Episode 69: Get On Your Prospect’s Radar

Bob Woods  00:00

Greetings, and welcome, everyone to Making Sales Social Live! I’m Bob woods, the LinkedIn Sherpa, and I’m joined as always by the LinkedIn Whisperer but until then, how are you doing Brynne? 

Brynne Tillman 00:10

Good, Bob. How are you doing?

Bob Woods 00:13

Fantastic today and speaking of today, we’re going to talk about “Getting on the Radars of Your Prospects”, but not in a salesy pushy, you know, and that always be pitching kind of way that unfortunately is so prevalent nowadays. 

Intro 00:30

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. Join Bill McCormick, Brynne Tillman, and me Bob Woods every week. Making Sales Social Live! 

Bob Woods 00:49

There’s a way to get pinging on their radars that’s not only much softer, but this way actually builds relationships and offers value to your prospects, among others, quite frankly, before you reach out to start a conversation with them. And by taking this route, you’ll always stand out from that annoying always be pitching crowd, which believe me, I think we all want to do that. So we have three specific things to do. First two are pretty darn easy as well. It’s really not that bad to do. So Brynne let’s talk about just simply visiting their profile first.

Brynne Tillman  01:20

Yeah, so in most cases, when you visit someone’s profile, they get a notification that they’ve had a visitor. So it starts like a little curiosity. So when you visit their profile, now, it’s really key that you make sure that your settings are “Open” because if you are on anonymous or semi-anonymous, they won’t see who they may actually see that somebody visited it, but they won’t know it’s you. And we want to create like this look, look back kind of moment, right? Like, curiosity, why they look at me, who are they? So you want to make sure that your profile settings are open. It’s in the visibility settings of your profile, you know, pretty easy to do. But once you’re open and you visit their profile, that’s one of the very first steps to getting on their radar. What’s the other one?

Bob Woods  02:13

Yeah, so I talked about pings before, that’s the first ping on their radar. So as that sweet if you imagine a radar scope, you know “Ping!”  that’s the very first “Ping.” (Brynne: Ahhh, I have an image now.) Yeah, exactly, exactly. So the second way to do and you can do this, in fact, that it kind of goes in with visiting a little bit, because while you’re on their profile, you can click the Follow button now. Sometimes, you’ll see the Follow Button automatically on there instead of Connect, you’ll see follow, but if you see connect, what you’ll do is you’ll go down,is it more nowadays? (Brynne: Yup! The more button.) You got the More button and then one of the options that you’ll see in that more button is follow. So this is like following someone on Twitter, you’re not connected. I mean, you can’t connect someone on Twitter, but you’re not connected with them, but you are following them. And this is where the second “Ping!” comes in because they’re then going to be alerted that you are now following them.

Brynne Tillman  03:17

I love that. I think that’s really important and I think these alerts that come out now you can decide if you want to do both of them at the same time or if you want to pace yourself, it just depends. It depends on how you want to do that. But I think I know what number three is I should have been more prepared. But  I’ll let you talk about what number three is because this is I think, where we really start to bring value that you mentioned.

Bob Woods  03:45

Right? Yeah, exactly. So the third one is engaging. Let’s see if I get a head nod. Yes, that’s it!

Brynne Tillman  03:50

Yes, that’s it.

Bob Woods  03:54

So this is where it gets a little more time-consuming but at the same time, it’s enormously valuable, because you are in fact, adding value to anything that that this person rather or these people posts, so because you’re following them they’ll already know that you’re following them. So when you do start to engage on their content, hopefully, they’ll remember “Oh, yeah, that guy or that gal just started following me or that gal, you know, follow me.” 

Brynne Tillman  04:26

“Read my profile and now is on my content.”

Bob Woods  04:29

Right? Yeah. So the more “pings” that you get, the more top of mind that you get with them as well. So Brynne (Brynne: Yeah) Because we’re both clued in and on the same page now, why don’t you talk a little bit about what they should be engaging on? 

