What is Spam on LinkedIn?

By the way, the reason I like starting like this whenever I do a LinkedIn Live is because that's the first frame that comes up and then people are like, what is going on? So when they're watching the replay, they're like, I wanna hit play to that. Like Joe's going like that, Philip's going like that, the whole thing's gone. So for you guys that are tuning in fresh on the replay, do me a favor in the comments, just write replay so that I know that you're watching the replay. 'Cause usually people start watching and it's really boring and people are trying to figure it out, but we're trying to make things exciting. We're gonna talk about what is spam on LinkedIn. We're gonna talk about how to manage our Beliefs around spam and how not to be spammy. How to talk? We're going to talk about perfectionism and how to just get out the door and not worry so much about other people's opinions. And maybe we're just going to chill to the beat a little bit too. So if you guys are with me, Jesse, that's right, Joe. I'm with you. We're going to see you in the comments. I have Philip Lano's personal brand manager, expert podcaster, amazing host of the Entrepreneur Podcast, and also he's hosted over a thousand. podcast episodes specifically interviewing CEOs and business leaders from all around the world. He's an amazing, amazing jack of all, master of all, literally knows how to get it all done. Is it called jack of all trades, master of all?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just like, wow. When you hear that from the outside looking in, I'm like, damn, here I am like, what am I gonna work— what do I have to work on? What do I have to—

Mindset. Yeah, all you gotta do is mindset. You gotta believe it, because if you don't believe it, you will not conceive it. And if you don't conceive it, you're you're not going to achieve it. And if you don't achieve it, something else is going to pop out. Something else is going to pop out. And then we also have the amazing Sam. Sam Bergdahl is an incredible improviser, an incredible expert. She is also a financial advisor. She's a sales expert. And she's just an all-around great person who loves to connect with other people. She's authentic. And she will give you what you give her. So she knows how to dish it out. If you're going to give it to her, she's going to give it right back to you. Am I right? You are correct, Joe. What an intro that is.

Thank you so much.

Okay, okay, okay. So for those of you that are tuning in for the very first time, write first time. If you've seen this live before, just write I've seen it before. We want to add as much value as possible. It looks like Sharon Roshi is watching the replay. By the way, if you wrote that you're watching the replay while you're watching it live, you're actually watching it live. I love that.

I love that.

Hey everyone, I'm watching the replay. I love it. Okay, cool. But yes, if you're, if you're live, just tell us where you're tuning in from. I'm tuning in from Brooklyn, New York. Actually, I'm in Liberty, New York. I'm not in Brooklyn, New York. I'm all the way 110 miles northwest of Brooklyn, New York. Philip, where are you tuning in from?

Los Angeles.

Los Angeles. He's all the way in the PST. And then Sam, where are you tuning in from?

I'm tuning in from Vancouver.

Vancouver. Same time zone. So we got 2 PSTs, 1 EST. Everyone put in your EST, PST, CST, IST, or whatever ST you're in. As long as you're not an STD, if you're an S.E.S.T., that was a terrible joke.

But it's a great transition. No, it's a great transition because spamming on LinkedIn really does feel like you got the news that you got something like that. Whenever somebody approaches you in your inbox, you're like, "Yeah, so it feels icky.

It feels icky." And of course, we we're all we're all victims of spam because. You know, let's talk about what is definitely spam. It's like sometimes you see it and you're not sure what it is. If you're not 100% sure if it's spam or it's not spam, it doesn't mean it's definitely spam. Spam just means it's not relevant to you. Okay, let me pause the music so this way you can hear what I'm saying. Spam is definitely— like, if something is spam, you know it's not relevant to you. That's how you know it's spam. So if somebody's saying, Hey, would you like to buy my car? And they knock on your door and you're like, my car's a really good price. I'd like you to buy my car. And you're like, who even are you? Like, I have cars. Like, what do you want from me? Like, I have enough cars. I actually have an extra car. Would you like to buy my car? Like, what do you want from me? Or somebody messages you on LinkedIn and says, hey, would you like web design? I have this web design. I can do graphic design. I can do programming. I can do all those things. And I'd like to build you a website right now. Can I build you a website? Can I get started right now? And you're like, Do I even know who you are? We're not even connected on LinkedIn. Like, why are you asking me if I want a website right now? That's the idea. That is definitely spam. If somebody's like, hi, I'm a financial advisor and I'd like to advise you on your finances, uh, please set up a call with me. Here's my Calendly link. Here are all my credentials. Here's the reason for you to get on the phone with me. Uh, please get on the phone right now because I'd like to sell you life insurance immediately. You absolutely need it because one day you will die. 100% of humans die. Buy life insurance right now. Click here. What is going on? Now, it may be that somehow they earned the right to do that.

Why?

