CRM and LinkedIn Seamlessly Connected

Thanks to Greg Forrest over at Concur for this tip.


A quick and easy tip today to link your CRM system and LinkedIn results to allow your sales team easy access to learn more about an individual or their background prior to a sales call. In addition to the background on their interest you can see through looking at their digital body language with Prospect Profiler, looking at each lead's career history is a great way to find talking points and common ground prior to an introductory call.

In your CRM system, in this case Salesforce.com, within the lead or contact record, structure a link that ties into LinkedIn's search results page. Format it as follows: http://www.linkedin.com/search?search=&company={!Lead.Company}&fname={!Lead.FirstName}&lname={!Lead.LastName}

The {} codes automatically pull in the data from the lead (or contact) record, as is appropriate, and structure a query against LinkedIn looking for that person based on their company, first name, and last name.

It's a quick win that can drive more value for your sales team when you pass them over a qualified lead, and worth doing today.

Thanks again for mentioning it Greg, and if anyone has any other tips on the demand generation tools we all use, and how best to tie them together to optimize our sales funnels, please share them in the comments or directly.