[00:00:00] Darryl Praill: My name is Darryl Praill. I'm your host and you, my friend, well, you and I we're gonna go on a journey every single week, talking to the industry's most accomplished sales legends, as they share with us, their tips, their tricks, their techniques, and their tactics to becomes sales rockstars. You simply need to do what they're doing and you will achieve similar nirvana. If you like to laugh, you like to be entertained, if you'd like to go off on tangents and tell stories, you're going to love what you're going to hear next. Sit back, relax, it's going to get real.

All right, boys and girls, it's story time. That's right. You've come here and I'm gonna tell you a story. Think of me. Uncle Daryl, Uncle Daryl's come to visit and he's tucking you in and he's pulling your sheets up to your chin and he's caressing your hair and getting it out of your eyes, and he's tightening the blankets all around you and you're fluffing your pillow and you're sitting there and I says, Boys and girls, Sally, Jimmy, Frankie, By the way, Frankie in this case, totally gender neutral name.

It can be boy or girl. I'm just playing all sides. I wanna tell you a story about a sales team. I wanna tell you a story about a sales team, and this is Uncle Daryl's experience across multiple sales teams. Many sales teams are what we call. Order takers right now, there's reps everywhere objecting and complaining already to that moniker.

And I understand, but when I say order takers, Susan, they've got such a, a large inflow of inbound leads that marketing has created for them and is sending their way that all they're doing fundamentally, they're asking some basic qualifying questions and then they're saying, Here's our price. Yes. Or. So what are they not doing?

What they're not doing is they're not multi-threading an account. They're not doing rigorous deep discovery. They're not truly tailoring a demo based on that discovery. They're not trying to sell. More seats or more services. They're not trying to get executive sponsorship. They're not doing a great job of establishing value.

In other words why change? Why now? Why me? Which is all based on the value you, you create and the perception of if I don't change, this is the consequences. And if I do change, these are the wins. They're not doing that. Ah, and that's what we call them, order takers. Now, the sad part is, is that we equip these reps, these teams, with all the skills, and yet they choose not to do it.

Now, that's why you will see turnover and the sales ranks, both at the rep side as well as the leadership sites. The leaders can't get the reps to change. Now what gets interesting is when, when the company finally realizes. That they have a problem with these wraps. What they'll often do is they'll say, We need to go outbound.

We need an outbound. We need to rebuild the team outbound wraps, we need hunters. Maybe we'll create an SDR AE framework. And the SDR will handle the inbound. The AEs will handle the outbound. That's one construct. Maybe we'll just have two teams who knows. And so they create these hunters, and the hunters come in and they're saying, We're not gonna feed you a damn thing.

You get nothing from us. Here's your target list. You're the hunters. Go hunt. The hunters, they do their thing and you imagine them, they got the war paint on and they are, their chest are puffed out and they are thumping them and they're saying, I am the hunter. Step aside and I will show you how it's done.

And then about a month later, they come back and they say, Well, the issue is is that our list suck, or I can't get ahold of anybody, or nobody's returning my emails, or the sequences you gave me are just not converting. Or the lists. The lists aren't good. Or I don't have the phone numbers. I could go on.

But it seems that the hunters. Are perhaps not the warriors they thought they were, and management Uncle Darryl is sad. And then when we drill down on that, we start to realize that yes, they may not be getting email responses because their messaging sucks. Or yes, people may not be responding to their phone calls because.

You know, they've done no other outreach and therefore, you know, they don't understand. This is one touch amongst many touches and eventually they will answer that phone because you wanna get there anyway so you can qualify them. And there's a lot of reasons why they don't answer the phones, mostly because of the rep.

And then, and then what happens often about a month or two or three later, is one lone warrior rep will come to the front and they will. I've been to the promised Land and I have good news and I know what the issue is. And all the other reps gather round and they say, What? Tell us what is your secret?

What have you learned? And they'll say, Social selling. We've not been doing it, and I'm actually getting good conversations, but only when I actually add value and personalize and contextualize my outreach. Ah, it's not about engagement and vanity metrics. It's about impact. That's the secret. And all the other warriors go.

