Episode 299: Building and Nurturing a Sales Community on LinkedIn

Intro

Bob Woods: Welcome to the Making Sales Social podcast featuring the top voices in sales, marketing, and business. Join Brynne Tillman, Stan Robinson Junior, and me, Bob Woods, as we each bring you the best tips and strategies our guests are teaching their clients so you can leverage them for your own virtual and social selling. Enjoy the show. Welcome to Making Sales Social Live coming to you from the social sales link virtual studios.

0:00:39 – (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 I’m joined, as always, by my co-hosts, Brynne Tillman and Stan Robinson. How y’all doing today?

0:00:54 – (Brynne Tillman): Great, Bob. How are you doing?

0:00:56 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): Great, thanks, Bob.

0:00:58 – (Bob Woods): Yeah, good. Glad to see we are all here and we are all on our games today because we’re going to be talking about something that we don’t talk about all the time, but we probably should. And that’s building and nurturing a sales community on LinkedIn. So, as we all know, LinkedIn is so much more than just a platform for connections. It’s a vibrant community where meaningful interactions can lead to substantial business growth and we can develop our own communities within the LinkedIn community as well, which makes it a fantastic tool for so, for so many reasons, but especially for that.

0:01:36 – (Bob Woods): So today we’re going to be sharing strategies on how to create and nurture an online community on LinkedIn. We’re going to focus on engagement, value exchange, and fostering a real sense of belonging among members. And as always, please feel free to put your questions in chat and we will answer them along the way, he says as he forgot to bring up the chat window. And there it is right there. Okay, very good.

0:01:58 – (Bob Woods): So first of all, does anybody have any general thoughts about building a sales community before we get into the nitty-gritty and impartioniculars?

0:02:10 – (Brynne Tillman): I’m always happy to chat. So building a community, the first thing I think you have to do is identify who you want in that community. So we call the sales community, but really it’s not about a sales community at all. It’s about a community of people that you can help, that you can bring value to, and potentially become a sales opportunity. The other community to build in the realm of business development and sales are networking partners.

0:02:44 – (Brynne Tillman): So for example, I am part of the women in sales experts group. We are a community in real person and we meet once a year, but we also have and we’ll talk about all these different things today. We also have engagement threads, and we have a group, and we have areas inside of LinkedIn where we can engage and continue to grow that community. I am not selling to them. They all sell to the same clients we sell into, but we’re not competitors.

0:03:22 – (Brynne Tillman): For example, Liz Hyman focuses on putting together a sales process for companies we teach LinkedIn. Colleen Stanley will talk about EQ having that emotional intelligence side. So all of us bring different things to the table but can refer to each other. So Colleen Stanley, for example, referred a piece of business to me, and I got to go to Oklahoma and meet Gunner and Mike Middleton in person because of the business that was referred to that group.

0:03:58 – (Brynne Tillman): So when you build out this community, even though we’re calling it a sales community because we teach LinkedIn for sales, it’s really about creating a community that can lead to business, but not lead with it being a place to prospect.

0:04:17 – (Bob Woods): Yeah, it’s a great way to look at it. So it’s kind of if. If you’ve. If you’ve ever been involved in, like, b and I or something like that, and sometimes those types of groups get a little bit of a bad, bad rep because they think it’s leads group. Yeah, I do, too. Uh, they’re not lead groups. I mean, you can kind of think of it as. As kind of sort of an online. I don’t want to say counterpart but like a similar thing. But there’s so much more that you could do in these types of sales communities.

0:04:47 – (Bob Woods): At least I think so. Brent, Stan, have you ever been involved or gone to, like, a b and I, or like, that type of group in general, have been to a b.

0:04:58 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): And I meeting and a couple of similar meetings. One of the kinds of yes that came to mind is for people who may be new to the concept of building communities, don’t think in terms of building a community around your company or your product or service. So, as Bryn said, the community is geared toward the interests of the audience that you want to serve. But for the most part, most people will not be attracted by the idea of joining a community around your company or your product or anything that does not add value to them directly.

