Episode 380: Turn a Cold Prospect into Warm Connection

Intro

0:00:18 – (Bob Woods): Welcome to the Making Sales Social podcast featuring the top voices in sales, marketing, and business. Join Brynne Tillman, me, and Bob Woods as we each bring you the best tips and strategies our guests teach their clients so you can leverage them for your own virtual and social selling. This episode of the Making Sales Social podcast is brought to you by Social Sales Link, the company that helps you start more trust-based conversations without being salesy through the power of LinkedIn and AI. Start your journey for free by joining our resource library. Welcome to the show.

00:00:54:04 – (Bob Woods): Welcome, everyone. It’s time for Making Sales Social Liive. Coming to you from the Social Sales Live virtual studios and is brought to you by Ask SSL dot AI. I’m Bob Woods, and I’m joined by my co-hosts, Brynne Tillman and Stan Robinson Jr. How are you all doing today? 

00:01:14:21 – (Brynne Tillman): Great. How are you? 

00:01:15: 67 – (Stan Robinson Jr.): Real good.

00:01:16:06 – (Bob Woods): I have finally started to feel better. You know, you get into the doctor, you spend a couple of hours in urgent care, and they finally give you antibiotics and you start feeling better, so. 

00:01:27:32 – (Brynne Tillman): Good. I’m glad to hear it. So.

00:01:30:11 – (Bob Woods): Yes. So that’s good. So speaking of colds, and wow, this is our vet’s are really in some transition to our topic today.

00:01:40:12 – (Bob Woods): But during that cold prospect, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, you get it. Turning a cold prospect into a warm connection is something that, as salespeople, we ideally want to do. But how? You need to go through three stages to build an authentic and genuine foundation that interests them, meeting your prospects in your offerings and how you can assist them.

00:02:05:18 – (Bob Woods): So before we get into those stages, any general thoughts and turning cold prospects into warm connections?

00:02:12:16 – (Brynne Tillman): So the first thing I think I would say on this, on this topic, that’s the word topic. Yeah, my brain. So the first thing I’d say on this topic around turning a cold connection into a warm connection, I think is about treating them like a human being, not like a lead, right?

00:02:35:01 – (Brynne Tillman): We want to make sure that we approach connections on LinkedIn as we would if they were in a room. So often we’ll say, treat them like my words are not coming out of my mouth the way they normally do. So tongue-tied today. So remember to treat the person on the other side of the message the same way you would if they were on the other side of the table.

00:03:10:17 – (Bob Woods): Sounds good to me. So we have We actually have three stages to get into this. And then there are tips within those stages. So the first stage is exactly what Brynne was talking about, and that’s changing your mindset, which is really, really important. And while Brynne kind of did the 30,000 foot view of things there, let’s just let’s get straight into the tips.

00:03:42:04 – (Bob Woods): So, tip number one is earning the right to get a conversation. And you know, we talk about that a lot, but I think it’s really important because you have to change the mindset. And if you already think you have the right to a conversation before you even get started, then you’ve obviously just lost. And so many people think that they already have the right to a conversation before they actually get into the conversation.

00:04:09:29 – (Bob Woods): It’s incredible. We see it all the time here when people are pitching us with their stuff. And so it’s all about shifting your perspective from the potential value the prospect holds for you, which, when you’re starting the conversation, let’s face it, is null to the value you can provide to the prospect. That’s the approach that sets the stage for meaningful interactions.

00:04:35:16 – (Bob Woods): Guys.

00:04:36:10 – (Brynne Tillman): Yes. Stan, you want to talk to that and I’ll go last.

00:04:39:12 – (Stan Robinson Jr.): Just that it takes some time to demonstrate your value to a prospect and we’ll talk a little bit more. I won’t spill the beans just now in terms of what we say, but it takes time. So you have to be you have to exercise some patience.