Brynne Tillman  04:45

Yeah, well, gosh, I love that. So the first thing you do is look at their activity. I tend to go right to their posts. So when you go when you’re on their profile, and you click on activity, you’ll see all activity. One of the columns is posts, that’s what they actually posted. Now, there are people that post often, there are people that post occasionally and there are people that just never post. So it’s a toss-up to see what might be here. However, if there is content, this is a great opportunity, read it, by the way, read their content, and then engage authentically. And that’s it. You know, Bob said it might take a little longer. But in order for us to truly engage with prospects, we need to slow down our outreach to speed up the outcome. So we have to really take the time to look at what is it that they shared, and then we can react to it. And by the way, a normal like, is fine. But if you did a lightbulb for insights, or curious or support based on what that post is, ultimately, you’re going to stand out even more, right? That reaction is even better than a thumbs up so just keep that in mind. So you have lots of reactions. So do something a little outside the box that will stand out a little more. Comment smartly, “I really appreciate you sharing this post,” “My favorite quote was…” “My favorite tip was…” “It was fun to learn this…” Right? Let them know that you truly, absolutely read it and engage. Now, as I’m saying this, I’m thinking, we gave you the three things, view their profile, follow and engage, you can even flip it. Right, you could flip it if you want to engage and then follow but then you’re really on their radar. And then now I know that this is the offshoot of the get on their radar. But at this point, we’ve now established a connection of sorts and so now we want to actually connect. So when you connect, you mention that content, “Bob, I really enjoyed the posts that you shared. I’d love to connect and continue to follow your posts.” You make them feel good. You make them matter, and it’s not salesy, but it’s the start of rapport. Two things, I’m going to go back because I wanted to say this, and I didn’t. I said there are people that have posted a long time ago, maybe it’s been six weeks or two months since their last post. If you see that and you want to engage, call the elephant out in the room, say, you know, “Hey, Bob, I know I’m a little late to the party but I’m glad I found this. I’m glad you know, again, I’m glad I came across this, I really got some value from it.” or “I might be two months too late, or two months late into this…” So it’s not as awkward as “Wow, I posted that forever ago.” I mean, people don’t know how you found it or why it came up. So just if it is older, call it out. If they don’t have content, consider finding content. You know, we can’t get on the radar with this but when we go to connect, consider finding content of industry insights in their industry or the industry they serve or even their own content. But either way, we want to start conversations that’s not salesy. And I know Bob, I just like kind of took over so awesome.

Bob Woods  08:26

Because there’s actually, especially in that category that you just mentioned, Brynne, when it comes to trying to pay on the radar of someone who doesn’t have a lot of content, or maybe even any content. The other thing you could do, and this is a bit of a Hail Mary, but it’s something that you could do would be to when you go to their activity, and at first, and you can click on all activity, if they have commented and here is the thing, though, if they have made a substantial comment on someone else’s posts, you can reply to their comment on someone else’s post because let’s face it, a lot of people lurk. A lot of people do actually comment on other people’s posts without posting content themselves. So like I said (Brynne: Great, great!) that step could be further down in order, but it’s something that could conceivably done, of course, if the other person is doing that. So all is definitely not lost If they’re not posting their content.

Brynne Tillman  09:25

That’s really good. And I’m going to add to that now because you got my wheels turning. (Bob: Absolutely!)  If you go to the activity feed and you see comments they’ve made, maybe they haven’t posted, but they’ve commented You can comment on their comments.

Bob Woods  09:39

Right? Yeah, that’s why I was saying actually, yeah! 

Brynne Tillman  09:41

Oh, that’s what you said. I was thinking you could comment on other people commenting on their comments.

Bob Woods  09:49

You know, that’s actually another good one, too. That’s yeah! 

Brynne Tillman  09:52

So Okay. They post something. I love this. I love the brainstorming. If they post something and you’ve engaged there, but they have other people commenting you can engage with those commenters. (Bob: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah). There’s so many ways to really get…

Bob Woods  10:11

Yeah, there are lot of ways and I’m sure that there’s a couple things that we haven’t even thought of as well. If you’d like find Brynne or I on LinkedIn, and reach out and connect with us mention this, especially if you have another idea because we’d love to hear those as well.

