In the latest episode of Mastering Modern Selling, we head into the heart of modern sales techniques with the hosts, Tom Burton and Brandon Lee.
This episode highlights the evolving landscape of sales, offering a fresh perspective on engaging with the modern buyer.
Five Essential Insights:
- Old Sales Methods Are Out: Brandon Lee explains that the old way of selling, where you guide potential customers through a set process, isn't effective anymore. We need to change how we think about sales to succeed in the digital age.
- The New Sales Strategy - The Flywheel: Learn about the "Modern Revenue Generation Flywheel," a new approach that replaces the outdated sales funnel. This strategy focuses on ongoing interaction, building relationships, and providing value online.
- Building Trust Online: Discover the importance of building trust and genuine connections online, especially on platforms like LinkedIn. It's all about having real conversations, not just selling.
- The Importance of Being Liked and Trusted: The episode highlights how crucial it is to be known, liked, and trusted. These are key to forming strong relationships with potential customers in the digital world.
- Getting and Keeping Attention: Find out why it's vital to grab and keep your customers' attention in a busy online space. It's better to create new interest in your product than to rely on existing demand.
The episode wraps up by bringing together all the ideas and strategies discussed, showing how important it is for sales professionals to adapt to modern selling techniques.
Building relationships, engaging digitally, and focusing on the customer are essential in today's sales world.
Use these insights and strategies to improve your sales approach and make more meaningful connections with your customers online.
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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 Fistbump, 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 LeadSmart
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, as we explore the strategies and stories behind successful
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executives and sales professionals.
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Dive into 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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Speaker 2: This is Mastering, modern Selling, brought to you
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by Fistbump, brought to you by Fistbump.
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Speaker 3: It's been a week plus the webinar.
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You missed the webinar.
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Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, that's right.
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That's right.
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Well, I saw part of the webinar , I just wasn't on the webinar.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it was good, I mean, for everybody.
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I think Carson did a great job sharing his playbook and had a
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lot of great feedback from people.
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In fact, I had two calls today with people that came to the
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webinar and then schedule calls with me afterwards and a lot of
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great things and you know, I think a lot of people it's uh,
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I've heard it multiple times.
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I've heard Carson called a machine and it's true, he is a
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bit of a machine and it's.
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It's hard for a lot of salespeople to look at Carson's
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playbook and go you expect me to do all that, but take
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components of it, find the little gold nuggets for each
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person and start to implement and then grow into it.
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What's the expression?
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How do you eat an elephant?
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Speaker 2: One bite at a time.
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Speaker 3: One bite at a time.
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So I think that's my encouragement for everybody that
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may have been a little overwhelmed by the webinar.
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So welcome everybody to Mastering Modern Selling,
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episode 79.
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If you're with us on the live event inside LinkedIn or YouTube
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or X or Facebook, love to hear who you are.
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Butch is popping up from ATL.
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Welcome Butch.
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And if you're on the podcast, we sure appreciate you.
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We don't mean to neglect the podcast compared to the live
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audience.
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Hey, if you're finding value in this, we appreciate you.
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We love the ratings.
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Give us a review and give us feedback on how we can provide
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more value to you.
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Our goal is to help those out there that are on the marketing
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side or on the sales side, that are struggling with creating
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pipeline and creating demand.
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That's our goal is to help you.
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We know things are hard and things have changed and buyers
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don't behave the way they're supposed to bad buyers Well,
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that's what we're going to talk about today right, the revenue
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generation flywheel for the modern buyer absolutely and, uh,
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carson.
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Speaker 2: speaking of carson, he is at the end of this quarter
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so he um, I guess, was unavoidably detained on some
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microsoft stuff.
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So, brandon, you're going to be kind of our guest today on kind
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of taking us through the modern revenue generation flywheel,
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and I think this is going to be really, really insightful.
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I think this is going to be a key episode and kind of set a
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foundation for a lot of other things that we're talking about
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over the next few weeks the messaging around the webinar.
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Speaker 3: A lot of our own content got more clear and a lot
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more conversations with sales leaders, with C-suite.
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We know there'd been pain, but there's something about 2024
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that the conversations have shifted.
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A lot of the conversations we're having with people is hey,
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this is serious now.
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It's been hard but now we're hitting those critical points
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and a lot of people are like we want to, and I get it.
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It's a human nature.
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We want to go back under stressful times.
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I have a friend who's besides Moeed, who was our
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neuroscientist last week, who was who's besides Moeed, who was
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our neuroscientist last week, who was brilliant and awesome.
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I have another friend who focuses on this and she's an
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expert in NLP as well and she said look, when times are
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stressful, our human nature is to go to what we know and we can
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see it carrying out.
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I mean, I do this when I'm under tremendous stress, like
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when I want to escape, I go and I watch rerun episodes of either
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the big bang theory or modern family and I watch the reruns
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and I'll I'll binge watch two or three of them in a row.
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And why do we do that?
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We want something familiar.
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We want something that there's a there feels like there's
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control in it and even though you're just passively watching,
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like I know I've got control because I know what's going to
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happen, I don't have to be surprised, I don't have to
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wonder what's going to happen.
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It gives you that sense.
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And I think right now, with so much change between AI and the
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buyer changing and budgets are changing and capital is more
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difficult for companies to get, we want to go back to the
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activities that we know, that we can feel like we control.
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If I can make 100 calls, I could get 20 people to talk to me.
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Okay, well, I'll do 150 calls and try to get people.
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I'll do 200 calls.
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And I was talking to someone today.
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He said you know, if you're two out of 10, you feel like you're
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in a slump.
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But if you're two out of 10, you feel like you're in a slump.
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But if you're two out of 20, you start to think something's
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wrong with me.
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And then, when you're two out of 40, you know something's
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wrong with you.
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And when you're two out of a hundred, you feel like you're a
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failure and you're just waiting for the hammer to be dropped.
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And unfortunately for a lot of salespeople right now, they feel
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that way because those motions that we want to go back to to
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give us comfort aren't providing any relief.
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Speaker 2: So totally agree.
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I mean, we see this all the time.
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I do agree with you that it's gotten more severe in the last,
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you know, first quarter of this year.
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It's gotten more severe even than what it was last year.
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I think people are realizing that it's probably not going
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back to some old way.
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So let's kind of use that kind of foundation there and let's
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talk about some different things .
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And the one thing, right, that we all talk about things that we
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all have grown up with, if you want to call it that, right,
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that we all talk about things that we all have grown up with,
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if you want to call it that the sales funnel right, we all think
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of a sales funnel.
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We've all had, I mean, we were all taught sales funnel.
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We build pipeline, we manage our pipeline through our sales
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funnel.
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All of that I don't know if you touched on this on the webinar
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or not, but we certainly have been touching on it recently is
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that the sales funnel may be a thing of the past.
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From a, from a sales strategy and a sales framework.
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Let's sort of random what you know, kind of summarize what you
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, when we talk about that, what does it mean that the sales
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funnel is kind of obsolete and what is, what is the difference
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and why?
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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a.
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It's a great question and it's a really important mindset shift
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.
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I mean, we talk a lot about the mindsets around what this
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modern revenue generation looks like and a big part of it is the
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mindset.
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So the funnel is simple you got the top.
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That's really wide and very narrow at the bottom and the
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concept is get as many targeted audiences we can up at the top
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and through this nurturing process, certain amount of
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customers are going to emerge and we'll close those deals.
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They'll have a dollar value, a deal value, and we can take a
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look and say, ok, for every thousand people we put at the
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top, we're going to get 10 customers.
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Each customer's worth 50 grand.
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We generate a half million dollars.
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So how do we get a thousand people at the top of the funnel
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for somewhere much less than a half million dollars to make
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this thing profitable and all the other expenses and
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everything?
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The challenge with that is the motions, the actions that we've
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done to get top of the funnel.
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Traffic are proving to be less and less effective.
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It's SEO, it's SEM, search engine marketing.
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It's paid Google ads.
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It's go out and buy the cold database and put in cold
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sequences via email, blast everybody and then get the names
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and phone numbers and hand it off to the sales team or the
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account executives and start making the calls and any form of
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that, even if it's a company like a lot of our people we talk
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to in manufacturing, they don't have the other part, but they
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know their targeted list and they start making calls.
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The challenge with all of those top of funnel activities is that
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they are more expensive, they take more time and they're
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proving to be less and less effective.
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So if we're thinking about the funnel, our data is all off.
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Buyers are resistant to go into the top of your funnel and the
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data is showing that buyers are now doing 80 to 90% of their
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research without engaging with sellers.
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The data is also showing we've had multiple guests on our show
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talk about this that when asked and this is across lots of
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different industries when asked buyers to rank order where they
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want to get their information from and who they trust in
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getting the information buyers or sellers, sales professionals,
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the company website and the company content or information
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ranks at the very bottom.
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It's what they want to engage with the least and it's the
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stuff that they have the least trust in.
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So that puts us trying to fill the top of the funnel at a huge
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disadvantage, and so that's why we say the funnel is, it's
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ineffective, it's somewhat obsolete.
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I mean, you can still try to think of it that way, but the
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traditional functions of filling top of the funnel traffic,
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throw up a landing page, create a white paper, create a case
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study.
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People are going to want to read our case study because
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they're going to want to see how they could implement it too.
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No, they don't, because they don't believe in your content.
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Anyways, they don't trust your own content.
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Speaker 2: And they may want to read that case study at a
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certain point.
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But it's maybe not a top of the funnel, quote unquote.
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And again, we probably should be thinking about how we use
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those words.
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Maybe it's early in the journey and early in the relationship,
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versus talking about top of funnel or bottom of funnel.
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But what I'm hearing you say and I just want to make sure
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this is really clear to everybody the sales motion,
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marketing or sales, whatever you want to call it of let's go get
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a bunch of prospects, put them through our process and hope
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that some of them come out the bottom end is, if not completely
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ineffective, is very inefficient at this point in our
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career.
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And I think, going back to what you said, I think most people
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would agree with that.
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But then they're like okay, but what the hell else am I going
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to do?
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Right, just throw in a challenge and say, screw it.
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And I think that's where, again , we'll start talking about the
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modern revenue flywheel and the pieces of that, but it's.
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I guess what you're saying is, in order to really understand or
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be able to take advantage of the modern revenue generation
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approach, you have to be willing to let go of what we're doing
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yesterday.
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Is that accurate?
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Speaker 3: It is, it is and it's a mindset shift.
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And I think the other thing is, if we're willing to say the
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funnel is challenged to, doesn't work, to obsolete somewhere
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anywhere in that realm, to doesn't work to obsolete
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somewhere anywhere in that realm , what are our options?
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And we look to marketing and all the marketing activities SEO
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, sem, more blogs, get higher page ranking, more ads, better
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ads.
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They're not working.
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Okay, well, let's shift.
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Maybe we need to put ads in Instagram, maybe our ads on
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LinkedIn?
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It's because it's LinkedIn, let's try it.
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Like, all of those motions are not working.
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But for marketers and I feel bad for the marketing team,
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because they need to get data to prove their value the problem
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is the data that they're forced to show isn't really good data.
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Right, we're showing open rates on emails who cares what an
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open rate is?
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But it's the only thing, because they're not getting the
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clicks.
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What else did they have to show to make their activities look
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like they're valuable?
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Visits to the website I'm sorry , visits to the website don't
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speak, don't mean nearly as much as what they used to.
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So marketing's in a tough spot.
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And then, from a sales leader perspective, you think and you
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go well, what are our options.
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Okay, well, there's social selling, and the problem with
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that term is there's.
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We've talked about this time and time again.
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We have Mike Weinberg on.
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We talked about the charlatans out there with their social
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selling, snake oil solutions and all the lead gen solutions.
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I get these messages all the time.
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People don't even look at my own LinkedIn profile like, hey,
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brandon, how would your business benefit if you got three to
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five new leads every day without doing anything?
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Wow, that sounds fantastic, but you know what it reminds me of?
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It's too good to be true.
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It probably is, and that is complete BS.
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It doesn't work.
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So you got these sales leaders that have tried some of those
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things and they didn't work.
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It's like okay, our MQLs are near zero.
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The MQLs we do get are not good .
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They're not really cued, they're not really qualified
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leads, we're not doing anything with them.
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Our sales team is still doing pretty good at converting from
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their pipeline, but their pipeline is anemic.
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What do we do?
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Social selling we tried it.
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It didn't work.
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No magic there.
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They're really in a tough spot and that's what leads us to the
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flywheel.
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And everything that we looked at is you know, over the last five
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years, I'm like you know there's value in LinkedIn, but
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and I tried the lead gen stuff I paid automation companies in
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2016 to use my LinkedIn profile and do all that.
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I pissed a bunch of people off.
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I got my account suspended.
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I didn't get the three to five leads every day.
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The calls I did get weren't quality calls.
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They were a waste of time.
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You know, over the years I tried podcasts and POs weren't
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magically falling out of the sky and so we kept adapting, kept
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reinventing ourselves and I think over the last three, four
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years, really in post-COVID, we started to see like what motions
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are really working.
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How is this?
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And it's here's the ironic part .
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I went back to the beginning of my career.
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What did we do in the face-to-face environment?
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Relationship building, networking don't be salesy,
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salesy, pitchy, pitchy Actually build rapport with people, earn
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the opportunity, actually behave like a trusted advisor and then
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earn the opportunity to be perceived as a trusted advisor.
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So I went back and looked at all of that and then said, well,
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how do we apply this into this digital first environment?
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How do we be that, like our friend Larry Levine talks about
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no more empty suits, right Sell from the heart?
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How do we do that in a digital manner.
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How do we do that inside of LinkedIn?
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And that's where the flywheel came about, and we've been
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watching it succeed.
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We're looking at the data for the clients that we serve.
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We're watching our own business grow.
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We got another team member that we sent out a job offer to just
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today, adding another person to our team.
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The good thing is, what we sell we actually use to fill our own
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pipeline.
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Can't be better than that, right.
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Speaker 2: So let's back up a little bit on the relationship
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part.
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Is, you know, back in the day, right, when we were using most
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everything we did was in person, or, you know, phone call.
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But in person, right, we built relationships.
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And inherently right, think about that, the more
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relationships, the more healthy relationships you had, the more
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momentum you had in your sales results.
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I mean, that's the fact of the matter, right, but you didn't
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build relationships overnight.