00:04:59:13 – (Stan Robinson Jr.): And as Brynne mentioned rather than thinking of them as a prospect, think of them as a person with a life just like you, with ambitions, just like you and picture yourself talking to them just like you would talk to them in a room together. Yeah. Brynne, 

00:05:17:01 – (Brynne Tillman): That’s great. And I’ll take the baton. I feel like we should have a baton.

00:05:24:17 – (Brynne Tillman): Yeah. So earn the right to get a conversation. It really comes down to mastering the ask offer ratio. Well, it comes down to two things. So there’s the math mastering ask offer ratio, which I’ll talk about in a moment. And there’s coming in through a warm market, so the best way to warm up a cold connection earning the right is through referral, which I’m probably skipping ahead because I always do.

00:05:53:26 – (Brynne Tillman): So I’ll let that I’ll table that. The second way to earn the right to get that conversation is by providing so much value that the connection can’t wait to get more value from you. And that’s huge, right? So mastering the ask offer ratio is simply this: I am asking you to invest your time to consume my content. At the end of that invested time, there are three possible outcomes.

00:06:30:03 – (Brynne Tillman): One, that was a bait and switch. It was a pitch. I thought it was going to be a value, but it’s not. It’s them only wanting to sell me and that is not the way to start any relationship, let alone converting it. Like you went from cold to frigid, right? Like you’re going the opposite way. You’re turning them off to having any kind of engagement with you.

00:07:01:02 – (Brynne Tillman): The next one is neutral, and while this doesn’t hurt you, it doesn’t warm them up in a way that gets them interested in having a conversation. The third is compelling, and this is where we want to land. Compelling is simply this. We move them from spectator to engager, right? We move them. My tradition, I have to say, and it just comes out from lurker to engage, but I like spectator to engage or we’re playing with it.

00:07:35:16 – (Brynne Tillman): Guys, tell us if you’re live tell us in comments which one resonates better with you or reach out to us. If you’re listening to this in the podcast list, as a spectator to engage or lurker to engage your love to hear that. Okay, so when we master the ask offer ratio, we move them from just hanging out and reading to actually liking, commenting, visiting our profile, asking us to connect, and accepting our connection request.

00:08:06:19 – (Brynne Tillman): And when we do that, we’re earning the right to get to the next step, and we know who they are. And I probably took way too much time on one tip.

00:08:15:23 – (Stan Robinson Jr.): I think I love Cold to Frigid. So, I was thinking about a car analogy. You know, if you pitch, if you do a bait and switch, it’s like putting your car in reverse when you don’t want to.

00:08:29:06 – (Brynne Tillman): I love it. 

00:08:32:65 – (Stan Robinson Jr.): And then when you mention neutral, yeah, it doesn’t provide any value. It doesn’t hurt you, but you’re not going anywhere, and then you put it in drive, which means you’re offering value. That’s value to them. It’s not value in terms that your product features because a lot of sales reps tend to think in terms of features that’s value.

00:08:50:25 – (Stan Robinson Jr.): No value is what you is in the eyes. Driver, prospective decision maker. Yeah. 

00:08:57:53 – (Brynne Tillman): I love that. I really, really love that. See a blog post coming from you. Stan, on how healthy social selling is like driving a car.

00:09:09:11 – (Brynne Tillman): Alright. I hope this one won’t take this much time as everything else. Yeah.

00:09:14:31 – (Bob Woods): Well, good luck with number two, because this is another one of your favorites.

00:09:19:11 – (Bob Woods): It’s actually one of all of our favorites. And we all could expound just mercilessly on this one. So again, changing your mindset, slow it down to speed things up. So many of us are in a rush to make a sale. We inadvertently push prospects away by to use Stan’s analogy, by gun in the gas too much or, you know, too quickly.

00:09:46:07 – (Bob Woods): You spin. Yes, you spin wheels more than anything else. When that happens, embrace the idea that slowing down your outreach can actually speed up your desired outcome, which, if you listen to us before you’ve heard that phrase before. So when you take time to nurture connections, you create a space for genuine rapport to develop. And I do think that that’s a really good place to bring in Stan’s analogy and do it further.