Brynne Tillman  10:25

And our friend Steven Farber sends a quick little “Hi, I love it.” And we have from Billy Thompson, “It’s all about all-around engagement.” It really is, it absolutely comes down to even in person, right? We talked about this on LinkedIn but in person, if you went to a networking event, it’s who you’re engaging with. It’s the conversations that you’re starting. It’s the value that you’re bringing to them. And so I 100% agree with Billy when he says “It’s all about all-around engagement” It’s about getting on their radar, the “Pings” which I love, I’m going to use that, Bob, it’s about getting those |pings” and when you get enough “pings” they start to come around.

Bob Woods  11:15

And Bill you’re absolutely correct. It should be genuine and sincere. You could not be more right about that. I couldn’t have said it any better myself.

Brynne Tillman  11:23

Right, because here’s the problem, if you just do “Great post” but you didn’t read it. It’s I mean, it’s like walking up to someone not looking down and saying “Nice shoes” but I didn’t look at the shoes. So “I don’t know, I’m just saying it to be nice” Right? Like, I think that’s…People do notice the sincerity and that’s why we have to read the content, we can’t just like or engage without having actually read it. So I love that.

Bob Woods  11:53

And folks, you know, something, it doesn’t take that long to do I mean, we kind of phrase things in like time, a little bit at the beginning but even everything that we’ve just told you takes what? A minute or two? I mean, it you’re not devoting all day, to this, you know, to doing this type of thing, it’s really not, it really doesn’t take a lot of time to read something and be sincere and you’re genuine in the way that you engage with them.

Brynne Tillman  12:20

And I’m gonna throw one out little tip out kind of a side tip it you know, you may have this list of companies and people that you want to engage with. But you also have the opportunity to search content only published or posted by your 1st-degree connections. So if you go into the search bar and hit enter, and hit content, there is a filter that says 1st-degree connections. So you can now build a filter of a stream of content that’s either recent or… 

Bob Woods  12:54

It’s post now, so…

Brynne Tillman  12:57

It’s posts, not content. Listen to Bob, not to me.

Bob Woods  13:01

It used to be but its now post

Brynne Tillman  13:03

Yeah and so then you have a stream of content from your 1st-degree connections and you could do it by relevancy or by timeline. So V-Gaill  Simpson says, “This is a great presentation. Bring clarity on the appropriate use of LinkedIn engagement” Thank you very much. We appreciate that very much. So yeah, I think we’ve kind of hit all the gears on or all the pings on today’s topic.

Bob Woods  13:35

Yeah. So something else I mean, kind of imagined to use your prospects a little bit like air traffic controllers. So they’re looking at this radar thing, and it’s sweeping the first ping, they may or may not immediately notice, but as the pings from you increase, and as they get closer and closer to them, they are going to notice it more and more and more, as you know, as the number of pings, multiply there. Oh, and one other thing that I would suggest would be to not overdo the comments because otherwise it just looks kind of creepy. You know, do it in a natural way because otherwise, you may start getting into that, you know, always be pitching mindset in their mind, even though you’re truly not doing that. So just you know, slow down your…. Yep, slow down your outreach to speed up your outcome. And thanks again, everyone who joined us on Making Sales Social Live! If you’re with us LIVE on LinkedIn right now, we do this every week. So keep an eye out for our LIVE sessions and if you’re listening to us on our podcast, in other words, recorded, but you haven’t subscribed already, we invite you to hit that subscribe or follow button depending on the platform that you’re on to access all of our previous shows and be alerted when a new one is dropped. We actually do two shows weekly. We do this one and we have our Makings Sales Social Interview series where we talk with leaders and experts in sales, marketing, business and many more areas. If you want more information about our podcast go to socialsaleslink.com/podcast That’s socialsaleslink.com/podcast Also be sure to drop a like or a rating for our podcasts and yes, slow down your… I’m going to show that one Yep! Brynne’s got that “Slow down your reach to improve speed up whatever you want to say, your outcome.” That’s key and so much of what you do on LinkedIn. So with that Brynne, let’s try to do this one together. And when you’re out and about…

Brynne Tillman  15:38

When you’re out and about make sure you’re making your sales social.

Bob Woods  15:42

Exactly. Thanks, everyone. Have a great day. Bye Bye, guys. 

Outro 15:47

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