In this episode we interview a social selling success story, Greg Laemmer. Discover how his mastery on the tennis court served as a prelude to sales success, and the undeniable impact of genuine interactions on LinkedIn. Greg dismantles the myths about traditional sectors being resistant to tech, revealing instead how these platforms can skyrocket your sales figures and foster meaningful client relationships.
Greg enlightens us with savvy strategies including the effective use of video messaging and sharing insightful content. Learn how to keep your brand visible and relevant, even when the market seems to be retracting into a shell. This narrative isn't just about keeping afloat; it's about thriving amid adversity by pivoting to more engaging and interactive ways of doing business.
Greg also talks about his transition from cold calling to strategic commenting, and how leading with value rather than pushing for a sale draws customers in. Tune in and equip yourself with the tools to become a top-tier sales professional in the digital age.
In this episode we interview a social selling success story, Greg Laemmer. Discover how his mastery on the tennis court served as a prelude to sales success, and the undeniable impact of genuine interactions on LinkedIn. Greg dismantles the myths about traditional sectors being resistant to tech, revealing instead how these platforms can skyrocket your sales figures and foster meaningful client relationships.
Greg enlightens us with savvy strategies including the effective use of video messaging and sharing insightful content. Learn how to keep your brand visible and relevant, even when the market seems to be retracting into a shell. This narrative isn't just about keeping afloat; it's about thriving amid adversity by pivoting to more engaging and interactive ways of doing business.
Greg also talks about his transition from cold calling to strategic commenting, and how leading with value rather than pushing for a sale draws customers in. Tune in and equip yourself with the tools to become a top-tier sales professional in the digital age.
Welcome to Social Selling 2.0 Live Show and Podcast, where each week, we explore the future of B2B sales. Social has changed the B2B and professional services landscape forever. Capturing and keeping buyer attention has never been more challenging. Our mission is to help you discover new strategies, new technologies, new go-to-market systems and stay up-to-date with what is working now in B2B sales. Your hosts are Carson Hedy, the number one social seller at Microsoft, tom Burton, a best-selling author and B2B sales specialist, and Brandon Lee, an entrepreneur with multiple 7 and 8 figure exits and a leading voice in LinkedIn social selling. Brandon and Tom also lead social selling 2.0 solutions, which offers turnkey consulting, coaching and training to B2B sales leaders. Now let's start the show.
Speaker 2:Gentlemen, welcome to episode number 62, social Selling 2.0. I'm here with my co-host, brandon, and we're missing our other co-host today, carson, who is, I think, traveling in Dallas, but you never know if he's going to show up all of a sudden, so that's true, but I think we've got a great guest to make up for it.
Speaker 3:Absolutely Well. Carson's in Texas having good Tex-Mex and doing a little bit of work, so he's not going to join us today.
Speaker 2:Drinking margaritas or something like that. Probably Five o'clock somewhere.
Speaker 2:That's right. So, greg, welcome. Thank you. Yeah, we're glad to have you and I've learned a little bit about your story, but you have quite a story on using LinkedIn and Social and we haven't done a lot of case studies recently on the show. So we're really looking forward to kind of hearing that journey and, if you're listening online, please jump in on the comments and ask questions. I think, Greg, you've got a lot to share with us and a lot of good insights as we go along, so let's get right into it.
Speaker 3:I got something here, though I'm going to ask anybody that's joining us and Butch from Atlanta, thanks for joining us. Look, today's show is a special show for producers, for sales producers, because this is a case study. This is you hearing from somebody who's in the trenches doing this day in and day out. I know sometimes there's people they look at us and they don't think we actually do this. I mean, we do this day in and day out too, but because we sit in the role that we're in, it's like we have some magic powers that we get to not do the work. Right, we just show up and magic happens.
Speaker 3:It's not the case. We've got to do the work too, but in this case, greg is here and Greg's going to be able to tell you that it takes you know, the work that it takes to do, but he's also going to share with you the value that comes out of it. And as we name this going from average to ace, when I talked to Greg the other day, he's like I'm the number one producer and it wouldn't have happened without LinkedIn. I'm like we got to have you on the show and tell this story. So for everybody listening, love to have you in the comments. Love to have your questions for Greg and man. Let's have some fun with it, greg. Sorry to interrupt, tom, I'm going to do, oh, no.
Speaker 2:I think that sets the stage even better. So, greg, start off by telling us a little bit about who you are, your background, what you do, and then we can kind of dig into some specific questions.
Speaker 4:Yeah, thank you, brandon, that was a little extra nice. I'm probably going to get trolled a lot by my friends on this. Well, they're going to troll you.
Speaker 3:I wanted them to troll you in the comments. I want to see, want to hear it. I want to hear it.
Speaker 4:Make this fun.
Speaker 3:Go ahead and troll the way.
Speaker 4:I may not be the top producer for long. I guess you just have to check the scoreboard almost every day and see where we really are Background-wise. So I grew up in the Midwest and went to school at Vaparaiso University and, like every good salesman, I started out as a tennis pro and teaching tennis was my foray into sales, and I tell people that teaching tennis was more like a boot camp for sales and most of the folks that I taught had more money than time and I had to really figure out how to communicate with people at an early age, straight out of college, didn't know what I was really doing and kind of learned that I had a knack for selling, so it was a natural transition.
