Episode 5: Steve Heroux – Authenticity and How Crucial It Is to Make Your First Introduction Memorable

Steve Heroux
I think making it social means making it less socially distant and more connected. And even though we are apart, we’re all remote and we have people that we could connect with all over the world, you can still be social and not the belly-to-belly.

Bill McCormick 00:21
Great stuff. What I like to say is we need to be physically distant, but socially connected.

Bob Woods
Welcome to the making sales social podcast, featuring the top voices in sales and marketing. Join hosts Brynne Tillman and Bill McCormick. As they discuss the best tips and strategies they are teaching their clients so you can leverage them for your own virtual and social selling. Here are your hosts: Brynne Tillman and Bill McCormick.

Bill McCormick 00:56
Hey, welcome to Making Sales Social. I’m Bill McCormick.

Brynne Tillman 01:00
I’m Brynne Tillman.

Bill McCormick 01:01
To Brynne, who’s our guest. today.

Brynne Tillman 01:03
I am really excited about our guest today. This is Steve Heroux. Steve and I are new connections on LinkedIn. But here’s why I asked him to come on with us because we connected on LinkedIn. And he sent me a voicemail that really resonated with me. And I was like blown away because we teach people to do it. But people aren’t really doing it unless they’ve gone through our course, the voicemail or the video message. And it was, he’s in sales, we network with a lot of people that are in sales. And that’s what he said, he said, I’d love to explore how we can help each other. And you know what, I like this guy. And you know, we jumped on a call, because there was no pitch it was just about how can we provide value for one another, and he met like a criteria of being in sales. So Steve, welcome. Thanks for being our guest.

Steve Heroux 01:58
Thanks, Brynne. Great intro. Thanks, Bill. Nice to meet you, too, sir. Excited to get to know you guys better. And you know, who knew? Right? You just said send somebody a message that’s genuine and authentic and not robotic. And we connected.

Brynne Tillman 02:14
Well, that’s the magic. I love the authenticity. And that is absolutely one of the things that attracted me. When,you know, I heard the voicemail, I went to your profile, I saw the authenticity. And I thought this is great. But before we get started, we’d like to ask all of our guests, what does Making Sales Social mean to you?

Steve Heroux
It’s kind of funny that we ask that question now, considering we’re in this period of social distancing. So I think making it social means making it less socially distant and more connected. And even though we are apart, we’re all remote. And we have people that we could connect with all over the world, you can still be social, and not be belly-to-belly. A lot of the sales teams and people I work with, they’re all in a huff about look to me in person. And I prefer belly to belly and my clients need to see me and have shake my hand. And those are all self limiting beliefs. I don’t think any of that’s true anymore. And we can be social and still be 10,000 miles away from somebody.

Bill McCormick 03:21
Great! great stuff. What I like to say is we need to be physically distant, but socially connected. Great answer. So Steve, tell us, what is it that you teach your clients in the sales realm in the physical world that they can apply that helps them at the very top of their funnel?

Steve Heroux
I think this, you know, it’s an overplayed thing about just telling the truth, being authentic and so on. I feel like people say that a lot. I don’t know if they actually do it. But and I think I learned this from Jim Rohn. I’m 90% Sure. If you always tell the truth, you don’t have to remember what you said. And so, all of that, right? In your videos in your marketing, in your conversations with people. The first introduction is immensely crucial, more today than it ever has been in the past. And that’s what I was asking you both before about that.My free course, I just built because I wanted to what’s value not creating a funnel, what is value, you could give away to somebody that can improve their business. The second they stop watching that content. And so that’s what I built to help people. If you can’t get a great, memorable, interactive, engaging, positive first introduction, you ain’t getting them through the rest of your funnel. That has to be first and so many people blow that opportunity because they’re too robotic or they’re trying the magic script or the secret subject line in the EMF All this stuff is kind of going away. And so that’s really what I would say is just be a real person. When I recorded that video or message to Brynne, I just picked up my phone and recorded it. I didn’t do 57 takes and you could hear stuff in the background. It’s not perfect. I mean, there’s like a, you know, earthmover was going on in the back, or whatever, right? We can’t be too robotic. So that would be my point.

