LinkedIn is one of the world’s most popular social media platforms, with an estimated 700 million active monthly users. LinkedIn is essentially Facebook for professionals, combining some of Facebook’s unique tools with a few of its own. LinkedIn helps professionals and employers come together to share news, positions, advancements in their industries, and much more.
As one of the top social media platforms on the planet, LinkedIn is tasked with managing millions of professionals, pages, and employer profiles. This means that your average search bar simply won’t do. Building targeted search strings on LinkedIn with Boolean and operators narrows your results and increases your social selling engagements. How? That’s exactly what I’ll be showing you today.
LinkedIn can be a powerful tool in your business’s arsenal when you learn to leverage it correctly. But first, let’s dive into what a search string actually is and how it can help.
What Is A Search String?
A search string on LinkedIn functions much like a mathematical formula. This formula helps create a more narrow list of results based on your search criteria. General searches can yield thousands of pages and profiles, leaving you to sift through mountains of information with little to no effective results. A search string is like a magnet for what you’re really looking for—and they’re quite effective.
How can you utilize a search string? First, you need to understand search string modifiers or operators. Here are some Boolean basics.
Search String Modifiers Or “Operators”
Search string modifiers or operators form the backbone of Boolean searches on LinkedIn. These string modifiers increase the specificity of your search terms and group or combine keywords together.
NOT
When you use NOT in a Boolean search, it goes before the terms you’re searching for, so as to exclude certain keywords. The operator must be capitalized. An example would be if you’re searching for a designer NOT a developer. You would type “designer NOT developer” into the search bar.
AND
AND is the next Boolean modifier. Using all capital letters, you’ll include AND in your search to yield results that include all of your search terms. An example would be “copywriter AND editor AND SEO writer”.
OR
Next is OR. You use OR when you’re looking to broaden your search results. Again, you need to capitalize each letter of the word and place it between search terms. For example, “content editor OR copywriter”.
Exact Quotes
For further specificity, you can use quotation marks to only search for the exact terms you put into the search bar. For example, “copywriter” will yield only results that include the word copywriter. Don’t use stop words with your quotations. Remember also that LinkedIn doesn’t support the “curly quotation marks”, only straight marks.
Parenthesis
Parenthetical searches are used for more complex searches. An example would be if you want a developer with HTML experience but not Python experience. You would type “HTML Developer NOT (python developer)”.
Using Operators For Your Search Strings
Now that we better understand what these search strings are and how they function, let’s talk more in-depth about how they can be used to yield the best search results. Let’s say you’re a firm that’s looking for an experienced copywriter and content editor. You want to exclude any copywriters that don’t have significant SEO experience, and you don’t want to include anyone with no experience editing web content. You could use a few different Boolean searches to achieve these results. Generally, the more specific a search is, the better the results will be.
If you need a list of leads that match exactly what you’re typing, you’ll use quotation marks. For this example, you could use
“SEO copywriter”
“Content editor”
“SEO copywriter content editor”
“SEO expert”
These will yield search results with those exact terms attached to them. You can also try “SEO copywriter AND editor” as well, or another combination of the terms.
The Power Of AND/OR
The OR search string is for when you need to cast a wider net. Where AND is inclusive, OR is more so, including multiple search terms. For example, maybe you’re looking for an editor. You can use OR to search for specific editors.
“content editor OR freelance editor OR editor”
This helps combine the general term editor with more specific terms to widen your results. And works much the same way, where replacing OR with AND will yield search results for all of your terms. Taking the same example, your search would bring up results for content editor, freelance editor, and editor. When you need to cast a more inclusive net, use AND/OR.
How To Use NOT In A Boolean Search For Exclusivity
With some positions and industries, there are several closely related terms that can confuse your search and bring about a wider list of results. NOT is for when you need exclusive results. Let’s use the same example from above.
