In episode 75 of "Mastering Modern Selling," we delve into the evolving world of digital sales with guest David JP Fisher. Unpack the essence of digital-first approaches and human connections in sales with actionable insights from Fisher's extensive experience.
Key Points:
David JP Fisher's insights remind us that while digital tools are indispensable, the human element remains central to sales success. By integrating digital strategies with genuine interactions, sales professionals can navigate the modern selling landscape more effectively.
In episode 75 of "Mastering Modern Selling," we delve into the evolving world of digital sales with guest David JP Fisher. Unpack the essence of digital-first approaches and human connections in sales with actionable insights from Fisher's extensive experience.
Key Points:
David JP Fisher's insights remind us that while digital tools are indispensable, the human element remains central to sales success. By integrating digital strategies with genuine interactions, sales professionals can navigate the modern selling landscape more effectively.
Welcome to Mastering Modern Selling Relationships Social and AI in the buyer-centric age. Join host Brandon Lee, founder of Fist Bump, alongside Microsoft's number one social seller Carson V Heddy and Tom Burton, author of the Revenue Zone and co-founder of Leet Smart, as we explore the strategies and stories behind successful executives and sales professionals. Dive in to business growth, personal development and the pursuit of excellence with industry leaders. Whether you're a seasoned executive or an aspiring leader, this podcast is your backstage pass to today's business landscape. This is Mastering Modern Selling, brought to you by Fist Bump.
Speaker 2:It's good to go. We're gonna find out if we are actually on a go or not. No more tech pros. Everybody welcome to Mastering Modern Selling. Episode 75, kind of 75 part two Carson.
Speaker 3:Is this like the naked gun or is it Part two?
Speaker 2:Part two yeah, so for people on the podcast, you don't know this we went live on Wednesday like we normally do. Carson and I were in the same room for the first time and the video didn't work, I think the system just overloaded.
Speaker 3:There was just too much magic with D-Fish.
Speaker 4:Too much fire.
Speaker 3:It was. It blew up, but we're back, we're back, we're back.
Speaker 2:So yeah, if you're on the podcast. Just our little selfish plea if you love what you're learning we'd appreciate the review share it with your friends and for everybody that's live with us today. If you're in LinkedIn or YouTube or Facebook or X, throw your comments in there. Tell us who you are, where you are, ask your questions, cause we got D-Fish with us who is brilliant at all things. Digital first, not digital only. We're going to have fun today.
Speaker 3:I want to say hi to Becky. Becky, you were hanging with us in the waiting room last time. Thank you, hopefully your weight pays off, but we got to start here. So when I think D-Fish, I was always thinking about the old Los Angeles Lakers point guard. And you come to find out this is the original. D-fish oh gee, so David can you tell us that story?
Speaker 4:Well, sure, I'll tell it in short. For many years I was a drummer in a band and would also do a little bit of rapping. I know this visually doesn't quite match, but I was a little cooler. And I wasn't even that much cooler, but I did rap back then.
Speaker 2:You thought it was cooler.
Speaker 4:That's what was in my bandmates, my bandmates would call me jokingly MC D-Fish. And when your coworkers come to the shows on the weekends and then on Monday morning go, hey, d-fish, and it stuck. And to this point pretty much everybody still calls me D or D-Fish. My mom, she tried once and I said no, please don't that's. I get it, mom, but we're good and my wife refuses. So my wife refuses to call me that and that's okay. That's okay. Yeah, so you find me in a bar. Just call me D or D-Fish. Just don't call me late for happy hour. We're good.
Speaker 2:There you go, we're having. Well, anthony says you can still rap, so we're gonna have to do a little rap session for the end of the day.
Speaker 4:All right, we'll see if we get there.
Speaker 3:I'll ask you with coming up with a modern sales rap.
Speaker 2:There you go. You know we're talking about. We're talking about doing that live event. In the fall, you know, d-fish, we may have to call on MCD Fish to come and be.
Speaker 4:Can you help me act? I'll connect you with my agent.
Speaker 2:Perfect, perfect, all right. Well, now that we've already talked about that, david Fisher is our guest. We are talking sales evolution digital first, not digital only. There's his book Nice, it's backwards, I didn't fix my camera. But networking in the 21st century on LinkedIn, d-fish, tell us a little bit about yourself and your history with this crazy thing called LinkedIn, and then let's jump into it.
Speaker 4:Sure. So you know I got my start in sales kind of in the old school style. I started selling knives in college. Many of you have probably heard of Cutco Cutlery Great knives. If you ever need any I still have my contract, so happy to have a little side hustle and sell you some knives they're fantastic.
Speaker 4:But kind of got the sales bug there and ran their Chicago office for many years, trained and interviewed thousands of salespeople doing that and from there went to run my own consultancy and for 17 years ran Rockstar Consulting, which was focused on everything from sales coaching founders, entrepreneurs and top independent salespeople All the way up to developing sales programs, sales playbooks, training and playing the whole nine yards. But I also was an early adopter of LinkedIn for sales. I remember the first training I ever ran on how to use LinkedIn to sell was in 2008. So truly OG and in fact did some work in a startup directly with LinkedIn around the advent of sales navigator. But it's just become kind of ingrained into the work I do.
