Build Authentic Trust On LinkedIn with Mandy McEwen

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What up everybody? Welcome to another episode of the live Better Sell Better podcast. This is, this is your host Kevin Dorsey, AKA kd. And today we're gonna talk about something that everyone loves to talk about, but I feel like very few people actually do it and do it the right way and that is how to leverage LinkedIn and other social networks to generate meetings, pipelines, revenue and relationships. Because it gets talked about. It was a social cell. Does it work? Does it not work? Is it dead? Is it alive? Nobody really knows. But the person who does know is my guest today, Mandy McEwen. She is the founder of Mod Girl Marketing and she's here to dive into how to do it. How do you leverage LinkedIn? How do you leverage social selling to actually get results? So this is going to be super tactical. Get a pen out. Get ready to take notes. Mandy, welcome to the show.

Thanks so much for having me, Katie. I'm excited to be here.

It was a no brainer. I came came across your profile, came across your content and it might have even been like a Saturday Night. I was like, you're coming to the show, let's do this, let's dive into this. So love to start. This topic is actually kind of almost the opposite direction of where a lot of people go is like, what are the things that you're seeing in social selling that people are doing wrong? Let's call these things out just from the get go of like the do nots so then we can get into the do's, right?

I think the do nots are obvious, right? Like everyone sees this. I mean they're coming out of the gate and they're selling right away. I mean, you guys talk about this on your show, right? So they're not taking the time to build real relationships and act like real human beings and instead they're coming right out of the gate and just basically blatantly spamming people is what it's coming across, you know, I mean that's the number one challenge with a lot of sales professionals right now is like they don't know how to approach it in the best way where you're actually building relationships, you know, so they come right outta the gate and they're like, well you know, I'm on LinkedIn and they're on LinkedIn and it's for business purposes. So I mean they should know that I should be, you know, wanting to sell them something and like that's their reasoning for it. I'm like, it's not really how it works these days, right? You know, okay, really isn't. I mean there's so many mistakes. That's one. The other one is just not, not putting enough effort into it, you know, like your favorite word is intention, Katie. Right? So execute with great intention. I feel like people are lazy, A lot of people are lazy when it comes to leveraging social for sales. And they're, they're don't, they don't execute with intention, you know, they just want, it's a numbers game for them. So they're thinking in their mind, I'm just going to blast as many people as possible and see what happens and surely a couple of them will bite, you know, and, and so they don't, they don't have that intention. Like your purpose is to provide value and to help people and to help them find the right solutions, whether it's for you and your company or whether it's someone else's solutions. But you should be as the guide, the advisor, not, you know, someone shoving your product and messages to 8,000 people at once, you know, so there's so Many we could talk all day man about.

I just wanted to call out the blatant ones first so that anyone listening can go, oh, shoot, that's me. That is me. I know I need to stop it. And then we can flip it here because you said some things. This is why I'm pumped to chat with you because I want to get tactical on is like the same advice gets out there, like, provide value, build a relationship.

Yeah, let's get guide. Yes.

How. Like, how do I actually do that? And so let's start with that. Call it the. It was one of the first things you said was like, building a relationship. What are some of the techniques to actually do that on a place like LinkedIn or other social networks, depending on where your audience is?

I mean, you could do this on Twitter. You can really do this anywhere, you know?

Right.

But LinkedIn is obviously the best place for this. So before you even start building relationships, you need to look like you know your stuff, AKA your profile has got to be optimized. Okay. Like, this is the number one mistake I see with the majority of SDRs is it literally says their title. You know, it doesn't matter what sales professional you are. Like, you literally have sales in your title. I mean, that's fine, but, like, put it at the end, you know, like, you're. Your headline should say what you do, who you help, the value you provide. You should have a pretty smiling mug shot. You know, you should have a nice background cover. And your about section should not be about how much of an amazing human you are. It should be talking about how you help people. You know, so it's less of a glorified resume and more like a mini landing page of why people should even entertain the idea of talking with you in the first place. I mean, this is like 101. But so many people miss this, so especially salespeople, because they're not marketers, you know, so they're not. They don't think.

