In episode 75 of "Mastering Modern Selling," we delve into the evolving world of digital sales with guest David JP Fisher. Unpack the essence of digital-first approaches and human connections in sales with actionable insights from Fisher's extensive experience.
Key Points:
- Digital First, Not Digital Only: Fisher emphasizes the importance of a digital-first approach while maintaining human connections. Sales at its core is about human interaction, not just technology.
- Leveraging LinkedIn: Fisher shares his journey from selling knives to becoming a LinkedIn sales pioneer, highlighting the platform's role in modern selling and relationship building.
- Commenting Strategy: A simple yet effective tactic Fisher recommends is engaging meaningfully with connections through comments on LinkedIn, fostering interaction and visibility.
- Building Social Capital: Fisher stresses the importance of earning trust and recognition in your network before making sales pitches, advocating for building relationships over time.
- Authenticity and Storytelling: Sharing genuine experiences and stories resonate more with audiences, helping build a credible and relatable online presence.
David JP Fisher's insights remind us that while digital tools are indispensable, the human element remains central to sales success. By integrating digital strategies with genuine interactions, sales professionals can navigate the modern selling landscape more effectively.
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Speaker 1: Welcome to Mastering Modern Selling Relationships
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Social and AI in the buyer-centric age.
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Join host Brandon Lee, founder of Fist Bump, alongside
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Microsoft's number one social seller Carson V Heddy and Tom
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Burton, author of the Revenue Zone and co-founder of Leet
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Smart, as we explore the strategies and stories behind
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successful executives and sales professionals.
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Dive in to business growth, personal development and the
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pursuit of excellence with industry leaders.
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Whether you're a seasoned executive or an aspiring leader,
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this podcast is your backstage pass to today's business
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landscape.
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This is Mastering Modern Selling, brought to you by Fist
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Bump.
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Speaker 2: It's good to go.
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We're gonna find out if we are actually on a go or not.
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No more tech pros.
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Everybody welcome to Mastering Modern Selling.
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Episode 75, kind of 75 part two Carson.
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Speaker 3: Is this like the naked gun or is it Part two?
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Speaker 2: Part two yeah, so for people on the podcast, you
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don't know this we went live on Wednesday like we normally do.
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Carson and I were in the same room for the first time and the
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video didn't work, I think the system just overloaded.
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Speaker 3: There was just too much magic with D-Fish.
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Speaker 4: Too much fire.
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Speaker 3: It was.
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It blew up, but we're back, we're back, we're back.
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Speaker 2: So yeah, if you're on the podcast.
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Just our little selfish plea if you love what you're learning
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we'd appreciate the review share it with your friends and for
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everybody that's live with us today.
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If you're in LinkedIn or YouTube or Facebook or X, throw
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your comments in there.
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Tell us who you are, where you are, ask your questions, cause
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we got D-Fish with us who is brilliant at all things.
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Digital first, not digital only .
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We're going to have fun today.
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Speaker 3: I want to say hi to Becky.
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Becky, you were hanging with us in the waiting room last time.
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Thank you, hopefully your weight pays off, but we got to
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start here.
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So when I think D-Fish, I was always thinking about the old
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Los Angeles Lakers point guard.
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And you come to find out this is the original.
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D-fish oh gee, so David can you tell us that story?
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Speaker 4: Well, sure, I'll tell it in short.
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For many years I was a drummer in a band and would also do a
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little bit of rapping.
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I know this visually doesn't quite match, but I was a little
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cooler.
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And I wasn't even that much cooler, but I did rap back then.
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Speaker 2: You thought it was cooler.
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Speaker 4: That's what was in my bandmates, my bandmates would
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call me jokingly MC D-Fish.
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And when your coworkers come to the shows on the weekends and
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then on Monday morning go, hey, d-fish, and it stuck.
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And to this point pretty much everybody still calls me D or
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D-Fish.
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My mom, she tried once and I said no, please don't that's.
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I get it, mom, but we're good and my wife refuses.
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So my wife refuses to call me that and that's okay.
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That's okay.
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Yeah, so you find me in a bar.
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Just call me D or D-Fish.
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Just don't call me late for happy hour.
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We're good.
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Speaker 2: There you go, we're having.
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Well, anthony says you can still rap, so we're gonna have
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to do a little rap session for the end of the day.
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Speaker 4: All right, we'll see if we get there.
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Speaker 3: I'll ask you with coming up with a modern sales
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rap.
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Speaker 2: There you go.
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You know we're talking about.
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We're talking about doing that live event.
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In the fall, you know, d-fish, we may have to call on MCD Fish
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to come and be.
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Speaker 4: Can you help me act?
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I'll connect you with my agent.
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Speaker 2: Perfect, perfect, all right.
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Well, now that we've already talked about that, david Fisher
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is our guest.
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We are talking sales evolution digital first, not digital only.
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There's his book Nice, it's backwards, I didn't fix my
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camera.
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But networking in the 21st century on LinkedIn, d-fish,
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tell us a little bit about yourself and your history with
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this crazy thing called LinkedIn , and then let's jump into it.
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Speaker 4: Sure.
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So you know I got my start in sales kind of in the old school
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style.
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I started selling knives in college.
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Many of you have probably heard of Cutco Cutlery Great knives.
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If you ever need any I still have my contract, so happy to
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have a little side hustle and sell you some knives they're
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fantastic.
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But kind of got the sales bug there and ran their Chicago
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office for many years, trained and interviewed thousands of
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salespeople doing that and from there went to run my own
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consultancy and for 17 years ran Rockstar Consulting, which was
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focused on everything from sales coaching founders,
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entrepreneurs and top independent salespeople All the
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way up to developing sales programs, sales playbooks,
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training and playing the whole nine yards.
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But I also was an early adopter of LinkedIn for sales.
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I remember the first training I ever ran on how to use LinkedIn
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to sell was in 2008.
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So truly OG and in fact did some work in a startup directly
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with LinkedIn around the advent of sales navigator.
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But it's just become kind of ingrained into the work I do.
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And then the last couple of years, especially with the
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pandemic, did a lot of work on LinkedIn and in fact a couple of
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years ago it went in-house and I am now the global social
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selling program lead at SAS S-A-S.
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So working with all our team around the world.
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So, and don't get to rap as much anymore, but still try to
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if it's, if it's shame shame, All right you didn't send me one
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, so I'm just gonna rep myself.
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Speaker 2: you know You're gonna get a little bit of a plus.
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I got the polls being made now too, there we go yeah.
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Speaker 4: so that's kind of how I got to hear.
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Speaker 2: Awesome thanks.
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Well, I'll kick us off and then , carson, please jump in the
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title and I love this conversation DeFish that you and
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I've had is the title of this is digital first, not digital
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only.
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Why is that so important right now and what does it mean?
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Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a great question.
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And how many hours do we have?
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You know, I wrote a couple of books on it.
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I think, if you really sum it up, the idea of digital first,
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not digital only is that sales in many ways hasn't changed much
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.
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We want to say that the world has changed and I agree with
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that.
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But if you think about what's selling, at its core is it's
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human to human connection, it's influence, it's bringing
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somebody along on a journey, and when we look at all the
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different tools that we now have at our disposable disposal,
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it's very easy to think that we're going to offload the
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responsibility for that human to human connection onto the
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technology, and I think we've seen that over the last 20 years
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and we're now reacting against it.
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So digital first means, hey, the reality is we're going to
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probably engage with somebody digitally before.
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I've never met either of you in person, right, I've talked with
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you on LinkedIn, Carson.
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You and I were talking about how we've been in orbit on
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LinkedIn with each other for years.
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Like that has a very real presence in our lives and in our
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business, but it doesn't supplant the need to actually
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create those human to human connections, and I came into
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LinkedIn in a very kind of a different way than many, right,
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Because I came in from the sales side, from the networking side.
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It wasn't really marketing and so it was really about hey, how
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do I supplement my offline conversations?
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And that was kind of the first way that I and many of the
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people I work with got into LinkedIn, not as a standalone
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but as just one of the channels we use.
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So I just tried to sum about three books in about 30 seconds.
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Probably a mess, but I don't know, pick that apart.
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Speaker 3: Well done.
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I mean, that reminds me of that .
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Get Abstract, where you can get like the cliffs notes of a book
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in like seconds flat you just.
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Speaker 4: You don't have to buy hyper connected selling or
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networking in the 21st century on LinkedIn.
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But if you want to, I still highly rest.
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Speaker 3: I got a question for you on this too, like just
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especially with your kind of your advent with LinkedIn being
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you know what 16 years ago.
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There's obviously been a lot of changes with the platform and
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how we can best leverage it.
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I'm with you in the camp that.
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You know.
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This is not a silver bullet.
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It's an augment to our approach .
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I look at prospecting and networking like a stock
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portfolio.
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You've got, you know, you want to have a diversified portfolio.
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Linkedin is one of many great ways you can go out and connect
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with people, but it doesn't replace the phone and certainly
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the goal of it is to use it to get face to face connections
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with people.
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Now there's so many different ways that you can do that with
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LinkedIn.
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You alluded to sales navigator.
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We're obviously streaming live right now to LinkedIn People
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that we've never met.
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Brandon and I met for the first time this week.
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What are some of the things that you've seen?
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Linkedin and sales navigator and, just frankly, digital offer
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in the way of tooling that helps us make our job easier and
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better now, if used right, I love to see just kind of learn
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from you, like what you, what's really jumped out of you as
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being the most valuable.
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Speaker 4: I love what you said there about kind of building a
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portfolio through your network and I think, if you look at the
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tactics that are very effective now, have been for a long time
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on LinkedIn, they really come from scaling the human to human,
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and what I mean, by the way, I don't mean automating, I don't
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mean trying to to find shortcuts .
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I actually call LinkedIn an easier button, not an easy
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button.
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Right, and I think many of maybe some of the viewers today,
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but a lot of people have been burned because others in our
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space, right, the LinkedIn gurus are well, yeah, it's an easy
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button.
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You do this, this, this and boom, you're going to get 10
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inbound leads every every week.
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Speaker 3: Mike Weinberg calls those the social selling
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charlatan.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right.
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But if so, if you think about what selling is, you talk about
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prospecting.
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You talk about relationship building.
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You talk about value building.
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You talk about uncovering opportunities, whether it's
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discovery, you know, for a particular account, or just
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paying attention to trends.
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Those are all parts of the sales process.
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So how do you bring those into something like LinkedIn and make
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it easier A big thing?
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For years, I've been talking about the power of commenting.
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Right, if you want to get super tactical here, please stick
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around after I say this.
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But if you guys who are listening want the easiest way
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to get more out of LinkedIn, do five comments a day Meaningful,
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you know.
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Connect with your, your peers, your influencers, colleagues at
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your company, obviously, prospects and customers.
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If you can do that, you know I share.
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That about probably was three years ago now.
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I got serious about okay, I'm going to really use LinkedIn and
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I have a stack of pennies.
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I can reach over to my desk here and there's, there's some
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of them.
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I had 15 pennies on my desk and I had to move them from one
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stack to another.
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Every penny is a comment, so I did 15 comments every day.
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So 75 comments a week.
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That's a reaction point.
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Speaker 2: Love.
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Right there I get.
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We got a pause and tell everybody on the podcast you're
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watching it.
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15.
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Moving from one stack to the other commenting.
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I know a tool that helps with commenting, but we can talk
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about that later.
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But yeah, I mean, and that's I mean honestly, the reason we
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created the tool is because commenting is the most
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underutilized tactic and LinkedIn, in my opinion, and
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partly it's because people it's hard Like who do I, who do I
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comment on and how do I do it?
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Consistently, I go to my newsfeed and they're not people
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there I really want to comment.
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How do I target?
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So yeah, yeah so.
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Speaker 3: It gives a whole new meaning to a penny for your
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thoughts.
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Speaker 4: There you go.
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So I'm going to push back a little bit on that, brandon, and
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that commenting is hard.
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I think that the challenge that a lot of people have is that
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when you switch mediums, we get nervous Right, and you and I we
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talk about that Like, if you're in sales, right, and so most of
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the people on listening in here in sales, you have been
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attracted to this role because you like talking to people in
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some way shape or form.
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Right doesn't mean that you're great, like I don't consider
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myself an extrovert.
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I actually consider myself an introvert, but I enjoy working
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with people and interacting with people.
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But we like to interact, that's all that.
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A comment is right.
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So I do think that a lot of us often overthink what?
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Because it is digital, because we're typing it and there's a
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lot of human nervousness that creeps in.
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I think that's what you're alluding to, the difficulty.
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But actually, if you, I always say to somebody, if you look at
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a post and somebody that person who posted so Carson posts and
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he said whatever's in that post to me, what would I say back?
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That's all, it is right.
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I mean, let's not make it more complicated than it has to be,
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and I think where also a lot of people get nervous with posting
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is that or commenting.
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Excuse me, I'm posting and even posting as well.
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They've been told, oh, I've got to provide value and I've got
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to share value and all these things, and that's absolutely
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true.
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But I would say at least a third of my comments have
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nothing to do with the content of the post, but rather the
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poster.
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Right, because Carson might say something.
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I might go, oh, that's a really interesting story and here's my
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feedback.
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Or I might say, carson, I had the same thing happen to me as
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well.
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Right, and it's just that, human-to-human validation,
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that's it, and that's a great saying.
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I'm getting fired up here, but one of the things I learned as
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an early salesperson is what chop of the axe fells the tree?
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Right, the idea of like.
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Which part of the sales conversation is the one that
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gets the customer over the finish site, all of them.
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So you know so often what, oh boy.
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Speaker 3: Oh yeah.
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Speaker 4: All the little nudges .
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Speaker 3: It's all the little nudges like you can't again.
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There's no silver bullet, but if you can leverage LinkedIn or
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a comment or just staying top of mind with somebody, it's kind
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of that next nudge in the cycle.
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All of it adds up to the sum of the parts and that's what turns
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the blank canvas to a masterpiece.
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Speaker 2: That turns it out.
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Speaker 4: Exactly.
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Speaker 2: I think Carson's got a movie analogy brewing here.