Are you serious? That's the trick. And then they go do it. And they go forth. And the village eats well for the balance of the year. Social selling. The irony is all the chiefs in the village said, We freaking told you to do that. Way back. When are you stupid? And that, my friends, is your bedtime story about most sales organizations in this world.

Why do I bring that up? I bring that up because I'm going through the exact same thing one more time. Right now at a Agora Puls, we're just like everybody else, social selling. So I thought I need to get somebody on here who is an expert at LinkedIn and at selling and can distinguish the differences of all the different channels and why this particular channel can be incredibly powerful.

And I went back and I thought to myself, who is a phenomenal speaker, a kick ass trainer. An incredible motivating individual, eloquent, and possibly has a better microphone and camera set than me. And and that annoyed me. It totally us, as in I, and of course the answer there is the one, the only Donald C. Kelly, founder of the Chief Sales Evangelist Top 29, Salesforce influencer in 2022. You can see him in his whole organization at thesalesevangelist.com. You can sign up for his podcast, The Sales Evangelist, or hell, you can go buy his book, Sell it Like a Mango, a new guy, to closing more deals that launched in May of this year.

Donald. Talk to me. How was my storytelling time?

[00:07:27] Donald C Kelly: UD that's your name now. Oh, Uncle Darryl Or Unc, We'll call you UNC for short. man, I'm out cold dreaming about these leads. I didn't fall asleep. In the vi in the story, I fell asleep after the story because you're so engaging. You pulled me in and now I'm in the, I'm in Lead's Promise line and I am dreaming of what my calendar's gonna look like next week when I'm scheduling these appointments. And the village is eating, so to speak because of the, the warriors that we've become. I love it. It worked and I'm inspired.

[00:07:59] Darryl Praill: Fantastic. And so instead of counting sheep, we're counting deals, we're counting commission checks. This is all fantastic. But I was laughing at you cuz as I was doing the story I'm watching your expression and, and, and you're smiling and you're like half nodding.

And I know that look, that look is like, oh my. I've been there before. I know this story. I know how the story ends, . So talk to me a little bit about that. I mean, I shared my story, but you've got way more experience than me. Is that what you see? How is it normal? Is it not normal? Like talk to me.

[00:08:28] Donald C Kelly: It is. And here's the problem. I would call it the industrial revolution. So we're gonna blame the British so to speak. And all it fails. You put everything on on them. You know, but in that Industrial Revolution era, it's, it was a pro and con. And the idea behind that was that we started to see a mass production and the acceleration of organization of enterprises just like became so like, it, it was like rocket ship level.

It's became because we standardized things, we figured out we can do a template guten and let's blame it on, on the printing press for goodness sake, go even further back. But that the idea of now taking one thing and just like stamping it over and over and over and over and redoing it. Fast forward, we follow the same concept and we see it right now when we are looking in enterprise level organizations or people who are getting funded.

VCs and organizations that want to get their money back, want to see a return and return is coming in the form of let's do what has worked and continue to just mass produce it. And what's the mass production Go back to Aaron Ross. Back in the early two thousands with Salesforce was this notion of the delineation of the sales roles, which I think is fantastic, where you have the BDRs, like you're saying, the SDRs and the AEs, and it allows for people to focus on their areas.

So then, Come back to companies like SalesLoft, which revolutionized this idea and some other companies as well. The the sequence, Let's follow a sequence and we could automate that sequence, and if it worked for them, by golly, why wouldn't it work for us? The issue that we see though, is because every run, everyone runs the same play.

Are you a football fan?

[00:10:02] Darryl Praill: I am. Unfortunately Detroit Lions fan, but you know, don't hold that against me.

[00:10:07] Donald C Kelly: I'm a Dolphins fan, so we're in the same boat, literally. All right. , so you, you think about it though from a football standpoint, like if your teams are running the same exact plays, the same exact routes, It's gonna be a pretty boring game and there's not gonna be any advantages or any success.

And many of the sales organizations that are out there running the same exact place. And I just don't get that. And that's what we're seeing with those SDRs that came in, or those BDRs who are now hunting marketing, gave them some amazing sequences that they thought what were fantastic that they pulled from online or got from a sales expert.

And the same things that they're using are also working in other companies. But the same when I'm reaching out to that marketing director. They know the next play that I'm going to run, that I'm going to send them the breakup email or send them the client testimonial video. So we need to figure out a way, how can we still follow a se, a sequential order, but still yet make it so engaging that they can't help but to to follow us?