Speaker 4:But after the tennis pro days, I got into selling engines and generators and since then moved into the emissions world, and engine and exhaust emissions is what we're into today, and we sell all kinds of highly engineered products and all kinds of not highly engineered products. We're little mufflers all the way up to huge emissions systems that sit outside of data centers. All that to say that we sell a highly engineered product, but sales is still sales. It doesn't really change based on the type of sales, based on the type of stuff or service that you're selling. You still need to connect and communicate and be authentic. So the background that I have in sales is probably different than most Similar in the way that we make things out of metal and we engineer products, but different in that people sell all kinds of things out there services and all types of different things and I think one of the things that can apply across all of those markets is using LinkedIn, and I think that's the main reason we're here talking today, and LinkedIn eventually helped me a lot.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I think it's even extra special the fact that you don't work for a tech company Right, or a SaaS company. You're working for a traditional manufacturer, even though it's engineered. We hear a lot from people that we talk to and industries outside of tech oh, my customers aren't on LinkedIn. They're not on LinkedIn. Yeah, well, that's totally true.
Speaker 4:I listen to a lot of your stuff, fellas, and I get confused a lot because a lot of the things that you all talk about are stuff that doesn't compute with a guy like me. I'm used to talking about exhaust and talking about steel, or talking about a product that you're making and physically shipping and freight and things like that. Talking about the non-manufactured product is not something that I'm into, but it still translates. It's still the same thing ultimately, and I had to learn that kind of the hard way because I thought exactly that when I started this. That's exactly what I thought. This wasn't LinkedIn's, not for people like us.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's the conversation I want to have. Great, what were you doing? Traditional business you make stuff, you build stuff, you sell stuff like we're into manufacturing, we're in, we're talking to distributors and manufacturers like good, old-fashioned business. How are you selling prior to LinkedIn?
Speaker 4:so probably like a lot of folks in my market, we were spending a lot of time on the road doing a lot of driving, doing a lot of knocking on doors, some cold calling here and there, even even though much of our business is relationship-based, because people like me have been in the same market for many years, you get to know a lot of people. But the traditional way of going to market for us and for me was getting in the car, driving from place to place and and hoping to get a conversation or thinking you have something set up, you know you, you make a plan to go see somebody and you drive two or three hours and you just make it on time and the guy bails on. That was the story of my life pre-covid, and it's not that that I'm uninteresting, it's that sometimes the stuff may not be that interesting, or or the person you're going to see has more important things to do than talk to a vendor. And I was that guy. If we had, we had certain sales reps that would show up and we'd all run and hide. When you know when the guy would show up, it's like oh he's here. You know everybody get on the phone and pretend like you're busy so you can't. You know you don't get railed into lunch with this guy, so traditionally we would, we would get in the car, I would drive around. We have plenty of success that way got into doing regular lunch and learns in person. Those became even more difficult to physically manage because you've got to to get to a place when everybody's in town for a sales meeting or whatever it is, and and manage the food and and all of those things. So so it it.
Speaker 4:It was very, very traditional sales it was. It was about as straightforward and grinding as as it gets, calling on dealers, calling on distributors and and kind of hoping for the best and managing your, your contacts. I had a, I had a book of business cards and and I carry my business cards with me everywhere and get frustrated if I didn't have one with me and apologize. You know you didn't have a business card when you showed up. So that's. I think I was like everybody else yeah, it's interesting.
Speaker 2:Bob says here who's dating himself? He says with a trade rag and a pocket full of dimes I see the dimes or for the pay phones back to me.
Speaker 4:I had pager, I had a pager. Okay, I had a pager and my boss my boss would send a page if he really wanted you to call. You get a 911. You got to pull over and you need to call the boss and find out what you did wrong or who you're supposed to go see. But that was the pager.
Speaker 2:Days is what I is kind of when I started so do you see that the transition from the in-person motion that you're just we're talking about that really get hand-grenaded with COVID, and that's what required you to do something different yeah, it did get hand-grenaded.
Speaker 4:I mean, what, what? What I think it evolved into was really allowing folks like us to be far more tactical about our face-to-face meetings. I mean, frankly, if you were meeting somebody face-to-face during the COVID time, it was, you know, it was a random type of situation. It was somebody you really needed to see and you figured out a way to do it. But it but since then, what it's done, at least for me, is it's created an atmosphere of the face-to-face call being far more tactful and tactical in nature and and creative meaning.
Speaker 4:You're not just showing up to talk about nothing. You've got to have a reason to be in front of somebody, because anymore you need to have a good reason to get in front of somebody, which is still the best way. I mean, I like hanging out and talking with you guys like this, but it'd be a lot more fun if we had a beer and we were hanging out, you know, face-to-face. But if you can't do that, when you have that chance to do it, it's got to be far more tactful and that's what we learned so what was the well?