Because it may be that you reached out to them and said, hey, I'd like life insurance. So they went and sent you this message, but when you got the message, you thought it was spam. That has happened to me. Somebody has asked me, Joe, I'd like to build a website. And so I reached out to him, showed him my deck, showed him exactly what we have, showed him our pricing, and said, when would you like to get started? And he replies, why are you sending me this spam? And I said, you literally just asked me that you wanted to build a website. This is a long time ago, and it happens often. People reach out and then they say, hey, why are you sending me spam? You're the one that reached out to me and asked me for my services. And it also so happens that I call up somebody and I just have a regular conversation with them and like, why are you trying to sell me? Wait, hang on, why are you trying to sell me? Why are you selling me? Hang on, why are you selling me? Why are you trying to sell me stuff? I don't want to buy. Why are you selling me stuff? I'm like, I'm not. I'm literally calling you just to see how you're doing and just to connect with you. It's like you're already selling, you're already selling me, because they have this fear of selling. So that LinkedIn trainer— so Sam told me that she saw on somebody's, on somebody's profile, a LinkedIn trainer wrote, please don't spam me, please don't spam me, please don't spam me, don't send me messages with offers and stuff. And that person is probably allergic to spam. I mean, we all learn to live with spam. Philip, do you get spam?

A lot, actually. It's always someone wanting to build a website or a mobile application for me, but my profile, it took a pretty long time to like fill it out, and I clearly say that I do— like, the people that I should probably pay attention to are the ones that are offering to generate leads for me, and I often am like, eh, maybe, you know, but it's just the way they approach me. They don't, they don't take the time. It's funny, I'm high maintenance. I like people to wine and dine me before they actually hit me with the sale. It's true though. It really is because I don't— because it's not what I would do for someone. I go out of my way to like pay attention to the people I'm connected with. Are they creating good content, things of that nature? And then even if I don't ever plan to do business with them, I do take the time to give them feedback on what they post, hoping that one day people would do the same. Unfortunately, that's not the case. Most people on there— are only looking for business solutions 99% of the time or looking to give people business solutions.

Now, you said a very important keyword. You said most people on there. Can we just, can we just analyze that for a second? Because that's coming from the sub— that's coming from your subconscious, Philip. And Sam, I want you to pay attention because the words that we use without us thinking of the words, because when we're just flowing, we're not thinking of the words. Often is not coming from the front. We're not calculating it. It's actually coming from the back, a place that we're basically just naturally. If you think that most people on LinkedIn— when you say there, you probably meant LinkedIn— if most people on LinkedIn are there to sell you or offer business solutions, then the mindset of you going on LinkedIn is protection mode. You're like the emu. You're kind of looking like that. What I want to encourage you is to kind of reframe that belief that you have around spam because if you think you get a lot of spam, you don't get a lot of spam.

I mean, in relation to you, there's no way.

In relation to anyone, you don't get a lot of spam and neither does Sam. Sam, you don't get a lot of spam. You maybe get a couple of spams, but you don't get a lot of spam. There are people that get a tremendous amount of spam. I probably get 300 messages a day, not on LinkedIn, like on email. that are like spammy messages, and they go directly to spam. I actually check my spam, and I get a lot of spam because my email address has been around for many, many years. It's on many lists, and I get— I just happen to get a lot of junk. There's a lot of junk in the trunk. That's why people cancel their email and get a whole new email. But I'm okay with the junk because I learn from the junk. I learn all the things not to do. I'm okay with spam. I'm okay with it. I learned how to ignore the spam. I also learned how to learn from the spam. I learned how to triage spam to determine how spammy is it. Sometimes I get spam and I turn that into a client. It happened recently. Somebody who spammed me, built a relationship with them, and actually turned them into a paid client within 1 week of them spamming me. They already sent me 3 referrals, 3.

Wow.

Because they were so happy with me changing their approach from being a spammer You're being a planner, learning how to plan properly.

Okay.

What does it mean to plan? If you know exactly what your goal is, who your target market is, and what the messaging is, and your messaging aligns with your target market, it's no longer considered spam because you know the problems of your customer and you're speaking to their problems, so it's relevant. That's the difference between spam. Spam and messages that are actually good messages. If it's a good message, I— if I send a message to Philip and I say, hey Philip, I see that you're a podcast host. I see that you hosted over 1,000 people on their podcast, and I would love to bring you on to talk about your experience being a podcast host and put you in front of 1,000 CEOs. Are you interested in coming?

Oh yeah.

You're gonna say hell yeah. That's not spam. But what if I said right after that, I said, Philip, it's going to cost you $100 to be on the show. Is it now becoming spam? It's still not spam. It's not spam. It's still relevant. What if I said, Philip, you're going to have to fly down to New York and pay for your own ticket to come. It's still not spam. Whatever I tell you, it's not spam because it's relevant to Philip. Now, what if you say it's not interested? Did it become spam? No. He said, I'm not interested. It's not spam. It's still relevant to Philip. And although it's not relevant today, it might be relevant in the future. So if I reach out to a VP of sales and I said, hey, I am doing a boot camp for Sales Navigator. Many VPs of sales pay for Sales Navigator, but they don't use it. Do you have Sales Navigator and would you like more information about the boot camp? A VP of sales might say, I'm not interested, but I didn't spam them because I'm not saying, would you like web design to the random world? I'm talking to a VP of sales about a Sales Navigator boot camp. He might say, I don't have Sales Navigator. Nope. But he might say, I may want to get it. Can you send me info about the boot camp? You're actually doing somebody a service when you reach out to them. I really want you to get that, Philip, and I really want you to get that, Samantha. When you reach out to somebody and it's relevant, it means you're a planner instead of a spammer. When you know exactly who your target market is and what the message is and you send it to them based on who they are, it's no longer spam. Now, will some people still consider it spam? Yes. And let me tell you, even if they reach out to me, and they ask me for my services, I provide them something that's relevant, they're still going to consider it spam. Some people still consider that spam.

