#005: Cracking the LinkedIn Sales Code

Welcome to the High Income Business Writing.

Podcast, helping you propel your writing business to a whole new level. And now, here's your host, Ed Gandia.

Hey everyone, thanks for joining me for episode number five of the High Income Business Writing Podcast. I am your host, Ed Gandia and this is the podcast for business writers and copywriters who who want to learn how to take their writing businesses to the six figure level or the part time equivalent. And I'm very excited about my guest today and the topic she's going to be covering. Jill Konrath is the author of two best selling sales books and is a popular speaker who helps sellers and by the way, that includes freelancers and consultants, get into new accounts, speed up sales cycles and win more business. And our topic today is LinkedIn. Now, I don't know about you, but to me, LinkedIn always seemed to be sort of the uncool social media site. It seemed to be the place where everyone was just talking business and no one was really taking seriously. The only people who seemed to like it, at least the way I perceived it, were those who were looking for traditional jobs. They used LinkedIn as a resume website and a job search tool. But I've changed my mind in a big way about LinkedIn over the last couple years. And what I've read from Jill and about LinkedIn has further convinced me that this is a very strategic tool that freelance business writers can use to find great prospects, to research those organizations thoroughly, to position themselves as a trusted resource, and to drum up real business. So Jill has conducted extensive research on how top professionals use LinkedIn to build a professional platform. And in this episode she's going to explain how to turn LinkedIn from a site to a powerful business building tool. So I hope you enjoy it. Let's get right to it. Jill, welcome to the show. It's great to have you.

Well, thanks for having me. I'm delighted to be here today.

Awesome, awesome. So you were talking about LinkedIn today and before we get to some of the more specific questions, I'm really curious because you're really high on LinkedIn, you're really bullish on LinkedIn. Why is that? Why LinkedIn specifically?

I think it's a literal gold mine for people who have to sell. And I think most people have no clue as to everything that they can actually do with LinkedIn, how it can position them professionally, how they can target companies that they want to go after, how they can establish relationships with people and circumvent some of the traditional routes. To me, it's like a totally overlooked gold mine for people who have to sell.

Very cool. And I agree. I've seen this trend really over the last couple years. It seems like everyone is kind of ignoring it because it wasn't quote unquote cool. But my gosh, the information that's there is just quite amazing.

Well, I think what a lot of people see it as is a job board, you know, and their mind is still stuck in this, you know. Well, I've got my resume up there and you know, I can see other people's resume, but they really haven't taken a good look and thought about how they can leverage all that information that's there because their mindset is a career site, you know, and I'm not looking for a job right now.

Yeah, that's a good point. And so you've done quite a bit of research in this area and a lot of it has been very recent and I want to talk about that. And specifically, from what I understand, the research you did was comparing how top performers and top salespeople, top self employed professionals, top freelancers were are using LinkedIn for prospecting and for selling their services versus anybody else. And maybe you can tell us a little bit about that and some of your findings.

Just let me give you a little overview. We did an online survey and over 3,000 people took the survey. And I mean 20% of the people who took the survey were actually consultants. And then another huge percent were entrepreneurs. So they weren't just salespeople, they were people who have to sell to make a living. And so right away the writers who are listening to this should know that many of the results are very applicable to them in. And one of the things that we found out when we did the comparison is that we had a group of about 5% of all the people who took the survey were what we called the top sellers. Not necessarily salespeople, but top sellers, meaning they a were getting lots of business via LinkedIn and B, were having a really good year. So it's a combination of those two factors that put somebody into the top seller category. And in that whole group what we found is that like I said, 5% were really blowing it out, 55% were barely using it. And then there was another bunch of people who were getting some, you know, opportunities that may have started out of LinkedIn but not a whole lot.

Interesting, interesting. So, so 5%, when you talk about top sellers, it could be anybody. A lot of self employed people in here, a lot of freelancers, consultants.

Yes.

In what areas did you notice? Some big differences. What were they doing differently in LinkedIn?