Like, quick question there. And maybe I wonder if you've tested this or seen this, because this is me speaking from a personal, like, point of view is more and more. I like the kind of like, almost like the funny titles or whatever, versus when you see the I help sales leaders to exit pipeline.

Yes.

I already know you're trying to sell to me, and I actually feel like that's chopping it even earlier. What are your thoughts on that headline? Because I think I help blank is actually hurting you.

It's so overused. Oh, it is. It's so funny. That you say that because in my. I'm speaking in. In Denmark in a couple weeks, and. And I've been speaking on this topic, you know, for several months now. And I literally have a slide, Katie, that says, like, the I help statement is a great concept. Do not use it, because everyone and their dog is using it. Do not. And I literally have a slide like that. And I'm like, do not use this. It's so overused. And you're right. It literally, like, screams like people, you know, I don't do it. You know, people were teaching that, though, like, three plus years ago, like, all the gurus were teaching, use that statement. And so everyone and their dog literally went and used it. And I'm like, it's. It's way overdone, you know, so I'm with you. If you can say something that, like, makes you stand out, you know, add some personality to it. Anything that isn't that, that still shows your value and what you do and who you help, you're going to be way better off. Like, be unique. My whole thing is, like, you got to stand out on LinkedIn. Like, if you want to get results and you want to build relationships, you want people to respond to you, you want to set meetings, you have to stand out. So do whatever you got to do to stand out. Look at your competitors and do the opposite of what I tell people. Look at your competition and do the opposite, because they're most likely not doing unless they're amazing and they're doing things right. But, like, let's get real. Most of them are, you know, so stand out. So I'm so glad you mentioned that, Katie, because that's.

That's just one where it's like, you do SDRs, they take a course, they go at our else. Like, I help Blank. It's like, even now, when you connect with me, even if you don't have a message, I know while you're trying to connect with me, you're gonna want to try to pitch me on Blank. And I just don't want anything about it. Whereas someone's like, mom, you know, I got a dog named Goat, and I like email. Like, oh, all right. Like, okay, okay. What else on the profile? Because I don't want to sleep on this is important so we have a better headline, maybe attention grabbing. And then you said the about me should be about, you know, providing value to people, which I like.

I have a tip, though, on that about me stuff, too. Okay, so there has been multiple studies, so I'm Speaking at this LinkedIn conference a couple of weeks in Denmark. And Richard Vanderblum is like the. The go to LinkedIn data guy, right? Everything algorithm he knows. So he did a study of how many people actually click the, like, read more button in the about section.

And.

And it's like 10%. It's so low. It's like 80 something percent. I need to go back and get the specific numbers, but it's literally like 80% to 85% of people never click to read the rest of your about section. And so what you need to do is make it really crystal clear in that very beginning of your about section what you do. And if you want to stand out and be cheeky or whatever it is, your personality, you got to do that right away. Because most people, again, are in a hurry, you know, and. And they're just going through quickly, and if it doesn't catch their attention right away, then they're just going to go off of that. So I wanted to bring that up too, because most people are not clicking that. And. And I'm guilty of, like, trying, you know, as a marketer by trade here, I'm guilty by, like, trying to make it, like, oh, like, I want to hook people. Like, the hook, right? Like, kind of like, we write content, and I'm a content writer. I've been writing content for 15 years now. So my natural inclination is like, ooh, I want to make it creative and hook people in, but it's like, they're not gonna read it, you know, like, most people aren't. So if it's really hooky, great, then they might click it, but the majority of people aren't. So I wanted to bring that up, too, before I get into.

As I slowly pull up my profile to look at what mine needs, my needs changed.

I know I just learned this. Like, this is new information I literally just found out about, like, within the week. And I'm like, oh, man, I gotta go back and change mine now.

