Episode 142: 10 Thanksgiving Gratitude Tips

Bob Woods  00:00

Welcome fellow holiday revelers, to Making Sales Social Live! Brought to you by Social Sales link. I’m Bob Woods, and I’m joined by co-host and fellow LinkedIn Pro and big-time holiday celebrator. I think that’s a word I’m not sure. Brynne Tillman.

Brynne Tillman  00:17

Bob, I am a big time Thanksgiving celebrator. I think this is my favorite holiday.

Bob Woods  00:25

I definitely like it too. I definitely like it too. 

Intro  00:31

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 Brynne Tillman and me, Bob Woods, every week, Making Sales Social Live!

Bob Woods  00:48

Everyone talks about giving thanks during this time of year. And you can do that with your connections, networking partners, and even clients and prospects with LinkedIn and social selling. And if you’re listening to us on the podcast, were obviously past the Thanksgiving holiday at this point, but you can still use these tips to show your thanks and gratitude to your connections at any time of the year.

Short intro today because we got a lot to talk about. So with that, let’s get into our jam-packed showing gratitude to your LinkedIn network for Thanksgiving or any time of year episode. So first of all, we’re going to talk about probably…,

Brynne Tillman  01:26

How many do we have all together, there’s ten?

Bob Woods  01:33

Yeah, we have ten.

Brynne Tillman  01:31

We better get to it

Bob Woods  01:33

Yeah, that’s what I’m kind of thinking too. The first one is probably easy to do, but yet is still really important. Endorsing your first-degree connections on LinkedIn.

Brynne Tillman  01:42

You know, what’s funny about this one, Bob is a lot of people roll their eyes at this. They’re like, “Oh my gosh,”  But here’s the really cool thing, you know, when you are the recipient of an endorsement, it feels good, right? It just, and that’s what we want to do. You know, showing gratitude and thanks. And there are a couple of things that happen when you endorse someone, right? They’re endorphins go up because they feel good. And that you also have this opportunity to kind of start a little bit of a conversation, because there’s a good chance they’re gonna thank you, and you’ll start a conversation and just check in no agenda, how they are what they’re up to. It’s just, you know, building deeper rapport but making them feel good.

Here’s the kicker, and really critical, is you have to make sure that what you endorse them for you have experienced don’t just randomly endorse people for things that you don’t know if they’re good or bad at but make sure when you do this, that you’re doing it authentically, and that they know when they receive that endorsement, that you really feel that way about them.

Bob Woods  02:50

If you endorse a marketer for, like, cold calling, or something like that, not that we would do that, but I mean, if you do that, they’re going to feel it, but then at the same time, it’s like, okay, I really don’t do that, and I really haven’t worked with this person on that. I’m not really sure why I get it. It basically kneecaps the entire reason why you’re doing it essentially. 

So you know, really do it in a genuine way. And that you, as Brynne said, in a way for something rather, that you have actually experienced with this person because otherwise it’s not going to seem genuine, and this is all about being genuine because we are all real, genuine people.

Brynne Tillman  03:26

Great point. So number two.

Bob Woods  03:27

Numero dos, and this one I really like because it involves more than just one person, when you think, when it comes right down to it, make warm introductions to your connections, who can benefit from knowing one another. So, in other words, you’re introducing to people that you’re connected to that you are really like, I really believe that this person can work with this person, or Person A can really compliment Person B and vice versa too.

That is hugely important because you’re not only helping one person, you’re really helping two people and, you know, potentially even more down the line because you can say after that, you know, look through my network, and see if there’s anyone else you would like to be introduced to so that you can like multiply that effect essentially, which I think is very powerful.

Brynne Tillman  04:25

Very powerful. I agree. And you know, as we’re out there showing gratitude to folks, there are a few ways you can do this. There are some people that you’re just going to know who they want to meet, just generally who in your network there they want to meet. But if you don’t know, ask, so you know, “Hey, Bob, I, you know, I’d love to really show my appreciation to having you as a really valuable person in my network. What kinds of people do you talk to that, you know, who is it that you’re prospecting? what folks are good referral partners for you?” ask. 

And then you can search your own connections to find the right people, I want to know who your prospects are, but I’m in this particular case when it comes to gratitude, I don’t know that I’d focus on introducing them into prospects, but to other referral partners. So I have a financial professional and a CPA, or a banker, or an estate planner, all of them work with a similar client and can probably bring each other in, and as Bob mentioned, can really be incredibly valuable to both parties. I love that. Number three.