Well, they were doing so many things differently. It was really quite astounding to me. I mean, I have liked LinkedIn for years, but my understanding of what people were doing on it was even taken to a whole nother level when I was actually doing a survey because I got so many stories from people and I saw the results. And it started with just the fact of their personal profile. And a lot of people don't think about this, but the people who are leveraging LinkedIn well, realize that it is where people go to search them out. And people will Google them and they'll end up on their LinkedIn profile looking at them. So anybody who is a target customer is checking you out online. And so if you know that, like, the top sellers were extraordinarily cognizant of it, they leveraged their profile in a whole different way. It wasn't a. It wasn't, you know, like you were looking for a job. It was a kind of a sell sheet. I mean, it was, you know, from the. From the headline on down to the summary. And even in some of the job descriptions, it would talk about the kind. For example, your people would talk about the kind of writing that they did, the kind of clients that they work for. Maybe some of the results their clients had gotten as a result of the case studies or the other email campaigns that they'd put together, it really highlighted the business value from a customer's perspective. And they thought about it. They wrote it from a customer's perspective because they knew their reader was a customer, not a recruiter.

Interesting.

So that was just one thing.

By the way. Are you real quick, Jill? Because I think what I've been seeing, and I'd be interested to see if you're seeing the same thing, is that many times your LinkedIn profile is actually showing up higher in search results than your website.

Absolutely. Which is why so many people are clicking on it. And we're actually finding now that a lot of people are even including their LinkedIn profile. The people who have a decent one are including it in their signature file on their emails, because they know people want to check them out.

Interesting. Okay.

So the profile was just one profound difference. And also if you take a look at how they're using the profile, they were actually uploading samples or case studies of their work that they did, and they were showcasing what they could do, because on the profile, you can upload PDF files, you can upload SlideShare files. You can upload PowerPoint presentations and make them available to people. And again, it's a way to showcase who you are, what you do, the results you deliver, and your expertise. And top sellers were clearly using it from that perspective as compared to everybody else. Big difference there.

Okay, okay. And that's been a big change in LinkedIn over the last couple years, hasn't it? Because you weren't able to do a lot of this before.

That's correct. That's correct.

Okay. What other areas were you seeing difference?

Well, the. How people were using it for research. What we saw was that a lot of the people who were really doing well on, on LinkedIn were really, really leveraging it for research. And so they, for example, they might target a company and then they, that they want to work for, and then they go to LinkedIn to find out who to contact. I mean, just who do I contact? And they would do multiple searches on LinkedIn and, and they would find the person, but they would also, when they were doing searches, they would look for multiple contacts. And so, like, if I was working right now with Medtronic and I was doing writing for Medtronic, and I was working with the neurology division of Medtronic, I might be connected with one of my customers, with one person in marketing there, but the smart people were connecting with multiple people within these accounts. And so if something happened to one person, their whole future wasn't lost. You know, their whole connection wasn't lost. So they might connect with this product manager and that product manager and another product manager. And so they would, they would have an extended presence in the account. And then, by the way, whenever anybody would switch a job, they would be immediately notified of changes in their network. So it would create another opportunity for them someplace else.

Aha. Okay. Now, and this might be, you know, maybe a different conversation, but I'm wondering is, do you know if when they were connecting with the other marketing managers, Medtronics, for the other divisions, I mean, is it just as simple as just connecting with them or were they trying to create some dialogue?

Well, let me just say, first of all, they were connecting with multiple people within the same division, because a lot of these companies have multiple marketing managers. They're different product managers for different product sets, even within the business unit that they might be part of.

Okay.

Because they're launching different products and this person's in charge of heart valves, and this person, you know, this person is in charge of the stimulator or whatever it is, but they're still within the Same division because there's multiple marketing people. So they were expanding their contacts right there within the business unit. And then they were also, if they wanted to go and look at potentially doing work in another division, because they were connected to multiple people, they could see who their connections were connected with in other divisions of Medtronic.

Okay.

So now that I know Sam, I'm connected to Sally at Medtronic, and Sally has a friend in the heart valve division of Medtronic. And I could see, oh, Sally's connected to this marketer over in Heart Valves. I could leverage that connection and talk to Sally and say, hey, Sally, I see you're connected to Eric over in Heart Valves. Can you hook me up with him? And so they could actually use their existing connections, and there are multiple existing connections in their base in the account, and they would use that as a piggyback or a springboard to other people who they could potentially reach.

