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Ep 101: Mastering LinkedIn Marketing: Strategies for Relationship Building and Lead Conversion with Rich Brooks

• Sarah Noel Block • Season 4 • Episode 101

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Unlock the secrets to selling on LinkedIn with Rich Brooks, President of Flight New Media, as he shares his expert strategies for building meaningful relationships and converting leads on this professional platform. Discover why subtlety and relationship-building are crucial, and how consistent, episodic content like podcasts can help you connect with potential clients. Rich’s insights will transform your approach to LinkedIn, making it a key component of your B2B service business strategy.

Next, we dive into the best practices for optimizing your LinkedIn profile and maintaining your credibility in the feed. From crafting a compelling headline to creating a varied content calendar, we cover everything you need to stand out without coming across as overly aggressive. Learn how to leverage AI for business insights and improve your LinkedIn Social Selling Index (SSI) for better reach and engagement. Our discussion provides actionable tips to help you balance showcasing your expertise with fostering genuine connections.

Finally, we explore the art of consent-based relationship building on LinkedIn. Respect and professionalism are paramount, and we'll show you how to engage authentically and transition conversations to more personal channels in a way that feels natural. By prioritizing long-term success and listening to potential clients' needs, you can create a rapport before pitching solutions. Plus, don’t miss out on joining the Tiny Marketing Club for personalized support and resources to scale your marketing efforts effectively. Tune in for a comprehensive guide to mastering LinkedIn marketing!

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/therichbrooks
Website: takeflyte.com

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to Tiny Marketing. This is Sarah Norrell-Block, and this is a podcast that helps B2B service businesses do more with less. Learn lean, actionable, organic marketing strategies you can implement today. No fluff, just powerful growth tactics that work. Ready to scale smarter? Hit that subscribe button and start growing your business with Tiny Marketing. Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of tiny marketing.

Speaker 1:

Today we're diving into a topic that I'm super excited about selling on LinkedIn. Whether you're new to the platform or a seasoned pro, linkedin offers incredible potential for B2B service founders like you. But let's be real LinkedIn can be a bit of a mystery. It's not just about adding connections, posting updates. It's not like all of the other social media platforms. There's a whole strategy behind how to do it effectively to be able to sell your services, and that's exactly what we're going to uncover today.

Speaker 1:

Today's interview is with Rich Brooks, and he's going to teach us his social selling strategy for LinkedIn. So if you're struggling with leads, or perhaps you're getting leads but they're not converting into clients, whatever the case might be, we've got actionable insights that you can use to turn things around. So why should you even care about LinkedIn? Great question LinkedIn is where decision makers hang out. It's a platform filled with professionals and it's designed for networking. You're basically finding little like water coolers to hang out in and talk to people who could be potential clients for you or referral partners for you.

Speaker 1:

Unlike Facebook or Instagram, linkedin is all about the professional reputation and relationships. It's really about building relationships. It's where all of my biz friends have been made. So in today's episode, we'll uncover everything that you need to know to maximize your LinkedIn strategy, build those long-term relationships and convert your audience there's a bee flying past this camera to clients. Okay, so grab a cup of coffee, get comfy or, if you're like me, you're probably listening to this while you work out or you're walking the dogs or you're cleaning the house. You know what you do, you. You don't have to have a coffee.

Speaker 2:

All right, stay tuned.

Speaker 1:

Hey Rich, thanks for joining me today.

Speaker 2:

Sarah, I am so pleased that you asked Pleased as punch. Thanks so much.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we're talking today about everybody's favorite topic. Absolutely everyone I have a conversation with brings up LinkedIn to me, maybe because that's my primary channel, or maybe that's just what's on their mind, but everybody is all about LinkedIn. We talk to B2B service founders on this show. So that's what your thing is. You are very good at that, and we're homing in on the selling piece of it. I saw a LinkedIn post from Molly, who's also part of this LinkedIn series, that said with Instagram, it's selling, selling, selling. You can sell really easily and you can sell every day, but on LinkedIn, it's a whole other approach. It's really subtle. So I'm excited to hear from you. Can you introduce yourself to anyone who doesn't know who you are yet?