And one of the best ways we can do that is through utilizing a platform such as LinkedIn. And most people don't do that part correctly. And that's where I'm so passionate about. So that's why I was smiling through the whole thing, because I've seen that, I experienced it. We go through it even in our team, and we have to let them know, you know, Zeig, when everyone else is zagging. And the clients that I work with, the same concept.

[00:11:22] Darryl Praill: I love your metaphor because in you're describing to me, I was, in my mind, this is what I was thinking was, you know, they're in the football analogy where they're, they're playing, they're doing the same place. Right. And if you're, if you're the defense, Team at that moment in time and a week after week after week, as you play another game in the season and you're like, Okay, I, I know, I, I know the formation, I know exactly what's gonna go down and therefore I know how to work around it and I can probably sack the quarterback in the same process because I'm so familiar with it.

And then all of a sudden the play obviously is not working and, you know, the offensive team loses the ball or loses the game. And that, and that metaphor, at least the way I was perceiving it, the defensive team is actually your buyer folks. Mm-hmm. the buyer. We recognize the play. And exactly as Donald was saying, we, you know, we know what comes next.

The breakup emails next the, Hey floating this to the top of your inbox. Hey, I know your day's really busy. Maybe you missed this conversation. But you know what's remarkable to bring it back to social is despite SalesLoft. Or outreach or vanilla, soft or others innovating sequences and cadences.

It's amazing how most reps don't go multi-channel, and if they do, they only go to, they might go phone and email, but primarily, primarily one, which is email. And it's like social selling is. Phone is disrespected and social selling is, well, that's not me, or it's the forgotten stepchild, or I just don't believe in it, or I don't have time, or I don't have the network, or I don't have the connections, or I don't have anything to say.

So social selling is, is is the land of forgotten excuses and the phone is the land of old technology. But the reality is you do need all of the channels. And today we're gonna talk about social. So let's talk about, let's talk about social. , you're passionate about this, and I know you're, you're on a roll right now.

Talk to me about your why. This is a, a hot topic.

[00:13:18] Donald C Kelly: The reason is because I feel I there. There are times in my life where, you know, when I grew up in Jamaica and we moved to the United States, you gotta learn to utilize before I move to the United States. You know, sometimes you just learn to use everything that you have and, you know, just make it as much as possible.

And I feel sometimes I find like enough people, you know, anyone from the islands listening to this, but when you eat a piece of chicken in Jamaica or a piece or. So to speak. I mean, they don't lose anything. Every piece of animal is like cooked, right? And parts that I wouldn't feel comfortable saying on a, on a podcast to the world that I ruined my political career later on they, they use everything in, in a sense.

And that idea gives you this notion of like, don't let anything goes to waste. And I think a lot of times, salespeople sellers, we get these leads or we get food and we just waste it because we say, Hey, it's not good. But there's other ways that you can revitalize that. And that's one way, One way you can do this through through LinkedIn and say for instance, a lot of people go on linked.

and they go and you know, they might eat a one piece of the meat and then they throw it away. When I'm like, Bro, there's so much food still left on that chicken bone. And I , you know, there's so much we can do with that. You can make soup now from that. But you know, so often I feel that sellers, they go on LinkedIn and they've been given this vision of this promise line.

Darryl did this and he gained leads. So you go on LinkedIn and when they go and they spam people and they don't see that it worked because they're doing the same thing that they've done through email. They say that it's frustrating and doesn't make sense. I like to come in at that point because there's so many opportunities.

The land is rich and that's why I like LinkedIn and there's different ways you could go about. because again, I'm gonna take that piece of meat, I'm gonna chop off some of the meat and make a, you know, egg like a, what do you call that? Casserole or something. , Yeah. Yeah. Then I'm gonna take the bone and I'm gonna use that in, soak it and make some soup , and then I'll take the, the quiver, the bone out of it, and you use that to make a tool or whatever.

So you, you're utilizing every piece of this animal now. And what I think about with LinkedIn in that sense, like say, let me give you a perfect example. If you go on Facebook or if you go on in. Most peop TikTok doesn't have this, but if Insta and Twitter and Facebook are prevalent with it, the majority of people post like the users because it's just kind of, I can repost my coffee or picture of my coffee or the dog or whatever.