I know. I was like. I was like, oh, this is. That's a good point. I knew that. Mandy, as I, like, pull up my profile, I don't even know what it says. Okay, that's. That's good. I like that it's like that about. So no one's clicking the show more. You need it to really nail it right out the gate. So, okay, I like where this is going. So, okay, I've got a good picture. Also, sales leaders, by the way, I gifted my team headshots when they joined my team so they could I love that. A good clean headshot. So that image looks good, got a good headline, a good about me. I have speaking providing value. So now let's get to this. Call it relationship building process, right?

Can I talk about one more thing? One more thing.

It is your show, girl. Do it. You say what you need to say.

Okay, so this is. SDRS have specifically told me this, that this is. They love this part of it and how they think it made their profile so much better. And they, they contribute doing this to getting more people responding to their messages. And it's the featured links, Featured media. Most SDRs are not doing this, okay? Most sales professionals do not take advantage of this. And this is in your about section. You can add links to your website, to case studies, to featured posts that did well, to videos. And this just boosts up, you know, the influence, the authority, the credibility of the company of you. And it kind of pre sells people ahead of time. And so that's one of the number one things of the feedback I get from SDRs. And I have like, when I go through my training for SDRs, I have like, there's a lot you can do on your profile. We have a checklist. But here are like the three things you need to do right away. And that is one of them, you know, is adding that featured media. So I wanted to mention that before we move on.

Well, what should that media be though, right? So like, okay, I'm doing like what, like, because this is again and you mentioned this. So one of the first courses that came out on LinkedIn I think was actually Michael Pedrone was his name. This is going way back. And one of the things this is, you know, I was not a thought leader in this. I'm still not. I don't know what the hell I am in all this game. Whatever you talked about was he said your profile is meant to sell what you're wanting to sell. So if you're trying to sell yourself, then that's what your profile should be talking about. If you are trying to sell a product, that's what your profile should be talking about. And so what should I see people do this too? Like, what should some of those things be? Should they be focused towards your Persona, like your prospects, or they should be things about you. I see people put their most popular posts there. They put, you know, like, oh, I won this award there or whatever else what should go in those featured links?

I think it depends on your job title. Okay, so if we're talking about SDRs here, it should. And you can 100% pin. I pin because it's like Facebook, you know, you pin the post. This is what I say. You can 100% feature a post that did well of your own, but it has to be relevant to what you're doing in your industry. It doesn't have to be pitching the product, but it needs to be industry relevance. You know, it needs to have that industry relevance of like, my target audience would find this valuable, right? And then I like linking to case studies. So when we work with, with companies, primarily tech companies, and we're coaching them and helping them with their profiles, a lot of times we're pulling up case studies for them. So video, you know, customer testimonials are also very powerful case studies. Any, like, product specific page, you know, that you're focused on promoting, like, that helps too. But the social proof I is my favorite linking to social proof.

I love that. And actually, funny enough, as we're going through this live, I'm actually pulling up like a few, like, SDR profiles. And I'm looking and it. That would be. They're not there. There's no case studies.

And it's so funny. It takes two seconds. And 99% of companies have case studies. Tech companies have case studies. I mean, everyone work with has case studies, but they're not. And it literally. Katie, I'm not kidding. Like, you could go and it takes 20 seconds to add these links to your profile. You don't even have to think about it. Like, go find the case study, throw it in. Like, it literally doesn't take long at all. And it's very powerful.

I love it. See, this is why I knew this is gonna be good. We're talking tactics, y'. All. We're talking real deal things that you can go and do. So, okay, my profile dialed, my picture dialed, my featured section dialed, my links dialed. Now what, Mandy? Now what do I do?

