Episode 279: Emotional Intelligence in Social Selling: Building Authentic Connections

Intro:

Bob Woods: Welcome sales and marketing pros to Making Sales Social live coming to you from the Social Sales link virtual studios. I’m Bob Woods and joining me today times two today are the co-hosts of Making Sales Social. First is fellow social selling and LinkedIn strategist, consultant, and trainer who is also our sales navigator, and guru, Stan Robinson.

And last, but most certainly not least in the slightest. Is the LinkedIn whisperer and the authority on things related to sales, social selling, and LinkedIn. And we’re going to toss AI in there as well, because we’re all certainly fantastic with AI, if I do say so myself, Brynne Tillman. 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.

Bob Woods: Welcome sales and marketing pros to Making Sales Social Live coming to you from the Social Sales link virtual studios. I’m Bob Woods and joining me today times two today are the co-hosts of Making Sales Social. First is fellow social selling and LinkedIn strategist, consultant, and trainer who is also our sales navigator, and guru, Stan Robinson.

Bob Woods:  How are you doing Stan?

Stan Robinson, Jr: I’m doing great.

Bob Woods: Good to see you. Excellent. Excellent. And last, but most certainly not least in the slightest is the LinkedIn whisperer and the authority on things related to sales, social selling and LinkedIn, and we’re going to toss AI in there as well, because we’re all certainly fantastic with AI.

If I do say so myself, Brynne Tillman, how you doing? 

Brynne Tillman: I’m good. I’m very excited about our topic today.

Bob Woods: Yeah. Today’s topic is definitely good. It’s something that we don’t talk about a lot, but, it definitely does deserve some discussion. And what we’re talking about is emotional intelligence. And we’re going to talk about how it becomes a pivotal skill that can really transform interactions from mere transactional based to establishing and maintaining really deep and meaningful connections.

So it’s about leveraging our understanding of emotions, rather, to navigate the nuances of online communication. We can use it to craft messages that resonate on a personal level and build a trust, especially nowadays, without the benefit of that direct communication. Face to face interaction where you’re in front of someone personally and you’re, you know, it’s more like either zoom or, you know, it may still be on the phone.

So as you’ve probably asked by now, Brynne is an especially big fan of this. So why, why are you a big fan? I have a feeling I know what you’re going to say, but why are you a fan of it?

Brynne Tillman: Well, so there’s a few things, right? In today’s, especially AI world, which we are huge fans of, we still need to connect human to human.

Very few people are buying any kind of complex solution without forming some kind of rapport and bond. With the team they’re purchasing from, whether it’s a salesperson or the implementers or a combination of many folks, but we need to connect with people in a way. That’s meaningful to them.

Intelligence, our normal IQ, is how we think, right? How our brain works. I believe emotional intelligence is connecting with how someone else’s brain works. Connecting with the other  person in a way that’s relevant to them. So, You know, I was introduced to emotional intelligence from Colleen Stanley. I wouldn’t say introduced, I had heard about it, but Colleen Stanley really deeply goes into the empathy on the other side, the connection on the other side, the honoring the other person.

And so over the last few years, right, We have, as a team, as a company, whether we’re explicitly calling it EI, emotional intelligence, or actually just teaching the tactics and strategies from an emotional intelligence perspective. I thought today we would put the label behind the actions.

Bob Woods: Yeah, that’s great.

As especially there’s, something that I want to key on that, that you mentioned, and that is honoring someone when a sales, when a sales process is more transactional and you’re just looking to get to the close and get the proverbial ink on the contract, you’re not really honoring. You’re not honoring the person like you would in this type of situation.

And honoring the person obviously comes from respecting their emotions and really trying to find out where they’re at emotionally and then helping them out. You know, it, all goes back to our old phrase. Stop talking about how you help about how you help people and just help people. You do that by honoring their emotional state.

Brynne Tillman: So I love that. And I am putting in a phrase that we talk about all the time, which I am just adding, now, if you are watching us live, you will see it, uh, But it’s detached from what it’s I see. I just did it fast. So ignore my spelling errors. Detach from what the prospect is worth to you and attach to what you are worth to the prospect.

Right? This is really important. On so many levels, because when we are in sales, I’m going to get rid of that with spelling errors. I do it too quickly. But when we are in sales, we are typically, concerned about the pipeline, the statistics, how many, you know, all about, making the number, making the number.

And so what happens is we are attached to the sale versus attaching to the value we can bring. And when we can make that shift. And I’m going to say it again, when we can detach from what the prospect is worth to us and attach to what we are worth to the prospect, we are keyed into emotional intelligence in the sales process.