Speaker 3:when you started then looking at LinkedIn, it was out of necessity. What did you start looking at what? What was the motivation? What was the first step like? How did you, how did you start addressing this whole LinkedIn crazy?
Speaker 4:yeah. So I joined LinkedIn in 2009 I just looked it up yesterday because I wasn't sure how long ago it was. So, so I signed up in 2009 because my best friend was, was and I had, I had, I think I was in between jobs or doing something and my or I was, I wasn't, I was working. And my best friend, who was a marketing guy, said hey, man, you got to join LinkedIn. It's the, it's the place to be, it's where everybody is. I'm like whatever, you know, it's all, that's all tech stuff, you guys, you know, I was the last guy to join Facebook, I think and says these guys, you know, we're pushing on me to join LinkedIn. I didn't understand why. You know what's the point, and and it really wasn't until well, and I just thought, I think, like a lot of people, that that LinkedIn was was where are you? What you would use when you get fired and need another job. So if you connected with with all the recruiters, and that's where all the recruiters hang out, and that's what we knew about LinkedIn is, all the recruiters are there and they're just floating around waiting for you to dip your toe in the water and they snatch you and they'll help you find another job. So that was my mindset for for ten years. Was that's what LinkedIn is good for?
Speaker 4:When COVID came around or I guess I can back up a little bit prior to COVID I started to think about LinkedIn a little bit differently and I started to focus on on connections and on my network, realizing that you know that Rolodex I was talking about, of that stack of business cards.
Speaker 4:I frankly, about right next to me, that stack of business cards really, really needs to be better, better organized and and we need to be able to grow that. So I started getting out of my comfort zone in LinkedIn by sending invitations to anybody and everybody that was connected to our market. So we would use I would use the tactic I'd start with everybody that I knew and then I'd slowly widen the circle of markets and things connected to an engine or emissions, whatever it might be, and I would send blind connection requests, which was a little scary to me because I kind of was under the impression that you don't connect with people on LinkedIn unless you shake in their hand, and it freaked me out a little bit. And people would say what do you mean? You're just sending connections to people you don't know. I'm like well, yeah, like, why not? What's the harm in connecting with someone?
Speaker 3:And so we started all cold. It was all cold.
Speaker 4:Connection requests initial yeah, very few of them were on were started with a discussion. Most of it was just during pre-COVID. I made a goal to set. I set a goal for myself to get 5,000 connections and it was just something to do in the evening. I'd sit there on LinkedIn and scroll through and use the algorithm and just click connect until LinkedIn told me to stop and max me out. And then you'd wait for a day or two and then you'd come back in and do it again.
Speaker 3:Now, did you send a message with it, or you just hit connect, connect, connect.
Speaker 4:Usually it was just connect, connect.
Speaker 4:Connect because I hoped that the relevance to their business to mind would be an automatic oh okay, we have a connection, we use an engine for this, or we were a mission's consultants or we're an engine dealer. Some of the obvious ones were pretty easy. And if that person didn't make that connection market to market and they didn't wanna connect, okay, then, that's your choice. And those folks are still out there, right? Where's the folks that close off their LinkedIn to connections and they won't receive a connection unless you send a note along that shows that you know them or you know their email address?
Speaker 4:I kind of bypassed those. So I built up a solid network of folks right before COVID. And that's COVID started and everybody kind of freaked out.
Speaker 3:So you had a little premonition of COVID, is what you're saying?
Speaker 4:I wish I could say it that. I wish I could say it like that. But I did talk about the fact during COVID that had I not expanded my network the way I did prior to COVID, I wouldn't have had the connective success that I had with LinkedIn thereafter, because it kind of gave me a head start, I should say, to staying connected to what I thought were just our customers. And eventually, what I learned was just staying connected to the market and helping our business stay connected to the market. During a time when we were all scrambling around trying to figure out how to stay connected, I mean we had meetings about hey, what are we gonna do? Can't go do the old drive around and knock on the door thing. What are we gonna do, gang? How are we gonna make this go when we're trying to sell equipment but we can't go see anybody? And that was the catalyst for me. I should, that's a great word, but that's what happened. It was okay. I panicked, and sales panic is one of the worst kinds of panics. That's when you're afraid that the world's gonna fall apart, you're not gonna sell anything again, or people are gonna forget who you are, and that's kind of what I was worried about. I was afraid of either being forgotten or losing relevance, or I was afraid of what the other guy was gonna do, and so we were kicking around ideas and I decided to do a.
Speaker 4:I did a couple of things. First thing I did was I sent some video messages to customers as soon as COVID happened. I recorded a few short videos and tried to send them to a few customers. I'm not even sure if their email boxes received those because of the size of the file, but I was trying everything. And then I did a little catalyst video little, this is what a catalyst is and this is how it works kind of video, and lots of people saw it.
Speaker 4:I'm not sure if the word was impressions on LinkedIn at the time or if it was views I'm not sure what they used then but it got traction and I had our company name, miratjet, right up there at the top of the video and it would I unknowingly put it at the very beginning of the video, at the top of the video only learned thereafter that that's not a bad idea for those who scroll on LinkedIn and just those who are kind of passing by your video. We'll see your little logo pop up and hey, dude, you're marketing, right, you're all of a sudden you're marketing your company and you're not even trying. It's just happening organically.