Bob Woods  05:35

Number three engage and this is an important distinction. Engage on and with their content. In other words, like their discussions, publications, and tweets, and then also engage thoughtfully, and then share their LinkedIn posts as well. And we learned something very interesting about the LinkedIn algorithm that actually kind of charts out what you should do first and then second when you are doing the engaging as well. 

So once upon a time, and I was someone who did this all that time, too, I would just click like or whatever reaction that I wanted, and then I would write a comment, while the algorithm has now flipped that. So nowadays, you should actually write your comment, which is thoughtful and insightful about whatever it is that was posted, write that and post that first, and then click on the appropriate, like, whether it’s, you know, like or celebrate or whatever.

Brynne Tillman  06:39

That’s great advice. What we learned from our friend Richard van der Blom is that when you comment first, that actually helps their post gets seen more in the algorithm, but it also side note, even though this is all about gratitude for them, it actually helps you too. LinkedIn loves when you’re engaging with comments. 

I don’t know if everyone’s seeing this right now, but on mobile, my like became really tiny, and my comment is bigger. So word, like on posts on my mobile, is small, and I noticed that yesterday. So I don’t know if this is a thing where they’re real… I know Bob’s going to check this now. It has not changed at all on desktop but on mobile, the like button is small.

Bob Woods  07:31

Yeah, I’m seeing it too. Yeah absolutely! That’s very interesting.

Brynne Tillman  07:36

Yeah. So they’re definitely encouraging comment first. Yeah, that’s great. Where are we? Number three or four?

Bob Woods  07:40

We are number four, recommend your connections on LinkedIn. And this is important because it goes beyond that endorsement and really gives you an opportunity to expand on exactly why you are recommending this person. So in my view, when you do recommend someone, make sure that you are really spelling out why. So, in other words, you’re not just saying, you know, “This is a great person, I liked them, I recommend them.” 

Tell me why you’re recommending them. “This person did a great job with the copy on my website, we’ve seen an increase of conversions by 35 to 40%. Depending on the page, I wholeheartedly recommend this person.” So make sure that it’s real and genuine and it’s not the equivalent of a great post compliment to a post essentially, make sure that you’re really putting thought into it.

Brynne Tillman  08:39

If I could add to that because that’s very great. You can recommend people in this particular case, Bob, sorry about someone that actually brought us direct value. From, you know, I bought their product or service. You can also recommend someone that introduced you to someone, you could recommend someone who did a great job with a project that you did internally. Someone that you, I mean, there are lots of reasons to recommend folks. And you can recommend your clients for being awesome people to work with. So while our traditional way of looking at recommendations is I bought a product and service, and I am going to give them a review and write a recommendation. Anyone that brings value into your life that you think deserves to be acknowledged you can recommend.

Bob Woods  09:32

Absolutely. So our next tip is going to get back to the endorphins a little bit. but endorphins are always great to feel, and this just gives them a shout-out because everyone likes to see their name in the proverbial LinkedIn spotlight. 

Brynne Tillman  09:48

Yeah! Now be careful with this for sure because you don’t want to mention, first of all, you don’t want to mention 12 People in the post. You want to make it as a personal shout-out, but you can shout out got like something, even if you’re like resharing their content, and you give them a shout-out for all of their insights, or I want to thank so and so for their brilliant conversation that we had today on a mastermind, or I want to give a shout out had a wonderful lunch with you know, with Walt and he shared such great insights and it really was just letting them know that you appreciate whatever they brought to the table. So shout out, I love getting a shout-out.

Bob Woods  10:33

Yeah, shout outs are great. And our next one actually takes shout-out to another level. So we’re at number six now. So this is creating a thank you video mentioning one or more of your connections who have impacted you professionally this past year. And I love it because I’m a video guy. So I do, like doing videos, videos still have an impact, and that someone’s actually seeing you talk about these people. So make sure that when you do the video, you have the appropriate amount of enthusiasm and gratitude in it, and then also make sure that when you are writing the post to the video, you’re at mentioning them too so that they’re actually alerted that you have mentioned them, and hopefully they will come back and comment. 

So again, you’re putting them in a spotlight, but you’re putting them in the spotlight in a much more personal, meaningful way. And that’s not to say that you shouldn’t do shout outs because you absolutely should. But the thank you is a way to kind of deepen that, especially if it’s a slightly longer-term thing. So you know, we just said impacted you professionally, this past year, you could go back and mentioned, you know, this person is on this, this and this for me, and it’s been fantastic. And I think this person is absolutely fantastic.