Very good question. So most SDRs are using sales Navigator. And so I want to bring this up because what I'm about to tell you is so much easier with Sales Navigator. When you do it, you can do it without Sales Navigator, of course, but it just helps when you have that. So when you have a list, the majority of SDRs have a target list they're going after, right? And it helps if you have those people in a list in Sales Navigator so you can get alerts. You know, we can talk about Sales Navigator tips later. We'll keep it broad for now. But what you have to do is pick, pay attention to these people. Kind of stalk them, you know, what are they doing? Are they posting content? You know, with Sales Navigator, you can only focus on people that are posting. You know, they're active in the last 30 days, which is very helpful. So you look and see what they're doing. If they're not posting content, are they commenting, are they engaging with other people's posts? Whatever they're doing, if they're doing any of that, you need to engage with that before you even reach out to them, Comment on their posts, comment on their comments, like their comments. So get on their radar so they kind of have familiarity somewhat with like this name and most likely your headshot. Because the majority of people you're going after are not LinkedIn influencers, okay? They're not. They're not like you, Katie. Right? Like, they don't have 90,000 plus followers, so they're not getting loads of love on their posts. So when you come in and you do that, you're going to stand out. I want to say this though. Don't do that on a post that's like six months old. Right. So we're only talk. Because then you're going to look. Yeah.

A little creepy.

A little creepy. So. So we're talking about like recent posts here, okay.

Like, don't.

If no one's posted in four, six, whatever month, don't do this. Okay? People that post, you know, somewhat frequently, or engaging frequently if they're not, then go to their company page and look what's going on. You know, So I get this a lot too. It's like, well, my target audience isn't. They're not posting a lot on LinkedIn. So in that case, find something that you can bring up and mention or even engage with on the company page. Like, the whole point is we want to know what's going on with a company, with the individual, like what. What's happening in that world and then you can find some common ground there and then send them a custom connection request. But if you are engaging, I like waiting. I like waiting a few days. Because most people are not like you and me, they're not as active on LinkedIn. You know, the majority of decision makers, they're not spending hours a day on LinkedIn. They're just not. They're busy. So wait a few days. So it gives them time to see you engaged if they're posting content. And then you send a custom connection request mentioning that content tooth their horn. Hey, Katie, I just came across your post on xyz. Loved what you had to say. About abc, you know, would you be open to connecting, you know, would like to connect, if you're up for it, however you want to word it. But when you kind of boost their ego a little bit, you mention whatever you engaged with. Even if you didn't engage, you can still boost their ego by saying like, oh, I see you did X, Y and Z, or impressed with your abc. Love that your company was just mentioned here. You know, like, there's so many ways, even if they're not, you know, I get this all the time. Like, oh, but they're not active. Like, what do I do? And get creative. Like, there's plenty of opportunities for you to customize your connection request, you know, so that's kind of the three step process there is. You know, engage on anything. You can wait a few days and then send them a custom connection request.

I like that because it's funny. This is how I know and knew sales was in dire straits is the messaging I got was atrocious and I'm easy to find.

Yes.

Like there's. I've got too much nonsense out there. So the messaging that I'm getting isn't personalized. The messaging that I'm getting isn't customized. Like, what are we doing, y'?

All? Exactly.

I might be one of the easiest people to write.

I think you are actually one of the easiest people to customize.

You have endless opportunities and it's not. That's what's so frightening to me about like the industry as a whole is. I know this is not an ego thing. This is a. Because I have stuff out there. It's easy. You could literally pull up any post and be like, hey, saw this post and that would be better than 90%. And actually we could maybe even do this live if I pulled up how many. So I have. I'm already at the stupid limit. Right. For connections?

Yes.

I have 2800 pending connections right now. Wow. How many of them do you think have a custom message?

I don't know, less than 5%.

Like you like 2800 pending right now.

That's so sad.

Custom message does not even exist. Right. So let's go just a little deeper on it because you said there's a few ways to do it. Let's talk some best practices for that message. Right. So you kind of said, you know, lean into the ego a little bit, reference things that you sound, you know, you know, saw about them or their company and then kind of that call to action of, you know, up for a connection or be open to Connecting like any other best practices around that message.

