In an enlightening episode of Mastering Modern Selling, Samantha McKenna, CEO of #SamSales Consulting, brings her vibrant energy and unmatched expertise to the table.
As a veteran in enterprise sales with a rich background including leading roles at major corporations like LinkedIn, McKenna offers a fresh perspective on sales strategies that break the conventional mold.
Here are five essential insights she shared, designed to elevate the sales experience:
- The Delayed Thank-You Tactic: McKenna introduces a subtle yet powerful technique called the 'delayed thank-you.' Instead of immediately responding with gratitude after a proposal submission, she suggests waiting until the promised follow-up time. This tactic ingeniously nudges the client to remember and honor their commitment, increasing the likelihood of a timely response.
- Proactive Calendar Management: To combat the common issue of unresponsive prospects post-initial agreement, McKenna recommends proactively scheduling meetings for a future date, giving clients an easy way to confirm or reschedule. This assertive approach minimizes limbo and boosts the efficiency of securing important sales discussions.
- Humanizing Sales Interactions: Emphasizing manners and authenticity, McKenna advises sales professionals to humanize their interactions. By prioritizing genuine communication and avoiding salesy jargon, sellers can foster better relationships and stand out in a profession often marred by stereotypes of pushiness.
- Navigating LinkedIn as a Sales Tool: Leveraging her expertise from years at LinkedIn, McKenna stresses the importance of using LinkedIn not only to project thought leadership but also to engage actively with potential clients' content. This strategy helps build relationships and positions sales professionals as attentive and informed partners.
- Expanding the Sandbox: McKenna shares a case study of engaging a potential client through strategic interactions on LinkedIn. By consistently engaging with the client’s posts and offering value, she was able to secure a significant business opportunity, showcasing the effectiveness of thoughtful social selling.
This episode merges traditional sales techniques with modern digital strategies, particularly in leveraging social media for meaningful business relationships.
These insights not only challenge the status quo but also invite sales professionals to refine their methods and mindset toward more effective selling.
Welcome to Mastering Modern Selling relationships social and AI in the buyer-centric age. Join host Brandon Lee, founder of Fistbump, alongside Microsoft's number one social seller, carson V Heddy and Tom Burton, author of the Revenue Zone and co-founder of LeadSmart, as we explore the strategies and stories behind successful executives and sales professionals. Dive into business growth, personal development and the pursuit of excellence with industry leaders. Whether you're a seasoned executive or an aspiring leader, this podcast is your backstage pass to today's business landscape. This is Mastering Modern Selling, brought to you by Fistbump. Brought to you by Fistbump hey everyone, welcome to episode number 87.
Speaker 2:87? I think it's 78. But you know who's keeping track of Mastering Modern Selling. I'm here by myself as the only host, so I'm all messed up today. But no matter what, welcome to the show. Mastering Modern, mastery Modern selling. Sam, great to have you here with me. Um, I think Brandon will be joining us soon, but if not, you know we're going to have a hell of a time without him.
Speaker 3:So can't wait. He's going to be so, so upset he missed out he's going to.
Speaker 2:Just it's going to be a big loss. So anyway, let's just make this. You know super jealous that he's not here and Carson is in New York this week, so he's not here as well. So anyway, we'll get started. Sam again welcome. I know we're going to get into a lot of good stuff today, but before we start, you know, tell everybody a little bit about yourself, your background, what you do, and then we're going to start off with a Sam sales hack, just to get things rolling.
Speaker 2:But yeah, let's talk a little bit about your background first.
Speaker 3:Sure, I'm Sam McKenna. I'm the CEO of Hashtag Sam Sales Consulting. I have been in enterprise sales my entire career 15, 16 years at this point. 16, 16 years Holy moly See. I don't know my numbers either. We're in good partnership here today, but I was an AE, an individual contributor, for about seven years. Leader after that, executive leader after that, I ran North American sales for a company out in the Bay Area and then moved over to LinkedIn, also in the Bay Area, where I led enterprise sales for LinkedIn Sales Navigator and then broke my 13 sales record while I was there and started Sam Sales. So we're a LinkedIn consultancy, sales consultancy, sequence writing consultancy all kinds of things under our belt. But the very cool thing about us is that we're an all-women team of 15, over 200 clients, some really major brands and are about to celebrate our fifth year anniversary.
Speaker 3:So we're tired some caffeine, but we're having a great time, yeah, and we're known for a bunch of things. Show me, you know me, urgency, and then a bunch of Sam's hacks, sam's sales hacks, which we can get into today.
Speaker 2:So do you mostly work with companies that are doing more B2B enterprise sales, or is there a kind of a sweet spot that you're that you work with?
Speaker 3:Yeah, almost everything that we support is B2B, so I think there's a handful that we help that are more on the consumer side. We do some professional services as well, with some large accounting firms and law firms as well, but most everything is B2B tech based. And then some really nerdy stuff data and things like that too.
Speaker 2:So are you getting any AI companies?
Speaker 3:We do have some AI companies and we are learning our way all around that stuff. But yeah, so far so good. It's a good education for us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's interesting. We have a couple of tech companies that are talking about adopting AI for augmenting sales and it's kind of a nervous conversation Like what does that mean, and are we going to be replaced, or is there going to be 50 of us doing a job of one or whatever you?
Speaker 3:know. I think the good thing about that is I'll say like every single time we get, you know, we get an email today from an automated email that said they can help us grow our pediatric practice, and I was like pediatrics, eh, I'm like great research that you've done. It's right there in our title. It's exactly what we do SAM sales. So every time we get one of those we say and they say that AI is going to steal our jobs, I do think AI is going to be great. I think those who capitalize on the efficiency of it to learn and then mix that with their heart and soul and brains hello Brandon are going to be the ones that win, in my humble opinion, today.
Speaker 2:So who is this guy?
Speaker 3:I'm so sorry, Hi, Sam Hi.
Speaker 4:Brandon.
Speaker 3:How's it going?
Speaker 4:I'm good. I've been wanting to hear how's little one doing.
Speaker 3:Oh, thanks, you're so nice to ask. He's good. Alex is good 12 weeks on Saturday, so we're just finding our new normal.