Speaker 4:And then the last couple of years, especially with the pandemic, did a lot of work on LinkedIn and in fact a couple of years ago it went in-house and I am now the global social selling program lead at SAS S-A-S. So working with all our team around the world. So, and don't get to rap as much anymore, but still try to if it's, if it's shame shame, All right you didn't send me one, so I'm just gonna rep myself.
Speaker 2:you know You're gonna get a little bit of a plus. I got the polls being made now too, there we go yeah.
Speaker 4:so that's kind of how I got to hear.
Speaker 2:Awesome thanks. Well, I'll kick us off and then, carson, please jump in the title and I love this conversation DeFish that you and I've had is the title of this is digital first, not digital only. Why is that so important right now and what does it mean?
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's a great question. And how many hours do we have? You know, I wrote a couple of books on it. I think, if you really sum it up, the idea of digital first, not digital only is that sales in many ways hasn't changed much. We want to say that the world has changed and I agree with that. But if you think about what's selling, at its core is it's human to human connection, it's influence, it's bringing somebody along on a journey, and when we look at all the different tools that we now have at our disposable disposal, it's very easy to think that we're going to offload the responsibility for that human to human connection onto the technology, and I think we've seen that over the last 20 years and we're now reacting against it.
Speaker 4:So digital first means, hey, the reality is we're going to probably engage with somebody digitally before. I've never met either of you in person, right, I've talked with you on LinkedIn, Carson. You and I were talking about how we've been in orbit on LinkedIn with each other for years. Like that has a very real presence in our lives and in our business, but it doesn't supplant the need to actually create those human to human connections, and I came into LinkedIn in a very kind of a different way than many, right, Because I came in from the sales side, from the networking side. It wasn't really marketing and so it was really about hey, how do I supplement my offline conversations? And that was kind of the first way that I and many of the people I work with got into LinkedIn, not as a standalone but as just one of the channels we use. So I just tried to sum about three books in about 30 seconds. Probably a mess, but I don't know, pick that apart.
Speaker 3:Well done. I mean, that reminds me of that. Get Abstract, where you can get like the cliffs notes of a book in like seconds flat you just.
Speaker 4:You don't have to buy hyper connected selling or networking in the 21st century on LinkedIn. But if you want to, I still highly rest.
Speaker 3:I got a question for you on this too, like just especially with your kind of your advent with LinkedIn being you know what 16 years ago. There's obviously been a lot of changes with the platform and how we can best leverage it. I'm with you in the camp that. You know. This is not a silver bullet. It's an augment to our approach. I look at prospecting and networking like a stock portfolio. You've got, you know, you want to have a diversified portfolio.
Speaker 3:Linkedin is one of many great ways you can go out and connect with people, but it doesn't replace the phone and certainly the goal of it is to use it to get face to face connections with people. Now there's so many different ways that you can do that with LinkedIn. You alluded to sales navigator. We're obviously streaming live right now to LinkedIn People that we've never met. Brandon and I met for the first time this week. What are some of the things that you've seen? Linkedin and sales navigator and, just frankly, digital offer in the way of tooling that helps us make our job easier and better now, if used right, I love to see just kind of learn from you, like what you, what's really jumped out of you as being the most valuable.
Speaker 4:I love what you said there about kind of building a portfolio through your network and I think, if you look at the tactics that are very effective now, have been for a long time on LinkedIn, they really come from scaling the human to human, and what I mean, by the way, I don't mean automating, I don't mean trying to to find shortcuts. I actually call LinkedIn an easier button, not an easy button. Right, and I think many of maybe some of the viewers today, but a lot of people have been burned because others in our space, right, the LinkedIn gurus are well, yeah, it's an easy button. You do this, this, this and boom, you're going to get 10 inbound leads every every week.
Speaker 3:Mike Weinberg calls those the social selling charlatan.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. But if so, if you think about what selling is, you talk about prospecting. You talk about relationship building. You talk about value building. You talk about uncovering opportunities, whether it's discovery, you know, for a particular account, or just paying attention to trends. Those are all parts of the sales process. So how do you bring those into something like LinkedIn and make it easier A big thing?
Speaker 4:For years, I've been talking about the power of commenting. Right, if you want to get super tactical here, please stick around after I say this. But if you guys who are listening want the easiest way to get more out of LinkedIn, do five comments a day Meaningful, you know. Connect with your, your peers, your influencers, colleagues at your company, obviously, prospects and customers. If you can do that, you know I share. That about probably was three years ago now. I got serious about okay, I'm going to really use LinkedIn and I have a stack of pennies. I can reach over to my desk here and there's, there's some of them. I had 15 pennies on my desk and I had to move them from one stack to another. Every penny is a comment, so I did 15 comments every day. So 75 comments a week. That's a reaction point.
Speaker 2:Love. Right there I get. We got a pause and tell everybody on the podcast you're watching it. 15. Moving from one stack to the other commenting. I know a tool that helps with commenting, but we can talk about that later. But yeah, I mean, and that's I mean honestly, the reason we created the tool is because commenting is the most underutilized tactic and LinkedIn, in my opinion, and partly it's because people it's hard Like who do I, who do I comment on and how do I do it? Consistently, I go to my newsfeed and they're not people there I really want to comment. How do I target? So yeah, yeah so.
