Episode 349: Thanksgiving Isn’t About What You Ate; It’s About The LinkedIn Eight

Intro

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. It’s time for Making Sales Social Live coming to you from the social sales link and virtual studios.

0:00:37 – (Bob Woods): Join Brynne Tillman, Stan Robinson Jr. 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 and greetings, everybody. Coming to you from the Social Sales Link Virtual Studios. I’m Bob woods and I’m joined by Brynne Tillman and Robinson Jr. How y’all doing today?

0:01:12 – (Brynne Tillman): Great.

0:01:13 – (Bob Woods): How are you doing?

0:01:14 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): Excellent, Bob.

0:01:17 – (Bob Woods): Everybody’s doing excellent, and that’s because, especially if you’re joining us live. Thanks. Giving day here in the US is fast approaching. Now, if you’re with us via the recorded podcast, we’ve already stuffed ourselves full of turkey. But no matter when it is for you, though, we have some tips for you to gain the attitude of gratitude. In other words, to take a moment to acknowledge the contributions and, you know, be thankful of the qualities of those individuals in your network.

0:01:49 – (Bob Woods): So we’re just going to get right into things here because we’ve got eight of these things, eight ways you can show your attitude of gratitude with our theme for today. Wait for it. Thanksgiving isn’t about what you ate, it’s about the LinkedIn 8. See what we did there? So numero uno is going to be endorse skills on LinkedIn. And here we’re talking about you endorsing the skills of those in your network, endorsing the skills of someone else you’ve had professional experiences with, and that’s important.

0:02:27 – (Bob Woods): Highlights their genuine competence and supports your connections. Professional credibility. So this is really easy to do, too. All you need to do is navigate to your LinkedIn Connections profile. You got to scroll down to their skills and endorsements sections, click on a particular skill they have highlighted or the plus next to the skill that you can vouch for. Go ahead and fill everything out there, it’s really quick and easy.

0:02:54 – (Bob Woods): And then just confirm the endorsed endorsement and boom, you’re done. So just two days ago, I had someone who endorsed some of my skills just from totally out of the blue. And I gotta tell you, it was a great feeling to have. I reached out to this individual and, well, we’ll see what happens next. But still, it’s a great way to not only show gratitude, but to even ping on someone’s radar if you haven’t spoken to them in some time, or to warm up a prospect who might have fallen between the cracks, which is kind of what happened in this case.

0:03:26 – (Bob Woods): So with that, we’re going to go to number two, which is facilitate warm introductions on LinkedIn, which is one of the key ingredients of the secret sauce that makes LinkedIn what it is. A professional platform where networking reigns supreme. Here you’re proactively introducing mutual connections who you truly believe can benefit from each other’s expertise, which of course, fosters valuable professional relationships, which, again, LinkedIn.

0:03:56 – (Bob Woods): So all you need to do here, and it’s really simple to do, is number one, identify two connections who you truly believe have professional interests that align. The next thing you’re going to do is send a joint email or LinkedIn message. And just like email, you can have more than one person in a LinkedIn message. You’re going to include a professional summary of each and make it brief and your rationale for the introduction. And this is key because you have to let them know why you think it’s worth it for both of them to connect.

0:04:31 – (Bob Woods): It’s got to be mutually beneficial, otherwise it just doesn’t work. And then encourage them to connect directly. This shows both of your connections that you truly value your relationship with both of them to the point where you’re willing to endorse them to one another. Very simple, but very effective. Brynne, what is up next?

0:04:56 – (Brynne Tillman): Number three is engage with their content. You know, often we think just sharing content with them is what they care about, but what they really care about is that you’re engaging with their content. So there’s lots of different ways that we can take a look at their content. We can actually go to their profile and look at their activity. We can actually go ring their bell on their profile so that when they do share content, we’re notified.

0:05:29 – (Brynne Tillman): But here’s the thing, just a little like or reaction isn’t going to do it if you really want to share that your gratitude. So there are a couple things that I highly recommend that you consider when you are really leveraging their content. So the first one is instead of just liking it, consider using one of the other emojis. It just stands out a little bit more and it looks like you took the time to care.

