Episode 335: 5 Tips for Social Sellers to Start Conversations on LinkedIn

Intro

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

0:00:00 – (Bob Woods): Ask for introductions from shared connections, which, you know, LinkedIn is about networking. Networking is about shared connections. 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.

0:00:42 – (Bob Woods): Hey, everybody out there on LinkedIn and social media land. Welcome to making sales social live. Coming to you from the social sales link virtual studios. I’m Bob Woods, and I’m joined today by my SSL teammates, Brynne Tillman and Stan Robinson. What’s up, guys?

0:00:59 – (Brynne Tillman): Hello. Hey.

0:01:01 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): Howdy.

0:01:01 – (Brynne Tillman): How are you, my friend? And hey, Stan. How are you, my friend?

0:01:07 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): Excellent, thanks.

0:01:09 – (Bob Woods): Excellent, everyone.

0:01:10 – (Brynne Tillman): What do we need to talk about today? But can I just, before we jump in, ask Stan to give us like 30 seconds to a minute on sales connect because he was at LinkedIn last week, and I just love to hear some of your major takeaways.

0:01:26 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): Sales connect was phenomenal. Meeting that. Some of the LinkedIn leadership team was great. Gail Moodyburden, I can go on and on. What they are doing with sales navigator. What’s already here in terms of AI integration is exciting. What’s coming is amazing, simply amazing. It’s going to revolutionize how we find new business. So anyone doing business development will want to see what’s happening with sales navigator.

0:02:00 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): In short, one of their goals is to take what the best salespeople are doing, the top performers, and scale it to the rest of the sales team, largely using AI.

0:02:15 – (Brynne Tillman): So smart.

0:02:16 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): So that’s what’s coming.

0:02:18 – (Brynne Tillman): Yeah.

0:02:19 – (Bob Woods): All right.

0:02:20 – (Brynne Tillman): Thank you for that. And Bob, back to our normal programming.

0:02:24 – (Bob Woods): Yes, back to our normal programming. So today we’re going to be discussing five ways for social sellers and salespeople, like all of us, to start conversations on LinkedIn because, you know, that’s what we are ultimately there about. Not to sell directly, but just to get those conversations started so that we can talk to people and then, you know, eventually sell if the time is right and if everything is right. So we’re going to get right into it.

0:02:56 – (Bob Woods): Tip number one is probably the easiest one, and yet a lot of people just don’t do that, and that is engaging on their content. So the content that your potential buyers and your leads and whatever other word you want to put into there are sharing. So that one is a really big one because that is a way for you to actually demonstrate your value that you could potentially bring to them just by engaging on their content because you should do that in a very value-based type of way so that you are adding to not only their knowledge on whatever it is that they’re posting, but you’re also adding knowledge for their first-degree connections too. Because you may be a first-degree connection with them, you may not be a first-degree connection with them. If you’re not a first-degree connection with them, then the audience of their first degrees, in other words, your second degrees, gets to see your value as well. So you know you’re adding value, you’re expanding your audience.

0:04:06 – (Bob Woods): It’s a win-win on several fronts.

0:04:11 – (Brynne Tillman): So I love this and I want to kind of talk about how do we take that engagement, that content that we’re, and create a real conversation because that’s our goal, right? Like we want to start conversations. So the conversation is starting here on LinkedIn in that comment. And then what we want to do is take a look at that, that subject. Maybe it’s curated content around a particular subject that they shared. Maybe it’s original content.

0:04:42 – (Brynne Tillman): And then I want to go and find other similar content. And there are lots of ways to do this. You can search on LinkedIn based on posts, based on topics. You can search still using hashtags, even though LinkedIn does not do a great job of using hashtags. If they have a hashtag in their content, you can click through and see all other content by that hashtag. And if it’s an influencer, maybe they’ve shared content from Brene Brown or from a great influencer, someone that’s got a lot of content out there, go find more content.

0:05:25 – (Brynne Tillman): So now we’ve engaged on their content, we reach back to that. Whether they’re a first or second-degree, if they’re a second-degree with a connection request or first-degree with a message with thank you so much for sharing that great post on X, Y, and Z. They know you saw it because you commented. I recently came across another piece on a similar topic or from the same influencer or whatever that might be.

0:05:52 – (Brynne Tillman): If you’re open, let’s connect. I’m happy to send that link to you. Now. They connect. We send a link. We ask them their thoughts. We ask them who else they might follow. And then after some back and forth, if you’ve got really good educational content resource, not pitch, you might say, hey, I’m not sure if this is a value to you, but we recently posted a checklist on X, Y, and Z. Let me know if you’re interested. I’m happy to send that over.