Speaker 2:

Yes, I'd be pleased to, because I'm sure a lot of your listeners have no idea who I am, but my name is Rich Brooks. I'm the president of Flight New Media. It's a digital agency I started over 27 years ago. We're located in Portland, maine, one of the most beautiful places in the entire world to come visit, and we offer services like branding, web design, seo, social media, digital advertising, and on top of that, I'm also the founder of the Agents of Change, which is a weekly podcast, and I was blessed to have Sarah on my show not too long ago and we've had over 500 episodes of that show. I think we're coming up on like 540. And that's also an annual conference that we put on as well, which we have again here in Portland Maine, and this year will be our 10th annual Agents of Change Digital Marketing Conference. So that's a little bit of who I am.

Speaker 1:

That is awesome. Yeah, podcasting has really changed the way I do business and I'm always recommending that, even if you don't want to podcast, you at least have like an episodic kind of content, so you're always showing up and building new relationships with people kind of content, so you're always showing up and building new relationships with people.

Speaker 2:

It's probably my favorite content creation vehicle right now. Like for years, I preferred blogging. I just love to write. But as blogging has become more and more competitive in the SEO world and I found myself moving from I could write out a blog post in 30 to 60 minutes and it would perform we now find ourselves spending eight to 10 to 12 hours per blog post in my company. Wow, and not as good returns, even though I think the content we're producing is even better than when I was just you know kind of knocking them out left and right. But podcasts whether you have your own show, like you and I do, or whether you just decide that you want a guest on other people's show I think it's just such an easier lift, especially when you're just getting started.

Speaker 1:

It is, and I feel like it's more intimate to a blog post. You don't know who wrote it until you're scrolling looking for a name for a specific person, like purpose, but with a podcast, you know that person. I have mentioned this before and I cannot remember what it is, but there is like a syndrome, I'm going to say, where you feel like you are friends with the podcast hosts because they're just like living in your ears. It's a very intimate experience.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely.

Speaker 1:

But podcasting isn't what we're talking about today. We're talking about LinkedIn, so let's get into it. So you have an agency. I am going to guess that you're getting the majority of your clients from LinkedIn.

Speaker 2:

We're getting a percentage of it. I I am a strong believer that it's not ever one thing that gets the sale. It sometimes is, but I think it's about getting in front of people and positioning yourself as an expert, and I know we're going to talk about sales and selling on LinkedIn today, and I'm happy to share any techniques or skills that I've developed over the years, but I think so much of the power of LinkedIn is just the ability to establish yourself as an expert in the field that you want to be known for and getting yourself in front of your best prospects. And I know that you were talking about how you know on Instagram, you can sell, sell, sell. That is very much a consumer facing platform, and I started off. Obviously, I've been doing this for a while. You know I was an early adopter to Twitter. I was on Facebook pretty early on as well, and I enjoyed them at the time. I honestly can't stand them anymore.

Speaker 2:

Like when people say to me oh, you're the social media guy, I'm like I slightly groan and then I say well, you can find me on LinkedIn. Like I know that sounds old, but LinkedIn is my favorite social media platform, in part because I can get more done in five minutes on a more effective work done on LinkedIn in about five minutes a day, or even every third day, than I ever could on Facebook or Twitter or any other platform. So for me it's just a very efficient use of my marketing time as well.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, For me it's fun because it feels like hanging out with my friends. I'll go on there and then I'll enter a little watering holes where I'm having conversations with people in comments and it's like networking all the time, a place where I can go and make friends with people.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So I mean, for me it's been a great platform to connect with people. I also use it. So I use it in many different ways for doing sales, but one of the most effective ways, because I am not that kind of guy who slams the top of a used car and says what is it going to take you to get into this car today, like I don't want to sell to anybody who doesn't need my services, and that's something I tell my employees all the time. We're not pushing products, we're trying to understand pain points and see if we have a solution for it, and so that's the approach I take for LinkedIn as well.