Your firm needs an SEO copywriter, not a standard copywriter. You need someone with experience in SEO techniques, keywords, and tools like WordPress. Your search query would look something like this:
“SEO copywriter NOT “copywriter”
More Advanced Strings To Consider
Advanced Boolean search strings can potentially yield the best results, but they’re more complex than their counterparts. LinkedIn supports keywords like “searching” and “opportunities” that you can leverage for more specific results. If you combine these search terms with the strings we’ve already covered, you end up with a searches string that looks something like this:
“seeking” AND “opportunities” AND copywriting
This combination will yield results for copywriters looking for new opportunities in copywriting. You can replace the copywriting term with any job title or skill you can think of to gather a more targeted list. Another approach is to use keywords like “I help” to narrow down targeted candidates for things like marketing and other services.
The More Targeted Your Searches Are, The More Effective They’ll Be
LinkedIn is an effective and widespread social media platform for professionals, but if you’re not using the advanced boolean search features, you’re doing yourself a disservice. Try building your search strings with stronger keywords that are outside of the standard realm of thinking. For example, if you’re searching for that SEO copywriter, don’t just search for copywriter or SEO copywriter. Try including keywords like WordPress experience, blog writer, SEO content, and more to narrow down your search and find the best possible fit.
Your Profile
On the other end of the spectrum, you’ll want your own LinkedIn profile to be fully optimized to respond to these search queries. If you want your profile at the top of the results, it’s time to look into optimizing it for keyword searches. If you’re a copywriter, you might include keywords like SEO copywriter, experienced copywriter, and more. Be sure your location is correct and that your headline catches attention and dictates what skills you possess in a concise manner.
The Bottom Line
LinkedIn Boolean searches provide an opportunity to leverage LinkedIn’s huge network of professionals to find the right candidate, services, or companies. Using advanced search terms and building powerful search strings helps increase the specificity of your searches, cutting down on time and money.
Have you ever run into a situation where you’ve sent images, maybe to the printer, and they tell you the pictures are low resolution and therefore won’t be good quality when they print? What do they mean low resolution? How do you get a high-resolution image?
What is High-Resolution?
High-resolution images or high-res as it’s often referred to, is a more detailed image with a higher pixels or dots per inch, which gives it a denser quality, and lets you zoom in close before the image becomes pixelated.
High-resolution pictures should have at least 300 pixels per inch (PPI). This makes the photo resolution suitable and a requirement for printing any photos. You want to make sure that your photos are high-res so that they print clearly on your marketing materials.
How to Determine if Your Image is Hi or Lo-Res
A photo might look good on a computer screen, but it doesn’t mean it is good enough resolution to be considered hi-res. The best way to determine your photos resolve to open it up in an image program to view the file properties. Most computers come with an image editing program that will work for determining if your image is high-resolution.
Lo-Res & Hi Res Photos
Generally, low-resolution is used for websites, and high-resolution is for print. A rule of thumb when you are trying to print a photo is to divide the pixel size of the image by its resolution to get your maximum print size in inches.
For example, if your photo is 2,000 pixels in length at 300 PPI, divide 2,000 by 300, the picture can be printed in a size of 6 inches or smaller to keep its quality. This is why hi-res photos are excellent, with more pixels, they have a more substantial density, and the ability to edit, crop, and expand for printing.
Make a Picture Higher Resolution
Sometimes trying to make a photo larger with result in a loss of quality and pixelation. It is hard to create an image bigger and maintain its class, but there are things you can try to get a higher resolution. Follow these steps to try and increase the resolution on your photos:
Visit a website, like imglarger, which is a free image resizing service
Upload photos to the box and pick the resize options
Pick the correct size and start your image resizing
It’s hard to make a small photo large and keep its resolution. For a picture to be high-resolution needs to have a 300 PPI or higher. This knowledge is crucial if you are doing any web or print work. If you are downloading a stock image, you want to consider getting an XXL stock image.
At least with a larger image, you can re-dit and make it smaller for the web, but you will not be able to make a small image, more significant for quality printing.