Speaker 3:Wait a minute. A salesperson doing marketing for the company, Like what's going on here.
Speaker 4:Yeah right, we talked about that, brandon, and that's the. I don't know if we referred to it as marketing at the time.
Speaker 3:I think to me it was panic.
Speaker 3:Fair, that's fair. But you know, I wanna pause for everybody to see is that what I heard you say is, as a salesperson, you created videos and published them, which means you were acting more like a marketer. And I believe that there's really really bad, horrible definitions of social selling, which is why I used to wear the shirts that say social selling sucks, because I think the word sucks right, it doesn't mean anything. And I talked to Mark Hunter this week. I was on his show and he's got a chapter in one of his books that says social selling is neither social nor selling. So nobody knows what it is.
Speaker 3:But for anyone listening, especially the background that you come from, the industries that you come from, is those activities were important for you. And what I heard you say was to stay relevant. I mean, it was a little bit of fear driven, but you needed to stay relevant. So you're creating videos, putting them in LinkedIn, putting your company logo on it, because you wanted people to see you, you wanted them to remember you. You wanted to stay relevant and sounds like it worked.
Speaker 4:Well, I think it worked, and one of the reasons why I wanted to reach out to you guys and ask a couple of these questions and it's one of the first things I said to you, brandon, when we talked last week was I didn't think of it as relevance at the time. I thought of it as still panicking. Oh my God, I gotta make a connection somehow. But that's the way when you start looking at what the effect of this is. I was trying to explain to you the phenomenon that I was experiencing, not knowing there was a name for it, but I was experiencing this. I think we're making good connections. You know, I think this is happening. I feel like people are paying attention, but I don't know for sure. I'm not sure that they're, but I think, because I talk to people who have seen things and they mentioned that they saw it.
Speaker 3:But I don't, I don't-. Did they like it or did they comment, or did they just tell you later that they saw it?
Speaker 4:They just told me later that they saw it and I'm like wait a minute. So that's the thing.
Speaker 3:See, that's and that was. I'm sorry, tom, go ahead.
Speaker 2:No, I was just gonna say when you were back prior, when you were prior to COVID, you were doing FaceTime, right, facetime. They remembered you because you showed up, right, you were there, you brought donuts, you did whatever, all that kind of stuff. But this is what's different in Brandon. Maybe this is what you were gonna say right In social.
Speaker 2:Here we put ourself out there and we don't necessarily get the immediate acknowledgement that's like, hey, thanks for the donuts or good to see you, or the handshake, or whatever the case may be. We don't get that. But yet there's a lot. I mean, we have this every day. Every day I seem to run into somebody who I had no idea ever watched this show or anything I've ever done, say something and we call it. You can call it dark social, you can call it, we call it the anonymous zone, whatever you wanna call it. And probably at that time for you, greg, it was probably like cross my fingers and am I really gonna trust that this is working here? But it's very different than the FaceTime where you're shaking hands and doing those things.
Speaker 3:So when you say FaceTime, you mean literal FaceTime.
Speaker 2:I'm using FaceTime. Oh, literal FaceTime, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, all these words and, Greg, did you go through and there's some great comments in here that I wanna get to as well but did you go through that oh shit stage where you're like I'm doing this and no one cares?
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, well, I still kinda do that. I probably get ripped for it in the background fairly often. But yeah, I absolutely figured well.
Speaker 4:I don't know if this is and I had the same question to you last week even which is what we'll get to in a second. I'm sure it's the. Yeah, I'm pretty sure people are paying attention and enough that are probably moving the needle in our direction, whether directly or indirectly, and that's one of the things that I think has been a step change for us in the way we go to market, at least using my platform to get the word out. Is that dark social? What did you call it, tom? Anonymous Zone.
Speaker 2:Anonymous zone.
Speaker 4:yeah, anonymous zone I kinda like the anonymous zone too. It's not quite as it's not quite as dark.
Speaker 3:It's not as dark, dark, social.
Speaker 4:But I did. It certainly did cross my mind most of the time and I kind of learned through the process that, not to, not to you know, not to talk it down, but the content of the stuff Is it really that important or not? The you know the content? Yeah, in theory, yes, what you're talking about is important, or the theme that you're talking about. But, frankly, I've only done like you call them, brandon talking head videos. So far I haven't, I haven't gone to the next step, which is which is what I'm hoping you guys can talk to the group about a little bit because I I was doing something that was so far out of my comfort zone that I was, I was, I was a little nervous about it and I wasn't thinking of what kind of impact it might be having. So so, yeah, there were plenty of times I thought, you know, I don't know if I should do another one.
Speaker 2:Let's hit some of these questions here that are coming up.