Speaker 2:

So I mean, if somebody is looking for help, how do I start generating business on LinkedIn? Or how do I start selling my business on LinkedIn? For me, the first thing is you just start with your profile. You need to make sure that your profile that's your tentpole on LinkedIn, and so you want to spend a lot of time there really developing that. You know, with a professional headshot, or at least a really friendly headshot, you know it comes down to what are the words that the search engine in LinkedIn is very basic compared to, say, google, so making sure you've got keywords in there, like I will sometimes go to LinkedIn and be like I need a photographer or I need a videographer or I need a copywriter and I need them, you know, if it's a, you know I like working with people here locally in Maine, so I'll then narrow the search down to Maine. So, knowing what people are looking for when they're looking for somebody who offers your services, and making sure those things go into your headline and the description of your current company and your responsibilities and definitely your about section, those are all things that are really critical.

Speaker 2:

And when I come into companies and do training on LinkedIn which is something I love doing that's one of the places where we spend the most time. It's just let's go through a few of the employees' profiles and really make them the best they can be, because a lot of people they signed up for LinkedIn years ago they basically thought it was a place to post your resume and that's it, but there's this 5% of us that have realized that it is a Swiss army knife of B2B marketing and it's so powerful, but you have to spend an hour or two. I would recommend really creating the best personal profile you can be and really maxing it out. I mean, there's the featured section and you can put up videos and just really make it as active as you can be, and I think that goes a long way to getting things ready so that you can start quote unquote selling on LinkedIn. But for me, like just you know, today I have a lead from somebody they called up and I got back to them.

Speaker 2:

But the very first thing I ever always do, if somebody wants to meet with me or whatever it is, I look them up on LinkedIn. I see if they're on LinkedIn, I see if they're active on LinkedIn. I try and get a better sense of them. I used to do this on Facebook, but now I don't really use Facebook for that anymore. So I go to LinkedIn and then, once I get to see a little bit about them, then I try and connect with them. I send them that invitation and I also tell them the reason we're meeting.

Speaker 2:

And I don't do a lot of outbound requests on LinkedIn. I field a lot, but for me it's like I'm just trying to strengthen that relationship. So they can see how serious I am both about LinkedIn but also about their business, that I'm taking this extra step. I'm learning about them, I'm learning about their company. I'll add something personal in that note. And then that's usually a great way of kind of solidifying that weak tie, if you will, or that early stage relationship, so that we can discover is there an opportunity for the two of us to work together?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's one thing that I always have in my forms is drop your LinkedIn profile here so I can check them out, I can connect with them and even if it doesn't turn into a sale right away, I have found that connecting on LinkedIn has been a great nurturing tool too, like, okay, they didn't convert immediately, but three months later it did convert because they got to know me, they interacted with my content or whatever, but we built a closer relationship through it.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. And you got to remember that B2B sales tend to be a lot longer. The sales cycle is a lot longer than B2C. So I mean putting you know, starting to build those relationships that's the foundation of selling when it comes to B2B. So putting yourself out there, educating, I think it's a fine line. On LinkedIn and other people have different opinions of personal you should be. I think you should be a hundred percent a human being when you're on LinkedIn, whether you're creating your own posts or, like you said, commenting on other people's posts, like we want to see that we're dealing with humans. But I also like LinkedIn because nobody posts pictures of their kids graduating from kindergarten looking for congratulations. So for me it's like, yes, I want to be personable here, I want to be human here, but I may not share as much as I would have back in the day on Facebook or Instagram.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I don't think anybody is sharing their personal stuff the way that they used to it's become.

Speaker 2:

I see some posts on LinkedIn where I'm like this should have been a this. This feels like a Facebook post to me, like I've definitely seen that.

Speaker 2:

And for me and this is just me that's a turnoff, Like, that's just like not what I want to talk about when I come to LinkedIn. And this is one of the reasons I like LinkedIn, because it does tend to be about business and I'm an entrepreneur and I like having these discussions with other business owners and other marketers. Building those relationships with ultimately leads to sales and, for me, sometimes speaking gigs as well.