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Hey, can we take a quick time out, guys?
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I wanna acknowledge some of the comments.
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First of all, becky, I saw it a while ago.
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I will get the coffee.
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We keep saying we're gonna meet sometimes up in North Carolina,
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but I will get that coffee mug to you absolutely.
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Thank you for that.
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And I was cracking up with between Daniel and Anthony says
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he uses Guitar Fix instead of pennies.
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Yeah, nine blue and in one red.
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I love it, great system.
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And of course, daniel, we can always count on Daniel to give
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his.
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You do that so you can leave your two cents.
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Gotta like it there you go, hey Witty.
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Yeah, so Witty.
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Speaker 4: Sorry, brandon.
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I think the one thing that I wanna highlight with the pennies
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idea is because, by the way, I used to track it like an Excel
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spreadsheet, digitally and I realized, no, I needed a
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physical, a visceral tool.
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And I think it really gets to this idea that Carson was saying
00:16:27
.
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This is just one other channel we have.
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It's not the end all be all, and I think, going even back to
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our digital first, not digital only, we have to really look as
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a modern seller.
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How do we integrate all of the channels?
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We have all the tools, whether it is LinkedIn, email, hopping
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on a plane and visiting somebody .
00:16:46
One of my favorite tools has always been sending handwritten
00:16:49
notes to people, and I got that from Bob Berg when I first
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started my career.
00:16:52
So powerful, right, the empty inbox, their physical inbox, but
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it's.
00:16:57
I think everybody has to kind of think of what is the broad
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landscape that I can, of tools I can use and then fit them in
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your workflow and what's gonna work best for you.
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Speaker 3: I love that, steve Fish, I wanna hear some more on
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some of the outside the box approaches, of how you have seen
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these digital tools leverage to create relationships and also
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make deposits into the relationship, and I'll give you
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an example.
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So we talk a lot on the show about how, when it comes to
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prospecting or digital connecting, you can focus on a
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few things that you can control, one being the quality of your
00:17:38
message.
00:17:39
What's the value that I bring.
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Number two the quantity of outreaches.
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Now there's a big value in I'm gonna have a different approach
00:17:46
to some of my very strategic opportunities and customers.
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But in a portfolio where I've got over 400 today, I also have
00:17:54
to scale really effectively.
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So the quantity of outreaches that goes out.
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And then, lastly, the consistency of execution.
00:18:01
Over time it's not just water your garden once and expect it
00:18:04
to sprout.
00:18:05
You gotta be consistent in how you prospect and do outreach.
00:18:09
We did a campaign recently that was called down day and reaching
00:18:12
out to over 400 customers, and what we found worked very
00:18:16
effectively was even just going out to sales navigator, pulling
00:18:20
a lot of the C level, vp levels that a lot of my team didn't
00:18:24
have relationships with, and then getting crisp on what's the
00:18:28
right messaging, what would be the unique outside the box way
00:18:31
that we could partner and approach People.
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Executives don't reply when we show up talking about ourselves
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and our own company.
00:18:39
They show up when we're talking about their mission, their
00:18:43
plight, their statement, and so that's the approach we took.
00:18:47
We sent out thousands of messages and we booked dozens
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upon dozens of net new meetings with executives.
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But that's not a common way of using sales navigator.
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We were pulling a lot of folks.
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We were messaging them in bulk.
00:19:01
We guessed at their email addresses based on what we knew
00:19:03
their email address was, or you can look up online what
00:19:06
somebody's email domain might be .
00:19:07
What are some other unique, outside the box ways that we can
00:19:12
use some of these tools to create relationships, to nurture
00:19:16
relationships and to ultimately do what we wanna do, which is
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sit down and break bread with these folks?
00:19:21
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think I loved your use of sales navigator
00:19:26
there.
00:19:26
I think a couple of suggestions I would make.
00:19:30
One is I do think that the ability to reach somebody new
00:19:39
through digital channels is going to diminish over the next
00:19:43
18 to 24 months.
00:19:44
We've already seen it on the email side Google, yahoo just
00:19:48
being like dude.
00:19:49
We're sick of it.
00:19:50
I mean I'll say this here, I've said it before cold outreach
00:19:54
doesn't reach me and I'm not like a high enough in the
00:19:57
organization that I'm getting out, but I get enough.
00:19:59
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:20:00
Speaker 4: If you're not referred to me, I would almost
00:20:03
say Carson.
00:20:04
I don't care how well crafted your email is, I'm just not
00:20:06
reading it.
00:20:08
Speaker 3: I've got enough other things to do, and that was the
00:20:10
law of averages that that worked , because thousands of mail
00:20:13
coming out you get a very small percentage.
00:20:15
But things like video and other things can make our message
00:20:18
maybe stand out amongst the crowd.
00:20:21
Speaker 2: Well, I would say also, it's when you're like for
00:20:24
you, Carson, you have such a presence.
00:20:26
I mean there was an example when I was with you at Microsoft
00:20:29
on Wednesday.
00:20:30
You and I both had a plate of food and we had a drink on our
00:20:34
hand.
00:20:34
We came around a corner and that guy goes oh, Carson, Right,
00:20:38
Great to see you.
00:20:39
And you're like struggling to not drop your food because a guy
00:20:42
was so excited to shake your hand, Right, and I mean You're
00:20:46
with the mayor, You're with the mayor, yeah, and he was so
00:20:49
excited to meet you.
00:20:49
He shakes your hand.
00:20:50
You almost dropped your food.
00:20:51
He leaves.
00:20:52
I go who was that?
00:20:53
And you're like I'm not sure, Right, and it's because your
00:20:58
LinkedIn presence is built through reputation so that now,
00:21:02
when your emails, your calls, your other messages come out,
00:21:05
they go.
00:21:06
I know that guy.
00:21:07
Speaker 3: You become a known entity.
00:21:08
Speaker 2: It's not cold.
00:21:09
So sorry, D-Fish, I interrupted .
00:21:11
Speaker 4: Yeah, but that's becoming a known entity is so
00:21:15
important, I think.
00:21:16
I mean, take what I just said.
00:21:17
It's hard to reach out to me cold, but if you've been on my
00:21:21
network for a year or two and then you reach out to me with
00:21:23
like a very specific, targeted ask, I'm like, okay, I'll read
00:21:27
it.
00:21:27
You know I talk a lot about building social capital and
00:21:30
social recognition.
00:21:32
Right?
00:21:32
Who is that person?
00:21:35
Right, you know.
00:21:35
Again, I know Carson's name well before we met because I've
00:21:38
seen him around LinkedIn.
00:21:39
I might not know a lot about him, but, okay, you're a known
00:21:42
entity.
00:21:43
If you want to get super tactical, I think there's a
00:21:45
couple of things.
00:21:46
One is to really be aspirational in your network,
00:21:50
building on LinkedIn, and what I mean by that is, for example,
00:21:55
look at your accounts and this depends on your situation.
00:21:57
Right, you've got a lot or a little bit.
00:21:59
Let's say you're an enterprise level seller.
00:22:02
You've got, or sales leader, even like you've got, 10 main
00:22:04
accounts you're looking at, identify, using sales navigator,
00:22:09
whatever tool, or the 20 people I want to make sure know my
00:22:13
name there.
00:22:13
Okay, but here's the biggest thing that I would suggest, and
00:22:18
this is why I say it's aspirational, it's future
00:22:20
oriented.
00:22:20
Reach out to them, try to get that LinkedIn request and you
00:22:24
can play around with messaging a little bit.
00:22:26
But it could be as simple as hey, we work a lot of people in
00:22:28
your space we'd love to connect.
00:22:30
Here's the thing that I suggest and not every seller likes to
00:22:33
hear this because we want direct , linear results.
00:22:36
Oh, I did this.
00:22:36
Now I got a meeting.
00:22:37
They accept your connection request.
00:22:41
Hopefully, the first thing you do is do not pitch them.
00:22:45
All you send is a message that says, hey, thanks for connecting
00:22:50
, let me know if I can help, like my line has always been
00:22:54
thanks for connecting.
00:22:54
If I can be of service, let me know, and then that's it Now.
00:22:58
You can then start doing some posting.
00:23:01
You can start engaging with their content.
00:23:04
This is where the commenting comes into play.
00:23:06
Put in your CRM to reach out to that person.
00:23:09
Two weeks later, a month later, whatever it is.
00:23:13
If you reach out to them immediately, like I got this,
00:23:16
quite frankly, two days ago.
00:23:17
Now this person's again.
00:23:19
He's trying to do cold outreach .
00:23:20
It's a sales and element platform.
00:23:21
I know he's a seller and I know he works for a very aggressive
00:23:25
outreach company.
00:23:26
They've actually we'll never work with them because of their
00:23:28
level.
00:23:28
I mean, they've burned their brand Like that's what we
00:23:30
haven't talked about is, if you do all this, turn and burn stuff
00:23:34
, you burn brand Like we'll never work with this company.
00:23:36
I'm not gonna mention them, they're a known entity.
00:23:38
I'm like nope.
00:23:39
But I accept his connection request.
00:23:41
I know it's gonna come and he's in Chicago.
00:23:43
We had a big storm the other day so he immediately messaged me
00:23:47
back.
00:23:47
Oh hey, thanks for connecting.
00:23:48
Are you guys okay?
00:23:50
How is this storm Right?
00:23:51
Did you weather it okay, which sounds like it's the right thing
00:23:56
to do?
00:23:56
But I'm like dude, you don't know me, we're not friends Like
00:24:00
you haven't earned the right to, so you've right, he just tried
00:24:04
to jump on it right away and I'm like my defenses are up.
00:24:07
You could have hang out with me in LinkedIn and you can comment
00:24:10
left and right.
00:24:11
I post every day.
00:24:12
I might give you my time.
00:24:14
So anyways, that was a bit of a diatribe, earn the way into the
00:24:17
DMs is what I'm doing.
00:24:18
You've got to earn the right to my time.
00:24:19
By the way, I think sales people now for deck I mean,
00:24:26
really, with the advent of digital and automated tools they
00:24:30
have forgotten that they need to earn the time, they have to
00:24:33
earn the right to the ask.
00:24:34
They've just assumed that buyers have nothing better to do
00:24:38
than hang around and take your meeting.
00:24:40
So to go back to the tactics though, but get in their space.
00:24:48
Get in their space, take it to the offline example would be
00:24:53
going to a conference every year .
00:24:55
I call it the Maverick example, if you remember the old movie
00:24:58
Maverick with Mel Gibson.
00:24:59
The first hour, at the beginning, he goes I'll play
00:25:03
poker, I'm going to lose.
00:25:04
For the first hour, I promise.
00:25:05
He just sits there and learns all their tells and then he wins
00:25:08
.
00:25:08
But imagine going there and just hang out in the group.
00:25:10
What's the conversation?
00:25:11
What's going on?
00:25:12
Oh, that person's talking about this problem.
00:25:14
Oh, okay, this person.
00:25:16
This is really important to them, and then doing outreach.
00:25:19
Speaker 3: That's got the movie reference in there.
00:25:22
I know it wasn't even you Well done.
00:25:27
Speaker 2: I want to respond to one thing you said, and then I
00:25:30
want to bring up Kathy's comment , because that's excellent.
00:25:32
But, divas, you said the message came about the weather.
00:25:36
There's so many more of the charlatans out there, and
00:25:40
there's tools about mass personalization.
00:25:43
That personalization has become such a commodity that our human
00:25:47
spam filters smell it and reject it immediately because we
00:25:52
know oh, you got to be personal .
00:25:54
Well, if you fabricate personalization, it's no longer
00:25:58
personal, right?
00:26:00
Speaker 4: Right, yeah, we know.
00:26:02
As I said, I know what playbook is running.
00:26:07
No, that's a little different because I teach that playbook in
00:26:10
some ways, but it just felt wrong.
00:26:13
It's the same as on LinkedIn.
00:26:17
You'll get the automated response if you accept the
00:26:20
connection request.
00:26:21
Hey, what's the biggest challenge you're dealing with
00:26:23
right now?
00:26:23
I got that when I was a coach.
00:26:26
What's the biggest challenge you deal with in your coaching
00:26:28
practice?
00:26:29
Right?
00:26:29
Who are you?
00:26:31
Speaker 3: I don't know you, I just need this, that's what I do
00:26:34
.
00:26:35
Speaker 2: I respond to that, deleting unwanted LinkedIn
00:26:38
messages from people who pretended they wanted to be my
00:26:41
connection.
00:26:41
Hey, norah, can we bring up Kathy's comment?
00:26:44
Because this is just so near and dear to my heart and I'm
00:26:48
glad that she learned that and is implementing it.
00:26:51
You know, we believe, carson, you talk a lot about this.
00:26:54
We believe that we're going to post content and POs are going
00:26:57
to magically fall out of the sky into our pocket and we're going
00:26:59
to be sitting on a beach laughing about how successful we
00:27:02
are.
00:27:02
If only, yeah, if only.
00:27:05
But it's comment and it goes with what you were saying,
00:27:08
d-fish, like get involved.
00:27:10
And you were talking about the Maverick exam, the movie
00:27:14
Maverick.
00:27:15
You went in there and watched and learned Commenting.
00:27:19
We can come in and watch and learn and listen, because when
00:27:23
we're commenting, they actually know we're there Right and we're
00:27:27
contributing.
00:27:27
And we're actually contributing a little bit to that oxytocin.
00:27:32
Like you post, not that you need it because you get to me,
00:27:35
but you post and we come and comment.
00:27:37
It's like we feel good, they feel good about their post,
00:27:40
you're commenting, they comment back, you're building that human
00:27:43
to human relationship and then, when you can craft a smart
00:27:48
message to be like hey, you know and I think I did this with you
00:27:52
D-Fish I commented for a while and then I messaged you and said
00:27:54
man, I love all the stuff that you're doing and how we've been
00:27:57
chatting.
00:27:57
You want to get on a call and get to know each other.
00:27:59
And then eventually got you on the show and we now are Zoom
00:28:04
friends or LinkedIn Zoom friends , right, yeah.