Speaker 3:It gives a whole new meaning to a penny for your thoughts.
Speaker 4:There you go. So I'm going to push back a little bit on that, brandon, and that commenting is hard. I think that the challenge that a lot of people have is that when you switch mediums, we get nervous Right, and you and I we talk about that Like, if you're in sales, right, and so most of the people on listening in here in sales, you have been attracted to this role because you like talking to people in some way shape or form. Right doesn't mean that you're great, like I don't consider myself an extrovert. I actually consider myself an introvert, but I enjoy working with people and interacting with people. But we like to interact, that's all that.
Speaker 4:A comment is right. So I do think that a lot of us often overthink what? Because it is digital, because we're typing it and there's a lot of human nervousness that creeps in. I think that's what you're alluding to, the difficulty. But actually, if you, I always say to somebody, if you look at a post and somebody that person who posted so Carson posts and he said whatever's in that post to me, what would I say back? That's all, it is right.
Speaker 4:I mean, let's not make it more complicated than it has to be, and I think where also a lot of people get nervous with posting is that or commenting. Excuse me, I'm posting and even posting as well. They've been told, oh, I've got to provide value and I've got to share value and all these things, and that's absolutely true. But I would say at least a third of my comments have nothing to do with the content of the post, but rather the poster. Right, because Carson might say something. I might go, oh, that's a really interesting story and here's my feedback. Or I might say, carson, I had the same thing happen to me as well. Right, and it's just that, human-to-human validation, that's it, and that's a great saying. I'm getting fired up here, but one of the things I learned as an early salesperson is what chop of the axe fells the tree? Right, the idea of like. Which part of the sales conversation is the one that gets the customer over the finish site, all of them. So you know so often what, oh boy.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah.
Speaker 4:All the little nudges.
Speaker 3:It's all the little nudges like you can't again. There's no silver bullet, but if you can leverage LinkedIn or a comment or just staying top of mind with somebody, it's kind of that next nudge in the cycle. All of it adds up to the sum of the parts and that's what turns the blank canvas to a masterpiece.
Speaker 2:That turns it out.
Speaker 4:Exactly.
Speaker 2:I think Carson's got a movie analogy brewing here. Hey, can we take a quick time out, guys? I wanna acknowledge some of the comments. First of all, becky, I saw it a while ago. I will get the coffee. We keep saying we're gonna meet sometimes up in North Carolina, but I will get that coffee mug to you absolutely. Thank you for that. And I was cracking up with between Daniel and Anthony says he uses Guitar Fix instead of pennies. Yeah, nine blue and in one red. I love it, great system. And of course, daniel, we can always count on Daniel to give his. You do that so you can leave your two cents. Gotta like it there you go, hey Witty.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so Witty.
Speaker 4:Sorry, brandon. I think the one thing that I wanna highlight with the pennies idea is because, by the way, I used to track it like an Excel spreadsheet, digitally and I realized, no, I needed a physical, a visceral tool. And I think it really gets to this idea that Carson was saying. This is just one other channel we have. It's not the end all be all, and I think, going even back to our digital first, not digital only, we have to really look as a modern seller. How do we integrate all of the channels? We have all the tools, whether it is LinkedIn, email, hopping on a plane and visiting somebody. One of my favorite tools has always been sending handwritten notes to people, and I got that from Bob Berg when I first started my career. So powerful, right, the empty inbox, their physical inbox, but it's. I think everybody has to kind of think of what is the broad landscape that I can, of tools I can use and then fit them in your workflow and what's gonna work best for you.
Speaker 3:I love that, steve Fish, I wanna hear some more on some of the outside the box approaches, of how you have seen these digital tools leverage to create relationships and also make deposits into the relationship, and I'll give you an example. So we talk a lot on the show about how, when it comes to prospecting or digital connecting, you can focus on a few things that you can control, one being the quality of your message. What's the value that I bring.
Speaker 3:Number two the quantity of outreaches. Now there's a big value in I'm gonna have a different approach to some of my very strategic opportunities and customers. But in a portfolio where I've got over 400 today, I also have to scale really effectively. So the quantity of outreaches that goes out. And then, lastly, the consistency of execution. Over time it's not just water your garden once and expect it to sprout. You gotta be consistent in how you prospect and do outreach.
Speaker 3:We did a campaign recently that was called down day and reaching out to over 400 customers, and what we found worked very effectively was even just going out to sales navigator, pulling a lot of the C level, vp levels that a lot of my team didn't have relationships with, and then getting crisp on what's the right messaging, what would be the unique outside the box way that we could partner and approach People.
