested in helping a yet unlisted private company (for example, Crunchbase) navigate their first IPO, I would likely reach out to members of the C-suite, board of directors, and/or general counsel.
A quick search for seniority levels Owner, and CXOs, reveals several key results who I can reach out to directly.
Second, if you know the organization you’re keen to pursue, you can also learn who their decision makers are simply by visiting their company page. This will give you a larger list of decision makers, taking in middle management across the organization, and may or may not be as helpful.
Now, back to that list of search results. I see that the CEO, Jager McConnell is in the list. Seems like the best person to reach out to in the first instance.
I can also see that on this occasion, I have 14 connections in common with Crunchbase’s CEO, Jager McConnell. Depending on the strength of both my relationship with those connections, and theirs with Jager, it might be worth trying to get a warm introduction first, which are generally more likely to generate a response than a cold message.
But if none of these relationships are strong enough, then you here’s a how you might structure a cold message.
For example:
Hi Jager
Congrats on all your success with Crunchbase.
I read in Mashable that an IPO is not off the cards in the next couple of years.
Here at Winston & Churchill, we’ve helped the likes of Spunkify, Netflicks, and Facecard, go public, and exceeded shareholder expectations with all of them.
I’d love to help you do the same at Crunchbase.
How are you placed for a 15 minute conversation next week?
Steve
That’s it, right? That’s not it. CEOs are busy folks, so you’ll need to follow up multiple times to get the response you’re looking for. For more on how to automate your follow-ups, check out this post.
If it appears that Jager just isn’t logging in to Linkedin, you can use a tool like Hunter.io to find his email address.
So there you have it - how to find and target decision-makers on LinkedIn, and generate more business for your law firm.
Steve Glaveski is the CEO and Co-Founder of Collective Campus which he established to help companies and their employees to create a more meaningful impact in the world in an age of rapid change and increasing uncertainty. Steve also founded Lemonade Stand - a children's entrepreneurship program, author of Wiley book, Employee to Entrepreneur: How to Earn Your Freedom and do Work That Matters, Harvard Business Review contributor, author of the Innovation Manager's Handbook vol 1 and 2, host of the Future Squared podcast, and keynote speaker. He previously founded HOTDESK, an office sharing platform and has worked for the likes of Westpac, Dun & Bradstreet, the Victorian Auditor General's Office, Ernst & Young, KPMG and Macquarie Bank. Follow him at @steveglaveski
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