Speaker 1:

So, for the personal profiles, we talked about SEO search engine optimization using the right keywords, taking advantage of all of the sections that are available within your profile, like the featured adding services, and filling out that about section. Is there anything that you have found that scares people away from people's profiles? Any red flags?

Speaker 2:

Well, I think of it more like when I so I batch my accepting of invitations for Friday morning. I have a list of things that I tackle on Friday morning and LinkedIn invitations, responding to them or one of them. You know this has been something that's evolved over the years. I used to respond immediately. Now I just find like once a week I knock everything out at once and although I am guilty of this, like in my header, my headline it says what I do.

Speaker 2:

I'm a digital marketer and I help businesses, you know, get, generate more leads online, give me a call, whatever it is, but when I'm on the receiving end of that, sometimes it can actually close some doors, because I, you know, right now, the advice is don't put down something like president or CMO or whatever it may be in your headline. Instead, tell people what you do and how you help your ideal audience, which is great, but sometimes that can immediately close the door before you get a chance to talk to somebody. So I get probably five to 10 invitations to connect each week that say I can guarantee you five additional sales calls a week or could you handle 20 new clients a month and to me that, and maybe it's the way that they're presenting it rather than what they're actually. It's such a turnoff that it immediately closes that door for me. So I think you kind of have to find that balance, like it's okay that you're not all right for everybody, but sometimes that headline can come on so strong that you feel like if I let this person into my LinkedIn life, all they're going to be doing is pitching me 24-7.

Speaker 2:

And I know I hate to be pitched to Like I know when I need something and I will find you, or I know that you do cybersecurity and you're local or you've been well-recommended. I'm going to talk to you then, but I may not want to the second we connect. I may not want to buy your cybersecurity services. I may not want to buy your cybersecurity services. So I think, as we're doing this, we need to be aware of not raising those red flags for potential customers and not necessarily closing those doors, but rather just opening conversations so that we can start to network and see, hey, maybe you're not right for this, but maybe you know somebody who does need cybersecurity or SEO or email marketing or whatever it is, and that's where that connections come from.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I found the same thing, that certain job titles that are in the headlines. They scare me off. I'm like, oh, this is going to be a pitch slap, I know it. I'm just going to avoid it now.

Speaker 2:

And yeah, I hadn't heard that one before, but I liked that I may use it.

Speaker 1:

I hadn't heard that one before, but I like that I may use that.

Speaker 2:

It's all yours. So we optimize our profile and how do we start building credibility within the feed? I think a lot of that just comes. So what I've started doing myself because I want to be consistent and there's I'm usually not somebody who tries to time when specific posts are going to be, but I also know that running my own company and then having my own podcast and putting on a conference, like things just happen. So I have started to come like create lists of things that I want to talk about, things that I want to share on LinkedIn, so I always have some content I can share. And my personal goal for me is that I'm going to post three times a week and it doesn't mean that I'm always posting really heavy educational information, but I try to Like when I learn something new.

Speaker 2:

Right now, like half of the world, I'm really focused on AI and how that impacts my business and marketing and my clients, and so when I find something that I think is really neat and very helpful, I'll create a little video and I'll show people hey, have you tried? What I did recently is have you tried talking to your data using AI, and so I had this little video that shows how I'm using a couple of different tools to get better information out of the data that's in front of me, and I thought that was helpful and a lot of people responded to it. But just today, just got back from some time off and right before I left, I took my team out for a day of archery at LL Bean and had some photos that I wanted to share, and that is work related. It's like, hey, we went out, we had a great time, team bonding and all this sort of stuff. Here's a photo of us standing in front of the you know the, the targets, so on and so forth, and so it's more of a lighter stuff, but I want to stay visible in front of people.