We're on vacation, yay. But when it comes towards like linked TikTok, it takes a lot more work to create a video. So most people. Produce content. And when it comes towards LinkedIn, most people see it as a professional network or professional platform. So even though they're in their careers and they're professional, they don't wanna seem like an idiot before their peers.

So they're questioning what they will post and if they will post or not. And I've been there. So now one most LinkedIn, one of the data points shows that only 2% of LinkedIn users. Regularly and regularly. I think it's like monthly on LinkedIn. 2%. 2%. So if they have 800,000 users, let's say half of those people, 450 are going on there once a month, 2% of those people are posting regularly.

So the, what I'm seeing, again, people are thrown away opportunities. And then also when it comes towards the LinkedIn connection, They're sending a lot of the spam because they're using the same, the same method, the same play that they use with emails they're trying to use, and it's not working as well.

So that's why they abandon it. But again, someone like me comes in and we're cleaning up because we know there's a better way and we know there's some other strategies and that's where I'm gonna break down here and to jump into it. So that's a long answer to why I'm so passionate for it and taking advantage of it right now.

[00:16:37] Darryl Praill: But I love that you use the word spa. Any of that. So you get talked about how it's an opportunity, how many people aren't doing it, and why they're not doing it. So exactly what I was saying in my story, totally consistent. And when they do do it often it's just a spamming like they do in their email, and then they don't wonder why they have no.

No outcomes from it. Right? Which is why even in my story I, I said, you know, you have to do it. It has to be, you know, personalized and contextualized to the recipient. Yes, it has to be compelling, right? And so it was more quality over quantity, if you will, which is spamming is quantity. And that's why you get no results if that's what you're doing.

That's also why the way, by the way, I will tell you that bots are a huge mistake on LinkedIn. A. We can see it. Thank you. B. It's a quantity angle. You think you're being smart. You think you're doing a shortcut. You think it's a numbers game. It's. It's totally not. The minute you stop using the bots and spamming and actually invest the time it, the impact is remarkable.

And I see this happen folks over and over and over again. There's always that one rapon is gonna slow things down and actually put the time and effort in it. All of a sudden, their pipeline. Blows up. And and that's why Yeah, because they're speaking to the person, not at the person.

[00:17:48] Donald C Kelly: And I think that's where sales leaders could need to come in place to understand.

Like, and, and I, I know there's a, there's a almost like. I, I know there, there's a, there's a happy medium, right? Where you need the volume, but you also need to make sure you maintain you know, a good, you know, good level of personalization. But I, most sales leaders want to have that, you know, 50 outreach activities, 60 outreach activity per day, but then, W we know maybe 10 is not quite as effective.

Can we find a good, happy medium where it's a good, where a seller is doing omnichannel approach, they multi-threading and they're having a level of personalization in there. So anyway, hopefully I can share some of these ideas today. I know. Let's do it. We've been setting this up somewhere. Where do we start real quick?

Let's start off with connecting. So the first part, what I recommend, LinkedIn will slap you on a risk if you're connecting, trying to reach out to more than 50 people per week, I believe, somewhere around there, or per day, 50 connections per day. So I, I encourage sellers to find their ideal customers. I'm not going into it that you guys should know that already.

But know who those people are. And then what I recommend is that you need to build up your, your feed of people, of viewers that are gonna be people that you can that could buy from you. So I say like 10 to 20, maybe about 20 connections you send out per day to people who are your ideal customers? So let's say if I have my list from marketing or from sales or whoever works with me and they gave me, these are my 50 accounts or 25 accounts that I need to go after, I'm gonna omnichannel into those accounts.

Are multithreading into those accounts, and I'm gonna find those three or four individuals on LinkedIn, and I'm not gonna send 'em the same message on LinkedIn. I'm gonna send 'em different messages. I could tie back to one of the things that I would tell you to do is do not set a connection, send a connection with these people and ask for the deal in it or to op appointment or to pitch.

Like just don't, don't, don't. For most of those, I delete them oftentimes. Or if I'm think I can get a business from it by telling them, join my training program, . So so the first thing I tell you is to look for ways you can genuinely make that human to human connection. I was on this webinar with a sales hacker recently, and I can't take credit for it, but it's one of the BDRs that the sales leader was highlighting.

