Why corporate leaders need to be involved in customer outreach

GovCon is a relationship-driven market.

Regardless of the size of the company, to be more successful and develop deeper relationships with partners, prospects and clients, executives need to be engaged in the business development, sales and marketing processes.

While this may be obvious to some in GovCon, it still seems elusive for too many others.

The level of executives needed in the process will differ depending on several factors, including the size of the company and the size of the deal. The smaller the company, the more senior the executive who needs to be involved.

Smaller companies need more involvement from senior executives for any size contract or task order. Larger companies may require senior involvement only on very big deals.

When potential buyers see an active role being played by company executives, their confidence in that company goes up, the company credibility rises, and the likelihood of being a winner increases as well.

While face-to-face is critical, it is not always possible. Enter LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is the #1 venue for vetting contractors and those in the federal market. There are more than 2.72 million feds on LinkedIn representing 560+ agencies, operating divisions and offices which each have company pages on LinkedIn.

The latest GovExec Leading Brands™ study shows that visibility and credibility lead to more business. Both of these are within your grasp. Active executives help build visibility, credibility, and support the brand. The Leading Brands studies for the past several years have had the same conclusion: Visibility and credibility are two factors to winning more business.

All corporate executives need to reach out to partners, prospects and current customers on LinkedIn to develop and deepen relationships, share pertinent content that positions their company as a thought leader, and generally be visible to a carefully defined network.

The more connections executives have with prospects and partners, the more likely it is they can open doors for their sales and BD teams.

If your executive and employee profiles reflect the value of the company, you are supporting the brand every time a profile is viewed. Even something as simple as providing branded backgrounds for all employees to use on their profiles is powerful.

Share links of posts from your company page with employees to make it easy for them to like, repost and comment. When you have X# of employees sharing pertinent information via LinkedIn, you develop exponential reach. Then the likelihood of your content being seen and read by influencers is much higher.

Executives set the tone! When your employees see you being active on LinkedIn, they are more likely to be active as well. Conversely, if they don’t see you being active, they are much less likely to leverage the platform.

Two key points:

• Support your business development and sales when they ask.
• Empower your marketing team to support social engagement.

The bottom line: the more visibly active you are, the more business you win!

Remember, this is a relationship-driven market.

Not that I have an opinion.

Mark Amtower is a consultant, speaker, radio/podcast host, business best-selling author and a Washington Technology columnist. He has been a member of LinkedIn for 19 years.