Automating LinkedIn Prospecting to Expand Account Reach
Challenge
Our sales reps at Comm-Works needed to deepen relationships within target accounts beyond cold calling and emailing, but manual social outreach was slow, inconsistent, and often deprioritized because you often didn’t get opportunities solely from sending direct messages on LinkedIn.
Approach
I had experienced from my own prospecting efforts that most sales reps were using social media wrong in their attempt to try to pitch slap people rather than spark a genuine conversation and build a network. The real value in LinkedIn from a sales standpoint was found in building a network and a commonality with not only the decision makers I wanted meetings with, but also their colleuges that they worked with. It’s like being any social setting, if I can get someone to introduce me, or at least appear like I belong in this persons network of connections, it makes my chances all the better.
So I launched an automated LinkedIn prospecting tool that allowed our reps to systematically connect with everyone else BUT key stakeholders across strategic accounts. This way, by the time I sent the connection request to the Decision Maker’s I wanted a meeting with, there I was a 2nd degree connection, and probably walking into my first message with some kind of intel from conversations I had with others within the company.
Rather than relying on ad hoc efforts, we built targeted lists and used automation to steadily grow our network presence inside each company—which made this tactic scalable for running it on several of our reps’ LinkedIn accounts, which led to significantly warming up accounts long before formal outreach. This was also paired with some other nifty prospecting strategies, which you can read more about here.
Result
The reps' LinkedIn networks expanded significantly within our key accounts, making future prospecting efforts more effective and increasing top-of-funnel engagement.
By the time our reps reached out, they were already familiar faces—not cold calls. This was more about the conversations we could use when walking into our cold calls, but the tactic alone led to about 4 qualified opportunities hitting the pipeline.
Reflection
In strategic sales, relationships are currency. Building a digital presence inside target accounts early makes real conversations happen faster and with greater trust.