What to Look for
To determine if your image is high resolution for a printed brochure or advert, look at the size of the JPEG. To start, the bigger your image file, the better.
A JPEG less than 250kb, it is only suitable for use on a screen
250kb-500kb can be used as a small thumbnail
500km-1mb is usable for a one-eight size image on a brochure
1mb-1.5mb will work for one-quarter size image on a brochure
1.5mb – 2mb is usable for half page image on a brochure
Final Thoughts
Use these guides when you are editing and resizing photos to keep your high resolution and remember the difference, low-resolution is used for websites, and high-resolution is usable for print. Check out our other blog posts for more great guides!
Would you like fries with that? We’re sure you’ve heard that line before but did you know McDonald’s was creating a cross sell opportunity when they asked if you would like fries with your burger? Chances are you probably had no clue, but every time a burger joint offers you fries or a soda with your meal, they’re further capitalizing on a sale they’ve already made.
If you hadn’t noticed, they’re pretty successful with the cross sell. We eat a lot of fries in America.
What is a Cross Sell?
A cross sell is meant to offer products and services that serve as a natural complement to things we already planned on buying. The cross sell should feel like a natural addition to your purchase instead of a forced purchase. The more time you spend thinking about your products and services, the more likely you are to develop add-ons that make sense.
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When you order burgers, you naturally want fries.
When you order ice cream, you naturally want sprinkles or a cone.
When you pay for business strategy coaching, you naturally want sales coaching to maximize the effectiveness of the strategy coaching you’ve already paid for.
Cross sells aim to maximize the value of your original purchase, not take away. They’re harder to sell on their own which is why they’re best when partnered with core offerings. Cross sell items aren’t meant to trick people, but to increase the value of your customers purchase along with your bottom line and profit margins.
Examples of a Cross Sale
Let’s look at a couple of examples of what common cross-sells looks like-
Ex 1 A mother of two pays a personal trainer to help her get in shape for the summer. The fitness trainer then partners with a vitamin shop & nutritionist to sell her supplements and healthy pre-made meals. This is a good example of a cross sell. Why?
Because the mom of two would most likely not pay for supplements and healthy meals if she wasn’t already paying for physical training. The personal trainer capitalized on a natural compliment to his services.
Ex 2 Tim walks into a Verizon store and buys the latest iPhone. Before Tim checks out, the cashier asks him to pick between three cases for his iPhone. Tim would never consider buying a case unless he purchased the iPhone. He eventually planned to buy a case to protect his investment, but since the retailer offered the case (using suggestive selling) he’ll likely purchase one before he leaves the store.
The case works as a perfect complementary cross sell.
Anytime an opportunity presents itself, you should try to offer a cross sell with your sale. After all, the worst that can happen is the customer says no.
Where Do These Fall In The Funnel?
Now that we’ve broken down up-sells, cross-sells and down-sells, the million-dollar question is where do these all fit in your sales funnel? Ready for the billion-dollar answer? ANYWHERE!
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There isn’t a perfect spot in the funnel for an up-sell, down-sell, or cross-sell. It all depends on the funnel and your offers. If your core offer comes after four email exchanges, you should probably include downsells in the fifth, sixth and seventh emails. Think about the funnels you’ve been in, knowingly or unknowingly at the time. Do you remember when you were offered additional products and services? If you can remember, and they were successful, try to replicate them in your business.
The key to keep in mind as you craft your ancillary offers is that they are all reactional to something else. They’re reactional to someone purchasing an offer (offering an upsell or cross sell), or reactional to someone declining an offer (offering a downsell). These offers happen when they make sense during your unique sales cycle.
Going forward, try to recognize when someone is trying to upsell you, downsell you, or offer you a cross sell. Being able to identify these offers when they’re happening will help you create better offers for your own business.
Reactional Cross Selling
The last time you said no to an offer, were you offered an additional discount or extra value? The last time you bought something, were you immediately asked to upgrade or purchase something else? The answer to both of these questions are more than likely yes and both of these are reactional offers to an action you took or did not take. Help guide your customers’ decision-making process by appropriately reacting to their moves.