00:28:09
Speaker 4: And, again, I think it's hard for the average seller
00:28:13
right now.
00:28:14
We've had, let's face it, 20 years of let's call it, you know
00:28:18
, especially like in the SaaS world the predictive revenue
00:28:21
model where, hey, we're just going to pound out emails, we're
00:28:23
going to pound out phone calls, we're going to take somebody
00:28:26
like an SDR and God bless them, right, that don't have a lot of
00:28:29
experience, but it's just.
00:28:30
You know, carson, it's the not thoughtful version of what you
00:28:35
were talking about, right, you know it's, hey, we're just going
00:28:38
to download lists of people and email them and email it.
00:28:40
And what's great is, 15 years ago, that works right.
00:28:46
10 years ago, that works because, remember, when we got
00:28:49
email and it was exciting, like you know, I always yeah, well, I
00:28:54
always say that, so I'll show my share my age.
00:28:57
Don't break this.
00:28:59
You're being a male, yeah Right .
00:29:01
I started college in 1994 and it was the first year that they
00:29:05
gave you an email address.
00:29:06
Speaker 3: Yes.
00:29:07
Speaker 4: Right, like automatically.
00:29:08
I was the first grade, so it's interesting like at my age I'm
00:29:11
literally kind of the.
00:29:12
You know we're the Oregon Trail generation, right, where we
00:29:16
remember technology.
00:29:17
You know a world without technology and world with no
00:29:22
email is now a pain in the butt, like it.
00:29:24
It's what stresses us out.
00:29:26
Speaker 3: So the world has zero inbox?
00:29:29
A long time ago.
00:29:33
Speaker 4: Right, and I just bring that up because a lot of
00:29:37
times we as sellers, we forget when we just don't want to pay
00:29:42
attention to what our buyers experience is what is the person
00:29:44
actually Like?
00:29:46
If you saw, if you're trying to get the C-suite for example,
00:29:48
carson you know you were talking about before if you saw I
00:29:54
remember doing a coaching session with a Cmo of a very
00:29:58
large tech company.
00:29:59
We're looking at just LinkedIn presence, we're doing their
00:30:01
profile work, stuff like that and really it was funny because
00:30:05
her people had been like oh, she's not gonna want to spend
00:30:07
time with you, she's very busy.
00:30:08
Two and a half hours, right, yeah, because it was half an
00:30:12
hour.
00:30:12
She just, yeah, keep telling me stuff.
00:30:14
She had 2100 Unanswered connection requests, 2100
00:30:23
because and, by the way, she was upset because she's like some
00:30:25
of these people I want to be connected with, they're my peers
00:30:27
, they're Pellamania conferences and the rest were just sales
00:30:30
people coming up for system.
00:30:32
Right, that's that like when you realize that's what people are
00:30:35
responding to.
00:30:36
I think you do take a much more , hopefully, strategic and
00:30:39
thoughtful approach.
00:30:40
I Sorry, I didn't know this was gonna be the D fish soapbox
00:30:45
hour, but uh you know it's great .
00:30:46
Speaker 3: I love that you're fired up deep fish.
00:30:48
And I Get another question for you, because you said something
00:30:50
earlier that stuck with me and it's you know that we're we're
00:30:54
kind of embarking on it and entering this era where the
00:30:58
ability to connect with folks digitally is going to
00:31:02
drastically change.
00:31:03
Just because it's there's such an onslaught right now and I
00:31:06
mean you can, you can see it and smell it a mile away.
00:31:09
Like I go out on my LinkedIn today, I'm gonna say this look,
00:31:12
a couple of things.
00:31:13
One, we're in an era where more and more authenticity and being
00:31:18
genuine it's gonna become more important in Paramount than it's
00:31:20
ever been the other element.
00:31:22
It is like I mean you can go out right now like with, with AI
00:31:25
and some of the automation tools .
00:31:27
I mean I get a lot of comments on some of my posts but I mean
00:31:30
you can smell the fake ones a mile away.
00:31:31
Yeah, I hate that and that.
00:31:33
That I think those are the types of things that are burning
00:31:36
Reputation, because I would shy away from talking with somebody
00:31:41
that I knew was leveraging automation, and I know that it
00:31:43
changes the perception that you have of someone when you know
00:31:47
that they're leveraging that type of stuff.
00:31:48
So I think that's another big element.
00:31:51
But, on the same token, I always look at LinkedIn like
00:31:54
it's the biggest coffee bar in the world.
00:31:56
Your prospects are out there, right.
00:31:58
If you're not talking to them, shame on you if you're showing
00:32:02
up and talking to them but only talking about yourself and how
00:32:04
great you are and how great your company is at them.
00:32:07
So, how are you going to engage your customers and maybe your
00:32:11
next hiring manager in the biggest coffee bar in the world?
00:32:14
Be intentions about how you leverage LinkedIn, but where do
00:32:18
you see it going?
00:32:18
Beefish, that's what I'm most curious about.
00:32:21
What do you think we're gonna be talking about in a year, two
00:32:23
years, five years, when we're talking about modern selling?
00:32:26
Speaker 4: I think we're actually a bit of a Crossroads,
00:32:30
so we'll see.
00:32:30
So, carson, you brought up AI and you're like and I get those
00:32:35
comments too in my feet and you can see them a mile away and
00:32:37
what the AI will people say was oh, but it's getting better
00:32:40
eventually, you won't be able to tell.
00:32:42
That makes me more nervous, because at that point we just we
00:32:46
don't trust anything.
00:32:46
It's the liar's dividend, right , if you can get people enough
00:32:50
misinformation, they don't trust any information.
00:32:52
And the same thing, if I can't know what is a legit, authentic,
00:32:55
human response to my LinkedIn post, I'm gonna start
00:32:59
discounting all of it.
00:33:00
Yeah, but what I do think is going to happen, go back to our
00:33:07
topic digital first, not digital only.
00:33:08
In some ways, I think we might see the reverse of that as well,
00:33:12
meaning, yes, it's this digital coffee bar.
00:33:16
I think one of the changes we've seen is that it LinkedIn has
00:33:20
gone from a top of funnel tool I would argue to more of a middle
00:33:23
of funnel tool.
00:33:24
Right, carson?
00:33:25
You and I have been posting a lot on LinkedIn for a while.
00:33:28
You know, three, four years ago , if you had a good post, you
00:33:32
could get thousands of Of views.
00:33:35
Like that, I mean a couple years ago, my top viral one over
00:33:38
a hundred thousand, a hundred thousand, hundred thousand views
00:33:41
.
00:33:41
Wish it was a hundred thousand now, right, but you could get,
00:33:45
like the algorithm has changed partly, that you know it's.
00:33:48
It's.
00:33:49
It's really shrunk down, but not in a bad way, like my
00:33:52
engagement is up over the last two and a half years even though
00:33:55
my reach is down, right, and so it's really middle of funnel.
00:33:59
How do you get new people into the funnel?
00:34:00
It's not gonna be.
00:34:01
Yes, there's gonna be some of that outreach on LinkedIn, but I
00:34:05
think it's.
00:34:06
You go to the physical coffee house, you go to the physical
00:34:09
conference.
00:34:09
I had a half have a half written LinkedIn post.
00:34:13
I think AI is gonna drive more door-to-door sales or whatever
00:34:18
the version is, because If I know you, if I've met you, okay,
00:34:23
then I'll talk to you digitally because I know you're a real
00:34:24
person, right, and I think I think LinkedIn is at a very
00:34:29
interesting place.
00:34:30
Well, I mean, they're owned by Microsoft.
00:34:32
Microsoft has made a little bit of an investment into AI.
00:34:36
You know, we'll see.
00:34:38
They're there, they're bringing that into LinkedIn.
00:34:42
It could be super powerful.
00:34:43
I Could all see it go in the other way.
00:34:47
My guess is a lot of the same people who are doing the
00:34:50
automation and have for years been using it as a spam tool.
00:34:55
They're gonna keep doing it, and the three of us and others
00:34:59
like us, we're still gonna get what we need from it.
00:35:03
Speaker 3: There was people who use it wrong.
00:35:05
That kind of you know.
00:35:06
Unfortunately for the rest of us, noble Knights of the selling
00:35:10
game, you know, you know.
00:35:11
You know it diminishes the credibility of the overall brand
00:35:15
and unfortunately we're up against that reputation of
00:35:18
salespeople all the time.
00:35:19
I saw Anthony's question out in the chat.
00:35:21
I wanted to address that.
00:35:23
You know, I hear often about email blast while working with
00:35:25
sales folks.
00:35:26
I'm curious but as everyone think are the consequences of
00:35:28
these types of reach-outs, it's all in how you do it and I will
00:35:33
give you an example.
00:35:34
So I'll use a fair amount of even quote-unquote email blasts,
00:35:38
but the way that they're used are very strategic.
00:35:40
It's got a very specific purpose might be for passive
00:35:43
education in some kind of opt-in newsletter scenario, or if it's
00:35:48
, if anything.
00:35:49
We were just talking about the, the perils and the riches of AI
00:35:53
.
00:35:54
Ai can arm you with a heck of a lot of information and comb
00:35:57
readily available materials out there to arm you with a
00:36:00
perspective and point of view that would matter to your target
00:36:02
audience.
00:36:03
So Even just using that to inform what I write, to reach
00:36:07
out to a very specific Industry vertical, to a very specific
00:36:12
title, to a very specific set of executives in one organization.
00:36:15
It's.
00:36:16
It's kind of like Eric Clapton told us in the wonderful song
00:36:20
it's in the way that you use it, from the color of money, it's
00:36:24
all in how you leverage the tool .
00:36:27
So don't spam the world, but leveraging email to have a
00:36:32
quantity of Outreaches that you're able to make that are
00:36:35
showing up from a very Particular point of view with a
00:36:38
quality message or passive education in some kind of opt-in
00:36:42
fashion that can absolutely get you a ton of leads and meetings
00:36:45
.
00:36:45
I use it all the time.
00:36:47
Speaker 4: Yeah, I love what you said there about point of view.
00:36:49
You mentioned authenticity before.
00:36:51
I think right now, authenticity is having a moment, which means
00:36:55
it's also being overused and, you know, to the point being
00:36:57
meaningless.
00:36:58
But I remember having a conversation with my good friend
00:37:02
, steve Watt, over at seismic who's who's great and the social
00:37:06
selling game, and the one thing we can't outsource is point of
00:37:11
view, right.
00:37:12
So I mean, if you want to think about a very specific tactic
00:37:15
that will help you on On LinkedIn, both in comments and
00:37:19
posting, all this up is have a point of view, have a
00:37:22
perspective.
00:37:24
You decide, like, what are you gonna talk about what?
00:37:26
What your your themes are?
00:37:28
I mean, somebody could just as effectively be on a podcast
00:37:31
right now saying here's how you automate LinkedIn and, you know,
00:37:34
find success in that.
00:37:36
Hey, that's great, that's your point of view, right, we can
00:37:38
have differing ones, but have so , just have a point of view,
00:37:43
even with your customers, right?
00:37:44
You talk about AI, be able to really give you a lot of
00:37:47
information, which is it can.
00:37:49
So, if you can then take that, distill it, whether it's into
00:37:53
email outreach, a LinkedIn post, just commenting yeah, because
00:37:57
that's the one thing a computer can't replace right is is is the
00:38:03
, the collection of experiences, education, you know, background
00:38:09
that you have as an individual selling whatever product or
00:38:13
service you sell For the company you sell in the place, right?
00:38:17
I mean, that's that is unique, that is unique to you, and the
00:38:20
more that the people who are doing that now will continue to
00:38:24
do that on LinkedIn.
00:38:25
Right, and that's you know.
00:38:26
So, if you don't know your point of view, figure it out.
00:38:30
That's like you just ask, like yourself, write a piece of paper
00:38:33
what do I want to be known for?
00:38:35
Right, you know who is my, who is my audience.
00:38:37
You said targeted, I love that car since, like, there's a
00:38:40
billion people, it's probably like 950 million people on
00:38:43
LinkedIn, whatever a lot, they're not your audience.
00:38:45
I actually argue that the average seller has a maybe 250
00:38:50
Mm-hmm people that they actually are concerned with.
00:38:52
Right, who are those 250?
00:38:54
Do they know you?
00:38:56
Do they know you stand for?
00:38:57
Do they know?
00:38:58
The answer is no day.
00:38:59
Those questions start there.
00:39:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I like the way I mean this fusion of you.
00:39:05
Know, carson, you used it as the largest coffee bar.
00:39:08
I like to say it's a 24 7365 super conference.
00:39:12
But either way you look at it, how you show up in that
00:39:17
environment Determines the success of it.
00:39:19
Are you the person?
00:39:21
Are you as a CEO of a company or as a salesperson?
00:39:25
You're walking down the aisle, you're walking down a hall going
00:39:28
to breakout session and nobody knows you.
00:39:30
Yeah, right, right, it's the opening session.
00:39:33
You open the door to go into the cocktail party the night before
00:39:36
the conference and the door opens and everyone looks at you
00:39:39
and goes back to what they're doing.
00:39:40
Right, or it is a door opening.
00:39:43
You walk in and people go hey, carson's here, right, that is
00:39:49
the opportunity we have in building a reputation and
00:39:52
building those, the foundations of relationship, by how we show
00:39:57
up and linked in.
00:39:58
And it reminds me DF Fish you were saying when we talked the
00:40:02
other day is you think none of us are really thought leaders?
00:40:07
But you can have a point of view, yeah, and you can share.
00:40:13
Like what are you observing?
00:40:14
What do you think that means?
00:40:16
What do you feel is going to happen?
00:40:18
Like, think, observe and feel and being consistent and
00:40:22
speaking to those 250 people, I think what then happens is it
00:40:27
becomes 500 people, it becomes a thousand people, because
00:40:29
they're curious about what you're talking about and why
00:40:32
you're talking about it and you're not trying to be a parrot
00:40:35
to the thought leadership that's out there.
00:40:37
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah and spot on.