I have a question. Is it worth— because I know that LinkedIn allows you to put like, oh, things you're interested in or how you can be contacted. But some people completely ignore that shit and just— excuse me for cursing— but they just, they actually look at your bio. And if you don't listed out in your bio, then they may not know. Do you take the time to put in your bio, here are the things you should contact me about? Is that, is that a thing that you encourage people to do?

I definitely encourage people to, in their summary section, also known as the about section, to make it clear what you're interested in and what you're not interested in. It's very, very important to do that. Most people don't even have their about section filled out. on LinkedIn. The average user on LinkedIn has 440 connections. The average CEO has 930 connections. So if you think about that, think about the level of spam that they're getting is very, very, very low. But the few spams that they get, they still think everyone on here is trying to spam me, right? Like Philip, it came out of Philip's mouth, like, like it came out of the mouth of babes. You know what I mean? It just— so a lot of people, if you believe that everyone's trying to spam you, and you get 2 spam messages a week, you're not going to use the platform, you're not going to reach out, and you're not going to benefit from the 830 million people that are there. And 40% are logging in every day, and 99% of them are not spamming. The 1% are spamming.

You're, you're saying that LinkedIn is a B2B opportunity that people are sleeping on, on average, when they could be leveraging it to tap into offerings that would clearly solve their problems if they change their mindset around it.

I think like, exactly, like think about Sam, for example. Sam opened up an account last week. She got a LinkedIn Premium account. She opened it up last week. She has 250 connections on LinkedIn right now. She's a Sales Navigator expert and she's offering VPs of Sales and people with LinkedIn Premium accounts. She's offering them information about the boot camp if they're interested. And if not, she's happy to chat with them and build a relationship with them and connect with them. But like 95% of the people she's connected to have a little gold icon on their profile. Now she has 5,000 people that she's going to connect to, and 5% of them are going to hopefully be interested in this. That means she's going to have about 250 people that are interested in this program. And out of those, she's hopefully going to get a few dozen people into the program over a certain period of time, over the next 8 weeks or whatever. There's an actual plan. The messaging that she sent is super relevant. She's like, you have a gold icon on your thing. Do you use Sales Navigator? That's relevant. That's extremely relevant because someone that uses Sales Navigator, they're paying for it. But if they don't know how to use it, they need someone to come in and say, hey, I see that you have a mole on your face. You want me to check if it's cancerous? Right. It's the same thing. Do you want me to check if there's an issue with that mole? They might say, no, I'm fine. But if you walked over to anybody and say, can I check if there's a mole on your face in case to see if there's cancer? That's a problem. That's spam. I don't need you to check if I have a mole on my face. But if I know you have a mole on your face, you have a Sales Navigator mole right here, Sales Navigator mole, I can reach out to you and say, hey, I see you have a Sales Navigator stamp on your forehead. Do you actually use Sales Navigator? Do you know how to use it? Would you like some help with that? If not, that's fine. But if you do, I can send you more information. That's already so relevant. What I want you to know is that if you can find the niche, if you can find your target market, and you can figure out what their typical problems are, then what you can do is you can customize your messaging to speak to your target market, and now you're relevant. When you're relevant, you're not spammy. Now, will some people still think you're spammy? Of course. Of course, some people will still think you're spammy. But you need to come from the mindset of, I want to serve. If you're coming from the mindset, I want to serve instead of I want to sell, then you're a complete game changer because now you're a breath of fresh air. I was going to say a fresh breath of air, but you're a breath of fresh air. And the reason why is because most people are trying to sell. Most people that are not experienced in outreach are trying to sell. Most people don't even want to do outreach. Most people are afraid of outreach, but most people that are doing outreach don't know how to outreach properly. But if you're one of the few people that got the training and understanding how to qualify a lead, then you'll realize you never have to sell anybody anything because qualifying has nothing to do with selling. If you're not qualified to do business with me, then I'll never sell you anything. I'll never give you pricing. I'll never make an offer. I'll never bother you. Because you're simply not qualified. If I'm only doing business with CEOs on the Inc. 500, that's the only people I'm willing to do business with, that are doing over $5 million in revenue. If somebody reaches out and they're the CEO of a lawn company that does $500,000 in revenue, they're not even qualified. So if I reach out to them or I build a relationship with them and they think I want to sell them, that's their loss.

Mm-hmm.

Because I don't want to sell them, but they might have the mindset of, he wants to sell me. I don't want to build a relationship. I don't want to talk to him. He's a manipulator.