So we have 10 practical, I guess, categories to talk about when it comes to Emotional intelligence in social selling and most of these, to be quite honest, are going to follow an emotional intelligence in many other places. There are some that are linked in only, but not most. So the 1st 1 is self awareness.

The only way you could be self aware, in my opinion, is take inventory of everything you’ve done before. So take a look at the messages you sent prospects. Take a look at the content you’ve engaged on the comments. You’ve made the content you’ve shared. And really, how are you showing up in the marketplace when we can be self aware of where we are today?

We can make an active. Change so before we can be emotionally intelligent, we have to take inventory of who we are. So I’d love to hear your thoughts guys.

Bob Woods: Stand, why don’t you go ahead?

Stan Robinson, Jr: Good. It self awareness is kind of meta because you have to focus on. On being self aware and care about being self aware in order to do it.

And I think part of the challenge is many folks don’t care and therefore they don’t make the effort to look at, as Brynne said, what they’ve been doing, how it’s been working or not working. By the way, one, one tool that’s helpful for me, even though painful at times is reviewing video recordings of myself.

Brynne Tillman: Yeah. Nice.

Stan Robinson, Jr: Yeah. Because the challenge with being self aware are blind spots. And by definition, blind spots are the things we can’t see about ourselves. And video helps with that for me.

Brynne Tillman: I love that. And then what do you do if you identify and go, boy, I wish I had said that somewhere else. Do you try to now implement that into the future?

Stan Robinson, Jr: Yeah. Just, it’s make a mental note. And try to change it when I’m doing it in the future. Easier said than done, but, but without tools like video or a personal coach, who’s right there with you. And this is where AI and video can be helpful, because not all of us can afford a private coach, but, you know, video replays and AI can act as our private coach, so to speak.

Bob Woods: Yeah, that’s an excellent point. And, um, I do think that you can go from the mental to the physical in terms of trying to improve things, because if you can see, I mean, it’s not that bad right now, but, um, I have post it notes. Thanks. Everywhere. And I think just, you know, just, just like jotting down a little reminder or like just a little note to kind of key you in, into something that you’re trying to change.

So it’s visual and it’s right in front of you can definitely help develop that new habit because what’s, what’s that old phrase or number it takes 21 times or 21 days or something like that to, to develop a new habit. If you’re going to be concentrating on that, you’ve got to take it from your brain where you’re not going to think about it all the time to where it’s like physically in front of you.

Brynne Tillman: Yeah, I love that. And I’m going to throw out a tool that we use is Sybil. ai. And so every, it’s our note taker, but it also has video. Not all note takers have video. And you can actually go in and I do this often. Where did they smile? Where did they nod? So you can take a look at the good stuff that you’re doing and you’re like, they should have smiled there and they didn’t.

You could get some feedback on that too. So, I think that that’s great. And I think self awareness is absolutely the most important step because none of your other steps are going to work. If you don’t understand what you’re doing. The last thing on this is. When you are watching your video, step out of yourself and say, if I were in this class, in this meeting, if I were experiencing this, how would I perceive it?

So I’m going to share something in today’s meeting. We every Monday morning, we have an all hands on deck meeting for the team. And I was trying to express something that I could not articulate. It just wasn’t coming from my brain to my mouth. And so I have noted down to go back and see where was my disconnect.

So this is just even for our team so that I can learn how to commute, communicate better. So I actually wrote that down, not realizing I was going to bring the two of these together because that’s not social selling. But I said, you know what? I know that I was trying to explain something that I was not doing a good job.

And then I think I was frustrating someone on our team without meaning to. So I need to fix that. And I want to go back and hear, what did I say? Because it made sense in my head. It just didn’t make sense when it came out of my mouth. So, that’s really important. Okay. Number two, active listening. Who wants to start on this one?

Stan Robinson, Jr: Well, I’ll mention a couple things in terms of active listening. Now, this is where in in person and video really help because we take cues from nonverbal what you can see and responding to that. So bring you mentioned where people where people nodding where people smiling and also, just indicating that you have heard what they have said so that you can both be assured that you’re on the same page and people love affirmation folks want to be heard.

Brynne Tillman: So, I love this. I’m going to yes, and that and say. They want to be heard based on the content they share on LinkedIn and what they put on their profile. So active listening is, Hey, I noticed we both follow Brene Brown, or that you actively listened, even though it’s reading. I watched a video that you were, or I noticed this content that you shared, or, Oh my gosh, you went to Villanova.

I was at the parade when they won the five, not this year, many, many years ago. Right. But, you know, you look at what you have in common, who you have in common, and that’s active listening. The content they’re sharing, even if you look at what’s happening in their industry, you may say, well, that’s not listening to them, but you are actively listening to probably what matters to them.