That's smart. And I like that idea of asking your contact to make the introduction and in connection, that would be a lot more powerful than going cold to that person.

Yes. And what we found, too, is that a lot of the people who are doing really well would not necessarily do an InMail type of thing or a request to connect via LinkedIn. They would oftentimes call people on the phone or just send them a regular email and say, hi, Sally, I noticed that you're connected with so and so I was thinking that with the work we've done over here, that this group might be interested in it. Would you be. Would you mind hooking me up with Todd, Eric, whatever it is? Or they would call because it might create more work for them if they haven't done work for Sally in a while.

Ooh, I like that approach. I never heard of that or thought of it. Yeah. So you're picking up the phone, calling your contact there, and asking them. That's a lot more powerful than sending an email or an InMail, right?

It absolutely is. And that's why people that are really smart about it are doing that, because it creates the conversation and rebuilds our network with existing people, and it does create new opportunities.

Very clever. Very clever. So research expanding your reach within a division into other divisions. What else were you seeing?

Well, groups would be the other one. That was really fascinating to me. I had never really understood the power of groups and how some people were leveraging it. But what we saw was that the top performers belong to a whole lot more groups than other people. And if I take a look here, one of the questions we asked was, how many groups do you belong to? And 50.7% of the top performers were involved in 30 or more groups.

Oh, wow.

I mean, that's like, crazy, isn't it? I mean, it seems crazy.

I would have thought it would be the opposite, that you don't want to dilute it by joining too many.

Oh, no, you want to dilute it, and there's a lot of reason why. And the top sellers were really very clear about what their strategy was. And I just like to compare that 50.7% to 11.5% of everybody else. So clearly we have a difference, and there's a reason for it. And there's multiple reasons for it, which is fascinating to me. For example, if you write, in the medical industry, there are industry groups on LinkedIn, and there are probably medical industry groups, and there may even be, you know, heart valve industry groups or, you know, devices industry groups or implantables. You know, that kind of. I mean, it may be groups and there's groups on everything. And so by joining these groups, you can do a couple things. You can start. See, you might, you know, you might want to join the marketing group for medical devices. You can. First of all, you can see what the kind of discussions are going along. And by the way, if you're in a group with somebody, you can do. You can actually send them an email directly. You don't have to be connected to them. So say you and I were in some group together and we're not connected on LinkedIn, but you posted something on LinkedIn and I thought it was interesting, or I read something in the newspaper about what was happening with your company and thought, oh, man, they're bringing in all these new products. I've got some ideas. I could send you an email through LinkedIn because we're in the same group.

Together, where otherwise I'd be very limited in terms of character count.

Yes. But I can send you an email.

Yes. Is it an actual email or an InMail?

Yes, it's not an InMail, it's an email because we're in the same group.

Okay.

But I can also follow you, and follow is different from connect. By following, I can see what you post and any updates that you make or any changes. So if I'm targeting certain companies and I really want to get to, you know, know some people, that's a way for me to keep up to speed on what's going on with different people and perhaps, you know, see what they're doing and learn something that could help Me have a reason for contacting them. And the other thing that people were doing with groups that was so cool is they were actually using it to initiate conversations with people. For example, they might see if they were talking about marketing, they would see a discussion on marketing and they might chime in and say, you know, we've really found that case studies make a huge difference in terms of having the right collateral for salespeople and driving more business. Or they might, you know, whatever they could add to the discussion, but they would never do any pitch. It would always just be they were on there adding ideas, you know, sharing a few thoughts. Here's how it helped. If somebody that they were interested in, perhaps working with made an interesting comment, they might like the comment and then do a follow up comment to that person's comment. And now they're starting to build a relationship with somebody they don't even know.

Aha. Yes.

Do you see what I'm saying with that?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you're coming to it from a very different angle. And now you're adding value basically up front before you even pitch, before you even pitch.

And you're just starting a conversation and you see that Eric writes something about the challenges that they're having with launching a new product. And then somebody else says something and Eric comes back and says this and you read it and you go, that's really interesting. And so you say, Eric, that's really an interesting thing that you're doing. I work with a lot of medical technology companies and I don't see that very often. I'm pretty impressed.

