How to book meetings on Linkedin using Stupid Simple Strategy | Daniela Carvajal

Foreign.

I'm Rahul, this is salespin. Outbound is not something I do. It's what I breathe. I run school of SDR. We have trained reps now placed across 50 plus SaaS companies and I'm the guy founders call when they want to build SDR teams that actually work. Kcup, payoneer, Epicor. The list is long, the work is real.

I also built blue.

An AI coach per reps because no one else got it right. I sell, I train, I build every single day. This show is not for everyone. It's for the ones still on the phones, still writing cold emails, still figuring out how to hit coda in a system that's broken. You will hear from reps and leaders who are actually doing it and leaders who've actually been in the seat, not just behind a dashboard. No fluff, no guru talk, just the.

Truth and the tactics.

Let's break Outbound open and spin it our way.

Welcome to the show, Daniela.

Hello, Raul. Thank you so much.

You're most welcome. Thank you so much for being here, Daniela. I want to tell audience that, you know, what brings me to have you on the show is because I saw that you are winning at LinkedIn and this is exactly what I want to learn. What I want everyone who is watching this and listening to this should learn. So please tell us your strategy. First of all, we'd love to know a little bit about you. If you could give us a quick background of where you work and what you know, you're some of the, you know, high achievements.

Okay. Of course. So I'm an sdr. I've been working as an SDR for four years now. All in startups technology industry. Right now I work at Deal and good news is I just been promoted to senior sdr.

Wow. Congratulations. Is that after. After I saw the post or is that something recent? Very recent.

It was this month actually. I started April 1st, first as senior SDR. So I'm really happy and happy also to share all my best practices with you. How I prospect through LinkedIn. That is, as I told you, my main source of demos. So that's a little bit about my story. I love being an sdr. I love prospecting, so I love what I do.

That's amazing. Congratulations. First of all, Daniela, I think it's a great feeling once you get promoted especially and I think not many people say that out loud when you said that. Hey, I love being an sdr. That's amazing. Thank you. I want to, I want to learn. How do you go about building a strong LinkedIn pipeline. So first question I have for you is what accounts, you know, what prospect do you first target on LinkedIn? Do you have like a guidebook where you say if I have 500 prospects or 100 prospect, these are the ones which I'm going to hit first. And if you can give us like a guidebook or some way how you can shortlist.

Yes. Okay, so this is very important. So what I usually do is first of all identify the type of company and main DMs within that organization that could be beneficiated for my solution. So for example, in my case I sell chart and payroll software. So what I do in my book of business is to classificate what which companies have more than one entity, for example, and also the HR profiles that could be beneficiated for my solution. And once I identify which are like these main accounts that I want to prospect and all the dms that I could reach out, I create a personalized approach.

All right, so let's say you select, can you give us like maybe some numbers that'll help the audience understand a little bit more? So let's say how many accounts do you target in a week as an example?

Okay, that's a good question. And also it depends the market I work in in a mid middle market segment. So I think it's going to change if you are in a small business or an enterprise. But for example, for me in middle market, it's very important to set a goal, a daily goal of how many accounts and DMs I want to reach out. I try to at least do 10 to 13 accounts daily. And I don't have any limit on the DMs that I reach out. So for example, in the middle market segment, we have more DMs to work on. So it will be different from a small business segment that you can only reach out to C levels. But in the middle market you can reach out to directors, coordinators, in my case only HR and payroll and finances. But the more people I can reach out, the better results I'm going to get. So it's like everything, the more you prospect well, the better result you're going to get.

Totally. So. Right. All right, let's take, let's take the example of 10 accounts per day. You said you don't have a limit on the number of DMs you can choose, but what is your average number of DMs per account?

Per account? If it's a upper middle market, it can be 1115.15 per account. Per account? Yes. If I have a lot of options to work on. Right. And also I connect with the fit profile DMs that are directors, coordinators or C levels. But also I reach out to other profiles that can be helpful for me like a bridge. If someone doesn't answer me well, they can give me the email, the phone number or they can help me reach out to the right DM also. So the more people I have on my network, it's better for me.