0:06:23 – (Brynne Tillman): And you’ve had this back and forth now in a normal conversation around content that they clearly care about. And that’s how we turn that comment into a conversation. So anything you want to add to that, Stan?

0:06:42 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): That was awesome. The only thing I’ll add is sometimes salespeople will say, well, you know, I really can’t say sell on LinkedIn. And the goal is not to sell on LinkedIn. The goal is to start to build relationships on LinkedIn, which you can then take when you’ve earned the right to do it off of LinkedIn. So your goal is not to stay on LinkedIn. The goal is just to use it to build relationships so you can take the conversation to email, et cetera.

0:07:08 – (Brynne Tillman): Awesome. I love that.

0:07:11 – (Bob Woods): Perfectly put. Let’s get to number two. And we’ve been talking about this quite a bit lately, but I think that it’s important because, um. Uh, so we’re going to. So number two is to ask them to vote on a poll. So this is important because, uh, mainly because the, the whole, you know, shiny new thing that people got when polls first started is now gone. And people are, seems to me, at least from the polls that I’m seeing, posting very good polls that are, that are really trying to dig for, uh, for intelligence, for analysis, whatever you want to say.

0:07:51 – (Bob Woods): So, uh, just posting a poll is one thing. Asking them takes it to the next step because you are going to actually be sending requests to these people who you want to get a conversation started with and asking them to vote on a poll that you have published. So in other words, you’re not leaving it up to the algorithm to serve that poll to them. When they’re scrolling through their, when they’re scrolling through their feeds, you’re actually getting them hopefully to be interested enough to vote on that poll via a direct message that you send them.

0:08:30 – (Bob Woods): And then when they do vote on that, you can also engage after the poll is finished, which is also very important because that’s another opportunity to potentially start conversations based on the results of a poll. So it’s not just the poll that you’re looking to do. You’re looking to get in contact before and you’re looking to get in contact after.

0:08:54 – (Brynne Tillman): So I’ll just follow up on that. And actually, there was a question here which was via DM. And actually it’s very simple to do when you have a poll that you’ve published on your personal page because it’s different if it’s a company page, but on your personal page there is a little paper airplane. And when you click on that paper airplane, it will open up to all of your first-degree connections. You can check up to ten at a time. It’s actually ten messages at a time. So if you’ve got some threads, you can actually have that’s considered one message, even if there’s more than one person in there, but ten check marks at a time, that goes into the inbox, and there’s a little message that you can put in. And by the way, if you want to keep this separated, you can share all at once together or you can separate. We want to keep it separated. Otherwise, it feels like spam.

0:09:49 – (Brynne Tillman): And we want to put a little note that says, Stan recently published a LinkedIn post. And as a sales navigator expert, I’m sorry, a LinkedIn poll. And as a sales navigator expert, I would love your one-click vote. Once the poll closes, I’m happy to share the insights we glean from you and your peers. And now he gets that, and he can vote right inside that message. So I have now proactively reached out to my connections that I want to engage on this poll, and now I have not only gotten them excited to vote, by the way, LinkedIn does a great job of creating Fomo fear of missing out, because you can see how many votes, but you can’t see who they are yet.

0:10:41 – (Brynne Tillman): And so, you know, once, you know, once you vote, you can see the breakdown of how they voted. Yeah, only the author can see who voted, but you can see the breakdown. So those polls are really important. Stan, when do you research, folks, before? How do you find the people that you want to get to vote on the poll?

0:11:06 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): So I’m looking for people who are relevant to the topic of the poll and for whom the topic of the poll will resonate and who have, as you mentioned, some expertise to contribute to the poll. So that when we reach out to invite them to, excuse me, vote on the poll, it’s a compliment to them because we’re asking for their professional opinion. We’re saying our audience would love to see how you vote on this poll because you’re an expert in this area.

0:11:37 – (Brynne Tillman): So I love that I’m going to take that one step beyond, which is going to touch on number five. So I’m jumping ahead. But I think based on what you just said is really important. Once that poll closes, if you’re going to create maybe a report from that poll, you might reach out to those particular experts to get a quote to include in that report. And that’s the bridge now from poll to conversation.

0:12:08 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): That’s great.

0:12:09 – (Brynne Tillman): Alright, Bob.