00:40:40
And I think most people and I see this especially like when
00:40:44
you talk to executives who are like, oh, I need to be a thought
00:40:47
leader.
00:40:48
No, you don't.
00:40:49
I mean, I've met very few true thought leaders and I've had I
00:40:55
know many, many smart people who are wonderful leaders in their
00:40:59
industries, who have a lot of great stuff to say.
00:41:03
Thought leader no, right, you're somebody to your point, who
00:41:07
might have maybe has a very sophisticated point of view, a
00:41:11
very thoughtful point of view, a very informed point of view
00:41:13
that people should listen to.
00:41:14
And the reason I say that is very few people think they're a
00:41:20
thought leader or want it Like they want.
00:41:22
They want what they think comes from thought leadership, which
00:41:26
is influence.
00:41:26
What they really want is influence.
00:41:27
And they go, okay, do I have to be a thought leader?
00:41:29
But very few executives feel comfortable with that title.
00:41:33
Right, it doesn't matter how big of a company you are, how
00:41:36
big their ego is they're.
00:41:38
So they say, hey, just hear your point of view.
00:41:40
And they go, oh, yeah, okay, I got one of those, I got an
00:41:43
opinion, great, sure.
00:41:46
Speaker 2: I talked a lot of C sweet, that you talked about
00:41:48
this, so like, look, I don't really have anything valuable to
00:41:51
contribute, and it's like well, the myth of it is where you're
00:41:55
looking at it the wrong way.
00:41:56
You're looking at it as oh, I'm going to add something
00:41:59
innovative and amazing, and all that?
00:42:01
No, just your point of view.
00:42:03
What's changing in the industry ?
00:42:05
What should your customers be caring about right now?
00:42:09
What's important?
00:42:10
And when you start, I believe you start helping them think
00:42:13
about what are you observing, what are you thinking and what
00:42:16
are you feeling.
00:42:16
Well then, we all have a lot of things to say, because we got
00:42:20
five years, 10 years, 30 years experience in this industry.
00:42:23
That's what's valuable.
00:42:24
And I would say too, for C sweet, it's not just for your
00:42:28
customer's benefit.
00:42:29
Your team members need to see you reading Now.
00:42:32
Do you want to help your HR department with recruitment?
00:42:35
Build your personal brand, grow your reputation?
00:42:39
And it's not self promotion, it's brand promotion through
00:42:43
your voice and that's what that's, what builds this big
00:42:48
influence?
00:42:50
Speaker 3: And you know, what resonates the most is stories
00:42:52
and everybody has them.
00:42:53
That's the key element.
00:42:55
You just said something so important.
00:42:56
It doesn't matter if you're brand new on a job and you're
00:43:00
having experiences.
00:43:01
Somebody else is having that same experience and they can
00:43:05
live and learn from what you put out there into the ether.
00:43:09
Same thing if I talk to a C level, there's no question that
00:43:12
they have stories that would be of value to so many, whether
00:43:15
it's leadership scenarios that they're running up against,
00:43:18
whether it's changes in the marketplace, leading teams or
00:43:22
what it was like when they got started out in sales.
00:43:24
Or maybe they roll up their sleeves and they go out for a
00:43:27
day in the field and they, you know, what did they learn, what
00:43:29
did they observe?
00:43:30
I'd read that and so I think that's the key element is being
00:43:33
intentional about who's your audience and what's the story
00:43:36
that is going to resonate.
00:43:37
What is the provocative question that you can maybe
00:43:40
throw out there?
00:43:41
You know, I think where I really approached posting years ago,
00:43:44
it's up kind of straddle the line I like to add to the sales
00:43:49
community.
00:43:49
But I've got a whole other subset of customers and
00:43:52
nonprofit organizations that I work with that couldn't care
00:43:54
less about that persona and that's fine.
00:43:56
You can play to, you can throw bouquets to both groups.
00:43:59
And here's why because I want to learn and dig into my
00:44:03
customer community.
00:44:04
I want to understand how are we able to?
00:44:07
What are the great stories of ways that we're able to empower
00:44:11
and enable them to do more and that I can share that and that's
00:44:14
going to resonate with that camp.
00:44:16
Same thing within the sales community.
00:44:18
The things that I get the most hits on and most comments and
00:44:22
conversation pieces is when I tell a story of something that I
00:44:26
grappled with two years ago.
00:44:28
Might even be a deal I lost and it's kind of a post-mortem on
00:44:31
the deal.
00:44:32
But those are the types of things when you're able to kind
00:44:34
of lay yourself bare from a story's perspective, talk about
00:44:38
where you've been, what you've done, what you've learned.
00:44:39
That stuff resonates.
00:44:43
Speaker 2: And that's true authenticity, not trying to
00:44:46
fabricate authenticity.
00:44:48
And I think that's where people talk about well, how do I
00:44:52
overcome imposter syndrome?
00:44:53
Well, be really confident in what you're talking about, which
00:44:57
is your experiences.
00:44:59
Nobody can take away your experiences, nobody can take
00:45:03
away your perception of what you're going through, what
00:45:05
you're experiencing, what you're thinking, what you're observing
00:45:08
.
00:45:08
And when you share it from that perspective I'm not out here to
00:45:11
learn everybody, everything I'm going to share with you what
00:45:14
I'm experiencing that's where people really resonate.
00:45:17
And then you're not dealing with imposter syndrome, because
00:45:19
you're just being you.
00:45:21
Speaker 4: Right, Well, and you know whether you're commenting
00:45:25
today, by the way.
00:45:27
Speaker 3: Thank you, kathy.
00:45:28
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:45:29
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, and we're talking about executives
00:45:32
here and I think it's the same, though Karshen even said just
00:45:35
some brand new to a role like any salesperson.
00:45:38
I think you said something really important there, brandon,
00:45:43
where it's not about having to share something innovative.
00:45:46
I get that a lot Like what's my original contribution and,
00:45:52
depending on my level of rapport with the individual, I might
00:45:55
say you really don't have anything original to say and
00:45:58
that's like, and that's not a I'm not throwing shade, I'm just
00:46:02
like you're 26.
00:46:04
I mean, we've seen these individuals on LinkedIn the 26
00:46:09
year old sales person who had had presidents club once, and so
00:46:12
they, they're a master at selling.
00:46:16
Like I just want to tell like no , don't do that, just just share
00:46:20
.
00:46:20
Like what's working well for you, what's not share your
00:46:22
experience is still meaningful.
00:46:24
Like you don't have a lot of original things to share and
00:46:27
that's okay.
00:46:27
I don't either.
00:46:29
Right, guess what?
00:46:31
I'm just sharing an amalgamation of every all the
00:46:34
books I've read and it mentors I've learned from, and sales
00:46:38
I've made, sales I've lost, you know, good experiences, bad
00:46:41
experiences, all through the lens of my point of view.
00:46:44
Speaker 3: Right, because, as you said, brandon, nobody can
00:46:48
Invalidate that, right it is a lot easier to find some stories
00:46:52
to tell when you're a grizzled old sales guy, as opposed to
00:46:55
that 20-something that lucked into winning club.
00:46:59
Speaker 4: Yeah, well exactly, I mean, I've earned my gray hairs
00:47:02
, you know it's.
00:47:03
Speaker 3: I was gonna say talk to me after you've been kicked
00:47:05
in the teeth and you know laid off and you know had to bring
00:47:09
yourself back from the dead and reinvent yourself Like.
00:47:12
Those are the types of hard luck stories that right to a
00:47:16
sales warrior.
00:47:16
Those are the stories I want to hear.
00:47:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, it creates thick skin too.
00:47:21
You're like you know there's there's nobody on LinkedIn
00:47:24
that's gonna say something that's gonna hurt me as much as
00:47:26
I've already been hurt.
00:47:27
Speaker 3: So here's a recommendation, so I just
00:47:31
started reading can't hurt me by David Goggins brilliant.
00:47:35
Speaker 4: Hmm, all right.
00:47:37
Speaker 3: True resilience story .
00:47:41
Speaker 2: Well, let's, let's wrap it up.
00:47:43
I agree with you.
00:47:45
Carson, kathy Davis, gold star, thank you for being the
00:47:48
comments and Becky, thanks for you know putting up with us and
00:47:53
missing, waiting on us Wednesday .
00:47:55
And here you are and I've got a .
00:47:57
I got to get a coffee cup out in the in the mail to you.
00:48:00
Hopefully it won't break.
00:48:01
Anthony, thank you so much, and everybody else, the fish, your
00:48:06
book for everybody, amazon, I'm assuming.
00:48:10
Is he right?
00:48:12
Speaker 4: Yeah, all right, amazon, you can find that.
00:48:13
All the other ones Exactly on LinkedIn.
00:48:16
Happy to.
00:48:17
I have these conversations and share some stories and I do just
00:48:21
go on rance and I attract sometimes too by that.
00:48:24
Hopefully you'll love that.
00:48:25
Speaker 2: So boxes are important and when you go, look
00:48:28
for for David Fisher and and look for D fish he doesn't.
00:48:33
He's not a former Laker player.
00:48:35
Speaker 3: No, no, that's not me .
00:48:37
Speaker 2: You go find him there .
00:48:38
Anything else, anything else you want to add before we wrap
00:48:42
up.
00:48:42
And then, carson, you want to get us out, get us taken out.
00:48:47
Speaker 4: No, I knew this would be a great conversation and I
00:48:50
think I would go back to just one thing.
00:48:52
Carson intimated About really being successful with the
00:48:57
digital space.
00:48:58
You want to look at tactics.
00:48:59
In the end it's just showing up , putting in the work it's.
00:49:03
It's a very unsexy thing to say , but you know what, if you put
00:49:06
if you're on LinkedIn 30 minutes every day, money through Friday
00:49:09
for the next year, your career will explode.
00:49:13
I put that out there.
00:49:17
I'd be willing to say that that's.
00:49:19
Speaker 2: That's a the quote of the day For somebody that takes
00:49:22
it serious.
00:49:22
Yeah, it reminds me Carson of, like you know, darren McKee when
00:49:29
he was on here.
00:49:30
He was Right, he was a sailor.
00:49:33
Yeah, he just said he goes, you know what?
00:49:35
I'm just gonna start posting every day, yep.
00:49:37
And he started posting every day and he didn't have a plan,
00:49:41
he was figuring it out as he went.
00:49:42
He started like, oh, that worked, oh, that didn't work.
00:49:44
Yep just kept going and now he's, you know, hundred and
00:49:49
forty thousand followers.
00:49:50
He's got a group that he makes a bunch of money with teaching
00:49:53
people how to do it.
00:49:54
I mean, the other day he had court side tickets to the
00:49:58
Chicago Bulls with a sponsored From doing a sponsored post.
00:50:04
For somebody like he's totally leveraging this and his life's
00:50:07
changed.
00:50:07
His family's life has changed.
00:50:09
Speaker 4: Yeah, and, by the way , that's not gonna happen for
00:50:11
most.
00:50:12
Right, you don't need it to.
00:50:12
You don't need to.
00:50:14
But whatever you, whatever as you're listening to this,
00:50:18
whatever you want out of your career, in your life, this can
00:50:21
be a useful tool, but, like every tool, you got to use it.
00:50:24
Yeah, that's a great point.
00:50:26
Speaker 2: Thanks for clarifying that.
00:50:27
The end All right, gentlemen.
00:50:29
Excellent show.
00:50:30
I've got notes.
00:50:31
I'm gonna go back and listen to it on the podcast, which is
00:50:34
where I normally go back and listen and go.
00:50:36
Oh, that was awesome.
00:50:37
Oh, everybody, thank you so much for joining us today.
00:50:42
And Everyone on the podcast again.
00:50:45
We'd appreciate the reviews.
00:50:46
Share it with your friends if you like it.
00:50:48
We're fighting client our way to hit number one again and or
00:50:51
number one in a new category.
00:50:52
That's what we're going for.
00:50:54
So any help there, we'd appreciate it.
00:50:57
Carson, you're gonna bring us home.
00:50:59
Speaker 3: Thanks everyone, thanks D fish and until next
00:51:02
time happy, modern selling.
00:51:12
Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us today on mastering modern
00:51:15
selling.
00:51:15
If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe for
00:51:18
more insights.
00:51:19
Connect with us on social media and leave a review to help Us
00:51:22
improve.
00:51:23
Stay tuned for our next episode , where we will continue to
00:51:26
uncover modern strategies shaping today's business
00:51:29
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00:51:29
Learn more about fist bump and our concierge service at get
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00:51:33
Mastering modern revenue creation with fist bump, where
00:51:37
relationships, social and AI meet in the buyer centric age.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Mastering Modern Selling Relationships
00:00:04
Social and AI in the buyer-centric age.
00:00:07
Join host Brandon Lee, founder of Fist Bump, alongside
00:00:11
Microsoft's number one social seller Carson V Heddy and Tom
00:00:15
Burton, author of the Revenue Zone and co-founder of Leet
00:00:18
Smart, as we explore the strategies and stories behind
00:00:22
successful executives and sales professionals.
00:00:24
Dive in to business growth, personal development and the
00:00:28
pursuit of excellence with industry leaders.
00:00:30
Whether you're a seasoned executive or an aspiring leader,
00:00:33
this podcast is your backstage pass to today's business
00:00:37
landscape.
00:00:37
This is Mastering Modern Selling, brought to you by Fist
00:00:41
Bump.
00:00:47
Speaker 2: It's good to go.
00:00:48
We're gonna find out if we are actually on a go or not.
00:00:52
No more tech pros.
00:00:53
Everybody welcome to Mastering Modern Selling.
00:00:56
Episode 75, kind of 75 part two Carson.
00:01:03
Speaker 3: Is this like the naked gun or is it Part two?
00:01:06
Speaker 2: Part two yeah, so for people on the podcast, you
00:01:13
don't know this we went live on Wednesday like we normally do.
00:01:16
Carson and I were in the same room for the first time and the
00:01:21
video didn't work, I think the system just overloaded.
00:01:24
Speaker 3: There was just too much magic with D-Fish.
00:01:27
Speaker 4: Too much fire.