0:05:40 – (Bob Woods): Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

0:05:43 – (Brynne Tillman): We had here the B and I real quick, before we moved on, because my daughter became a realtor, and the first thing I said to her is, you need to go join a b and I group. So, for example, B and I, it’s business networking international. There might be 20 or 30 people in a group that all have different expertise. And the concept is for referral partners I have taught a lot of B and I groups how to use LinkedIn to enhance that. And so you’re in a b and I, and you’re interested, let us know. We’re happy to chat, but the bottom line is that we want to create online b and I’s digital networking groups. In addition to something that might attract your clients or your customers or your prospects, having those referral partners are even more important.

0:06:38 – (Brynne Tillman): It’s the difference between fishing with a pole, right? So you have one pole, one line, one worm. One hook, one worm, and we’re going for one fish. Or when you’re networking, you’re showing up with a big net. Right. So there are lots of people that can be referring to that business. So as you’re building out that community, think in those terms. So, thank you so much.

0:07:00 – (Bob Woods): Yeah, so I think probably the, the next thing to, to just kind of touch on really quick is, is kind of the mechanics behind the community. So, like, where? Where do you start it? How do you continue to? To be engaged and things, and things like that? And to me, something that is immediate or a place. Place that immediately comes to mind, even though they get maligned and with good reasons, they can be done well, too, and that’s LinkedIn groups.

0:07:34 – (Bob Woods): So you can actually use the tools of the group to help enforce or not enforce, reinforce your community with everything that, that we’ve just mentioned. You can even make it private so that no one else knows that it’s there. And it’s just, you know, you’re a little cadre of people who are. Who are in there and truly helping others with their goal of getting to whatever specific audience of prospects they have out there.

0:08:00 – (Brynne Tillman): Yeah. An invitation only. So I will say some of the biggest ones out there, there’s. The banking group has a huge amount of bankers, and it just attracts bankers. Now, I don’t know who started it, but if you’re a bank, that’s probably not the best group for you to create. Maybe. And I just am thinking, if you wanted to do this from a prospecting perspective, it could be small business owners in Essex County, New Jersey, or in Union County, New Jersey.

0:08:36 – (Brynne Tillman): And so you can make it localized if that’s what you’re looking for. And now you’re going to attract the people you want to have conversations with. But groups are done well, as you said, Jack Hubbard loves groups. He’s had some great success with them. I find that groups have not benefited me in about eight years. I just don’t love them. But the people that use them do a very good job. I have a friend who has a group.

0:09:08 – (Brynne Tillman): I think he’s got over 100,000 members. It’s an entrepreneur’s group, and it’s very, very active, but they are proactively reaching out to everybody, a single member. And he’s looking to monetize that group. And so monetize it not from pay to be in the group, but convert those people into customers, into members. Right. So there are. And he’s doing exceptionally well, and that’s his sole focus. So there are lots of ways to use it. We’re not using groups. Well, if. If the communication groups would improve, I’d be happy to use it more.

0:09:54 – (Brynne Tillman): I tend to use threats. So this is just a message with up to 50 people in a threat. Now, this is another area that really gets kind of maligned in a way. Right? Like, they’ll go, oh, those pods they call them.

0:10:14 – (Bob Woods): Right? Yeah, their content.

0:10:16 – (Brynne Tillman): But honestly, a good thread is more than just sharing content and hopes and pray people to engage on it. A good thread is someone who might say, hey, I’m switching CRMs. What are you guys using? Curious. I’m looking to get into XYZ company. Does anyone have a connection there? And some really good groups, although can include content engagement, really should go beyond that.

0:10:46 – (Bob Woods): Yeah, way beyond that. And that’s actually one of the things that we’re gonna. That, that I had planned on hitting on. So. So let’s get into that a little bit more. And that’s strategies for creating an engaging community, which, guess what we just talked about. So, I mean, you know, it is a q and a type of thing. If you come across someone, for example, who tosses a question at you. And you’re like, oh, I’ll get back to you on that. And then you’re like, how in the heck am I even going to find this?

0:11:15 – (Bob Woods): Go to the community, you know, sharing, you know, sharing content in that pod type of thing arrangement, that’s fine. But that should, as Brynne said, that should really only be a part of what the group does. It really is about valuable content, encouraging discussions, and even recognizing active members as well. You know, you know, great job to x, y, and Z, who really helped out several people this week with their, you know, with their questions or, or whatever really about.