Now, what do you, when you see these groups, do you find that. Because I'm wondering if some potential buyers of writing services might see this as you're just trying to really get in the door there. But do you think they see it as authentic if done right?

If done right, it's very authentic. You're simply being there to offer advice and to be part of the conversation. And it's not a pitch, it's never a pitch. I mean, if it comes to the point where you have an idea, you might email Eric at that point and say, you know, Eric, a couple times lately you've been making comments about this or I noticed you said that. I got some ideas that might be helpful to you. Would you like a quick offline conversation? Again, no pitch. I've got ideas. I was thinking about the problem you mentioned, but just conversational like you would do with a normal human being, not with a prospect.

Yes. And it's been years since I've dated. But this sounds a lot like dating, right? You don't. First of all, you never want to ask somebody to marry you right away when you first meet them. You also don't want to ask, you know, the next day or on the second date.

Right.

So this is, you're stair stepping your way to, to a deeper relationship with them. But, you know, you don't know where it's going to go.

You don't know where it's going to go. And you know, you're, you're, you may be having a lot of relationships. You're dating around, you know, you're, you're trying to find out if there's an opportunity with this person or, you know, if this is somebody might want to get married with. But there's also, you're keeping your options open too, and you're having multiple conversations because not many people can just have one client or if they do, they may be very vulnerable to changes in the economic climate of that one client.

Now, what do you find that when done right, this kind of ask their. Hey, Eric, I got some ideas. Yeah, should we take. Would you like to talk offline briefly? Do you find that that's usually fairly effective if you've added value upfront like this in a group?

Yes. Because you're authentic. You really do have ideas. It's not like you're trying to pitch, oh, I can do writing. You know, it's not like you're trying to do that. You have to be somebody who has ideas. Yeah, you know, that's the key is that it's not about selling, it's about contributing and offering advice that might be helpful. And if it leads to business, that's great.

I'd like to add something here because I heard similar advice when I was first starting as a writer, and one of my fears was like, oh, my gosh. But I'm just starting out. I don't have ideas, you know, because I'm new. I would say, well, first of all, that's going to come with time for those of you who are fairly new to freelance writing. But second of all, here's how you circumvent that. This is why I'm a big believer in staying on top of industry publications, reading all you can about, you know, read articles, case studies and so forth about what other companies are doing out there. From a content marketing standpoint, that's where you're going to get the ideas at first. You don't have to say, listen, I don't know anything, but I read this article the other day. You know, you don't have to be that honest. You could say, listen, you know, I came across them. Did you know that, you know, XYZ Companies company did something very similar and they achieve X result.

Right, right. And reading ideas and sharing other people's ideas is very valuable today because there's so much, there's so much junk out there that people, their eyes glaze over. But if somebody can share good information with them, they're always willing to listen. And it doesn't have to be their own, you know, work. And by the way, a lot of people, what I see in having worked with freelancers in the past is I see a lot of people when they start their own business, it's like they think that their slate is wiped clean and that they don't have any experience. And yet they've been doing writing and marketing and other work. In their previous position, when they worked for somebody else, they were already doing this.

Amen.

So they're not starting from scratch. And so you could say, you know, I've got some ideas. In my previous company, we were doing this when we had this problem or challenge, and they can offer their insights from their previous positions because nobody is a blank slate.

I would say, you don't even have to say from my previous, in my previous company, you know, yeah, I've seen this happen firsthand. You know, I've been in this situation, you know, and here's, here's, here's how we address it. You can say we, you don't have to say, you know, so that's a great point. In fact, that's, that's one of the key points that I continually stress, especially to new writers is, look, leverage your background, leverage your experience, your contacts. That's where your biggest wins are going to be, especially your first two or three years.

Yes.

I want to talk about some practical things you could do in LinkedIn, maybe from a workflow standpoint. Before we get to that, I'm curious because this is starting to sound like a big investment in time. What are top sellers doing? How much time were they investing in LinkedIn? And in all these groups, the top.

Sellers were oftentimes investing like six hours a week.

Oh, wow, okay.