And so just to your point, Stan, where like, they feel like they’ve been heard on social. If someone reaches out to me and says, Hey, I really loved that post that you did on adoption in sales training. I’d love to connect with you. I’m finding a way to connect with them and engage with them because they really listened or at least enough to know that I posted that.

I feel like I mattered and it doesn’t matter who you are. If you’re the CEO of a big company, if you post something, you want people to read it. And when someone lets, you know that they enjoyed it, you, you now. Feel like you mattered as that CEO, you matter to that person. And so that’s where I feel like active listening really matters.

Bob, you want to add to that before we go to number three?

Bob Woods: Yeah. I mean, just real quick, uh, just because y’all mentioned everything that I was going to mention, but, just reiterating the fact that active listening goes beyond interpersonal and, and really goes into the other Types of things that informs someone’s emotional state and, you know, whether it’s, it’s the content that they’ve shared, or I think especially, you know, what’s going on in their industry and seeing, you know, if they are facing the same situations, cause chances are, they probably are, but if they’re not.

Find out why not and then active listening and then active listen on the personal, you know, interpersonal basis based on their unique experiences there. And then, you know, reiterate and make sure that you understand what they’re saying.

Brynne Tillman: Fabulous. Okay. Number three, authenticity. We all believe in authenticity and this may seem like a duh, but I’m going to start with This means you can’t use automation because you can’t be authentic.

Right without now I have I’m going to share I have made posts using chat GPT and I will actually at the bottom say authored by Brynne Tillman and chat GPT because it’s not that I’m not using it. I’m just authentic about it. Now, if I have changed it enough. I will take res I, I will own it, but if I only edited it a little bit, and I mostly use the chatgpt, I’m giving it credit.

Mm-Hmm. But authenticity is a few things don’t tell someone that you view their profile. I really like your profile. I really and you didn’t view it. So I’m going to say, and then I’ll pass it to you guys. Authenticity on social selling means that you are not lying or trying to fake it or, you know, where, you know, you think you’re clever because you use their name 3 times in a message.

And so you think now it’s more personal, right? But your automation did that. So authenticity is don’t start off conversations with a lot. I will pass it on to you gentlemen to add to it. Yeah,

Bob Woods: so I want to add something about AI, because you can be authentic with AI and yet not sound authentic. So in other words, AI can generate something for you that you 100 percent believe in.

Believe in, but if you copy and paste it and it doesn’t sound like you, it’s not going to sound authentic. So you need to sound authentic just as much as you are being authentic in just what Bryn said about not lying and making sure that it’s the truth. So you have to, if you are taking content from chat GPT and you agree with it, you still need to make it sound like you, the easiest.

I’m just, I’m going to drop and run one real quick tip. I’ve said this often before. The easiest way to do that is to read it out loud. If it doesn’t sound like you when you’re reading it out loud, guess what? No one else is going to, no one else is going to think that it sounds like you either. You have to make it sound like you.

That way you’re not only believing in what you’re putting out there, but it’s being authentic because it is coming from you.

Brynne Tillman: Can I add really quickly to that, Stan, before we jump over to you? This is one, one of the things that we do that’s really important is we will say, Record yourself on zoom or anywhere that you can get your transcript and then use that transcript in chat GPT and tell it not to research.

Just use this transcript only do not research. So that’s another way to make that authentic. So, Stan, I’ll throw that to you.

Stan Robinson, Jr: Yep. You all have covered it. The 1 thing. That I’ll yes, and with is just to say your voice, make it your voice. And that’s why,

Brynne Tillman: yeah,

Stan Robinson, Jr: that’s why you reread everything that chat reproduces, you convert it into your voice.

And that’s why Brynne, as you said, using the zoom recording that you have made. Is so powerful.

Brynne Tillman: Absolutely. I agree so much. And, and by the way, you can teach chat your voice. There are steps and stages, and the 3 of us are building out some to start to teach chat. Who you are and some of it is using your transcripts and, you know, and, and creating a stream of information.

And then once you’ve done that, actually telling it to have, you know, what are the words I need to use so that you understand that the, the previous 25 articles. Is in our company voice is in our voice and we’re working on that GPT and that’ll be part fabulous stuff but I do want to let you know that you can teach Chat GPT, your voice.

We have our buddy Bruce, an indicator of being attached, detaches how I receive no decision from a prospect. Do I view it as their right to say no? Or do I default to trying to change their decision? For example, overcoming objections. So this is going back to the detach from what the prospect is worth to you and attached to what you are worth to the prospect and we will, we could do a whole program on that.