She does a job. She recognizes that most people are home or working for remotely, so they're in their hometown. Where, What's your hometown, Darryl?

[00:19:54] Darryl Praill: My hometown is Chatham, Ontario, Canada.

So Ontario, that's where you're from, right? You're you're,

I'm a Canadian brother.

[00:19:59] Donald C Kelly: We're talking from right now, so, Yeah, that's right. You're on Ontario right now. So I'm, If even if I want to say something like this you know, Darryl, I, I. Without knowing you, I would say something to the nature Darryl. Hope maybe you can settle an argument that we're having here. Is Tim Horton's better or Starbucks PS permission connect here on LinkedIn.

I love that. Yeah. You're gonna react, you're gonna laugh, you might chuckle or whatnot. Even if you don't pay attention to it, you're gonna, you're gonna know who I am now because you're gonna see that email that come through or whatever. So I'm, I'm grabbing your attention rather than I see we have mutual connections or I see you know, I'd love to connect with you to be able to learn from your insights.

Come on, give cut, cut the bull crap. Just go straight in and, and give something that's gonna make them personal, that connect back to you. I'll give you an example real quick. There was a guy I connected with. I was trying to get in touch with his boss. I reached out to his boss and I got, he got busy and was, you know, ghosted me and, and so forth.

So then I, I wanted to still make an impact. So again, omnichannel idea, multi, it was multithreading. But I knew this guy wasn't gonna be my ideal person, but he can help to at least bring me back up to, you know, in graces to the, the, the, the sales leader. So I reached out to this kid and I said, Hey I see that you're in Atlanta, or I need an expert advice.

I see that you're in Atlanta. Is vers varsity burger up really up for all the hype that it is that it's is varsity, no since varsity burger. Overrated, true or false? And then he accepted my connection request. I didn't hear from him, so I responded back. So dot, dot, dot, smiley face. And then he responded.

It's like, Yeah, it's actually a pretty, it's good, but just make sure you have an opportunity to go to the bathroom right afterwards. And it would started laughing and started joking. , we started joking. The point, what happens though? That message obviously resonated with him. His boss side, boss side, I was looking at his page, Boss responded to my message and I was able to land the appointment.

It's one of those things that just makes it seem, make you a more of a human to human connection. And I'm gonna, and you're probably saying, Well Donald, I want to get appointments, but I'm gonna show you how you can get the appointments from it. But by doing that, it just helped to, you know, germinate and start the conversation.

Our goal is to start conversations have convers. Have conversations. If your profile is set up properly, they're gonna see who you are and what company you're from. So what I like to do, if I was going that same ro route with you, Darryl, and let's say you are a sales leader and we don't know each other, and then you respond back and say, Tim Hortons for sure.

And I say, Ah, I knew you were gonna say that. A lot of my friends down here in South Florida, there's Starbucks people. I don't have a drink coffee. But my Canadian friends they swear that it's the most important thing outta curiosity. What makes it so good in, then you might respond.

[00:22:37] Darryl Praill: Tim, Tim Hortons is not good, by the way.

Just saying for those wondering , Tim, Tim Hortons is like Dunkin Donuts. That's what it is. But they've, but what they've got is they've got a loyal, a loyal base. That's what they've got. But total, But I love that you're doing that. And what I love, what you're doing there is, is I wanna say there's three things you didn't do.

You didn't send a connection request that wasn't personalized. Mm-hmm. , you didn't send a connection request that says I like, you know, in other words, you know, you did say, you know, Hey, I have a question for you that's different from I am, or I do this, or I, you know, it was about be me, me, me, me and you didn't do the connection request.

My company sells lists. My company sells leads. Can I have 10 minutes on your calendar? Right? So my company I are not personalized. In other words, the whole conversation is around you and it's about how can I benefit you? And when you do, I feel like a transaction and I'm into that and I'm done. Cuz I have relationships, I have a tribe, I have a network.

I have the authority and ability in my own control to accept you into my tribe or not. Yes. And if it's all about you, I am not accepting you into my tribe, but you can put a smile on my face. You can make me laugh, . You can, you can engage me. I I want more of you brother. That's what I want. Yeah. So I love that you're saying that.