0:11:48 – (Bob Woods): And it’s not just about community. It’s about engaging community, which I think is one of the reasons why LinkedIn’s groups don’t do very well is there’s just not something there that a message thread that has multiple people in it. And by message thread, we mean within LinkedIn messaging. You just invite a bunch of people to it. You can rename that to a specific thread and just have just like a multi way conversation just directly on LinkedIn.

0:12:18 – (Brynne Tillman): Yeah, I think that. That, you know, for us, we have maybe 41 people in a thread of our premium members that. Where they’re asking questions. I have about eight or ten that I really love. Fred Diamond has a wonderful active group of lots of sales pros. And, you know, I really think when you are actively engaging with the right people, that’s building the community, and that’s really what it’s about.

0:12:51 – (Brynne Tillman): So before I jump ahead, I’ll let you tell you the next topic because, you know, I tend to.

0:12:57 – (Bob Woods): Well, we’re kind of all over the place, actually, so let’s just.

0:13:01 – (Brynne Tillman): I’m all over the place.

0:13:03 – (Bob Woods): We are all over the place. All of us are, actually. Before we do that, Stan, did you want to add anything to that?

0:13:11 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): Yes, we are touching on a lot of different things. I guess one other thing that comes to mind is different people will have different objectives as far as groups. Because Brent, you mentioned monetizing a group and looking at it from a sales prospecting standpoint, others will use it to. As an information resource. So they’ll go to groups to engage. Bob, you mentioned getting a question answered, that type of thing. So, yeah, different. You can use groups for different objectives at different times.

0:13:49 – (Bob Woods): Yeah, definitely.

0:13:50 – (Brynne Tillman): And I’m looking up the group, the name of his group because I think it’s worth folks checking out, just if you’re interested in learning how it works. His name is David Weggst, and I’m just looking for his group right now. But, you know, of everyone on LinkedIn, I think he’s doing the best job of kind of using the group in a way that’s engaging. It benefits a lot of folks. It is called Entrepreneurs Network.

0:14:25 – (Brynne Tillman): Eprends.com. eprenz.com. So he’s created a whole company around this group. It is a private group, so you do have to request to be part of it. But I have to tell you, what he has done with it is unbelievable. The engagement is like, I’ve never seen the promotion. He has almost 131,000 members. And it’s just incredible how he’s grown this. He has a full time person working this.

0:15:02 – (Bob Woods): Wow.

0:15:03 – (Brynne Tillman): Yes. So, like, this is part of. Even if you look at his. I just wasn’t. He’s building a great community. That’s why I’m using this, because he’s done a much better job than anyone I know. So, yeah, so, delivering dreams, 100,000 diverse entrepreneurs. Like, that’s in his headline. Like, this is, this group that he built has become his new company.

0:15:31 – (Bob Woods): Yeah. That’s amazing to take something like that and really build it into something of its own. That, that. Oh, by the way, you can also make a living off of, too. And it’s something that you enjoy doing because it seems to me that he enjoys doing it, so that’s great. And in fact, by the way, he.

0:15:48 – (Brynne Tillman): Also helps to resell the entrepreneur’s businesses, like through affiliates.

0:15:53 – (Bob Woods): Nice, right?

0:15:55 – (Brynne Tillman): Like, he’s really got this down. Yeah, sounds like it’s entrepreneurs’ network. And David Wagstaff.

0:16:03 – (Bob Woods): Very good. Very good. Yeah. In fact, it’s.

0:16:05 – (Brynne Tillman): Can I just share one more thing about David?

0:16:08 – (Bob Woods): Sure.

0:16:10 – (Brynne Tillman): When I got into sales training, I was working with Lisa Peskin, my first partner, and David was the very first client that I closed ever. Wow.

0:16:23 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): Wow.

0:16:24 – (Bob Woods): Excellent. Yeah, yeah. It’s funny that we’re talking about all this because I’m actually having a meeting next week with someone here locally. He has the list to the. Remember when people used to do LinkedIn lives in terms of local networking and things like that? This was like several years ago. LinkedIn. Were they called LinkedIn lives or were they called different? It might have been called LinkedIn Lives, which is, which is a little different from the actual LinkedIn Live product that we’re on right now. But, um.