Yeah, it really. You just have to stand out. Like, here's the bottom line. You have to look like a real human being and not a bot. So anything you can do, like, even if, like, you're cheeky, like, I like to laugh and I use humor a lot. Right. So anything I could do to like that, I see something, I'll say that to, like, make them laugh or smile. Right. If I see it on their profile up there. So anything that's going to make you stand out, please do it. Even if it has nothing to do with what your service, your product, your solution is. Even if it's so random, like, let's say it's a person. Okay, I'm going to give you an example. So there's this influencer, and now we're pretty good friends. And I literally send a message and he has loads of followers. Awesome, dude. Send him a message. And I was like, hey, Jacob, came across your content.

Love it.

I saw that you were in Mendocino with Cooper recently. How awesome. I was in Fort Bragg with my dogs, too. Would love to connect with you before, you know. And he's like, oh, my gosh, you're the mvp. You're the first person in a few thousand requests to actually mention something. My profile. And all I did was talk about his dog in Mendocino. Because I was just there with my dog. That's it. It had nothing to do with business, you know, and just that, like, Jacob and I are close friends. Like, we were just texting yesterday, like, we're friends now. And it was just because I took, I don't know, 40 seconds to look at his stuff. And I was like, oh, my gosh. I was just there, too. I love dogs and I love, you know, Mendocino. I'm gonna go ahead and message it. That's it. So you guys don't have. It doesn't have to be business is business. Ish. You know, it doesn't. Like, be a human being. Like, first we need to get to the core of, like, relationship building. Like, take it back to the olden days where this stuff didn't exist. Like, how do you make friends? Like, we're just making friends here. That's all we're doing right now. So anything you can do to stand out and quote, make a friend, you need to do, period.

I love. See that. That's just a different way of phrasing it where it's like, okay, build a relationship. I think it makes people overthink it. Or take it too serious versus if you were trying to make a friend, how would you start this off? I think that's a much better way to phrase this because if I were to look at a message like is this going to help me start a friendship versus I'm trying to start a value adding business relationship, evaluating business relationship message is gonna suck no matter what. If I was trying to make a friend, I really like that. That is good. All right, now let's keep it flowing. I got a good profile, everything's there. I'm going through their content, I send a good message. One of two things is gonna happen. Either they're going to accept that connection request or they are not. So let's talk about what do I do if they don't accept that connection request. So I did all this, I did it. A couple days go by, week goes by, it's still not accepted. Now what do I do? Is social dead came and do it?

I okay, you could go to InMail, but if they're not accepting your connection request, sending an InMail might not work either. I always say go to email. Send it to email and mention. Mention exactly kind of what you mentioned, but make it personalized and mention, hey, you know, came across your LinkedIn. Kind of like rephrase what you said in the connection request and then go from there. So I always say like take it to email after that and personalize the email, you know, because they might, they just might not be super active either. So they might be completely ghosting you. That's definitely a possibility. But they also might not have checked their LinkedIn and you know, 10 days. So there's always that opportunity too. So I'm a huge fan of leveraging email at that point.

I like that. I think it's very similar. I think the approach I teach around voicemail, same idea, I'm using a voicemail.

Yes.

Point them to the email or something.

And same thing. You could literally do that with a phone too. Like pick up the phone, say, you know, leave a message. They don't answer.

And mention the connection request.

Yes.

Talking about your dog. So I love that, the multi channel direction. Now let's go to the other side. They accept, I get the ping. KD accepted my request.

Yes.

Now how do I sell them? Mandy, the whole reason I'm doing this social selling.

Right.

How do I sell them?