But some of them weren't because their work was episodic. You know, like, you get a big contract and you don't need anything for a while, you know, and so they don't need to be constantly prospecting. But there are some people that, you know, they have to constantly be Prospecting in their work. But a lot of times freelancers and I know having been on my own for so many years, I don't need a whole lot of projects to keep my life full.

Yeah, you only have so much capacity.

That's right. You only have so much capacity. So I would say with that in the freelance community, it would be different and it would be more when you were, you know, it would be less. And because you're not constantly looking for people. But there are some definite things that people should be doing to think about getting more business in the door, but also the highs and lows of the business. Because the other thing I know from being on my own myself is that, you know, sometimes you're like super busy and you're too busy, you think to do any sales and then the project ends, you look up and go, oh my God, now what?

Yeah, I haven't been doing any prospecting for three months.

Yeah, right. But with LinkedIn you can really. There are some things that you can do on a regular basis and Maybe only spend 15, 20 minutes a day doing something like that, but that keeps you in the game.

So let's talk about some things and maybe let's approach it in two different phases. So right now I have nothing and I want to get started using LinkedIn. So what should I do? Where do I start? And then let's say that once I land some work and now I'm super busy, how do I still go in there to make sure that the well is not dry when I'm thirsty?

Okay, we'll start with, I don't have any work right now. The first thing I would do is I would look at my own personal background and I would say, what kind of writing? You know, what kind of background do I have that I might be a little bit more skilled at than other people? You know, like if I have come, like I came out of selling technology, you know, so I might look at how can I work with technology companies? Or another thing, I came out of selling copiers. I mean, that was my background before. So other copier companies might, you know, I might have a background to be able to talk with more intelligence about something like that. So what I would do is I would try to identify companies that sold things that were similar to my own background. Similar doesn't have to be exact. I mean, if you've worked in a distributor organization before, there are a lot of distributor type organizations. So it just depends on what they distribute. But you need to focus in on something where you have A higher chance of being more credible, if that makes sense.

Absolutely, yes.

Yeah. Because, I mean, if I would go over and talk about insurance, I mean, I don't have any insurance background at all, you know, so for. I have no credibility. They have to teach me everything. So what you're trying to do is short circuit. Thing is go after where you have some level of credibility at that point. I would maybe identify companies. I would use LinkedIn to identify companies that were in that kind of business. And I would get a list and I would go to the advanced search functionality on LinkedIn and I would type in. I'm going to go there right now so I can. So I can talk people through this. But the advanced search capacity on LinkedIn allows you to do some sorting in terms of what you're actually looking for. And when you go to just the regular people searching, you select advanced search, you can enter in keywords and you might enter in medical devices. And I'll stick with that. We'll just run with that right now. Medical devices, because I come from a medical device background. And then I might put in location, and I have some parameters with location. It allows me to put in zip codes. And so I can, you know, I can focus my search around the Minneapolis St. Paul area, because that's where I live, and I think it's easier to do that. Or I can go anywhere in the United States. The other thing I might look for is titles and, you know, like, I might look for product marketing manager for medical device companies. And then you can also narrow it down. If you go down to the advanced search functionalities and scroll down further, there are things like industries that you can do things with, you can do things with your relationship with people, the level of connection you are with them, and many more things. So right away you can create a list possibly of people who might be able to use your services based on.

Your background, your experience, your network, people, you know, in some more detailed filtering.

Right. So once you get the list and you can actually start looking people up and saying, does this person look like he or she is somebody I want to talk to or might want to talk to? But let me just say, once you create this list, there is a capacity on LinkedIn called save searches, which most people aren't aware of. And this is a free thing to a limit. But you can save up to three searches in perpetuity, meaning that I might save all marketing managers for medical device companies in the Minneapolis area. So by saving that search, here's what happens. Once a week or once a day. But I have it set on weekly for me. I get weekly notifications of anybody who is added to that group in the following week. Okay, so here's what it means. It means St. Jude Medical is in that group because they're a medical device company here in the Minneapolis area. And on Monday I get a notice that Ryan Smith has taken it, you know, is now in that group. It updates me of who's taken new marketing positions in this saved search.