00:10:11:26 – (Bob Woods): Because if you’re just mashing down on the accelerator, I mean you will you may get going eventually. But what happens initially? Yeah, your tires just end up spinning, and you don’t gain traction at all. 

00:10:28:44 – (Brynne Tillman): Or you miss your destination completely. 

00:10:30:01 – (Bob Woods): Yeah, exactly. 

00:10:31:89 – (Brynne Tillman): We’re going to follow with Stan. 

00:10:34:65 – (Bob Woods): Yeah. Stan is alright. 

00:10:37:91 – (Brynne Tillman): So let’s each of us take one of them because we have so many.

00:10:42:17 – (Brynne Tillman): So that was yours, Bob. So, start number three. 

00:10:45:25 – (Bob Woods): Okay. Am I going to introduce them and then just toss them? 

00:10:49:05 – (Brynne Tillman): Yeah, well, and then just supply into one of us. 

00:10:52:33 – (Bob Woods): All right, Stan, this one’s no Brynne, This one’s yours. Detached tip number three. Detach from the safe. 

00:11:00:54 – (Brynne Tillman): That’s mine. 

00:11:01:19 – (Bob Woods): Okay. Yeah, that’s yours. Yeah, that’s yours. Go ahead. 

00:11:05:12 – (Brynne Tillman): All right. So it is so important that if you’re if you really want to convert cold connections to conversations, you can’t be in pitch Motor sales mode.

00:11:16:11 – (Brynne Tillman): So you have to detach from what the prospect is worth to you and attach to what you are worth to the prospect. And to Stan’s point. It’s in the eye of the prospects. They’re the ones who determine whether this is valuable or not. So, absolutely hands down, when you are converting connections into conversations that can be connections into prospects, right?

00:11:41:08 – (Brynne Tillman): It’s got to be connections into meaningful conversations. Okay. We’ll go next. 

00:11:47:45 – (Bob Woods): All right. Tip number four, This one’s going to go to Stan leveraging AI and your voice. So this isn’t just about AI. You have to bring your voice, Stan.

00:11:58:21 – (Stan Robinson Jr.): Yep. AI has become the easy button for too many of us. And

00:12:05:02 – (Stan Robinson Jr.): we always talk about the fact that your voice is what makes you authentic.

00:12:09:04 – (Stan Robinson Jr.): So yes, absolutely leverage the power of AI for so many different for writing, for research, etc., etc.. But when it comes to publishing content that AI has helped you with, make sure you

00:12:22:01 – (Stan Robinson Jr.): work with it to put it into your own voice

00:12:25:23 – (Stan Robinson Jr.): so that it sounds like you.

00:12:27:12 – (Stan Robinson Jr.): So do not copy and paste what comes out of any AI tool you have to put it in your voice.

00:12:35:20 – (Stan Robinson Jr.): Now we do have a tool that helps you do that. 

00:12:39:21 – (Brynne Tillman): We do have a framework

00:12:41:11 – (Bob Woods): and you have an entire frame yet. Yet we have both of those. And so and, it’s like I say before, and I keep bringing this up to people, even to other, you know, AI experts and people who know a lot about AI and, you know, even with the tools and the frameworks that we have the ultimate kind of final check before you put anything out there in terms of content, in terms of messaging, in terms of whatever read, what you are going to put in there out loud as if it doesn’t sound like you.

00:13:19:09 – (Bob Woods): And if it sounds like a robot or sounds like a computer, then guess what? In the mind of the person reading it, you are the robot. You are the computer, you are AI.. And believe me, people are picking up on that. And like Stan said, so many people are viewing AI. as their easy button. It’s almost a too-easy button if that’s the thing.

00:13:45:09 – (Bob Woods): And I guess it’s the thing now because I just said it. So, you know, you have got. 