Speaker 3:Executives don't reply when we show up talking about ourselves and our own company. They show up when we're talking about their mission, their plight, their statement, and so that's the approach we took. We sent out thousands of messages and we booked dozens upon dozens of net new meetings with executives. But that's not a common way of using sales navigator. We were pulling a lot of folks. We were messaging them in bulk. We guessed at their email addresses based on what we knew their email address was, or you can look up online what somebody's email domain might be. What are some other unique, outside the box ways that we can use some of these tools to create relationships, to nurture relationships and to ultimately do what we wanna do, which is sit down and break bread with these folks?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think I loved your use of sales navigator there. I think a couple of suggestions I would make. One is I do think that the ability to reach somebody new through digital channels is going to diminish over the next 18 to 24 months. We've already seen it on the email side Google, yahoo just being like dude. We're sick of it. I mean I'll say this here, I've said it before cold outreach doesn't reach me and I'm not like a high enough in the organization that I'm getting out, but I get enough.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:If you're not referred to me, I would almost say Carson. I don't care how well crafted your email is, I'm just not reading it.
Speaker 3:I've got enough other things to do, and that was the law of averages that that worked, because thousands of mail coming out you get a very small percentage. But things like video and other things can make our message maybe stand out amongst the crowd.
Speaker 2:Well, I would say also, it's when you're like for you, Carson, you have such a presence. I mean there was an example when I was with you at Microsoft on Wednesday. You and I both had a plate of food and we had a drink on our hand. We came around a corner and that guy goes oh, Carson, Right, Great to see you. And you're like struggling to not drop your food because a guy was so excited to shake your hand, Right, and I mean You're with the mayor, You're with the mayor, yeah, and he was so excited to meet you. He shakes your hand. You almost dropped your food. He leaves. I go who was that? And you're like I'm not sure, Right, and it's because your LinkedIn presence is built through reputation so that now, when your emails, your calls, your other messages come out, they go. I know that guy.
Speaker 3:You become a known entity.
Speaker 2:It's not cold. So sorry, D-Fish, I interrupted.
Speaker 4:Yeah, but that's becoming a known entity is so important, I think. I mean, take what I just said. It's hard to reach out to me cold, but if you've been on my network for a year or two and then you reach out to me with like a very specific, targeted ask, I'm like, okay, I'll read it. You know I talk a lot about building social capital and social recognition. Right? Who is that person? Right, you know. Again, I know Carson's name well before we met because I've seen him around LinkedIn. I might not know a lot about him, but, okay, you're a known entity.
Speaker 4:If you want to get super tactical, I think there's a couple of things. One is to really be aspirational in your network, building on LinkedIn, and what I mean by that is, for example, look at your accounts and this depends on your situation. Right, you've got a lot or a little bit. Let's say you're an enterprise level seller. You've got, or sales leader, even like you've got, 10 main accounts you're looking at, identify, using sales navigator, whatever tool, or the 20 people I want to make sure know my name there. Okay, but here's the biggest thing that I would suggest, and this is why I say it's aspirational, it's future oriented. Reach out to them, try to get that LinkedIn request and you can play around with messaging a little bit. But it could be as simple as hey, we work a lot of people in your space we'd love to connect. Here's the thing that I suggest and not every seller likes to hear this because we want direct, linear results. Oh, I did this. Now I got a meeting. They accept your connection request.
Speaker 4:Hopefully, the first thing you do is do not pitch them. All you send is a message that says, hey, thanks for connecting, let me know if I can help, like my line has always been thanks for connecting. If I can be of service, let me know, and then that's it Now. You can then start doing some posting. You can start engaging with their content. This is where the commenting comes into play. Put in your CRM to reach out to that person. Two weeks later, a month later, whatever it is.
Speaker 4:If you reach out to them immediately, like I got this, quite frankly, two days ago. Now this person's again. He's trying to do cold outreach. It's a sales and element platform. I know he's a seller and I know he works for a very aggressive outreach company. They've actually we'll never work with them because of their level. I mean, they've burned their brand Like that's what we haven't talked about is, if you do all this, turn and burn stuff, you burn brand Like we'll never work with this company. I'm not gonna mention them, they're a known entity. I'm like nope. But I accept his connection request. I know it's gonna come and he's in Chicago.
Speaker 4:We had a big storm the other day so he immediately messaged me back. Oh hey, thanks for connecting. Are you guys okay? How is this storm Right? Did you weather it okay, which sounds like it's the right thing to do? But I'm like dude, you don't know me, we're not friends Like you haven't earned the right to, so you've right, he just tried to jump on it right away and I'm like my defenses are up. You could have hang out with me in LinkedIn and you can comment left and right. I post every day. I might give you my time. So anyways, that was a bit of a diatribe, earn the way into the DMs is what I'm doing.
Speaker 4:You've got to earn the right to my time. By the way, I think sales people now for deck I mean, really, with the advent of digital and automated tools they have forgotten that they need to earn the time, they have to earn the right to the ask. They've just assumed that buyers have nothing better to do than hang around and take your meeting. So to go back to the tactics though, but get in their space. Get in their space, take it to the offline example would be going to a conference every year. I call it the Maverick example, if you remember the old movie Maverick with Mel Gibson. The first hour, at the beginning, he goes I'll play poker, I'm going to lose. For the first hour, I promise. He just sits there and learns all their tells and then he wins. But imagine going there and just hang out in the group. What's the conversation? What's going on? Oh, that person's talking about this problem. Oh, okay, this person. This is really important to them, and then doing outreach.