0:16:58 – (Bob Woods): But he actually has, the mailing list from the old group, and we met at a conference, met up with each other conference a couple of weeks ago, and he’s like, let’s get LinkedIn live started again. So. Not live, local. So, so I kept saying it, and I’m like, I know that’s not right. So LinkedIn. Yeah, yeah. It does begin with an l, therefore, my old man brain confusion kicked in there big time. But, but, yeah. So I do believe one of the things that we’re gonna get going, if there’s not one already, is a LinkedIn group around the local. LinkedIn local.

0:17:41 – (Bob Woods): Yeah, that was right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:17:44 – (Brynne Tillman): I apply and get accepted to use the name now.

0:17:49 – (Bob Woods): Yeah, yeah. We are going to be discussing all that, too, next week.

0:17:53 – (Brynne Tillman): But there is a way to apply because LinkedIn is here. So there’s a page. I’m going to stick to this page.

0:18:02 – (Bob Woods): So if you all want to do this, too, you know, basically, you know, apply and, and, and get something. Whoops. Wait. Oh, no. We are going to show that. Let’s, let’s show that nobody’s going to be able to do anything about it right away.

0:18:14 – (Brynne Tillman): Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s mostly for people to click through to get to that group I talked about.

0:18:21 – (Bob Woods): Yeah. LinkedIn local. So. So we’re going to share this one and we’ll show this one instead.

0:18:25 – (Brynne Tillman): Share it here. Okay. That’s fine because they can see it in the comments.

0:18:30 – (Bob Woods): Right, right. Yeah. We. We just like to share so much that sometimes we don’t know what we’re sharing.

0:18:38 – (Brynne Tillman): Share away, my friend. Share away. Okay, what’s next on our community building?

0:18:42 – (Bob Woods): Listen, so we talked about value exchange, fostering a sense of belonging. So I think that that just comes from people participating and truly participating in conversations with people when they share content. And I think especially here’s probably the key to this, I think in terms of fostering a sense of belonging. And we’ve talked about this on other episodes before, something that we believe internally here. And so at Social Sales, like, use the yes and philosophy when it comes to this type of thing. So yes. And comes from the world of comedy improv. If you don’t know, it’s that. It’s that kind of thing where no matter what somebody says on stage, you agree with it and then you add to it to keep the story going. In that sense, the way that we do it here is we.

0:19:42 – (Bob Woods): We acknowledge and we say yes. We agree with what’s being said in the post, and then we use the opportunity to add value, to add thought leadership, to give your own opinion on it, as long as it, you know, as long as you’re still in agreement, you know, do yes and not yes, but. But, yeah. So, yeah. Brynne, you want.

0:20:02 – (Brynne Tillman): And I have my little list of things that we can do.

0:20:07 – (Bob Woods): Go for it.

0:20:08 – (Brynne Tillman): Whether it’s a group or a thread or even a hashtag that you’re using to build this group, define the purpose and the identity of the group. So then you’re attracting the right people. So if you’re looking for people to feel like they belong, they need to fit the Persona that you’re attracting. Number two, welcome new members in groups. You can have automated messages that go out that say, hey, connect with the leaders of this group. Here are some LinkedIn profiles that are LinkedIn, but welcome them and even provide a video or something that makes them feel included.

0:20:48 – (Brynne Tillman): You also want to as a group, and this is really if you own the group or you’re in charge of the thread or what, you want to start engaging conversations. Right? So don’t just post content, ask lots of questions or post content, like polls that are getting people to engage. Right. One of the other things, and again, this. Highlight a member. Bob talked about this a lot. Like, if they do something great, mention them, but mention them on the platform.

0:21:19 – (Brynne Tillman): Right. Like, whether it’s privately in the group or privately in the chat, or you could do a kudos publicly. Right. That everyone can see. So that’s. That really makes people feel good. One of the reasons our group is not that successful is because we lack moderation. You really want to make sure that people are not pitching on the group all the time. And if they are, and you’re an admin, obviously you can delete that or even recommend to an admin that that content may be inappropriate.