0:12:10 – (Bob Woods): Number three, my friend number three, and I think we’re going to go with Stan immediately after this one is asking for introductions from shared connections, which, you know, LinkedIn is about networking. Networking is about shared connections. What do you think, Stan?

0:12:31 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): Yeah, so LinkedIn makes it so easy to do this. It’s like having a Rolodex on hyperdrive or whatever, whatever you want to, however, you want to call it, because it allows you to see who the people that you are directly connected to are in turn connected to on LinkedIn. And you can use search filters to narrow down that search. LinkedIn also lets you look up a particular person and search their connections, which is a beautiful thing.

0:13:04 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): So it facilitates the process of asking for introductions because you can see exactly who’s relevant and who’s connected to the decision makers that you want to reach. So asking for introductions, one thing is we like to leave the person and out just dropping them a message saying, hey, I’m going to be talking to Bob and Brynne. I wonder if you were if you were comfortable introducing me to Bob because I have some ideas I like to share with him.

0:13:36 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): So it gives Brynne out. If she says, y’all, I’ve just met him on LinkedIn. I’ve never talked to him. She can say, Stan, you may want to look for someone else. So it’s a powerful tool in terms of giving you visibility into an extended network.

0:13:50 – (Brynne Tillman): I love that. I’m going to. Yes. And that is because you mentioned something that’s really powerful, which is you can search your connections. Connections, right? And so if you have a client or a networking partner that you work closely with, you can come up with many names, not just the one. And you might. And now I might say, hey, Stan, I noticed you’re connected to quite a few people that I’m looking to get in front of.

0:14:18 – (Brynne Tillman): Can I take five minutes of your time, review these names with you, and let me know who you think could benefit from having a conversation with me? Right now we go through and 810, 15 names. And sometimes I’ll say, hey, Stan, here’s the list. I’ve done the research, right? Here’s the list. Is there anyone on this list I should not reach out to? And sometimes just a couple get taken out of that list.

0:14:46 – (Brynne Tillman): And then I might say, is there anyone on this list that you’d feel comfortable introducing me to? And maybe there’s one or two. And then the last piece of that is, is it okay when I reach out to these other folks that I mentioned, you’re my happy clients that we have been working together for a while, and you thought it made sense to reach out. And now it’s a simple message. You make a couple of introductions and all the others. I reach out and I go, hey, Bob, Stan Robinson, and I were chatting the other day. Your name came up in the conversation. He says, hello.

0:15:18 – (Brynne Tillman): I’ve been working with him for the last two years on X, Y, and Z. And he thought it might make sense for us to connect and might be able to bring some value around a, B, and C. And now we connect and I’m going to assume the call. Bob, thanks so much for the connection request and Perstan’s recommendation. I thought maybe I could share a little insight around X, Y, and Z. Even if we never work together, I’m sure I’ll be able to bring value to the conversation.

0:15:45 – (Brynne Tillman): And all of a sudden those introductions from your shared connections become the strongest pipeline. So isn’t that fun, Stan for number four. But I’m. Okay, I’ll introduce it and then toss a little bit. Well, I’ll introduce it, tell a story, and then I’ll toss it to you because it’s sharing content. Oh, I’ll let Bob introduce it. He’s back.

0:16:14 – (Bob Woods): Yeah, I’m back. I don’t know what is. The weird stuff is happening with restream to that. I don’t know what.

0:16:20 – (Brynne Tillman): The ghosts are in the computers.

0:16:22 – (Bob Woods): Yes, they are. Absolutely. So number four is sharing content from an influencer that they follow. And this is easier to do than you think because everybody’s influencers that they follow on LinkedIn are actually in their profile so everyone can see them. So, you know, if they follow a. I always have problems coming up with, with, with influencers, but with like a Tony Robbins or a Gary Vee or someone, Gary V or, I mean, you know, like those types of people, you can get a great conversation started with them just by sharing a piece of content that an influencer of theirs has shared.

0:17:05 – (Bob Woods): And then you should also always add your value or your opinion as well. You shouldn’t just send something off to them and, you know, just kind of let it hang out there. Offer your opinion, offer, offer some added value there. Whatever you think might spur a conversation based on what that original piece of content is, I love that I’m going.

0:17:29 – (Brynne Tillman): To throw in something I actually have done that has been incredibly successful is Mark Hunter is someone that I know very well and I’m going to outbound with him. He’s speaking and I’m speaking in a very excited. We’ll be in a couple of panels together, but he has an enormous following and we are non-competitors, but we attract the same types of people. So you can go in and by the way, you can do this in the free LinkedIn.