Speaker 3:That's got the movie reference in there. I know it wasn't even you Well done.
Speaker 2:I want to respond to one thing you said, and then I want to bring up Kathy's comment, because that's excellent. But, divas, you said the message came about the weather. There's so many more of the charlatans out there, and there's tools about mass personalization. That personalization has become such a commodity that our human spam filters smell it and reject it immediately because we know oh, you got to be personal. Well, if you fabricate personalization, it's no longer personal, right?
Speaker 4:Right, yeah, we know. As I said, I know what playbook is running. No, that's a little different because I teach that playbook in some ways, but it just felt wrong. It's the same as on LinkedIn. You'll get the automated response if you accept the connection request. Hey, what's the biggest challenge you're dealing with right now? I got that when I was a coach. What's the biggest challenge you deal with in your coaching practice? Right? Who are you?
Speaker 3:I don't know you, I just need this, that's what I do.
Speaker 2:I respond to that, deleting unwanted LinkedIn messages from people who pretended they wanted to be my connection. Hey, norah, can we bring up Kathy's comment? Because this is just so near and dear to my heart and I'm glad that she learned that and is implementing it. You know, we believe, carson, you talk a lot about this. We believe that we're going to post content and POs are going to magically fall out of the sky into our pocket and we're going to be sitting on a beach laughing about how successful we are. If only, yeah, if only.
Speaker 2:But it's comment and it goes with what you were saying, d-fish, like get involved. And you were talking about the Maverick exam, the movie Maverick. You went in there and watched and learned Commenting. We can come in and watch and learn and listen, because when we're commenting, they actually know we're there Right and we're contributing. And we're actually contributing a little bit to that oxytocin. Like you post, not that you need it because you get to me, but you post and we come and comment. It's like we feel good, they feel good about their post, you're commenting, they comment back, you're building that human to human relationship and then, when you can craft a smart message to be like hey, you know and I think I did this with you D-Fish I commented for a while and then I messaged you and said man, I love all the stuff that you're doing and how we've been chatting. You want to get on a call and get to know each other. And then eventually got you on the show and we now are Zoom friends or LinkedIn Zoom friends, right, yeah.
Speaker 4:And, again, I think it's hard for the average seller right now. We've had, let's face it, 20 years of let's call it, you know, especially like in the SaaS world the predictive revenue model where, hey, we're just going to pound out emails, we're going to pound out phone calls, we're going to take somebody like an SDR and God bless them, right, that don't have a lot of experience, but it's just. You know, carson, it's the not thoughtful version of what you were talking about, right, you know it's, hey, we're just going to download lists of people and email them and email it. And what's great is, 15 years ago, that works right. 10 years ago, that works because, remember, when we got email and it was exciting, like you know, I always yeah, well, I always say that, so I'll show my share my age.
Speaker 4:Don't break this. You're being a male, yeah Right. I started college in 1994 and it was the first year that they gave you an email address.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 4:Right, like automatically. I was the first grade, so it's interesting like at my age I'm literally kind of the. You know we're the Oregon Trail generation, right, where we remember technology. You know a world without technology and world with no email is now a pain in the butt, like it. It's what stresses us out.
Speaker 3:So the world has zero inbox? A long time ago.
Speaker 4:Right, and I just bring that up because a lot of times we as sellers, we forget when we just don't want to pay attention to what our buyers experience is what is the person actually Like? If you saw, if you're trying to get the C-suite for example, carson you know you were talking about before if you saw I remember doing a coaching session with a Cmo of a very large tech company. We're looking at just LinkedIn presence, we're doing their profile work, stuff like that and really it was funny because her people had been like oh, she's not gonna want to spend time with you, she's very busy. Two and a half hours, right, yeah, because it was half an hour. She just, yeah, keep telling me stuff. She had 2100 Unanswered connection requests, 2100 because and, by the way, she was upset because she's like some of these people I want to be connected with, they're my peers, they're Pellamania conferences and the rest were just sales people coming up for system.
Speaker 4:Right, that's that like when you realize that's what people are responding to. I think you do take a much more, hopefully, strategic and thoughtful approach. I Sorry, I didn't know this was gonna be the D fish soapbox hour, but uh you know it's great.
Speaker 3:I love that you're fired up deep fish. And I Get another question for you, because you said something earlier that stuck with me and it's you know that we're we're kind of embarking on it and entering this era where the ability to connect with folks digitally is going to drastically change. Just because it's there's such an onslaught right now and I mean you can, you can see it and smell it a mile away. Like I go out on my LinkedIn today, I'm gonna say this look, a couple of things. One, we're in an era where more and more authenticity and being genuine it's gonna become more important in Paramount than it's ever been the other element.
Speaker 3:It is like I mean you can go out right now like with, with AI and some of the automation tools. I mean I get a lot of comments on some of my posts but I mean you can smell the fake ones a mile away. Yeah, I hate that and that. That I think those are the types of things that are burning Reputation, because I would shy away from talking with somebody that I knew was leveraging automation, and I know that it changes the perception that you have of someone when you know that they're leveraging that type of stuff. So I think that's another big element. But, on the same token, I always look at LinkedIn like it's the biggest coffee bar in the world. Your prospects are out there, right. If you're not talking to them, shame on you if you're showing up and talking to them but only talking about yourself and how great you are and how great your company is at them.