Fair. I have some follow up question. Let's assume that tomorrow is the first day, tomorrow is the new month, right? So let's say you're going to reach out to 10 accounts and about 10 to 15 DMs per account. That makes it about 100. Now what does your step one look like? Are you going to send everybody a LinkedIn request, wait for them to accept and then pitch if that's the case? I would love to know, do you send like blank connection requests or do you send with a message? Tell us more about that.

Okay, yes, this is a very good question. So I send the requests, I don't send an email or like a first message on the request because I don't want them to be already prepared that I'm going to, that I'm a salesperson and I'm going to pitch right away. No, I'm just, I just want to connect with them because I find their profile interesting. And for example, well, I work in HR and they are hr, HR profile. So that's what I do. I don't like to send a message right before I connect with them. So I wait and when I see that they accept me, this, I look at this every morning and throughout the day I'm booking, okay, five people already accept me and I start to message them. So my strategy is if they are a really C level profile, I work on a personalized approach. I don't do a massive sequence, but I do a more personalized approach with help of the AI.

Oh wow. Tell us more about that then.

Yes, yes. It's very important for me to use all the tools that we have to prospect and for example ChatGPT or these AI tools help us build this personalized approach more easily and faster. And also it helps you see maybe information of the company or the profile that you, that you didn't look. So I use them a lot for this personalized approach.

And do you want to share how do, how do you go about using ChatGPT for this? For example, let's say you're you find a C level for a mid level company. What information do you look for? What do you do? Basically if you were to walk me through and as I know that we don't have a LinkedIn profile right in front of us but tell us where do you look? How do you. Where do you. Which information do you pick? What do you do with charge? How do you get a personalized message? Do you have like a prompt of your own?

Yes. So I work with two AI tools. One is that I love ample market and we have it in our company.

As I do too. I love that too as help for.

Prospection and Ample market has also this AI tool.

I know what you're talking about.

You go to the DM profile. It says create an AI message. So I use this a lot and it creates the message with information of the dm. For example, if the DM liked a post about, I don't know, hiring or a. Of the company. I have also an example if, if I can show you.

Yes, you can. You can. You do. You would have an option to share the screen.

I have this LinkedIn message example that I use with this Ample Market AI tool that is a pitch more personalized but also like a general sale. And I can read it if you want or.

Sure, go ahead please.

So it says. Hi, I notice your interest in Creando people analytics. Given your role at company, I thought you might find deals capabilities particular particularly useful in streamlining HR processes and ensuring compliance with local laws. Deals platform could help you optimize onboarding and talent development, freeing up your time for strategic initiatives. Deals all in one platform simplifies managing international workforces, ensuring everyone gets paid accurately and on time while adhering to local regulations. This could enhance your efforts in improving team effectiveness and fostering a positive organizational culture. Would you be open to exploring how Deel can support your HR strategies at company? And this message was created for a manager of analytics and development in human resources. So if you can see it's very complete and it was very success. All right, I got yo and demo with it.

Yeah, that's, that's, that's the most important thing. Yeah, great follow up question, Daniel. Let's assume that you know somebody who's listening or watching to this. They do not have ample market. It's, it's a. You know, it can cost to buy these tools, let's say. And if you were to do this without ample market, how would you do it?

You can use ChatGPT, which is free and you can just ask GPT to build a message, a personalized first touch for a C level that works in a startup, a technology startup and is hiring. For example, in my case, I'm using, I'm using what I sell, right. And it's hiring worldwide and a, how can I sell a this person my, my platform. And then you can build it with, with Chat GPT, you can use also a, it's a 500 or it's a 15 employee startup that it's HQ and America, it's growing. You can use this also, also these free tools to build this, these approaches.

So what I'm hearing is that for your business, of course it makes sense when companies, let's say if they're located in US or wherever, if they're hiring internationally, that is where your product, I'm assuming, fits. So what you're doing is basically making a list of all the companies and that's how your, that's how your approach starts. And then it becomes like a starting point for your outreach, saying that hey, I saw that you're hiring internationally where it makes sense to speak and these are the challenges what other companies face. Is that right?