Yes, very good question. I. I love starting the dialogue with just simple questions, you know, or even just one question like don't, don't. I need to rephrase that not questions, one question. Keep it simple. Don't, you know, hit people with a bunch of questions. But again, friendly, you know, I call this like the friendly leader method. You have to come across as, you know, you're a leader. So this is like the friendly leader method that I teach. Come across that you're a leader and you're a friends and start the dialogue, look at what they have going on. But you have to know, like, you've got to know your prospects, you have to know what's going on in the company. Okay. So you can't just send this same exact question to everyone. You have to do a little bit of research here because they need to know that you, you know a little bit about them. So if you ask something that's really broad and it isn't relevant, you're going to turn them off instantly. And you basically lost that opportunity. So you need to do a little bit of research. You need to know the company, you need to know what's going on as it relates to the products and services that you're selling. And then you just need to ask a very simple question. And I can't tell you what that question is because everyone's so different. Right. But thanks so much for accepting my connection request. You know, maybe toot their horn again, say something else, keep it light hearted if you can, and then ask one question as it relates to what they're doing that is related to you. But it just, you gotta be strategic here though. Like, it can't come across as, you know, like, oh, I know where you're getting with this. I mean, they still, it's fine. They still might think that, but it has to be in a way that it's genuine. Like cur. Curious, like you're curious and you there. This is what helps, is if you have an amazing profile, if your profile is badass, you're gonna have way more people responding to your messages than if your profile was. You look like a salesperson just trying to pitch, you know, so it helps. But I'm a big fan of just leading with a question and then seeing where it goes from there.

I like that. Can you give an example of one? Right. Because I feel like I get this sometimes and you know, you could pick a random Persona or if it was like to me as a sales leader, like, what a good question might be there because I think like I see some of this come through is like, what are you doing to elevate pipeline in 2023?

I'm like, yeah, what are you talking About. Probably not good.

Yeah. So, like, can you give us an example?

I want to tell you an example that I sent, and then I can kind of give you. I'll try to see more. Okay. So, man, I wish I could go back and find this. Let's see here. I think his name is Justin. Okay. So even if I don't, I'll just remember it by memory. So what I did, what I've been doing is we will go, okay, I found it. And I will look myself and my team, primarily, we'll look at SDR profiles. And so we'll connect with them. You know, send a custom connection request, you know, say thanks for connecting. And then say, like, hey, I was perusing, you know, your SDRs at the company name on LinkedIn. And then I'll throw out some names like, you know, Joe Smith and Susie. Susie, you know, Susie Q, for example. And I noticed that their profiles aren't optimized. I'm not sure if they're using LinkedIn for prospecting. Question mark. You know, happy to share a few. A few tips with them. So I, like, call out, like, something very specific. And I know this is only relevant to what I'm doing, right? Like, you can't do this all the time. But I call something out specific and then I ask that question, you know, like, very light, like, not sure if they're using LinkedIn for prospecting. Question mark. And a funny story. I actually had a guy send a video response to me and say, I don't appreciate you calling me out to my boss. I understand my profile is crap. And then. And he was laughing about it, though. And we were like, oh, God. Like, he happened to be right there, and they videoed him and sent it back. And he's like, he's laughing. He's like, but thanks so much because it inspired me to fix my profile. I understand it's utter, you know, utter crap.

But there we go.

So, you know, calling something else specifically. But for example, like with cybersecurity companies we work with, right? So they're asking something really specific about, you know, curious if you're using NDR for xyz, you know, at the organization. But again, you got to. You have to have a little bit of knowledge on the company. You, you know, to some degree to ask a specific question like that. And again, it still is coming across like, they're not stupid. People aren't stupid. But if you approach it the right way and you ask a question and a lot of it's timing, you know, they're like, oh, actually we were just talking about this. No, we aren't. Then you're going to get some people. But if it's, you're going to get ignored too. You know what I mean? So there's like this, it's a tricky thing. It's like, well, it's still coming across as kind of salesy. And I'm like, But there's not a lot of ways to get around this though. If you want to start the dialogue and, and talk about the whole point, you're here to begin with, you know, and the whole point is too like what I mentioned earlier is like, you're trying to provide like solutions for these people. So don't make it necessarily about your only one and only product. Like when I mentioned ndr, like, they're not the only company that does that. They're actually the only SaaS based NDR company. But that's besides the point. So, you know, you're mentioning something like, are you using this type of solution that myself and a million other people most likely provide to abc? Right. If you want to say that. But again, you have to approach it in a way that is light and uses your own tonality and it doesn't come across as like a blatant question, you know, pitch, if you will.