I actually, I think on the, on the idea of qualifying, I have a question I think would be perfect to ask Sam in regards to. So you recently started your account, and you have 250 connections, and you have a plan to connect with many more. Right now, I, as someone who doesn't have— I have like 2,000 connections or so, right? I think, do we go through the process of qualifying ourselves? Do you yourself Qualify yourself as to whether or not you think that's going to be a roadblock for you is how many people you have connected and how that, how that will be perceived by people. Do you face that? Do you, does that come as a factor in when you're deciding who to reach out to? Or do you not pay attention to that yourself, Sam, and say, look, it may be a new account, but I know what I'm offering. And that's, that's all that matters.

Well, it's a really good question. I think that because I'm just starting this process and learning, I still have the mindset that I don't want people to think that I'm selling them, um, and trying to understand how I can show that I'm serving them. And so I do qualify based off of that little gold badge. Um, but after a while of sending multiple messages, if lots of people aren't responding, then I'm starting to sink back into that old fear of, oh, they think I'm selling them. They could just not be on LinkedIn. They could just not have seen the message yet. It could be that maybe they just don't want to respond. Whatever that is, it's completely up to them. But when you look at multiple messages that haven't been responded to, you kind of get that old mindset that pops back in, which is, oh, they think I'm selling them, I need to change my approach, which may not be the case at all. So that, that's where this conversation came up, is just, do I need to change my approach, or do I just need to settle back into knowing what I'm doing and knowing that I'm having people Whether or not they perceive it as selling or they're just not online.

And that's, that's one of the beauties of, of your mindset first. I always say mindset first, because your mind will play tricks on you. 80% of success is mindset, 20% is skill set. So your mind, as soon as you don't get a result, all of a sudden your mind starts like waning whether or not you're worthy as a human being. Well, your mind starts waning whether or not you're adding value. That's why I'm curious to know. There are 12 people watching this on my profile right now, approximately, maybe a little more. In the comments, just write value if you're getting value. And I'm actually going to post a little thing on the bottom of the video that says, is this valuable to you? Please leave a comment and let us know that you're getting value. Also, give us a little heart for Independence Day. If you're watching this, give us a little heart like this, like a little heart. You see? Give us a little heart in the— you just click the heart button. And you'll give us a little heart on LinkedIn. But Sam, what I want to tell you is like, we're going to make all types of assumptions about what people believe about us, but other people's opinions are none of our— none of the business. It's like none of your business. Other people's opinions are really none of your business. If you are relevant and you're actually not spamming, if you know for a fact, hey, what I'm offering is extremely valuable and the people that I'm sending it to are actually relevant to me and to this message. then you don't have to worry about, oh, what if they think I'm spamming them? What if they actually think I'm spamming them? Okay, so some of them will. I think it was Pat Kennedy. Was it Patrick Kennedy?

Dan Kennedy.

Dan Kennedy. Dan Kennedy said that if you're not marketing, if you haven't upset anybody by noon, by 12 PM, then you're not marketing hard enough. And so the reality is you're going to upset people just by existing. This is what I tell my students all the time. Some people are going to get upset at you just for the fact that you exist. One of the things that I learned when I got training on networking and when I got training on doing outreach in general, it's like I can't take responsibility for someone else's current state. Sometimes people are in a bad state and you approach them and they get angry. It's not because my message was bad. It's because they are in a terrible state. Now, my goal is to shift their state with my messaging. That's my goal. So if I walk over to somebody, let's say I walk over to someone beautiful on the street, I see a beautiful man, I walk over to him and I say, hello, sir. And he looks at me with an angry face and he says, what do you want? What do you want? And I look at him and I said, you are beautiful, sir. And I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge you and tell you that God must be shining on you today. And then he looks at me, he's like, oh, wow. Thank you, sir. I really appreciate that. I changed his state. I changed his state. A minute ago he was angry. And if he's like, what do you want? I could have said, what do you want, you piece of crap? I was about to compliment you, but now that you're angry at me, let me get you angrier because you got me angry now because now I'm in a terrible state.

Which is—

Him to get me into bad state. What I'm going to do is I'm going to use my influence. And because I meditate and I'm, I'm centered, I'm able to say, I'm not going to allow that affect me. Instead, I'm going to allow my beauty, my shine, to shine on him and affect him. It's the same thing with LinkedIn. Sometimes you're going to message someone, they're going to get angry, they're going to reply, why are you wasting my time? Stop. Annoy. Unsubscribe. Leave me alone. Then you could just— if they said unsubscribe, obviously you want to unsubscribe them, but don't take it personal. It's not about you. You can't take responsibility for other people's state. Write this in the comments. I will not take responsibility for other people's state. Write that down. I will not take responsibility for other people's state. And the reason I want you to write it down is because I want it to really get into your subconscious. They say when we write things down, it gets into our subconscious. So write it down and think about it and contemplate that and realize that other people's opinions and states are really none of your business. Your goal is to influence their opinions. Your goal is to influence their state. And if you can do that correctly, you're much more likely not only not to be seen as spam, But also to build a real connection. Like, I'm on LinkedIn to build real connections with people. I built a real connection with Philip. I built a real connection with Sam. We're all on this call right now. I'm curious to know, like, are you here to build a relationship? Are you here just to, like, sell? Because if you're here to sell, you're going to smell.