Speaker 2:So, brandon, we're just getting started. Sam was just telling us a little bit about her background, but we're going to kick things off with a Sam sales hack? Yes, because we're adding value right out of the gate, right out of the gate.
Speaker 3:So Well, I thank you guys. So one of the things we're known for is all of our, all of our hacks. And I will tell you background wise, I've had I've never had any formal sales training whatsoever. It's everything that I've read, it's gut instinct, it's manners from the way that I've grown up. But just thinking of the, we have a brand for thinking of the shit that nobody else thinks of. Right, and that's kind of our brand. So little things that we can do.
Speaker 3:So let's talk about a couple of things. One we have something called the delayed thank you, and it works really beautifully. So the delayed thank you is this let's say I send Brandon a proposal and he's like tomorrow I'm going to get you an answer to this proposal and I'm like great, what do most reps do? They respond right away, very excited, eager, and they say thanks, brandon, and you're like you're welcome. And then tomorrow rolls around, brandon doesn't get back to us. So what do we do Then? Delay the thank you. It's painful, it's the one place where we are not urgent. But delay the thank you, keep the email unread in your box tomorrow, close business. When brandon inevitably forgets to get back to us, even though I promise you, would you just say thanks so much. And brandon's like, oh, that's right. And you're like, yes, and you get an answer. So small little thing you can do. And I'm going to give you just one more.
Speaker 3:For all of the times that we send emails or we get positive responses, somebody says, yes, I'd love to book time with you. Send me some times that work. And then we respond, we say here's my calendar link Also, don't do that, but here's my calendar link. Or here's some times that work for me, right? We send that over. And then Brandon never responds. And then we're like hey, brandon, do these new times work? Do you still want to meet? We're just following up. We're just following up, we're paying the butt.
Speaker 3:Instead, do that once or twice, do the times, send a follow-up and then, if nothing, as long as you've received a positive response to wanting to book time with you, book time with that person for two weeks from today at that same time. Brandon, I know that you're super busy. Scheduling sometimes is half the battle. I'm going to go ahead and send an invite on our calendars for two weeks from today. Should that not work, just let me know and I'll reschedule. Otherwise, look forward to chatting with you, then 99% of the time that person says thanks so much. That works perfectly. Bye, and then you have a meeting For any SDRs on the phone. Oh my gosh, will this help you hit your meetings booking goals instead of just chasing and chasing and then probably forgetting about half the leads you were chasing?
Speaker 4:I love the hack, but I'm a little worried about this branding guy. He sounds like a flake he sounds like a total flake.
Speaker 2:Can you believe that guy? What are?
Speaker 4:you ghosting him already? Yeah, he ghosts you. He shows up to live shows late.
Speaker 3:Late. That's great Good impressions.
Speaker 2:Sam, I wanted to go back to the first hack a little bit. So you send Brandon the proposal. Is that what you're saying? You're delaying a thank you or a follow-up for a couple of days, or what is it? Delay again?
Speaker 3:Think it's a delayed thank you. So think of every single time you send something or somebody asks a question. They say, hey, I'm meeting with my boss tomorrow. We want to review your proposal. We're going to do this. Can you just? Can you give me this right now?
Speaker 4:Give me whatever it is that I need, and then I'll get back to you tomorrow, yeah.
Speaker 3:So we send the thing right, or Brandon says thanks for this, I'm going to get back to you tomorrow, we say we immediately say thank you, we burn the thank you, just hang on to it for a day. If Brandon said he's going to get back to you tomorrow, don't say thank you just yet. It's the one time where I say delay your manners, delay the urgency, and delay your manners a little bit and just say thank you tomorrow. It's also kind of the hack that we use of, like when somebody said they were going to get back to us and they haven't yet and we don't want to just follow up, send a text message about something else or send an email to nurture them about something completely unrelated. Hey, I know you live in Denver. I saw this really cool article, I'm passing it along Most expensive house ever sold, just sold. That's so cool. And then Brandon's like oh my God, I didn't. Also, I owe you an answer and I'm like I know. So just little things you can do to not be that same salesman that everybody is.
Speaker 4:It sounds like you're promoting just being a good human being and be conversational with people.
Speaker 3:Imagine that putting some manners at the forefront of our sales process. Who thought that that could help you get ahead?
Speaker 2:You know it's interesting too about the second one, just the second one too, about the calendar piece. Right, if they decline it, then you kind of know that maybe this wasn't qualified to begin with, because even if they're not available, they'll probably come back with an alternative reschedule, right?
Speaker 3:Exactly right.
Speaker 2:So at least you end up getting the dialogue going, versus just hanging there and nothing, nothing occurring Totally.
Speaker 4:Right.
Speaker 2:Really good.
Speaker 4:Awesome. Was it getting getting to know sooner is is better than getting a no answer and and just going on and, on and on and chasing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and we don't want to hang out in limbo and I will say like for for a lot of SDRs out there, a lot of us that are chasing meetings and booking things between all these mediums text and Slack and LinkedIn, dms and all that stuff it's easy for things to fall out of our purview, right. So the faster we can book them, get it scheduled, check it off our list, the better. So send the times, send one more follow up and then, if nothing, again, only if you've received a positive response. So it is never appropriate to put some time on someone's calendar before they said yes, it happens sometimes. It's not a marketing thing, that happens a lot.
Speaker 3:I'm like the hell is this webinar that I signed up for? That's how I showed up today, just kidding, um like, and it also doesn't know why he's here. Um no, but I think, think about these things. Just little, small little moves, right, can really build a brand for you differently, can make you a better modern seller, can make you different than, again, what everybody's experiencing. And I think, if we think about sales, the bar is really low. What we expect of sales and the reputation unfortunately we have, despite being such a fabulous profession, it's pretty low, so it doesn't take much, in terms of the way that we change our tactics, to stand out and build a better presence for ourselves.
Speaker 4:Tom, you know, what I like about this is that I don't know. We're not even 10 minutes into it and I think we could stop right there and tell everybody just take, you got two hacks and a encouragement and motivation on just how to behave, like how to have the mindset around what you're doing. And, sam, I think you're right. You would stand out from the vast majority of sellers that are out there because, unfortunately, the bar is so low. Yeah, you got it.
