Six LinkedIn KPIs for Sales Leaders

Most every company has recognized that social selling and the digital ecosystem are now part of the fabric of a sales organization. And, as they go through digital transformation – wherever they are in the process – establishing KPIs (key performance indicators) to measure success is foremost on sales leaders’ agenda.

While there are dozens of tools in the digital sales stack, all of which require KPIs that align with your company goals, for this post we will focus on LinkedIn. Keep in mind, as we review these points of measurement, that social selling success entails a program and playbook that includes professional profile branding, customized message templates, and a solid process that leverages your sales rep’s respective networks.

Begin by answering the following questions:

• What are the outcomes you want to achieve – and what does the company’s leadership want to see from the team’s LinkedIn efforts?
• Do you have access to data that supports those outcomes to measure success?
• Are you tracking, sharing, and coaching so data can have a direct impact on the sales reps’ performance?

While there are many social selling KPIs to measure, listed below are six specifically focused on LinkedIn that, if implemented correctly, will have an immediate impact on guiding your reps to focus on the right activities that convert to business.

KPI #1: GROWING LINKEDIN CONNECTIONS WITH THE RIGHT STAKEHOLDERS
Looking at total new connections week over week, month over month, can be a mistake. It is simple to grow your network quickly with the wrong people. Be sure to measure the number of new connections in your sales rep’s network that match the title of your buyers.

Here are the steps to: 1) get a baseline of those with whom they are already connected and 2) identify the new number of connections on a consistent basis.

• Develop a search string of the right titles and filters that meet the criteria of your buyers and influencers. CEB says there are 6.8 decision makers, on average, in every B2B deal, so be sure to include everyone who might be involved throughout the sales process. Once you have the titles, create a traditional Boolean search string, i.e., (Sales OR Marketing) AND (“Vice President” OR VP OR Director OR Manager).
• When you are in your 1:1s with your reps, paste the string and complete the relevant filters on the right column, including location.
• Copy the URL and save it in a spreadsheet with the date.
• Record the number of connections as a baseline.
• On a set schedule (weekly or monthly), paste the search and compare the number of connections with the baseline you originally recorded. Note the difference and determine how many new connections are the right stakeholders and if your reps are doing the activities that attract, reach, and engage your buyers.

KPI #2: CONVERTING NEW CONNECTIONS TO PHONE CALLS

• In your CRM, in your source of business, be sure to have LinkedIn or Social Selling in the drop-down.
• When your sales rep takes a call from a LinkedIn connection, track that activity in your CRM with LinkedIn as the lead source.
• Look at the ratio between new connections from their Search URL and number of calls to determine if the right activities and/or messaging are happening.

KPI #3: NUMBER OF CONVERSATIONS TO PROSPECTS
This is a vital KPI as your reps can spend a lot of their time on the phone with the wrong people – or having the wrong conversations.
This ratio will help you identify one of two things:

1. If the people with whom they are speaking are qualified buyers – and they are still not converting to interested prospects – it could be premature pitching.
2. They could be the wrong stakeholders and it may be time to go back to the search string and confirm that the right people are coming up on the list.

KPI #4: NUMBER OF PROSPECTS TO PROPOSALS
While LinkedIn itself may not help in this step, thought leadership can.

Nurturing your prospects during the sales process with the right content at the right time is key to leading them to your solution. Consider what content reps are posting. Do they have a healthy supply of content provided by your marketing department? Do your reps know how best to use that content?

KPI #5: NUMBER OF PROPOSALS TO CLIENTS
Clearly, closed business is what feeds the top line and is the number sales leaders truly care about. This is the ratio that helps determine whether all the time invested in LinkedIn activities was worth it.

There are many reasons opportunities get dropped, but a primary culprit is often that the sales rep didn’t get buy-in from all the decision makers and influencers. If this ratio is low, it might be time to leverage LinkedIn to go wider inside of an organization and, instead, share powerful insights and relevant content with a multitude of stakeholders and build more relationships – avoiding a single point of failure inside a targeted account.

KPI #6: CLIENT REFERRALS TO APPOINTMENTS
Successful salespeople grow their business through referral relationships. Successful social sellers proactively leverage their client and COI relationships to get warm introductions into targeted prospects.

Sales Navigator will allow your sales reps to search and filter their connections’ connections. Use this feature to identify who your sales reps’ key referral sources know and have them leverage those relationships to gain access to their targeted stakeholders. Measure this in your CRM by tracking LinkedIn Referrals as a source of business.

These six LinkedIn social selling KPIs must be accompanied by consistent behavior to achieve Sales 3.0 results
Brynne Tillman is chief learning officer at Vengreso. For more information, contact:

http://vengreso.com/
https://twitter.com/brynnetillman
https://www.linkedin.com/in/brynnetillman