Brynne Tillman  11:55

You could also chunkify your thank yous, right? So I hired a marketing company and there are four people that I worked with inside that marketing company I talked about how great all four of them were or my own team, I put out a video talking, just saying my appreciation to my own team. 

So you can actually create videos for a different mind, like little communities inside of your everyday work, right? So we have a couple of people that we refer business to, and they have a whole team. So if I just did a video thanking the whole team and mentioning every one of those people, they’re really grateful. And we’re also marketing them as well. So they appreciate that. Am I jumping ahead? If I talk about a personal video? 

Bob Woods  12:42

We really don’t have personal videos. 

Brynne Tillman  12:47

So well, I’m gonna add to this. You do it all the time, but on your phone, you can send just a very personal gratitude, thank you privately to someone, right? And so anyone that you are already connected to, you can send a video message on your mobile device, you just go into message, you click a video and the selfie and just go you know, “Hey, Bob, I really appreciate everything that you’ve done in the last couple of months around X, Y, and Z. And I just wanted to say Happy Thanksgiving” or if you’re doing this after Thanksgiving, just “I’m just grateful for it. Thank you.” So those personal videos, so there’s the great one that you’re publicly sharing, but you could send them personally, too.

Bob Woods  13:32

Absolutely! So the next one that we’re going to talk about is kind of a branch out a little bit from shout outs, but they can be more specific as well. And that’s giving kudos which you can do in the LinkedIn feed for various things that LinkedIn provides that I have gotten them out. So I’m actually going to look that up. 

Brynne Tillman  13:54

Yeah, being a mentor, thinking outside the box. There are so many things that you could do with kudos. And you know, it’s really a public postcard, a public Thank You. I absolutely love this. People are so… their, you know, it’s heartwarming when someone does that, when someone going above and beyond, right. So if someone helps you out and, you know, it wasn’t their job to do it, but they just really wanted to make an impact. Thank them and show that gratitude through kudos.

Bob Woods  14:27

So we’re on number eight now. So three more to go. We’re starting number eight, which is what we’re kind of sort of doing right now, even though Brynne and I are co host is get into more of an interview situation on actually interviewing your connections on a LinkedIn live, just like what we’re doing right now if you’re watching us live.

Brynne Tillman  14:50

Yeah, I love this right? You could do a LinkedIn live. It’s so simple, but you’re sharing their expertise with your network. This is, and you might say, well, you know, if I’m gonna do this for Thanksgiving, there’s only three days till Thanksgiving, if you’re listening, it’s been weeks since Thanksgiving. This is just really about showing your gratitude to them. It doesn’t matter when you do this, but when you reach out to them, you can say, “Look, I really love to interview you on a LinkedIn live 20 minutes, you can share with me the questions you’d like me to ask and your bio to introduce you, but I’d love to get you in front of my networks.” There’s nothing better than to have someone say that to you. I mean, you know, it’s funny because I have people that are prospecting me all the time, and a few of them have done this.

They don’t even have a podcast, but it’s a great way where, you know, I built rapport with them, I like them. And then when they want to talk to me a little bit about what they do to explore if we could work together, I’ve already got a relationship with them. And on a consistent basis, I’ve, you know, this has worked as me as the buyer. So I know, and I’m really skeptical, but I know that you know, one of the ways for you to build rapport with your top-level prospects is to just showcase their expertise to your network, bring them that value. 

I’m not saying it’s, I don’t want this to necessarily be I’m doing this for prospecting because this is about giving to them, but there are a little of these, like gems that come out of it but remember, the purpose of this since it’s about gratitude is about your real purpose is to get their voice in front of your network to help them grow their thought leadership.

Bob Woods  16:47

Precisely. Precisely! Now, we’re gonna flip that a little bit with number nine. This is about sending them content from an influencer they follow. So there are a couple of steps to doing this but this, I almost hesitate to say a little bit that this is the closest thing to a real gift that you can send them but at the same time, you are truly gift gifting them something that they may not know about, depending on how closely that they follow an influencer. So to share with them something that they could take away from somebody that they already like, and you know, you either like or maybe you will discover an influencer that you like too out of it as well. This is really, really powerful, I think.