Speaker 2:Well, and I think the bar is low, mainly because this is what I'm not, because we're not good sellers and we're not good people. We just haven't had the right techniques taught to us so that we're the most effective Right, and then we end up becoming ineffective and we become, as part of becoming ineffective, we become annoying Right and I think, if you can somehow which is what I think you're hacked is what it's effective, but it's also to to me, that wasn't annoying right If you sent me that and I did the calendar and I, if I really wasn't interested, I'd just decline it and say you know, that's the end of it. So it seems like it's effective and yet building that you know brand and that relationship at the same time.
Speaker 3:Totally. I think Josh Brown and I talk about this a lot. If you don't know him, he's a great follow, really really good sales tactics. But we say that most people just haven't had a good example of what good looks like, right? So whether it's a sales email, whether it's a conversation, whether it's active listening, discovery call, we talk about that quite a bit and I think that's it.
Speaker 3:I think we often also think that we have to be these scripted, robotic different people when we are selling and robotic different people when we are selling and we don't. You know, I think one of the fascinating things like something I hear, I heard a few times early in my career was my enthusiasm. My smiliness and my friendliness made me come across as junior and untrustworthy and I was like, well guys, that's who I am. So I'm really screwed if I have to be somebody different. But I think you can be personable, you can be friendly, you can be honest and transparent in sales and get ahead. All of these things that you typically hear in the sales profession is the complete opposite of what I've done. I've never made a cool call, a single cool call in my life. I've broken 13 records, made millions and millions of dollars being a CEO that's really successful today. Not a shot in hell would I ever pick up the phone and make a cool call and I'm sorry if I've just not made a few enemies out of anybody listening, but I don't do that stuff.
Speaker 3:And then we also don't think about the salesy language, right? You'd never hear us say do you have 15 to 20 minutes to catch up and let us hear about your business? We'd never do that. Also, why do we ask for 15 or 20 minutes and we book 30. What the hell is that about? So just think do you have a couple? Do you have some time over the next week or two? I'd love to chat. I would love to chat about your needs and how we can support you. Just use human language. And I think, too, we talk a lot about the scripts that we use and things that we say, and I say say them out loud. Would you ever say that at a conference? If you swung by someone's booth or they did yours, would you say that out loud? And people are like no, and I'm like why the hell do you write that email? Just be a human being and by virtue of that right and making an effort and caring about other people, I think you'll get ahead.
Speaker 2:So let's talk a little bit about your philosophy and certainly you've been around LinkedIn for a while and we your philosophy, and certainly you've been around LinkedIn for a while and we talk a lot on this. So this show, by the way, its previous generation, was social selling for newbies, and then we went to social selling 2.0. So we were there this is the genesis of the show has been very social selling and we decided to change it to modern selling because social selling is modern selling Right it to modern selling, because it's just what it is Social selling, is modern selling?
Speaker 2:Right, it's just modern selling. So tell us a little bit about how you use LinkedIn, your strategy and even you know we haven't talked a lot, Brandon, about Sales Navigator, really, and do you have? Any hacks or things with that that you would like to bring to the table.
Speaker 4:We bring Alexander Lowe on every six months or so to talk about Navigator, but we haven't done that for a while.
Speaker 3:He's a good expert. He was just texting me because he was in DC but it was too late. Notice for me to see him. Yeah, but he's great. I got to meet him in London a couple of years ago, I think.
Speaker 3:Power of LinkedIn you want to get hired by LinkedIn. Use LinkedIn. That's exactly how I got hired by LinkedIn. So I think a couple of things right. Like, I've been posting on the platform since 2011. Like you can pull the report of every single post you have If you ever just want to see what the embarrassing things that you used to write. It's all right there for you. But I've been posting on that platform since then. I hate to use this word, but I've been an influencer on the platform since about 2016.
Speaker 3:And then, early adopter of Navigator, really a massive champion of it, which is how I got ultimately seen and then hired by LinkedIn. So I think to me, the way you use it is a couple of ways. One, you absolutely use it to become a thought leader. So if you and I would tell you, no matter what stage of your career you're at, you have something useful to share with people, I would encourage you stay in your lane. If you're a BDR. Don't be posting about what CROs should be doing. Stay in your lane, right, but talk about what makes you successful as a BDR, if you are a CEO, if you're an entrepreneur, if you're a CRO, talk about that, right. People want to know the things that you do to be successful so you can start there and build a brand for yourself. Then, two, it's a great exposure for your company.
Speaker 3:So one of the things that I did when I was both an AE and a leader working for a company on the Bay Area called On24, is I'd post. I'd post about webinars, I'd post about marketing hacks, I'd post about things that we were doing and teaching our clients. What did that do? It brought inbound leads for every single team in our company except for mine, yay, except. While, for every single team in our company except for mine, yay, except well, it wasn't direct revenue for me. Here's what I did to stand out. I tracked that. So if those inbound leads came in, I would funnel them to the right person, I would track and see their success and then that would be part of my review. My presence on LinkedIn has built X amount of pipeline, brought in X amount of leads and X amount of closed deals, welcome. I'd like a raise.
Speaker 3:So think about things like that that you can do. Now. On top of that, how do we get in front of our customers, right? Everybody says my buyer's on a LinkedIn. I say you need to look at the data, because they absolutely are. Also, if you don't think they are, they are, but that means your competitors also don't think they are, you have a strategic advantage to get in front of them.
Speaker 3:Get your executives on a platform. Hire us, we'll write their content, manage their profiles for you, but do that If you are not. If you're not, if your executives aren't doing it, you can do it. The other thing to think about is look for their content. This is where Navigator can come into play, right? So start to vet out who are executives or the people that I'm tracking and my territories, make lists in Navigator and then start to manage who is actually posting To me. This is one of the best hacks we have, and it's something we call expand the sandbox. We have a playbook you can buy on our website, but I'll give you most of the intel for free. You don't have to spend a dime with us. Set every perfectly smart entrepreneur. Here's what we do so.
