By West McDonald, Vice President of Business Development, & Owner, FocusMPS

LinkedIn has quickly become a must for sales influence.  If you are new to LinkedIn and social selling, job number one is to begin growing your tribe.  The larger your tribe the more selling influence you gain.  According to IDC, 44% of social buyers found potential vendors by looking at shared connections on LinkedIn.  And according to the same study, if you are conducting a “C” level sale, 84% of VP and higher purchasers use shared connections in their purchasing decision.  In a nutshell, you can garner more sales influence if they view you as belonging to their “tribe”.

How do you get more C-level purchasers to be part of your tribe and to regard you as somebody they want to buy from? The best advice I can give is to increase the size and quality of your LinkedIn connections.  You should aim to get as many 1st level connections as possible:  The magic number people look for on your LinkedIn profile is “500+”.  This number shows that your social tribe is thriving.  Sales influence is not just with your 1st level connections.  Through them, you will gain selling power with 2nd level connections as well.  Purchasers that are a 2nd level connection will look to their 1st level connections to determine if you are worth talking to and potentially doing business with.

Here are 5 ways you can increase both your 1st and 2nd level connections on LinkedIn to grow your social tribe and social selling prowess: read more of this excellent article here