And I was just going to say on that very topic, you don't just have to live in the DMs, right? And if you want to catch people at a time where they're most vulnerable to change state, One of the ways to do that is by focusing on your own personal brand on top of whatever else you might be doing on LinkedIn, right? And one way to develop your personal brand, especially if you don't already know it, is to start making videos about how you're approaching the solving of the problem, right? So they always— I forget where I read it, but they said, don't fall in love with your product, fall in love with the problem, right? So if you're a business person or an individual that's looking to establish themselves as a personal brand, Try to approach it from the problem the way Joe is now. For example, he knows the problem is that people are reluctant to take full advantage of LinkedIn, and then they allow themselves to be inundated by other people's experiences on LinkedIn to inform their own experience instead of keeping a barrier in between that so that they can continue to develop their own experience on LinkedIn, right? Not being moved by it. So creating content, Quite literally, like for example, Sam, if you went up and said, so here are like the, the 2 things, and there's really 3, but I'm going to share 2 today on how I see people misusing, uh, LinkedIn Navigator, Sales Navigator, right? And then just you breaking it down. This gives people a chance to observe you, right? Because once they can observe you, you have to get through the, the, the limbic brain, right? Once they can observe you and they see that you're not a threat, right? Because the first thing that happens in the mind is— Should I eat it? Should I mate with it? Should I kill it? Right? That's what happens at first. And that's— we have to get past that before we can hit people with numbers and statistics. Then they go, is it novel or have I seen this before? Right? Because now they're going to categorize you. Where do you fit in? And then you can go, well, now I'm glad that I have your attention because now I actually want to break down. If you want to get to the third one, what you want to do is sign up for this thing that I'm doing. You can meet Joe as well. And we can— So you see, creating content along that course And of thinking will go a, go a long way to helping people know, like, and trust you. Because if they don't do that, it makes it difficult for things to happen while you're still sending DMs. You know, those are my tips.

I love it. I love it. I love it. And lots of people are getting value. I want to give a shout out to Amir Sachs. I want to give a shout out to Rachel. If you guys are getting value, I see we have 2 dozen people watching this right now. Go ahead and write value in the chat if you haven't already. Thank you, Rachel. Thank you, Rebecca. Thank you, everybody else, Sharon and everybody else watching this live right now. Thank you for tuning in. So Sam, can you just kind of recap so far? What are you getting from this, from this session?

I'm feeling a lot better about my position and how I'm going to continue to reach out to people and build relationships still. And based off of what you've just said, Philip, I have been holding off for whatever reason because I don't like to film myself. So I've been holding off on making my profile video. But I think that's a really good place to start with what you're saying. I do have more connections now, so there will be some people who will see my content on my page. But at least if I can do something like that with my profile video, anyone who views it can have a sense of who I am and see the heart and soul that comes out of me versus a saleswoman who's pushing something. I do have a question, I guess, based off of what we're saying, giving service over sales, is what, what would be the best way, or how could I formulate a message that gets to the point in a clear and concise way while giving the energy of service over sales? Any suggestions?

What I always tell people— and Philip, feel free to chime in any time— what I always tell people is the first thing you have to do is build rapport. That's step number one. So I always say first greeting, then feeding, then meeting. So how do you build rapport with someone? So if you want to show service over sales, you got to start mirroring them. You got to show them that you're customizing the message based on who they are. A lot of people go straight into the pitch. If you're going straight into the pitch, you're basically seeing someone at a bar, you're saying, hey, I'd like to mate with you and have 5 kids. Would you like to come back to my house? And they're like, who even are you? Like, what connection do we have? If there's no rapport, there's no trust. If there's no trust, there's no sales or selling or qualifying, or you haven't earned the right to even ask a question. So first, build rapport before you ask a question. You walk over to someone on the street, you got to first kind of like create a buffer, an icebreaker before you start getting personal with them. Before you even start having a conversation with them. There's an interruption. There's an interruption pattern. Interruption pattern starts with attention. So number 1 is, do I have your attention? Because people often, you know, you call somebody up on the phone, you often don't even have their attention because you interrupted them. When you interrupt somebody, you don't have their attention. So step number 1 is say, hey, do I have your attention? There are many ways to do this, but step number 1 is you have their attention. Step number 2 is once you have their attention, you create a little bit of a buffer, like an icebreaker, till you get to the point Because people naturally are still not even thinking about what you're saying. So you have to kind of naturally create some type of a buffer to be able to get in there. And often that might be a compliment. Often that might be something that you saw on their profile. So they see that you're real and you're not just spraying and praying. When somebody just hits you up randomly and they go straight for the jugular and they say, hey, I love what you look like, I'd love to get on the phone with you. Like, what are you talking— like, who are you? Like, why are you complimenting on my looks? Why do you even want to get on the phone with me? I'm getting right on the defensive. They either— they want to hit on me. I've had people hit me up and say, hey handsome, on LinkedIn, just like that.