Speaker 3:Yeah, can I say this while you're doing that, tom, real quick. Yeah, it reminds me of if James is watching James Gilman. He's a president of a company in the office supply space and you know we were he's one of our customers were helping him with a bunch of videos and things and you know it was going good. We were showing him some data and he was like, okay, this is, and you know we're like six weeks into it and he went to his 20-year high school reunion and Then on Monday the next week he's calling me. He's like, oh my gosh, I went to my high school reunion and everybody just kept coming up going, dude, you're killing it on LinkedIn. They never commented, they didn't like. If they didn't even hit a like, he didn't even know that they were paying attention. But he's like, everybody's coming up to him going, dude, I see you all over LinkedIn and I think that's kind of what you were Experiencing or what you were, what you were referencing there, still am, I still am.
Speaker 4:I'm Experiencing that and I was looking at some of these.
Speaker 2:So first of all, don says your videos were comedic and real to your personality, so Resonated we're gonna have to go pull some of those videos out of archive and in play them.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think this was a good question that I think comes up a lot from John is Did you find that your videos drove leads and we've kind of talked a little bit about this, or just a Loud you to go into cold calling with a bit more material to reference? How do you feel like? Or words, or was there a third option C there, greg, which is more like none of the above, but it really helped me give more breath and end, you know, just overall brand reach.
Speaker 4:It Not initially, it initially didn't really drive leads per se, but it has. I can. I can honestly say now I've sold stuff. I mean not huge ticket, nothing like, nothing like Carson's done where he gets to brag about a nine a figure project off of LinkedIn but but I certainly have Made connections that turned into business, pulled some old connections out that have that have maintained some business, and I think it. I think it added just a little bit of authenticity, authenticity to the process. So so if I were talking to someone that had seen it like in a dark way, they they already kind of know me a little bit from that perspective. So if I believe it's helped in a few ways of not just tangible purchase orders, and where they're in.
Speaker 2:This is a question from Rick. Were there any of your video that had, you know, maybe a certain style or a certain type of video that At least tended to get more views that you could see or comments or like anything?
Speaker 4:And Rick was in one that the best I think the best performing video that I've had was was Rick and I go and fishing and.
Speaker 4:Something silly thing about fishing for opportunities with with Rick on his boat and didn't talk about anything related to business. We had our hats on and and that was it. It was a, it was a hey, we're, we're fishing, and you know just some silliness and in it it it was the best performing video that I've had. Maybe it was the motion, maybe it was just Not the typical thing, but but I think it kind of boils down to the authenticity baseline. It's it's. You can't hide off. You can't hide that in front of a camera.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's really good and and I think I want to pause there for everybody You're on a boat, you're fishing, you're just chatting and it becomes your most viewed, your most commented on, like that. That should force all of us to take a pause and go. What is going on here with social? Because we, we get so caught up and I like to say, like we hide behind our title, right, we're, I'm gonna do a video and I got to have the right script and I got to be all polished and it's. It's not the ones that people engage with, the ones that people engage with and therefore the ones that have the most Networking ability, connection building rapport. The next time you call people that watch that video, they're like, oh, I'm gonna get on the phone and talk to great because of that video.
Speaker 3:Like they're, the videos it create the most real, tangible value for us Are the ones where we just start filming, talking and being ourselves, and it's such an Antithesis, in so many ways, of the way people think about LinkedIn. I think, especially in traditional businesses, we think we've got to be so polished and done and it's just not true. So I think for everybody it's just worth the pause to hear and that's why I was so excited for Greg to be on the show and to tell a story is because it's it's a traditional business and Greg know this. I don't mean this offensive to you and anyway, you didn't do anything fancy, you just showed up.
Speaker 4:Yeah that's that's.
Speaker 4:I made a note that you know it was. It was One of the. You know, one of the biggest tips I think I can give on on this kind of activity is is just doing, just just, no matter what it is like. It doesn't have to be scripted I'm notorious for not scripting anything that I do anyway, so it's not. I'm not a script person to begin with, but you are right, it is just the action of getting into it. That is the hardest step. Once you're in there, it's, you know, like we said, it's not necessarily the content, it's the authenticity and the fact that you're out there doing it, kind of a little out of your comfort zone, but you're yourself.
Speaker 3:So yeah, and I got to do, you know, a fist bump to Rick, because Rick just kind of teed up the. So, greg, which of your videos got the most engagement? It just happened to be the one on my boat, so I'm just asking this question.
Speaker 4:He knows exactly what he was doing.
Speaker 3:Good job, Rick Well played. Well played, my friend Well played.
Speaker 2:Greg, do you only do videos or do you also just do images and stuff? Or is it almost what you do, mostly video.
Speaker 4:So what I've been doing mostly is video. I share a lot of things. I, you know, of course, participate with the company. If marketing is sending out video of X or a product description or somebody else, post something. I'm that cheerleader. But where I'm failing right now is on my engagement and Brandon, you and Tom, I think, kind of show about it how important just engaging is. And if you're not the video person or you're not whatever, be the engagement person, ask the questions, create the discussion, disrupt a little bit, and it helps pull eyeballs back your way.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think you know the getting the courage to start posting content and then commenting on other people's content. It's that one to touch and what happens is more people start coming to view your profile and even if they don't like or comment, I mean that's the hardest thing, right? We're so scared, you know, is anybody paying attention? That we need that immediate gratification, and so many people quit because they don't get that immediate gratification. But I love this story you said I think you know Tom Kevin's story that he put in the comments. I don't know if it'll show the whole thing, but you know I love it. Thanks, Kevin.
