Have you checked out Vengreso yet?

I’ve done some work over the past few years with Viveka Von Rosen, a foremost LinkedIn expert. Recently, she and an impressive suite of co-founders launched Vengreso, a digital sales acceleration platform. Vengreso teaches social selling and more. They already have actionable posts on their blog about LinkedIn lead generation, for example, and are creating social selling boot camps.

I know Viveka and I trust her work, but this isn’t a shameless plug for Vengreso specifically.

Rather, it’s a call to arms about understanding the digital ecosystem in your broader client acquisition and sales strategy.

No time like the present

There really is not. We’ve never lived at a time where so many people — potential clients, partners, idea generators — are at your fingertips.

There can be a legacy approach that these digital strategies don’t work. That’s wrong. They do take longer, yes, and sometimes you run into people who don’t care or don’t check their LinkedIn that much. News flash: you run into those people at trade shows and other face-to-face contexts too.

The other legacy “poo-poo” is that digital isn’t tied enough to revenue. That’s why you need to consciously make efforts to tie it to revenue, whether you’re an individual entrepreneur or have a business of your own.

Learn from the best. There are people out there making money from digital. What are they doing? Often it’s as simple as a landing page, Google Ads, and a few up-sells after the main landing page purchase/download. There are ways to learn and grow revenue from digital, even if you come from a very old-school background or think it’s not conducive to your industry directly. Believe me.

The power of LinkedIn

I know LinkedIn’s dirty little secret is that only 25% or so of its users log in every month. In many ways, though, this is logical. The main people who need to be on LinkedIn daily are:

• Recruiters
• Job-seekers
• Sales principals
• Thought leaders

That’s the core of the daily bucket. But even if someone checks it every 2-3 weeks, it’s a way to reach someone fairly easily. And when they read your message, they instantly have access to your professional background, work samples, recommendations, and more. Within two clicks, they can “vet” you. It’s incredibly powerful.

I’ve heard some become less engaged with LinkedIn because they “get” Facebook (family/friends) and Twitter (industry news/breaking news), but they don’t see the value in LinkedIn.

It’s there in terms of connections, sales opportunities, industry news, new approaches to management and hiring, and more.

Plus: research has consistently shown that weaker relational ties mean more to your career, which is why the LinkedIn second-degree connection can be so powerful. Those people become the revenue and job-referrers of your network. I’ve seen it happen myself.

So whether you work with Vengreso or someone else, get on this train. It’s time. Put aside your limitations and make the leap!