Speaker 3:One of the things we did was there was a CRO at a $6 billion company that I really wanted to be able to. We wanted her business, and so she posts on LinkedIn. So here's what I did Are you ready for it? 13 minutes of prospecting that is a nearly $100,000 deal.
Speaker 3:Commented on her post twice, sent her a direct connection request. I said I love your content. I keep coming across it because I'm stalking you because you're in my LinkedIn navigator list, would love to connect? Commented two more times and then sent her a note and said hey, I think we can probably help you with your LinkedIn content and make you a little bit better set in a more tactful way. You want to chat? That's it, and we got that. You can do that it. I'll expand the sandbox. You're literally spearfishing for your prospects and you're doing something, making an effort right, that no one else is making. So go and do it and be different. We just did it again with another company based in Israel, cro. I think they're just over a hundred million in ARR Easy peasy, okay.
Speaker 4:I'll stop, Sam. I have a question for you on that. So you addressed one of the big questions. Our customers aren't on LinkedIn, which we know they are, but okay. So first part of that question is, other than saying they are, how do you answer that question with people to help them see that their customers are on LinkedIn or Navigator.
Speaker 3:The data of member access from LinkedIn shows that half of the members there's over a billion members on LinkedIn right, and that's skyrocketed, obviously, during COVID. But half of the billion members come in at least once a week for a minimum of five minutes. Harvard Business Review also show the executive titles that's anything that's director plus come into the platform for around an average of 42 minutes on the weekends. You have to think of how to strategically use that. So the number one thing that we can see and you can see this from an earning, the Microsoft earnings report is that the LinkedIn marketing LinkedIn marketing services line of business revenue, while it's still their most successful, is declining. Why? Because people continue to funnel ads on LinkedIn and it doesn't work, and so they stop spending their money there. Right, the reason the ads aren't working is because the members are coming, they're arriving to the platform, but they're here to network and they're here to learn. They want to learn your thought leadership from someone they don't want to be sold to. They want to network and they want to learn. So you've got that going for you.
Speaker 3:I think the other thing to think about is, if they're coming and we know that the executives are coming on the weekends.
Speaker 3:How can you be smart about the way that you categorize your content? You'll see, the weekend content for me probably gets less engagement because it's for a narrower, higher level audience, and that's totally okay. That's who I'm targeting. So think maybe your Friday posts are a little bit lighter and then your Saturdays are really boring about sales strategy or LinkedIn strategy or something like that. But we know our buyers are coming and, again, if your competitors think the same thing incorrectly that you do that your buyers on LinkedIn you've got one hell of a strategic opportunity to get your voice out, to get it read, and in a very uncrowded market. One more thing on that Just over 1% of the members, myself included, post at least weekly on LinkedIn, and even the people that are posting weekly we know what it is. It's auto-share stuff from their marketing team that talks about some new mechanical piece of software or whatever that they just delivered riveting stuff. So if you're showing up with a different voice and teaching them something, you're going to go in a different way.
Speaker 4:So if you're showing up with a different voice and teaching them something. You're going to go in a different way. I have a follow up question. That was excellent, Sam. I really appreciate that. So somebody says our customers don't show up, they're not on LinkedIn.
Speaker 3:We've already addressed that, but you said your system with this 16 billion dollar.
Speaker 4:I think you said CEO. Yeah, Same thing. Like see, see somebody, lots of money. You commented a couple of times, sent a connection request, commented a few more times. What did you comment on? And how do you go about doing that? Because I know a lot of people say if they do publish, it's content that's really hard to comment on because it's about their company or it's about something, one of their products or something. How do you coach people?
Speaker 3:through that process. So I think you're trying to do two things and then I'll tell you what to comment. But when you comment, you are trying to build brand visibility with who you are and you're simply making an effort that other people aren't. Let me just give you one quick thing to look up For anybody that's listening right now go and look at one or two of the executives that you want to get in front of, maybe that are posting that company content, but go and look at their last post. Here's what you're going to find. 90% of the time, you're going to get a ton of likes and very few comments. What's fascinating to me is it's like you've literally got an executive sitting on the trade show floor. You have 179 people around that executive, going right and hearting what they're saying, and then you have three people that have made comments. And who are those people? They're their employees that are trying to kiss their butts. Okay, so you have an opportunity to stand out.
Speaker 3:Consider that, first and foremost, even if it's something on company content, right? Not every post is going to be able. You're not going to be able to say something on every post, and you don't want to. You don't want to be annoying. You want to make it look organic, even if it's totally systematic and process driven. But think about the things you can say. So maybe somebody posts about um, women in sales month, women, you know, women's leadership month. Something about dei, something about an offsite, something of about conference or sponsoring whatever. Think of something that you can say, right, say, fully, support this, love to see this Tag. Somebody else that you know that's really important, so they can see kind of the arena that you play in.
Speaker 3:Add a comment that's thoughtful. You are going to find that a lot of executives so the one that I was talking about posts about totally human interest pieces. So it was about their family, about their belief in, you know, for leadership and things like that. I can comment on that all day long, right, you look at one of the heads of social media at Nike.
Speaker 3:Her name is Sammy S-A-M-I. She posts about being a mom all day long. Her content gets unbelievable engagement. Now she's going to be a harder one to cut through, the noise through, because everybody comments on her stuff, because she's really present. But just take a look at that stuff, right, and add your organic thought leadership. Add something. What would you say to that person. If they said those words to you at a conference Okay, we're sponsoring a webinar and you'd be like, oh God, but think of something that you could say back to them and then stand out. Last thing please, for the love of God, do not say cool article man or something like that right, show us you have a brain and what's in there.
Speaker 2:And that will go a long way, I want to go back to the 42 minutes that you mentioned earlier. So, brandon, did you know that? Did you have that data?
Speaker 4:You know, I knew about that. I mean the data it's been shifting a little bit, but I did know they log in at least once a week, but 42 minutes on the weekend I think that was new to me actually.