00:13:50:45 – (Brynne Tillman): Yeah, I’m just to close this out really quickly. Instead of asking AI to write it for you, ask AI to interview you. That’s the trick that the big difference is instead of saying, Go write this, say you are my interviewer, who will be ghostwriting my content, and then our magic little phrase is asking me all the questions you need to complete this task one at the time when you have that combination as you are the interviewer AI. interviewing me and then asking me the questions, there’s it becomes a lot.

00:14:26:17 – (Brynne Tillman): It’ll sound a lot more like you right away. And by the way, I have to put out a plug. Go to promptwritingmadeeasy dot com today. It’s a wait list for our new book that the three of us have, have written. It is now in

00:14:44:05 – (Brynne Tillman): formatting and almost ready to hit the Amazon in the bookstores.

00:14:52:15 – (Brynne Tillman): So promptwritingmadeeasy.com and that will give you our whole framework and instruction. Sorry had to throw it out there.

00:15:02:31 – (Bob Woods): I had to throw it out and Tara French in comments she says she like spectator to engage or going back to earlier so 

00:15:12:65 – (Brynne Tillman): I think we have to move to that because it really is more in our brand is just a word that doesn’t come to mind fast enough.

00:15:20:29 – (Brynne Tillman): But thanks.

00:15:21:45 – (Bob Woods): Yeah, I agree. This is why we need a mind shift, a mindset shift. That is our mindset where it’s not your money. Yes, exactly. I love it. So second stage, you have to find out where your prospects are hanging out. And in this case, obviously we’re talking about online, but there are ways to do that.

00:15:45:17 – (Bob Woods): So I’m going to take tip number five really quick and you all can comment if you want to on that.

00:15:50:01 – (Bob Woods): There are content creators out there that people follow, that your prospects follow. You have to find them now. So you need to find the influencers and content creators who are resonating with your target audience. So what do you do from there?

00:16:08:00 – (Bob Woods): You engage with their content, you engage with their commenters as well. So not only are you putting up your own comments reacting to what that influencer has posted in terms of their original post, you can comment with the people who are commenting as well to get those conversations started. So when you share those interests and when you share those interests, especially with the people who are commenting, that is a really good way to create an immediate connection.

00:16:44:00 – (Bob Woods): You just have to make sure that everything that you’re saying that you actually believe in and you’re not just saying something just to say something. This has to come from an authentic and genuine point of view within yourself, essentially. So don’t just toss stuff out there just to toss stuff out there, because if you get your conversation started with someone and they say, well, why did you say X?

00:17:07:21 – (Bob Woods): And you don’t want to say, Well, I really didn’t believe that. I just wanted to throw some gasoline on the fire or whatever. In this case, you really can’t do that. You really need to be authentic and genuine.

00:17:19:07 – (Brynne Tillman): Awesome. I love that. All right. What’s the next one?

00:17:23:21 – (Bob Woods): Tip number six: Let’s go to Brynne with this one with revisiting your first-degree connections.

00:17:31:27 – (Bob Woods): And Brynne is doing the happy dance. 

00:17:34:00 – (Brynne Tillman): Oh, you know, these are all my I love this stuff. This ridiculous. How happy this makes me. Okay, so here, here’s the thing. And we’re all doing this. We’re all doing this. We are ignoring first-degree connections. You probably have hundreds, if not thousands, of connections already. We’re out there prospecting new net all the time.

00:17:52:02 – (Brynne Tillman): I know that we’re talking about how do you turn a cold prospect into a conversation, but a lot of the people that you are connected to as a first degree connection are cold, right? We’ve been ignoring them. So export your connections or search. And even in the free, the search is amazing what you can do with your connections.

00:18:13:23 – (Brynne Tillman): Search your first-degree connections that meet your ideal prospect criteria and really start to engage with them. And if I’m going ahead, I apologize, but we can engage them by inviting them to vote on the poll or asking them to comment on content that would share their expertise or send them a little video message. Just say, hey, you know, it’s been a while since we last connected.

