Tuesday October 28th 2008 saw the offical launch of LinkedIn applications, possibly the most awaited update from LinkedIn users all over the world. The last update which had a very significant impact on the way users can do business on Linkedin was Linkedin Answers. While LinkedIn has over 30 million registered users and has already been tremendously useful for a lot of us, I believe this the launch of LinkedIn API’s for developers to integrate LinkedIn with their applications and the actual launch of LinkedIn applications will unleash the real potential in the 30 million strong business network. 

So far among the first featured applications familiar players like Wordpress, SlideShare, Google and Amazon have early bird apps for users to add on, it will be interesting to watch and see what applications will hit the list of LinkedIn application platform and leverage the B2B marketing and sales potential for users. Company buzz for example brings the Twitter element by showing you what people are saying about your company, a useful social marketing app. However the question is ‘how could the LinkedIn applications be used to create serious tools for sales and marketing?’. Perhaps connectivity to your CRM could help you read up bios on decision makers within your network and act as a source for contact intelligence while selling into accounts. Perhaps an application that lets you communicate updates on your company blog within your own network or one that lets you share sales intelligence or known requirements to providers. The possibilities are many and its going to be great to see how it all plays out.

Any suggestions or ideas on what you would love to see on Linkedin applications?

I was reading an interesting post that we could relate to on Jill Konrath’s blog Selling To Big Companies on one sales persons dilema of how he can justify to his sales manager that its worth going after fewer larger deals at bigger companies over more and regular deals at smaller accounts. Similarly we know of many smaller  business to business companies out there whose products and services are well suited to bigger companies but its a known fact that its a must to do your homework well before you attempt to sell into a bigger company. This additional groundwork  means more time, longer sales cycles and more risks as compared to the smaller companies where its comparitively easier to find a decision maker and get hold of them on a cold call. So to many companies this extra time and effort that goes into researching, intelligence gathering, account profiling, qualifying, locating business contacts and other pre-sales activities is a significant risk because shifting focus to these accounts can mean re-allocating bandwidth that was bringing in the smaller but more reliable sales. So do you have to give up the idea of big risk-big reward deals which can be found at the bigger companies?

One of the areas we have been able to successfully help some of our customers at smaller companies is by helping them with their pre-sales activities to help them take their focus off this and put it on the selling itself. By helping do the initial groundwork by doing account profiling where you have someone else do the initial research, identify multiple decision makers within these larger accounts, do some initial calls and have an understanding of their pain points and some intelligence before they attempt to sell. After having these targets accounts profiled and having a clear insight into these companies, you know which ones are worth pursuing and adjusting your sales approach, message and pitch becomes easier and much more focussed.

This way a company can have their pre sales preperation done without having to reshuffle or disturb the current flow too much to also take a shot at the bigger business opportunities and the bigger companies. The rewards could be well worth the risk.