Speaker 3:You know he was at physical therapy yesterday, ran into a friend's wife hadn't seen since before COVID it's almost four years and the first thing she says is I watch all your videos and LinkedIn and I come to your podcast whenever I can Like. This is the, this is see, this. It sites me because when people experience and that's what I say a lot of times like CEOs, especially once you experience it, you're like, oh my gosh, I got to get everyone on my team doing this and that's how you can dominate the newsfeed. But you've got to take that risk and try and do a few things and all it takes is a couple little wins like that, Like James came back and he's like Okay, we need to do more, this is working.
Speaker 2:You know you're getting your validation offline right Versus online. Yeah, but that's okay as long as you and I want to hit another question here from Daniel. He says you know we talked about the video. Is the subject of the video or the content is important, as how often you post and maybe those two go together. Greg, is there a cadence that you use in terms of schedule, or is it? Hey, I just feel like doing a video one day and I'll do it, or?
Speaker 4:that's kind of. That's kind of it. You know, what I realized is that cadence is pretty darn important and I'm not. I am not as consistent as I could be, I'm not as frequent as I could be, I don't repost like I should be. I find a lot of my own little deficits there. But frequency, I think, is probably as important, if not more important, than the actual content. The content is clearly important If people who are actually watching and not letting you know, I think the content, the content, is important. But if you're, if it's infrequency, I think that's that's. That's like not showing up to the trade show. People notice, right, so that's what we always talked about at the trade shows you better be there, because if you're not there, people are going to talk about you not being there.
Speaker 3:Or worse, they don't because they don't even remember you.
Speaker 4:Right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So so let's, let's kind of go to the next step, so kind of rewinding pre COVID lots of driving meetings, in-person meetings, got to COVID, tried different things, that kind of just stay relevant. Now here you are. As you said when you first came on, you're the number one producer in your company, right? You're selling. You're selling manufactured goods. This isn't tech.
Speaker 3:Are you getting called out?
Speaker 4:I'm sure I'm getting called out already, whether it's public or not.
Speaker 2:Okay, I don't see any symbols or anything coming through the comments. It'll come. But so what are you doing now? Like you know in post COVID, what are you doing now? What's your day in the life look like, what's your sales motion and how do you use and make everything come together Again, knowing that you're in a very traditional business?
Speaker 4:Yeah, Well, the part of this that I'm kind of stuck and one of the reasons I was so happy that Brandon reached out to me was I had questions and really it's the I don't know what to do next. That is, I know that we've kind of hit a wall. I'm not going to throw out, it's not our own marketing department, it's not me, it's the fact that I think we've hit a marketing wall, and Brandon again taught me another term. I'm not a marketing person, but he talked about push versus pull. So where I'm looking at, what I'm looking at today, is the engagement part.
Speaker 4:So top of my list on to do things as opposed to, you know, in addition to getting more purchase orders and selling more stuff, engaging more on LinkedIn whether it's just working off of my own posts, working off of others, using the comment section and engaging with people is probably number one. But number two, talking about the engagement part, talking about pull marketing, what I think we do most of the time as a marketing department, as a sales department, is we push everything out the door and we hold it up to the window. Everybody sees it. Here's our spec sheets, here's our, here's a video about this, here's the product. But what we're not doing is the next step, which is involving customers and partners and those folks in the discussion with us and showing and demonstrating the difference between us and the other guys in doing that.
Speaker 4:So I think for 2024, my push is engagement and trying to take what I've done and leverage the network that I have to pull more than push. Push is still good. You still got to get stuff out, but we got to pull. We got to pull engagement in to kind of tighten the reins on the folks that we, that we're talking to. That makes sense because, brandon, you taught me that anyway.
Speaker 3:Hey, well, we'll just do a little plug here then for our group coaching program, the you know the $1.99 a month you get a license for fist bump, you get the group coaching, you know. Just a little plug for that one. We've actually have not sold our own services well, on our own show, because we have so much fun doing the show we actually need to start selling better.
Speaker 2:Brandon, can you go into a little bit more detail on what you guys went over as it relates to the push-first poll and maybe some of the strategies you shared with them?
Speaker 3:I'm going to let Greg do it. He can lead it. We taught him.
Speaker 4:Well, yeah, so my dilemma was I don't know what to do next and I don't know if I'm, I don't know if I have it together. I got another folk, another guy on my team who, who had the you know, basically the same idea in parallel, which was what we really need to be doing is is is what I just described, which was which was engaging more, whether it's with our own internal subject matter experts or top folks in X, y or Z. Get them into a scenario like this, have a conversation and then work that conversation into posts, into interactive engagement on the platform. And that's where I get stuck, because I'm only as good at holding my phone up.
Speaker 1:I mean, I only graduated using an email, right.