00:18:39:28 – (Brynne Tillman): And I’m just going to share a little tip that has absolutely changed the percentage of responses. If you go to their contact information on their profile, it will share at the bottom the date you connected with them. So if I say, hey, Bob, I’m not sure if you recall, but we connected back in 2013. I know we haven’t talked in a while, but the reason I’m reaching out is that we just put out a poll specifically for people like you, and your one click vote would mean a lot if you’re open,

00:19:20:08 – (Brynne Tillman): whatever, right?

00:19:22:03 – (Brynne Tillman): Like that. And so we’re engaging with them and what matters to them. And by the way, when you ask them to participate and share their perspective, that matters to them, right? But this is where I’m going to go back to slow down your outreach, to speed up your outcome. It’s going to take you ten more seconds to find out the date that you connected with them.

00:19:46:20 – (Brynne Tillman): But all of a sudden, they know now that this was not a spam email message. This was not an automated message, because I’m not sure if you remember, but we connected on this date is not something that’s scalable, but it will personalize it and that will help turn them from cold to warm.

00:20:05:25 – (Bob Woods): Excellent, excellent stuff. So next, let’s go to two Stan, and I think I’m going to let you handle things from here on out just because my voice is starting to go yet again, I’m still not at 100% yet.

00:20:17:24 – (Bob Woods): So, Tip seven is leveraging shared connections.

00:20:21:22 – (Stan Robinson Jr.): Yes. One of the beautiful things about LinkedIn is that you can see who is connected to people that you are directly connected to. You can also do some searches on filters like title and location and industry, and so forth. So, as Brynne mentioned earlier, the best way to start a relationship with someone is to be referred by someone else.

00:20:44:24 – (Stan Robinson Jr.): And you can actually I can go to Bob Woods profile and search for who Bob Woods is connected to as one example. When I find people of interest, I can reach out to Bob and say, Hey Bob, I noticed that, you know Brynne? I plan to talk to her in the next week or so. Can we hop on a quick call to see if you have any insights you would like to share?

00:21:07:25 – (Stan Robinson Jr.): And you can actually do that with several people.

00:21:10:20 – (Stan Robinson Jr.): And so that’s one of the most powerful aspects of LinkedIn is your second degree connection. 

00:21:18:50 – (Brynne Tillman): Yeah, I love that. That’s awesome. And we have an anonymous user saying hi to all of us and hello back, but your settings are not allowing us to see who you are. So if you want to share about that, yeah, who you are, well, we’ll give you a shout out.

00:21:32:29 – (Brynne Tillman): And my and I appreciate my friend Mahesh putting out a message here too that he loves talking about the detach from what the prospect is worth to you perspective. 

00:21:46:97 – (Bob Woods): Yep. Absolutely. So now let’s go. So now we’re into the third stage. Now, we have these people interested in starting the conversation. So, you know, we’re going to talk about starting the conversation.

00:21:58:16 – (Bob Woods): Before we get to that, though, just keep in mind, this is not an opportunity to pitch. We are not immediately pitching once we get the conversation. And so again, that’s a mind shift for a lot of people. But as we go through the tips here, you’ll understand why we’re saying that it’s not a pitch opportunity instead.

00:22:20:28 – (Bob Woods): Brynne, why don’t you take this one? It’s all about the question, answer, and insight tactic. 

00:21:27:78 – (Brynne Tillman): Yeah. So this is such a great way to engage

00:22:29:20 – (Brynne Tillman): asking a question. But if you ask the question that feels like it’s a pitch, you’re going to lose, right? You’re going to. Absolutely.

00:22:38:18 – (Brynne Tillman): They’re going to know immediately. But if you ask a question based on content they shared or really loved, the love, the post that you put out on X, Y, and Z, I’m not sure do you follow this person because I have some in similar topic.

00:22:56:24 – (Brynne Tillman): But you know, I have a great app, a podcast they were on that you might enjoy. So the question is not a discovery question. It’s a question that will lead back to something that’s a value to them, right? So you ask the question, is this someone you follow? And they answer, I don’t. Oh, I have this podcast I mentioned.