And maybe we will, but I’m just going to share for a moment. It’s not about them saying no, it’s about you adding value. Until you’ve earned the right for them to say, yes. So if you are truly detached, so I’m working with Bob and I’m like, hey, Bob, you know, I mean, I’m going to take someone else Fred out in the world and made believe person.

And I’ll say, so Fred, you know, I know you’ve been on LinkedIn for a long time and you’ve been challenged with doing X, Y, and Z. Can I offer a little bit of, Insights around that. And Fred says, sure. And I say, before I do, can I ask you a couple of questions? So when I offer you insights, you are, you know, it’s appropriate for you.

And then you can get into a little discovery and offer value. You know, let’s write this down. I think we have the next four or five scheduled, but let’s do a whole program on detach from what the prospect is worth to you and attach to what you’re worth to your prospect. So Bruce also asks don’t plagiarize even when from chatgpt acknowledge your sources.

So here’s the interesting thing really quickly about acknowledging sources on chatgpt. You could ask it to give you sources and then when you click through they’re broken. So do not assume because chatgpt  gave you the sources that they’re accurate. which is really important. That is why we are huge advocates of using your own transcript and telling it not to reach research.

Brynne Tillman: Yeah. And actually, you can, if you’re using 4. 0 and you’re, it’s researching Bing, you can put in links to blog posts from your company and tell it to use the voice of those blog posts, right. And your transcript. So just sharing. Number 4, Stan, you want to talk about the role of emotional intelligence and connection requests?

Stan Robinson, Jr: Oh, my well, when you’re when you’re reaching out to someone, and I’m assuming you’re talking about, you’re reaching out to them rather than incoming connection. Right?

Brynne Tillman: Yes. Yes. Yes. If we actually have. Well, that’s okay. Our next 1, we can cover the other way.

Stan Robinson, Jr: The other side. Very good. Well, the wonderful thing about about linked in is that you can see, who you’re reaching out to connect with.

You can take 2 minutes to look at their profile and come up with at least 2 things that you can use to build rapport. And to find out who it is that you’re talking to and look for opportunities to connect on an emotional level. Your invitations don’t always have to be about business. We’re in the middle, for example, of March Madness right now.

And if you’re about to connect with someone whose team has just made the sweet 16, that’s something to talk about to at least ask, Hey, you know, congratulations. Are you following this? And by the way, you open to connecting on LinkedIn.

Brynne Tillman: So, I love what you just said, because ultimately it’s about context in what matters to them in a way that matters to them.

So, I use Villanova as an example from many years ago, but when they 1, I was at the parade, and I took pictures and sent them to prospects that went to Villanova pictures from the parade. So nice. That’s awesome. Right? So, so having that connection and what matters to them makes a big difference.

What are your thoughts, Bob?

Bob Woods: Yeah. So just, you know, you can generally get a good idea of what matters to them, not only from their profile, but if they’ve done any shares, which, you know, appear right in their profile. You can look up, you can look up some of the most recent shares. Maybe you focus the connection request on a specific share that they did and how it resonated with you.

Cause it’s obviously important to them. And if it’s important to you too, there’s a mutual connection potential right there. And then you can, you can echo that in your connection request to them.

Brynne Tillman: Apologies is my mute working.

Bob Woods: Yes, it’s working.

Brynne Tillman: Okay, cool. All right. I love that. Okay. Number 5. So I’m gonna, connect this to your last question, Stan, which is, you know, if you’ve accepted someone’s connection, they’ve asked us to connect.

How do we start a conversation with them? And a lot of this is asking permission to send content. So one of the things so in a welcome message, someone connects my typical message, although I will try if they have a message, I will do my very, very best to customize my welcome message to their message.

But if I connect with them and there was no message. Typically, I’ll say something like, thanks for connecting. I had a chance to look at your profile and I see we have 27 people in comment. Remember, they asked me to, you know, they asked me to connect and I’m accepting, you know, I’m not sure if you’re exploring social selling insights, but if you are, we have a free library with lots of resources.

If you’re interested, let me know. I’m happy to send you a link. P. S. May I ask how you found me? Notice I didn’t send, Hey, thanks for connecting. Here’s a link to our free resources. I am making a small assumption that because they’re connecting with me and I don’t know who they are and we haven’t engaged that they are interested in LinkedIn and social selling or they’re interested in selling me.

Those are the only two things right in my, you know, don’t think there’s any other reason at this point in LinkedIn anyway. So really kind of take that, that point very, um, ask permission. Across the board before you send any content and we did a study, Bob. Gosh, this is now 4

Bob Woods: years ago. Yeah,

Brynne Tillman: we should do it again.