Speaker 3:So, how are you going to engage your customers and maybe your next hiring manager in the biggest coffee bar in the world? Be intentions about how you leverage LinkedIn, but where do you see it going? Beefish, that's what I'm most curious about. What do you think we're gonna be talking about in a year, two years, five years, when we're talking about modern selling?
Speaker 4:I think we're actually a bit of a Crossroads, so we'll see. So, carson, you brought up AI and you're like and I get those comments too in my feet and you can see them a mile away and what the AI will people say was oh, but it's getting better eventually, you won't be able to tell. That makes me more nervous, because at that point we just we don't trust anything. It's the liar's dividend, right, if you can get people enough misinformation, they don't trust any information. And the same thing, if I can't know what is a legit, authentic, human response to my LinkedIn post, I'm gonna start discounting all of it. Yeah, but what I do think is going to happen, go back to our topic digital first, not digital only. In some ways, I think we might see the reverse of that as well, meaning, yes, it's this digital coffee bar.
Speaker 4:I think one of the changes we've seen is that it LinkedIn has gone from a top of funnel tool I would argue to more of a middle of funnel tool. Right, carson? You and I have been posting a lot on LinkedIn for a while. You know, three, four years ago, if you had a good post, you could get thousands of Of views. Like that, I mean a couple years ago, my top viral one over a hundred thousand, a hundred thousand, hundred thousand views. Wish it was a hundred thousand now, right, but you could get, like the algorithm has changed partly, that you know it's. It's. It's really shrunk down, but not in a bad way, like my engagement is up over the last two and a half years even though my reach is down, right, and so it's really middle of funnel.
Speaker 4:How do you get new people into the funnel? It's not gonna be. Yes, there's gonna be some of that outreach on LinkedIn, but I think it's. You go to the physical coffee house, you go to the physical conference. I had a half have a half written LinkedIn post. I think AI is gonna drive more door-to-door sales or whatever the version is, because If I know you, if I've met you, okay, then I'll talk to you digitally because I know you're a real person, right, and I think I think LinkedIn is at a very interesting place. Well, I mean, they're owned by Microsoft. Microsoft has made a little bit of an investment into AI. You know, we'll see. They're there, they're bringing that into LinkedIn. It could be super powerful. I Could all see it go in the other way.
Speaker 4:My guess is a lot of the same people who are doing the automation and have for years been using it as a spam tool. They're gonna keep doing it, and the three of us and others like us, we're still gonna get what we need from it.
Speaker 3:There was people who use it wrong. That kind of you know. Unfortunately for the rest of us, noble Knights of the selling game, you know, you know. You know it diminishes the credibility of the overall brand and unfortunately we're up against that reputation of salespeople all the time. I saw Anthony's question out in the chat. I wanted to address that.
Speaker 3:You know, I hear often about email blast while working with sales folks. I'm curious but as everyone think are the consequences of these types of reach-outs, it's all in how you do it and I will give you an example. So I'll use a fair amount of even quote-unquote email blasts, but the way that they're used are very strategic. It's got a very specific purpose might be for passive education in some kind of opt-in newsletter scenario, or if it's, if anything. We were just talking about the, the perils and the riches of AI.
Speaker 3:Ai can arm you with a heck of a lot of information and comb readily available materials out there to arm you with a perspective and point of view that would matter to your target audience. So Even just using that to inform what I write, to reach out to a very specific Industry vertical, to a very specific title, to a very specific set of executives in one organization. It's. It's kind of like Eric Clapton told us in the wonderful song it's in the way that you use it, from the color of money, it's all in how you leverage the tool. So don't spam the world, but leveraging email to have a quantity of Outreaches that you're able to make that are showing up from a very Particular point of view with a quality message or passive education in some kind of opt-in fashion that can absolutely get you a ton of leads and meetings. I use it all the time.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I love what you said there about point of view. You mentioned authenticity before. I think right now, authenticity is having a moment, which means it's also being overused and, you know, to the point being meaningless. But I remember having a conversation with my good friend, steve Watt, over at seismic who's who's great and the social selling game, and the one thing we can't outsource is point of view, right. So I mean, if you want to think about a very specific tactic that will help you on On LinkedIn, both in comments and posting, all this up is have a point of view, have a perspective.
Speaker 4:You decide, like, what are you gonna talk about what? What your your themes are? I mean, somebody could just as effectively be on a podcast right now saying here's how you automate LinkedIn and, you know, find success in that. Hey, that's great, that's your point of view, right, we can have differing ones, but have so, just have a point of view, even with your customers, right? You talk about AI, be able to really give you a lot of information, which is it can. So, if you can then take that, distill it, whether it's into email outreach, a LinkedIn post, just commenting yeah, because that's the one thing a computer can't replace right is is is the, the collection of experiences, education, you know, background that you have as an individual selling whatever product or service you sell For the company you sell in the place, right? I mean, that's that is unique, that is unique to you, and the more that the people who are doing that now will continue to do that on LinkedIn.