Speaker 2:

I know all of my posts are going to get some sort of engagement because I built up my SSI, which is LinkedIn's algorithm that they share with us, the social selling index and if you Google LinkedIn SSI, you'll get to the page that. Then you can find out what your own is and also how to improve your SSI, and the reason you would want to do this is because it extends your reach. So if I have a very low SSI and I post something, versus somebody who posts the exact same content, but I have a very low SSI and I post something versus somebody who posts the exact same content, but they have a very high SSI. Their post is just going to go further. It's going to get seen by more people. Now, if my post is great, it will also get seen by a lot of people, and if their post is just spam bait, it's not going to get seen by a lot of people. But, all things being equal, improving your SSI will improve your reach and improve your ability to finally make that sale.

Speaker 1:

I'm intrigued. I'm going to go to this SSI right now.

Speaker 2:

Your score is never as high as you want it to be, because it's a pretty steep grade right there, but at the same time, it's like you can see. The nice thing is it tells you how you do within your network and then how you do within your industry. So you're in the top 5% of this or the top 15% of that, and that gives you a sense of like. Okay, so maybe my score was only a 67 out of 100, but I'm in the top 3% of my network. I'm doing all right. But that definitely is a score that you can, and it gives you tips on what are the things that you're weak in, so that you can concentrate on those and suddenly raise your. Oh, there you go, look at you top 1%.

Speaker 2:

Fantastic, I have nothing left to teach you grasshopper.

Speaker 1:

Uh, I highly doubt that, cause I have 37 out of a hundred and the people in my industry yeah, so the people in your industry average.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, the people in your industry average 37. You're a 71.

Speaker 1:

Oh, okay, and the people?

Speaker 2:

in your network average a 43. So a lot of people just don't do this. I mean, you have a perfect build relationship score right there. If people are looking at the video, we're looking at your screen right now, you can't get any better at building relationships. You know, it says engage with insights, which I think is a little bit of. Personally, I'm like they just want you to engage with the things that they show. There is the insights finding the right people.

Speaker 2:

Maybe you're not going out and connecting with as many people, but perhaps people are coming to you. So it's not perfect, but it does. You know. It tells you if you do want to get that further. Reach the kind of things that you have to do to play by LinkedIn's rules so that they're going to share your content further. And look, that's the only reason we're on LinkedIn is because it's a networking site. We want to build our brand, we want to build our company and we want to close sales. It's not like social media, it's not like Facebook, where what we want to do is post pictures of our kids or our dogs or our lake house.

Speaker 1:

I mean sometimes Okay, so we've got our profile, we know how often we should be going on LinkedIn and actually having conversations with posts and checking out our SSI, our social selling index, and checking out our SSI, our social selling index. So what is? Is there anything else that we need to do to build credibility with our audience or start prospecting on LinkedIn?

Speaker 2:

Yes, One of the things that's really big right now and I knew I was going to blank on what this is called, but there are articles, AI generated articles that you can contribute to. Have you ever seen those badges like top B2B voice or top marketing voice or top?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I have top content marketing voice.

Speaker 2:

There you go. So you've contributed to those articles, I assume correct. Yes, yeah, so if you're listening and you don't know what we're talking about, there are content articles that are generated by AI, but then use LinkedIn members to contribute to those articles and I think, if it's like you contribute to three articles, you can earn the top badge for that particular niche. You can only have one on your page at a time. I believe at this point, you can, and it's annoying?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, Because I remember it's like oh, I this point.

Speaker 2:

But it's annoying, yeah Cause I remember it's like oh, I earned two, but I only get to show one.

Speaker 2:

Right, and then you also have to keep contributing, because I also lost one one time and then I was like holy cow, I better step up my game. So, and those only take what? Five, 10 minutes to give a meaningful answer to one. So one of my things that I try and do is a couple of times a week I'll go in and I'll contribute to either content marketing or B2B marketing, depending on which one I want to do. It increases your visibility and these are the kind of things that get rewarded on LinkedIn. So that's another way of building your credibility on LinkedIn is having those badges as well.