Speaker 2:So can you just repeat, Sam, what the 42 minutes and what that is? And then I have a follow-up question, just because I think that's super, super relevant to understand.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and then I've got a follow up hack for you after your follow up question to this. Ok, forty two minutes. Director plus titles are spending an average of 42 minutes on LinkedIn on the weekends. That was from Harvard Business Review just a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 2:And I assume that they're not necessarily posting, they're not commenting, they're just kind of seeing what's going on and learning and absorbing. And that can be done more realistically on the weekend, when they're not distracted and on the other places, and it's kind of a way to get caught up or get stay current. Maybe is a better way to look at it Exactly right.
Speaker 3:And I think, if you think, just think for a minute right, like how many connection requests, how many DMs probably exist in those executives boxes? Right, like one of the things that we do at Sam Sales I briefly mentioned. But we write content for executives and then we manage their entire presence for them since celebrities as well on LinkedIn, so we know what their inboxes look like. Right, we're looking at one today for a VP of global sales who has 619 connection requests that are just stacked up over time. It's a hot mess. So think about the weekend as a strategic use of time for how you're going to cut through the noise. And this is my backup hack. Before I get there, let me tell you if you are using cold email outreach, right, hopefully you subscribe to what we call show me your nomads, our trademark term. You're taking time to do your research and reach out, but what most people don't do is they don't email on the weekends. And here's what we encourage you to do Today's Wednesday, on Thursday and Friday send your first email to an executive. Your second email, your follow-up email, is going to have so much more validity or higher propensity for a response rate if you send it less than 48 hours later, which means you're sending it when Saturday or Sunday, saturday morning and Sunday nights we have executives that are working. Who else is emailing them during that time? Not a whole lot of anyone. Who else is stalking them? Nobody. And you have executives that are more likely to respond because they want to procrastinate from the work that they have to do. So you're going to probably potentially get a response.
Speaker 3:Think of LinkedIn, the exact same way. So our hack around this is something called bubble hunting. You guys are on LinkedIn. Take a quick look at your DMs. So anything that's in your inbox, you're going to have these little bubbles next to people's pictures. If you have a filled in green bubble, that means that they're active, and they're active on a desktop or a laptop device, not mobile. Take an hour of your time on the weekend and go bubble hunting. Go and look for the executives that you've either exchanged messages with, you've nurtured over LinkedIn, and send them something of value over the weekends. Guess how we got one of our deals done at LinkedIn by bubble hunting one of the executives on LinkedIn. Don't tell her that, but I mean this is. It's easy stuff, it's. I hate the work hard and not work smart, not hard. Do both. But this is an easy way to do exactly that. It's just a better use of your time strategically.
Speaker 2:Brandon, I don't know. We've never done anything on the weekend where we tried to procrastinate what we were really supposed to do and then went off and did something else. Absolutely.
Speaker 4:Never I did sand two pieces of furniture this weekend on Saturday. Two pieces of furniture this weekend on Saturday. I will not admit that I was procrastinating the work that I should have been doing, but my wife was really happy that I got it done though.
Speaker 3:Happy wife, happy life, as they say.
Speaker 4:That's right. That's right, absolutely, sam. This is great stuff and I love the bubble hunting I learned the term from you all, but that concept of looking for people who are active and sending them messages when they're online and I love the hack. It's a simple hack. It's a simple change of the lens and just getting people to look at LinkedIn a little bit differently. What's another? While you're here, we're just going to keep going. Feed us more, what, what, what are some more of the little hacks like that? That that dangers?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think, um, uh, let's think of the we. We talked about the send, the send the email, um, and then the two days later, think, think about what your subject line does look like, right? So the biggest piece of feedback we hear from reps today are I know how to sell my product. I'm really good at that. I don't know how to sell in this modern day and age, so I'm really struggling with figuring out. How do I cut through the noise? And one of the biggest things we hear is how do I cut through the noise of an email box? We're the queens of show me or know me. I can say we're the queens because we're an all women team of 15, but we are the queens of show me or know me, of making an effort.
Speaker 3:So think about this. Look at the last emails you've sent out, right, brandon Tom? You guys could pull up your inboxes as well, and I'm sure they are hot messes of subject lines. Quick question you know, chief of IT, you know whatever technology just the worst things ever. And what I would encourage you to do is think about how you can do a little research, right, and you can strategically send a message to people. So I would go and look at that executive's profile. If they have a tumbleweed flowing by their profile and there's literally nothing for you to pull from there. Go to the company website, google their name, see if they've been on a podcast or a live stream or written an article recently, find something you can talk about with them. And when you pull that information, that's what your subject line looks like. So let me give you an example.
Speaker 3:When I reached out to Ryan, the CEO of LinkedIn, I sent him a message a couple months ago and I can't remember what the first part of my subject line was, but the second part of my subject line was called. It said small pivots. So let's say I referenced a mutual connection. Then I did plus in quotes small pivots, plus hashtag Sam sales. Now he knows me, but so let's pretend he doesn't know Sam sales. He sees a mutual connection. I know that person and he sees the word small pivots. Where did that come from?
Speaker 3:If you were trying to sell to LinkedIn, there was an article in financial times and the financial times where Ryan basically gives you exactly how he buys as a CEO. It's literally a roadmap of how to sell to him and one of the things he says is that he talks about making small pivots before he places big bets. So I wrote that in it and I put it in quotes in the subject line, got it open and I said here's how a gamble with Sam's sales, a small pivot with Sam's sales, can make a massive impact to you and then you can place a big bet on us. If I talk about what I can do and I give something tangible there as well, right, there has to be meat in the email for him to say my really, really precious time is worth spending with you because I think you drive value.
Speaker 3:I can't just say I can drive value for you. I have to make the effort and no one makes the effort Again us as the queens of show me or know me. When I look at my inbox, it's garbage, it really is, and you would think that people that want to sell to us. We don't have LinkedIn budget. We have a little budget, four bucks. We have some budget that we can spend. So make an effort and the best part is, even if I don't have, you know, budget for you or I don't have a need for you.
Speaker 4:I probably know someone who does so. If you just made the effort, how far ahead you could get. Yeah, sam, what I really appreciate about that is that you gave a very tangible way for people to go find the research or do the research and find the nugget. So often I hear people they go well, linkedin, how much time is it going to take? It's like, well, how much money would you like to make?