That's right. Yes, that's correct.

Okay.

And also with what you were saying, it's very important to use the CRM as the source of truth. So you can use the CRMs to filter which companies you want to, you want to approach. Right. So that's also a very important in my strategy, of course.

So you're saying that you have some scoring mechanism within the, within the tool, within the CRM which tells you which account should you reach out to.

Yes, I build reports of what you were saying. For example, if a company is a good fit or not for my product, I can filter it by country, by industry. If for example, we had a class lost opportunity, these are the ones that were qualified at some point but didn't close as one accounts also in contacts with no recent activity that I can work with. So that's how I filter them and start attacking them.

Awesome. You're bringing me. You're making many questions. Okay, I'm going to go back to the LinkedIn request. So let's say you have 10 accounts with 15 prospects, 15 DMs each, that's 150 connection request. But there is a limit to the number of connection requests you can send in a week. Right. Because if we go by that logic, that means you have to send 750. So how do you do that?

Yes, no, I get, I get, sometimes I get blocked. Well, not Blocked, but I get my, I reach my limit. For example, if I'm prospecting with my goals every day, I can like a Wednesday, I can reach my limit and I cannot send any more connections, but it's fine. Then I can work on building these answers and personalized approaches and maybe doing multi threading because I love LinkedIn and it's my, my first source of prospection. But also I like to send cold emails. Also sometimes do call, cold calling. So yes, I can get, I can reach the limit fast if I send a lot of connections and I prospect a lot. But, but it's not a, it's not a blocker and it's not a problem.

All right, that brings me to the next question, Daniela, which is since you know that you know your limit is, let's say 100 to 150 accounts, I think I have a 150 or 200 account. I think it also depends on if you're falling, you know, under the radar. And do not let LinkedIn that I'm sending so many. And like you said, Italy, in idle world, you have to send 150 requests per day, which is not possible. That 750 a week. Do you do any sort of prioritization that, hey, this week I have, I have these 50 accounts. Out of the 50 accounts, why don't I send the connection request to a certain manager or a director level? Because that has a higher chances of me getting accepted based on my past record. Do you do any of that?

Yes, yes, totally. Exactly. And for example, what we were talking before, I prioritize the closed lost accounts, for example, those are a very good fit. And also, yes, I'm going to prioritize sending the connections to C levels directors and profiles that are going to take me to the result I want. Not taking into account, for example, those that I was talking before that are like a bridge or it could be a champion or someone that can help me find the right person in the company. So yes, to answer the question, I take a lot of care of my connections. I send it and not, yes, to not waste any, any connections that then I'm going to regret and be wishing, oh, now I, I see this profile and, and I cannot connect. I waste it. So yes, just make sure that the ones I'm sending are the ones that are going to get me to my receipts.

Okay, tell me something. Do you have a tool to track how, what is your acceptance rate? And first of all, I want to understand what's your acceptance rate if you don't?

No, I don't have a tool and we don't have it in the company, which also it could be a really good tool for me. I do this manually.

Okay, you do manually, which is good actually, because you LinkedIn does not penalize you for using any tools.

Now I use sample market for sequence for massive sequences. But ample market does not tell me how many people accepted my request and got it. It's my. It's part of my day planning, organization and time management. For example, when I start my day, the first thing I do is answer my LinkedIn messages and then I go and see who are my new connections and I start messaging them. But this I do every hour. I'm looking all the time. Okay, I know my last connection was Raul. Now I see that I have 15 more new connections. So I start sequencing and start messaging. So it's part of my organization. I don't have a tool. It's all minor league.

You mentioned when somebody at a C level connects with you, you do personalize the message. I have a couple of questions on that one. Do you only use text? Do you use video or voice?

That's really good. Right now I only use text. I know other SDRs that are top performers that use audio and video and it works perfectly for them. I haven't tried it. I think it's. It's different. It gives you another perspective that you are not a robot.

Yeah.