Brynne Tillman 05:30
I love that one of the things I’m playing with is, stop the campaigns and start the conversations.

Bill McCormick 05:36
I think Steve is a kindred spirit with us, you know, stop telling them, you’re going to help them and just help them right. That’s what it’s all about. And being authentic and genuine. Yeah, we’ve got to make an introduction with you to, to our friends at selling from the heart, you guys are really really resonate. So Brynne, what do you think? I mean, he is one of us.

Brynne Tillman 05:59
Yeah, I’m very excited. I told you. I know he was new. But I knew from the first… I knew it from Hello.

Steve Heroux 06:08
That’s a good thing. (Yeah.) I appreciate that.

Bill McCormick
Any follow ups on that Brynne?

Brynne Tillman 06:12
You’re doing sales training, right? And so when the sales reps come to you and say, I missed my belly-to-belly, I can’t do sales without the, I always say, eyeball-to-eyeball. But hey, whatever works, right? Yeah. So you know,what are you telling them is different or the same between the way they did business a year ago, and how they have to do business today.

Steve Heroux
So it’s funny, I like to use a lot of analogies in modern day, right life when I teach sales. And so typically, I’ll just pull out my mask and go, I don’t want to wear one of these. But I have to. So do I do I want to do all zooms and virtual keynotes? No, would I prefer to be in person? Yes. Is that up to me? No. So we can’t complain about things that are out of our control. So you have to be like Charles Darwin, right? You either adapt or you die. That’s it. Want to keep doing belly to belly Be my guest, you can have much to eat. It’s kind of like the whale hunters. You know, right out, a lot of times we teach young salesman and women, stop whale hunting, you’re gonna go hungry. He got to get a bunch of little fish. And it’s the same idea. Right? You have to stop looking at the virtual world as a negative right? Oh, my people don’t like virtual. Yes, they do. That’s just in your head. You know, there’s trillions of dollars have changed in since the past nine months, virtually trillions. So it’s just a limiting beliefs. So I have to work with them more on that than really any type of sales skill. Because once they get over that, now we have to teach them how to better sell more effectively virtually so a lot of people still don’t know they don’t look in the camera. They don’t have quality equipment. They don’t have lighting. They don’t have things like that. So that’s a physical skill I could teach them but we have to get them over the mental hurdle first.

Brynne Tillman
Love that.

Bill McCormick 08:31
It’s all about the mental game right? The six inches here that we really have to get past so that’s great. So Steve, there’s a lot of noise out there in the sales training world. What sales strategy do you recommend to your clients to help them stand out from their competition?

Steve Heroux
So another strange one seems like it’s common sense, which isn’t too common these days. But honesty, integrity, humility, if it doesn’t fulfill those three things, you can’t do it. People, I shared this on another different podcast this morning, when we were talking about turning down clients, I was speaking to a gentleman in Atlanta, we were talking about we have clients in similar space. And I said, Man, I just turned out a big one. And he goes, why do you do that? And I said, because we don’t ally them. I’m not just going to take somebody’s money. I don’t want to be associated with some of the things they’re doing. So you know, I think that noise out there again, that always “be closing” crap, and, you know, sell or die, or you know, you got to sell anybody within three feet of you, you know, all that stuff. I mean, it’s just so old school overplayed and consumers don’t like it. And none of the top five percenters in sales do any of that stuff.

Brynne Tillman
So what do we do?

Steve Heroux
They’re down to earth. They’re cordial. They’re charismatic, they’re caring. They make introductions first not beg for referrals that I don’t know, the gentleman’s name is I think it’s a lead, but he’s a sales car sales guy in Michigan somewhere. So we had a fellow podcast, I think he sold like 13 1400 cars last year, something like that, (wow). He is not the, “in your face,” you know, goes to the big stadium events and he’s not that, follow those people. Right? Everything he does is by referral, by appointment, by introduction. He’s been selling cars to families for 15 years. The stuff you see on social media is not what the top sales professionals do. It’s not how they act. That’s how the people that don’t make act.

Brynne Tillman 10:51
So what would you say, because, you know, top salespeople have to be on social media now. So what do you believe they should be doing on social media? To stay authentic, to keep that integrity to stay humble, right?

