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56 The PCB Magazine • December 2016 CATCHING UP WITH LINKEDIN EXPERT BRUCE JOHNSTON ate results. For example, here are how the LinkedIn menus work. Got that? Good. Now, let's use these menus to start hunting for prospects. I am always cognizant that the bot- tom line here is more sales. The second path is the clas- sic, "We know what we are do- ing but we aren't getting the results we expect." This is usu- ally the result of some errone- ous assumptions and can be fixed easily. These companies are gratifying to work with be- cause they get results fast. Beaulieu: OK. A company calls you to help them with LinkedIn. What do you do? Johnston: I have a good conversation with the sales VP and the marketing people, if they have them. We talk about what they want to do, re- view what they are doing now, and set a course to get them where they want to go. I have been in sales a long time; I don' t get surprised very often. Beaulieu: You have told me in the past that you can only help companies who want to help them- selves. Can you please explain? Johnston: Sure. LinkedIn and social media may get a lot of press, but it's not magic. You don't open a Facebook account and turn your pros- pects into zombies, shuffling towards you with purchase orders in their hands. All these social media networks are tools. Other cool tools are email and smartphones, but they're just tools. And to be successful, you must figure out the right way to use those tools and practice to get good at using them. Beaulieu: How do you see social media in general and LinkedIn specifically, helping companies in- crease their sales? Johnston: Social media isn't a shortcut, it's just a different path from A to B. But since many of your customers are on that path, you should be there too. A hundred years ago you had to make face to face calls. The telephone broadened your op- tions, as did email. Social me- dia is the next step. More ways to accomplish the same goal. Beaulieu: What do you see as the future of LinkedIn, especial- ly now that Microsoft bought them? Johnston: A lot of integration with Microsoft products. The obvious tie-in will be with their CRM product Microsoft Dynamics. But the possibilities are endless— you open Outlook, enter an email address and up pops a LinkedIn profile for that person. You have instant access to all their professional back - ground. The same goes for Skype. And you must figure LinkedIn profiles will get very favorable placements on Bing's search results. Beaulieu: How do people engage you to help them with their social media marketing? Johnston: They can find me on LinkedIn, but the best way is to go to my website at practi- calsmm.com. There's a tab for "schedule an in- troductory call with Bruce" that will take them to my calendar where they can choose a time for a free 15-minute introductory phone or Sky- pe call. I get a couple of those calls every day. Beaulieu: Bruce, that is some pretty fascinating stuff. Thanks for spending the time with me today. Johnston: My pleasure. PCB Dan Beaulieu is a 30-year PCB industry veteran, and sales and mar- keting expert and writer who has contributed to numerous industry publications, on topics ranging from sales and marketing, to board shop performance. His column, It's Only Common Sense, appears weekly at PCB007. To contact the author, or to read past columns, click here.