And they can connect with you and see you and hear you. I think I'm going to try it sometime. But right now, because I connect with a lot of people, you know, my numbers and everything, it will be impossible for me to do all this videos or audio. So right now I'm just only doing text. But I think it's amazing if you can know what your skills and if you're a really good speaker, you can try and do video. I haven't tried it, but I think it's amazing and it works.

Yeah. Somebody from Deal reached out to me recently with a video and I shared that with my, with my students saying that, hey, you know what? Because I'm a big believer of voice notes and video, I like doing that because I don't know if I'm that good with text. And like you explained, I think video and voice kind of gives you a personality. Tells the other person you're not a robot. But yeah, that guy created a really good video. So I told him, hey, I'm not. I don't need it right now. But yeah, you're the first choice. And I have to you know, find something like this. Now coming back. Hello, you. Let's. What I want to ask you is let's say a C level connect with you. How long do you wait for the first message?

No, it's instant. It depends on how long I know or take. Yes. Or how long I see that he has accepted. If I see it right away message I message right away. Yes.

All right, so what you're saying is that something which is working for you is totally against what the market is telling. Hey, you know what? Don't pitch right away. But you're saying that's working for you.

Yes.

That's amazing.

Yes. Sometimes before I used to first say hello, hello, how are you and wait for the person to reach out. But no, it wasn't working that much. Sometimes they didn't reply or anything. So right now I'm just using the AI tool and reach right away. Yeah.

Okay, my follow up question. You send a message to C level soon after you connect with them. They don't reply for let's say two days, three days, four days. When is your next follow up?

Okay, so. So this is important and I have two, two ways. One is when I have my massive ample market sequence. I have it. I think it's a nine step sequence. It's automated and it's build it that if the DM doesn't respond, it says another message two days or three days after and that until.

And is that. Is that an automated message you have built?

Yes, it's automated and it works.

What does it say?

No, it's a nine step. The first.

No, I mean the first step. What is the follow up? The first follow up if they don't respond?

The first step is profile view. So I view their profile so they know okay, Daniela is my profile. The second step is the first message. So. Hello. It's pitching the platform.

Sure.

Have you heard about Deal is IHR and Payroll Illusions? I would my call to action. Of course every. Every message have to have a call to action in the end. I would love to talk about this with you. This resonates with your interest right now. And I wait and the automatic sequence will have a. I think it's a 20 day sequence but when it's personalized and it's manual, what I do is I send this person first message and then I mark it as a favorite in LinkedIn. So I know every three or four days I have to check my favorites that I. That I do manually. And if they haven't replied well, I send them another. Another message. As a follow up.

And what does that message say?

Sometimes I use AI tool this follow up. So I say to chat dpt help me create a follow up message for a C level that didn't reply to my first message and it helps me perfectly and it works well.

From what I can see that you definitely need a product. I'm not building a product, I'm just saying that you need a product which can probably read your messages. And this could be an idea for somebody who's building the products out there. Read the messages Daniela sent or the rep sent and figure out a follow up message quickly. I don't think so. Ample market does that. It only creates a first message, right?

It doesn't. It only creates the first message and if they are in the sequence, well, it's an automatic sequence and it will be running through the days. But the other ones that are more personalized and specific. Build it. No, doesn't have it. I know another tool that I use for emails and it helps me do these follow ups with help of AI. Sometimes I use the same follow up messages to the LinkedIn ones because it's like generic and it can be used.

I'm loving this. Daniela, you're telling me all the things which people on LinkedIn are telling does not work. So what you're saying is probably that doesn't work for them or probably they're just finding a clickbait or something. But you're saying, hey, I use the same message on LinkedIn and email and it does work, which is great. All right, now tell me something. You seem to be, you seem to have figured out the LinkedIn and I'm pretty sure there are people in your own company or there are people whom you know from other companies who have not figured out LinkedIn, who are not doing the LinkedIn the same way. Right. And some of the things which you're telling seems basic, but some of them are unique to you, to your business. What I want to understand is what do you think some of the mistakes other people make when you, when you look at the things, the way they, they're doing things, where do you think they're failing? Why are they not able to achieve the same results as you do?