But we sent 100 people content directly and 19 clicked through and then we sent the same conversation, but we asked permission to send the content. 69. Said, yes, please send it and 58 clicked through so we should do it again. We did it with smart links. So we could see not only if they clicked through, but who, and because we had 2 different smart links going with the same content.

That’s a Sales navigator feature for advanced and advanced plus users and it was phenomenal. So the bottom line is permission to name drop. You guys want to add to that?

Bob Woods: Yeah. I mean, just basically, if you don’t just, just think of it like this, if you don’t ask for permission, people, some people might think it’s spam.

Just think of it.

Bob Woods: absolutely nothing else, you don’t want to be seen as a spammer.

Stan Robinson, Jr: And we were talking earlier about honoring the other person and asking for permission as a way to honor them and their time.

Brynne Tillman: Yes. And their inbox. That’s great. Honor the inbox. I think we need t shirts. Talk to Susan for me. Okay. I

Bob Woods: certainly will. Honor the inbox.

Brynne Tillman: Honor the inbox. All right. Empathetic communication.

Now, this could be controversial and I went back and forth with, do I use the word empathy in communication? And I decided to do it today. And the reason is, or the concept in my head is, have you ever sent a message to someone and they respond never even taking into consideration what you said

Brynne Tillman: All the time?

I am calling that. Unempathetic. So I, I have a whole, I think I posted it. It’s in an old post. I have to go find, but I had an interaction with  someone who was selling me and he never looked at my, I think it really was automation and it was, it seemed good enough that I didn’t know it was automation, except.

That there were these responses that were detached from what I said, and at 1 point, I said, I think I gave him my calendar. And at 1 point, there was like, are you interested in scheduling something? And I’m like, please see link above. And then he sent his link so ultimately what happened is that was there was no empathy and I’m not to my empathy.

Like, oh, I feel for her, but empathy and maybe it’s the wrong word, but the empathy and that I actually am engaging. With In the conversation. I’m not just running it all. It’s not a  speech. It’s a two way conversation and be empathetic that now I’m frustrated. Feel my frustration. That’s also and then even the response.

When I’m like, I’m so confused. Apologize. Even if he had just said, I am so very sorry. I was using automation. I could have forgiven it and then given him a lecture on why not to use automation, but he doubled down. And this happened another time with me, where someone that I interviewed for our podcast had We sent me a message that said we’ve been connected on LinkedIn for some time, yet we’ve never had a conversation and I sent back a message that said, I’m so sad that you forgot about me already.

We just talked 2 weeks ago for the podcast interview  and he doubled down on that instead of apologizing. So I’m gonna add all of that. Everyone can make the mistake. I have no problem with people making mistakes. I make mistakes all the time. Own it. Don’t double down. Okay, that’s my little lecture on this.

What are you, what are your thoughts?

Bob Woods: Yeah, so I think that empathy is a good word and I just looked up the definition and I got like a real short one, but I think it does encompass everything. Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. for listening. I think that’s everything that we’ve talked about here.

Brynne Tillman: Yeah. And communicate back with that in mind. So understanding and feeling it is one thing, expressing it in your communication is another. Cause I will tell you the guy that I interviewed for the podcast that had this, I’m sure it was very embarrassed, right? I’m sure. I know he didn’t forget me.

We’re in two chat chains and we’re like, I’m real. We know each other very, very well. We’ve been on five zooms together. So I’m sure he was embarrassed. And when I sent the message back, like, I’m sad that you forgot about me already. It was a little tongue in cheek, but if he said, Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry.

I was sending a bunch of these out. You got kind of caught up in that. I was like, okay, fine. I get it. I totally get it. I love that you’re using LinkedIn, whatever. Right. I totally get it. But he didn’t. He’s like, no, I just thought it would be good for to reconnect. I’m like, that is not what happened. So don’t don’t presume.

That the other person on the other side doesn’t understand what happened because we do and mistakes are fine owning them and communicating the ownership of them is really important and we are in a time where people double down even when they know they’re wrong and that’s showing up in sales.

Pathetic communication is the opposite. Just own it. Doubling down when you make a mistake is the biggest mistake. Like Martha Stewart went to jail not because of what she did, but because of the lie she told after she did it. Right. Like let’s laugh. I mean, I love her, but right. Like it’s not the mistake.

Usually that gets in trouble. It’s communicating in a way that’s trying to get you excuse the mistake instead of owning it. Sorry, Martha Stewart. I do really like her. All right. One of you talk about relationship building. I’ve been chitchatting a lot.

Bob Woods: Why don’t you go ahead and stand

Stan Robinson, Jr: good? Well, yeah, I was going to add with the empathetic communication.

