Hello Sales Professionals, 

Today I want to bring you a topic that concerns not only sales professionals who have any sort of established presence in the EU, as all the other sales professionals who are offering services or products to EU citizens. GDPR, well know as General Data Protection Regulation, is an European Union-wide framework that came into force across the EU on 25 May 2018 and aims to impose higher standards of data protection for individuals and impose increased obligations on organisations that process personal data. This means that all sales professionals and companies operating within the UE or individuals and organizations who sell to UE will need to obey to GDRP rules. 

But, if you’re a Sales Professional, what exactly do you need to know about GDPR and how can you ensure you’re following the requirements? Worry not. Bellow, I’ll be sharing some recommendations and best practices you can adopt in order to comply with this framework. 

What do you need to know about prospects’ personal data and how can you contact them?

This is the first thing you must consider, as it probably impacts how you collect and manage prospects’ data, relates to personal data. You need to keep in mind that GDPR wants to give all UE citizens more transparency and control over who can store and use their personal data. This said, personal data is anything that can be used to identify a person in any any, like their name, phone number, email address, IP address. As sales professionals data like email address or phone number is crucial since these are both used in order to contact a potential customer. 

Solution:

With GDPR, the best practice would be for you to, before contacting a lead, for example by email, always ask their permission to do it. But wait, if you’ve never spoken before, then how can you do it? Great question! Something you can try is to first send them a personalized InMail message introducing yourself and letting them know why you’re reaching out. After the lead replies, then you can definitely ask their permission to either email or call them. This way you’re protecting yourself and your company, since you’re asking permission to collect and manage their personal data. 

How can you share content and resources with leads in a compliant way? 

As we said before, before contacting, collecting data or sharing anything with an individual, you need to have their consent. This is key, don’t forget about it. But how can you get someone’s consent? You can definitely contact them, for example, via InMail message like we mentioned above, or you can ask them to ‘’freely give’’ this to you by explicitly clicking on an opt in to receive communications from you and/or to accept that you collect their data. When getting their consent, your role should be to be open and transparent on how you’re using that consent for.

Solution:

When it comes to sharing content with leads, this is something most sales professionals would do at early stages in order to get the potential customer’s interest. Additionally, being able to monitor how they engage with the content that is shared can be very important, as it will help sales teams to prepare better for future follow ups. With Smart Links you have the option to share this content and track how your leads engage with it. But, most importantly, before they actually see and engage with the resources that were shared, recipients are presented with a consent screen and consents to share engagement insights with the customer prior to viewing the Smart Link. This will allow them to understand how you’re using their data before they do anything else. Additionally, if a prospect asks you about the data you’re collecting through Smart Links and how you’re using it, you should always be transparent with them and tell them exactly what you’ll do. This Help Center article includes everything you need to know on Smart Links Data Privacy and Security.

How can you engage with potential customers who you’ve never met?

By now, we all understood how important it is to get individual’s permission before we engage with them and leverage their personal data, like email address or phone number. However, this can be a rather challenging task when you’re prospecting and trying to build trust with contacts you’ve never met or spoken to. As we’ve discussed so many times here in the Community, Modern Selling is all about building closer relationships with leads and engaging with insights. This is why, by leveraging Sales Navigator’s features, you’ll be able to build trust and find the right time to engage with a potential customer. 

Solution:

Successfully engaging with someone isn’t as easy as people think and, if you’re a sales professional, you know this better than anyone. The great benefit of being an avid Sales Navigator user is that you can leverage many features that will allow you to engage with leads in a GDPR compliant way. How? You’re probably asking. Well, for example, by leveraging alerts you can keep track of what your leads are posting on LinkedIn.com and identify the right moment to engage with them through that same platform. By doing this, you’re definitely following GDPR requirements, while using a platform that informs both you and the recipient on how you’re engaging with one another. 

GDPR is a very important regulation and, just like mentioned before, both sales professionals who have any sort of established presence in the EU and sales professionals who are offering services or products to EU citizens need to understand what they can and can’t do, so that they can adjust their selling techniques to that and ensure they’re compliant. 

As usual I'm always looking for your stories, so I’d love to find out how you, your sales teams and organizations have been adapting to GDPR and how are you leveraging Sales Navigator to make sure you’re always being compliant. 

I look forward to hearing your best practices and learning mow about GDPR compliance. 

Thank you,

Nádia