11:07
Being themselves, you know, I do all my own stuff. I’ll just pick the phone up, you know, recorded I don’t have special, the equipment, anything like that I have an iPhone. And so if I’m doing an Instagram story or something, I just pick the phone up or if I’m recording some content, I just put the phone on a tripod. I don’t utilize like Facebook is a little bit different. I don’t put a ton of business stuff on there. I put food I cooked. I had no why I’ll bring this up. But I made these chicken skins the other day sorry, vegetarians. But normally, people just throw away the skin right when they get those rotisserie chickens or bake a chicken. But I looked up something where I basically turned it into like sort of like a potato chip is what the texture is. But it’s 50 times better than bacon. I mean, and bacon is to die for. And this is better. So I put that stuff up there.

Brynne Tillman 12:03
I’m keto. So send me that link.

12:05
Yeah, it’s unbelievable. I shared one today of a guy that paid off 114 family’s electric bills down in Florida. He just paid their bill. So I shared that today. So I don’t plan what I put on Facebook.

Brynne Tillman 12:23
That’s on Facebook. (Yeah,) did…that wouldn’t work. Right.

12:28
yeah. So LinkedIn, I still share those types of stories, though. So I will share the pot, the good stuff, right, mixed in with some sales stuff, some tips. I try to make it, you know, short, sweet.

Brynne Tillman 12:44
So that’s what you’re doing,my question. So I mean, and they are two different animals for sure what I do on Facebook, I would never do on LinkedIn. I I’d never get another client again. Probably. Right. Yeah. So everything that we do in on LinkedIn usually hits five points. Right. And, you know, the first one is it has to resonate with the buyer. Oh, yeah. wrote those two yesterday. Yeah. So right. So resonate with the buyer, create curiosity, teach them something new, get them thinking differently about their current situation and leading to your solution. So you know, in your world of authenticity, what would you recommend people are sharing?

Steve Heroux
Ok, so maybe I didn’t answer it in the proper way that the last post I put up, and I was just sharing this with Brian. And I hope I answered the question the right way. I want to put I want to post things that are relevant to what a lot of salespeople are going through. And so one of the things I put up is one of the things we find in our sales DNA test is that people need to be liked 90% of sales people maybe more need to be liked, instead of they’d rather be respected, which is what the top 5,10 percent dude. So instead of trying to be everybody’s best friend, just be real. And sometimes you got to confront prospects, sometimes you got to be stern with that you don’t need to worry about if they’re going to invite you over for dinner. So I just put a little one minute clip, I think of that, and have tons of hundreds of comments, like likes and you know, comments. And it’s, it’s been pretty awesome. But I just wanted to teach something that I already teach my clients that they could literally watch it and use it today, with somebody that they heard.

Brynne Tillman
So I love that. So you’re teaching them so the way we would say to the clients, right? The sales people watching today is, teach something that you would, even if you sell something, right when you talk to a client or a prospect, you’re always teaching them something new.
that the great content that you’re sharing on social that would help you to attract I love that.

Steve Heroux
That’s a better way to put it. Yes, ma’am.

Brynne Tillman
We’re the interpreters of sales into social media.

Bill McCormick 15:01
There’s the, that’s the subtitle of the show. So, Steve this has been great. So tell us, like, what is a daily sales activity that you would recommend your clients that they perform every day that when they do it consistently, it opens up new opportunities for them.

15:21
So this is almost like the best loaded question you could ever have in your life if you’re me. I’ve been building my version of a sale system for almost a year now. And when I built it, I wanted to build something that anybody could do whether they work two days in sales, or 22 years. And one of the things I built actually two things, one is called the morning hack. The other one is called the daily victory. gameplan. I mentioned this briefly to Brynne literally, I have this daily victory game plan with 18 different actions on it that you need to do every single day. And if you do those 18, you will absolutely increase your sales don’t know how much not going to give some stupid Oh 10 extra sale. Now, you’ll sell more stuff. One of them is reading. Right One of them is studying. But five of them or more can’t give that away, are LinkedIn activities. (Oh, good). Part of the 18 are things you should be doing on LinkedIn every single day. And if you do, your business will explode.