Speaker 4:Right, and that's you know. So, if you don't know your point of view, figure it out. That's like you just ask, like yourself, write a piece of paper what do I want to be known for? Right, you know who is my, who is my audience. You said targeted, I love that car since, like, there's a billion people, it's probably like 950 million people on LinkedIn, whatever a lot, they're not your audience. I actually argue that the average seller has a maybe 250 Mm-hmm people that they actually are concerned with. Right, who are those 250? Do they know you? Do they know you stand for? Do they know? The answer is no day. Those questions start there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I like the way I mean this fusion of you. Know, carson, you used it as the largest coffee bar. I like to say it's a 24 7365 super conference. But either way you look at it, how you show up in that environment Determines the success of it. Are you the person? Are you as a CEO of a company or as a salesperson? You're walking down the aisle, you're walking down a hall going to breakout session and nobody knows you. Yeah, right, right, it's the opening session.
Speaker 2:You open the door to go into the cocktail party the night before the conference and the door opens and everyone looks at you and goes back to what they're doing. Right, or it is a door opening. You walk in and people go hey, carson's here, right, that is the opportunity we have in building a reputation and building those, the foundations of relationship, by how we show up and linked in. And it reminds me DF Fish you were saying when we talked the other day is you think none of us are really thought leaders? But you can have a point of view, yeah, and you can share. Like what are you observing? What do you think that means? What do you feel is going to happen? Like, think, observe and feel and being consistent and speaking to those 250 people, I think what then happens is it becomes 500 people, it becomes a thousand people, because they're curious about what you're talking about and why you're talking about it and you're not trying to be a parrot to the thought leadership that's out there.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah and spot on. And I think most people and I see this especially like when you talk to executives who are like, oh, I need to be a thought leader. No, you don't. I mean, I've met very few true thought leaders and I've had I know many, many smart people who are wonderful leaders in their industries, who have a lot of great stuff to say.
Speaker 4:Thought leader no, right, you're somebody to your point, who might have maybe has a very sophisticated point of view, a very thoughtful point of view, a very informed point of view that people should listen to. And the reason I say that is very few people think they're a thought leader or want it Like they want. They want what they think comes from thought leadership, which is influence. What they really want is influence. And they go, okay, do I have to be a thought leader? But very few executives feel comfortable with that title. Right, it doesn't matter how big of a company you are, how big their ego is they're. So they say, hey, just hear your point of view. And they go, oh, yeah, okay, I got one of those, I got an opinion, great, sure.
Speaker 2:I talked a lot of C sweet, that you talked about this, so like, look, I don't really have anything valuable to contribute, and it's like well, the myth of it is where you're looking at it the wrong way. You're looking at it as oh, I'm going to add something innovative and amazing, and all that? No, just your point of view. What's changing in the industry? What should your customers be caring about right now? What's important? And when you start, I believe you start helping them think about what are you observing, what are you thinking and what are you feeling. Well then, we all have a lot of things to say, because we got five years, 10 years, 30 years experience in this industry. That's what's valuable. And I would say too, for C sweet, it's not just for your customer's benefit. Your team members need to see you reading Now. Do you want to help your HR department with recruitment? Build your personal brand, grow your reputation? And it's not self promotion, it's brand promotion through your voice and that's what that's, what builds this big influence?
Speaker 3:And you know, what resonates the most is stories and everybody has them. That's the key element. You just said something so important. It doesn't matter if you're brand new on a job and you're having experiences. Somebody else is having that same experience and they can live and learn from what you put out there into the ether. Same thing if I talk to a C level, there's no question that they have stories that would be of value to so many, whether it's leadership scenarios that they're running up against, whether it's changes in the marketplace, leading teams or what it was like when they got started out in sales. Or maybe they roll up their sleeves and they go out for a day in the field and they, you know, what did they learn, what did they observe? I'd read that and so I think that's the key element is being intentional about who's your audience and what's the story that is going to resonate. What is the provocative question that you can maybe throw out there?
Speaker 3:You know, I think where I really approached posting years ago, it's up kind of straddle the line I like to add to the sales community. But I've got a whole other subset of customers and nonprofit organizations that I work with that couldn't care less about that persona and that's fine. You can play to, you can throw bouquets to both groups. And here's why because I want to learn and dig into my customer community. I want to understand how are we able to? What are the great stories of ways that we're able to empower and enable them to do more and that I can share that and that's going to resonate with that camp.
Speaker 3:Same thing within the sales community. The things that I get the most hits on and most comments and conversation pieces is when I tell a story of something that I grappled with two years ago. Might even be a deal I lost and it's kind of a post-mortem on the deal. But those are the types of things when you're able to kind of lay yourself bare from a story's perspective, talk about where you've been, what you've done, what you've learned. That stuff resonates.
Speaker 2:And that's true authenticity, not trying to fabricate authenticity. And I think that's where people talk about well, how do I overcome imposter syndrome? Well, be really confident in what you're talking about, which is your experiences. Nobody can take away your experiences, nobody can take away your perception of what you're going through, what you're experiencing, what you're thinking, what you're observing. And when you share it from that perspective I'm not out here to learn everybody, everything I'm going to share with you what I'm experiencing that's where people really resonate. And then you're not dealing with imposter syndrome, because you're just being you.
