With virtual selling becoming a norm, LinkedIn pushes sales productivity tools in India
With the lockdown in place, selling hasn’t gotten easier. From getting an audience to making pitches — the basics of selling have remained the same. However, the medium of customer engagement has shifted from in-person to virtual. And with this in focus, professional networking major LinkedIn is now pushing its sales productivity tools aggressively in India.
Companies such as Cisco, Tech Mahindra, IBM, Thermofisher and Freshworks are leveraging LinkedIn for scaling their virtual selling initiatives.
Globally, there has been a 293% increase in takers for LinkedIn’s ‘Learning Activity’ between March and May 2020 (post-COVID) when compared to the period from December 2019 to February 2020 (pre-COVID). This keen interest, particularly from sales professionals, indicates a clear focus on skill development.
LinkedIn is aggressively pushing its tool 'Sales Navigator' that allows users to find and reach over 185 million potential sales leads in Asia-Pacific.
“No matter what and how you are selling, understanding your customer remains essential at this time. Amidst the economic uncertainty, the ‘face of sales’ looks a lot different than it did a few months ago. Instead of face-to-face interactions, sellers are looking for more ways to build and maintain new and existing relationships. With sales productivity tools such as LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator, customers can accelerate their virtual selling initiatives with a focus on data-driven engagement, customer retention, along with faster and efficient collaboration,” said Abhai Singh, Head, LinkedIn Sales Solutions for India.
Healthcare, manufacturing, government, education, non-profit and financial services are some of the sectors actively engaging with LinkedIn content, related to business continuity, remote working and risk management. Sales technology and adoption of digital tools to ensure business continuity have increasingly moved to the forefront of how sales professionals strengthen existing relationships and begin to build new ones. Enter LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator.
With this sales productivity tool, sellers can get access to real-time insights with smart links enhancements, collaboration capabilities and an alerts panel to help nurture relationships. The tool also allows brands to target the most relevant prospects, discover the right people with customised suggestions and ensure customer relationship management by automatically saving the leads and accounts targeted.
“Sales Navigator helps us connect with and engage prospects at different phases throughout the sales cycle,” said Nitesh Aggarwal, AVP, Sales Effectiveness Infosys. The ‘navigator’ has influenced $450 million in pipeline and resulted in 30% higher win rates for Infosys. Similarly, HCL technologies connected to over 7,000 new decision-makers and drove $500 million-plus worth of sales using the tool.