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You didn't build relationships by making 4 phone calls and
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hoping some.
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You built relationships bit by bit, piece by piece, by doing
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the right things and then, eventually, the momentum kept
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going and going and going.
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All of a sudden you have a really robust set of
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relationships and apparently a robust pipeline.
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You know, I know Carson, right.
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He said one of his key indicators or key metrics that
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he does with his team is how many relationships did you build
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this week?
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or how many new relationships that you build this week Real
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relationships, not phone calls, but how many relationships that
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you built.
00:17:45
So it seems like fundamentally, it's no different, right?
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The fly wheel was created by building relationship, building
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rapport, building value, in the digital or in the analog world.
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We're now replicating that in the digital world and hopefully
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doing that at higher scale and higher even efficiency than I
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would have been able to do in the analog world.
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Speaker 3: It seems like and less expensive and more
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repeatable right.
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Speaker 2: More scalable and more repeatable.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, in the analog world, if we got in our car and
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we drove around and go meet with customers, we could meet with
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maybe four people in a day.
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Maybe you throw a happy hour in the evening type of thing.
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Maybe you get four to five people in a day.
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If we take that face-to-face shaking hands, relationship
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building, getting to know people , having good quality
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conversations and slowing down the sales process to walk at the
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buyer's pace, then we do that in a digital first way.
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We could do that to hundreds of people in a single day.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 3: And that's where it really looks.
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So, instead of looking at the funnel, we look at the matrix,
00:19:02
and a lot of the matrix stems from your book, tom, from the
00:19:05
Revenue Zone and what you built with the Revenue Zone Matrix,
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but now we call it a relationship building matrix no
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offense to Tom, it's just that's the term that makes sense to me
00:19:20
in my brain.
00:19:22
But if you look at the bottom axis, we still need to focus on
00:19:27
being known and liked and trusted In this digital world.
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I like to say it's more.
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Instead of the KLT, no, like and trusted I like to say it's
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the LTR, it's like, trusted and remembered.
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Because there's so much noise and there's so much competition,
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we have to be remembered, and that's a big part of the sales
00:19:48
motions now.
00:19:49
And then, on the Y-axis, going up this side, we need to use the
00:19:56
actions that we can control.
00:19:58
What do we publish in form of content?
00:20:01
What do we do in the form of commenting?
00:20:04
Where do we comment?
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Whose posts do we comment on to influence our target audience
00:20:11
and what that is designed to do?
00:20:13
That, the things that we say, the value we give, the way that
00:20:16
we help people, the way we capture their attention, is
00:20:19
moving them up the Y axis of building awareness to who we are
00:20:23
and what we do, building some interest in who we are and what
00:20:28
we do, and ultimately, the goal, of course, is creating demand.
00:20:31
And that's why two key phrases that drive what we do how do we
00:20:37
attract and retain customer attention?
00:20:40
And all we can do is the activities that we can control.
00:20:43
And then, how do we do that to create demand, instead of trying
00:20:51
to capture the existing demand that's out there?
00:20:53
And that's a big differentiator , because most sales
00:20:57
organizations are trying to capture existing demand, and
00:21:02
what that looks like is they're making calls and they're sending
00:21:04
emails going.
00:21:05
We do this.
00:21:06
Do you want a demo?
00:21:07
In a nutshell, we do this.
00:21:09
Do you want a demo?
00:21:09
If they're not currently in market, it's like get away,
00:21:14
you're bugging me.
00:21:14
It's like a fly, leave me alone .
00:21:16
I don't want to have that conversation right now, but when
00:21:21
we create demand and we're providing information, we're
00:21:25
providing data, we're providing tactics, solutions, ideas that
00:21:31
will help them do their job today, to perform better today,
00:21:36
to solve a problem today, to accomplish a goal today,
00:21:40
something that's more tactical and practical.
00:21:42
Well, they pay attention to it today, even if they're not
00:21:46
currently in market for your solution and that's how we
00:21:49
attract and we retain their attention.
00:21:51
We continually provide that value.
00:21:54
Now here's the challenge.
00:21:56
It's a lot of companies out there.
00:21:59
We use the words trusted advisor , we use it to customer centric
00:22:04
content.
00:22:05
We'll say that we provide added value content.
00:22:09
We use the right words, but the content you produce isn't
00:22:15
really it.
00:22:15
It's still about your company, it's still about your product,
00:22:21
it's still about your service, it's still more self-centered.
00:22:24
But just because we go oh, we got this trusted advisor piece
00:22:31
of content or this value add piece of content, just because
00:22:32
you call it value add, doesn't mean it really adds value to
00:22:34
them If your buyers are not engaging with it and they're not
00:22:36
going wow, this is interesting, thank you.
00:22:38
It's not it and you've got to change it.
00:22:43
And our challenge is we're so stuck in what we've done for so
00:22:48
long.
00:22:48
We talk about me and me, and me and me, again and more about me
00:22:52
, and then we wonder why our clients don't give a crap.
00:22:58
Speaker 2: It's interesting I was just thinking about I get a
00:23:02
bunch of emails all the time from companies that they deal
00:23:07
like with R&D tax credits, so I'll get emails saying you know
00:23:11
you need to R&D tax credit, call us for a discussion on how
00:23:15
we're going to make you a million.
00:23:16
I didn't, honestly, didn't really even know what an R&D tax
00:23:21
credit was or the relevance of it, right?
00:23:24
So I'm getting these emails that are basically trying to, as
00:23:26
you said, capture my demand right, or trying to capture my
00:23:30
interest and go through there.
00:23:31
I recently, though and I think I saw it on LinkedIn saw a
00:23:36
really good carousel discussing the value of R&D credits in a
00:23:43
business and I didn't fully especially a technology business
00:23:46
, and what they can do to your taxes and all kinds of things,
00:23:50
and it took me through in a simple way.
00:23:52
It didn't try and sell me a thing.
00:23:53
It was just like here's five reasons to be thinking about R&D
00:23:56
credits, and I came away enlightened, right.
00:24:00
I came away going oh okay, that was actually a relevant,
00:24:05
valuable thing, and now my attention is actually a little
00:24:10
bit not gigantic, but some of my attention is now on.
00:24:13
Should we be thinking about R&D credits?
00:24:15
Whereas and I'm not joking, I probably get 50 a week, 50
00:24:21
emails a week about R&D credits that I have completely ignored
00:24:24
and never even thought about.
00:24:25
Just like junk, junk, junk, junk, junk.
00:24:27
But now I got my attention on something and now it's actually
00:24:31
sticking my attention and so to some degree I'm now part of that
00:24:35
flywheel and putting those things together and Tom is the
00:24:39
company that provided that carousel.
00:24:42
Speaker 3: Are they at the top of your minds about R&D tax
00:24:45
credit?
00:24:45
I'm not there yet.
00:24:47
Speaker 2: actually I'm not even thinking so much about the
00:24:50
company, but I would know it again if I saw it on LinkedIn
00:24:54
and I would continue to look at them.
00:24:57
I'm not at the point where I'm on LinkedIn and I would consume
00:25:05
it as I see more of it.
00:25:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, so they attracted your attention.
00:25:10
And now if they stop like we try to carousel and we didn't
00:25:14
get a bunch of POs magically falling out of the sky and they
00:25:18
stop they're never going to retain your attention.
00:25:20
But if they keep going, right and they're more strategic with
00:25:25
it.
00:25:25
So if you were on their targeted list and they had sales
00:25:28
people or customer success people or anybody on their
00:25:31
revenue team that was consistently posting this stuff,
00:25:35
maybe they had a podcast and they're talking about the
00:25:38
different ways.
00:25:39
Maybe they're bringing in a guest on their show that talks
00:25:42
about how they used R&D credits to fund a new position or
00:25:47
something like that.
00:25:48
That's the type of stuff that gets our attention because like,
00:25:51
oh, I can do that, oh, that's interesting, that pertains to me
00:25:55
.
00:25:55
But when it's pitchy, pitchy, salesy, salesy, we're all
00:25:59
conditioned now to just ignore it.
00:26:22
Speaker 2: You don't need it.
00:26:23
That relates to them.
00:26:23
They don't know I exist.
00:26:25
As I see more content, my logical thing could be following
00:26:29
them, following somebody on LinkedIn subscribing to some
00:26:33
content, possibly, who knows right, I don't even know which
00:26:38
yellow brick road I would be following as I go through there,
00:26:41
but now there's somebody again, there's momentum and eventually
00:26:46
, whether it's me or somebody else, it's going to pop out the
00:26:49
top of that and there's going to be a reasonable opportunity for
00:26:53
them.
00:26:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, so let's take a step backwards from the matrix,
00:26:58
because there's four steps we like to look at at how we help
00:27:04
encourage our buyers to move through the funnel, so to speak.
00:27:08
But we call it to the top right of the matrix.
00:27:11
Let's take a step back because you said something really
00:27:14
important there the way buyers behave.
00:27:17
Because we can, we allow and everybody.
00:27:22
Think about you as a buyer.
00:27:23
You might be a sales professional, you might be a CEO
00:27:25
, you might be on the marketing side, but think about you as a
00:27:28
buyer.
00:27:28
What do we do?
00:27:30
Well, we allow certain people close to us, and what that looks
00:27:36
like is we opt into their newsletters, we follow them on
00:27:40
LinkedIn, we connect with them on LinkedIn, we subscribe to
00:27:44
different podcasts, we subscribe to YouTube channels.
00:27:48
We allow the people we want to come into our lives and then we
00:27:54
assign them words.
00:27:55
They're experts, they're a trusted advisor, they're a
00:27:59
speaker in our industry, they're a top voice, they're
00:28:02
influential, they're a consultant, whatever.
00:28:04
We let them into our world.
00:28:06
And we let them in our world through a medium a podcast, a
00:28:14
YouTube channel, a newsletter list.
00:28:16
We follow them on LinkedIn, we hit the bell and we get notified
00:28:20
every time they publish something, because we like the
00:28:23
content that they share because it adds value.
00:28:25
It's worth my time to ring this bell and get notified every
00:28:30
time so-and-so publishes content , because I find value in it.
00:28:34
That's the way we let people into our lives and we keep other
00:28:39
people out.
00:28:41
When was the last time you answered a call from an unknown
00:28:44
number?
00:28:44
We actually have these cool things on our phones now.
00:28:48
That'll say possible spam telemarketer.
00:28:52
It's not even unknown, it just says man, this is a spam caller.
00:28:56
Nope, nope, nope.
00:28:58
We don't answer the phone.
00:28:59
We get cold email all the time.
00:29:02
When was the last time anybody checked their spam folder or
00:29:05
their junk folder?
00:29:06
We don't care anymore.
00:29:07
There's so much coming in I don't even bother.
00:29:09
10 years ago I used to look in there and go maybe something
00:29:12
important got through.
00:29:13
I'm over it.
00:29:14
We're all over it.
00:29:15
We don't pay attention to email that did get through into our
00:29:19
inbox and we don't know who it's from and we can see the preview
00:29:23
and we know our own human spam filter.
00:29:25
We know, based on the first sentence, that it's cold and
00:29:29
trying to get our attention.
00:29:30
There's all these different strategies that people are
00:29:32
trying to do, but the bottom line is all of those messages to
00:29:36
us as a buyer, all those messages to your buyers.
00:29:39
You're trying to get that one to three percent of people that
00:29:43
are currently in market.
00:29:45
But all that action, all that behavior you do, all that energy
00:29:51
you spend is only after one to 3%.
00:29:53
What if?
00:29:55
Just what if?
00:29:57
What if you had content that was extremely valuable to 100%
00:30:03
of your target audience today because it was teaching them
00:30:07
something.
00:30:07
It was showing them how teaching them something.
00:30:08
It was showing them how to do something.
00:30:09
It was telling them something they should be aware of,
00:30:13
something they should be planning for?
00:30:15
What if it was doing that?
00:30:18
And then we're sharing that in LinkedIn every day or
00:30:22
consistently.
00:30:23
Your team members are sharing that into LinkedIn every day.
00:30:27
You have a podcast or a live show where you're talking about
00:30:31
this on a regular basis.
00:30:32
Your CEO is speaking about this on LinkedIn on a regular basis.
00:30:37
Now, all of a sudden, you create a brand.
00:30:40
You have a culture that is seen as a brand that educates the
00:30:46
industry.
00:30:47
Who gets the most demand?
00:30:51
Where are people going to go when they're in market?
00:30:55
So we got to take a step back.
00:30:58
I appreciate that you brought that up and I call that the
00:31:00
circle of trust, the buyer circle of trust.
00:31:03
We all allow in who we want in.
00:31:06
We allow them to come in the way we want.
00:31:08
I love podcasts.
00:31:10
I'm not as huge on YouTube channels.
00:31:12
I like TikTok.
00:31:15
I'm not a big fan of Facebook and, of course, I love LinkedIn.
00:31:19
So I let people in my life through those different mediums,
00:31:24
but I choose who I let into my life through those different
00:31:27
mediums.
00:31:27
And our buyers all do the same thing.
00:31:29
So the question for all of us is C-suite as marketing leaders,
00:31:32
as sales leaders, as sales professionals, what are you
00:31:36
doing to earn the invitation into your buyer circle of trust?
00:31:40
And if you're not doing any of those activities, well, that's
00:31:46
why your pipeline is anemic.
00:31:50
Speaker 2: I think let's stop right there, because emails and
00:31:56
phone calls are not likely going to earn your way into that
00:32:00
circle of trust, no matter how many you send, right?
00:32:04
If I send you 5 or one, probably the 5th email is
00:32:09
not going to earn me into your circle of trust.
00:32:11
That's there.
00:32:15
So let's go back then to what do you do, right?
00:32:23
Because let's face it as a sales organization or a market,
00:32:26
we have to have some system.
00:32:27
It can't just be all art.
00:32:28
We have to have some science, and we talk about a flywheel,
00:32:33
right?
00:32:33
So the whole idea here is to be able to create a flywheel, not
00:32:37
just for an individual but for an organization, right?
00:32:40
And of which the individuals are going to be part of that
00:32:43
organization, but the organization has a flywheel that
00:32:47
is building momentum, building relationships.
00:32:50
More and more people are inviting them into their trusted
00:32:53
circle.
00:32:54
As that happens, the momentum continues to have the I mean,
00:32:58
you see this every day and then that leads to healthy
00:33:01
connections and positive phone calls and, ultimately,
00:33:04
opportunities.