0:21:55 – (Brynne Tillman): The other thing in making people feel comfortable, I made my little list in preparation, Bob, is we want to get feedback and ideas from the group. Don’t just say, hey, this is my group. It’s all about my networking and what I want to do. If you want people to feel included and. What was the word you used? Belonging.

0:22:22 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): Belonging, yeah, belonging, yeah.

0:22:24 – (Brynne Tillman): A sense of belonging. Right. We need them to be part of the experience. Right. Not just in the audience, but to feel like it’s their group, too. And then take it off of LinkedIn. Create maybe once a month Zoom meeting where you invite the people in the group, or you invite, maybe it’s a mastermind or a round table or, you know, around a topic where you might be the moderator, but you’re not necessarily the speaker, and then people will really start to get to know one another and then, you know, encourage everyone to engage with everyone else. But. So I say encourage, but don’t mandate ever.

0:23:15 – (Brynne Tillman): Oh, yeah, right. Well, that’s. That’s what I think. God’s got a bad rap.

0:23:19 – (Bob Woods): Right, right. Yeah. So, just so people know, once upon a time, I was still, maybe around or not. I’m not sure. I’m guessing that they probably are. When you joined an engagement pod, first of all, more often than not, you had to pay for it. Blah. The other thing is you were mandated that you had to do a certain number of engagements or, you know, whatever, how, however they did it. But, but, but the key word here is mandate. You had to do it, otherwise, you were kicked out.

0:23:50 – (Bob Woods): That’s something that is just absolutely verboten in terms of what we are talking about.

0:23:56 – (Brynne Tillman): About doing here, even internally, none of us are mandated to engage on the other one. So for any reason, which I’ve never come across, but if for any reason, you guys would share something of your opinion that I don’t agree with. I would ignore it. Right. Like, I’m not good. I would be like, okay, that’s your, your. I haven’t found that to happen yet, but we are permitted to do that internally, too. Like, there’s no mandating of prospectus. We happen to be incredibly aligned, which is why we do so well together.

0:24:29 – (Brynne Tillman): But the whole idea of mandating, period, is a mistake.

0:24:32 – (Bob Woods): Right. And we’re definitely not at that Borg mind hive type of. Type of situation either, which is a good. So, yeah. So I think that I want to be eleven of 1111 of eleven.

0:24:48 – (Brynne Tillman): That’s my board number.

0:24:50 – (Bob Woods): We’re all eleven of eleven. We’re all eleven of eleven. That’s another T-shirt. We’re all eleven of eleven. So.

0:24:58 – (Brynne Tillman): Can you share a really personal thing?

0:25:01 – (Bob Woods): You can absolutely share a really personal.

0:25:03 – (Brynne Tillman): I actually have tattooed 1111 along with my other three children. Three. My, my three kids and I. All four of us have 1111 tattooed on our side. So that’s why I have to be eleven of eleven. I’ve already claimed it.

0:25:17 – (Bob Woods): Oh, nice. So, two out of the three SSL main people are inked. We’re not sure about Stan, and I’m not going to ask him to reveal he wants to.

0:25:28 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): Yeah, it would be hard to see.

0:25:30 – (Bob Woods): Yeah.

0:25:30 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): Yeah.

0:25:33 – (Bob Woods): Very good. Very good. So I think we’re going to, we are going to end on that note. So, you know, just, just kind of putting it all together. Building and nurturing a sales community on LinkedIn, it really is a powerful way and great way to drive engagement and business growth among those members. So, you know, implement everything. If you want to put your own spin on things, obviously, go ahead and do it and watch your LinkedIn community thrive.

0:26:01 – (Bob Woods): So thank you again for joining us for this episode of Making Sales Social Live. If you’re with us here live on LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook or x right now, we do this every week, so keep an eye out for our live sessions. If you’re with us on our podcast and you’re not subscribed, go ahead and hit that subscribe or follow button. If you would like more information on our podcast, just in general, go to socialsaleslink.com

0:26:24 – (Bob Woods): 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 many, many more areas. So many, many, many, many. So when you are out and about this week or any time, just make sure that your sales are social.

0:26:48 – (Brynne Tillman): All right, guys, see you guys later.

0:26:50 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): See you soon.

Outro

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