Speaker 2:

There are certificates that you can go after on LinkedIn, which can also be another badge on your profile. I don't know that everybody necessarily cares about those badges. I think the top voice is actually the most important badge right now to get on your profile. That definitely helps. It's critical to have at least 500 connections on, because once you get past 500 on LinkedIn, it just says 500 plus. But when I see somebody who's got like 23 connections or even 480 connections, I know that they're either just getting started on their LinkedIn journey or they don't take the platform very seriously. So I think it's critical to do that 500. And then for me, like I said, I don't do as much outbound as I used to, only because I have over 10,000 connections that were 10,000 followers, whatever they call. So I don't go out of my way for this right now, but I do think, especially as you're starting out or if you just want to build up your LinkedIn connections, that's something that's really important to do, and I have no scientific proof for this next point, sarah, but this is what I believe in my heart that LinkedIn is recommending people based on your network already. So it's like if I have a lot of people from Maine, or if I have a lot of marketers, or if I have a lot of people in HR whatever it may be who I'm connected to, they're going to show me more similar people.

Speaker 2:

So I often think of shaping my network on LinkedIn. So if I'm getting people from businesses who I'll never do business with, or countries because we generally just do business in the US and Canada so I put my focus on connecting with people in the US and Canada. I don't care about countries outside of those two and this is not you know. Somewhere else I'll connect with them.

Speaker 2:

But, like I'm trying to teach LinkedIn who to recommend to me and who they should recommend me to. So I'm very conscious about these days less so at the beginning, but these days about who I connect with, and just because you send me an invitation does not mean I'm going to connect with you. Whenever I ask somebody to connect with me, I always give them a very good reason why they should connect with me. It seems so obvious, but every Friday morning when I go through, if I've got 60 new people who are trying to connect with me, I would say maybe five of them have told me why we should connect and probably those three of them are like hey, I like to connect with like-minded people, which is such a lame comment.

Speaker 1:

It has to be one of the generic ones, because I get that one a lot too.

Speaker 2:

Right, I'm really impressed by what you're doing with. And then they'll list something and I'm like, or they'll list a company I no longer work with. I'm like, yeah, okay, way to do your homework, but yeah, so I mean, I try and keep it personal, but those are some of the things that will help increase your stature on LinkedIn and attract more like-minded people and more prospects to you as well. And then there's you know, so, all most of what we've talked about so far has been inbound, but I do know, like sales includes outbound stuff. So you know, when I'm going after a type of business, usually I have something in mind like I want to find directors of marketing in the state of Maine.

Speaker 2:

So I might start using the LinkedIn search, finding those people and then just seeing is there a connection? Is there a way of getting in? And if there's a company company X, we'll call it that I really want to get in front of the director of marketing because I think we have a product or service that they need. I will start, and I will probably start by going to her LinkedIn feed, assuming that she is posting regularly and, without being stalkerish, I will comment on her stuff and then I might ask for an invitation or I might invite her to connect with me. Once somebody is connected with you on their profile, you'll see a little bell. You can click on that bell and then you get alerted every time they post something new on LinkedIn so you can show up early and comment on it. And this is where you have to be not creepy is the best way that I can do it, especially as a man. You need to be especially not creepy on LinkedIn or any other social platform.

Speaker 1:

So you want to be respectful.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, exactly, you want to be respectful and you want to keep it very professional in a human way. But as you start to show up, and especially if they engage with you back, there's more opportunities for you to then, ultimately, what I want to do is I want to move somebody over to DMs, to the messaging system on LinkedIn, so I can have more of a private conversation with them and then ultimately move them to email, a phone call or a Zoom call, depending on the situation, where we can have a real conversation about business. But that's how I do it. Yes, there are definitely people out there who use a lot of bots and a lot of things just to kind of start those conversations. I haven't really gone down that path.

Speaker 2:

I feel that, you know, I prefer my method of building up. You know, kind of like a nice little fiefdom of I've created something of value, I'm sharing a lot of good information, I'm engaging with like-minded people and then, when the opportunity arises or if I see somebody that I feel like I could really help that company because I know that these are the kinds of companies I you know we can work with lumber companies. We've got all this experience work with real estate agents. That's when I can do that outreach and start to have those kinds of conversations, similar to the way that you would at a real life networking event, where you don't go in there with a signed or an unsigned contract and you just start going up to people and asking them to sign on the dotted line. You start with conversations, and that's how B2B sales, in my opinion, is done.