00:33:05
And it all kind of happens organically.
00:33:07
It happens naturally.
00:33:08
It's not forced, it's not oh my God, I pulled that guy into a
00:33:12
demo or whatever.
00:33:12
It just happens along the way.
00:33:15
So what are the key ingredients , then, at a high level, what
00:33:18
are the key ingredients that we've learned, you've learned,
00:33:22
make up that flywheel, that cause it to spin.
00:33:24
And what happens if you don't, if you use part of those
00:33:28
ingredients, or you know we need all of the ingredients to get
00:33:33
the flywheel to really for our organization.
00:33:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's a.
00:33:38
That's a great question and a good setup for this.
00:33:41
And look, I think with most companies, start with a proof of
00:33:45
concept and start small Change is scary.
00:33:48
Digital transformation is scary .
00:33:50
This is the epitome of digital transformation.
00:33:53
Right?
00:33:53
Our buyers have shifted.
00:33:55
2024 is the year or two, and I forget the number.
00:33:59
It's like millennial buyers are going to be responsible now for
00:34:04
like $3 trillion worth of buying decisions, and millennial
00:34:09
buyers like 70 some percent of them prefer a digital only
00:34:14
buying experience.
00:34:15
That should scare a lot of organizations.
00:34:18
That should make a lot of organizations go.
00:34:20
Wait a minute, because millennials don't want to be
00:34:24
bothered with your sales team and they don't care to be
00:34:26
entertained at lunch.
00:34:26
They don't want to be bothered with your sales team and they
00:34:27
don't care to be entertained at lunch.
00:34:29
They don't care to have tickets to go to the ball game, like
00:34:33
all the motions that we used to do are not as important to them.
00:34:38
So what do we do?
00:34:39
We start with the mindset shift that we have to acknowledge
00:34:45
that a lot of this is out of our control.
00:34:48
We can't expect if I do A plus B, it's going to equal C and
00:34:55
it's not the quick 30 day.
00:34:57
If I make five calls to the same person, I'm going to get
00:35:01
certain percent of people to recall.
00:35:03
Those.
00:35:03
Numbers are all over the place now.
00:35:05
They're not consistent.
00:35:06
So we got to change the mindset to we are going to attract and
00:35:12
retain customer attention as a way to create demand and we're
00:35:16
going to be patient.
00:35:17
And I know that's really, really hard for a lot of sales
00:35:19
organizations.
00:35:20
They don't want to be patient.
00:35:21
At the end of 30 days, we need to do this.
00:35:23
At the end of 90 days, we need to do this.
00:35:25
We've got to trust the process.
00:35:28
And so number one is the mindset shift.
00:35:31
Number two is what's a proof of concept?
00:35:34
Look, I think there's five key cogs in the flywheel.
00:35:43
We see a lot of our customers will start somewhere.
00:35:45
They'll start with one, maybe two, and see how it goes and
00:35:48
then expand to a third, to the point where they go okay, we got
00:35:51
this, this is making sense.
00:35:53
And they'll add a fourth and maybe a fifth.
00:35:54
But those, those key cogs are.
00:35:58
Number one is your LinkedIn leader, preferably your C-suite.
00:36:02
It's the same mindset of when you go to an event you want your
00:36:07
CEO there and preferably you're you're event.
00:36:10
You want your CEO there and preferably you're with the
00:36:13
company, who your CEO walks down the aisles and people are like,
00:36:15
ah, there she is, there he is.
00:36:16
They know everybody, they're shaking hands, ah, good to see
00:36:17
you.
00:36:17
They have a reputation because as sales producers you get to
00:36:22
leverage that reputation right.
00:36:25
You get to say hey, you know, we're going to have a meeting,
00:36:27
I'll have our CEO come in.
00:36:28
Oh yeah, I know, you know, I've seen them, they've been on
00:36:30
stage, they've been, whatever.
00:36:31
So number one is your LinkedIn.
00:36:33
We call it your LinkedIn leader .
00:36:34
That a leader is leading the way with a consistent strategy
00:36:39
and implementation and a presence on LinkedIn.
00:36:42
They're sharing content, they're commenting, they're
00:36:44
building a reputation for themselves and therefore the
00:36:46
brand many.
00:36:47
They're building a reputation for themselves and therefore the
00:36:50
brand.
00:36:50
That's one gear.
00:36:52
The next gear we call the social, the digital evangelist
00:37:00
mastery.
00:37:00
How do we then equip and train the team?
00:37:01
Put in some guardrails, because we can't just make LinkedIn all
00:37:03
this carte blanche.
00:37:05
But from a POC standpoint, maybe you take a couple of people on
00:37:08
your team and you train them and you implement how to do this
00:37:11
and see how it works for them.
00:37:13
Compare their pipeline to the other team members pipeline.
00:37:16
Give it, give it six months and compare.
00:37:19
Give it 90 days and do a comparison.
00:37:21
But this is individual producers that are selling in
00:37:25
this way.
00:37:25
They're they're relationship first.
00:37:27
They're creating content, they're commenting, they're
00:37:30
going slow through the process, they're looking at building
00:37:32
healthy relationships.
00:37:34
They're sharing content that's very, very much customer-centric
00:37:39
as a goal of get people to go.
00:37:41
You know, that's really interesting.
00:37:42
I'd want to talk to you and learn more about it.
00:37:44
They're not asking for a sales demo.
00:37:46
They're saying you keep sharing stuff.
00:37:49
That's really interesting.
00:37:50
I'd love to talk to you about it because it helps me as we
00:37:54
move them down that path.
00:37:54
So maybe we start with a couple of people on the team.
00:37:58
The other option is we start with a live show and a podcast,
00:38:03
and I know there's a lot of companies out there that said,
00:38:07
oh, we tried a live show or we tried a podcast, we tried a
00:38:09
YouTube channel and it didn't work.
00:38:11
I think a lot of people thought that if they just did a show,
00:38:16
that it would magically create POs, and they didn't really do
00:38:20
the nuance of how do you then leverage the content?
00:38:23
How do you strategize who your guests are?
00:38:26
How do you strategize what you do with the show besides just
00:38:30
record it?
00:38:30
But a live show and podcast is equivalent to paying big
00:38:35
sponsorship dollars for your big event of the year so that you
00:38:40
can have breakout sessions or get your CEO on stage.
00:38:43
A live show and a podcast gives you a weekly stage that you can
00:38:48
fill the room.
00:38:49
You constantly have a room to invite people to and you're
00:38:53
constantly able to adjust the content in order to find what
00:38:57
your buyers are interested in and what is it that's going to
00:39:00
add value to them.
00:39:02
And the last two cogs.
00:39:03
So those are three.
00:39:04
We got your leader, we got your team members or individuals on
00:39:07
your team, you got the live show and podcast.
00:39:08
We have the webinar right.
00:39:11
The webinar is a really good gear in this because we go back
00:39:17
to the matrix.
00:39:18
Our four steps are healthy connections, a willingness to
00:39:23
converse or engage.
00:39:25
So maybe they do get on a call with you and have a chat.
00:39:28
Maybe they start to engage with your content, with their
00:39:31
comments and ask questions and ask for clarity.
00:39:33
But the third step is a desire to learn.
00:39:36
If our buyers if the data is true and they do 80 to 90% of
00:39:42
their research before they ever want to talk to us.
00:39:44
A webinar is a great way to help them move from step two to
00:39:49
step three.
00:39:51
They can still be in the anonymous zone.
00:39:53
Mostly they register for your webinar.
00:39:56
It doesn't mean they have to accept their emails and all the
00:39:58
other stuff, but they can register and they can sign up.
00:40:01
They can watch your webinar live, or maybe they watch the
00:40:05
recording, but they're using it to educate themselves.
00:40:08
But they still want to do it in an anonymous way.
00:40:10
They still want to be back.
00:40:11
They don't want to be bothered.
00:40:12
So that's the fourth gear is the webinar, and just do a plug for
00:40:18
us.
00:40:18
We've got our next webinar coming up on April 18th.
00:40:20
We just did one last week with Carson.
00:40:22
We got one coming up on April 18th and we're talking to the
00:40:26
marketing people in that one.
00:40:27
How do you create content that your team wants to share and
00:40:34
actually adds value to them in building pipeline?
00:40:37
That's what we're going to talk about and we're going to just
00:40:39
tell everybody like this is what we do, this is how you do it.
00:40:42
Go do it for yourself.
00:40:43
And oh, by the way, if you want help, we'd love to help you,
00:40:46
but it's a webinar.
00:40:47
That's just going here.
00:40:48
Do this, implement this for yourself.
00:40:51
We're adding value to people.
00:40:53
And the last gear is what we call the booth magnet.
00:40:56
How do we do all these things around a specific event in order
00:41:01
to get people walking in our booth going?
00:41:03
I've seen you guys all over LinkedIn.
00:41:06
I've seen you all over YouTube.
00:41:08
I've been paying attention to your podcast.
00:41:10
I knew you're going to be at the show.
00:41:11
I want to talk to you.
00:41:13
How do we create demand and use all those same demand creation
00:41:18
activities or those demand generation activities focused on
00:41:22
a very specific event?
00:41:23
So those are the five gears of the flywheel.
00:41:26
And for somebody to start, I mean start where it's most
00:41:29
comfortable.
00:41:30
We have a customer right now where the president of a company
00:41:34
said I know I need to be more active on LinkedIn, but I really
00:41:38
don't know what to do and I don't have time.
00:41:39
We moved them into our concierge program where we
00:41:43
started working with them and then, as they started to
00:41:46
experience some of the benefits of it, they're like I think we
00:41:50
need to do a live show and podcast too, and they started to
00:41:53
implement that and that's a pretty normal, typical path for
00:41:57
a lot of companies.
00:41:58
Because we got to do the POC, we got to get them comfortable
00:42:01
because this change is tough.
00:42:04
Speaker 2: Well, but let's you know, lots of companies right do
00:42:08
webinars.
00:42:08
I mean there's tons of webinars out there and tons of companies
00:42:13
also obviously go to shows and do live shows and have booths
00:42:17
and stuff like that.
00:42:18
I think and you certainly, I think is a good witness to this
00:42:22
last week with the webinar.
00:42:24
Most of the time again, the more traditional ways of dealing
00:42:28
with webinar I go mail my list and I invite them to the webinar
00:42:31
.
00:42:31
But what you're talking about here is using the webinar as
00:42:36
part of a bigger holistic strategy so that when people end
00:42:41
up at the webinar they're already slightly interested.
00:42:45
There's already some relevance 's already some relevance.
00:42:47
You have some relevance to them .
00:42:48
You've already maybe even been invited into their circle of
00:42:51
trust.
00:42:52
And so the quality of the webinar.
00:42:55
I mean I think you last week said you had what?
00:42:57
160 signups but 80.
00:42:59
Some people showed up 80.
00:43:02
I mean over 50.
00:43:02
That's gigantic.
00:43:04
I mean most webinars at best get a 25 to 30 percent show up
00:43:09
rate for the people that actually sign up.
00:43:13
So that shows that people were actually excited and interested
00:43:18
to attend, because not of necessarily the webinar itself,
00:43:22
but because of what was done prior to the webinar through the
00:43:25
flywheel and so forth.
00:43:28
Speaker 3: And that's where, if you, if you look at these five
00:43:30
gears, you know LinkedIn leader, the team live show and podcast
00:43:36
your webinars and then around a booth, as those all start moving
00:43:40
, all of this moves faster and it starts moving people through
00:43:43
it a lot faster.
00:43:44
And what you were saying practically is our show.
00:43:48
What we're on right now builds, capture, creates, attracts and
00:43:54
retains customer attention.
00:43:56
Because we're not selling, we're teaching, we're showing
00:44:00
people how to do things.
00:44:01
We bring great guests on that show them how to do things.
00:44:03
We bring a lot of guests on that are our competitors.
00:44:05
We're just like hey, you're doing good stuff, tell everybody
00:44:08
how to do it.
00:44:08
So we have a show and it attracts and retains their
00:44:13
attention.
00:44:13
And then, from the show, we talk about the webinars and the
00:44:17
webinars we still teach them how to do things, but we go a
00:44:21
little bit deeper.
00:44:23
And then meanwhile, I'm very active on LinkedIn and I don't
00:44:26
sell from LinkedIn.
00:44:27
I provide content that helps people in their day to day.
00:44:31
I build healthy conversations with people that lead to talks
00:44:36
and Zooms and teams meetings and we got those three cogs plus
00:44:40
the team is doing their stuff and we got that cog and we
00:44:44
currently don't go to events.
00:44:45
We do a lot of events for clients, but we don't go to our
00:44:48
own events to exhibit right now, so that clogs cogs just sitting
00:44:51
there, that gears just sitting there, but when all of those
00:44:55
start working together.
00:44:56
That's why we do things with our webinar and we get 160
00:45:01
people to register and 84 peaked people attended.
00:45:06
And you know what?
00:45:07
We went long last week and at the 50 minute mark we still had
00:45:15
79 people in there.
00:45:16
We were providing such valuable information that people stayed
00:45:23
and they wanted to keep learning .
00:45:25
We've created a brand, I believe , where we give and train and
00:45:30
coach and provide so much value that people were willing to
00:45:33
stick around a bit longer if they could.
00:45:35
And that's the flywheel, and you've got to trust the process,
00:45:40
though.
00:45:41
We're not salesy, salesy, pitchy, pitchy ever, but our
00:45:46
pipelines are full.
00:45:47
Our growth is fast.
00:45:50
I mean I I think this next month we're going to have
00:45:53
another 100 growth month because the amount of new business
00:45:57
that's coming in and it's we sell by not selling.
00:46:02
We sell by being valuable to people and there's enough
00:46:06
customers out there that go.
00:46:07
I really like this.
00:46:08
I need your help and that's what we do.
00:46:12
Speaker 2: They feel safe to ask for your help, right?
00:46:15
I think that's a key thing is that if you get invited into the
00:46:18
circle of trust, then it's okay to ask for help and they don't
00:46:22
feel like it's a safe thing to ask for help.
00:46:25
Even if they're not ready to buy at this exact moment.
00:46:28
They're willing, they know they can have a conversation or get
00:46:30
some information without a hard sell or a hard pitch all the way
00:46:34
along the line.
00:46:35
I want to emphasize one thing here.