00:01:28
Speaker 3: It was.
00:01:29
It blew up, but we're back, we're back, we're back.
00:01:34
Speaker 2: So yeah, if you're on the podcast.
00:01:37
Just our little selfish plea if you love what you're learning
00:01:42
we'd appreciate the review share it with your friends and for
00:01:47
everybody that's live with us today.
00:01:49
If you're in LinkedIn or YouTube or Facebook or X, throw
00:01:54
your comments in there.
00:01:54
Tell us who you are, where you are, ask your questions, cause
00:01:57
we got D-Fish with us who is brilliant at all things.
00:02:01
Digital first, not digital only .
00:02:04
We're going to have fun today.
00:02:06
Speaker 3: I want to say hi to Becky.
00:02:07
Becky, you were hanging with us in the waiting room last time.
00:02:11
Thank you, hopefully your weight pays off, but we got to
00:02:14
start here.
00:02:15
So when I think D-Fish, I was always thinking about the old
00:02:19
Los Angeles Lakers point guard.
00:02:21
And you come to find out this is the original.
00:02:23
D-fish oh gee, so David can you tell us that story?
00:02:28
Speaker 4: Well, sure, I'll tell it in short.
00:02:30
For many years I was a drummer in a band and would also do a
00:02:35
little bit of rapping.
00:02:36
I know this visually doesn't quite match, but I was a little
00:02:40
cooler.
00:02:41
And I wasn't even that much cooler, but I did rap back then.
00:02:43
Speaker 2: You thought it was cooler.
00:02:45
Speaker 4: That's what was in my bandmates, my bandmates would
00:02:49
call me jokingly MC D-Fish.
00:02:51
And when your coworkers come to the shows on the weekends and
00:02:55
then on Monday morning go, hey, d-fish, and it stuck.
00:02:59
And to this point pretty much everybody still calls me D or
00:03:03
D-Fish.
00:03:03
My mom, she tried once and I said no, please don't that's.
00:03:09
I get it, mom, but we're good and my wife refuses.
00:03:12
So my wife refuses to call me that and that's okay.
00:03:16
That's okay.
00:03:16
Yeah, so you find me in a bar.
00:03:19
Just call me D or D-Fish.
00:03:21
Just don't call me late for happy hour.
00:03:22
We're good.
00:03:23
Speaker 2: There you go, we're having.
00:03:25
Well, anthony says you can still rap, so we're gonna have
00:03:31
to do a little rap session for the end of the day.
00:03:34
Speaker 4: All right, we'll see if we get there.
00:03:36
Speaker 3: I'll ask you with coming up with a modern sales
00:03:38
rap.
00:03:39
Speaker 2: There you go.
00:03:39
You know we're talking about.
00:03:43
We're talking about doing that live event.
00:03:46
In the fall, you know, d-fish, we may have to call on MCD Fish
00:03:50
to come and be.
00:03:50
Speaker 4: Can you help me act?
00:03:51
I'll connect you with my agent.
00:03:54
Speaker 2: Perfect, perfect, all right.
00:03:56
Well, now that we've already talked about that, david Fisher
00:04:00
is our guest.
00:04:00
We are talking sales evolution digital first, not digital only.
00:04:05
There's his book Nice, it's backwards, I didn't fix my
00:04:10
camera.
00:04:11
But networking in the 21st century on LinkedIn, d-fish,
00:04:17
tell us a little bit about yourself and your history with
00:04:20
this crazy thing called LinkedIn , and then let's jump into it.
00:04:23
Speaker 4: Sure.
00:04:23
So you know I got my start in sales kind of in the old school
00:04:30
style.
00:04:31
I started selling knives in college.
00:04:33
Many of you have probably heard of Cutco Cutlery Great knives.
00:04:37
If you ever need any I still have my contract, so happy to
00:04:40
have a little side hustle and sell you some knives they're
00:04:43
fantastic.
00:04:44
But kind of got the sales bug there and ran their Chicago
00:04:49
office for many years, trained and interviewed thousands of
00:04:53
salespeople doing that and from there went to run my own
00:04:58
consultancy and for 17 years ran Rockstar Consulting, which was
00:05:02
focused on everything from sales coaching founders,
00:05:06
entrepreneurs and top independent salespeople All the
00:05:10
way up to developing sales programs, sales playbooks,
00:05:16
training and playing the whole nine yards.
00:05:18
But I also was an early adopter of LinkedIn for sales.
00:05:21
I remember the first training I ever ran on how to use LinkedIn
00:05:25
to sell was in 2008.
00:05:27
So truly OG and in fact did some work in a startup directly
00:05:36
with LinkedIn around the advent of sales navigator.
00:05:38
But it's just become kind of ingrained into the work I do.
00:05:42
And then the last couple of years, especially with the
00:05:44
pandemic, did a lot of work on LinkedIn and in fact a couple of
00:05:48
years ago it went in-house and I am now the global social
00:05:54
selling program lead at SAS S-A-S.
00:05:57
So working with all our team around the world.
00:05:59
So, and don't get to rap as much anymore, but still try to
00:06:05
if it's, if it's shame shame, All right you didn't send me one
00:06:10
, so I'm just gonna rep myself.
00:06:11
Speaker 2: you know You're gonna get a little bit of a plus.
00:06:13
I got the polls being made now too, there we go yeah.
00:06:18
Speaker 4: so that's kind of how I got to hear.
00:06:21
Speaker 2: Awesome thanks.
00:06:22
Well, I'll kick us off and then , carson, please jump in the
00:06:27
title and I love this conversation DeFish that you and
00:06:30
I've had is the title of this is digital first, not digital
00:06:35
only.
00:06:35
Why is that so important right now and what does it mean?
00:06:43
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a great question.
00:06:45
And how many hours do we have?
00:06:47
You know, I wrote a couple of books on it.
00:06:48
I think, if you really sum it up, the idea of digital first,
00:06:55
not digital only is that sales in many ways hasn't changed much
00:07:02
.
00:07:02
We want to say that the world has changed and I agree with
00:07:06
that.
00:07:06
But if you think about what's selling, at its core is it's
00:07:10
human to human connection, it's influence, it's bringing
00:07:14
somebody along on a journey, and when we look at all the
00:07:21
different tools that we now have at our disposable disposal,
00:07:25
it's very easy to think that we're going to offload the
00:07:28
responsibility for that human to human connection onto the
00:07:31
technology, and I think we've seen that over the last 20 years
00:07:34
and we're now reacting against it.
00:07:39
So digital first means, hey, the reality is we're going to
00:07:42
probably engage with somebody digitally before.
00:07:45
I've never met either of you in person, right, I've talked with
00:07:49
you on LinkedIn, Carson.
00:07:50
You and I were talking about how we've been in orbit on
00:07:53
LinkedIn with each other for years.
00:07:54
Like that has a very real presence in our lives and in our
00:08:00
business, but it doesn't supplant the need to actually
00:08:03
create those human to human connections, and I came into
00:08:06
LinkedIn in a very kind of a different way than many, right,
00:08:10
Because I came in from the sales side, from the networking side.
00:08:14
It wasn't really marketing and so it was really about hey, how
00:08:18
do I supplement my offline conversations?
00:08:21
And that was kind of the first way that I and many of the
00:08:25
people I work with got into LinkedIn, not as a standalone
00:08:28
but as just one of the channels we use.
00:08:30
So I just tried to sum about three books in about 30 seconds.
00:08:33
Probably a mess, but I don't know, pick that apart.
00:08:37
Speaker 3: Well done.
00:08:38
I mean, that reminds me of that .
00:08:40
Get Abstract, where you can get like the cliffs notes of a book
00:08:43
in like seconds flat you just.
00:08:45
Speaker 4: You don't have to buy hyper connected selling or
00:08:47
networking in the 21st century on LinkedIn.
00:08:49
But if you want to, I still highly rest.
00:08:52
Speaker 3: I got a question for you on this too, like just
00:08:54
especially with your kind of your advent with LinkedIn being
00:08:58
you know what 16 years ago.
00:09:00
There's obviously been a lot of changes with the platform and
00:09:03
how we can best leverage it.
00:09:04
I'm with you in the camp that.
00:09:07
You know.
00:09:07
This is not a silver bullet.
00:09:09
It's an augment to our approach .
00:09:10
I look at prospecting and networking like a stock
00:09:13
portfolio.
00:09:13
You've got, you know, you want to have a diversified portfolio.
00:09:16
Linkedin is one of many great ways you can go out and connect
00:09:19
with people, but it doesn't replace the phone and certainly
00:09:22
the goal of it is to use it to get face to face connections
00:09:25
with people.
00:09:25
Now there's so many different ways that you can do that with
00:09:28
LinkedIn.
00:09:28
You alluded to sales navigator.
00:09:31
We're obviously streaming live right now to LinkedIn People
00:09:35
that we've never met.
00:09:36
Brandon and I met for the first time this week.
00:09:38
What are some of the things that you've seen?
00:09:41
Linkedin and sales navigator and, just frankly, digital offer
00:09:44
in the way of tooling that helps us make our job easier and
00:09:48
better now, if used right, I love to see just kind of learn
00:09:52
from you, like what you, what's really jumped out of you as
00:09:55
being the most valuable.
00:09:57
Speaker 4: I love what you said there about kind of building a
00:09:59
portfolio through your network and I think, if you look at the
00:10:04
tactics that are very effective now, have been for a long time
00:10:09
on LinkedIn, they really come from scaling the human to human,
00:10:13
and what I mean, by the way, I don't mean automating, I don't
00:10:17
mean trying to to find shortcuts .
00:10:20
I actually call LinkedIn an easier button, not an easy
00:10:24
button.
00:10:24
Right, and I think many of maybe some of the viewers today,
00:10:29
but a lot of people have been burned because others in our
00:10:33
space, right, the LinkedIn gurus are well, yeah, it's an easy
00:10:36
button.
00:10:36
You do this, this, this and boom, you're going to get 10
00:10:38
inbound leads every every week.
00:10:40
Speaker 3: Mike Weinberg calls those the social selling
00:10:43
charlatan.
00:10:45
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right.
00:10:46
But if so, if you think about what selling is, you talk about
00:10:50
prospecting.
00:10:51
You talk about relationship building.
00:10:52
You talk about value building.
00:10:54
You talk about uncovering opportunities, whether it's
00:10:57
discovery, you know, for a particular account, or just
00:11:00
paying attention to trends.
00:11:01
Those are all parts of the sales process.
00:11:03
So how do you bring those into something like LinkedIn and make
00:11:06
it easier A big thing?
00:11:08
For years, I've been talking about the power of commenting.
00:11:11
Right, if you want to get super tactical here, please stick
00:11:14
around after I say this.
00:11:15
But if you guys who are listening want the easiest way
00:11:19
to get more out of LinkedIn, do five comments a day Meaningful,
00:11:26
you know.
00:11:26
Connect with your, your peers, your influencers, colleagues at
00:11:29
your company, obviously, prospects and customers.
00:11:32
If you can do that, you know I share.
00:11:35
That about probably was three years ago now.
00:11:38
I got serious about okay, I'm going to really use LinkedIn and
00:11:41
I have a stack of pennies.
00:11:42
I can reach over to my desk here and there's, there's some
00:11:45
of them.
00:11:45
I had 15 pennies on my desk and I had to move them from one
00:11:48
stack to another.
00:11:49
Every penny is a comment, so I did 15 comments every day.
00:11:52
So 75 comments a week.
00:11:56
That's a reaction point.
00:11:59
Speaker 2: Love.
00:12:00
Right there I get.
00:12:02
We got a pause and tell everybody on the podcast you're
00:12:05
watching it.
00:12:05
15.
00:12:06
Moving from one stack to the other commenting.
00:12:11
I know a tool that helps with commenting, but we can talk
00:12:14
about that later.
00:12:14
But yeah, I mean, and that's I mean honestly, the reason we
00:12:18
created the tool is because commenting is the most
00:12:22
underutilized tactic and LinkedIn, in my opinion, and
00:12:26
partly it's because people it's hard Like who do I, who do I
00:12:30
comment on and how do I do it?
00:12:31
Consistently, I go to my newsfeed and they're not people
00:12:34
there I really want to comment.
00:12:35
How do I target?
00:12:36
So yeah, yeah so.
00:12:39
Speaker 3: It gives a whole new meaning to a penny for your
00:12:42
thoughts.
00:12:43
Speaker 4: There you go.
00:12:43
So I'm going to push back a little bit on that, brandon, and
00:12:46
that commenting is hard.
00:12:48
I think that the challenge that a lot of people have is that
00:12:53
when you switch mediums, we get nervous Right, and you and I we
00:12:58
talk about that Like, if you're in sales, right, and so most of
00:13:02
the people on listening in here in sales, you have been
00:13:05
attracted to this role because you like talking to people in
00:13:10
some way shape or form.
00:13:11
Right doesn't mean that you're great, like I don't consider
00:13:13
myself an extrovert.
00:13:14
I actually consider myself an introvert, but I enjoy working
00:13:17
with people and interacting with people.
00:13:19
But we like to interact, that's all that.
00:13:25
A comment is right.
00:13:26
So I do think that a lot of us often overthink what?
00:13:31
Because it is digital, because we're typing it and there's a
00:13:35
lot of human nervousness that creeps in.
00:13:37
I think that's what you're alluding to, the difficulty.
00:13:39
But actually, if you, I always say to somebody, if you look at
00:13:43
a post and somebody that person who posted so Carson posts and
00:13:48
he said whatever's in that post to me, what would I say back?
00:13:50
That's all, it is right.
00:13:52
I mean, let's not make it more complicated than it has to be,
00:13:56
and I think where also a lot of people get nervous with posting
00:14:02
is that or commenting.
00:14:03
Excuse me, I'm posting and even posting as well.
00:14:05
They've been told, oh, I've got to provide value and I've got
00:14:09
to share value and all these things, and that's absolutely
00:14:11
true.
00:14:11
But I would say at least a third of my comments have
00:14:16
nothing to do with the content of the post, but rather the
00:14:19
poster.