Yes. And you know, I want to tell you something, Raoul. And when I first started, I wasn't as strong in LinkedIn as I am today. I didn't prospected in LinkedIn at all. I only send it cold emails and maybe cold calling. But I was afraid of LinkedIn and I think it was two years ago that I started using it here in Deal because someone told me, daniela, you need to go outside your comfort zone and start using other tools. And you see, you'll see that you will get better results if you do multi threading. And I said yes. When why I don't start using LinkedIn started. I started building my profile. This is very important and this is like an advice for SDRs that are struggling with LinkedIn strategy. Build your professional profile. So I have my photo with Deal logo, T shirt, my deal banner, all the information that is related to my work and also I post every day so I have it as a social selling product, but I post. So I am very active in this, in this social media and this is an advice and it has helped me. Sometimes, for example, I send a request to a DM I am prospecting and I have my calendar link connected to my LinkedIn profile and I get demos like that just inbound because they saw my profile and I reach the correct person at the right time. But because I have it very professional with Deal, they say schedule a meeting with you because I am looking to hire a these people in these countries. I'm really interested so I want to talk to you. So it has helped me a lot and I think it's an advice. Just go out your comfort zone, build up really strong profile that can help you sell and get those results that you want.

That's amazing. I think that's a great advice. I can, I can vouch for some of that. I see that as a common problem with all the STRs where they're kind of afraid to put themselves out there. Some of them would not want a power post because they're like, hey, what would my company think? Some of them would have the pressure. That company is watching. Somebody is watching. People have problem with getting judged and whatnot. Well, thank you so much for validating some of that. Now tell me something. I want to understand what are some of the other things which you believe you're doing on LinkedIn and thank you for sharing the entire flow with us. What I want to understand is, and while I understand your follow up process and everything, what else you are, you think you know you are doing, which is unique to you, which, which makes you like the number one performer.

Wow. Okay, this is a good question. I think I have a couple of ones create. Sometimes I do. I have different messages that have different perspectives. Sometimes they are funny and the DM says, wow, I just responded to you because this was a really funny message and it got me and So I have those strategies like make your approach different. Don't be a machine, just texting, texting, texting. No, like have make a difference sometimes jokes works a lot. And also what I like about links seen is that I can have a conversation with the prospect and also handle the objections. So I think Objection handling in LinkedIn is really important to get to our result. I don't take a no for an answer.

Wow. Okay, tell us. Probably an incident of having a conversation which you, which you thought was not going away, but you, you still turn it around. Do you remember any of that?

Yes. And I can say that's my daily basics because sometimes I'm lucky and I reach out the DM at the right time and they say, yes, I'm interesting, let's schedule a demo. But I can say like 80% of the replies are objections. Sometimes they didn't understand my first message. They don't understand what deals do or the products or what I'm selling. Sometimes they say no. Well, they object. The most common objections are I don't have time. I have a message for that.

And what is that message? If you don't mind sharing?

Yes. And also this is an advice that I want to give as the artists. All these messages and ideas and strategies that I'm telling you are all in a book that I read that it's called the Loss of Closing, the Last Art of Closing. And it tells you how to handle objections the right way and gives you example of the messages you can use. Because we're closing. We're closing a demo. Of course, in sales we're getting a lot of no's, but it's how you can turn those no's into a yes. So I have some examples here. Let me see if I can, because I have it in Spanish, but in the book are in English. But the most common objections are we already have a pla. A solution for that. And what I say it's okay. I understand you are working with a solution. The idea is that you, you don't change anything. Sometimes we help clients complement your current processes. And maybe these ideas that I'm going to share with you would work in the future, not right now. But I just want you to know about our, our service and have us in mind. Would this be okay? I will be respectful with your current solution and I will share this information with you. Even if we don't work together and they say okay. And in the meeting we notice that the solution they're working with, it's not as complete as they Said so it's. That's a really common one. Another common is I don't have time, so.