I, I, I would, I would add to this. If you've— if you first of all take into consideration that you can follow someone instead of just connect with them right away, right? And if you follow them and you know that what you're doing is relevant to what they're doing, this is a tactic you can use, right? Take a look at what they're sharing. If they're sharing anything relevant that connects the idea that can act as a bridge between your conversation in the DM later, like let's say for example, you're helping people with Sales Navigator, right? That's the concept we've been working with. And they just published a post on LinkedIn saying, we just hired 2 new salespeople to our team and we're pretty excited. We're gonna see if we can get them to hit this certain goal or what have you. Right away, you can You as a Sales Navigator trainer on LinkedIn have the opportunity to step into the comments section and say, hey, that's super exciting. In fact, I did a training a while back and it's something that I'm actually doing on an ongoing basis. If you are looking to consider options for investing in your team, I would highly suggest our thing. But either way, I'm excited to see what your salespeople are capable of. That's one way. It's light. You let people know it's present, right? And then you don't have to go into the DM right away. You can stay on them. Some, you have to be able to determine what the lifecycle of your sales relationship is with a client, right? How high engagement is it? You have to also take into consideration how much is it costing you to get this person, right? Because it's time and money, right? So, and if you're working for an organization, you have to keep that in mind for the organization for them to know that you have their back too.

Because—

Yeah. Let's say you do have a high-profile, high-ticket that you can close, right? Okay. Well, how much time, how many, how many interactions with them is it going to take? And it's not just about getting through the interactions, but based on what you see them posting in their activity, do they seem like someone who is actually already committed to the idea of LinkedIn? And if not, and they're kind of lurkers, like Joe likes to say, right, then you might have to tease them out a little more than that, you know, and you never know why they're just lurkers. They could also have— confidence issue themselves. So keep all of this in mind. There are people on the other end of this. It's not, hey guys, thanks for tuning into our LinkedIn. It's, hey you, because on the other side of this is someone. We shouldn't be speaking at people. We should be speaking to people when it comes to LinkedIn.

And with that being said, I have a question for the audience. Who do you want to meet? Leave a comment with your ideal client on LinkedIn. We're gonna have about 1,000 people see the replay for this because the value of this is very, very high. We are talking about what is spam on LinkedIn, how to be relevant. We're talking about mindset, we're talking about beliefs, we're talking about making sure that you're crafting your message in the right way to allow people to actually want to respond. Here's another tip that I have for you, Sam. And my other tip is make sure that when you send a message, it's really easy for the person to respond. Because 58% of people are using LinkedIn from their mobile phone. And as a result, you get a message. I'm going to get a message right now. I'm going to pull up my LinkedIn, my mobile phone right now. I'm going to pull up my LinkedIn. I'm going to go through my messages right now. Right. These are my messages. I'm going to go through it. And I see a message from somebody and it says, hi, LinkedIn member. I'm kidding. Hi, LinkedIn member. Hi, member. Hi, member. Remember me? Hi, member. I'm Kim, head of employee engagement at this company. You're blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm really excited that we— us, us, us, us, me, me, me, me, me. Would you like a free demo? Really? Really?

But it's valuable. It's free. It's free. It's valuable.

No. If you're— by the way, if it's free, it's not valuable. I just want to say that. So I press no thanks. They give me an option, no thanks or book a demo. And then she writes, no problem at all. I just want to leave you a link with some free tools. I've had a blast doing this, that, and the other thing. And if you change your mind, you really do want a demo, blah, blah, blah, blah. Click here to download the free, free, free.

Oh, I'm not taking no for an answer. That's what that is.

Point is, yeah. So believe it or not, that is not relevant to me at all because what does that have to do— I want to have to do with HR. That's not relevant to me at all. And more importantly, it's like you're assuming that I want a demo or that I have time for a demo or that I'm interested in a demo or anything like that. And does it work with some people? Maybe. But she's annoying a lot of people. This woman is annoying a lot of people. I would rather say, hey, Joe, I saw you on LinkedIn. I saw a badge on your profile that says that you might be hiring. If you're interested and you want to learn more about a program that we're launching, I noticed that a lot of you have an issue with X, Y, and Z. I'd love to see if I can possibly be of assistance to you. If you're interested, just write yes, and I'll send you some additional information on what we're doing for other companies like yours. Now, that's a completely different message.

A question on that. To highlight that somebody maybe isn't using something as well as they could be, in my mind, that's like putting them down, and so I've been trying to avoid saying, people don't necessarily use it well, or maybe you don't use it as well as you could. Um, so I guess, am I just overthinking that?

Oh, I see what you're saying.

Like there's a component, there's a component of overthinking there. There is a component of overthinking, but also you have a valid point. You don't want to like coach people without permission and assume they don't know how to use it. Instead, what you can say, we're working with other VPs of sales and it looks like many of them pay for Sales Navigator, but they don't use it. Do you use Sales Navigator? Are you paying for it? Do you have a similar issue? If not, totally okay. They might say, yes, I pay for it, but I don't use it. How can you help? You said— I'm not assuming that you don't, that you pay for it and you use it. I'm not assuming either one. I'm just asking you a question because I want to qualify you. I want to support you. I want to make sure that, you know, that if you need me, I'm actually here for you when you need me. Does that make sense?