0:05:59 – (Brynne Tillman): Write a comment that is relevant to their content. Now, here is a mistake that so many people make and I want to make sure that no one listening to this makes the same mistake, which is they’ll write, great post, thanks for the insight. And they never actually read it and they never actually consume the insight. So if you are really going to be authentically grateful, know what you’re grateful for.

0:06:32 – (Brynne Tillman): Make sure you actually read the content and comment appropriately. Don’t, in my opinion, don’t use just generic, your generic comments. Make sure it is leading back to the actual content that the author put out there. Really, really important. And the other thing you can do is mention other people that will get value from that content. So often if I find a great piece of content and I want to expand their reach further by mentioning other people in my network, they are very happy that I have showed my gratitude to the great work by bringing other people into the loop.

0:07:18 – (Brynne Tillman): Right. Really brings some great value. So I love doing that. And the last one on this is that we, we can reshare their content onto our news feed or onto our, if we’re, if we manage a company news feed, really very important when it comes to just making them see how grateful you are for the value that they bring.

0:07:53 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): Great deal.

0:07:54 – (Bob Woods): Very good. And then number four, Brynne.

0:07:56 – (Brynne Tillman): I’m doing number four, too. So write recommendations. So often we’ll say you want to write recommendations, you want to get recommendations. But right now, what I want you guys to do is go think about throughout this year who brought you great value. Maybe it was someone that you networked with, maybe it was someone that you actually had as a client, but they were fabulous to work with. Maybe it’s, you know, a vendor that you bought something from.

0:08:28 – (Brynne Tillman): But I want you to take inventory. And, and by the way, you could go through your calendar quickly and just say, who did I meet with over the, the year or the last three months and think about who really brought value to your life and then write that recommendation on LinkedIn. It’s simple to do when you’re on their profile. You could go to the more and then under the more you’ll see recommend, there’s, in my opinion, nothing more exciting than when you get an unsolicited recommendation from someone in your network.

0:09:07 – (Brynne Tillman): So I love this. I love this. So I think, Stan, you’re up next.

0:09:13 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): Yes. So number five is sharing insightful content. And as always, we mean content that your recipient will find insightful, not something that necessarily you and your peers find insightful. So this can be in the form of a post that you think would be of interest to them. It could be in the form of a podcast or a video. But when you take the time to identify content that you think will help individuals and your target audience, you can share it with them in a direct message on LinkedIn or in an email.

0:09:58 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): Now, that said, what we do suggest is that you ask permission before you share it, and you can do either of those in a direct message or email. So it could be, hey, Brynne, I came across a piece of content on sales leadership I thought would be of interest to you. If you’d like me to share it with you, please let me know. And if she responds, sure, Stan, go ahead and send it over. Then go ahead and send a link to the content and it will be appreciated because you respected their inbox and they’re much more likely to actually read it and consume it.

0:10:39 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): So when you do share it, of course, just share it with a note as far as why you think it is relevant for them. Now, number six is using personalized video messages. This is something that very few people are doing, so you’ll stand out if you do. Keep in mind that you can only do this though from your mobile app. So don’t get frustrated looking around your desktop as far as, okay, where’s the button that I can push in messages on my desktop to share? You can’t. You have to go to the mobile app, go to their profile, open up a message, you’ll see a paperclip, and when you tap on it, one of the options will be a video, along with documents and others.

0:11:28 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): So just record a short video. It’s on your phone. It doesn’t have to be, look professionally produced. The main thing is that it’s authentic. You can mention them by name, it’s directly directed directly to them, and they see that in the video and then just go ahead and send it. And the response rates to those videos are much, much higher than to other forms of direct messages. And then number seven is interviewing them for their insights or for content.

0:12:06 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): And that’s kind of a next step. There’s a little bit more involved in that, but it’s truly giving them a compliment when you ask if they’d be open to your interviewing them for their insights and perspectives on whatever the topic is that they can speak to that you’ve chosen. So it showcases their expertise. It’s an opportunity to create engagement for both you and them. And so when you invite them to be interviewed, just let them know what the format is, how long it’ll be, what platform it will be on, and then go ahead and schedule it, prepare your questions for the interview, and then Conduct the interview, summarize it, you can publish the content, share it with your network and of course let them know when you’re going to share it. Good idea to let them know in advance. And of course you can also tag them when you share it with them.

0:13:09 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): And now we’re up to number eight.