Below are three quick examples of reactional offers that have been proven to increase business revenue over time.
Ex 1 When you try to leave a website, you receive a pop up asking if you’re sure you want to leave that includes a new offer.
Ex 2 When you purchase a service that helps you build a course and shortly after you’re asked if you’d like to purchase a service that helps build your sales funnel driving people into your course.
Ex 3 When you show interest in a free coaching call but you’re not quite qualified to pay for thousands of dollars a month in coaching, you’re offered a self study, self paced course.
In each of these examples, the customers moves are met with counter offers to keep them in the sales cycle.
Next Steps
Start planning your product offerings with successive up-sells, down-sells and cross-sells. Your products should work without you to free up your time. The goal is to offer your time as a premium service, not an ancillary one.
If you’d like to know more about implementing your upsell, down sell or cross sells, just contact My Clone Solution for a free consultation today!
What should you do when you need to overcome objections in your sales process? Do you have a plan of action when your warmed lead won’t buy your core product? Do you give up when your lead cannot afford your offer or do you get clever?
Our suggestion? You need to get clever. Master the art of planning for a downsell. Just because someone can’t afford your core offering, doesn’t mean they are not willing and able to purchase other offers from you of lesser value. If your first product or service doesn’t convert the way you imagined it would, just step back and listen to your customers.
We make it sound simple because, well, it is simple.
An Example of a Downsell
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If your $1000 a month coaching program with a 6-month retainer is too expensive for a lead, offer something of lesser value with a similar purpose. $6000 is steep for many, but a $1500 self-study course may be more attainable for your leads (especially with a payment plan).
Offering the less expensive study course would be considered your downsell. Taking yourself and your time out of the equation allows you to spread your resources further, opening the door for greater future profits. Not to mention, some people truly do enjoy the DIY aspect of certain training programs. Don’t be afraid to offer product variations for different types of clients. There’re different strokes for different folks. All because the initial offer was too steep for the client doesn’t mean that you can’t offer second or third down-sell proposals that are more in line with your customers’ current needs
Struggling? Keep This In Mind
The most important thing about a downsell is its ability to keep a lead in your sales funnel for future offers and promotions. All because someone isn’t willing to buy today doesn’t mean they will be unwilling to buy in the future. Staying persistent and on the customer’s radar increases your chances of future conversions. Here at My Clone Solution, we like to focus on the long game, not the overnight success.
If someone is interested in your core product, figure out what is it about your core product that entices them. Take the time to understand your potential customer’s desire then craft a “lite” version of your product to down-sell them into at a price point that’s profitable for you and undeniable for them.
Something common that we hear from coaches is that someone want to “pick their brain” over a cup of coffee but doesn’t actually want to pay for their time. How annoying!! If this is a problem you’re currently running into, you should do one of two things. Either start to target more affluent clients who’re willing and able to pay for your services (this is a whole separate blog topic) or the easier option, create a private Facebook group where you host open office hours but only to paying members.
With this version of the downsell, clients are able to get your specialized attention without the hefty price tag and you as a business owner now avoid giving away your time for free. Good deal, right?
The upsell and downsell are powerful tools that you can easily take advantage of to grow your business immediately. With time, planning for a downsell will be one easy step in a flawless sales process. Stay patient. Practice makes perfect!
Are you planning for upsells? When you have an upsell for your product or service, that means you have a logical next step for the buyer. Customers want to know where to go next after the first sale. If they are left satisfied, they are going to want more product from you. After the sale, it’s important to continue to provide value and entertainment to create raving fans.
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A continual return on the customers’ investment is essential. If your product does not have an upsell into the next offering, you need to either create one, develop a business model where your customer needs to continue to work with you, or partner with someone else to offer additional resources through a referral program. If you already offer multiple products, make sure each of those products has an upsell into another offer. The goal is to continuously have these clients purchasing from you or wanting to work with you.