Yes, definitely. And in the context of looking at someone's profile and touching on that, I pulled up a message that I sent because I I did try to personalize it a little bit as time went on because I am reaching out to multiple people. So I'm going to read this message to you and just see if this is like a good way to jump into that or if you have any suggestions otherwise. So I wrote, hi Nina, lovely to connect with you. Just reading your profile and I resonate with the work you do on a deep level. The world can do nothing but benefit from innovators such as yourself and more sustainable architecture designs. Grateful for your work. I also noticed that you have the LinkedIn badge or the LinkedIn Premium badge on your profile and was wondering if you use Sales Navigator as well. So 2 separate messages, but started with a compliment based on their profile and then went into my pitch, for example. Is that— what do you think?

Well, I kind of like that. Philip, how do you feel about complimenting the person and saying the world needs some innovators like you?

It actually ties into what I wanted to say earlier. This is a perfect opportunity. So number one, it was well written. Okay, so the quality of the writing is not in question here, right? It's the pacing of the writing. And what I mean by that is, and Joe has touched on this many times in the past before, and that's that LinkedIn is essentially a networking mixer happening 24/7. Now, if I walked up to you, Sam, in person, and I know that we're not in person, right? So that context isn't lost on me. But it's still, that's how people experience it. Time is linear, right? Not Like, we experience it bit by bit. So if I walked up to you and I genuinely meant this, like, I've seen the work you've done with Sales Navigator and the training you've been able to do. And I think honestly, you've been able to change people's lives in terms of getting them to the place where they wanted to go in terms of sales and their career. And I really think that there's no higher calling than helping people do that. I also noticed that you haven't necessarily done any training or the— so you see how like— It's already a lot of information. And if it were a mixer in real life, right, even something is, hey, saw what you did with like, hey, saw what you did with the, with the sales. I'm loving what you're doing with the training. Uh, would love to talk to you about that sometime. Like punchy, you know? And, and because otherwise what you're doing is you're over-investing and you have to keep in mind they may not even have time to read all that. But what if What if the message is shorter? They understood the idea quicker, right? Say, say less with more. And then they go, oh, I want to keep this person in mind. And you make it easy the way Joe said, just say yes if you're interested in this, right? Oh, that's all you have to write back. So you combine what Joe was saying earlier with, with that. It's all about the pacing.

And somebody, and sometimes, sometimes they say, if you're in, if you're very, very interested, please don't reply. And then you didn't reply. And then you can continue saying, oh, I noticed you didn't reply. That means you're interested. Continue not to reply if you're super interested, and I'll be sending you some more resources.

That's good.

That's good.

I'm gonna add that to—

It's like I tell my kids, I was like, continue crying if you want. Like, you know, like I basically tell them to do, stay down here, don't go to your bed if you want to continue to whatever. And they basically then also are like, hang on a second, I'm You're supposed to do like the opposite of what you want. It's almost like reverse psychology. It's a lot of fun. So yeah.

It's funny that like the hardest part of doing sales in general isn't necessarily even this first initial conversation. It's all the investment that takes up your time after the fact, right? Like let's say they do engage you in a conversation and they even try to join a webinar and they keep you on the dial for long periods of time. When you could be working on other people. And then at the end, they still say no, right? And then you're like, ah, and again, you then revert. That's such an important aspect to keep in mind, right? Because that, that, that will set someone who's been doing the training and has gotten really good at it, and then they have one experience like that and they're like, geez, see, this is exactly what I was talking about. All that work and for what, right? And that's another opportunity for you to pay attention to whether you're truly in it to serve With, or, or you're in it for the sale and where the healthy boundary is, right?

Yeah. Sam, how do you feel now about the insights that we gave you?

I feel great. Yeah, I definitely am going to kind of sit down and just put this into practice today and also do my video profile, figure out exactly what I want to say and just start really working on it this week.

I'm actually very happy to help you with personal branding across the board. Joe and I have been doing it forever, and you have an open invitation.

Thank you.

Thank you, Philip. Thank you so much, Philip. Philip is a personal brand manager. If anybody needs support with their personal brand or podcast, definitely reach out to Philip Lano. He's happy to give advice to anybody that needs it. Feel free to reach out to him. He's never going to promote himself or try to sell you something. As a matter of fact, even if you sign up, he might not send you a bill.

Unfortunately, it's true.

Thank you.

Very, very kind, loving person who loves to help people. And, you know, the key is don't waste people's time. The same thing, like the whole concept of spam. The reason why spam is something that makes people irky is because you're wasting their time. People are not really upset if you like say that you're selling web design unless you get them on the phone and they pick up the phone and now you have their attention and they're like, hey, would you like web design, graphic design? Would you like Flash animated videos? Like, what the heck are you— why are you— Why are you taking up my attention on something that's not relevant? That's a waste of time. It all comes down to a waste of time. Spam is really wasting other people's time. Bless you. Bless you. Bless you. Spam is wasting other people's time. What I want you to really think about is how can you give people the ability for them to respond quickly, to get the information they need, to know what you're about, to know what's going on, and also to know who you are? People don't care about the content of the conversation. They want to have a conversation to figure out who you are. Are you their people? Like, are you their people? If you're their people, they don't care what you say. They want you in their life. So both you, Sam, and Philip are my people. That means I want you in my life. I want you in my life. I want your attention. I want— you want my attention. Like, all that. Exactly. Like, big group hug, right? Like, hug, hug, hug. Because you're the people. And if you're the people— Then I want you in my life. I want to have 1,000 people that are my people in my life. Many of them will become clients. Many of them, I'll become a client for them. We'll support each other. That's ultimately what networking is about, is finding your people. When you find your people, your life is better. Your relationships are better. Just realize that that's all what it's about. It's not so much about the tactic or the special message. It's about not wasting people's time and finding your people. And if you can do that correctly, you're going to be successful.