00:14:20
Right, because Carson might say something.
00:14:23
I might go, oh, that's a really interesting story and here's my
00:14:25
feedback.
00:14:26
Or I might say, carson, I had the same thing happen to me as
00:14:29
well.
00:14:29
Right, and it's just that, human-to-human validation,
00:14:34
that's it, and that's a great saying.
00:14:38
I'm getting fired up here, but one of the things I learned as
00:14:41
an early salesperson is what chop of the axe fells the tree?
00:14:45
Right, the idea of like.
00:14:48
Which part of the sales conversation is the one that
00:14:50
gets the customer over the finish site, all of them.
00:14:52
So you know so often what, oh boy.
00:14:58
Speaker 3: Oh yeah.
00:14:59
Speaker 4: All the little nudges .
00:15:00
Speaker 3: It's all the little nudges like you can't again.
00:15:03
There's no silver bullet, but if you can leverage LinkedIn or
00:15:05
a comment or just staying top of mind with somebody, it's kind
00:15:09
of that next nudge in the cycle.
00:15:11
All of it adds up to the sum of the parts and that's what turns
00:15:15
the blank canvas to a masterpiece.
00:15:17
Speaker 2: That turns it out.
00:15:18
Speaker 4: Exactly.
00:15:20
Speaker 2: I think Carson's got a movie analogy brewing here.
00:15:23
Hey, can we take a quick time out, guys?
00:15:25
I wanna acknowledge some of the comments.
00:15:27
First of all, becky, I saw it a while ago.
00:15:30
I will get the coffee.
00:15:32
We keep saying we're gonna meet sometimes up in North Carolina,
00:15:36
but I will get that coffee mug to you absolutely.
00:15:40
Thank you for that.
00:15:41
And I was cracking up with between Daniel and Anthony says
00:15:45
he uses Guitar Fix instead of pennies.
00:15:48
Yeah, nine blue and in one red.
00:15:52
I love it, great system.
00:15:53
And of course, daniel, we can always count on Daniel to give
00:15:57
his.
00:15:57
You do that so you can leave your two cents.
00:16:00
Gotta like it there you go, hey Witty.
00:16:04
Yeah, so Witty.
00:16:08
Speaker 4: Sorry, brandon.
00:16:09
I think the one thing that I wanna highlight with the pennies
00:16:14
idea is because, by the way, I used to track it like an Excel
00:16:17
spreadsheet, digitally and I realized, no, I needed a
00:16:22
physical, a visceral tool.
00:16:24
And I think it really gets to this idea that Carson was saying
00:16:27
.
00:16:27
This is just one other channel we have.
00:16:30
It's not the end all be all, and I think, going even back to
00:16:35
our digital first, not digital only, we have to really look as
00:16:38
a modern seller.
00:16:39
How do we integrate all of the channels?
00:16:40
We have all the tools, whether it is LinkedIn, email, hopping
00:16:45
on a plane and visiting somebody .
00:16:46
One of my favorite tools has always been sending handwritten
00:16:49
notes to people, and I got that from Bob Berg when I first
00:16:51
started my career.
00:16:52
So powerful, right, the empty inbox, their physical inbox, but
00:16:57
it's.
00:16:57
I think everybody has to kind of think of what is the broad
00:17:02
landscape that I can, of tools I can use and then fit them in
00:17:08
your workflow and what's gonna work best for you.
00:17:12
Speaker 3: I love that, steve Fish, I wanna hear some more on
00:17:16
some of the outside the box approaches, of how you have seen
00:17:21
these digital tools leverage to create relationships and also
00:17:26
make deposits into the relationship, and I'll give you
00:17:28
an example.
00:17:29
So we talk a lot on the show about how, when it comes to
00:17:33
prospecting or digital connecting, you can focus on a
00:17:35
few things that you can control, one being the quality of your
00:17:38
message.
00:17:39
What's the value that I bring.
00:17:41
Number two the quantity of outreaches.
00:17:43
Now there's a big value in I'm gonna have a different approach
00:17:46
to some of my very strategic opportunities and customers.
00:17:49
But in a portfolio where I've got over 400 today, I also have
00:17:54
to scale really effectively.
00:17:56
So the quantity of outreaches that goes out.
00:17:58
And then, lastly, the consistency of execution.
00:18:01
Over time it's not just water your garden once and expect it
00:18:04
to sprout.
00:18:05
You gotta be consistent in how you prospect and do outreach.
00:18:09
We did a campaign recently that was called down day and reaching
00:18:12
out to over 400 customers, and what we found worked very
00:18:16
effectively was even just going out to sales navigator, pulling
00:18:20
a lot of the C level, vp levels that a lot of my team didn't
00:18:24
have relationships with, and then getting crisp on what's the
00:18:28
right messaging, what would be the unique outside the box way
00:18:31
that we could partner and approach People.
00:18:34
Executives don't reply when we show up talking about ourselves
00:18:39
and our own company.
00:18:39
They show up when we're talking about their mission, their
00:18:43
plight, their statement, and so that's the approach we took.
00:18:47
We sent out thousands of messages and we booked dozens
00:18:53
upon dozens of net new meetings with executives.
00:18:55
But that's not a common way of using sales navigator.
00:18:58
We were pulling a lot of folks.
00:18:59
We were messaging them in bulk.
00:19:01
We guessed at their email addresses based on what we knew
00:19:03
their email address was, or you can look up online what
00:19:06
somebody's email domain might be .
00:19:07
What are some other unique, outside the box ways that we can
00:19:12
use some of these tools to create relationships, to nurture
00:19:16
relationships and to ultimately do what we wanna do, which is
00:19:19
sit down and break bread with these folks?
00:19:21
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think I loved your use of sales navigator
00:19:26
there.
00:19:26
I think a couple of suggestions I would make.
00:19:30
One is I do think that the ability to reach somebody new
00:19:39
through digital channels is going to diminish over the next
00:19:43
18 to 24 months.
00:19:44
We've already seen it on the email side Google, yahoo just
00:19:48
being like dude.
00:19:49
We're sick of it.
00:19:50
I mean I'll say this here, I've said it before cold outreach
00:19:54
doesn't reach me and I'm not like a high enough in the
00:19:57
organization that I'm getting out, but I get enough.
00:19:59
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:20:00
Speaker 4: If you're not referred to me, I would almost
00:20:03
say Carson.
00:20:04
I don't care how well crafted your email is, I'm just not
00:20:06
reading it.
00:20:08
Speaker 3: I've got enough other things to do, and that was the
00:20:10
law of averages that that worked , because thousands of mail
00:20:13
coming out you get a very small percentage.
00:20:15
But things like video and other things can make our message
00:20:18
maybe stand out amongst the crowd.
00:20:21
Speaker 2: Well, I would say also, it's when you're like for
00:20:24
you, Carson, you have such a presence.
00:20:26
I mean there was an example when I was with you at Microsoft
00:20:29
on Wednesday.
00:20:30
You and I both had a plate of food and we had a drink on our
00:20:34
hand.
00:20:34
We came around a corner and that guy goes oh, Carson, Right,
00:20:38
Great to see you.
00:20:39
And you're like struggling to not drop your food because a guy
00:20:42
was so excited to shake your hand, Right, and I mean You're
00:20:46
with the mayor, You're with the mayor, yeah, and he was so
00:20:49
excited to meet you.
00:20:49
He shakes your hand.
00:20:50
You almost dropped your food.
00:20:51
He leaves.
00:20:52
I go who was that?
00:20:53
And you're like I'm not sure, Right, and it's because your
00:20:58
LinkedIn presence is built through reputation so that now,
00:21:02
when your emails, your calls, your other messages come out,
00:21:05
they go.
00:21:06
I know that guy.
00:21:07
Speaker 3: You become a known entity.
00:21:08
Speaker 2: It's not cold.
00:21:09
So sorry, D-Fish, I interrupted .
00:21:11
Speaker 4: Yeah, but that's becoming a known entity is so
00:21:15
important, I think.
00:21:16
I mean, take what I just said.
00:21:17
It's hard to reach out to me cold, but if you've been on my
00:21:21
network for a year or two and then you reach out to me with
00:21:23
like a very specific, targeted ask, I'm like, okay, I'll read
00:21:27
it.
00:21:27
You know I talk a lot about building social capital and
00:21:30
social recognition.
00:21:32
Right?
00:21:32
Who is that person?
00:21:35
Right, you know.
00:21:35
Again, I know Carson's name well before we met because I've
00:21:38
seen him around LinkedIn.
00:21:39
I might not know a lot about him, but, okay, you're a known
00:21:42
entity.
00:21:43
If you want to get super tactical, I think there's a
00:21:45
couple of things.
00:21:46
One is to really be aspirational in your network,
00:21:50
building on LinkedIn, and what I mean by that is, for example,
00:21:55
look at your accounts and this depends on your situation.
00:21:57
Right, you've got a lot or a little bit.
00:21:59
Let's say you're an enterprise level seller.
00:22:02
You've got, or sales leader, even like you've got, 10 main
00:22:04
accounts you're looking at, identify, using sales navigator,
00:22:09
whatever tool, or the 20 people I want to make sure know my
00:22:13
name there.
00:22:13
Okay, but here's the biggest thing that I would suggest, and
00:22:18
this is why I say it's aspirational, it's future
00:22:20
oriented.
00:22:20
Reach out to them, try to get that LinkedIn request and you
00:22:24
can play around with messaging a little bit.
00:22:26
But it could be as simple as hey, we work a lot of people in
00:22:28
your space we'd love to connect.
00:22:30
Here's the thing that I suggest and not every seller likes to
00:22:33
hear this because we want direct , linear results.
00:22:36
Oh, I did this.
00:22:36
Now I got a meeting.
00:22:37
They accept your connection request.
00:22:41
Hopefully, the first thing you do is do not pitch them.
00:22:45
All you send is a message that says, hey, thanks for connecting
00:22:50
, let me know if I can help, like my line has always been
00:22:54
thanks for connecting.
00:22:54
If I can be of service, let me know, and then that's it Now.
00:22:58
You can then start doing some posting.
00:23:01
You can start engaging with their content.
00:23:04
This is where the commenting comes into play.
00:23:06
Put in your CRM to reach out to that person.
00:23:09
Two weeks later, a month later, whatever it is.
00:23:13
If you reach out to them immediately, like I got this,
00:23:16
quite frankly, two days ago.
00:23:17
Now this person's again.
00:23:19
He's trying to do cold outreach .
00:23:20
It's a sales and element platform.
00:23:21
I know he's a seller and I know he works for a very aggressive
00:23:25
outreach company.
00:23:26
They've actually we'll never work with them because of their
00:23:28
level.
00:23:28
I mean, they've burned their brand Like that's what we
00:23:30
haven't talked about is, if you do all this, turn and burn stuff
00:23:34
, you burn brand Like we'll never work with this company.
00:23:36
I'm not gonna mention them, they're a known entity.
00:23:38
I'm like nope.
00:23:39
But I accept his connection request.
00:23:41
I know it's gonna come and he's in Chicago.
00:23:43
We had a big storm the other day so he immediately messaged me
00:23:47
back.
00:23:47
Oh hey, thanks for connecting.
00:23:48
Are you guys okay?
00:23:50
How is this storm Right?
00:23:51
Did you weather it okay, which sounds like it's the right thing
00:23:56
to do?
00:23:56
But I'm like dude, you don't know me, we're not friends Like
00:24:00
you haven't earned the right to, so you've right, he just tried
00:24:04
to jump on it right away and I'm like my defenses are up.
00:24:07
You could have hang out with me in LinkedIn and you can comment
00:24:10
left and right.
00:24:11
I post every day.
00:24:12
I might give you my time.
00:24:14
So anyways, that was a bit of a diatribe, earn the way into the
00:24:17
DMs is what I'm doing.
00:24:18
You've got to earn the right to my time.
00:24:19
By the way, I think sales people now for deck I mean,
00:24:26
really, with the advent of digital and automated tools they
00:24:30
have forgotten that they need to earn the time, they have to
00:24:33
earn the right to the ask.
00:24:34
They've just assumed that buyers have nothing better to do
00:24:38
than hang around and take your meeting.
00:24:40
So to go back to the tactics though, but get in their space.
00:24:48
Get in their space, take it to the offline example would be
00:24:53
going to a conference every year .
00:24:55
I call it the Maverick example, if you remember the old movie
00:24:58
Maverick with Mel Gibson.
00:24:59
The first hour, at the beginning, he goes I'll play
00:25:03
poker, I'm going to lose.
00:25:04
For the first hour, I promise.
00:25:05
He just sits there and learns all their tells and then he wins
00:25:08
.
00:25:08
But imagine going there and just hang out in the group.
00:25:10
What's the conversation?
00:25:11
What's going on?
00:25:12
Oh, that person's talking about this problem.
00:25:14
Oh, okay, this person.
00:25:16
This is really important to them, and then doing outreach.
00:25:19
Speaker 3: That's got the movie reference in there.
00:25:22
I know it wasn't even you Well done.
00:25:27
Speaker 2: I want to respond to one thing you said, and then I
00:25:30
want to bring up Kathy's comment , because that's excellent.
00:25:32
But, divas, you said the message came about the weather.
00:25:36
There's so many more of the charlatans out there, and
00:25:40
there's tools about mass personalization.
00:25:43
That personalization has become such a commodity that our human
00:25:47
spam filters smell it and reject it immediately because we
00:25:52
know oh, you got to be personal .
00:25:54
Well, if you fabricate personalization, it's no longer
00:25:58
personal, right?
00:26:00
Speaker 4: Right, yeah, we know.
00:26:02
As I said, I know what playbook is running.
00:26:07
No, that's a little different because I teach that playbook in
00:26:10
some ways, but it just felt wrong.
00:26:13
It's the same as on LinkedIn.
00:26:17
You'll get the automated response if you accept the
00:26:20
connection request.
00:26:21
Hey, what's the biggest challenge you're dealing with
00:26:23
right now?
00:26:23
I got that when I was a coach.
00:26:26
What's the biggest challenge you deal with in your coaching
00:26:28
practice?