It’s just so closely related to active listening, relationship building since we are talking about, emotional intelligence. The ability to understand where someone’s coming from, what’s important to them, what kind of, triggers their emotions and their emotional responses is key in terms of building relationships.

Because, Brynne, as you mentioned, the conversations, they need to be dialogues. They need to be 2 ways and it’s the only way for things to work. So you need to, understand them, and you also need to help them understand you, because the relationship, it has to be a two way exchange.

Brynne Tillman: I love that Bob. Yeah. 

Bob Woods: So I just think that almost everything that we’ve discussed kind of culminates in relationship building, because if you don’t have everything else, maybe not like down pat necessarily, but at least you have that mindset coming in that you need all of these elements to, to really build an effective relationship that is beneficial to both sides, then you know, you’re, you’re basically lost.

So. You know, this is all this is all like kind of building steps to a certain extent. It’s ultimately about building relationships.

Brynne Tillman: So I’m going to share because we talk about relationship building all the time.

Bob Woods: Yes.

Brynne Tillman: The social selling part is building rapport. Earning the right to get the conversation that builds the relationship.

So this is the top of the, I meeting you in the bar piece of the relationship, but right, but you’ve got to show up authentically. You have to earn the right you’ve got, you know, in the bar, you’ve got just a couple of hours to build enough, maybe even a couple of minutes to build enough of a connection.

To start the relationship. So social selling is about starting that relationship and building enough chemistry, I think, in order to, you know, to get that relationship going. Going I know I kind of said the word way too many times in the definition and you’re not supposed to do it. Really. It’s building rapport and earning the right to start the relationship.

So Bruce, such great questions. We’re going to go back to that asking permission, which I think is important. What are some recommended responses? If the person says no to asking permission to send content, we have to honor that. So if they asked you to connect and you say yes and then offer information, my response would be,

Triggered you to connect with me, right? What is it that, you know, that got you to ask me to connect? Where do you think we can be of benefit to one another in each other’s network? If they asked you to connect, we have every right to ask this, right? The difference is when you ask them to connect. And they say, yes, and you ask permission to send content and they say, no.

I would look at other content they’ve shared and find other content based on content. They’ve been sharing, not your own content, but now they shared content from Brené Brown and you go out and find a podcast that Brené Brown is on and say, you know, I understand you’re not looking for content about this, but I did notice that we’re both fans of Brené Brown.

Did you happen to hear. her podcast the other week. If you’re interested, let me know. I’ll send you that link.  And then if they have zero interest in any of this, I would just kind of let it go because they’re not looking for a conversation right now. Now, because they’re a new connection, they will see your content for the first two weeks.

If you’re posting content and I would actively engage on their content and then wait till a natural moment happens in engagement, but I would not, I would get out of their inbox if they say no twice. So, and he also said, Bruce also says doubling down is also increasingly showing up on social media. 

Bob Woods: Yes, it’s showing up everywhere.

I mean, everywhere people are doubling down. No one wants to say, Hey, it’s my mistake. It’s my bad. I just think that, people are. Are in that, are in the fight or flight thing, except they’re not fleeing. They’re just all about fighting no matter what. And that’s just society. I mean, I think that that goes way beyond sales or whatever.

It’s just how society is right now. And it sucks. And there’s nothing we can do about it.

Brynne Tillman: Well, what we can do about it is our participation in it.

Bob Woods: Yeah, that’s true. Yep. So that’s

Brynne Tillman: What we own. We own how we react.

Bob Woods: Yep. Don’t do it.

Brynne Tillman: So, right. So you just be the best person. So, we have lots of mantras in our world.

But we’re a team of people that really want to do what’s right. Whether, I mean, Spiritual religious, whether you believe in God or whatever your God is, we are a team of people. All of us. Our whole team is connected to being the best human beings. We can be and those are the kinds of people. I like to attract in my world.

Right? So what we can control is who we surround ourselves with. The conversations and the emotional intelligence, whether it’s intelligent or not, the emotional awareness that that we can. You’re right, Bob. We cannot control what the whole world is doing, but we can control what we’re putting out in the universe and whether it’s social teammate who has a sick parent or like, Our goal.

Yeah, we’re in business to make money. Really. Our mission is to improve everyone’s lives professionally and personally in our, our world. Right? Like, that’s the relationship building that I think really, really matters. So, so while there is doubling down in the world, I am doubling down on being good. Like just being good the best we can be and I know I know the souls of the people that we work with and we that’s just just just has to be the mission on social selling and in life for us and hopefully for you guys too that it’s just about being good and kind and making an impact and making a difference and making money doing it.

So that like that’s really important. Okay. Number eight. Sorry. It went on my little rant responding to feedback.