00:23:21:13 – (Brynne Tillman): If you’re interested, I’m happy to send you a link. And now I’m sharing insights or value without it being a pitch. So I think that’s a really great way to turn a cold connection into a warmer conversation really quick because I have 6 minutes before my next call. So we’re going to speed this up, or I’m going to leave, and you’ll close it out without me.

00:23:46:11 – (Brynne Tillman): But the question answer insights. If you like that influencer perspective, you can search your first-degree connections that follow Mark Hunter or your first-degree connections that follow Victor Antonio. So then we can go grab content and say, Hey, I noticed you follow this person recently, listen to a podcast, which I didn’t just listen to an amazing podcast from Victor yesterday, but you just listen to this podcast if you’re interested.

00:24:19:03 – (Brynne Tillman): I think you’ll get a lot of value from it because of this reason. I’m happy to send this, and we’re warming them up around someone they follow. So.

00:24:32:39 – (Bob Woods): Excellent stuff. So let’s get to tip nine now and Stan is going to bring that to us. Bring it out, value to spark interest. So you’re not just asking questions.

00:24:45:12 – (Bob Woods): You are not just you know, you’re doing more than that. You’re bringing lots of values, so much value, Stan. 

00:24:54:76 – (Stan Robinson Jr.): So Brynne alluded to one of the ways you can bring value, which is by sharing content that you think would be relevant to them. It could be a podcast, it could be a video, etc. but that implies that you know them well enough to know what will be of value to them.

00:25:13:25 – (Stan Robinson Jr.): And that’s one place, by the way, that using AI for research can help. You can dig into what would be a value to people in different roles. Introducing them to someone that they may like to meet. If you have an opportunity to do that, that is powerful now, not always possible, but just keep your antenna up for those types of opportunities.

00:25:41:16 – (Stan Robinson Jr.): But the main thing is to give, give, give without asking. They know what you do. So when you’re offering value to them, whenever they’re ready for your solution, you’re going to be the first one they call. They may not even think about contacting anyone else if you’ve offered enough value to them and built that. Really. 

00:26:03:26 – (Brynne Tillman): So we do this by offering our free library at social sales links slash library.

00:26:08:19 – (Brynne Tillman): We have lots of resources, lots of content, and we do this in our lives like we’re hoping we bring you enough value that you’ll want to sign up to our free library and then from a free library that you want to come to one of our coaching events and you know, and so all of this, even from our perspective, is we want to earn the right to get you closer and closer into our community in whatever way that looks like.

00:26:34:18 – (Brynne Tillman): And we try to do this by offering extreme value in everything that we do instead of, and I know I pitch the book in this, which I, know it’s a pitch and it means to do that. And I’m so excited about it. And, you know, hopefully we’ve earned the right for you to care about the book..

00:26:55:78 – (Bob Woods): Exactly. So now, everybody, go out, adjust your mindset, and use these strategies that will help you achieve your goal of turning those cold prospects, excuse me, into warm connections with relationships that are built on value, trust, and mutual benefit. And thanks for joining us for this episode of Making Sales Social Live, sponsored by Ask SSL dot AI. If you’re with us live on LinkedIn or YouTube right now, we do these every week.

00:27:24:18 – (Bob Woods): So keep an eye out for our live sessions. If you’re listening to us on our podcast, go ahead and hit that subscribe or follow button to access all of our previous shows and be alerted when new ones drop. And you know, if you want to drop a like or comment, we won’t object to that either. So we do two shows weekly: this one and our Making Sales Social interview series, where we talk with leaders and experts in sales, marketing, business, and many more related areas.

00:27:50:28 – (Bob Woods): If you’d like more info on our podcast Social Sales Link dot podcast. I’m sorry, social sales link dot com slash podcast. That’s where you want to go. The social sales link, dot com slash podcast. So when you’re out and about this week and every week, be sure to make your sales SOCIAL. we’re getting really good at that everybody Yeah

00:28:16:09 – (Bob Woods): Bye-bye.

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