00:46:38
I know we're kind of moving along on time here, but I want
00:46:41
to emphasize one thing At the end of the day, a lot of the
00:46:45
same sales metrics, right.
00:46:47
What are the opportunities?
00:46:48
What are the 30, 60, 90 day opportunities?
00:46:51
What are the probability?
00:46:53
All of those things still exist here, right.
00:46:55
We still need to manage and track and forecast and do all of
00:47:00
those things.
00:47:00
What we're finding is our ability to more accurately
00:47:06
forecast, have higher quality forecasts that are not just well
00:47:11
, we hope through.
00:47:12
This model is much, much better , and that when people do move
00:47:16
into an opportunity, their probability of closing and
00:47:19
becoming a customer are much higher than if they move into an
00:47:23
opportunity from a less relationship centcentric
00:47:27
approach, right.
00:47:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, and let's break that down for people.
00:47:31
This is a part that if you want to show your CEO or you want to
00:47:35
show your CMO or your sales leader that this social selling
00:47:39
thing isn't just willy-nilly social, here's the steps.
00:47:44
We start with a list of either named accounts or a targeted
00:47:49
list of leads that you want to focus on and we go find them
00:47:54
inside of LinkedIn and what they're doing.
00:47:56
Now we still have the database.
00:47:58
We can email them and we can call them.
00:48:00
We're not saying don't do that.
00:48:02
You can get on a plane and go visit them.
00:48:04
You can call them and say I'm going to be in your neighborhood
00:48:06
, can I take you to lunch?
00:48:08
All of that still applies.
00:48:09
But we start with that list and we look at the four steps and
00:48:15
we can assign probability based on each step, like we would do
00:48:19
in any CRM.
00:48:20
Number one is do we develop a healthy connection?
00:48:22
And we define that.
00:48:24
A healthy connection isn't just did they accept my connection
00:48:27
request.
00:48:27
A healthy connection isn't just did they accept my connection
00:48:28
request.
00:48:29
A healthy connection is more of did they like any of our
00:48:32
content?
00:48:33
Did we comment on something that they've commented on?
00:48:36
Did they comment on something that we've commented on?
00:48:38
Did we both comment on a post?
00:48:41
And when we send the connection request, was it personal?
00:48:46
Did we have a little bit of a chat and how that looks?
00:48:51
Hey, tom, you and I keep commenting on Seth Godin's post.
00:48:57
I love what you said about XYZ on his post.
00:49:00
The other day.
00:49:01
I looked at your profile.
00:49:03
I see we're not connected.
00:49:04
Is it okay for us to be connections?
00:49:06
And if he accepts it and it says yeah, I saw that comment
00:49:12
too.
00:49:12
That was great, appreciate you.
00:49:14
I'd love to be connected.
00:49:15
We say thanks for connecting, have a great day, be done, don't
00:49:20
be salesy, salesy, pitchy, pitchy.
00:49:22
Well, guess what?
00:49:23
We hit the healthy Yep.
00:49:26
Our next goal with that person is willingness to converse or
00:49:30
engage.
00:49:31
As we are publishing content and we're commenting on posts
00:49:36
that they're probably looking at , maybe they're reacting to,
00:49:42
maybe they're commenting on.
00:49:43
Do they comment on anything that we do?
00:49:46
Do they comment on our post?
00:49:48
Do they like our post?
00:49:50
Do they routinely view our profile, all those things?
00:49:53
We can quantify that data and then we can move them into that
00:49:58
stage.
00:49:58
If they comment on my content, I move them to that stage.
00:50:02
They have a willingness to converse or engage.
00:50:06
And then what I do is we say let's ask them for a chat, and I
00:50:11
use that word intentionally because we're still not selling.
00:50:15
If we start to move into sales motions too early, buyers are
00:50:19
like skittish cats I'm out, don't sell to me, I'm out.
00:50:24
So we don't.
00:50:25
We don't have a demo, we don't have a sales call, we have a
00:50:29
chat.
00:50:29
Hey, it's been so great getting to know you, tom, online.
00:50:32
We keep commenting on the same stuff.
00:50:34
I appreciate your comment on my post the other day.
00:50:36
Would you be open to a get to know each other call, just a
00:50:38
chat, no agenda, and you got to mean it.
00:50:41
You've have to mean that.
00:50:42
No agenda.
00:50:42
This is networking, is what we talked about at the very
00:50:47
beginning today.
00:50:48
This is networking, this is relationship building.
00:50:51
We're earning the opportunity and if they want to get on a
00:50:54
chat and we get to know them hey , we're at step three of the
00:50:57
four then we can invite them to one of our webinars.
00:51:00
We can start sending them links to post to shows.
00:51:06
Hey, tom, we're doing this show on this episode and I know, as
00:51:11
a founder of a tech company, this might be really valuable
00:51:13
for you.
00:51:14
I'd love for you to come if you can.
00:51:16
And Tom responds you know what?
00:51:18
Oh, I can't make it at that time, but is it going to be
00:51:21
recorded?
00:51:21
Yeah, I'll be glad to send you the link when we're done, moving
00:51:26
them on to that fourth step, as we're sharing content and I'm
00:51:31
not saying never ask them for the sales call.
00:51:33
This isn't passive, but make sure that we're doing it at the
00:51:37
right time.
00:51:37
And we got, sometimes we, I've done it, I've tried selling too
00:51:41
soon, and then I'm like hello, hello, ah crap, scared them off.
00:51:49
Speaker 2: Sell too soon.
00:51:50
A lot of times they'll reach back to you even before you're
00:51:52
there.
00:51:52
Right, it's like you know.
00:51:53
You never know when that moment is going to happen, and that
00:51:57
moment can happen organically at a lot of different places along
00:51:59
that point can happen organically at a lot of
00:52:01
different places along that point.
00:52:02
Speaker 3: And here's a big, important part of the tactic,
00:52:06
and I get questioned this a lot.
00:52:07
People say you know, brandon, you do a lot of selfie posts,
00:52:12
like I do.
00:52:13
Do you read the content?
00:52:15
Well, yeah, you have really good content, but why do you do
00:52:17
selfies?
00:52:17
Because you paid attention to it.
00:52:21
I was showing somebody today I'm like just started going through
00:52:24
my feed of post there was one that I did in the airport on a
00:52:29
trip selfie Dunkin' Donuts in the background, big line of
00:52:38
people waiting for coffee.
00:52:39
But my message was about creating demand versus
00:52:40
attracting or capturing demand.
00:52:41
And it was right around the Super Bowl and the other
00:52:44
Dunkin's commercial.
00:52:45
And I talked about creating demand.
00:52:48
Well, that selfie picture helps connect, helps capture human
00:52:54
attention.
00:52:55
And then the content if it's valuable to them, they keep
00:52:59
reading it, they pay attention and go wow, that's interesting.
00:53:01
And it was one of my highest performing.
00:53:05
You know I'll share everybody.
00:53:07
It was a little over 5 views, had 60, some comments on
00:53:12
it.
00:53:13
It was one of the best ones I had over the first quarter.
00:53:17
I'm not one of those guys that get 50 views on every post.
00:53:20
I'm.
00:53:20
You know good post for me is about a thousand to 1400, a
00:53:23
really good post.
00:53:24
It's that five to 6.
00:53:26
Occasionally I hit something that hits a 10 to 12 range.
00:53:37
But that human element is so important in moving people down
00:53:39
your four path of the matrix because they still need to know
00:53:40
us, they still need to like us, they still need to like us, they
00:53:42
still need to trust us and if we're not showing some of our
00:53:45
human side, we're not showing some of our personality, we're
00:53:48
not showing like, who are we when we're not working, we're
00:53:52
missing out on what we always did offline, which was hey, tom,
00:53:58
what do you have?
00:53:58
What you know?
00:53:59
Happy Monday.
00:54:00
Why Did you have a good weekend ?
00:54:01
What'd you do?
00:54:01
My family had a reunion and we did this.
00:54:05
Oh, that's really cool.
00:54:06
How big's your family?
00:54:07
Right, we talk about those things.
00:54:10
So if we're not leading with those inside of LinkedIn and
00:54:13
again, I'm not, please do not hear Brandon said LinkedIn is
00:54:17
Facebook.
00:54:17
No, but business has never been purely business.
00:54:23
Business has always been personal I'll jump off that
00:54:27
soapbox because I like that soapbox flywheel is fueled
00:54:44
ultimately through the relationship.
00:54:45
Speaker 2: The relationship is fueled by your ability to build
00:54:47
and attract and retain attention with somebody and then use that
00:54:50
as a way to build relevance.
00:54:51
And again, the flywheel does this more at scale.
00:54:54
So we're not doing one relationship a year or something
00:54:58
, but we're constantly building more and more relationships,
00:55:01
more and more just healthy connections all the things that
00:55:04
you just went through and it just naturally starts building
00:55:07
the momentum.
00:55:08
And once it reaches a critical mass of momentum, then we're
00:55:13
inherently building pipeline that we can predictably forecast
00:55:17
and put into place.
00:55:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, and there's an acceleration factor to that too,
00:55:22
and what that looks like is I shared the four steps of the
00:55:26
matrix.
00:55:26
Some people come to my awareness at step three.
00:55:33
We didn't even intentionally move them to step.
00:55:35
Get them to step one.
00:55:37
Step zero, step one.
00:55:38
Step two they come in and I get a direct mail, direct message
00:55:42
from somebody on LinkedIn that says hey, brandon, been
00:55:44
following your show, love your content, you captured my
00:55:48
attention.
00:55:48
We were talking about creating demand versus capturing demand.
00:55:52
Can we have a talk?
00:55:53
Absolutely.
00:55:55
They come in at step three because, as you talk about in
00:55:59
your book, they sit in the anonymous zone and they're
00:56:02
researching and they're watching , they're reading, they're
00:56:05
listening, they're watching shows, they're reading, they're
00:56:08
doing all that and then, when they pop into your life, they're
00:56:11
further down the matrix than you know.
00:56:13
Yep.
00:56:16
Speaker 2: All right.
00:56:16
Well, this has been a lot of information, a lot of really
00:56:20
good information.
00:56:21
It was a firehose day yeah, a firehose day, but I do think it
00:56:28
sets the foundation Definitely.
00:56:29
Maybe you can drop it in the LinkedIn comment, brandon, the
00:56:32
replay to the webinar, because I have a feeling there's a lot of
00:56:35
much deeper information from your Carson webinar last week
00:56:39
that people can find, and if someone wants to connect with
00:56:44
you and learn more, where should they do?
00:56:46
That Is our is our final guest tonight.
00:56:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely Well , the.
00:56:50
You know I'm on LinkedIn and everybody knows that.
00:56:53
You can find me on Mastering Modern Selling LinkedIn page.
00:56:57
You can go to Brandon Lee, which is the forward slash is
00:57:00
Brandon Lee digital on LinkedIn and, like you want to, you want
00:57:07
to learn anything about what we do?
00:57:08
We have nothing to hide.
00:57:09
Go to get fist bumpscom.
00:57:09
We even put our pricing on there.
00:57:10
Like I, we know the way buyers behave.
00:57:12
You guys want everything crystal clear right in front of
00:57:15
you so you can make a decision without having to talk to us.
00:57:18
It's all right there.
00:57:21
Speaker 2: Transparency.
00:57:22
Speaker 3: Transparency.
00:57:24
Speaker 2: All right, well, thanks everybody.
00:57:25
Thank you, brandon.
00:57:27
Really good stuff.
00:57:28
This is one to kind of listen to a couple of times, I think.
00:57:32
Speaker 3: Thanks, tom, and thanks everybody else.
00:57:33
Look, I appreciate the opportunity to be a guest on our
00:57:36
own show because we got a lot of really good stuff to share.
00:57:40
We've been learning a lot, especially in the last 18 months
00:57:43
, and this flywheel isn't like something we made up.
00:57:48
This flywheel came about as we were just looking for it.
00:57:53
Speaker 2: It was discovered versus developed, I think.
00:57:56
It was discovered because that's what actually was working
00:57:59
.
00:58:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, we just kept going where the data was leading
00:58:02
us, what's working and the flywheel appeared, and now we're
00:58:06
just sharing it with everybody.
00:58:09
Speaker 2: All right, thanks again.
00:58:10
Thanks everybody, have a good week and we will see you next
00:58:13
week on Mastering Modern Selling .
00:58:16
Speaker 3: Bye everybody.
00:58:36
Speaker 1: Thanks so much you to help us improve.
00:58:38
Stay tuned for our next episode , where we will continue to
00:58:41
uncover modern strategies shaping today's business
00:58:44
landscape.
00:58:44
Learn more about Fistbump and our concierge service at
00:58:47
GetFistbumpscom.
00:58:49
Mastering modern revenue creation with Fistbump, where
00:58:52
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 Fistbump, 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 LeadSmart
00:00:18
, as we explore the strategies and stories behind successful
00:00:22
executives and sales professionals.
00:00:24
Dive into 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
00:00:54
landscape.
00:00:55
Speaker 2: This is Mastering, modern Selling, brought to you
00:00:58
by Fistbump, brought to you by Fistbump.
00:01:00
Speaker 3: It's been a week plus the webinar.
00:01:02
You missed the webinar.
00:01:04
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, that's right.
00:01:05
That's right.
00:01:06
Well, I saw part of the webinar , I just wasn't on the webinar.
00:01:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it was good, I mean, for everybody.
00:01:21
I think Carson did a great job sharing his playbook and had a
00:01:22
lot of great feedback from people.
00:01:23
In fact, I had two calls today with people that came to the
00:01:24
webinar and then schedule calls with me afterwards and a lot of
00:01:29
great things and you know, I think a lot of people it's uh,
00:01:32
I've heard it multiple times.
00:01:33
I've heard Carson called a machine and it's true, he is a
00:01:37
bit of a machine and it's.
00:01:39
It's hard for a lot of salespeople to look at Carson's
00:01:42
playbook and go you expect me to do all that, but take
00:01:46
components of it, find the little gold nuggets for each
00:01:49
person and start to implement and then grow into it.
00:01:55
What's the expression?
00:01:56
How do you eat an elephant?
00:01:58
Speaker 2: One bite at a time.
00:01:59
Speaker 3: One bite at a time.
00:02:00
So I think that's my encouragement for everybody that
00:02:03
may have been a little overwhelmed by the webinar.