00:26:29
Right?
00:26:29
Who are you?
00:26:31
Speaker 3: I don't know you, I just need this, that's what I do
00:26:34
.
00:26:35
Speaker 2: I respond to that, deleting unwanted LinkedIn
00:26:38
messages from people who pretended they wanted to be my
00:26:41
connection.
00:26:41
Hey, norah, can we bring up Kathy's comment?
00:26:44
Because this is just so near and dear to my heart and I'm
00:26:48
glad that she learned that and is implementing it.
00:26:51
You know, we believe, carson, you talk a lot about this.
00:26:54
We believe that we're going to post content and POs are going
00:26:57
to magically fall out of the sky into our pocket and we're going
00:26:59
to be sitting on a beach laughing about how successful we
00:27:02
are.
00:27:02
If only, yeah, if only.
00:27:05
But it's comment and it goes with what you were saying,
00:27:08
d-fish, like get involved.
00:27:10
And you were talking about the Maverick exam, the movie
00:27:14
Maverick.
00:27:15
You went in there and watched and learned Commenting.
00:27:19
We can come in and watch and learn and listen, because when
00:27:23
we're commenting, they actually know we're there Right and we're
00:27:27
contributing.
00:27:27
And we're actually contributing a little bit to that oxytocin.
00:27:32
Like you post, not that you need it because you get to me,
00:27:35
but you post and we come and comment.
00:27:37
It's like we feel good, they feel good about their post,
00:27:40
you're commenting, they comment back, you're building that human
00:27:43
to human relationship and then, when you can craft a smart
00:27:48
message to be like hey, you know and I think I did this with you
00:27:52
D-Fish I commented for a while and then I messaged you and said
00:27:54
man, I love all the stuff that you're doing and how we've been
00:27:57
chatting.
00:27:57
You want to get on a call and get to know each other.
00:27:59
And then eventually got you on the show and we now are Zoom
00:28:04
friends or LinkedIn Zoom friends , right, yeah.
00:28:09
Speaker 4: And, again, I think it's hard for the average seller
00:28:13
right now.
00:28:14
We've had, let's face it, 20 years of let's call it, you know
00:28:18
, especially like in the SaaS world the predictive revenue
00:28:21
model where, hey, we're just going to pound out emails, we're
00:28:23
going to pound out phone calls, we're going to take somebody
00:28:26
like an SDR and God bless them, right, that don't have a lot of
00:28:29
experience, but it's just.
00:28:30
You know, carson, it's the not thoughtful version of what you
00:28:35
were talking about, right, you know it's, hey, we're just going
00:28:38
to download lists of people and email them and email it.
00:28:40
And what's great is, 15 years ago, that works right.
00:28:46
10 years ago, that works because, remember, when we got
00:28:49
email and it was exciting, like you know, I always yeah, well, I
00:28:54
always say that, so I'll show my share my age.
00:28:57
Don't break this.
00:28:59
You're being a male, yeah Right .
00:29:01
I started college in 1994 and it was the first year that they
00:29:05
gave you an email address.
00:29:06
Speaker 3: Yes.
00:29:07
Speaker 4: Right, like automatically.
00:29:08
I was the first grade, so it's interesting like at my age I'm
00:29:11
literally kind of the.
00:29:12
You know we're the Oregon Trail generation, right, where we
00:29:16
remember technology.
00:29:17
You know a world without technology and world with no
00:29:22
email is now a pain in the butt, like it.
00:29:24
It's what stresses us out.
00:29:26
Speaker 3: So the world has zero inbox?
00:29:29
A long time ago.
00:29:33
Speaker 4: Right, and I just bring that up because a lot of
00:29:37
times we as sellers, we forget when we just don't want to pay
00:29:42
attention to what our buyers experience is what is the person
00:29:44
actually Like?
00:29:46
If you saw, if you're trying to get the C-suite for example,
00:29:48
carson you know you were talking about before if you saw I
00:29:54
remember doing a coaching session with a Cmo of a very
00:29:58
large tech company.
00:29:59
We're looking at just LinkedIn presence, we're doing their
00:30:01
profile work, stuff like that and really it was funny because
00:30:05
her people had been like oh, she's not gonna want to spend
00:30:07
time with you, she's very busy.
00:30:08
Two and a half hours, right, yeah, because it was half an
00:30:12
hour.
00:30:12
She just, yeah, keep telling me stuff.
00:30:14
She had 2100 Unanswered connection requests, 2100
00:30:23
because and, by the way, she was upset because she's like some
00:30:25
of these people I want to be connected with, they're my peers
00:30:27
, they're Pellamania conferences and the rest were just sales
00:30:30
people coming up for system.
00:30:32
Right, that's that like when you realize that's what people are
00:30:35
responding to.
00:30:36
I think you do take a much more , hopefully, strategic and
00:30:39
thoughtful approach.
00:30:40
I Sorry, I didn't know this was gonna be the D fish soapbox
00:30:45
hour, but uh you know it's great .
00:30:46
Speaker 3: I love that you're fired up deep fish.
00:30:48
And I Get another question for you, because you said something
00:30:50
earlier that stuck with me and it's you know that we're we're
00:30:54
kind of embarking on it and entering this era where the
00:30:58
ability to connect with folks digitally is going to
00:31:02
drastically change.
00:31:03
Just because it's there's such an onslaught right now and I
00:31:06
mean you can, you can see it and smell it a mile away.
00:31:09
Like I go out on my LinkedIn today, I'm gonna say this look,
00:31:12
a couple of things.
00:31:13
One, we're in an era where more and more authenticity and being
00:31:18
genuine it's gonna become more important in Paramount than it's
00:31:20
ever been the other element.
00:31:22
It is like I mean you can go out right now like with, with AI
00:31:25
and some of the automation tools .
00:31:27
I mean I get a lot of comments on some of my posts but I mean
00:31:30
you can smell the fake ones a mile away.
00:31:31
Yeah, I hate that and that.
00:31:33
That I think those are the types of things that are burning
00:31:36
Reputation, because I would shy away from talking with somebody
00:31:41
that I knew was leveraging automation, and I know that it
00:31:43
changes the perception that you have of someone when you know
00:31:47
that they're leveraging that type of stuff.
00:31:48
So I think that's another big element.
00:31:51
But, on the same token, I always look at LinkedIn like
00:31:54
it's the biggest coffee bar in the world.
00:31:56
Your prospects are out there, right.
00:31:58
If you're not talking to them, shame on you if you're showing
00:32:02
up and talking to them but only talking about yourself and how
00:32:04
great you are and how great your company is at them.
00:32:07
So, how are you going to engage your customers and maybe your
00:32:11
next hiring manager in the biggest coffee bar in the world?
00:32:14
Be intentions about how you leverage LinkedIn, but where do
00:32:18
you see it going?
00:32:18
Beefish, that's what I'm most curious about.
00:32:21
What do you think we're gonna be talking about in a year, two
00:32:23
years, five years, when we're talking about modern selling?
00:32:26
Speaker 4: I think we're actually a bit of a Crossroads,
00:32:30
so we'll see.
00:32:30
So, carson, you brought up AI and you're like and I get those
00:32:35
comments too in my feet and you can see them a mile away and
00:32:37
what the AI will people say was oh, but it's getting better
00:32:40
eventually, you won't be able to tell.
00:32:42
That makes me more nervous, because at that point we just we
00:32:46
don't trust anything.
00:32:46
It's the liar's dividend, right , if you can get people enough
00:32:50
misinformation, they don't trust any information.
00:32:52
And the same thing, if I can't know what is a legit, authentic,
00:32:55
human response to my LinkedIn post, I'm gonna start
00:32:59
discounting all of it.
00:33:00
Yeah, but what I do think is going to happen, go back to our
00:33:07
topic digital first, not digital only.
00:33:08
In some ways, I think we might see the reverse of that as well,
00:33:12
meaning, yes, it's this digital coffee bar.
00:33:16
I think one of the changes we've seen is that it LinkedIn has
00:33:20
gone from a top of funnel tool I would argue to more of a middle
00:33:23
of funnel tool.
00:33:24
Right, carson?
00:33:25
You and I have been posting a lot on LinkedIn for a while.
00:33:28
You know, three, four years ago , if you had a good post, you
00:33:32
could get thousands of Of views.
00:33:35
Like that, I mean a couple years ago, my top viral one over
00:33:38
a hundred thousand, a hundred thousand, hundred thousand views
00:33:41
.
00:33:41
Wish it was a hundred thousand now, right, but you could get,
00:33:45
like the algorithm has changed partly, that you know it's.
00:33:48
It's.
00:33:49
It's really shrunk down, but not in a bad way, like my
00:33:52
engagement is up over the last two and a half years even though
00:33:55
my reach is down, right, and so it's really middle of funnel.
00:33:59
How do you get new people into the funnel?
00:34:00
It's not gonna be.
00:34:01
Yes, there's gonna be some of that outreach on LinkedIn, but I
00:34:05
think it's.
00:34:06
You go to the physical coffee house, you go to the physical
00:34:09
conference.
00:34:09
I had a half have a half written LinkedIn post.
00:34:13
I think AI is gonna drive more door-to-door sales or whatever
00:34:18
the version is, because If I know you, if I've met you, okay,
00:34:23
then I'll talk to you digitally because I know you're a real
00:34:24
person, right, and I think I think LinkedIn is at a very
00:34:29
interesting place.
00:34:30
Well, I mean, they're owned by Microsoft.
00:34:32
Microsoft has made a little bit of an investment into AI.
00:34:36
You know, we'll see.
00:34:38
They're there, they're bringing that into LinkedIn.
00:34:42
It could be super powerful.
00:34:43
I Could all see it go in the other way.
00:34:47
My guess is a lot of the same people who are doing the
00:34:50
automation and have for years been using it as a spam tool.
00:34:55
They're gonna keep doing it, and the three of us and others
00:34:59
like us, we're still gonna get what we need from it.
00:35:03
Speaker 3: There was people who use it wrong.
00:35:05
That kind of you know.
00:35:06
Unfortunately for the rest of us, noble Knights of the selling
00:35:10
game, you know, you know.
00:35:11
You know it diminishes the credibility of the overall brand
00:35:15
and unfortunately we're up against that reputation of
00:35:18
salespeople all the time.
00:35:19
I saw Anthony's question out in the chat.
00:35:21
I wanted to address that.
00:35:23
You know, I hear often about email blast while working with
00:35:25
sales folks.
00:35:26
I'm curious but as everyone think are the consequences of
00:35:28
these types of reach-outs, it's all in how you do it and I will
00:35:33
give you an example.
00:35:34
So I'll use a fair amount of even quote-unquote email blasts,
00:35:38
but the way that they're used are very strategic.
00:35:40
It's got a very specific purpose might be for passive
00:35:43
education in some kind of opt-in newsletter scenario, or if it's
00:35:48
, if anything.
00:35:49
We were just talking about the, the perils and the riches of AI
00:35:53
.
00:35:54
Ai can arm you with a heck of a lot of information and comb
00:35:57
readily available materials out there to arm you with a
00:36:00
perspective and point of view that would matter to your target
00:36:02
audience.
00:36:03
So Even just using that to inform what I write, to reach
00:36:07
out to a very specific Industry vertical, to a very specific
00:36:12
title, to a very specific set of executives in one organization.
00:36:15
It's.
00:36:16
It's kind of like Eric Clapton told us in the wonderful song
00:36:20
it's in the way that you use it, from the color of money, it's
00:36:24
all in how you leverage the tool .
00:36:27
So don't spam the world, but leveraging email to have a
00:36:32
quantity of Outreaches that you're able to make that are
00:36:35
showing up from a very Particular point of view with a
00:36:38
quality message or passive education in some kind of opt-in
00:36:42
fashion that can absolutely get you a ton of leads and meetings
00:36:45
.
00:36:45
I use it all the time.
00:36:47
Speaker 4: Yeah, I love what you said there about point of view.
00:36:49
You mentioned authenticity before.
00:36:51
I think right now, authenticity is having a moment, which means
00:36:55
it's also being overused and, you know, to the point being
00:36:57
meaningless.
00:36:58
But I remember having a conversation with my good friend
00:37:02
, steve Watt, over at seismic who's who's great and the social
00:37:06
selling game, and the one thing we can't outsource is point of
00:37:11
view, right.
00:37:12
So I mean, if you want to think about a very specific tactic
00:37:15
that will help you on On LinkedIn, both in comments and
00:37:19
posting, all this up is have a point of view, have a
00:37:22
perspective.
00:37:24
You decide, like, what are you gonna talk about what?
00:37:26
What your your themes are?
00:37:28
I mean, somebody could just as effectively be on a podcast
00:37:31
right now saying here's how you automate LinkedIn and, you know,
00:37:34
find success in that.
00:37:36
Hey, that's great, that's your point of view, right, we can
00:37:38
have differing ones, but have so , just have a point of view,
00:37:43
even with your customers, right?
00:37:44
You talk about AI, be able to really give you a lot of
00:37:47
information, which is it can.
00:37:49
So, if you can then take that, distill it, whether it's into
00:37:53
email outreach, a LinkedIn post, just commenting yeah, because
00:37:57
that's the one thing a computer can't replace right is is is the
00:38:03
, the collection of experiences, education, you know, background
00:38:09
that you have as an individual selling whatever product or
00:38:13
service you sell For the company you sell in the place, right?
00:38:17
I mean, that's that is unique, that is unique to you, and the
00:38:20
more that the people who are doing that now will continue to
00:38:24
do that on LinkedIn.
00:38:25
Right, and that's you know.
00:38:26
So, if you don't know your point of view, figure it out.
00:38:30
That's like you just ask, like yourself, write a piece of paper
00:38:33
what do I want to be known for?
00:38:35
Right, you know who is my, who is my audience.
00:38:37
You said targeted, I love that car since, like, there's a
00:38:40
billion people, it's probably like 950 million people on
00:38:43
LinkedIn, whatever a lot, they're not your audience.
