1. Read the entire AP once - Read through this entire AP, watch any videos and download the resources. Don't execute on the steps until you have finished reading the entire AP. This will help you understand the progression of the steps and put them into context.

2.Complete the steps - This Action Plan is a checklist. Each step builds upon the next. Complete each step in order. Please post all questions in the Linked University VIP Club.

OR

Please bring questions about this Action Plan to the monthly group coaching call. The call takes place at 10 am CST on the last Thursday of the month. To register, please click here.

Here’s how this Action Plan will work.

Goal:

You will learn the foundation and theory on how to build your business on LinkedIn. 

Because The 365 Marketing System is the FOUNDATION of the rest of the strategies and systems we teach in Linked University, it is IMPERATIVE that you complete this Action Plan before diving into any others.

Objectives:

Upon completing this Action Plan, you will have all the necessary knowledge & theory to DEVELOP, IMPLEMENT & MAINTAIN a a system that markets you and your business 24/7, 365 days a year...and it only takes you 15 minutes a day, 5 days a week to manage.

Now is the time to begin taking LinkedIn seriously, and it's really up to you if you want to rise stand out among your competitors. The tools are there, the strategies are there, and The 365 Marketing System is going to show you how to use them so you can close more deals.[/su_spoiler]

In today’s hyper-connected business world, it doesn’t matter who you are or what you do. Your prospects are paying attention.

There are more than 500 million LinkedIn users in over 200 countries and they’re paying attention to everything you do AND everything you don’t do – all the while forming opinions about you and your company.

Having influence and building your authority aren’t just things we talk about for fun. It's more like the business equivalent of oxygen these days. If your business doesn’t have enough, it dies.

Gone are the days when you have the luxury of thinking that the world isn’t watching because you’re not a worldwide brand. Forget the idea that no one cares what you’re up to because you’re “just” a…

• local insurance agent
• business coach
• plumbing contractor
• financial advisor
• tech consultant

You’re not “just” anything anymore, and if you don’t establish yourself as an leader in your field, someone else will claim the title – pure and simple.

Not to mention that consumers are uber-connected and much more in-the-know these days. They want to feel confident they’re dealing with reputable, trustworthy people.

Bottom line – they’re looking for credible experts and they WILL check you out before doing business with you.

When they do, you have to ask yourself what they’ll find when they type your name or your company’s name into that little Google or LinkedIn search box.

Will they find someone who has expertly positioned themselves as a leader in their industry – or will they find an unimpressive, vanilla, “meh” presence that sends them off in search of your competitors?

In all of the business-building programs and trainings we create here at LinkedSelling  you’ll notice that positioning yourself as a leader in your market is one of the first steps toward success. It’s the foundation.

It seems like a big job though, right? Maybe you feel like becoming an authority and wielding a ton of influence in your market is out of your reach or over your head.

Not so!

In this section, we will talk about how to position yourself on LinkedIn to stand out and be seen as a thought leader in your industry when you...

Develop Your Prospect Profile

Optimize Your Profile to Convert Views into LEADS

Join the RIGHT LinkedIn Groups

As a result, every time you log into LinkedIn, you’ll have a clear plan of attack and access to tens of thousands of prospects that will be able to clearly see the benefit from working with YOU.

The first step in the Positioning Phase is to center your thinking on your ideal prospect or client. Take a moment to think through exactly who it is you want to target.

Who is your ideal customer or client?

These answers are not good enough:

Everybody!
Any type of business owner.
Anybody in the marketing industry.

Therefore, you have to make sure you’re attracting the right kind people who fit that profile-- those that have an interest or will have a future interest, in your product or service.

That is where the prospect profile comes in. It’s essentially a one-page cheat sheet that includes the details on what your ideal client looks like.

Once you have this, LinkedIn becomes so much more clear and easy. Because you’re not reinventing the wheel every time you log in.

Instead, it gives you a clear plan that you can execute on.

Watch the video and complete your Prospect Profile workbook below in order to create a focused and defined prospect profile that aligns with LinkedIn's search fields.

Creating Your Prospect Profile Workbook

So, once you have a prospect profile in place, then you will have the keys to crafting your LinkedIn profile so that it appeals to your ideal client.

And that’s what the next step in the Positioning Phase is-- Optimizing your profile.

The goal here is to structure your profile so that it converts VIEWS into LEADS.

We’ve discovered that there’s a science to taking prospect who is looking at your LinkedIn profile, and getting them to take a next step in your business.