00:02:05
So welcome everybody to Mastering Modern Selling,
00:02:10
episode 79.
00:02:11
If you're with us on the live event inside LinkedIn or YouTube
00:02:15
or X or Facebook, love to hear who you are.
00:02:19
Butch is popping up from ATL.
00:02:21
Welcome Butch.
00:02:22
And if you're on the podcast, we sure appreciate you.
00:02:26
We don't mean to neglect the podcast compared to the live
00:02:30
audience.
00:02:31
Hey, if you're finding value in this, we appreciate you.
00:02:34
We love the ratings.
00:02:37
Give us a review and give us feedback on how we can provide
00:02:41
more value to you.
00:02:42
Our goal is to help those out there that are on the marketing
00:02:47
side or on the sales side, that are struggling with creating
00:02:51
pipeline and creating demand.
00:02:52
That's our goal is to help you.
00:02:55
We know things are hard and things have changed and buyers
00:02:57
don't behave the way they're supposed to bad buyers Well,
00:03:01
that's what we're going to talk about today right, the revenue
00:03:04
generation flywheel for the modern buyer absolutely and, uh,
00:03:10
carson.
00:03:11
Speaker 2: speaking of carson, he is at the end of this quarter
00:03:13
so he um, I guess, was unavoidably detained on some
00:03:18
microsoft stuff.
00:03:19
So, brandon, you're going to be kind of our guest today on kind
00:03:23
of taking us through the modern revenue generation flywheel,
00:03:26
and I think this is going to be really, really insightful.
00:03:29
I think this is going to be a key episode and kind of set a
00:03:32
foundation for a lot of other things that we're talking about
00:03:35
over the next few weeks the messaging around the webinar.
00:03:50
Speaker 3: A lot of our own content got more clear and a lot
00:03:52
more conversations with sales leaders, with C-suite.
00:03:55
We know there'd been pain, but there's something about 2024
00:03:59
that the conversations have shifted.
00:04:01
A lot of the conversations we're having with people is hey,
00:04:06
this is serious now.
00:04:07
It's been hard but now we're hitting those critical points
00:04:11
and a lot of people are like we want to, and I get it.
00:04:15
It's a human nature.
00:04:15
We want to go back under stressful times.
00:04:18
I have a friend who's besides Moeed, who was our
00:04:23
neuroscientist last week, who was who's besides Moeed, who was
00:04:27
our neuroscientist last week, who was brilliant and awesome.
00:04:28
I have another friend who focuses on this and she's an
00:04:30
expert in NLP as well and she said look, when times are
00:04:34
stressful, our human nature is to go to what we know and we can
00:04:39
see it carrying out.
00:04:40
I mean, I do this when I'm under tremendous stress, like
00:04:44
when I want to escape, I go and I watch rerun episodes of either
00:04:48
the big bang theory or modern family and I watch the reruns
00:04:52
and I'll I'll binge watch two or three of them in a row.
00:04:55
And why do we do that?
00:04:56
We want something familiar.
00:04:58
We want something that there's a there feels like there's
00:05:01
control in it and even though you're just passively watching,
00:05:05
like I know I've got control because I know what's going to
00:05:07
happen, I don't have to be surprised, I don't have to
00:05:10
wonder what's going to happen.
00:05:11
It gives you that sense.
00:05:12
And I think right now, with so much change between AI and the
00:05:17
buyer changing and budgets are changing and capital is more
00:05:22
difficult for companies to get, we want to go back to the
00:05:26
activities that we know, that we can feel like we control.
00:05:31
If I can make 100 calls, I could get 20 people to talk to me.
00:05:34
Okay, well, I'll do 150 calls and try to get people.
00:05:38
I'll do 200 calls.
00:05:39
And I was talking to someone today.
00:05:41
He said you know, if you're two out of 10, you feel like you're
00:05:43
in a slump.
00:05:44
But if you're two out of 10, you feel like you're in a slump.
00:05:48
But if you're two out of 20, you start to think something's
00:05:49
wrong with me.
00:05:49
And then, when you're two out of 40, you know something's
00:05:50
wrong with you.
00:05:50
And when you're two out of a hundred, you feel like you're a
00:05:53
failure and you're just waiting for the hammer to be dropped.
00:05:55
And unfortunately for a lot of salespeople right now, they feel
00:05:59
that way because those motions that we want to go back to to
00:06:04
give us comfort aren't providing any relief.
00:06:10
Speaker 2: So totally agree.
00:06:12
I mean, we see this all the time.
00:06:13
I do agree with you that it's gotten more severe in the last,
00:06:19
you know, first quarter of this year.
00:06:20
It's gotten more severe even than what it was last year.
00:06:23
I think people are realizing that it's probably not going
00:06:28
back to some old way.
00:06:30
So let's kind of use that kind of foundation there and let's
00:06:36
talk about some different things .
00:06:38
And the one thing, right, that we all talk about things that we
00:06:42
all have grown up with, if you want to call it that, right,
00:06:45
that we all talk about things that we all have grown up with,
00:06:46
if you want to call it that the sales funnel right, we all think
00:06:48
of a sales funnel.
00:06:49
We've all had, I mean, we were all taught sales funnel.
00:06:51
We build pipeline, we manage our pipeline through our sales
00:06:55
funnel.
00:06:55
All of that I don't know if you touched on this on the webinar
00:06:59
or not, but we certainly have been touching on it recently is
00:07:02
that the sales funnel may be a thing of the past.
00:07:06
From a, from a sales strategy and a sales framework.
00:07:12
Let's sort of random what you know, kind of summarize what you
00:07:16
, when we talk about that, what does it mean that the sales
00:07:18
funnel is kind of obsolete and what is, what is the difference
00:07:23
and why?
00:07:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a.
00:07:24
It's a great question and it's a really important mindset shift
00:07:27
.
00:07:27
I mean, we talk a lot about the mindsets around what this
00:07:31
modern revenue generation looks like and a big part of it is the
00:07:35
mindset.
00:07:35
So the funnel is simple you got the top.
00:07:40
That's really wide and very narrow at the bottom and the
00:07:43
concept is get as many targeted audiences we can up at the top
00:07:47
and through this nurturing process, certain amount of
00:07:51
customers are going to emerge and we'll close those deals.
00:07:55
They'll have a dollar value, a deal value, and we can take a
00:08:00
look and say, ok, for every thousand people we put at the
00:08:03
top, we're going to get 10 customers.
00:08:05
Each customer's worth 50 grand.
00:08:06
We generate a half million dollars.
00:08:08
So how do we get a thousand people at the top of the funnel
00:08:12
for somewhere much less than a half million dollars to make
00:08:15
this thing profitable and all the other expenses and
00:08:17
everything?
00:08:19
The challenge with that is the motions, the actions that we've
00:08:24
done to get top of the funnel.
00:08:27
Traffic are proving to be less and less effective.
00:08:30
It's SEO, it's SEM, search engine marketing.
00:08:36
It's paid Google ads.
00:08:38
It's go out and buy the cold database and put in cold
00:08:42
sequences via email, blast everybody and then get the names
00:08:46
and phone numbers and hand it off to the sales team or the
00:08:49
account executives and start making the calls and any form of
00:08:55
that, even if it's a company like a lot of our people we talk
00:08:59
to in manufacturing, they don't have the other part, but they
00:09:03
know their targeted list and they start making calls.
00:09:06
The challenge with all of those top of funnel activities is that
00:09:10
they are more expensive, they take more time and they're
00:09:14
proving to be less and less effective.
00:09:16
So if we're thinking about the funnel, our data is all off.
00:09:23
Buyers are resistant to go into the top of your funnel and the
00:09:28
data is showing that buyers are now doing 80 to 90% of their
00:09:33
research without engaging with sellers.
00:09:36
The data is also showing we've had multiple guests on our show
00:09:41
talk about this that when asked and this is across lots of
00:09:46
different industries when asked buyers to rank order where they
00:09:51
want to get their information from and who they trust in
00:09:54
getting the information buyers or sellers, sales professionals,
00:09:59
the company website and the company content or information
00:10:04
ranks at the very bottom.
00:10:05
It's what they want to engage with the least and it's the
00:10:09
stuff that they have the least trust in.
00:10:11
So that puts us trying to fill the top of the funnel at a huge
00:10:18
disadvantage, and so that's why we say the funnel is, it's
00:10:23
ineffective, it's somewhat obsolete.
00:10:27
I mean, you can still try to think of it that way, but the
00:10:30
traditional functions of filling top of the funnel traffic,
00:10:34
throw up a landing page, create a white paper, create a case
00:10:37
study.
00:10:38
People are going to want to read our case study because
00:10:40
they're going to want to see how they could implement it too.
00:10:43
No, they don't, because they don't believe in your content.
00:10:48
Anyways, they don't trust your own content.
00:10:54
Speaker 2: And they may want to read that case study at a
00:10:55
certain point.
00:10:55
But it's maybe not a top of the funnel, quote unquote.
00:10:58
And again, we probably should be thinking about how we use
00:11:01
those words.
00:11:01
Maybe it's early in the journey and early in the relationship,
00:11:05
versus talking about top of funnel or bottom of funnel.
00:11:09
But what I'm hearing you say and I just want to make sure
00:11:13
this is really clear to everybody the sales motion,
00:11:17
marketing or sales, whatever you want to call it of let's go get
00:11:21
a bunch of prospects, put them through our process and hope
00:11:26
that some of them come out the bottom end is, if not completely
00:11:31
ineffective, is very inefficient at this point in our
00:11:36
career.
00:11:36
And I think, going back to what you said, I think most people
00:11:41
would agree with that.
00:11:41
But then they're like okay, but what the hell else am I going
00:11:45
to do?
00:11:45
Right, just throw in a challenge and say, screw it.
00:11:48
And I think that's where, again , we'll start talking about the
00:11:53
modern revenue flywheel and the pieces of that, but it's.
00:11:58
I guess what you're saying is, in order to really understand or
00:12:02
be able to take advantage of the modern revenue generation
00:12:05
approach, you have to be willing to let go of what we're doing
00:12:10
yesterday.
00:12:10
Is that accurate?
00:12:11
Speaker 3: It is, it is and it's a mindset shift.
00:12:14
And I think the other thing is, if we're willing to say the
00:12:18
funnel is challenged to, doesn't work, to obsolete somewhere
00:12:20
anywhere in that realm, to doesn't work to obsolete
00:12:21
somewhere anywhere in that realm , what are our options?
00:12:26
And we look to marketing and all the marketing activities SEO
00:12:31
, sem, more blogs, get higher page ranking, more ads, better
00:12:37
ads.
00:12:37
They're not working.
00:12:39
Okay, well, let's shift.
00:12:39
Maybe we need to put ads in Instagram, maybe our ads on
00:12:43
LinkedIn?
00:12:43
It's because it's LinkedIn, let's try it.
00:12:45
Like, all of those motions are not working.
00:12:48
But for marketers and I feel bad for the marketing team,
00:12:54
because they need to get data to prove their value the problem
00:12:57
is the data that they're forced to show isn't really good data.
00:13:01
Right, we're showing open rates on emails who cares what an
00:13:07
open rate is?
00:13:08
But it's the only thing, because they're not getting the
00:13:10
clicks.
00:13:10
What else did they have to show to make their activities look
00:13:15
like they're valuable?
00:13:16
Visits to the website I'm sorry , visits to the website don't
00:13:21
speak, don't mean nearly as much as what they used to.
00:13:25
So marketing's in a tough spot.
00:13:27
And then, from a sales leader perspective, you think and you
00:13:30
go well, what are our options.
00:13:31
Okay, well, there's social selling, and the problem with
00:13:35
that term is there's.
00:13:36
We've talked about this time and time again.
00:13:38
We have Mike Weinberg on.
00:13:40
We talked about the charlatans out there with their social
00:13:43
selling, snake oil solutions and all the lead gen solutions.
00:13:47
I get these messages all the time.
00:13:50
People don't even look at my own LinkedIn profile like, hey,
00:13:52
brandon, how would your business benefit if you got three to
00:13:55
five new leads every day without doing anything?
00:13:59
Wow, that sounds fantastic, but you know what it reminds me of?
00:14:02
It's too good to be true.
00:14:03
It probably is, and that is complete BS.
00:14:06
It doesn't work.
00:14:07
So you got these sales leaders that have tried some of those
00:14:11
things and they didn't work.
00:14:12
It's like okay, our MQLs are near zero.
00:14:16
The MQLs we do get are not good .
00:14:19
They're not really cued, they're not really qualified
00:14:22
leads, we're not doing anything with them.
00:14:23
Our sales team is still doing pretty good at converting from
00:14:28
their pipeline, but their pipeline is anemic.
00:14:30
What do we do?
00:14:32
Social selling we tried it.
00:14:34
It didn't work.
00:14:34
No magic there.
00:14:36
They're really in a tough spot and that's what leads us to the
00:14:39
flywheel.
00:14:51
And everything that we looked at is you know, over the last five
00:14:52
years, I'm like you know there's value in LinkedIn, but
00:14:53
and I tried the lead gen stuff I paid automation companies in
00:14:55
2016 to use my LinkedIn profile and do all that.
00:14:56
I pissed a bunch of people off.
00:14:57
I got my account suspended.
00:14:57
I didn't get the three to five leads every day.
00:15:00
The calls I did get weren't quality calls.
00:15:03
They were a waste of time.
00:15:05
You know, over the years I tried podcasts and POs weren't
00:15:09
magically falling out of the sky and so we kept adapting, kept
00:15:15
reinventing ourselves and I think over the last three, four
00:15:19
years, really in post-COVID, we started to see like what motions
00:15:24
are really working.
00:15:25
How is this?
00:15:26
And it's here's the ironic part .
00:15:28
I went back to the beginning of my career.
00:15:32
What did we do in the face-to-face environment?
00:15:35
Relationship building, networking don't be salesy,
00:15:41
salesy, pitchy, pitchy Actually build rapport with people, earn
00:15:46
the opportunity, actually behave like a trusted advisor and then
00:15:53
earn the opportunity to be perceived as a trusted advisor.
00:15:57
So I went back and looked at all of that and then said, well,
00:16:00
how do we apply this into this digital first environment?
00:16:03
How do we be that, like our friend Larry Levine talks about
00:16:07
no more empty suits, right Sell from the heart?
00:16:09
How do we do that in a digital manner.