Brynne Tillman 16:35
Can you share one or two of them?

16:37
Yeah. So for the for the audience. One of them you might not even realize is requesting recommendations. You teach this? I’m sure. Most people don’t have enough on there, right. We want to read what other people say. So that has to be part of your routine so you can build up the amount of recommendations you’ve received and given. Another one is to comment. Okay, so we got to make sure we’re commenting on other people’s posts. Not just stupid stuff for good stuff. Don’t write that. That’s stupid. actually read what they posted in their blog or watch their video and make an insightful comment. It takes 40 seconds to do, “Hey by the way Brynne, that part you mentioned about the social selling thing that really resonated with me. Looking forward to seeing your next book” that stuff. Imagine if you did that every day, what would happen to you.

Brynne Tillman 17:41
And to piggyback on that one of the things we talked about is fine your magnets, right? Who are the people that are attracting your ideal client? Already? Right? So (Yes), and I get to kind of full circle because you threw in the sell or die, which happens to be one of my favorite podcasts. But even though, sell or die (you know what I mean) , I know, I’m gonna come closer. One of my magnets is Jeffrey magnetar, Jeffrey and Jennifer Gitomer. (Yeah, Jeff’s Great). Great. So they’re the sell or die podcast which is great. We love them. And so and he’s actually incredibly authentic.

Steve Heroux
I’d still love to meet him someday, too. I really love this.

Brynne Tillman
So here’s the interest, like to me they attract all the right people, the more I engage with them and their, their engagers. Right, so I’m commenting not just to the author, but to all the other folks now. (100%) Yeah, and we look at you know, our clientele, a lot of them have come from Jeffrey B. So Jeb blunt, he is a he’s a magnet. So we live in a world, who are they in…and we are magnets for other people. Right? And so other people are engaging in our content and getting opportunities and we love that, that’s a healthy ecosystem.

Steve Heroux
That’s a good one. I’m gonna write that too.

Brynne Tillman
Well, this is recorded. So you know…

Steve Heroux
Well, I always got my notes. You know, I got all (I love it). I’m old, old. So, I write down everything.

Brynne Tillman 19:21
Yeah. So I mean, all of this is excellent. And I love the idea of the commenting. Make it purposeful, really find those magnets and engage as much as possible. So Bill, let’s close this out.

Bill McCormick 19:37
Yeah, so this has been great. Steve, we really appreciate you coming on and talking to our audience. So tell us how can they get in touch with you?

Steve Heroux
So easy way to connect with me on LinkedIn is that you know, played out but that could be on on LinkedIn, of course and victoryselling.com is an easy one, but if it’s okay, I built this free intro course I was mentioning, I’m so excited. Because literally its just, ready to go.

Brynne Tillman
Yeah! So how do I sign up?

Steve Heroux
So it’s easy. (It’s just a text in right?) Free intro, no spaces, all lowercase freeintro to 888111 get some good feedback from the folks that have been through it. And, again, we all need to know how to make more memorable, more authentic introductions. When right we are socially distant. So that’s kind of what the whole course is about, and just want to bring some value to everybody.

Brynne Tillman 20:32
I love it. So that’s a phone number.

20:35
Yeah, just yeah, text 888111. Right. So you just put that in as if you were texting at 888111. And then you just text the word free intro with no spaces. Then it’ll tell you. Now, here’s where it is right here, put your email and you get the link and you get to sign up and go through it.

Brynne Tillman 20:56
Awesome. We’re gonna do that as soon as we can.

Bill McCormick 20:57
I’ll close it out. So Brynne can go ahead and text that I saw her pick up her phone so Steve, (Yeah,make sure it works). Yeah. Thanks so much. It’s been great having you on and hearing about your take on what it takes to make sales social. So thanks, everyone, for being with us again for another episode. Bye. Thanks again, Steve. Thanks, everybody.

21:22
Thanks for listening and join us again for more special guest instructors bringing you marketing, sales training and social selling strategies that will set you apart. Don’t forget to subscribe to get the latest episodes from the Making Sales Social podcasts, leave a review down below. Tell us what you think, what you’ve learned and what you want to hear from us next. You can also listen to us on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Play. Visit our website socialsaleslink.com for more information.