Watch the videos below and complete your Profile Optimization workbook. When you are finished, you will be able to perfectly structure your LinkedIn profile to build trust and credibility with your most valuable prospects.

Profile Picture

One of the best ways to stay top of mind with people, so that they think of YOU when a deal crosses their plate….is to stay active in LinkedIn groups by sharing content into targeted groups, once or twice a week.

But the first mistake people make is not being in the right groups to begin with!!

Joining the right LinkedIn groups is necessary when trying to grow your professional network and build valuable relationships.

The key is to join groups that your prospects are, not your competitors.

You can join up to 100 groups. And when you’re in the right groups, this can expose you to tens of thousands of prospects.

Watch the video below to find and join the best LinkedIn groups that are most relevant to your business and/or the audience you’re trying to reach.

How to Find LinkedIn Groups

Just a quick recap on the Positioning Phase before we move onto the next section...

In the Positioning Phase of the 265 Marketing System, we are focusing on three main areas:

1. Developing a solid LinkedIn Prospect Profile

2. Optimizing your LinkedIn profile to convert VIEWS into LEADS

3. Join the best LinkedIn groups

Actions Items:

1. Create your Prospect Profile using the Prospect Profile workbook.

2. Complete your Profile Optimization workbook and optimize your LinkedIn profile. 

3. Find and join 20-50 LinkedIn groups that contain your top prospects.

4. Smile and have fun!

What makes good content?

Is it an important topic for my audience? Is it more focused on what they care about or just about what I care about selling them?

Is it from a reputable source? It doesn’t have to be a major publication, but is it well-presented, proofread, not spammy? (And you should have a variety of publications - don’t just post from Forbes every day.)

Is it reader friendly? (Does the title help sell why this is important for your audience? Is it easy-to-read for a member of your audience?)

Is it timely? (An article about computer technology written in 2006 is likely irrelevant at this point. We try and gather content written within the past couple weeks.)

Is it teaching something new or sharing information of value? (Value is what we look to provide the audience above all else.)

Watch the video below to discover more about the importance of providing valuable content to your prospects.

What Makes Good Content?

There are a couple of different ways that you can leverage LinkedIn to distribute your content. To help you get a better handle on where and how to execute your top-of-mind strategy on LinkedIn, keep reading.

Status Updates

Status Updates are one of the best ways to stay in front of your target audience on a consistent basis.

Why?

A single status update can occupy up to 80% of news feed screen and highlights your:

• Name
• Headline
• Profile Picture

Basically, you can make a big impact in the visibility and attention that you receive with the right kind of status update. Hence, why we had you optimize your profile to attract your top prospects...

LinkedIn Groups

Like most social networking groups, the primary goal of a LinkedIn group is to build a community for quality discussions and feedback.

That’s why sharing content into your LinkedIn groups is another way to build top-of-mind awareness for your brand.

The more active and engaging the group is, the more of a chance there is to get seen and be heard!

LinkedIn Pulse

Another powerful way to distribute content on LinkedIn is through the publishing platform.

With all 345 million members now having access to the platform, it serves as a great opportunity to expand your reach in a major way.

This may take a little more of an effort on your part, but the reward is worth it!

SlideShare

And, finally, by distributing your content on SlideShare is a great way to get seen and heard by more than gets 60 millions visitors per month. 

Same as LinkedIn Pulse, SlideShare does take more time, since you have to create your own content, but it does wonders for your brand's viability. 

The main two areas we are going to focus on in the 365 Marketing System are status updates and posting in LinkedIn groups. If you are looking for more information on how to make the most out of LinkedIn Pulse and SlideShare, please check out the following Action Plans:

Getting Featured on LinkedIn Pulse 

The 11-Step SlideShare Lead Gen Plan

Creating original content is valuable, but it takes quite a bit of time. As a busy professional, you may not always have time to put together an awesome, original post.

When you curate content, you provide the service of gathering resources from multiple expert sources into one location. This makes you and your social media sites an invaluable resource for your target audience.

Curating is fast, and sharing a variety of information with your audience delivers a completely different (but still valuable) content experience to them.

When You Should You Curate Content Instead of Creating It

There are several reasons why someone would curate content rather than create their own. I am not going to list ALL of them, but there are three main reasons people choose to curate content instead of creating from scratch:

1. 1. You aren’t the best at or don’t enjoy creating content on a regular basis.
2. 2. You want to save time.
3. 3. To switch things up and add variety.  If you’re doing nothing but promoting your own content, your audience can get bored.