Speaker 4:I, I don't have the, I don't have the production capability and the wherewithal on my phone, or or the mechanical capability, av capability, to do that work, the, the, the editing of that media and how to create those cool little shorts and things like that. That that's, that's the, that's the stuck part and that's the lack of pull that Brandon was explaining to me, that that there is another step and that you guys do it every day. And I see it.
Speaker 2:It was just there's a there's a very so I think that's a great point. So, just to summarize what I'm hearing you say is, up until now, you've just been pushing out your information yourself or whatever. Really, where you're looking to go is your next step is to take more of an interview style, like we're doing whether we're doing it here or you see another podcast and incorporate your other colleagues, your customers, your prospects, really get a conversation going to go to that next level of of relevance and the next level of content that you're providing, going forward, and you're trying to work out the logistics of that, which I totally understand. But that's where you're looking to go as you look into next year.
Speaker 4:Exactly.
Speaker 4:That's exactly what we need to do Highly, highly complicated stuff where, where it's not going to be done by a push white paper or a push you know spec sheet, you need to draw folks in to help them understand the market that you're in, because what we do is pretty complex In front of actually selling equipment. There's an awful lot of stuff that happens before that that that we get engaged in every day. It's like it's like taking your everyday work and kind of putting it out there, and I think that's the different. It's staying authentic and doing the stuff we do every day, but just encapsulating it and serving it out and that way you can engage on it and use it as opposed to just pushing it.
Speaker 2:And I want to ask one more question, just stepping back again, because my guess is it's going through other people's minds Is, up until now, or even over the last year or two, just with what you've been doing. Are you also cold calling? I know you said your in-person meetings are much more strategic, right, they're scheduled, they have much more purpose to them. Maybe then the donut runs or whatever you were doing before, right, but are you doing cold calling and other outreach that you're combining with these? Are you finding the one plus one equals three, because I'm sure everybody's saying you're going, hey, you're just not seeing your collective PO's.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, no, it's both. I mean yes, it's you have to do. It is one plus one equals three. The way I, the way I use the LinkedIn platform to cold call, I use the Teams platform to cold call, where you know back in the day you need to get someone's buy-in to get an appointment with them on their calendar or whatever. With LinkedIn, if you're connected, you can send them a private note, and with Teams, I would simply do the. I'm going to get your email, I'm going to put something on your calendar and make you tell me no, as opposed to hoping that you can get an appointment, that they call you back and schedule it and put it in their calendar. It's, it's. It's a little more, it's an aggressive, a more aggressive approach to cold calling, but it's still kind of cold calling, it's just. It's just done with a little more smoothness and a little more charisma.
Speaker 2:It's outbound, it's outreach but you're doing it with a, with a bit more, hopefully, warm and a bit more trust as you go into the call or the conversation. It's, it's there. So you're you're so as you look ahead into what we were just talking about, you'll still be doing those same things. I'm reiterating this because, brandon, we get the question a lot all the time. Well, this seems too passive. You're just waiting here, waiting for something to happen, and you're not being passive at all. You're using this to actually make your, your aggressive actions, if you want to call it that, or your actions more efficient, more effective and get better results, rather than just, you know, getting a bunch of cold calls, leaving a million messages and getting nothing called back.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's a tool. It's one more tool. I mean, you know, to, to horn, to. I'm a good, I'm a good sales guy without LinkedIn Right, I think I can do the job just fine without it, but, but as a tool it's extremely important and and I think that the issues that I would have, or folks that are not using it, like people on our team, for example, who, who, who, have become more engaged, I think I think if you interviewed them, you get the same, you get the same answer. Yeah, it's, it feels helpful, kind of the same stuff that I started. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's a, it's a tool that's now it's become our handshake out there in business.
Speaker 1:It's become our resume.
Speaker 4:It's become our, our list of accomplishments. It's it's all of those things, it's our old briefcase, all wrapped in the into one thing now. So it's just one more tool in the tool belt.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and there's and there's tactics to it as well, just like when we, when we doorknocked if we called doorknock, there was, hey, what's our strategy? To go, try to get through the gatekeeper at the front desk, right. There was also the strategy of, hey, should I show up with donuts or bagels? There was a strategy of should I show up with tickets to a bowl game? Like, we had different ways of of coming at it and inside of LinkedIn, there's different ways of coming at it as well. But you know, for those that get curious and you go a little bit deeper in it, like we can, you know what is our strategy with strategic commenting. Well, you know what the hell does that mean, brandon? Like, well, what, if, what, if you got your, you go to your your tier A customer or prospects and you go to their LinkedIn page and you start looking at what the company posts and you comment on it, because you know who sees the company's post People that work at the company, right. And then, when you go deeper, then you go and you look at the company and you go, look at all the people in the company and you go, hey, let me see who's posted a piece of content in the last 30 days and you can go through and you start to see who's pretty consistent at publishing content and you go, okay, well, let's put them in a list and we'll go comment on their stuff too, and it's.