0:17:59 – (Brynne Tillman): You can go in and look at your first-degree connections that follow Mark Hunter, and then you can put in that are, you know, in whatever industries you’re interested in or whatever titles you can put down in a search at the bottom. And I can now start with all of my first-degree connections that follow him. So I could go out and find one of his podcasts that he is either Sales Logic or Sales Hunter. He does the two podcasts, something I really love.

0:18:29 – (Brynne Tillman): And now I can reach out to my first-degree connections and say, hey, I noticed we both follow Mark Hunter. I don’t know if you recently heard his podcast on filling your pipeline, but I thought it was fabulous. Let me know if you’re interested. I’m happy to send you a link and you can send that to your first-degree connections. Side note, I’m kind of going in the weeds, but I think it’s worth it. On a side note, you could send a video message to them and ask them and you don’t have to use their name. It’s your first-degree connection.

0:19:04 – (Brynne Tillman): You could say, hey, I noticed we both are connected to Mark Hunter and I just came across this. Let me know if you’re interested. I’m happy to send a link and then you’ll be shocked at how many people want that link. Now we’re talking about how do we convert them to conversations. It’s pretty simple, especially if it’s an influencer that we’re not competing. But we’ve got some overlapping topics. So clearly you follow Mark because of his brilliant sales abilities.

0:19:33 – (Brynne Tillman): I’m curious if social selling is on your radar because I’ve got a great ebook that might be valuable. Let me know. So these are just ways that we can go from finding an influencer that is attracting the same buyers that we’re interested in. But be careful that we are not doing this to competitors. It could be a little seen as icky. So make sure that they’re parallel influencers that are attracting the same people but don’t sell the same product or service.

0:20:08 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): Yep.

0:20:10 – (Bob Woods): Now let’s get to our, get to our last one, but a very, very powerful one. And I’m just going to let Brynne run with this as I hand off the ball to her prospect by interview.

0:20:24 – (Brynne Tillman): Oh, so fun. So we did touch on this a little bit when we went poll to interview, but I’m going to throw it out. There are lots of prospects prospect by interviews. You could do a blog and interview people. You could do podcasts and interview people. I’m going to throw out my new one and I don’t know if I’ve even told you guys this, but I’m so excited about this new prospect by interview and it’s really great from a sales navigator perspective, but you can do it with the free, which is people in new jobs so they have a new job. So I’m just going to go with, let’s say sales leaders.

0:21:00 – (Brynne Tillman): So I go out to sales leaders, maybe five or six of my clients and I start there and I say, what do you wish you knew in your 1st 90 days of this job? And I interview them. So now this blog post, which by the way will be evergreen and always being updated, is what sales leaders wish they knew in the first 90 days of their job. So I interviewed these folks. Now every week I get one or two new people in my network who are my prospects and now have new jobs.

0:21:36 – (Brynne Tillman): So I reach out to them and say, congratulations on your new position. We’ve got some insights from top sales leaders and what they wish they knew in the first 90 days. If you’re interested, let me know. I’ll send you the post. When they say yes, I’ll say again, congratulations. Here’s a link to the post and make sure your calendar link can go out more than 90 days and say if you are open after your 90 days here if you’ve got some insights that you’d like to include in this blog post, I’d love to chat with you.

0:22:11 – (Brynne Tillman): So that gives them time to settle in. And then I put it on my tickler to follow up. If they go, yes, absolutely. I’ll give them a calendar like make sure it goes out 120 days, not just 90, and let them schedule out in their 90 days. And now after they’ve settled in, you’ve got a perfect opportunity to interview them. What do you think of that?

0:22:37 – (Bob Woods): Wow, that’s great. Love that.

0:22:39 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): Yes. Awesome.

0:22:41 – (Brynne Tillman): I know, I love it too.

0:22:43 – (Bob Woods): Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

0:22:46 – (Brynne Tillman): How do we keep it fresh?

0:22:48 – (Bob Woods): Keep that and keep it fresh. Got to keep it fresh. So excellent, excellent stuff. So hopefully you all got a couple of ideas to really start those conversations on LinkedIn. Because once again, LinkedIn isn’t about selling, it’s about networking and getting conversations started. You still got to get them off of LinkedIn like Stan said, and to really get the whole formal sales process going. So with that, thank you for joining us for this episode of making sales social live.

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Outro:

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