Yeah, no, I like the simple question. Oren Clough wrote a really good book called Flip the Script and he calls that question a status alignment question.

Okay.

Where it's like, what's a question that you asked? Kind of puts you on their level a little bit, right? Where you're asking a specific enough question where like, all right, you clearly know your shit a little bit. You wouldn't be asking me about NDR if you didn't know anything about ndr. So it helps level up a little bit and it helps establish, okay, this person knows what they're talking about. Because when someone hits me like, what are you doing with your pipeline? No, but if someone's like, hey, like, dude, everyone's been noticing cost of acquisition climbing over the past year since all the event money went into digital. What are you doing for cost of acquisition?

Yes. Oh, a little bit different.

You know what you're talking about.

Yes, right, exactly, exactly.

So let's keep this process now going. So we've connected. I send that first message like, do you recommend continuing to follow up on social? Like, how many social touches do I make? Do I keep commenting on their stuff? Like, what's that process?

Well, as you know, Katie, it takes a lot of touch points. These days to get people to do anything. So yes, I highly recommend continuing to reach out but don't be annoying about it. Right. So I'm of the notion of the best way I think is if they are posting content and they are engaging, then you have to keep engaging with them on their content. I mean that's like the easiest way to do it because we all love when people engage with our content. I mean it helps us. Right? So you're already going to make a quick friend when you're helping people out, you know, with that. So if they're not posting content though, then I would still continue to, you know, reach out and message them in, you know, five days or something with something else, you know, try to continue the conversation and then again the multi touch approach, pick up the phone, email them. You just, you have to do it in a way that's again, not desperate and not annoying. But you can't just send them one message and expect, you know, to go from there. It just doesn't work that way anymore. You have to stay engaged. And that's why, you know, you mentioned in one of the episodes I listened to recently, like the power of CRM. This is why it's so important to keep track of what you're doing. And even in Sales Navigator you can leave notes so you can, you know, and you can link that with Salesforce and you can have the note show up. So sent connection requests, you know, accept it on this date, send a message, hasn't had a response yet. Like you need to have notes of when you need to follow up. Like you can't rely like you said, like you can't rely on your brain to remember all of this. You know, like it's so important to document this. But I'm a big fan of just continuing to reach out and continuing to try to provide value. Maybe send a link, maybe say, you know, I came across this article, thought you would find it helpful, like leverage content to send it to them. You don't have to be like asking questions all the time to try to get a sales conversation. Like if you come across something that's valuable and based on what you, the little you know about their company, send it to them. Hey, came across this today on xyz, thought you might find it helpful. Don't say anything else, just send a link. You know, it's very simple but it's coming from a place of value and that's the whole point of what we're trying to accomplish here.

And that's, I love that when it's like, you know the value. Like, you're just giving. You're just giving. Hey, Thought this might be interesting. Hey. Another one of my clients learned something or they shared it with me. Sharing with you just like not giving without expecting is so, so important. I think we've lost some of the, you know, shout out to Zig Ziglar. RP, right. One of the OGs in this game. I love Zigzag this, Right? He's like, you can get anything you want in life if you help other people get what they want first.

Yep.

And it's like, you want that meeting, then help them prospect, do something. They need to do 100. Like, help them with something. And so. So we're already at 30 minutes.

Stop selling, Stop selling, start helping. Is I open up. Speaking of my. What I just mentioned on my decks and I speaking. That's my opening slide on, like, the very beginning is Zig Ziglar. Like, stop selling, start helping, period. Like, you have to provide value first. And my. When I. My definition of a thought leader, too, one of them is, it is giving without the expectation of receiving anything in return. That's the definition of a thought leader, period. Like, this is what we're trying to accomplish. We're helping people. We're providing value, but it's just. It's not happening as much as it should be, which is why I am so passionate about what I do now. Training SDR is to do this because it's not rocket science. But people aren't doing it, Katie. They're just not.