When you're talking about group, you're talking about the search itself, not actually search group. Yeah, search group.

Search group, yeah. So every week I can get an alert about people who are new positions within these companies. So I am building my database on a regular basis. That's huge. Yeah. And now if I see somebody who's from St. Jude and I see 16 people from St. Jude, I might just check out those people on St. Jude and see what groups they belong to. Now once I know what groups they belong to, I might join a few of those groups. I might check them out, see if they were any good and join those groups to see about participating in the group. Now I have a way to connect with those people, by the way, because I've joined the groups that they've joined. Aha.

Okay.

Because remember, I can send emails to people who are in my group.

Yes. And can you check out groups, by the way, without becoming a member? Just to kind of.

And the other thing you can do. And let me just say, here's another thing you can do with the group. So you see that Ryan Smith is in this group and you want to join that group because you really do want to connect with Ryan and you think it's a good group. So you join that group. Once you're a member of that group, you can do an advanced search on that group.

Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. Especially if it's a big group. I can see the possibilities.

Yeah. See, now you can narrow it in. Here's all the people that are in that group. And so now you can narrow it in and fine tune it. You can look out these people and learn more about them. So. Right. You're just. I mean, otherwise you're sitting on the outside of St. Jude Medical and you're looking at it and going, God, I'd really like to do business with them, but I don't have a clue where to start.

Yeah, I love this. You know what I love about. I think one of the key things you just said was to be able to now search within the group.

Yes.

Because to me, it's all about filtering and setting criteria. And if I'm going to participate, I know that my name's going to be exposed to that group. So why not search within that group? Because automatically there's a higher probability that I'll have some name recognition there.

Right. And you can, you know, contribute to the group and. But do you see what I'm saying? This is just something you can do. And every day you can spend, spend some time connecting, offering advice, saying a few things, and watching what's happening. Let me just say what else you can do now. Say you did get work with Medtronic. You got a project at Medtronic. At that point, you're going to go in and you're going to look for other Medtronic divisions. So you'll want to go and start looking for other divisions in Medtronic and do another search on something like that. Because you want to expand within Medtronic. So one project, we want to expand within an account because it's easier to get hired in Medtronic. Once you've been hired in Medtronic, it's a whole lot easier to get second and third and fourth projects with one business unit or division and then to piggyback off of those and to find other divisions within Medtronic or business units that could use you as well. Because what's going to happen is the people in the other business units are going, oh, well, they're hiring you over there. You must be good, you know, because my colleagues are using you. And so again, you can use, you know, LinkedIn to find out who those other people were and start leveraging your initial connections to connect with those other people. I mean, those are just some of the, you know, the things that I would do.

This would keep you busy.

It would keep you busy for a while.

Yes. And not in a, you know, just busy kind of. This is very strategic. I love how you approach this.

This. It's very strategic. It's kind of like, you know, in the past people said, well, you have to go out and network. And you go to network and there aren't anybody at these networking events where there's like that are really the kind of people you want to meet.

You know what I mean?

You know, like they're from. They're from other small companies. You know, they can't afford you and you're really trying to get a bigger account as a client. I mean, you have to go where they are and they're on LinkedIn. I mean, it's growing like crazy.

So this is the equivalent of doing what you just said, but you can actually get a quick read on who's going to be at that event. And then when you get there, they all have signs on their forehead that tell you all about them.

That's right. Let me tell you a couple other stories, too, just because in this research, and, you know, I wrote two ebooks on the topic, and the first ebook is just the sales results. I mean, the results of the survey showing what the top sellers are doing, which is some of what we're actually talking about now. But the second ebook was based on some of the stories that people shared with me. And we have stories of consultants picking up $350,000 contracts.

Wow. Through LinkedIn.

Through LinkedIn. And what they were doing is they would go on and they would research before they contacted a person. The one that I featured in this e book would go on and just study that person's profile in depth to find connection points and would use that to establish rapport, knowing that that was crucial.

Connection points, meaning other people that they knew.

It could be other people, could be interests. For example, if I saw that you were a scuba diver and I was, too.

Okay, yeah.

I could be mentioning scuba diving. If I saw that you went to the University of Minnesota, I could say go gophers to you.