Yeah. I have something that has always helped me whenever I feel like I'm a little off track in anything, whether it's work, life, or what have you. And it's this idea of there's nothing worse than having the right answer to the wrong question, right? I have seen Joe on the phone single-handedly be able to take an upset person who's like, Trying to figure out what went wrong in the project and this and that. And then he just threw a couple of questions, clarified what they were actually really upset about, right? And so you yourself— and that turned the whole thing around, right? When the questions that we have in our mind are like operating software, and if we have the wrong OS, right, the output is going to be other than what we intended or wanted. So for example, when you're thinking of how am I helping solve someone's problem. Sometimes they may be upset and coming at you with what they think is their issue, and you know that they have another issue. So you have to find a way to tap into what they're thinking and ask yourself, what is the real question here? Not what is the real answer, what is the real question? Because the minute you present the right question, they sell themselves. I've seen it happen over and over again. Well, when was, uh, how, how much have you invested in terms of Sales Navigator training?

None.

Really? Oh, well, I mean, that solves the issue right there. How much have you invested in any training for sales at all for your people? None. I mean, they're salespeople. That's, that's what they do, right? No. So when you ask the right questions, right, that's what matters. In fact, if you never got an answer, but all you did was get better and better questions, you would be making progress because the point isn't to have the answer. It's to have the right questions.

Questions lead to the right place. So it's almost like a GPS. If you want to get somewhere, you need questions to lead you there. And so often people are looking for answers and the answers are usually like a dead end. Instead, what you want to do is ask the right questions. And, and to Philip's point, when you ask the wrong questions, that's where spam comes in. So if you tell somebody, would you like to buy web design? That's the wrong question. Because the answer is always going to be no. The answer is going to be, why are you spamming me? The answer is going to be unsubscribe. The answer is going to be stop wasting my time. So you don't want to ask the wrong questions either. And also framing the question with some context and with some rapport can really go a real, real long way. So just remember, greeting, feeding, and then meeting. Don't just try to get on the phone with people. Don't bother people. Don't waste their time. Try to keep it short. People actually get a dopamine hit when they answer questions. That's why surveys work so well on LinkedIn. When I ask you a question and you answer it, you actually feel good about yourself, especially if it was a relevant question.

If I were someone who was trying to send DMs saying, would you like to buy web design, I would instead create a post saying, how much has the current design of your website generated for you in terms of business? Right? And then like showcase the different types of web designs out there that seem to convert the best in that post. I would start approaching it that way because the question isn't, would you like to buy web design, right? Is, would you like to have web design that actually converts into business? You see how the right question changes things? Because now you're speaking their language. Because everybody should be in the business of selling money because that's all businesses want, right, is money. So your question should be geared to like, Hey, would you like more money? Yes, I would. Great. So you have to think of it in those terms. So people don't want the drill, they want the hole in the wall, right?

And there are 3 main things that companies get. One of them is making money. The other one is saving money, which is a form of making money. And the other one is eliminating risk, which is also a form of saving money and making money. So those are really the 3 competitive— those are the 3 holes in the wall. Those are the 3 competitive advantages. At the end of the day, it has to do with the benefits instead of the features. People say, would you like a car? No, nobody wants a car. People want a comfortable way to get from point A to point B. They want to get to their destination. So the more you talk about the benefits without being too fluffy— would you like to have a dream life? You know, that's like super fluffy. Um, you want to, you want to, you want to still be tangible and get to the benefit without going way overboard and talk about like, would you want to leave a legacy after you die? And like, you know, like talk about like— Something that's way out there.

In fact, right, if you know the nightmare, you can present the dream. So if you were to take time out to, to map out the entire nightmare of the target audience that— or the target client that you're looking for, like, what is their nightmare, right? Like, oh, if it's in sales, right, I have an entire team that can't seem to close anything. Not only costing me X amount of dollars a month, but also I have my overhead. Like, what is the nightmare they're actually living through? And how can you tap into that nightmare conversation? And again, fall in love with the problem, right? And start addressing how some of those things can be alleviated.

Awesome. Well, thank you guys for coming here today. Really appreciate both of you and looking forward to getting feedback from anybody watching the live or the replay. Let us know in the comments below. Feel free to connect with Sam if you want Sales Navigator Bootcamp. Feel free to connect with Philip. If you're interested in a personal brand manager. Um, and appreciate you guys very much and we'll see you on the next one. Boom. Awesome.

Thanks guys.