7 Ways to Show Gratitude to Your LinkedIn Network on Thanksgiving

Bill McCormick 0:00

Hey, everyone! Welcome to Making Sales Social Live, it is Thanksgiving week here in the States, and we are going to talk today about seven ways that you can show gratitude to your LinkedIn network on Thanksgiving.

Intro (Bob Woods) 0:18

Welcome to Making Sales Social Live as we share LinkedIn, and social selling training, strategies, and tips that will have an immediate impact on your business. Join Bill McCormick, Brynne Tillman, and me, Bob Woods, every week, Making Sales Social LIve!

Brynne Tillman 0:35

I love this topic, and you know, every year we put together a list of, you know, to show how grateful we are, and, guys, this doesn’t only have to be on Thanksgiving, we can show gratitude all year long, but because that’s the topic we thought we’d share here. Here’s the thing, like we’re networkers, we’re out there, we’re trying to meet people, we’re trying to grow relationships, and there’s nothing more personal and more impactful than when someone shows you that they’re grateful for you, that makes my day. So let’s start making other people’s day, and let’s do it using LinkedIn. So the first one is Endorsed People. Now, sometimes we get eyes rolled around this, but you know, Bill, share a little bit about endorsing. 

Bill McCormick 1:25

I used to be one of the eye-rollers because it comes back to people who inauthentically endorse, and we don’t want to do that. We want to authentically endorse people for skills that we know that they’re good at, and what’s great about this is when you endorse them, they automatically get a notification and a prompt to say thank you. So we’re all about conversations and starting conversations, and so what better way to take a conversation further than for me to endorse Brynne for something, and then when she thanks me to start a conversation about that topic, and hey, this is what I appreciate about I endorsed you because I think that that’s a great way, and again, we’re talking about ways to start conversations. But as I said, make sure you’re doing it authentically, I actually watched a video by another LinkedIn trainer, and part of his cadence was to look at someone’s profile and to just randomly endorse them for things, and then wait a couple of days, and send a connection request. Like how you don’t even know the person, how can you endorse them for something? It just doesn’t make any sense, It’s not authentic.

Brynne Tillman 2:34

Can I tell you a funny story? Maybe 10, 7, 8, 9, 10 years ago, maybe 10 years ago, I was teaching, putting skills in, when endorsements just launched, and as an example, I said, and you can even make up your own. So I put in parenting as an example for class and was going to delete it afterwards, and by the way, at the time, I had three adults on LinkedIn: children, adult children. Now I have five adult children on LinkedIn, and at the end of the class, I had seven endorsements from people that didn’t even know that I’m a parent, huh?

Bill McCormick 3:09

Yeah, how do you know that? 

Brynne Tillman 3:13

Like it actually is a turnoff.

Bill McCormick 3:14

It is, it’s a bit creepy.

Bob Woods 8:16

Yeah, that’s a huge turnoff.

Brynne Tillman 3:17

I used to get people that would say: “Hey, can you endorse me? I’ll endorse you back”.

Bob Woods 3:21

That was big, once upon a time. I remember that, yeah.

Brynne Tillman 3:26

Really good. Number two, Mr. Bob Woods, make introductions for connections that will benefit from knowing one another. So this is not about, like, making introductions for people that are prospecting. But this is about finding two people in your network that you think will gel, what are your thoughts around that?

Bob Woods 3:47

Sometimes it’s easier to imagine people doing that gelling than others, but you just have to think about, you know what audiences that they serve, and then just kind of match from there. So I’m going to pick, kind of an obvious one. So let’s say that Brynne is a realtor, and Bill sells home warranties, that’s a real good match, because they both serve the same audience. So at that point, you can send them a LinkedIn message to both of them, you can include just really short descriptions on what each of them do, and just say: “Hey, I thought it was a great idea that you two should connect and explore and see if there’s any way that you can help one another”. That is the ultimate way of networking is bringing other people together. In my opinion. It’s not just about you, it’s about those in your network and helping them and a great way to do that is to introduce them to others.

Brynne Tillman 4:55

Love that, alright, number three, Engage On Their Content. Back to you, Bill.

Bill McCormick 4:55

Yeah, so this is huge, people create content for it to be consumed, for it to be read, for it to be looked at, polls to be voted on, videos to be watched. So don’t be a lurker, actually engage on the content. It’s a great way to not only put yourself out there, but to show appreciation to the person who created that content. They spent their time, and they put their thoughts out there, and sometimes that can be a bit scary when we put our thoughts out there. So engage on that, but just don’t give the thumbs up, comment on it with some meat, you know, put some meat, put some thought behind it, people will be very, very thankful for that. Because again, that’s why they put that content out there, so that it’s engaged with, that it’s read, that it’s watched. So make sure you comment and that you make it worthwhile.