00:16:14
How do we do that inside of LinkedIn?
00:16:16
And that's where the flywheel came about, and we've been
00:16:20
watching it succeed.
00:16:21
We're looking at the data for the clients that we serve.
00:16:24
We're watching our own business grow.
00:16:26
We got another team member that we sent out a job offer to just
00:16:30
today, adding another person to our team.
00:16:33
The good thing is, what we sell we actually use to fill our own
00:16:38
pipeline.
00:16:38
Can't be better than that, right.
00:16:41
Speaker 2: So let's back up a little bit on the relationship
00:16:44
part.
00:16:44
Is, you know, back in the day, right, when we were using most
00:16:52
everything we did was in person, or, you know, phone call.
00:16:53
But in person, right, we built relationships.
00:16:56
And inherently right, think about that, the more
00:16:59
relationships, the more healthy relationships you had, the more
00:17:03
momentum you had in your sales results.
00:17:05
I mean, that's the fact of the matter, right, but you didn't
00:17:08
build relationships overnight.
00:17:10
You didn't build relationships by making 4 phone calls and
00:17:15
hoping some.
00:17:15
You built relationships bit by bit, piece by piece, by doing
00:17:19
the right things and then, eventually, the momentum kept
00:17:21
going and going and going.
00:17:23
All of a sudden you have a really robust set of
00:17:26
relationships and apparently a robust pipeline.
00:17:29
You know, I know Carson, right.
00:17:31
He said one of his key indicators or key metrics that
00:17:34
he does with his team is how many relationships did you build
00:17:38
this week?
00:17:39
or how many new relationships that you build this week Real
00:17:42
relationships, not phone calls, but how many relationships that
00:17:45
you built.
00:17:45
So it seems like fundamentally, it's no different, right?
00:17:50
The fly wheel was created by building relationship, building
00:17:55
rapport, building value, in the digital or in the analog world.
00:17:58
We're now replicating that in the digital world and hopefully
00:18:02
doing that at higher scale and higher even efficiency than I
00:18:06
would have been able to do in the analog world.
00:18:09
Speaker 3: It seems like and less expensive and more
00:18:12
repeatable right.
00:18:13
Speaker 2: More scalable and more repeatable.
00:18:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, in the analog world, if we got in our car and
00:18:19
we drove around and go meet with customers, we could meet with
00:18:22
maybe four people in a day.
00:18:24
Maybe you throw a happy hour in the evening type of thing.
00:18:28
Maybe you get four to five people in a day.
00:18:31
If we take that face-to-face shaking hands, relationship
00:18:37
building, getting to know people , having good quality
00:18:40
conversations and slowing down the sales process to walk at the
00:18:45
buyer's pace, then we do that in a digital first way.
00:18:51
We could do that to hundreds of people in a single day.
00:18:55
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:18:56
Speaker 3: And that's where it really looks.
00:18:58
So, instead of looking at the funnel, we look at the matrix,
00:19:02
and a lot of the matrix stems from your book, tom, from the
00:19:05
Revenue Zone and what you built with the Revenue Zone Matrix,
00:19:10
but now we call it a relationship building matrix no
00:19:16
offense to Tom, it's just that's the term that makes sense to me
00:19:20
in my brain.
00:19:22
But if you look at the bottom axis, we still need to focus on
00:19:27
being known and liked and trusted In this digital world.
00:19:30
I like to say it's more.
00:19:31
Instead of the KLT, no, like and trusted I like to say it's
00:19:36
the LTR, it's like, trusted and remembered.
00:19:40
Because there's so much noise and there's so much competition,
00:19:44
we have to be remembered, and that's a big part of the sales
00:19:48
motions now.
00:19:49
And then, on the Y-axis, going up this side, we need to use the
00:19:56
actions that we can control.
00:19:58
What do we publish in form of content?
00:20:01
What do we do in the form of commenting?
00:20:04
Where do we comment?
00:20:06
Whose posts do we comment on to influence our target audience
00:20:11
and what that is designed to do?
00:20:13
That, the things that we say, the value we give, the way that
00:20:16
we help people, the way we capture their attention, is
00:20:19
moving them up the Y axis of building awareness to who we are
00:20:23
and what we do, building some interest in who we are and what
00:20:28
we do, and ultimately, the goal, of course, is creating demand.
00:20:31
And that's why two key phrases that drive what we do how do we
00:20:37
attract and retain customer attention?
00:20:40
And all we can do is the activities that we can control.
00:20:43
And then, how do we do that to create demand, instead of trying
00:20:51
to capture the existing demand that's out there?
00:20:53
And that's a big differentiator , because most sales
00:20:57
organizations are trying to capture existing demand, and
00:21:02
what that looks like is they're making calls and they're sending
00:21:04
emails going.
00:21:05
We do this.
00:21:06
Do you want a demo?
00:21:07
In a nutshell, we do this.
00:21:09
Do you want a demo?
00:21:09
If they're not currently in market, it's like get away,
00:21:14
you're bugging me.
00:21:14
It's like a fly, leave me alone .
00:21:16
I don't want to have that conversation right now, but when
00:21:21
we create demand and we're providing information, we're
00:21:25
providing data, we're providing tactics, solutions, ideas that
00:21:31
will help them do their job today, to perform better today,
00:21:36
to solve a problem today, to accomplish a goal today,
00:21:40
something that's more tactical and practical.
00:21:42
Well, they pay attention to it today, even if they're not
00:21:46
currently in market for your solution and that's how we
00:21:49
attract and we retain their attention.
00:21:51
We continually provide that value.
00:21:54
Now here's the challenge.
00:21:56
It's a lot of companies out there.
00:21:59
We use the words trusted advisor , we use it to customer centric
00:22:04
content.
00:22:05
We'll say that we provide added value content.
00:22:09
We use the right words, but the content you produce isn't
00:22:15
really it.
00:22:15
It's still about your company, it's still about your product,
00:22:21
it's still about your service, it's still more self-centered.
00:22:24
But just because we go oh, we got this trusted advisor piece
00:22:31
of content or this value add piece of content, just because
00:22:32
you call it value add, doesn't mean it really adds value to
00:22:34
them If your buyers are not engaging with it and they're not
00:22:36
going wow, this is interesting, thank you.
00:22:38
It's not it and you've got to change it.
00:22:43
And our challenge is we're so stuck in what we've done for so
00:22:48
long.
00:22:48
We talk about me and me, and me and me, again and more about me
00:22:52
, and then we wonder why our clients don't give a crap.
00:22:58
Speaker 2: It's interesting I was just thinking about I get a
00:23:02
bunch of emails all the time from companies that they deal
00:23:07
like with R&D tax credits, so I'll get emails saying you know
00:23:11
you need to R&D tax credit, call us for a discussion on how
00:23:15
we're going to make you a million.
00:23:16
I didn't, honestly, didn't really even know what an R&D tax
00:23:21
credit was or the relevance of it, right?
00:23:24
So I'm getting these emails that are basically trying to, as
00:23:26
you said, capture my demand right, or trying to capture my
00:23:30
interest and go through there.
00:23:31
I recently, though and I think I saw it on LinkedIn saw a
00:23:36
really good carousel discussing the value of R&D credits in a
00:23:43
business and I didn't fully especially a technology business
00:23:46
, and what they can do to your taxes and all kinds of things,
00:23:50
and it took me through in a simple way.
00:23:52
It didn't try and sell me a thing.
00:23:53
It was just like here's five reasons to be thinking about R&D
00:23:56
credits, and I came away enlightened, right.
00:24:00
I came away going oh okay, that was actually a relevant,
00:24:05
valuable thing, and now my attention is actually a little
00:24:10
bit not gigantic, but some of my attention is now on.
00:24:13
Should we be thinking about R&D credits?
00:24:15
Whereas and I'm not joking, I probably get 50 a week, 50
00:24:21
emails a week about R&D credits that I have completely ignored
00:24:24
and never even thought about.
00:24:25
Just like junk, junk, junk, junk, junk.
00:24:27
But now I got my attention on something and now it's actually
00:24:31
sticking my attention and so to some degree I'm now part of that
00:24:35
flywheel and putting those things together and Tom is the
00:24:39
company that provided that carousel.
00:24:42
Speaker 3: Are they at the top of your minds about R&D tax
00:24:45
credit?
00:24:45
I'm not there yet.
00:24:47
Speaker 2: actually I'm not even thinking so much about the
00:24:50
company, but I would know it again if I saw it on LinkedIn
00:24:54
and I would continue to look at them.
00:24:57
I'm not at the point where I'm on LinkedIn and I would consume
00:25:05
it as I see more of it.
00:25:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, so they attracted your attention.
00:25:10
And now if they stop like we try to carousel and we didn't
00:25:14
get a bunch of POs magically falling out of the sky and they
00:25:18
stop they're never going to retain your attention.
00:25:20
But if they keep going, right and they're more strategic with
00:25:25
it.
00:25:25
So if you were on their targeted list and they had sales
00:25:28
people or customer success people or anybody on their
00:25:31
revenue team that was consistently posting this stuff,
00:25:35
maybe they had a podcast and they're talking about the
00:25:38
different ways.
00:25:39
Maybe they're bringing in a guest on their show that talks
00:25:42
about how they used R&D credits to fund a new position or
00:25:47
something like that.
00:25:48
That's the type of stuff that gets our attention because like,
00:25:51
oh, I can do that, oh, that's interesting, that pertains to me
00:25:55
.
00:25:55
But when it's pitchy, pitchy, salesy, salesy, we're all
00:25:59
conditioned now to just ignore it.
00:26:22
Speaker 2: You don't need it.
00:26:23
That relates to them.
00:26:23
They don't know I exist.
00:26:25
As I see more content, my logical thing could be following
00:26:29
them, following somebody on LinkedIn subscribing to some
00:26:33
content, possibly, who knows right, I don't even know which
00:26:38
yellow brick road I would be following as I go through there,
00:26:41
but now there's somebody again, there's momentum and eventually
00:26:46
, whether it's me or somebody else, it's going to pop out the
00:26:49
top of that and there's going to be a reasonable opportunity for
00:26:53
them.
00:26:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, so let's take a step backwards from the matrix,
00:26:58
because there's four steps we like to look at at how we help
00:27:04
encourage our buyers to move through the funnel, so to speak.
00:27:08
But we call it to the top right of the matrix.
00:27:11
Let's take a step back because you said something really
00:27:14
important there the way buyers behave.
00:27:17
Because we can, we allow and everybody.
00:27:22
Think about you as a buyer.
00:27:23
You might be a sales professional, you might be a CEO
00:27:25
, you might be on the marketing side, but think about you as a
00:27:28
buyer.
00:27:28
What do we do?
00:27:30
Well, we allow certain people close to us, and what that looks
00:27:36
like is we opt into their newsletters, we follow them on
00:27:40
LinkedIn, we connect with them on LinkedIn, we subscribe to
00:27:44
different podcasts, we subscribe to YouTube channels.
00:27:48
We allow the people we want to come into our lives and then we
00:27:54
assign them words.
00:27:55
They're experts, they're a trusted advisor, they're a
00:27:59
speaker in our industry, they're a top voice, they're
00:28:02
influential, they're a consultant, whatever.
00:28:04
We let them into our world.
00:28:06
And we let them in our world through a medium a podcast, a
00:28:14
YouTube channel, a newsletter list.
00:28:16
We follow them on LinkedIn, we hit the bell and we get notified
00:28:20
every time they publish something, because we like the
00:28:23
content that they share because it adds value.
00:28:25
It's worth my time to ring this bell and get notified every
00:28:30
time so-and-so publishes content , because I find value in it.
00:28:34
That's the way we let people into our lives and we keep other
00:28:39
people out.
00:28:41
When was the last time you answered a call from an unknown
00:28:44
number?
00:28:44
We actually have these cool things on our phones now.
00:28:48
That'll say possible spam telemarketer.
00:28:52
It's not even unknown, it just says man, this is a spam caller.
00:28:56
Nope, nope, nope.
00:28:58
We don't answer the phone.
00:28:59
We get cold email all the time.
00:29:02
When was the last time anybody checked their spam folder or
00:29:05
their junk folder?
00:29:06
We don't care anymore.
00:29:07
There's so much coming in I don't even bother.
00:29:09
10 years ago I used to look in there and go maybe something
00:29:12
important got through.
00:29:13
I'm over it.
00:29:14
We're all over it.
00:29:15
We don't pay attention to email that did get through into our
00:29:19
inbox and we don't know who it's from and we can see the preview
00:29:23
and we know our own human spam filter.
00:29:25
We know, based on the first sentence, that it's cold and
00:29:29
trying to get our attention.
00:29:30
There's all these different strategies that people are
00:29:32
trying to do, but the bottom line is all of those messages to
00:29:36
us as a buyer, all those messages to your buyers.
00:29:39
You're trying to get that one to three percent of people that
00:29:43
are currently in market.
00:29:45
But all that action, all that behavior you do, all that energy
00:29:51
you spend is only after one to 3%.
00:29:53
What if?
00:29:55
Just what if?
00:29:57
What if you had content that was extremely valuable to 100%
00:30:03
of your target audience today because it was teaching them
00:30:07
something.
00:30:07
It was showing them how teaching them something.
00:30:08
It was showing them how to do something.
00:30:09
It was telling them something they should be aware of,
00:30:13
something they should be planning for?
00:30:15
What if it was doing that?
00:30:18
And then we're sharing that in LinkedIn every day or
00:30:22
consistently.
00:30:23
Your team members are sharing that into LinkedIn every day.
00:30:27
You have a podcast or a live show where you're talking about
00:30:31
this on a regular basis.
00:30:32
Your CEO is speaking about this on LinkedIn on a regular basis.
00:30:37
Now, all of a sudden, you create a brand.
00:30:40
You have a culture that is seen as a brand that educates the
00:30:46
industry.
00:30:47
Who gets the most demand?
00:30:51
Where are people going to go when they're in market?
00:30:55
So we got to take a step back.
00:30:58
I appreciate that you brought that up and I call that the
00:31:00
circle of trust, the buyer circle of trust.
00:31:03
We all allow in who we want in.
00:31:06
We allow them to come in the way we want.
00:31:08
I love podcasts.
00:31:10
I'm not as huge on YouTube channels.
00:31:12
I like TikTok.
00:31:15
I'm not a big fan of Facebook and, of course, I love LinkedIn.
