Many professionals avoid posting on LinkedIn for fear of looking incompetent. However, sharing lessons learned from mistakes is a powerful way to connect with an audience. It shows vulnerability and expertise, making you more relatable and encouraging prospects to engage with your content and initiate conversations in a low-pressure way.
Contrary to the belief that LinkedIn is strictly for professional topics, sharing personal experiences can be highly effective. A post about a personal goal or hobby makes you more human and relatable. This often generates more engagement than purely educational content, sparking conversations with prospects who might otherwise be silent observers.
Despite its massive user base, LinkedIn is not saturated with content creators. A very small percentage of users actively post, meaning those who do share content face significantly less competition for attention. This creates a prime opportunity for sales professionals to establish thought leadership and capture mindshare with their target audience.
The goal on LinkedIn isn't to reach all one billion users. Instead, sales professionals should focus on their specific Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) within a niche market. By creating highly relevant content for this small, targeted audience, you can establish authority and influence decision-makers far more effectively than by attempting mass appeal.
Sellers need not create all content from scratch. You can leverage existing assets like company white papers or reports from industry associations. By extracting key data points and trends and sharing them, you provide immediate value, validate your audience's own observations, and position yourself as an insightful expert with minimal effort.