Speaker 1:

Okay. I have one question, though how do you start your conversations when you're prospecting, so it doesn't feel like you're coming in hot with that?

Speaker 2:

contract? Great question, and it really differs on the person and the situation and what I'm looking to accomplish. So, for example, I have the annual conference and once a year I want to let every marketing person and social media person in Maine and New England and beyond know about this and I will literally sometimes just send out, you know, copy and paste messages to all of them telling them about the event. And just do you want some more information? I found I don't usually use this, but I know it's successful where somebody might say hey, sarah, you know, I see that you're working with a lot of small businesses, you're doing marketing. I actually do HR, fractional HR for small businesses that can't afford to have someone. Do you think there might be an opportunity for us to do something together, like that might be one way in, and I'm probably not selling directly to you in that case. But I'm like let's develop a relationship where I can refer businesses to you and you can refer business to me, and it's more exploratory than anything else If I had somebody who was like oh man, the director of LL Bean, and they have their own marketing agency, they don't need my help, but I'll just use them because we're talking about.

Speaker 2:

You know, I live in Maine. I would find the person that I need to speak to because LinkedIn has that powerful search engine. I can go through it, I can find the right people. And I might just say I might start with hey, I see that we're both doing marketing in Maine. I love to be connected with local marketers. That actually works for me quite a bit. There's really nothing more to it.

Speaker 2:

Or I might say that I noticed that we're in a couple of the same groups together and local does mean a lot. So it could be that, or it could be a niche industry. So I might say, depending, this wouldn't be me, but it's like hey, private message that I send to them, unless they've given me some sign that they're interested in being sold to. And if I see that then I might say hey, and even then I don't want to have that conversation really on LinkedIn. Even in the messaging I'd probably say, hey, look, why don't we set up a time? Here's a link to my Calendly and I'd love to learn more about what you're doing and whatever the case may be. So I'm sure I'm a little bit more tender footed than some people might want to be on LinkedIn. But I found that for long term success you have to have a long term view, and I've been doing this for 27 years and in part because I'm not slapping the top of used car sales used cars.

Speaker 1:

Yes, I have to agree with you that that doesn't work for me and I am all about consent based selling. I need you to tell me that you want a solution before I'm going to start offering it to you. Even like, if my husband asks or is complaining about something, I'll be like do you want me to listen or do you want advice? And I'll take that same approach with someone I'm talking to in the DMs on LinkedIn, like do you want advice or do you want me to just listen?

Speaker 2:

Right, exactly, and that's a great way of approaching it too, because I find that people will often sell themselves much more effectively than we can ever sell them Nobody you know, it's an old saw Nobody likes to be sold, but everybody loves to buy.

Speaker 1:

So I think it's just a matter of.

Speaker 2:

If you're putting out valuable content that's specific to your industry, solution clientele, clients, pain points, you're going to find that people seek you out.

Speaker 1:

And I think the more that you don't look like the second.

Speaker 2:

They DM you that you're going to try and force a solution down their throat. They're going to be much more open-minded. And I think the approach to sales that I like is just having those conversations. And I've had plenty of sales calls outside of LinkedIn where I get to a point and I'm like I just don't think that we're the right company for you. Either you're too big or you're too small. Maybe we could do something down the line and as you're willing to push people away, sometimes that actually makes them even more convinced that you're the right person. That's reverse psychology. We don't need to get into that.