Speaker 4:Right, Well, and you know whether you're commenting today, by the way.
Speaker 3:Thank you, kathy.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you know, and we're talking about executives here and I think it's the same, though Karshen even said just some brand new to a role like any salesperson. I think you said something really important there, brandon, where it's not about having to share something innovative. I get that a lot Like what's my original contribution and, depending on my level of rapport with the individual, I might say you really don't have anything original to say and that's like, and that's not a I'm not throwing shade, I'm just like you're 26. I mean, we've seen these individuals on LinkedIn the 26 year old sales person who had had presidents club once, and so they, they're a master at selling.
Speaker 4:Like I just want to tell like no, don't do that, just just share. Like what's working well for you, what's not share your experience is still meaningful. Like you don't have a lot of original things to share and that's okay. I don't either. Right, guess what? I'm just sharing an amalgamation of every all the books I've read and it mentors I've learned from, and sales I've made, sales I've lost, you know, good experiences, bad experiences, all through the lens of my point of view.
Speaker 3:Right, because, as you said, brandon, nobody can Invalidate that, right it is a lot easier to find some stories to tell when you're a grizzled old sales guy, as opposed to that 20-something that lucked into winning club.
Speaker 4:Yeah, well exactly, I mean, I've earned my gray hairs, you know it's.
Speaker 3:I was gonna say talk to me after you've been kicked in the teeth and you know laid off and you know had to bring yourself back from the dead and reinvent yourself Like. Those are the types of hard luck stories that right to a sales warrior. Those are the stories I want to hear.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, it creates thick skin too. You're like you know there's there's nobody on LinkedIn that's gonna say something that's gonna hurt me as much as I've already been hurt.
Speaker 3:So here's a recommendation, so I just started reading can't hurt me by David Goggins brilliant.
Speaker 4:Hmm, all right.
Speaker 3:True resilience story.
Speaker 2:Well, let's, let's wrap it up. I agree with you. Carson, kathy Davis, gold star, thank you for being the comments and Becky, thanks for you know putting up with us and missing, waiting on us Wednesday. And here you are and I've got a. I got to get a coffee cup out in the in the mail to you. Hopefully it won't break. Anthony, thank you so much, and everybody else, the fish, your book for everybody, amazon, I'm assuming. Is he right?
Speaker 4:Yeah, all right, amazon, you can find that. All the other ones Exactly on LinkedIn. Happy to. I have these conversations and share some stories and I do just go on rance and I attract sometimes too by that. Hopefully you'll love that.
Speaker 2:So boxes are important and when you go, look for for David Fisher and and look for D fish he doesn't. He's not a former Laker player.
Speaker 3:No, no, that's not me.
Speaker 2:You go find him there. Anything else, anything else you want to add before we wrap up. And then, carson, you want to get us out, get us taken out.
Speaker 4:No, I knew this would be a great conversation and I think I would go back to just one thing. Carson intimated About really being successful with the digital space. You want to look at tactics. In the end it's just showing up, putting in the work it's. It's a very unsexy thing to say, but you know what, if you put if you're on LinkedIn 30 minutes every day, money through Friday for the next year, your career will explode. I put that out there. I'd be willing to say that that's.
Speaker 2:That's a the quote of the day For somebody that takes it serious. Yeah, it reminds me Carson of, like you know, darren McKee when he was on here. He was Right, he was a sailor. Yeah, he just said he goes, you know what? I'm just gonna start posting every day, yep. And he started posting every day and he didn't have a plan, he was figuring it out as he went. He started like, oh, that worked, oh, that didn't work. Yep just kept going and now he's, you know, hundred and forty thousand followers. He's got a group that he makes a bunch of money with teaching people how to do it. I mean, the other day he had court side tickets to the Chicago Bulls with a sponsored From doing a sponsored post. For somebody like he's totally leveraging this and his life's changed. His family's life has changed.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and, by the way, that's not gonna happen for most. Right, you don't need it to. You don't need to. But whatever you, whatever as you're listening to this, whatever you want out of your career, in your life, this can be a useful tool, but, like every tool, you got to use it. Yeah, that's a great point.
Speaker 2:Thanks for clarifying that. The end All right, gentlemen. Excellent show. I've got notes. I'm gonna go back and listen to it on the podcast, which is where I normally go back and listen and go. Oh, that was awesome. Oh, everybody, thank you so much for joining us today. And Everyone on the podcast again. We'd appreciate the reviews. Share it with your friends if you like it. We're fighting client our way to hit number one again and or number one in a new category. That's what we're going for. So any help there, we'd appreciate it. Carson, you're gonna bring us home.
Speaker 3:Thanks everyone, thanks D fish and until next time happy, modern selling.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining us today on mastering modern selling. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe for more insights. Connect with us on social media and leave a review to help Us improve. Stay tuned for our next episode, where we will continue to uncover modern strategies shaping today's business landscape. Learn more about fist bump and our concierge service at get fist bumps calm. Mastering modern revenue creation with fist bump, where relationships, social and AI meet in the buyer centric age.