Speaker 3:exactly right and I I think you think about that for your own prospecting right. A lot of people might hear this feedback and be like I don't prospect right, I work for salesforce. We have tons of inventors, I have a bdr. I don't do that. My pushback to you would be why would you ever want to leave the fate of how much money you can make in somebody else's hands? Go get after it, right. And the other thing to think about is thinking about how you can pull this information, even if there's nothing on LinkedIn. Even takes you a little time. Block out 30 minutes. I would encourage you block out 300 minutes in a week to find 10 people that are like C-suite like you would lose sleep the night before, like it's Christmas morning, right of what your meeting is going to be like the next day and find those people and make the effort. The other thing is I would tell you you're probably wrong on a lot of your buyers.
Speaker 3:Right, there is information. Take a look at somebody named poor guy. Take a look at somebody named Josh Atkins. Josh is a GM of a division, of a team at Qualtrics, 2,000 or so sellers, quite a few bucks in revenue. And if you look at his profile and you look at the bottom of his about section, he says if you're a BDR trying to get on my calendar, here's everything you can talk about to get me to respond. Guess how many people look at that. It's like the cheat code is right there and you don't make the effort. So I believe me, your executives are clamoring for you to do that, and if you do, let's say that they don't need you. They'll probably respond and say great effort, good job, yeah, and then you open the door. Connect with them on linkedin. Keep the conversation rolling. Follow up with them another time sam Sam.
Speaker 4:I love that example. I did that over a year ago on the very bottom of my about section.
Speaker 1:I love it.
Speaker 4:And I'm not going to tell anybody what it was, but I say, if you mentioned these three things, you will get my attention, and I think I've had two people do it in the past year. I mean, isn't that wild? I mean it's simple. How much time it's going to take. Okay, if you could spend 10 or 15 minutes and you had three key pieces of information that none of your competitors knew about a prospect, and you could reference it in a LinkedIn message, a comment, an email, a voicemail in skywriting, whatever, would you spend the time doing it?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Go ahead Sorry.
Speaker 3:No, I was just. I was going to say the. My, my former boss at LinkedIn, who now manages a billion dollar business at LinkedIn, posted a while ago and she said that in three years she's received four, four personalized sales emails. Every single one of them got a response. How much would you pay? How much would your marketing team pay? What's the cost per lead they would pay for meeting with somebody like that? What would you give as a sales rep to get a meeting with someone like that?
Speaker 4:But, Sam, we've got to automate everything and make sure that everything we got more, more, more coming out. Forget this quality garbage.
Speaker 2:We were talking about AI in the beginning.
Speaker 3:It's all going to go to AI anyway, so keep, keep doing that, you guys, because then it's easier for me to stand out. Thank you so much.
Speaker 4:I have a question for you what has been the best sales message that has come into you that's gotten your attention? Cause you're you're, you're tough, but you're fair, I'm sure because of what you do. But what was something that got your attention?
Speaker 3:I think there was a it wasn't us, it wasn't me, but I will say it was Kim on our. She's our head of strategy and enablement and she and her profile talks about the things she loves. And so somebody sent her a puppy picture and said you know I can't remember what the subject line was, but just literally said I did my research, here's a puppy picture. It says on your profile to send puppy pictures or that you will cave for those. So here's one of my dog. If you don't have a dog, go and find a puppy picture online they're easy to find, I presume and then send it along. But I think to me, like what really works, fun, making the effort really really works. But two, if you think about the rest of your message, here's some things to think about.
Speaker 3:I bet that $100, the majority of people listening to us right now if they look at their emails, it says what they do. It doesn't say the challenge that they solve or the outcome that that buyer will get from working with them. Why are you different? Why should somebody give you the time of day? So if you say, oh, we're a pipeline acceleration platform, we can do da-da-da, who cares? I would say look at what you do and just say so what, so what?
Speaker 3:Or if somebody says we already have that and you say, but wait, we're different, say it in the email. So you have to think about the challenge you solve and then you have to assume the objection that someone's going to say, right, we already have that, we don't need it, we're not prioritizing, et cetera. Let's pretend they responded to you with that right. And if they did, what would you say? You say but, but, but, but, but Make sure that that's in the first email, because you're much volume to get a response, because our messaging is so bad. So put in the effort for Show Me, you Know Me, rewrite those scripts and if you need help, there's tons on our, on our website that can give you all the help you need, you know what are your thoughts?
Speaker 4:Oh go ahead.
Speaker 2:Tom, I just wanted to you know the making the effort right. What I'm hearing you say is and I think this is probably true if you really make the effort right not some half-assed BS effort, but really make the effort you're going to get probably three possible outcomes. You're either going to get a response from the person you're sending it to a positive one. It's probably reasonable. If they're not the right person, they may forward it to somebody else in the company who is the right person with an endorsement. Or you may get a referral for somebody completely out. I mean your odds of actually accomplishing something with that are, I don't know, I would think, literally 100 times higher than you're ever going to get with a typical BS email that we all get in our inbox. Am I looking? I mean making the effort seems like it is a win-win-win.
Speaker 3:When we so we help organizations learn how to write, not only do show me you know me, but how to write their emails. And when we teach them, show me you know me, alone they get an average of a 43% open rate. 43% industry average is 6%. So if you spend 300 minutes, right, doing making the effort and sending 10 emails to C-suite executives that you would just file all over yourself to get a meeting with, if four of them four of them even opened the email, what would that mean? Right? And then we get an average response rate of 20%. So two of them respond. 300 minutes for two responses, right. And then you're going to scale down the time. It's going to take Five, six minutes max. Right, that you should really be spending on that. Carve that time out. Block it. Take a Monday off and do this all on Sunday when you can be strategic and smart and not interrupted. I think the other thing to consider again is, even when you get that response, if they don't have a need for you, it opens the door to building a relationship with that person and if you care about your brand whatsoever, it builds a positive brand.