00:31:19
So I let people in my life through those different mediums,
00:31:24
but I choose who I let into my life through those different
00:31:27
mediums.
00:31:27
And our buyers all do the same thing.
00:31:29
So the question for all of us is C-suite as marketing leaders,
00:31:32
as sales leaders, as sales professionals, what are you
00:31:36
doing to earn the invitation into your buyer circle of trust?
00:31:40
And if you're not doing any of those activities, well, that's
00:31:46
why your pipeline is anemic.
00:31:50
Speaker 2: I think let's stop right there, because emails and
00:31:56
phone calls are not likely going to earn your way into that
00:32:00
circle of trust, no matter how many you send, right?
00:32:04
If I send you 5 or one, probably the 5th email is
00:32:09
not going to earn me into your circle of trust.
00:32:11
That's there.
00:32:15
So let's go back then to what do you do, right?
00:32:23
Because let's face it as a sales organization or a market,
00:32:26
we have to have some system.
00:32:27
It can't just be all art.
00:32:28
We have to have some science, and we talk about a flywheel,
00:32:33
right?
00:32:33
So the whole idea here is to be able to create a flywheel, not
00:32:37
just for an individual but for an organization, right?
00:32:40
And of which the individuals are going to be part of that
00:32:43
organization, but the organization has a flywheel that
00:32:47
is building momentum, building relationships.
00:32:50
More and more people are inviting them into their trusted
00:32:53
circle.
00:32:54
As that happens, the momentum continues to have the I mean,
00:32:58
you see this every day and then that leads to healthy
00:33:01
connections and positive phone calls and, ultimately,
00:33:04
opportunities.
00:33:05
And it all kind of happens organically.
00:33:07
It happens naturally.
00:33:08
It's not forced, it's not oh my God, I pulled that guy into a
00:33:12
demo or whatever.
00:33:12
It just happens along the way.
00:33:15
So what are the key ingredients , then, at a high level, what
00:33:18
are the key ingredients that we've learned, you've learned,
00:33:22
make up that flywheel, that cause it to spin.
00:33:24
And what happens if you don't, if you use part of those
00:33:28
ingredients, or you know we need all of the ingredients to get
00:33:33
the flywheel to really for our organization.
00:33:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's a.
00:33:38
That's a great question and a good setup for this.
00:33:41
And look, I think with most companies, start with a proof of
00:33:45
concept and start small Change is scary.
00:33:48
Digital transformation is scary .
00:33:50
This is the epitome of digital transformation.
00:33:53
Right?
00:33:53
Our buyers have shifted.
00:33:55
2024 is the year or two, and I forget the number.
00:33:59
It's like millennial buyers are going to be responsible now for
00:34:04
like $3 trillion worth of buying decisions, and millennial
00:34:09
buyers like 70 some percent of them prefer a digital only
00:34:14
buying experience.
00:34:15
That should scare a lot of organizations.
00:34:18
That should make a lot of organizations go.
00:34:20
Wait a minute, because millennials don't want to be
00:34:24
bothered with your sales team and they don't care to be
00:34:26
entertained at lunch.
00:34:26
They don't want to be bothered with your sales team and they
00:34:27
don't care to be entertained at lunch.
00:34:29
They don't care to have tickets to go to the ball game, like
00:34:33
all the motions that we used to do are not as important to them.
00:34:38
So what do we do?
00:34:39
We start with the mindset shift that we have to acknowledge
00:34:45
that a lot of this is out of our control.
00:34:48
We can't expect if I do A plus B, it's going to equal C and
00:34:55
it's not the quick 30 day.
00:34:57
If I make five calls to the same person, I'm going to get
00:35:01
certain percent of people to recall.
00:35:03
Those.
00:35:03
Numbers are all over the place now.
00:35:05
They're not consistent.
00:35:06
So we got to change the mindset to we are going to attract and
00:35:12
retain customer attention as a way to create demand and we're
00:35:16
going to be patient.
00:35:17
And I know that's really, really hard for a lot of sales
00:35:19
organizations.
00:35:20
They don't want to be patient.
00:35:21
At the end of 30 days, we need to do this.
00:35:23
At the end of 90 days, we need to do this.
00:35:25
We've got to trust the process.
00:35:28
And so number one is the mindset shift.
00:35:31
Number two is what's a proof of concept?
00:35:34
Look, I think there's five key cogs in the flywheel.
00:35:43
We see a lot of our customers will start somewhere.
00:35:45
They'll start with one, maybe two, and see how it goes and
00:35:48
then expand to a third, to the point where they go okay, we got
00:35:51
this, this is making sense.
00:35:53
And they'll add a fourth and maybe a fifth.
00:35:54
But those, those key cogs are.
00:35:58
Number one is your LinkedIn leader, preferably your C-suite.
00:36:02
It's the same mindset of when you go to an event you want your
00:36:07
CEO there and preferably you're you're event.
00:36:10
You want your CEO there and preferably you're with the
00:36:13
company, who your CEO walks down the aisles and people are like,
00:36:15
ah, there she is, there he is.
00:36:16
They know everybody, they're shaking hands, ah, good to see
00:36:17
you.
00:36:17
They have a reputation because as sales producers you get to
00:36:22
leverage that reputation right.
00:36:25
You get to say hey, you know, we're going to have a meeting,
00:36:27
I'll have our CEO come in.
00:36:28
Oh yeah, I know, you know, I've seen them, they've been on
00:36:30
stage, they've been, whatever.
00:36:31
So number one is your LinkedIn.
00:36:33
We call it your LinkedIn leader .
00:36:34
That a leader is leading the way with a consistent strategy
00:36:39
and implementation and a presence on LinkedIn.
00:36:42
They're sharing content, they're commenting, they're
00:36:44
building a reputation for themselves and therefore the
00:36:46
brand many.
00:36:47
They're building a reputation for themselves and therefore the
00:36:50
brand.
00:36:50
That's one gear.
00:36:52
The next gear we call the social, the digital evangelist
00:37:00
mastery.
00:37:00
How do we then equip and train the team?
00:37:01
Put in some guardrails, because we can't just make LinkedIn all
00:37:03
this carte blanche.
00:37:05
But from a POC standpoint, maybe you take a couple of people on
00:37:08
your team and you train them and you implement how to do this
00:37:11
and see how it works for them.
00:37:13
Compare their pipeline to the other team members pipeline.
00:37:16
Give it, give it six months and compare.
00:37:19
Give it 90 days and do a comparison.
00:37:21
But this is individual producers that are selling in
00:37:25
this way.
00:37:25
They're they're relationship first.
00:37:27
They're creating content, they're commenting, they're
00:37:30
going slow through the process, they're looking at building
00:37:32
healthy relationships.
00:37:34
They're sharing content that's very, very much customer-centric
00:37:39
as a goal of get people to go.
00:37:41
You know, that's really interesting.
00:37:42
I'd want to talk to you and learn more about it.
00:37:44
They're not asking for a sales demo.
00:37:46
They're saying you keep sharing stuff.
00:37:49
That's really interesting.
00:37:50
I'd love to talk to you about it because it helps me as we
00:37:54
move them down that path.
00:37:54
So maybe we start with a couple of people on the team.
00:37:58
The other option is we start with a live show and a podcast,
00:38:03
and I know there's a lot of companies out there that said,
00:38:07
oh, we tried a live show or we tried a podcast, we tried a
00:38:09
YouTube channel and it didn't work.
00:38:11
I think a lot of people thought that if they just did a show,
00:38:16
that it would magically create POs, and they didn't really do
00:38:20
the nuance of how do you then leverage the content?
00:38:23
How do you strategize who your guests are?
00:38:26
How do you strategize what you do with the show besides just
00:38:30
record it?
00:38:30
But a live show and podcast is equivalent to paying big
00:38:35
sponsorship dollars for your big event of the year so that you
00:38:40
can have breakout sessions or get your CEO on stage.
00:38:43
A live show and a podcast gives you a weekly stage that you can
00:38:48
fill the room.
00:38:49
You constantly have a room to invite people to and you're
00:38:53
constantly able to adjust the content in order to find what
00:38:57
your buyers are interested in and what is it that's going to
00:39:00
add value to them.
00:39:02
And the last two cogs.
00:39:03
So those are three.
00:39:04
We got your leader, we got your team members or individuals on
00:39:07
your team, you got the live show and podcast.
00:39:08
We have the webinar right.
00:39:11
The webinar is a really good gear in this because we go back
00:39:17
to the matrix.
00:39:18
Our four steps are healthy connections, a willingness to
00:39:23
converse or engage.
00:39:25
So maybe they do get on a call with you and have a chat.
00:39:28
Maybe they start to engage with your content, with their
00:39:31
comments and ask questions and ask for clarity.
00:39:33
But the third step is a desire to learn.
00:39:36
If our buyers if the data is true and they do 80 to 90% of
00:39:42
their research before they ever want to talk to us.
00:39:44
A webinar is a great way to help them move from step two to
00:39:49
step three.
00:39:51
They can still be in the anonymous zone.
00:39:53
Mostly they register for your webinar.
00:39:56
It doesn't mean they have to accept their emails and all the
00:39:58
other stuff, but they can register and they can sign up.
00:40:01
They can watch your webinar live, or maybe they watch the
00:40:05
recording, but they're using it to educate themselves.
00:40:08
But they still want to do it in an anonymous way.
00:40:10
They still want to be back.
00:40:11
They don't want to be bothered.
00:40:12
So that's the fourth gear is the webinar, and just do a plug for
00:40:18
us.
00:40:18
We've got our next webinar coming up on April 18th.
00:40:20
We just did one last week with Carson.
00:40:22
We got one coming up on April 18th and we're talking to the
00:40:26
marketing people in that one.
00:40:27
How do you create content that your team wants to share and
00:40:34
actually adds value to them in building pipeline?
00:40:37
That's what we're going to talk about and we're going to just
00:40:39
tell everybody like this is what we do, this is how you do it.
00:40:42
Go do it for yourself.
00:40:43
And oh, by the way, if you want help, we'd love to help you,
00:40:46
but it's a webinar.
00:40:47
That's just going here.
00:40:48
Do this, implement this for yourself.
00:40:51
We're adding value to people.
00:40:53
And the last gear is what we call the booth magnet.
00:40:56
How do we do all these things around a specific event in order
00:41:01
to get people walking in our booth going?
00:41:03
I've seen you guys all over LinkedIn.
00:41:06
I've seen you all over YouTube.
00:41:08
I've been paying attention to your podcast.
00:41:10
I knew you're going to be at the show.
00:41:11
I want to talk to you.
00:41:13
How do we create demand and use all those same demand creation
00:41:18
activities or those demand generation activities focused on
00:41:22
a very specific event?
00:41:23
So those are the five gears of the flywheel.
00:41:26
And for somebody to start, I mean start where it's most
00:41:29
comfortable.
00:41:30
We have a customer right now where the president of a company
00:41:34
said I know I need to be more active on LinkedIn, but I really
00:41:38
don't know what to do and I don't have time.
00:41:39
We moved them into our concierge program where we
00:41:43
started working with them and then, as they started to
00:41:46
experience some of the benefits of it, they're like I think we
00:41:50
need to do a live show and podcast too, and they started to
00:41:53
implement that and that's a pretty normal, typical path for
00:41:57
a lot of companies.
00:41:58
Because we got to do the POC, we got to get them comfortable
00:42:01
because this change is tough.
00:42:04
Speaker 2: Well, but let's you know, lots of companies right do
00:42:08
webinars.
00:42:08
I mean there's tons of webinars out there and tons of companies
00:42:13
also obviously go to shows and do live shows and have booths
00:42:17
and stuff like that.
00:42:18
I think and you certainly, I think is a good witness to this
00:42:22
last week with the webinar.
00:42:24
Most of the time again, the more traditional ways of dealing
00:42:28
with webinar I go mail my list and I invite them to the webinar
00:42:31
.
00:42:31
But what you're talking about here is using the webinar as
00:42:36
part of a bigger holistic strategy so that when people end
00:42:41
up at the webinar they're already slightly interested.
00:42:45
There's already some relevance 's already some relevance.
00:42:47
You have some relevance to them .
00:42:48
You've already maybe even been invited into their circle of
00:42:51
trust.
00:42:52
And so the quality of the webinar.
00:42:55
I mean I think you last week said you had what?
00:42:57
160 signups but 80.
00:42:59
Some people showed up 80.
00:43:02
I mean over 50.
00:43:02
That's gigantic.
00:43:04
I mean most webinars at best get a 25 to 30 percent show up
00:43:09
rate for the people that actually sign up.
00:43:13
So that shows that people were actually excited and interested
00:43:18
to attend, because not of necessarily the webinar itself,
00:43:22
but because of what was done prior to the webinar through the
00:43:25
flywheel and so forth.
00:43:28
Speaker 3: And that's where, if you, if you look at these five
00:43:30
gears, you know LinkedIn leader, the team live show and podcast
00:43:36
your webinars and then around a booth, as those all start moving
00:43:40
, all of this moves faster and it starts moving people through
00:43:43
it a lot faster.
00:43:44
And what you were saying practically is our show.
00:43:48
What we're on right now builds, capture, creates, attracts and
00:43:54
retains customer attention.
00:43:56
Because we're not selling, we're teaching, we're showing
00:44:00
people how to do things.
00:44:01
We bring great guests on that show them how to do things.
00:44:03
We bring a lot of guests on that are our competitors.
00:44:05
We're just like hey, you're doing good stuff, tell everybody
00:44:08
how to do it.
00:44:08
So we have a show and it attracts and retains their
00:44:13
attention.
00:44:13
And then, from the show, we talk about the webinars and the
00:44:17
webinars we still teach them how to do things, but we go a
00:44:21
little bit deeper.
00:44:23
And then meanwhile, I'm very active on LinkedIn and I don't
00:44:26
sell from LinkedIn.
00:44:27
I provide content that helps people in their day to day.
00:44:31
I build healthy conversations with people that lead to talks
00:44:36
and Zooms and teams meetings and we got those three cogs plus
00:44:40
the team is doing their stuff and we got that cog and we
00:44:44
currently don't go to events.
00:44:45
We do a lot of events for clients, but we don't go to our
00:44:48
own events to exhibit right now, so that clogs cogs just sitting
00:44:51
there, that gears just sitting there, but when all of those
00:44:55
start working together.
