Question: I don’t accept invites from people I haven’t actually spoken with, nor do I invite people I haven’t spoken with. What is your take on this Ken?

Answer: That is a strategy for keeping your LinkedIn connections highly qualified based on your relationship, but it’s not a strategy for prospecting. If you want to get introduced to people through introductions or email, you’ll need to broaden that rule you’ve made. I love to respond immediately to a connection request with an email to strengthen the conversation.

Question: Do secretaries pass on the info I send to the decision maker? Any stats on that? I call back, but don’t know if they just say no to get rid of me or the decision maker really said they weren’t interested.

Answer: Yes, it depends on the impact of the information. When we did fax invitations to decisions makers, and let the gatekeeper know we were going to follow with a phone call, which would reflect on that person if it wasn’t delivered, we had a very high percent that were delivered. I don’t ever guess percentages, and I can’t speak to this if I don’t have the facts.

Question: Can your connections view the tag you have assigned to them?

Answer: We didn’t know the answer, but we went out and tested the tag feature, and the answer is no, your connections cannot see the tags you apply.

Question: I appreciate not hearing about your products yet. However, I am curious as to how your services could help our company.

Answer: I am very curious as well and would love to set up a phone call and learn more about your company. (I will report back if our services were applicable with this person)

Question: Do you think that the paid service for LinkedIn is worth the price?

Answer: I DEFINITELY feel it’s been worth the price for me, I use it quite extensively. I am far more extensive in my connection network then others in my company, and that is by design. Since they are connected directly to me and my network is expanding rapidly, with the paid subscription, it opens up the scope of their networks as well. I am the proverbial “LinkedIn window” for our company.

Question: Now that there are more electronic directories than secretaries – how do you work with this?

Answer: By this I’m assuming you are referring to voicemail systems and IVR (Interactive Voice Response) systems. My good friend Steve Richard at Vorsight has learned the keypad sequences to access most of the voicemail systems in common use. With that he has found incredible opportunities that may surpass the things I’ve shared with you. Things like getting direct dial phone numbers, etc. Follow him on twitter here for his insights.

Question: How much unwanted material or contacts do you feel you get with LinkedIn?

Answer: I get very little actually. Because I am interested in people who are interested in me, if a rookie sales person or marketer tries to sell me something through LinkedIn I try to politely let them know that it will ruin the openness for all of us. I hope this doesn’t happen to LinkedIn like it’s happened to email and faxing.

Question: What return contact information was on the faxes you were sending? Email or phone or all outlets possible? What’s the best RSVP method you recommend for faxes?

Answer: Back then it was phone. Now it’s all outlets possible. Now-a-days I would send them to a website landing page that included a phone number at the top and at the bottom of the page. I don’t like emails on landing pages, cause then my spam goes through the roof.

Question: Ken, how would you include LinkedIn into an asset for a lead gen marketing campaign?

Answer: Wow, that’s like asking the meaning of life… The whole webinar I just did was about this. Check out the recorded webinar, and we’ll be including this topic in one more webinar. Stay tuned.

Question: With the LinkedIn vs. Email engagement comparison, were the recipients randomly selected into one pool or the other from the same data set?

Answer: There were two separate studies on this that I’m aware of. And they were segments from the same pool but not the same individuals.

Question: By using LinkedIn as a marketing tool, that means that your prospects must accept your request to connect. What’s the best way to get prospects to connect with you?

Answer: First, my favorite way is to ask others to connect to me. My second favorite way is to ask for a connection immediately after another kind of interaction has taken place, so that they will remember me and approve the connection. I actually connect with everybody, but I tag them into different categories of qualification. My favorite way to reach out to connect with somebody is by clicking on their name and going to their record and hitting the connect button. That way I can send a custom message instead of they canned one that comes from LinkedIn. For this purpose, I don’t like the new connections link at the top right of LinkedIn.

Question: What is the formula for an equal balance between carrying out the 3 x 3 analysis and keeping calls at a productive volume? I have found difficulty mixing research, mixing emails/calls and making over 50 calls per days. WHAT IS THE SECRET TO SUCCESS?

Answer: Here is the secret to success: the bigger the prospect the more the research. If you did 3×3 analysis all day with a 1 min phone call in 8 hours of calling that’s still 120 calls.

Question: Can you share some Best Practices for Inside Sales for Professional Services organization?

Answer: Go to www.kenkrogue.com and there I have a best practices page where I try to summarize all of the articles about best practices for inside sales that I’ve read.

Question: How would you suggest a sales rep use impression marketing when there is a finite number of potential contacts to call on (i.e. selling in a niche market)? In essence, how can a rep break through the clutter with their messages without being considered a “pest?”

Answer: Those are two different questions; I’ll answer them in order. I love marketing to a finite number of contacts in a niche market. My recommendation is to gather permissions and profile information quickly and on the first call attempt, for the entire niche, sort of like the air force flying low and fast and providing cover for the ground troops. Then slow down, go deep, and prospect for qualified leads, while your drip marketing campaign warms up everybody you have profiled. Second answer: A rep breaks through the clutter by providing value and compelling messaging and being pleasantly persistent. Never push, it’s better to pull with confidence and compelling value.

Question: What kind of permission do you need for faxing? Does it have to be written? I know there are a lot of lawsuits around fax blasts.

Answer: I go overboard on this by recording the verbal permission that I gather and including a persons name, contact info, time and date. But, I’m not a lawyer, and I‘ll leave that to the lawyers to research.

Question: The first part of the webinar addressed high volume of calls- this was just to fill seats and not really trying to sell? vs. warm calling using LinkedIn and other tools. Is that correct?

Answer: I think I understand your question. High volumes of calls work great when you are trying to make contact with busy decision makers. It’s not about calling 10,000 people once, it’s about calling 1,000 ten times. I like to break calling up into specialties. High volume calls for lead generation, and then long talk time calls for closing sales. If it is one person doing both then schedule these as separate functions

Question: What was the product you were selling?

Answer: I am assuming from the story I was telling this was at Franklin Covey, and we sold time management seminars and day planners. I still use one to this day.