Speaker 2:

But the bottom line is I think that I love that what you said consent-based marketing, consent-based selling. So having those conversations, keeping everything very open, and then when you see that there's an opportunity, they talk about a pain point and they're looking for help. You can just say, well, listen, I've seen this before, I've helped people with it. Would you like to learn more? Or can we talk about it? Something like that, where it's a segue and you're really there to help somebody. For me, I've just found that that's my style of selling and so that's the kind of selling that I do on LinkedIn.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and that is the perfect way to approach it, because you are asking permission to talk about the solution before you're just going at it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and to your point a while ago where you were talking about podcasts and how like it's so intimate and people like sometimes just feel like they know you. Like I ran into somebody and they were talking to me like I knew them and then it turned out they had binged my podcast episodes like all the way to Buffalo and back, so they had to listen to me for like 18 hours. So of course they thought they knew me, even though I didn't know who they are. I think that that's a really important thing that you can tap into on LinkedIn as well. So if you're willing to create some videos for LinkedIn, that's also something that can be very powerful.

Speaker 2:

And if you are creating videos and maybe you're putting up to multiple places, I would recommend that you upload them natively to LinkedIn, because posts that take people off site this is true on LinkedIn and every other social platform are never going to perform as well as as posts that keep people on the page for longer.

Speaker 2:

So a video that's native to LinkedIn, even if you also posted it to YouTube, is always going to perform better. So showing up regularly, as you kind of mentioned before, but also if you're willing to get in front of the camera and share some of your ideas, people just start to feel like they know you, and, of course, know leads to like and trust, and so we're not talking about being manipulative here. We're just talking about these are the things that human beings crave, and I hope everybody on who's listening to your podcast is as ethical as possible, and so they're using these techniques for good, not evil. But that's a great way of kind of really ingratiating yourself to that audience, building trust of that audience. Even if you can't see them, they can see you and they're going to be more open to having a conversation with you when that moment arrives.

Speaker 1:

Yes. So I'm just going to reiterate before we wrap up. First things first is optimize your profile. Make sure the keywords are in there, make sure you're taking advantage of all of those sections you want to create content consistently and check your social selling index, the SSI, to see where you're at and where you can improve. And then, last, is the consent-based selling that you're building relationships. You're not actually selling and you're waiting for them to raise their hand for your solution. Before you bring it up, before you approach it and then take it offline, take it into a call.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, perfect.

Speaker 1:

All right. Did you have any resources that you wanted to share?

Speaker 2:

Well, let's see. So I don't have any resources per se, but I will say that if people like this kind of conversation and they're looking for more, they should check out my podcast, the Agents of Change, because obviously they're already podcast listeners and, depending on when this episode drops, maybe you want to come to Portland, maine, and check out the 10th Annual Agents of Change Digital Marketing Conference. Those are probably the only resources that I came today with Prepared with yes prepared with All right.

Speaker 1:

We will put the links to those in the show notes and this just for your information. Will come out in the fall and when is your conference?

Speaker 2:

October 9th and 10th.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

And there is a digital pass.

Speaker 1:

Okay, cool, then I'll make sure that I do the LinkedIn series earlier in the fall, so it aligns with the conference. All right, and they can find you on LinkedIn. Obviously, can you tell them how to get to you? I am the Rich.

Speaker 2:

Brooks yeah, I am the Rich Brooks on LinkedIn, If they want to check out me anywhere else. Our business is Flight New Media and you can find us at TakeFlight, which is F-L-Y-T-E dot com. But seriously, just start on LinkedIn.

Speaker 1:

Cool. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1:

My pleasure, Sarah, and that's a wrap. I hope you enjoyed this episode and that you got actionable insights that you can implement to start selling your services on LinkedIn without being a pitch slapper or creep. There's a way to do it where you can build genuine relationships that are long-term and go off the platform. I think that's the biggest thing for me is that a lot of the friends that I've made on LinkedIn we've become friends off platform. We have calls, we'll meet up when we go to events and that's something that you can get to, so you can build genuine relationships that also are profitable. It's possible to have both.

Speaker 1:

If you enjoyed this episode, please like, share, subscribe and tell a friend about it. The more people who know about tiny marketing, the more people will listen. So thank you again. I will see you next week. You love all things tiny marketing. Head down to the show notes page and sign up for the wait list to join the tiny marketing club, where you get to work one-on-one with me with trainings, feedback and pop-up coaching. That will help you scale your marketing as a B2B service business. So I'll see you over in the club.

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Sarah Noel Block

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