Or we worked in the same company 10 years ago and we didn't even know each other.

Yeah, that's right. Or I saw you work for Xerox at one point in your career. Oh, so did I. I mean, boom. Immediate bond. You know, it makes you stand out from the other strangers who are contacting them. So there's so many things that you can research on to look for connections points, people you might know who know each other. Some people are even going into their alumni groups.

Oh, wow. For their school.

For their school. And they're. Yeah. I mean, one of the ladies that I featured in there in the second ebook, she graduated from the University of Virginia, and she is now out on the West Coast. And, I mean, she told me. She was telling me, and I was interviewing her about how she got into Yahoo. And she did that by actually going into her alumni group and searching for Advanced Search employees in the Bay Area who worked at Yahoo, people in the Bay Area who worked at Yahoo. Who graduated from University of Virginia.

Wow. And I can see why that would be a little more effective than doing the same thing if you lived in Virginia, because out west, it's like, you know, let's stick together.

Yeah.

UVA baby.

Yeah, Go uva. And so she would actually, you know, contact these people and say, look, I graduated from 19 in 1994 from UVA, you know, and I see you're from there, too. Here's the deal. I work with companies to do this kind of thing. I've got some ideas. Do you know who I would be contacting? Yeah, you know, and, and they would guide her.

You know, I've never done this, this level of research before, approaching someone on LinkedIn, but I know of a PR firm here in town who's very successful. They focus strictly on technology, public relations. And the reason they're so successful, I mean, other than the fact that they're good, but you have to be good, right? So, yeah, everybody's good. They spend a lot of time, a lot of energy researching prospects before they even approach them. But from a connection, who do they know? Who do we already know? Who knows someone in there? And they will dig for weeks and create this. I think they do this whole report on how they're going to approach that account based on all these contact points, all these points of commonality, all the research they've done. So before they even even think about pitching, they already have a strategy based on all this information.

That's right.

LinkedIn basically makes us easier.

It makes it so easy. And you know what? It gets us around. It gets us around having to make stupid cold calls, you know, where you're just dialing for dollars. I mean, it totally eliminates that.

Yes, absolutely. Okay, great, great. So, so this makes sense. You've given us a really good path and something really practical we could do kind of day to day. And, you know, I kind of wanted to. Before we talk about where you can get the ebook, I do want to ask you about something because you have a really good insight based on the clients you work with on the need for content today. So I'm going to do like a whole 180 here and ask you about content. You know, I'm constantly preaching to my friends and colleagues about main content marketing, especially in the corporate world, is where it's at. You know, what are you seeing out there right now in terms of need for good content and good content writers?

There's a desperate need for good content writers. I mean, the reality of it is it's so hard for salespeople to initiate contact on their own. This is what we're talking about. This is why I'm studying LinkedIn too. And what can be done. It's so hard for salespeople. So Having good content gives them touch points and things that they can share with people to build credibility and to establish a relationship over time. But secondarily, the marketing departments and the lead generation campaigns, I mean, content is where it's at and everything's moving to content marketing, not advertising or anything. And people are looking for all sorts of ways to create content and to repurpose existing content. And if you're doing a white paper, how can you create five articles out of the white paper so we can use it multiple ways? How can we turn it into a podcast? How can we do it? Everything with it? It's all content marketing.

And are you seeing salespeople out there? Just telling you, Jill, I can't. We don't have people to actually create the content that I need. Are you seeing that out there?

Oh, yes. I mean the reality, not just salespeople, VPs of sales too are telling me that kind of thing. Yes. And partially it's because companies have not a lot of them don't have the internal capacity for something like this. You know, they don't have a huge staff of writers and business must go on and all the people have to do the stuff that has to get done. So it is an outsourced function. In many cases they don't have the capacity internally. So they are desperately looking for good resources that they can use somebody who can quickly jump in. And this is again why I said watch your background, because they want people who have as close a background and can get in and get up to speed fairly quickly. And that would be their preference. But yes, it's all about content marketing. It is a burgeoning field. I have a friend who is starving for writers and no, I'm not going to give it out because I know that she would be overwhelmed. But the truth of the matter is good writers are hard to find.