Speaker 3:It's the same thing. It's just a different digital social, whatever strategy, it's a tool. But we want to go to this company and we want to get to know them and we want them to get to know us so that we could eventually get to a conversation with the right person and present our opportunity. It's the exact same thing, we just come at it differently and it's not passive. Publishing content is a means to an end. But if you look at LinkedIn and just say, oh, I'm going to go publish content and wait for, you know, rainbows to appear and PO's to fall out of the sky, yeah, you're right, it sucks, it doesn't work and you shouldn't. You shouldn't just do that. But when you build these things as systems and you put them together as this plus this, plus that, that's where you start to get traction and that's where you go from average to ace.
Speaker 4:That's fantastic and I used. I think you just reminded me of a tactic I used to use and I don't think I've done it recently, but early times on LinkedIn, when I was starting to do this I would I would see a competitor's post and I would immediately go find out who liked it. Yes, I got to know I was one of my customers liking somebody else's post and that's the case. I got to get on that guy. Yeah, you know they're they're liking something.
Speaker 3:That that you know my Well, let's, let's flush it some of these out. So number one, and this is what we're talking about in our group coaching session tomorrow. So, if anybody wants to join the group's coaching session, we're going to deep dive on this tomorrow. How do you create activities? Or how do you do activities that create people going to look at your profile? And the reason it's important is because if someone looks at your profile, either they're going to send a connection request, which is a great time to accept it, and ask for a call if, if they're your ICP, right, there's somebody you want to talk to. But if they come and look at your profile and they don't ask for a connection, it's a great time to send them one, right?
Speaker 4:That's exactly what you did to me.
Speaker 3:I know.
Speaker 4:It was perfect. It was perfect, and look what it did.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and then here's. Here's the other piece, and this is encouragement for companies to to for live shows like this. You know, here we're going to open up the curtain here and go behind the wizard when we we bring on guests to our show. In this case, greg invited a bunch of people to come and see him on our show, which is awesome for him, it's awesome for us. He came and spent his time and we have this conversation. But for for Greg and for us, we can go.
Speaker 3:Look at everybody. That it was everybody that said they wanted to come and watch the show. There's a list of people right there. Go and look at it, see who you want to talk to. You know, if you're just watching the show, you go and you send him a message. Oh, I want to meet them. You send them a message and said hey, I registered for that show too. I thought there was some really good stuff about it. What do you think about it? When you start a conversation, I think there's all these different ways that we can be proactive and aggressive with our outreach without being an aggressive jerk in our outreach.
Speaker 2:Well stated.
Speaker 3:I get fired up. Greg, this was awesome. You got me all set up on my soapbox again.
Speaker 4:Good, that's my job to get you all riled up and excited about sales Right.
Speaker 2:Who's coaching? Who here, Brandon? I don't know.
Speaker 3:You're encouraging us.
Speaker 2:That's right. Well, greg, appreciate your time today. We'll have you back next year as you kind of continue to progress on this journey, because I think your journey is very real and I think it's like I said it was in the beginning. It's so good to hear somebody who's not intact and not you know. There's just in a traditional business using this where we get a lot of times oh, it doesn't work in this business or they're not on LinkedIn. Everybody's on LinkedIn in one way, shape or form, regardless of the that you just may not know. It is really what the question is.
Speaker 3:Hey, can I, can I throw out this tactic for everybody, If you're still watching, and for Tom Greg and I? I'm going to challenge us to do this too. When we're done, pull out your camera and do a video and say you know, tom Greg, and I will say, hey, we just recorded the show and say two or three things that you found valuable from it and publish that tomorrow. Right, if you're watching the show, pull out your camera and go. I just watched this show and these are two or three things I found valuable about it and publish that tomorrow. But then, when you do it and you're going to go oh my gosh, what if no one cares?
Speaker 3:And remember what we talked about at the beginning of the show Greg experienced it, james Gilman's experienced it, people that didn't comment and they didn't like they're watching. And then when they see you in real life and I think Kevin mentioned it in the comments too they see you in real life and they go you're a LinkedIn rock star. That is so awesome, it works, it opens doors and I forget who asked the question. But yeah, it influences your cold outreach, because when they're you're publishing and they're seeing you and then you call them, they're like oh, I know that guy and they answer the call. They return the call, they return the email. All of it is being influenced. We may not have perfect data to know oh, this LinkedIn video got three extra people to respond to. We don't know that data. It's anonymous zone, it's dark social, but we know it works because people go from average days.
Speaker 2:I think that's a great place to end right there, greg. Thank you so much, greg. Thank you again. We will keep in touch on your journey as you're involved, and, yeah, I think you have a good strategy going into 2024.
Speaker 4:Thank you. I really appreciate the time. Thank you.
Speaker 2:All right, everybody. Carson should be back next week. I know we have quite a list of guests coming up coming into the new year as well, so have a great week and we'll see you next Wednesday. Bye everybody. Hey, tom Burton here and I wanted to personally thank you for listening, for watching today's episode of Social Selling 2.0. If you enjoyed or found value in today's show, please share with your friends and colleagues. Also, we'd really appreciate it if you could leave a review on iTunes or your favorite podcast outlet. And please also subscribe to our YouTube channel and join our free online community at socialselling20.com. There, you'll get free access to the latest social selling resources training sessions, webinars and can collaborate with other social selling professionals. Thank you again for listening and I look forward to seeing you in our next episode.