Bob Woods: This is hard. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It’s hard. It’s, I don’t know if art is the right word, but you definitely have to, you definitely have to take that emotional thing into consideration because, I mean, if someone leaves you a negative comment, I mean, what do you do with it? As what I generally do is just acknowledge what they’ve said, you know, depending on the context of the comment.

So, I mean, this is all like, you know, this is all really dependent on what they leave. But in general, be empathetic to what it is. They’re saying they might within within that negativity, they might actually be saying something that you want to comment on. If that’s the case, then reply with a comment on that.

But if they’re just like, you know, I hate you and I hate blah, blah, blah. And I hate blah, blah, blah. You know, just reply with thanks with your comment and then just don’t engage. I mean, there are definitely kind of, levels. Yeah, that’s the word I want. Levels in how to respond to a feedback or a comment based on what they’re saying.

They say, but like I said, sometimes within those negative comments, there can be nuggets to where you can, you can have at least a conversation in comments about it and maybe even turn them around. You never know, but you have to be empathetic to what they’re feeling.

Brynne Tillman: So I’ll tell you an interesting, this isn’t, this is post social selling training, but Jack Hubbard taught me something.

Um, we, we sent surveys out and we got excellent, excellent reviews. And I think there were almost everything was strongly agreed, but there were a couple. That we’re not, and I made a comment. I’m like, Oh, I really like a pluses. And he said, I don’t, I’m like, what do you mean? He goes, I want to know the truth.

We are never perfect. And if they’re all a pluses, then they just like us. That doesn’t mean that we got the real answer. And when we get the real answer, that’s where the value is. Cause we can get better next time. And I was like, Oh, Jack, you’re brilliant. Cause he is. But you know, I went from the little kid that was wanted an a plus and we got an a, but there was room for improvement and we are grateful now that the folks told us where that was.

Bob Woods: Yeah. Could not agree more with that. Could not agree more with that.

Brynne Tillman: So let’s talk about responding to feedback that’s public on a post so do you guys so

Bob Woods: actually bruce just had a really good comment if you want to pop that up that’s directly related to what we’re talking about this very last one and thank you bruce for participating.

We really appreciate it

Brynne Tillman: Okay Acknowledge the feedback. Additionally, seek added clarity and understanding. I love it. By all means, don’t arrogantly double down. Exactly,

Bob Woods: yeah. That’s the part I like. Everything was good, but the double down part was like the cherry on top of everything

Brynne Tillman: else. So I’ll say my response is get into the inbox.

publicly just say thank you for the feedback. I’d love, I like, I like the word clarify. I don’t know that I would have used that, but I will now. I’d love to clarify where we can improve or what could happen. And then I want to have a one on one conversation. And ultimately my goal is to Is to learn now if the goal was just hate speech or and I have had things.

I mean, I don’t know that I’m going to talk about it here, but I have had like anti Semitic things on posts where someone said something. I will hide that something that is just hateful. That’s what I’m saying about levels something that is just hateful. I will, hide because there’s no purpose to that.

And I have actually reported 1 because I saw the exact same comment on a lot of peoples. So it was a mission to go out there and get a perspective out there. But ultimately, if it’s an honest feedback about the content that I shared, my goal is to take it one on one.

Stan Robinson, Jr: Totally agree with that. Yep. Take it, take it offline if you really need to go into depth because you can’t get into nuance.

Nor do you really want to. Publicly and occasionally there’s positive feedback. So don’t forget to respond. Yeah,

Brynne Tillman: yeah, but you’re right. That’s make sure you are thanking them. Yeah. Oh yes. That’s important.

Bob Woods: Yeah. That’s important. Yeah.

Brynne Tillman: I will also say make sure when you do take it offline that you’ve publicly stated that you’d like to take it offline so that everyone knows that you’ve taken that action.

Brynne Tillman: I think that’s important, but that good feedback. Thank you. I was so stuck in the negative feedback. How do you handle that? That there’s positive feedback. So wait, wait, wait. I’m going to come back to this. Oh, I’m sorry. I’m like, wait, I’m going to come back to this because one more thing responding to feedback, positive feedback, get a recommendation on social selling, um, ask them to do a little video or a testimonial or something.

So I, if it’s good enough anyway, but definitely acknowledge and thank this is easy. I don’t know who wants to start with this, supporting others, the content, et cetera. Who wants to start on this one?

Bob Woods: Is this like the birthdays and things like that? I’m trying to determine.

Brynne Tillman: That is one.

Bob Woods: Okay. Okay. Yeah. So.

Brynne Tillman: He’s right there.

Bob Woods: Yeah. Yeah. So in, in LinkedIn and it’s moved and I can never remember where it’s at.