And that's. You just hit it right there. There are a ton of them out there. Like I could go right now and Google Business Writer, B2B Copywriter, B2B Writer. The problem is not finding them. I always keep saying there's a disconnect between the need and the people who could actually do it and do it.

Well, yes, there's a real disconnect and it's really so many people are still stuck in the let me hype all the features and benefits of everything. And it's not about that anymore. It's not about any adverbs or adjectives that make the company sound wonderful. It's really about case studies. Use examples it's more telling the story, but not in an amped up, hyped up way.

Well, thanks for the confirmation because this is what I've been seeing as well. But I always like to ask people who are out there in the field every week, talking to sellers, talking to marketers, to see what you're seeing in terms of the need for content.

Yeah, starvation is what I'm seeing and they're starving for it.

So that means we as business writers, we have it made. We just need to be strategic about how we go after, which is what we just spoke about today.

That's really the truth. And writers are not naturally salespeople. In fact, they have this disgust taste in their mouth when they think about selling. And the reality is we need to stop thinking about selling and start thinking about having conversations with people that are normal human beings because we've got something that can make a difference for them. And it's really about talking, not about putting on this sales hat and being, you know, stupid.

I love that. Well said. Well said. So, Jill, where can listeners get a copy of. Well, both ebooks?

Both ebooks are on my website, JillConrath.com and I have to spell it out. It's Jill, like Jack and Jill J I L L. Last name is K O N R a t h jillconrath.com.

So if they go to your homepage, you'll be able to see, okay, it's.

On the homepage and I've got this free resources section. It's all there and they're free and they're just really good insights on what to do and how to leverage LinkedIn.

They really are guys. I've read them both. Of course, I had to pretend that I wasn't really aware of the content in there, otherwise it'd be a very boring interview. But it's fantastic stuff and I love. Well, I love both, but I particularly love the one that's all case studies. All the stories of top sellers out there who are using LinkedIn the way Jill just described.

Yeah, that to me was. It was a book that had to be written. It was not one I intended to write when I did this study. But I just got such incredible information from people that opened my eyes to how you could use LinkedIn strategically to get business and feel really good about yourself while you were doing it. You're not that sleazy sales feeling, but just, I know who I'm going after. I want to establish relationships with them. I'm going to be an advice giver and offer suggestions and share ideas and you know, bingo, they were working with people.

Beautiful. Well, we'll have the URL there on the show notes, but jillconrath.com Jill, thanks for coming on the show. This has been fantastic.

Truly my pleasure. Thanks for having me. Ed.

Oh man, I hope you enjoyed that interview as much as I did. And if you don't currently use LinkedIn or are not using it the way Jill described, I hope this discussion got you thinking about how you can start using this powerful tool in a more strategic way. So a few quick announcements before we sign off. If you enjoyed this episode, I'd be very grateful if you shared it with friends. And the easiest way to do that is to go to www.b2b launcher.com love this will pre populate a tweet for you which makes sharing the podcast a lot easier. If you're not on Twitter, there are all kinds of sharing buttons right on the episode page. Also, the episode page is what you'll find all the show notes, including a summary of all the key points that we discussed here. This is a great way to review the material, to skim through it, and to go back to any points that you may have missed. You also find a link to the ebook that Jill mentioned in this program in this episode, and those are free ebooks that summarize in detail all the research he has done on LinkedIn. It's really powerful stuff. I highly recommend you check it out. Also, it would mean a lot to me if you gave the show a quick rating or review on itunes, and the easiest way to do that is to go to b2b launcher.com iTunes once you're on that page, simply click on the blue view on itunes button that you'll see there. This will take you right to the show page in itunes where you can then write a sentence or two about the show and hopefully leave me a star rating. Itunes has already included this show as one of their new and noteworthy podcasts for all podcast categories, as well as both the business and the career so subcategories. And this was due in large part to all the ratings and reviews that you've left me, as well as a large number of downloads that I've experienced so early in the show's existence. So if you've already left me a rating, I thank you very much. It's made a huge difference. This brings us to the end of the episode. I am your host Ed Gandia. Thanks for listening and I hope you have an awesome day.

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