Brynne Tillman 5:44

I love that, I’m going to add a plus one to that. If there are other people in your network that can get value from that content, mention them in comments, just say: “Hey, Bill McCormick, Bob Woods, as people that are deeply invested in social selling, I thought you really get some value from this post because of A, B, and C”, and now you’ve been thankful, showing great gratitude to 2, 3, 4 people, right, so the author, and other people in your network, that was a bonus off the top.

Bob Woods 6:17

Oh, yeah, it’s like extra cranberry sauce that you’re not expecting at Thanksgiving dinner.

Brynne Tillman 6:22

Oh, I love cranberry sauce. So Bob, recommend your connections, do a recommendation on LinkedIn.

Bob Woods 6:29

Our recommendations are fantastic, because this is an opportunity for you to give much more than just an endorsement, you can actually talk about why you’re recommending them and why you think this person is as good at their job as you think that they are. So again, you have to be genuine about it, you can’t just say, you know, Brynne’s a great person I think you should do business with or what does that mean? It means literally nothing, you really have to share how you feel about them and why you think that they are good at what they do. Hopefully you either work with them, or they completed a contract to go on a sale with you. But it should come either from direct experience, or if you’ve worked together on a project, or something like that, and LinkedIn provides categories for you as well to tell exactly your relationship with them in terms of giving the recommendations as well. But tt that’s a fantastic way to show gratitude is by telling other people that you have gratitude for that person.

Bill McCormick 7:32

I would say this is a warm, fuzzy moment. Today, earlier, about an hour and a half, two hours ago, I got a recommendation from someone that took one of our public courses, and I was just like, wow, it made me feel really, really good.

Brynne Tillman 7:46

It does. I mean, that’s the ultimate, like, thank you, right, and we use them over and over again, it’s on your LinkedIn, but we’ll put it on the website, we’ll use it, you know, in many different ways. So you know, she’ll get exposure as well, right, like, but so you’ll get if you recommend someone you’re getting exposure, not that you’re doing for that reason, that’s just an added benefit. But what I’m going to say is, take a look at everyone you’ve bought from this year, who were the vendors you’ve purchased from were the people that have served that service your business, you know, make a list and make some of those introductions for people that have really helped out. Even personally, if you hired a plumber to help you, and they’re on LinkedIn, put out a recommendation for them if they do. So the next one is interesting. It’s just to give someone a shout-out, right? Everyone likes to be mentioned, and we have another type of shout-out in a little while, but this is just a general shout-out. Whether it’s on LinkedIn or Twitter, just kind of talking about something nice. Now I’ll tell you the way I’ve done this is, I’ll go through old pictures of conferences and trade shows, and I’ll pull out pictures that you know, five years ago that I took with someone, and then I’ll give them a shout out in this environment, how I missed them, how I can’t wait to see them again when we’re together. Like just a little bit of a warm fuzzy doesn’t even have to be business-related, right? It’s just hey, you know, five years ago, this picture was taken five years ago, I can’t believe it’s been five years. Hope to see you. You know, when we’re going back to live events. Anyone else have ideas around shout-outs?

Bill McCormick 9:28

Yeah, I think you can use it just like that. You know, one of the great ways is one of the things I love about Facebook, believe it or not, is the memory section like every day I go through my memories and I see what was I doing? You know, I think it was just yesterday, maybe it was today, it’s been two years ago, we were flying to Bermuda to do a training together, you know, and so but you can take that content, take those things and put them on LinkedIn and say hey, you know, so it was three years ago just this past weekend that Brynne and I, Judy Hayes, Ken Lang, some of us were down in the LinkedIn offices in New York City. You know, you can post those pictures and say, and tag those fields. Hey, @Judy Hayes, @Brynne Tillman, @Kenneth Lang. Miss you guys, great being with you. So great, great point, and they’ll appreciate that, and it brings back good memories.

Brynne Tillman 10:21

I love it, a thank you video, a mobile little video of gratitude. Yeah, so Bill starts, then Bob.

Bill McCormick 10:29

So my absolute favorite, I’m telling people, get using video the right way before salespeople break it, right? As salespeople, we break everything, you know, because we use it in all the wrong ways. I don’t know anyone yet that is using video wrong, that doesn’t mean they’re not doing it, use it the right way, and using the LinkedIn mobile app, pulling up somebody’s profile, hitting the message, and then hitting the video camera and do a selfie video to just say: “Hey, Bob, I was thinking of you today. I’m so thankful that we got to work together this year, I hope we get to work together more. But if you need anything, just let me know, I want you to know that I’m thankful for you”, you’re able to look in the camera like they get to see your eyes in your face, and they get to see a smile and you know, have some energy there, you’ll differentiate yourself from everybody, and the person will really get to know that you’re really thankful, instead of the copy and paste email that you do every year at Thanksgiving or Christmas sign that says: “Thank you for your business this year, we are so thankful for you as a client, and we appreciate you, and look forward to doing business with you in 2022”. Because when you type it all out, that’s how they read it, because they know that 85 other people got that email. But when you do a video that’s just for them, and you use their name, and you look at the camera and you smile. It’s a game-changer. absolute game-changer.