00:38:45
I actually argue that the average seller has a maybe 250
00:38:50
Mm-hmm people that they actually are concerned with.
00:38:52
Right, who are those 250?
00:38:54
Do they know you?
00:38:56
Do they know you stand for?
00:38:57
Do they know?
00:38:58
The answer is no day.
00:38:59
Those questions start there.
00:39:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I like the way I mean this fusion of you.
00:39:05
Know, carson, you used it as the largest coffee bar.
00:39:08
I like to say it's a 24 7365 super conference.
00:39:12
But either way you look at it, how you show up in that
00:39:17
environment Determines the success of it.
00:39:19
Are you the person?
00:39:21
Are you as a CEO of a company or as a salesperson?
00:39:25
You're walking down the aisle, you're walking down a hall going
00:39:28
to breakout session and nobody knows you.
00:39:30
Yeah, right, right, it's the opening session.
00:39:33
You open the door to go into the cocktail party the night before
00:39:36
the conference and the door opens and everyone looks at you
00:39:39
and goes back to what they're doing.
00:39:40
Right, or it is a door opening.
00:39:43
You walk in and people go hey, carson's here, right, that is
00:39:49
the opportunity we have in building a reputation and
00:39:52
building those, the foundations of relationship, by how we show
00:39:57
up and linked in.
00:39:58
And it reminds me DF Fish you were saying when we talked the
00:40:02
other day is you think none of us are really thought leaders?
00:40:07
But you can have a point of view, yeah, and you can share.
00:40:13
Like what are you observing?
00:40:14
What do you think that means?
00:40:16
What do you feel is going to happen?
00:40:18
Like, think, observe and feel and being consistent and
00:40:22
speaking to those 250 people, I think what then happens is it
00:40:27
becomes 500 people, it becomes a thousand people, because
00:40:29
they're curious about what you're talking about and why
00:40:32
you're talking about it and you're not trying to be a parrot
00:40:35
to the thought leadership that's out there.
00:40:37
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah and spot on.
00:40:40
And I think most people and I see this especially like when
00:40:44
you talk to executives who are like, oh, I need to be a thought
00:40:47
leader.
00:40:48
No, you don't.
00:40:49
I mean, I've met very few true thought leaders and I've had I
00:40:55
know many, many smart people who are wonderful leaders in their
00:40:59
industries, who have a lot of great stuff to say.
00:41:03
Thought leader no, right, you're somebody to your point, who
00:41:07
might have maybe has a very sophisticated point of view, a
00:41:11
very thoughtful point of view, a very informed point of view
00:41:13
that people should listen to.
00:41:14
And the reason I say that is very few people think they're a
00:41:20
thought leader or want it Like they want.
00:41:22
They want what they think comes from thought leadership, which
00:41:26
is influence.
00:41:26
What they really want is influence.
00:41:27
And they go, okay, do I have to be a thought leader?
00:41:29
But very few executives feel comfortable with that title.
00:41:33
Right, it doesn't matter how big of a company you are, how
00:41:36
big their ego is they're.
00:41:38
So they say, hey, just hear your point of view.
00:41:40
And they go, oh, yeah, okay, I got one of those, I got an
00:41:43
opinion, great, sure.
00:41:46
Speaker 2: I talked a lot of C sweet, that you talked about
00:41:48
this, so like, look, I don't really have anything valuable to
00:41:51
contribute, and it's like well, the myth of it is where you're
00:41:55
looking at it the wrong way.
00:41:56
You're looking at it as oh, I'm going to add something
00:41:59
innovative and amazing, and all that?
00:42:01
No, just your point of view.
00:42:03
What's changing in the industry ?
00:42:05
What should your customers be caring about right now?
00:42:09
What's important?
00:42:10
And when you start, I believe you start helping them think
00:42:13
about what are you observing, what are you thinking and what
00:42:16
are you feeling.
00:42:16
Well then, we all have a lot of things to say, because we got
00:42:20
five years, 10 years, 30 years experience in this industry.
00:42:23
That's what's valuable.
00:42:24
And I would say too, for C sweet, it's not just for your
00:42:28
customer's benefit.
00:42:29
Your team members need to see you reading Now.
00:42:32
Do you want to help your HR department with recruitment?
00:42:35
Build your personal brand, grow your reputation?
00:42:39
And it's not self promotion, it's brand promotion through
00:42:43
your voice and that's what that's, what builds this big
00:42:48
influence?
00:42:50
Speaker 3: And you know, what resonates the most is stories
00:42:52
and everybody has them.
00:42:53
That's the key element.
00:42:55
You just said something so important.
00:42:56
It doesn't matter if you're brand new on a job and you're
00:43:00
having experiences.
00:43:01
Somebody else is having that same experience and they can
00:43:05
live and learn from what you put out there into the ether.
00:43:09
Same thing if I talk to a C level, there's no question that
00:43:12
they have stories that would be of value to so many, whether
00:43:15
it's leadership scenarios that they're running up against,
00:43:18
whether it's changes in the marketplace, leading teams or
00:43:22
what it was like when they got started out in sales.
00:43:24
Or maybe they roll up their sleeves and they go out for a
00:43:27
day in the field and they, you know, what did they learn, what
00:43:29
did they observe?
00:43:30
I'd read that and so I think that's the key element is being
00:43:33
intentional about who's your audience and what's the story
00:43:36
that is going to resonate.
00:43:37
What is the provocative question that you can maybe
00:43:40
throw out there?
00:43:41
You know, I think where I really approached posting years ago,
00:43:44
it's up kind of straddle the line I like to add to the sales
00:43:49
community.
00:43:49
But I've got a whole other subset of customers and
00:43:52
nonprofit organizations that I work with that couldn't care
00:43:54
less about that persona and that's fine.
00:43:56
You can play to, you can throw bouquets to both groups.
00:43:59
And here's why because I want to learn and dig into my
00:44:03
customer community.
00:44:04
I want to understand how are we able to?
00:44:07
What are the great stories of ways that we're able to empower
00:44:11
and enable them to do more and that I can share that and that's
00:44:14
going to resonate with that camp.
00:44:16
Same thing within the sales community.
00:44:18
The things that I get the most hits on and most comments and
00:44:22
conversation pieces is when I tell a story of something that I
00:44:26
grappled with two years ago.
00:44:28
Might even be a deal I lost and it's kind of a post-mortem on
00:44:31
the deal.
00:44:32
But those are the types of things when you're able to kind
00:44:34
of lay yourself bare from a story's perspective, talk about
00:44:38
where you've been, what you've done, what you've learned.
00:44:39
That stuff resonates.
00:44:43
Speaker 2: And that's true authenticity, not trying to
00:44:46
fabricate authenticity.
00:44:48
And I think that's where people talk about well, how do I
00:44:52
overcome imposter syndrome?
00:44:53
Well, be really confident in what you're talking about, which
00:44:57
is your experiences.
00:44:59
Nobody can take away your experiences, nobody can take
00:45:03
away your perception of what you're going through, what
00:45:05
you're experiencing, what you're thinking, what you're observing
00:45:08
.
00:45:08
And when you share it from that perspective I'm not out here to
00:45:11
learn everybody, everything I'm going to share with you what
00:45:14
I'm experiencing that's where people really resonate.
00:45:17
And then you're not dealing with imposter syndrome, because
00:45:19
you're just being you.
00:45:21
Speaker 4: Right, Well, and you know whether you're commenting
00:45:25
today, by the way.
00:45:27
Speaker 3: Thank you, kathy.
00:45:28
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:45:29
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, and we're talking about executives
00:45:32
here and I think it's the same, though Karshen even said just
00:45:35
some brand new to a role like any salesperson.
00:45:38
I think you said something really important there, brandon,
00:45:43
where it's not about having to share something innovative.
00:45:46
I get that a lot Like what's my original contribution and,
00:45:52
depending on my level of rapport with the individual, I might
00:45:55
say you really don't have anything original to say and
00:45:58
that's like, and that's not a I'm not throwing shade, I'm just
00:46:02
like you're 26.
00:46:04
I mean, we've seen these individuals on LinkedIn the 26
00:46:09
year old sales person who had had presidents club once, and so
00:46:12
they, they're a master at selling.
00:46:16
Like I just want to tell like no , don't do that, just just share
00:46:20
.
00:46:20
Like what's working well for you, what's not share your
00:46:22
experience is still meaningful.
00:46:24
Like you don't have a lot of original things to share and
00:46:27
that's okay.
00:46:27
I don't either.
00:46:29
Right, guess what?
00:46:31
I'm just sharing an amalgamation of every all the
00:46:34
books I've read and it mentors I've learned from, and sales
00:46:38
I've made, sales I've lost, you know, good experiences, bad
00:46:41
experiences, all through the lens of my point of view.
00:46:44
Speaker 3: Right, because, as you said, brandon, nobody can
00:46:48
Invalidate that, right it is a lot easier to find some stories
00:46:52
to tell when you're a grizzled old sales guy, as opposed to
00:46:55
that 20-something that lucked into winning club.
00:46:59
Speaker 4: Yeah, well exactly, I mean, I've earned my gray hairs
00:47:02
, you know it's.
00:47:03
Speaker 3: I was gonna say talk to me after you've been kicked
00:47:05
in the teeth and you know laid off and you know had to bring
00:47:09
yourself back from the dead and reinvent yourself Like.
00:47:12
Those are the types of hard luck stories that right to a
00:47:16
sales warrior.
00:47:16
Those are the stories I want to hear.
00:47:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, it creates thick skin too.
00:47:21
You're like you know there's there's nobody on LinkedIn
00:47:24
that's gonna say something that's gonna hurt me as much as
00:47:26
I've already been hurt.
00:47:27
Speaker 3: So here's a recommendation, so I just
00:47:31
started reading can't hurt me by David Goggins brilliant.
00:47:35
Speaker 4: Hmm, all right.
00:47:37
Speaker 3: True resilience story .
00:47:41
Speaker 2: Well, let's, let's wrap it up.
00:47:43
I agree with you.
00:47:45
Carson, kathy Davis, gold star, thank you for being the
00:47:48
comments and Becky, thanks for you know putting up with us and
00:47:53
missing, waiting on us Wednesday .
00:47:55
And here you are and I've got a .
00:47:57
I got to get a coffee cup out in the in the mail to you.
00:48:00
Hopefully it won't break.
00:48:01
Anthony, thank you so much, and everybody else, the fish, your
00:48:06
book for everybody, amazon, I'm assuming.
00:48:10
Is he right?
00:48:12
Speaker 4: Yeah, all right, amazon, you can find that.
00:48:13
All the other ones Exactly on LinkedIn.
00:48:16
Happy to.
00:48:17
I have these conversations and share some stories and I do just
00:48:21
go on rance and I attract sometimes too by that.
00:48:24
Hopefully you'll love that.
00:48:25
Speaker 2: So boxes are important and when you go, look
00:48:28
for for David Fisher and and look for D fish he doesn't.
00:48:33
He's not a former Laker player.
00:48:35
Speaker 3: No, no, that's not me .
00:48:37
Speaker 2: You go find him there .
00:48:38
Anything else, anything else you want to add before we wrap
00:48:42
up.
00:48:42
And then, carson, you want to get us out, get us taken out.
00:48:47
Speaker 4: No, I knew this would be a great conversation and I
00:48:50
think I would go back to just one thing.
00:48:52
Carson intimated About really being successful with the
00:48:57
digital space.
00:48:58
You want to look at tactics.
00:48:59
In the end it's just showing up , putting in the work it's.
00:49:03
It's a very unsexy thing to say , but you know what, if you put
00:49:06
if you're on LinkedIn 30 minutes every day, money through Friday
00:49:09
for the next year, your career will explode.
00:49:13
I put that out there.
00:49:17
I'd be willing to say that that's.
00:49:19
Speaker 2: That's a the quote of the day For somebody that takes
00:49:22
it serious.
00:49:22
Yeah, it reminds me Carson of, like you know, darren McKee when
00:49:29
he was on here.
00:49:30
He was Right, he was a sailor.
00:49:33
Yeah, he just said he goes, you know what?
00:49:35
I'm just gonna start posting every day, yep.
00:49:37
And he started posting every day and he didn't have a plan,
00:49:41
he was figuring it out as he went.
00:49:42
He started like, oh, that worked, oh, that didn't work.
00:49:44
Yep just kept going and now he's, you know, hundred and
00:49:49
forty thousand followers.
00:49:50
He's got a group that he makes a bunch of money with teaching
00:49:53
people how to do it.
00:49:54
I mean, the other day he had court side tickets to the
00:49:58
Chicago Bulls with a sponsored From doing a sponsored post.
00:50:04
For somebody like he's totally leveraging this and his life's
00:50:07
changed.
00:50:07
His family's life has changed.
00:50:09
Speaker 4: Yeah, and, by the way , that's not gonna happen for
00:50:11
most.
00:50:12
Right, you don't need it to.
00:50:12
You don't need to.
00:50:14
But whatever you, whatever as you're listening to this,
00:50:18
whatever you want out of your career, in your life, this can
00:50:21
be a useful tool, but, like every tool, you got to use it.
00:50:24
Yeah, that's a great point.
00:50:26
Speaker 2: Thanks for clarifying that.
00:50:27
The end All right, gentlemen.
00:50:29
Excellent show.
00:50:30
I've got notes.
00:50:31
I'm gonna go back and listen to it on the podcast, which is
00:50:34
where I normally go back and listen and go.
00:50:36
Oh, that was awesome.
00:50:37
Oh, everybody, thank you so much for joining us today.
00:50:42
And Everyone on the podcast again.
00:50:45
We'd appreciate the reviews.
00:50:46
Share it with your friends if you like it.
00:50:48
We're fighting client our way to hit number one again and or
00:50:51
number one in a new category.
00:50:52
That's what we're going for.
00:50:54
So any help there, we'd appreciate it.
00:50:57
Carson, you're gonna bring us home.
00:50:59
Speaker 3: Thanks everyone, thanks D fish and until next
00:51:02
time happy, modern selling.
00:51:12
Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us today on mastering modern
00:51:15
selling.
00:51:15
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