AI as the Ultimate Sales Amplifier

Have a strategy, 'cause the right strategy will save you a decade. If you want more sales from LinkedIn, it's about having conversations. All the people that are not using AI are going to be—

Welcome everyone to Selling in the Age of AI, the podcast where we respect the tech but place human-to-human contact squarely at the top of the sales pyramid. I'm Frank Soma, and today I am thrilled to have a huge LinkedIn expert. I have followed this guy for years. Over the past 3 years, Joe Apfelbaum has trained over 1,000 companies. I gotta stop there. Over 1,000 companies in 3 years. That's unbelievable. Talk about expertise. And he's trained them on how to leverage LinkedIn and most recently how to use AI for business development and marketing. He's a digital marketing expert and the CEO of a marketing agency that's been ranked on the Inc. 5000 as one of the fastest-growing private companies in the U.S. He's the author of 5 books, including his most recent, High Energy Networking. Joe is the founder of an AI sales assistant for LinkedIn, a software he developed with his team to help LinkedIn users maximize the platform and save time using AI that learns your voice and can help craft some comments and content. When he's not on stages all over the world inspiring and educating professionals, he spends time with his 5 children rollerblading and rapping in Hillside, New Jersey. So when I read that, I go, Joe, can you open up with a rap for us?

Yo, yo, yo, my name is Joe. I'm the B2B to B2B AI pro. If you want to grow your business, let me show you how. Step number 1, Have a strategy, because the right strategy will save you a decade.

My goodness.

Oh my God, Joe.

Unexpected! Unexpected, but fabulous.

I'm very, very committed to helping people be able to do what I did, which is be able to grow my marketing agency to be one of the fastest-growing privately held companies in the United States. We were on the Inc. 500 at number 178, and it's because, it's because of strategy. That's what I believe. Luck is great. Luck happens when you take a lot of action and you have a great strategy. For me, it's about connecting with people, building relationships. That, that was always something that was important to me. If you get really good at prompting, you can use the skills you already have to get better at your own job so that you become not replaceable. As a matter of fact, all the people that are not using AI are gonna be left behind because AI is like a, a tool. Using AI, you're giving you a whole toolset for you to use your already known expertise and take it to a whole nother level. It'll help you market yourself. It'll help you ideate. It'll help you brainstorm. I'm being guided by an AI that looked at 20 sources and downloaded all your podcasts to inform me how to best speak to your audience. AI can find you anything you want that's already online. You don't have to Google things anymore. There's a new concept called AEO, answer engine optimization. Whereas you used to go into Google and type in a keyword, now you go to ChatGPT or Claude or Grok. Rock or Perplexity, and you ask it a question and it goes, does Google searches for you, finds you everything and organizes it and gives you the answer. On LinkedIn, if I connect with you, Frank, you automatically follow me. That is a hack that most people don't even realize. You can get to 10,000 followers methodically and quickly versus on other platforms because every connection becomes a follower. And guess how many connections you can have, Frank? You can have up to 30,000. 10,000 connections. Add another 1,000 every quarter. Why not add another 1,000 CROs every quarter? Add another 1,000 VPs of sales every quarter in financial services, in real estate, in hardware. Never connect and pitch. Instead, use greeting, feeding, then meeting. Greeting is first you greet them. You're like, hey Frank, so good to see you. Loved your podcast. Amazing. Good job. I didn't ask you for anything. I didn't ask you a question. I just dropped value and greeted you. I walk people through the plan, the people, the promise, the stories. The profile, the automation and technology, and then I teach you how to get awareness, credibility, and then book meetings. Wanna make networking easier and more effective? Try Evvy AI, your AI-powered sidekick that helps you connect, engage, and grow your network faster than ever. Click the link and start building smarter relationships today.