Bob Woods 11:55

And that’s fantastic, and that really shows that you’re thankful for someone. It’s done in a one-to-one way and that’s fantastic. What I’m going to advocate though, is taking the next step and talking about someone, and then posting it to your profile, so that everyone knows how good of a person this person is.

Brynne Tillman 12:20

That’s like a hybrid between the video and the shoutout,(Bill) and recommendation. Oh yeah, all together? (Bob) Yeah.

Bob Woods 12:37

So here’s the thing, because it’s video, the LinkedIn algorithm, while it’s not going to promote it as much as it used to, it’s still going to promote it more than any other type of posts. That’s most any other post that’s out there. So more people are just naturally going to see it as well.

Bill McCormick 12:53

And I think, you could argue the fact that it’ll get more engagement because people will engage with that, other people that they know are gonna say: “Yeah, Bob woods, he’s great, he helped me with–”, and you can really turn that into a real promotion piece for that person that you’re doing it for. So great idea, Bob, I’m stealing that, for sure.

Bob Woods 13:18

Just make sure that when you do that, that you actually mention or tag, or whatever we call it on LinkedIn, the other person in there so that they’re known as well, and when they engage at that point, their network will see it and then you know, it won’t go viral, viral, but the whole viral.

Brynne Tillman 13:37

Make sure you mention their company too, let their bosses know how much you like you. Number seven, this is a public postcard of gratitude, Give Kudos. Again, this is about really being authentic, making sure–so kudos is a public postcard. It’s got pre-populated images, and you know, it just tells people that you’re grateful, you’re thankful, they’ve made an impact. They’re a great mentor, there are lots of options there. You know, it’s just like the shout-outs. It’s just another way to do that, and again, it really makes people feel good. So as we wrap this all up, because you know, we’re approaching Thanksgiving. By the way, it is one of my favorite holidays, really, because in the States, everyone celebrates it, and it’s really about showing your appreciation for other people in your world, your family or friends. We’re having a Thanksgiving and then another Thanksgiving like, because we’ve got all these moving family parts, and for me, I’m just going to share, and then you guys could share for me to get my whole family in one room doesn’t happen a lot, especially in these crazy days, right the way things are. So think of me on Friday when we’re all together, and it’s just like the most magical moments. Bob, what are you looking forward to most for Thanksgiving?

Bob Woods 15:02

I’m looking forward to catching up with my family, we are more geographically diverse than you are Brynne. But we are having some family and we’re gonna do, you know, facetimes and everything with everyone else, and it’s really neat just because everyone is in that kind of good Thanksgiving kind of feeling, and everyone’s at their best just because they feel so good, and it’s always great to talk with people and see them when they’re like that, and you know, it should be like that every day. Unfortunately, it’s not but Thanksgiving is a great time to really just reach out and connect with people in a way that you probably wouldn’t necessarily do at other times of the year and it just feels great.

Brynne Tillman 15:48

Love that, and Bill, take us out with what you’re doing.

Bill McCormick 15:51

So we moved into our new house a year ago, we went from an 800 square feet house, and now we’re like 2200 square feet, and we always said the reason we’re doing that is we’d have more room for not only our family, but to extend it, and so we opened it up, told all of our kids and our friends, if you have a place, I’m here, we’re up to I think 15 people that are going to be here with kids, and so we just can’t wait. Because it’s just accepting and just welcoming people in, that don’t have a place to go and saying: “Hey, come sit at our table, we love to share food together”, and there’s an intimacy that happens there and a connection, and so on. So listen, we’re thankful for you, we’re thankful for those that watch our podcasts, and our lives every single week for downloading us, for making us in, hey, the top, I think 1% of podcasts globally. 2,(Brynne) 2%, on a side note, I always make it better than the top two, which is huge as in downloads. Yeah. Yeah. Which is huge, and that’s like 2.7 million podcasts that it’s rated. So you’ve made that happen, and we’re so thankful for you, for watching and listening each and every week, and so thanks so much. Be thankful no matter where you are in the world, and we’re–Yeah. Wow, it’s gonna be such a classy ending and my god yes, no, no, it’s okay. It’s okay. So, listen, we’re thankful for you, so wherever you are in the world, we hope that you’re thankful and that you have things to be thankful for, and we’ll see you next week on Making Sales Social Live.