Sharing awesome third party content from a reputable source is not only interesting for your audience – it’s a great way to get mentions and build relationships with other content creators.

Watch the video below on how to curate content quickly and efficiently using Feedly and Google. 

How to Find Content Efficiently 

Your ‘Top of Mind’ Campaign is the digital billboard of your business. When utilized and positioned correctly, your top of mind campaign will begin to build the “know, like, and trust” factor that is necessary to warm prospects up to the point of taking a call with you.

Watch the video below for tips on creating your top-of-mind playbook.

Top-of-Mind Playbook

Action Items to complete before moving on to the next section:

1. Set up RSS/Feedly feeds.

2. Gather 15-20 posts for you first batch of content

3. Store content in your Campaign Tracking System. 

When utilizing LinkedIn to grow your business, you need a process in place to quickly find, qualify and research prospects.

LinkedIn prospecting starts with LinkedIn's Search. Input search terms and filters in LinkedIn’s Search and instantly you’ll have thousands (and depending on the industry you are targeting – potentially millions) of results for people that fit the bill for your product or services.

Knowing how to effectively prospect is the key to connecting with the right people and starting productive conversations on LinkedIn. 

Watch the video below on how to find your best prospects using LinkedIn Search. 

Everything You Need to Know About Prospecting on LinkedIn

Your Database will become one of your most valuable assets that you build using this system. It’s extremely important that you have an understanding of who your best prospects are so that you are connecting with quality targets and not just random people.

Types of Database Builds

There are a couple of differnet ways to build your LinkedIn database:

1. 1. Initial Database Blast -where you essentially blast about several hundred/thousand connection requests in a short time span (typically over a couple of days). This is recommended for anyone who wants to grow their LinkedIn network very quickly, especially if they don't currently have a lot of first degree connections who fit their prospect profile.
2. 2. Daily Mini-Database Blast - where you are sending out a couple of connection requests per day (we recommend at least 6 per day via the 365 Marketing System. This is good for anyone who doesn't need/want a large group of prospects right away. Either you don't have the time or you already are connected to a decent amount of prospects.
3. 3. Weekly Database Blasts- Same as the daily, just instead of sending out 6 per day, you are sending out (roughly) 35 on a weekly basis.
4. 4. Monthly/Quarterly Database Blast - A good middle ground between the Initial Blast and the Mini-Blast. You set aside time once a month/once a quarter to send out a couple hundred connection requests.

Watch the video below to find out how to quickly and efficiently build a database of thousands of highly targeted prospects on LinkedIn  This is the same strategy that we teach our account managers to use when prospecting and building databases full of potential buyers for our clients.

Building Your Database

Additional Resources

Database Building Workbook​

Here are a list of Action Items that need to be completed before moving on to the next section:

1. 1. Prospect research is complete! Spend 30 mins prospecting using LinkedIn Search
2. 2. Decide which database build works best for you and set up a time to start sending out connection requests. 
3. 3. Before you begin any sort of outreach, please make sure you export your LinkedIn Connections.
4. 4. Draft the outreach scripts - get some ideas for outreach campaigns from our swipe file of 30+ pages of templates.
5. 5. Make sure you are tracking everything in your Campaign Tracking System. 

We’ve shared this template in the previous section, but if needed you can get a copy of the campaign tracking sheet template here.

Important Note: In order to edit this document, you will need to make a copy of this template and save to your personal drive!

Why Use the Tracking Sheet?

The Campaign Tracking Sheet is your campaign headquarters. It is the CRM for all of the Action Plans in Linked University. 

The information you’ll be taking note of on this sheet will allow you to manage campaigns at scale without anything slipping through the cracks.

The dashboard will detail what messages any particular contact has received, track the effectiveness of your campaigns to make adjustments when needed, and will be your one-stop shop to manage the sales calls with your new leads.

Campaign Tracking System Overview

Congrats! You made it through your first Linked University Action Plan. 

Now that you have a solid foundation in place, it's time for you to move on to the rest of the Action Plans that Linked U has to offer. 

Feel free to take some time exploring the rest of the AP Library to see which strategy works best for you. 

In the meantime, don't forget to make implementing the 365 Marketing System as part of your daily routine. Here's the system again, in case you forgot: 

Find us in the Linked U VIP Club and start a new discussion thread to talk shop, get feedback on scripts, or help with implementing the 365 Marketing System.