Brynne Tillman  17:31

Yeah, I love this. So here’s the thing, you can search your first-degree connections and an influencer that they follow. So let’s say you love Brené Brown, you love Brené Brown’s content, and you want to see how many people in your network also love Brené Brown, and you go, “Oh, my gosh, I have eightyseven 1st-degree connections that love Brené Brown, or follow her at least. I’m gonna hop into something like listennotes.com and find a Brené Brown podcast. Listen to it, come up with my top three takeaways and share with them. I mean, this is about what they like and what they care about. So this is a great way to show gratitude.

Bob Woods  18:12

So the last one, which is, in my mind, really great, because this one really gets to the heart of things, because one of the things that we talk about in social selling is thought leadership and promoting your thought leadership. Why not use your thought leadership to promote their thought leadership?

Brynne Tillman  18:30

You know, ultimately, you know, what you’re doing is sharing their content with your network, right? Yeah, there are lots of ways to do this. We do on our newsletter influencer of the week where people can nominate someone, we reach out to the people that are nominated and ask for their insights. And we promote their thought leadership their insights in our newsletter, anyone can do that. I think it’s just socialsaleslink.com/influencer, but we should check it. And so, anyone can nominate an influencer or nominate themselves. 

The other thing is, you know when you go to your network, and you ring their bell to follow them, or you’re going through your newsfeed or you search your 1st-degree connections, you know, you’re going to find, you could actually search 1st-degree connections and posted in the last 24 hours, you’re going to find a lot of content that your network would appreciate. Read that content come up with your top tips, your thoughts around their content, and share it.

Now they will get mentioned when you share that content. You can at mention them if you want to but they will know just simply from you sharing it that it’s been reshard but I tend to at mention them so it’s shown at the top in my thoughts and that they can get to them. What do you think around that?

Bob Woods  20:00

Yeah. So I mean, especially with the at mentions, I mean, just the fact that you’re sharing their content tells them that, you know, one, it was a really good piece of content if someone else’s sharing it. And number two, it shows that you value what they’re saying and especially when you put it in the post part about why you like what they wrote or did a video or whatever, essentially, then I’ll just really goes to promoting their thought leadership even more in saying, you know, this person really knows what they’re talking about, I think that you should listen to what they’re saying or whatever. Yeah, absolutely.

Brynne Tillman  20:46

All right, so I tested it, socialsaleslink.com/influencer you can fill this out, or you can send it to someone else that you think would be great and that’s our gift to you guys is go to socialsaleslink.com/influencer and you know, if you’ve got some great content that our network would find useful, we will give you a shout out both on social and in our newsletter and on our website.

Bob Woods  21:13

Absolutely! And then, speaking of things to share, we are also putting all of… we are in the process of this. So it’s not done yet, at least as of the recording of the LinkedIn live, it will probably be done by the time this gets out on the podcast, but we are putting everything that we talked about today into an ebook as well so that you can have a physical copy whether you print it out and you know waste all the ink or whatever or if you just have it saved as a PDF on your desktop. 

Brynne Tillman 21:41

Very colorful! So it’ll be a lot of ink

Bob Woods  21:13

Yeah, a lot of ink, a lot of toner being burned on that if you decide to print that out. So details on that are coming we will let everyone know when that actually comes.

Brynne Tillman  22:00

It could be in an email. So if you are on our email list, you will automatically get it in a couple of days. If you’re listening to this in replay, you’ll look at the show notes below. You’ll be able to link to it. 

Bob Woods  22:13

Yeah, we will have all that there when it’s ready right now. We’re all way too busy getting Thanksgiving turkeys ready and things like that. 

Brynne Tillman  22:24

Alright, let’s bring this Thanksgiving podcast.

Bob Woods  22:26

We are Thanksgiving. So thanks again for joining us on Making Sales Social Live! If you’re with us, live on LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, or Twitter right now. We do this every week, so keep an eye out for our live sessions. If you’re listening to us on our podcast, we hope that you’d subscribe or follow to us so that you can access all of our previous shows and be alerted when new ones drop. If you’d like more info about the podcast, go to socialsaleslink.com/podcast That one’s easy. 

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 areas. So in this Thanksgiving and holiday season, when you are out and about, make sure to make your sales social! Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. Bye bye!

Outro 16:44

Hit subscribe now, and click the notification bell to get the latest videos from Social Sales Link. Give this video a like and comment down below. Register for free resources at linkedInlibrary.com