0:13:12 – (Bob Woods): And I think that is Brynne.

0:13:14 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): Back to Brynne.

0:13:15 – (Brynne Tillman): Awesome. I just want to say, Stan, I absolutely love the interview. When we can help amplify other people’s voices, we really make them feel like they matter. They do matter, right? But are showing gratitude, our Thanksgiving gratitude. Just amplifying other people’s voices I think is such a fabulous tip. The last one is really under leveraged. It’s almost as easy as endorsing a skill, but it stands out to your network significantly more than just a one click endorsement and it’s give Kudos.

0:14:01 – (Brynne Tillman): So Kudos is this public digital postcard that you can, you can actually share that highlights their name and what you’re appreciative for. So when you are on someone’s profile and you go to that more button, there’s a give Kudos and you’re going to choose from. I think there’s eight or ten choices like great to work with, innovative teammate. Right. All these pre populated templates that will populate their name and what you’ve given them. Kudos for what you’re, you know, what you’re acknowledging them for and what happens then is they are mentioned and you can share it, it will populate some text, you can edit that and add your own text and talk a little bit about why you’re giving that person the kudos.

0:15:01 – (Brynne Tillman): But it’s really cool because it goes beyond just a little notification that you endorsed them for a skill. This is now announcing it to your entire network that that person did something worthy of a kudos. So it’s a lot of fun and you know, I just think it is so important all the time to show gratitude. But at Thanksgiving we really focus on being grateful for the life that we have. And at Social SalesLink we’re really grateful for our community, all of our podcast listeners, our members.

0:15:42 – (Brynne Tillman): We just are just blessed and grateful and we thank you.

0:15:48 – (Bob Woods): Yes, yes we do. It’s an incredible experience to be of service to you all. We’re always so excited to be here every week talking about what we talk about here as well as interviewing the people that we do for you on the interview side of this whole making sales social podcast experience. And we hope that you get tremendous value out of that as well, Stan, any final thoughts?

0:16:17 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): Nope. Just keep checking LinkedIn because they do make changes. And it just dawned on me that kudos may have been discontinued. You all can double check, but it just hit me as we were talking about it and I look for it under the more button and as usual, you know, they’re kind of slow when it comes to letting us know what’s happening. That. That said, though.

0:16:45 – (Brynne Tillman): Wow. Wait, I want. I’m looking. If we go to celebrate an occasion.

0:16:51 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): You may have to go someplace else.

0:16:54 – (Brynne Tillman): Oh, no, it is gone. Guys, ignore my kudos. It was.

0:17:00 – (Bob Woods): Well, you could still give kudos. You could still do it. You could just do it in a post and then just tag the other person. So you can still do the idea of give. Of give kudos. You. You lose that animation. Unless you make like a graphic yourself or, or by yourself that says giving kudos or whatever. It could still be done. LinkedIn has just taken away the functionality to do it more directly and easily.

0:17:25 – (Brynne Tillman): I think I’m gonna throw in. Go into Canva.

0:17:29 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): Yeah.

0:17:30 – (Brynne Tillman): Create your own kudos. Yep, I love that. Okay, well, thank you very much for pointing out that it has been retired and. But we will now talk about how do you give kudos even when it’s not available? There we go.

0:17:46 – (Bob Woods): When it’s not available anymore, it still can be done 100%. So with that, we are, as we said, we’re very thankful for you joining us for this episode of Making Sales Social Live. And of course, if you’re on with us for other episodes, that’s fantastic too. If you’re with us live on LinkedIn, YouTube or other social networks, we do this every week, so keep an eye out for our live sessions. We’ve already talked about the interviews, so I am not going to bring that up this time.

0:18:12 – (Bob Woods): But if you are listening to us on our podcast and you haven’t subscribed already, go ahead and hit that subscribe or follow button. You know you can get all of our previous shows. Be notified when new ones pop up. If you’d like more information on our podcast, go to social saleslink.com podcast the URL that just makes sense. Social saleslink.com podcast so happy Thanksgiving, everyone. And just remember after that, when you’re out and about, make sure that your sales are social.

0:18:45 – (Bob Woods): That one rocked. That one was perfect. Thanks everyone. Have a great Thanksgiving, have a great holiday season. And as always, you know, keep plugging along. 

Outro:

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