Speaker 3:I can tell you several people who have purchased from me at. Every single company I've worked with worked at. Robin Addis is one of those people. Every single company I've worked with she's bought something from me because I built a good brand. I haven't been overly salesy. I've prioritized her needs as a buyer right. Those are the things you have to do. So when people say how the hell did sam sales, a services company, grow to over 200 clients with really no sales people right in less than five years I think we actually did in less than four years I say it's because I spent the time really building all of that process beforehand, building that brand beforehand. So think about how that can pay off for you in spades, not even today, but 10 years from now.
Speaker 4:And when you say building the brand, you are really saying that you were just a human being and you genuinely cared to connect with people and took the time and research to do it.
Speaker 3:I think the difference with me is that one I want to make sure that the way I stand out like when I think of sales and probably a lot of you guys will see when I think of sales, I thought of sales, I went right. I'm like God I would never do that profession. I begrudgingly took my first sales job but I think as soon as I changed the lens on the fact that this is showing up to solve, not to sell, things really changed for me. So one I wanted to make sure that the brand I built when I reached out the people didn't see me as that like you know, just hustler, that al bundy shoe salesman, if you will. Does anybody remember that?
Speaker 3:for the three of us, okay I didn't want them to see me that way. So I wanted to make sure to do things differently, right, and to prioritize manners and thoughtfulness and just giving a shit about people. And then when I think about the calls, it's not. I'm not here to sell you something. You have a challenge. You assume from what I wrote that I can solve it. You agreed to 30 minutes with me.
Speaker 3:It's my job and my point of view to make good use of that time for you. And so if I show up asking questions, trying to understand your challenges, trying to understand why, trying to challenge your thinking, actively listening, digging in, I'm probably going to get to something of we can help you. And here's how. Let's book a second call and I'll really go into it and bring your whole decision-making circle with you, and that's really what I'm doing. It's being human, but it's not using any of these tactics. It's not tell me about your buying process and who is the actual decision maker. None of that. Let's have a conversation, get you to open up and trust me, and then we'll go from there and, oddly, it's been successful.
Speaker 4:Sam, I know you have a hard stop here coming up. I've got two quick things. Number one is a question and I'm going to come back to it in a second because number two is you and I have commented a few times back and forth but we've never had a conversation and you were out on maternity leave. We didn't do a pre-call beforehand. Thank you so much for being here and I'm going to tell you I expected a lot from you because of what I've seen and what I read and I know about you, and you way surpassed it. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. I think this is very tactical and I know our audience loves tactical. I'm a little wondering why the comments are low today, but I think it's we didn't get restreamed out everywhere this week, but that's okay. The question I had when you're working on the Show Me you Know Me how often and what do you recommend for people to go into Instagram or go into TikTok or go other places to do a little bit of that research?
Speaker 3:I think I would say the only time you can go on TikTok or Instagram is if they are TikTok or Instagram influencers in their own right. Right, I think. Otherwise, just stick to the professional stuff. Anything that is shared on LinkedIn is fair game. So one question we get back sometimes is somebody says, like you know, pending to be a new dad or something like that. And so I might say, well, I was pending to be a new mom. Can I, can I talk about that? Is that weird? I don don't know this person.
Speaker 3:It's on their professional profile. They have shared it professionally with a professional audience. Have at it. Anything that's on there. Use otherwise it would stay away from any of the social media, unless I mean unless from a corporate perspective they have that like we have a tick tock page. It's riveting, it's much more blonde those days, um, but we have a tick tock page. Can I even say that? Is that the right thing to say? Tiktok page? Anyway, we have the TikTok, so go and check that out, but you can use that stuff. Otherwise, I would say keep it professional. Look at the company site, find articles or podcasts that they're in Use, something that has more professional context or isn't shared in a professional setting.
Speaker 2:I appreciate that. And we did have a couple. We have an endorsement here from Brian. He loves it, so thank you. And Sarah also thought was very powerful and great perspective. There are people out there, probably taking notes so fast, they don't have time to comment.
Speaker 3:I hope your pens are on fire.
Speaker 2:Please come say hello on.
Speaker 3:LinkedIn, if we're not already connected.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So before we wrap up, yeah, where should people find you, sam, and tell us you know for your company and, obviously, your LinkedIn page? You bet.
Speaker 3:SamSalecom. You can send them for our newsletter. There it comes out every Friday. Pretty funny, but also really tactical and actionable. Every month, every week, we have tons of subscriptions. They're relatively low price, actually, I think our code MARCH still works for 20% off until the end of today, so very good timing if you want to grab anything there, but I think you'll kill it with the information we have on there. And then we also have a women's group, totally free of charge, monthly webinars. Come and sign up for that, all on our website. And then, of course, linkedin. Hopefully I will be the first Samantha McKenna to pop up, and if not, I'll take her down, just kidding.
Speaker 4:Okay, awesome, I love it. Well, sam, I know you got to go. I have a daughter who is finishing up her junior at college. She's in the business department with an emphasis in professional sales, and so hopefully she's going to listen to me and start engaging with you and following you. I will take her. Reach out to to kim about the internships. I think she's still a little shy on linkedin right now, but I'm working on it yeah, break breaker, breaker, open.
Speaker 3:Tell her to come and hang out with us. We'd love to, we'd love to meet her I will encourage her more thanks you guys, thank you for having me.
Speaker 4:Thank you so much you were awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we'll have you back again.
Speaker 4:We really appreciate it sounds good, my pleasure take care guys, bye, bye sam.
Speaker 2:So, brandon, I'm still on the live stream here because I.
Speaker 4:I figure there's some after conversation that we should be having here. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely well, and plus we didn't have carson here to say happy modern selling and so we didn't.
Speaker 4:we didn't know what to do, so you know what I loved about that and I knew we were going to get that with Sam is that the feedback that we get constantly is the tactical and the practical, and she was very tactical and very practical. You know the bubble hunting. I love that term. I honestly I've never heard that term we talked about. You know you can always see who's online talk a lot about mindset of modern selling.
Speaker 2:I don't know that we've ever clearly stated making the effort or putting that as a key mindset thing, is really really making the effort. And I think maybe you know, in listening to her, I think that a lot of times, even that making the effort is underestimated right, we might make a little bit of effort but we don't really make enough effort that it really impinges and moves the needle when somebody actually you know we reach out to somebody.