Examples of Upsells
Need help planning for an upsell? Check out some examples of what a continuous upsell looks like in a sales funnel.
Example 1
If you have a free guide lead magnet, the immediate upsell would be to your book. If your book is 10 steps on how to do something or “The Complete Roadmap to Something,” create a checklist for completing it. Follow up the checklist with the explanation of each step in a book. You now have an introductory lead magnet in the form of a quick checklist guide and an upsell to your tripwire in the form of a short book for $19 or $20.
Example 2
After sending a few emails to continue to keep the new customer warm after the sale of the $19 book, you should be able to sell a number of your customers into a $300 assessment or service.
Example 3
Out of those who purchase your $300 assessment, you should be able to convert a percentage of those into a $1000 monthly coaching program if you were able to provide enough value in previous upsells.
Example 4
While these customers are in your $1000 a month coaching program, you’re able to upsell them into other a la carte items as well as quarterly reviews and assessments. This would result in the creation of a membership platform with recurring revenue, all from a free lead magnet guide.
Conclusion: The Upsell is Your Best Friend
By now, you’ve got a pretty good idea of what multiple upsells should look like during a sales funnel. You’re continuously making offers with increased value resulting in the potential of additional sources of revenue. Some argue that down-sells are easier to execute than upsells. We believe it’s all a matter of perspective. Follow up with our other posts where we deep dive into downsells and what that could mean for your business.
When it comes to your product or service, we sell them because they provide value to its user and gratification for us, partly in the form of monetary compensation. When you’re trading your time for your craft, whether that’s developing the product or making the sale, everyone’s goals are to maximize their profits and minimize their time spent. That’s where upsells, downsells, and crosssells come into play.
When you’re selling a product or service, if you can find ways to maximize your profits without compensating your quality or customer service, you do it. Providing related products and services while someone has entered buying behavior increases the chances of a bigger purchase.
When Does an Upsell Occur?
An upsell occurs when you’re able to convince a buyer to purchase a product that is more expensive than the one they initially planned. You’re able to do this by providing more value than the consumer expected.
When Does a Downsell Occur?
Downsells happen when you’re able to convince a buyer to purchase something of lesser value than they originally expected. Downsells are easier to take advantage of because you have already established trust with the consumer. Suggesting that they purchase something with a smaller price-tag is a reasonable ask after they’ve already paid for something pricier.
What Does a Crosssell Occur?
Cross-sells fall somewhere in between upsells and downsells. Offering something of similar value at some point during the sales cycles allows you to add to your profit margins without having to spend additional time or resources on the sale.
Putting it Into Practice
The point of upsells, downsells and crossells is to maximize your profits and minimize your time spent. You are creating extra opportunities for yourself from the same amount of resources. Nobody does this better than Amazon. Whenever you make a purchase on Amazon, you’re offered other similar products. Sometimes we buy, sometimes we don’t but the option is there and that’s the point.
If you could do this effectively in your business, what would this look like?
You would be able to:
Overcome objections by offering other options
Add on additional value to each sale, increasing your revenue
Create value from positioning buyers to take the next steps after the sale
Deliver a clear path to multiple products
Provide options when the buyer says yes
Provide options when the buyer says no
Give the consumer what they want in sellable pieces
Diversify your business
These days many new business owners fall into the coach or consultant category with their time being their core product as they sell their knowledge. With upsells, downsells and crossells, entrepreneurs in this space can now profit from their knowledge from different avenues in the forms of books, courses and so much more.
This is just the beginning of the power of upsells, downsells and crosssells. Check out our other posts as we go more in-depth about the selling tactics available for your business.
LinkedIn is one of the world’s most popular social media platforms, with an estimated 700 million active monthly users. LinkedIn is essentially Facebook for professionals, combining some of Facebook’s unique tools with a few of its own. LinkedIn helps professionals and employers come together to share news, positions, advancements in their industries, and much more. 