Okay.

I know a. A lot of our clients are, but I promise I won't waste any of your time. I just need 20 minutes with you to share some ideas. And they say yes and. Okay. And the other one is email the information.

Yeah, I was about to ask that.

So when they say email the information, say, okay, I can email the information. The. The meeting I'm requesting is not to talk about my product, but it's to talk about. About you and what. What are your needs and what. Understand. Hey, what are you looking for right now? The problems you might be facing. Yes. So it works. Sometimes I send them the information and I follow up and I schedule the demo. But I try not. But I try to take the demo right away with these objections.

It works because you don't like to lose, as you said.

No, no, not at all.

This was amazing. Okay. I think I learned a lot. It kind of busted a lot of myths for me. So thank you so much. I do have a rapid fire round for you. Okay. I'm going to ask you questions and you cannot think. Okay. You have to answer what comes to your mind. All right, cool. Ready?

Okay, ready.

What's your most common LinkedIn mistake?

I think not knowing the message, I wanted to pitch the correct way. And maybe at the beginning I was doing InMail and that was a mistake because it wasn't working for me.

Worst advice you can give to an.

SD in LinkedIn or general.

Worst. Worst advice.

At worst, you have to.

You have to give a bad advice to a NS.

Okay. Okay. Don't use LinkedIn as a prospection.

All right. Okay. If SDR was a movie, you know, being an SDR was a movie, what do you think would that be?

This is a hard one because being an sdr, it's a lot of rejections daily. You have to take a no all the time and be persistent and get to your goal. So I don't know. What movie would that be?

All right, let's talk about. What's your favorite sales movie?

My favorite sales movie? I don't know the name right now. I can tell you my favorite sales book.

Okay, sure. I was about to ask the next question. Great. What's your favorite sales book?

The Challenger Sale. I think I lost you because I can't hear you.

Hey, are you there? Daniela, can you hear me? Daniela, can you hear me?

Yes. I lost you for one second.

I cannot hear you for some reason. Alrighty. Yep. Can you hear me now?

Yes, I hear you. Perfect.

Sorry about that. Let's pick it up from where we left. I'm not sure what happened to my system, so. Yeah. Tell us your favorite book.

Yes. Favorite book. The Challenger sale.

All right, tell us your least favorite book.

It's not a sales book, but it's the 5am Club.

All right. Oh, yeah. Even I didn't laugh like that. I remember picking it up. I'm like, I'm never getting up at.

5Am no, it's not. It's not for me.

All right, tell us. Tell us the least favorite thing about being an sdr. I don't know.

I love being in sdr.

No, I think.

Okay, so the pressure, the. The rejection you get, sometimes you have to receive negative answers from people that is. Are just having a bad day and they just want to. Yeah. Like, take it on you. So I think that's the. The worst part. Just getting all this no, no, no's and try to deal with. With the rejection.

All right, and the last and final question. What's the most fulfilling part of being in str?

So. Well, a lot. Reaching your goals, reaching out the quota, knowing that you are helping other people to solve problems with the solution you're selling. But also that you can turn some nos into. Yes. So that power that you can have, like influencing people, that's very fulfilling for me.

Got it. Thank you so much, Daniela, for being here and sharing your entire playbook with us and sharing all your secrets of what's making you the number one performer. Thank you. Thank you really, so much. Foreign.

I'm Rahul. This is salespin. Outbound is not something I do. It's what I breathe. I run school of SDR. We have trained reps now placed across 50 plus SaaS companies. And I'm the guy founders call when they want to build SDR teams that actually work. Kca, payoneer, epicor. The list is long. The work is real. I also built flu an AI coach for reps because. Because no one else got it right. I sell, I train, I build every single day. This show is not for everyone. It's for the ones still on the phones, still writing cold emails, still figuring out how to hit quota in a system that's broken. You will hear from reps and leaders who are actually doing it and leaders who've actually been in the seat, not just behind a dashboard. No fluff, no guru talk.

Just the truth and the tactics.

Let's break outbound open and spin it our way.