Speaker 4:And especially on LinkedIn.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean, we do talk a lot about quality versus quantity and whenever we hear somebody say, okay, well, linkedin, how much time it's going to take, we're quick to say, okay, time out. If this is a conversation of how quick can I get this done, we're probably not a good conversation for you. You're not going to like us and we're not going to like you. Quality over quantity and what does that mean? And I love that she gave that example and I, honestly, I kind of forgot that I did it. And I love that she gave that example and I, honestly, I kind of forgot that I did it. But the bottom of my about section says if you want to chat, mention these three things and you'll get my attention. And I want to say twice that I've heard, and one of them wasn't even trying to sell me something, they were just like. They were like hey, I'm not trying to sell you something, but I saw.
Speaker 2:They're spamming you, yeah. They're spamming you about yeah.
Speaker 4:No, well, they wanted. They're like I saw that on there and they wanted to chat about Manchester United football, you know, and that was really cool. But you know, quality means take your time and do the research and what Sam really highlighted is it's a huge difference maker. It's a huge difference maker whether it's a subject line in an email, which you know we don't talk a whole lot about email. There's plenty of people that talk about email. We don't need to, but it's a direct message inside of LinkedIn. It's a comment that you reference If you know just a little bit about them, because you read their whole about section, you scroll all the way down and you look at their hobbies, you look at where they volunteer, you find some way to connect and don't do the easy stuff like, oh, you went to Arizona State, my dad went to Arizona.
Speaker 4:Go deeper than that. Like, all that stuff is too superficial, that whole. Like, oh, we went to the same college. They only graduate like 10,000 people a year for the last hundred years. Like, oh, yeah, we're a small.
Speaker 4:No, it worked seven, eight, 10 years ago, but it doesn't really work anymore because so many people are trying to see you've got to go be human Google search. Look in there about, look at their interests, look at where they're volunteering, look at past jobs they had, you know. Go ask the common connections and I know it's hard, it's like hunting a bit. Go ask some of your common connections. How well do you know them? Could you introduce me to them? Oh, it takes too long and most people don't really know them. They're just connected on LinkedIn. But what if and I like the way Sam said this if you took your top 10 prospects, what's the value to you? And if you did the day of the research? You took an entire day just to do the research on all 10 of them and you got a. 20% of them were willing to have a conversation with you. Is that full day of research worth it? Or do you just want more in marketing automation and complain that your emails didn't work?
Speaker 2:Well, and it also takes the whole. This is passive, right? This is far from passive. It's a different type of aggressive versus volume which most people think of. Oh, I'm not. I mean it's being aggressive by doing the research and doing the homework and cutting through the noise. You know, it's what you just said. The noise zone I call the noise, the noise zone Right, where there's just noise and you don't hear anything has definitely gotten larger over the years. So you have to get yourself out of the noise zone and into something that actually causes somebody to react and do something.
Speaker 1:And so it is it's not.
Speaker 2:It's far from passive, because you have to do the work to even get to that point.
Speaker 4:You know, a big turning point for me around LinkedIn, and this is probably six years ago or so, and it was the brutal truth of sales Gosh, I've been listening to him so long, I don't even know the proper name of it the brutal truth of selling or brutal truth of sales. He had somebody on as a guest who was a BDR and I think she was a BDR for Adobe or one of the companies like that out of San Francisco, and she was young, she was a BDR, and he had her on like she grew up with his daughter or something. But she talked about how she got brought into her boss's office and sat down and her boss had said so this is the. This is all the emails that so-and-so sent out, and they sent out the most emails of anybody this month. And she said, okay, and then this is your list of emails that you sent out. And it was like significantly less.
Speaker 4:And she started to get nervous and she goes but this is your success list of meetings and opportunities and this is their success list of meetings and opportunities. And they said what are you doing differently? And all she was doing differently was well, I spend as much time it is necessary to do the research to find something that I can use to connect with them about something personal about them or something I learned about them. So sometimes I research for an hour before I send it out. But what I found is, if I can connect with them like a human being, that I have a much higher success rate. So I don't need to send as many out, because the quality I send out is is really doing the lift for me. And that's basically everything that Sam said today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Take the time to do the work. I think she. I think epitomize what we've talked about is modern selling, you know, with some really good hacks along the way. So, yeah, All right. Well, really really good show. This is one I'm going to definitely listen to a couple of times, yeah.
Speaker 4:And I'm out with a client and I don't have my notes in front of me, but I'm sitting there like taking all these mental notes. It was great and for everybody listening, I get to be with the client today and we're filming, we're interviewing a lot of their customers for social content and we're interviewing people on their team for social content and shorts, and we take all this content too, and the transcripts, and we put it into their, into their AIQ at Fist Bump and it's just been, it's been a great day and the food's been really good too. So you know, win, win.
Speaker 2:So you had a booth, or just at a conference.
Speaker 4:No, no, no, no. So this is our client, Competitive Solutions, and they have a three-day user conference oh, okay, Rolling out their new software, which is Vizuant 5.0. And all their users are here. So we get to talk with them and hear about up until 5.0, like what is working and why did you use it, what differences it make, and then we're talking to them a little bit about. They're all early adopters to the 5.0. You know, they're like the beta users of 5.0. So we're getting some feedback from them about how it's working, what they like and all that it's. It's been, it's been fantastic.
Speaker 2:Well, I'll let you get back to it. Thank you for jumping out and making it happen, and thanks everybody.
Speaker 4:No, sorry, you started solo. I don't know if I don't know if you've ever done solo before.
Speaker 2:You know we were going to make it work. We were going to make it work, so you did a great job. All right, all right, thanks everybody.
Speaker 4:Carson's not here, so happy modern selling. And thanks so much for joining us and sorry I was late.
Speaker 2:No problem, see you next week.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining us today on Mastering Modern Selling. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe for more insights. Connect with us on social media and leave a review to help us improve. Stay tuned for our next episode, where we will continue to uncover modern strategies shaping today's business landscape. Learn more about Fistbump and our concierge service at GetFistbumpscom. Mastering modern revenue creation with Fistbump, where relationships, social and AI meet in the buyer centric age.
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