So I’m actually going to LinkedIn really quick. You go to my network.

Brynne Tillman: It’s not, it’s in inbox catch up now.

Bob Woods: Oh, it’s in it in. Oh, my God. Inbox cat. I don’t have that.

Brynne Tillman: Okay, well, let’s just talk about birthdays, anniversaries, job changes, supporting others. Go ahead. You talk. Yeah.

Bob Woods: So, you know, those are really, really simple ways to just show your support for for someone else to acknowledge a birthday to acknowledge a job Change and, you know, you know, hope it’s a great success and good to see you expanding your horizons.

I mean, you know, we all know what to say to those types of things, but I mean, but just sharing that good news, um, makes them feel better, makes you feel good, exposes those people to your network as well. So there might be a chance for edit. interactions with that person. If someone else finds what they do interesting or if they find the job changes during or, or whatever, there’s, there’s nothing but good that comes out of that.

Brynne Tillman: Yeah. And you can even their first degree connection. So you can even send a video message.

Bob Woods: Yep.

Brynne Tillman: Happy birthday. Stan, talk about supporting them with content and their content and comments, all that stuff.

Stan Robinson, Jr: Yes, because there’s so many different ways to support others. So it’s interesting. You mentioned that I was thinking of the content side and if they post something that, yes, you saw the smoke coming up.

So, if there’s something that they’ve posted that. That you can engage with in a non promotional way and add something to the discussion as Bob mentioned, it amplifies their posts. So more people see it because we’ve talked about. The only reason that people post is because they do want people to see and engage with their posts and then you can also support others.

If you’re, if you’re in a position to with recommendations and with endorsements, as long as they’re authentic.

Brynne Tillman: So I love that. I’m going to throw in a little curveball on how to support others, but figure out who would be good referral partners. So who in your network may be a  mortgage person and a realtor in the same location.

And support each other by saying, Hey, I think you guys would do really well networking together. I thought I’d make this introduction.

Bob Woods: That’s not a curve ball. It’s more like level one was what I said. Level two is what Stan said. And level three is what you said.

Brynne Tillman: I love level three. I’m Mario brothers.

Either that

Bob Woods: or level one, you know, whichever way you want to take it. That’s fine.

Brynne Tillman: I, we can take it anyway. And the last one is, Here, this is simple as we wrap this up, and I’m not even going to go around on this because I think it’s just. A simple concept of you’re going to go in with a plan and everyone that goes in with a plan leaves with, like, lots of.

Um, you have your GPS and there’s construction, so you have to go another way and then you have to stop for gas and then you’re hungry and you have to make a potty break. Like, your path that you have plotted out is not always exactly the way you plan. And you have to be adaptable. So, you know, to Bruce’s point, what happens when they do this?

What happens when they do that? You have to be ready. You can have a really well laid out plan. What do they say? You can lay out plans and then God laughs at you. Is that? Right. Right. So you just, you know, this is part of the journey. Just don’t get stuck in. Well, this is what they said to do and it didn’t work.

So what do I do? And here’s my playbook and I’m doing this and it’s not converting. Well, chances are it’s because you’re not adapting to the responses or to the individual human beings. So I’m going to leave this with being flexible and adaptable is really going to be huge in emotional intelligence. So bring it back to that, right?

You, emotional intelligence is not following your plan. It’s following theirs.

Bob Woods: That’s another t shirt moment.

Brynne Tillman: All right.

Bob Woods: All right.

Brynne Tillman: Yeah. So let’s let you, I’m going to let you take it in for a landing, Bob Woods.

Bob Woods: Yeah. So thank you again for joining this XL size episode of making sales social live, but it was most definitely worth it. So if you’re with us live on LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, or X slash 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 and you haven’t subscribed already. Go ahead and hit that subscribe or follow button and then ring the bell or whatever it is so that you’re alerted when new shows come up and you can discover our previous shows as well.

More info on our podcast is available at social sales link. com slash podcast. We do two shows weekly. We do this one and our making sales, social interview series, where we talk with leaders and experts in sales, marketing. Business and lots of different areas, especially AI nowadays. So, and Bren, I think we’re just gonna have you say this because two people can’t talk at once because it gets drowned out.

So when you’re out and about, be sure to make your sales. Thanks, everybody.

Brynne Tillman: Oh, we’ll say social. Ready? One, two, three.

Bob Woods: Social!

Brynne Tillman: We’ll get it right.

Bob Woods: We’ll see how that happens. Thanks, everyone. We appreciate it. Have a great day, great week, all that stuff. Bye bye. Don’t miss an episode. Visit social sales, link. com slash podcast.

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