00:44:56
That's why we do things with our webinar and we get 160
00:45:01
people to register and 84 peaked people attended.
00:45:06
And you know what?
00:45:07
We went long last week and at the 50 minute mark we still had
00:45:15
79 people in there.
00:45:16
We were providing such valuable information that people stayed
00:45:23
and they wanted to keep learning .
00:45:25
We've created a brand, I believe , where we give and train and
00:45:30
coach and provide so much value that people were willing to
00:45:33
stick around a bit longer if they could.
00:45:35
And that's the flywheel, and you've got to trust the process,
00:45:40
though.
00:45:41
We're not salesy, salesy, pitchy, pitchy ever, but our
00:45:46
pipelines are full.
00:45:47
Our growth is fast.
00:45:50
I mean I I think this next month we're going to have
00:45:53
another 100 growth month because the amount of new business
00:45:57
that's coming in and it's we sell by not selling.
00:46:02
We sell by being valuable to people and there's enough
00:46:06
customers out there that go.
00:46:07
I really like this.
00:46:08
I need your help and that's what we do.
00:46:12
Speaker 2: They feel safe to ask for your help, right?
00:46:15
I think that's a key thing is that if you get invited into the
00:46:18
circle of trust, then it's okay to ask for help and they don't
00:46:22
feel like it's a safe thing to ask for help.
00:46:25
Even if they're not ready to buy at this exact moment.
00:46:28
They're willing, they know they can have a conversation or get
00:46:30
some information without a hard sell or a hard pitch all the way
00:46:34
along the line.
00:46:35
I want to emphasize one thing here.
00:46:38
I know we're kind of moving along on time here, but I want
00:46:41
to emphasize one thing At the end of the day, a lot of the
00:46:45
same sales metrics, right.
00:46:47
What are the opportunities?
00:46:48
What are the 30, 60, 90 day opportunities?
00:46:51
What are the probability?
00:46:53
All of those things still exist here, right.
00:46:55
We still need to manage and track and forecast and do all of
00:47:00
those things.
00:47:00
What we're finding is our ability to more accurately
00:47:06
forecast, have higher quality forecasts that are not just well
00:47:11
, we hope through.
00:47:12
This model is much, much better , and that when people do move
00:47:16
into an opportunity, their probability of closing and
00:47:19
becoming a customer are much higher than if they move into an
00:47:23
opportunity from a less relationship centcentric
00:47:27
approach, right.
00:47:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, and let's break that down for people.
00:47:31
This is a part that if you want to show your CEO or you want to
00:47:35
show your CMO or your sales leader that this social selling
00:47:39
thing isn't just willy-nilly social, here's the steps.
00:47:44
We start with a list of either named accounts or a targeted
00:47:49
list of leads that you want to focus on and we go find them
00:47:54
inside of LinkedIn and what they're doing.
00:47:56
Now we still have the database.
00:47:58
We can email them and we can call them.
00:48:00
We're not saying don't do that.
00:48:02
You can get on a plane and go visit them.
00:48:04
You can call them and say I'm going to be in your neighborhood
00:48:06
, can I take you to lunch?
00:48:08
All of that still applies.
00:48:09
But we start with that list and we look at the four steps and
00:48:15
we can assign probability based on each step, like we would do
00:48:19
in any CRM.
00:48:20
Number one is do we develop a healthy connection?
00:48:22
And we define that.
00:48:24
A healthy connection isn't just did they accept my connection
00:48:27
request.
00:48:27
A healthy connection isn't just did they accept my connection
00:48:28
request.
00:48:29
A healthy connection is more of did they like any of our
00:48:32
content?
00:48:33
Did we comment on something that they've commented on?
00:48:36
Did they comment on something that we've commented on?
00:48:38
Did we both comment on a post?
00:48:41
And when we send the connection request, was it personal?
00:48:46
Did we have a little bit of a chat and how that looks?
00:48:51
Hey, tom, you and I keep commenting on Seth Godin's post.
00:48:57
I love what you said about XYZ on his post.
00:49:00
The other day.
00:49:01
I looked at your profile.
00:49:03
I see we're not connected.
00:49:04
Is it okay for us to be connections?
00:49:06
And if he accepts it and it says yeah, I saw that comment
00:49:12
too.
00:49:12
That was great, appreciate you.
00:49:14
I'd love to be connected.
00:49:15
We say thanks for connecting, have a great day, be done, don't
00:49:20
be salesy, salesy, pitchy, pitchy.
00:49:22
Well, guess what?
00:49:23
We hit the healthy Yep.
00:49:26
Our next goal with that person is willingness to converse or
00:49:30
engage.
00:49:31
As we are publishing content and we're commenting on posts
00:49:36
that they're probably looking at , maybe they're reacting to,
00:49:42
maybe they're commenting on.
00:49:43
Do they comment on anything that we do?
00:49:46
Do they comment on our post?
00:49:48
Do they like our post?
00:49:50
Do they routinely view our profile, all those things?
00:49:53
We can quantify that data and then we can move them into that
00:49:58
stage.
00:49:58
If they comment on my content, I move them to that stage.
00:50:02
They have a willingness to converse or engage.
00:50:06
And then what I do is we say let's ask them for a chat, and I
00:50:11
use that word intentionally because we're still not selling.
00:50:15
If we start to move into sales motions too early, buyers are
00:50:19
like skittish cats I'm out, don't sell to me, I'm out.
00:50:24
So we don't.
00:50:25
We don't have a demo, we don't have a sales call, we have a
00:50:29
chat.
00:50:29
Hey, it's been so great getting to know you, tom, online.
00:50:32
We keep commenting on the same stuff.
00:50:34
I appreciate your comment on my post the other day.
00:50:36
Would you be open to a get to know each other call, just a
00:50:38
chat, no agenda, and you got to mean it.
00:50:41
You've have to mean that.
00:50:42
No agenda.
00:50:42
This is networking, is what we talked about at the very
00:50:47
beginning today.
00:50:48
This is networking, this is relationship building.
00:50:51
We're earning the opportunity and if they want to get on a
00:50:54
chat and we get to know them hey , we're at step three of the
00:50:57
four then we can invite them to one of our webinars.
00:51:00
We can start sending them links to post to shows.
00:51:06
Hey, tom, we're doing this show on this episode and I know, as
00:51:11
a founder of a tech company, this might be really valuable
00:51:13
for you.
00:51:14
I'd love for you to come if you can.
00:51:16
And Tom responds you know what?
00:51:18
Oh, I can't make it at that time, but is it going to be
00:51:21
recorded?
00:51:21
Yeah, I'll be glad to send you the link when we're done, moving
00:51:26
them on to that fourth step, as we're sharing content and I'm
00:51:31
not saying never ask them for the sales call.
00:51:33
This isn't passive, but make sure that we're doing it at the
00:51:37
right time.
00:51:37
And we got, sometimes we, I've done it, I've tried selling too
00:51:41
soon, and then I'm like hello, hello, ah crap, scared them off.
00:51:49
Speaker 2: Sell too soon.
00:51:50
A lot of times they'll reach back to you even before you're
00:51:52
there.
00:51:52
Right, it's like you know.
00:51:53
You never know when that moment is going to happen, and that
00:51:57
moment can happen organically at a lot of different places along
00:51:59
that point can happen organically at a lot of
00:52:01
different places along that point.
00:52:02
Speaker 3: And here's a big, important part of the tactic,
00:52:06
and I get questioned this a lot.
00:52:07
People say you know, brandon, you do a lot of selfie posts,
00:52:12
like I do.
00:52:13
Do you read the content?
00:52:15
Well, yeah, you have really good content, but why do you do
00:52:17
selfies?
00:52:17
Because you paid attention to it.
00:52:21
I was showing somebody today I'm like just started going through
00:52:24
my feed of post there was one that I did in the airport on a
00:52:29
trip selfie Dunkin' Donuts in the background, big line of
00:52:38
people waiting for coffee.
00:52:39
But my message was about creating demand versus
00:52:40
attracting or capturing demand.
00:52:41
And it was right around the Super Bowl and the other
00:52:44
Dunkin's commercial.
00:52:45
And I talked about creating demand.
00:52:48
Well, that selfie picture helps connect, helps capture human
00:52:54
attention.
00:52:55
And then the content if it's valuable to them, they keep
00:52:59
reading it, they pay attention and go wow, that's interesting.
00:53:01
And it was one of my highest performing.
00:53:05
You know I'll share everybody.
00:53:07
It was a little over 5 views, had 60, some comments on
00:53:12
it.
00:53:13
It was one of the best ones I had over the first quarter.
00:53:17
I'm not one of those guys that get 50 views on every post.
00:53:20
I'm.
00:53:20
You know good post for me is about a thousand to 1400, a
00:53:23
really good post.
00:53:24
It's that five to 6.
00:53:26
Occasionally I hit something that hits a 10 to 12 range.
00:53:37
But that human element is so important in moving people down
00:53:39
your four path of the matrix because they still need to know
00:53:40
us, they still need to like us, they still need to like us, they
00:53:42
still need to trust us and if we're not showing some of our
00:53:45
human side, we're not showing some of our personality, we're
00:53:48
not showing like, who are we when we're not working, we're
00:53:52
missing out on what we always did offline, which was hey, tom,
00:53:58
what do you have?
00:53:58
What you know?
00:53:59
Happy Monday.
00:54:00
Why Did you have a good weekend ?
00:54:01
What'd you do?
00:54:01
My family had a reunion and we did this.
00:54:05
Oh, that's really cool.
00:54:06
How big's your family?
00:54:07
Right, we talk about those things.
00:54:10
So if we're not leading with those inside of LinkedIn and
00:54:13
again, I'm not, please do not hear Brandon said LinkedIn is
00:54:17
Facebook.
00:54:17
No, but business has never been purely business.
00:54:23
Business has always been personal I'll jump off that
00:54:27
soapbox because I like that soapbox flywheel is fueled
00:54:44
ultimately through the relationship.
00:54:45
Speaker 2: The relationship is fueled by your ability to build
00:54:47
and attract and retain attention with somebody and then use that
00:54:50
as a way to build relevance.
00:54:51
And again, the flywheel does this more at scale.
00:54:54
So we're not doing one relationship a year or something
00:54:58
, but we're constantly building more and more relationships,
00:55:01
more and more just healthy connections all the things that
00:55:04
you just went through and it just naturally starts building
00:55:07
the momentum.
00:55:08
And once it reaches a critical mass of momentum, then we're
00:55:13
inherently building pipeline that we can predictably forecast
00:55:17
and put into place.
00:55:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, and there's an acceleration factor to that too,
00:55:22
and what that looks like is I shared the four steps of the
00:55:26
matrix.
00:55:26
Some people come to my awareness at step three.
00:55:33
We didn't even intentionally move them to step.
00:55:35
Get them to step one.
00:55:37
Step zero, step one.
00:55:38
Step two they come in and I get a direct mail, direct message
00:55:42
from somebody on LinkedIn that says hey, brandon, been
00:55:44
following your show, love your content, you captured my
00:55:48
attention.
00:55:48
We were talking about creating demand versus capturing demand.
00:55:52
Can we have a talk?
00:55:53
Absolutely.
00:55:55
They come in at step three because, as you talk about in
00:55:59
your book, they sit in the anonymous zone and they're
00:56:02
researching and they're watching , they're reading, they're
00:56:05
listening, they're watching shows, they're reading, they're
00:56:08
doing all that and then, when they pop into your life, they're
00:56:11
further down the matrix than you know.
00:56:13
Yep.
00:56:16
Speaker 2: All right.
00:56:16
Well, this has been a lot of information, a lot of really
00:56:20
good information.
00:56:21
It was a firehose day yeah, a firehose day, but I do think it
00:56:28
sets the foundation Definitely.
00:56:29
Maybe you can drop it in the LinkedIn comment, brandon, the
00:56:32
replay to the webinar, because I have a feeling there's a lot of
00:56:35
much deeper information from your Carson webinar last week
00:56:39
that people can find, and if someone wants to connect with
00:56:44
you and learn more, where should they do?
00:56:46
That Is our is our final guest tonight.
00:56:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely Well , the.
00:56:50
You know I'm on LinkedIn and everybody knows that.
00:56:53
You can find me on Mastering Modern Selling LinkedIn page.
00:56:57
You can go to Brandon Lee, which is the forward slash is
00:57:00
Brandon Lee digital on LinkedIn and, like you want to, you want
00:57:07
to learn anything about what we do?
00:57:08
We have nothing to hide.
00:57:09
Go to get fist bumpscom.
00:57:09
We even put our pricing on there.
00:57:10
Like I, we know the way buyers behave.
00:57:12
You guys want everything crystal clear right in front of
00:57:15
you so you can make a decision without having to talk to us.
00:57:18
It's all right there.
00:57:21
Speaker 2: Transparency.
00:57:22
Speaker 3: Transparency.
00:57:24
Speaker 2: All right, well, thanks everybody.
00:57:25
Thank you, brandon.
00:57:27
Really good stuff.
00:57:28
This is one to kind of listen to a couple of times, I think.
00:57:32
Speaker 3: Thanks, tom, and thanks everybody else.
00:57:33
Look, I appreciate the opportunity to be a guest on our
00:57:36
own show because we got a lot of really good stuff to share.
00:57:40
We've been learning a lot, especially in the last 18 months
00:57:43
, and this flywheel isn't like something we made up.
00:57:48
This flywheel came about as we were just looking for it.
00:57:53
Speaker 2: It was discovered versus developed, I think.
00:57:56
It was discovered because that's what actually was working
00:57:59
.
00:58:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, we just kept going where the data was leading
00:58:02
us, what's working and the flywheel appeared, and now we're
00:58:06
just sharing it with everybody.
00:58:09
Speaker 2: All right, thanks again.
00:58:10
Thanks everybody, have a good week and we will see you next
00:58:13
week on Mastering Modern Selling .
00:58:16
Speaker 3: Bye everybody.
00:58:36
Speaker 1: Thanks so much you to help us improve.
00:58:38
Stay tuned for our next episode , where we will continue to
00:58:41
uncover modern strategies shaping today's business
00:58:44
landscape.
00:58:44
Learn more about Fistbump and our concierge service at
00:58:47
GetFistbumpscom.
00:58:49
Mastering modern revenue creation with Fistbump, where
00:58:52
relationships, social and AI meet in the buyer-centric age.