You know, I know.

You know, I know.

You know, you know, like, it's just. It's just mind blowing to me. It's like, yes, there's so. And it's actually one of the things I'm on. Working. Working on a lot right now is like, why. Like, really asking the question, why? There are more resources now than ever before on what to do in sales. There's people like you, people like me, people out there sharing, just giving.

Yes.

And we still don't do it. And I'm really, like, what drives that? Like, what holds us back from doing there? You have put five or six things right now in this episode that people could go do and improve their results. A very small percentage actually will.

Yeah.

And it's like, that's where I'm trying to figure out, like, how we address that. And So I got two final questions. We're already at 30 minutes. I knew this was going to go.

I know. We can talk forever.

Oh, man. We didn't even scratch the surface. Two last questions for you. Okay, so the last one, the first one is just like, you know, overall, right. If you think about your big three tips, is if you could really drill it down, like, do these three things to improve your results, what would those three things be?

Yeah, there's a lot. Okay, three things that we haven't talked about or that we already talked about to reinforce.

Like what if you're like, yo, you heard the intro, you listened and now we're at the end. And to refresh you, what would those three things be?

So number one is to look the part and that is across your social media channels. If you have public social media channels, I'm even talking about Instagram here. Like you're. All of your public social media channels need to be professional and it needs to be crystal clear and not all over the place, including LinkedIn. Okay, so that's number one, have a professional personal brand presence. Right. So we're talking about also building a personal brand here. The second one is find something to personalize. Every single outreach. So do your homework. Find something to personalize. I mean, this is, all of, this is the age we live in now, Katie. As you know, it's personalization. Like you have to come from place, value and personalize things to make it look like a real human being. One, and then that's my, my third one is literally like what I already mentioned. Treat them like you're trying to build a friendship with someone. So come from a place of value first. Figure out how you can help them, how you can provide value and do whatever you can to do that in multiple different ways and continue to reach out to them and don't give up on that. But you want to be seen as a trusted industry resource that can help them regardless if they end up working with you or not. You want to be seen as that, that thought leader. So you know, posting content helps, but you want to be seen as like the authority figure, even a mini authority figure. Don't be a huge influencer here that you know your stuff and you're going to provide value to them in whatever way you can. And so you have to, to get that across to them in a way that's not salesy.

Yeah. And that's something, you know, if we had more time, we could go into, because it is, it's knowing, it's knowing your stuff. At the base of all this, you got to know your stuff. You have to know your industry, you have to know your Personas. I feel like that's something we've lost in sales too, is it's so product focused now. People don't understand the industry they're targeting. They don't really understand the Persona, the pain points.

And like, yeah, it's, it is so product focused. Like, we've almost lost that art of like, why are you doing this in the first place? It's to solve a problem.

You know, I remember my first sales gig. Like, I got like a three ring binder on the industry, not on the products that we sold on the industry. Do you understand the industry? Do you understand how HR works and how they make decisions and all the different. Like, we got to get back to that a little bit.

We do, yes.

And then my last question here, right. The name of the podcast is Live Better, Sell Better. So I also have this weird idea that if we took better care of ourselves, had more energy, had more joy, had more fulfillment in life, that the sales also would improve. What would your live better advice be for people listening?

Embrace Mother Nature and all she offers us. Get outside, go on a walk, enjoy the sunshine, get some vitamin D in your life, meditate, you know, all the things. But I'm a huge outdoors person, you know, so it just, there's something about it. Have it. You're having a bad day, had a bad sales call, go outside, just get some sun on your face, you know, appreciate you.

This was phenomenal. So much value dropped here. We're probably gonna have to do a part two because, you know, there's more we can unpack and all this as well. But thank you for this. Best luck on the trip. Coming up in the speech and we'll.

Have you back soon.

Thank you.