So the connection request is huge. Huge. But I find that's where people miss it, or if they do Yeah, they, they do the whole, Hey you know, Donald, I, I see you, you were from Jamaica originally. That's so cool. My cousin was from Jamaica. My company sells less, and I was wondering if I could have 10 minutes on your calendar.

And if that doesn't work either, just so we know.

[00:24:22] Donald C Kelly: No, it doesn't. It doesn't, it does not. Because again, it's not you're, you're not being genuine. Not being human. And yeah, I mean obviously they know there's a ask in here somewhere, so, but, It's more, I'm more willing to, to entertain the the ask rather than shn you away because you've grabbed my attention and you did some work.

So what I do then I let it germinate and just kind of like have fun. So you know, you respond to that and say, Oh yeah, you know, Tim Horton's actually crapping. Here's the reason why, blah blah, blah. And it's like, all right, noted. I'll make sure to keep that in mind. And I might say, What do you like? Are you a Dunking Donuts fan then?

Or are you a Starbucks? A Starbucks good. You know, maybe we just have a conversation, but you know, it might die off there. My next step is email, because then now I'm gonna use that in the subject line. Say, you know, so may say, might say something like Tim Horton is garbage. I try, you know, dot, dot, dot.

Hey Darryl, we connected on LinkedIn last week and I remember you told me Tim Horton's garbage. So I can't promise you any Starbucks, but I do. I did recognize something though that you guys have been hiring a lot and your team's growing and and so forth. I'm sure you guys have something in place already.

But we work with you know, we help teams when it comes to towards their BDRs to get up to speed and supplement internal training. Would you be at least open to hearing what I have to share? In worst case, if you don't like what I have to share, I'll give you a Starbucks gift card. dot dot. Do you know jokingly.

Yeah. Yeah. But now I'm, I, I, I like not to do all my, my offering on or asking for the, the sales, especially with new contacts on the platform. I like to take that off with the, with like a video. I mean, gimme an email at that point, right. First off, it's gonna help me to get white labeled because you're gonna answer that open email.

And then second off is gonna cause that engagement. And you might even give me the opportunity, worst case because we had a, you know, good discussion so far. And that gives, you know, it leverages the opportunity for you to at least take the appointment. And that's all I need at that point to be able to have a good conversation with you.

So that's one way that I utilize it when it comes to words, connecting with people and starting to use that connection. The second thing with that too is then in that I, I might send you a video on LinkedIn and it can't, What I recommend is the more that you can make it not a. A like a traditional video, the better.

So if you can use your phone, use your phone and just walk around the office or like leaving or going somewhere or just walk, just if you're around the house somewhere, but just kind of say, Hey Darryl going in to kitchen right now, I don't have any Starbucks, but I just wanna put a face with a name and just kind of say what's up and let you know that I'm a real human.

Hope you're having a fantastic one, man. Thanks so much for the connection by the way. I did drop you an email the other day. Let me know if you got that and I think you might chuckle. . But now that video is helping to again, utilize it for engagement to, to push you to another channel and more channels.

I can get you on the whole, we know the better off that, you know, the multi-channel, the better off I'm gonna be to solidify that relationship in and go further. With it. And then the fi, the last piece when it comes towards connection, Let's say if I did go with the, you know, a pitch on the platform, say we've been connected or whatnot, I might, I, I can probably bring some insight to the table or I might do something like this.

Now that you've answered my questions before, I'll say Darryl permission to ask you a question here on linked permission to ask you a question. Oh, it's Donald, the guy with Tim Horton guy, blah, blah, blah. All right, let me see what he has to share. He said, Yeah, sure. Shoot. Or not, Let's not shoot you, but , But shoot, what's up Donald?

And then I might just explain there what I'm doing. I might, I noticed this, you know, recently I saw that you all have been hiring, you're growing BDRs, your sellers right now. I see that they haven't posted on LinkedIn in a while. I'm curious, dear, your salespeople not utilize LinkedIn. It's just not a priority.

Is that intentional? And then you might respond to me and. No. Or Yes. Yeah, it's actually, we wish we can have 'em use it more and then I might come back and say, you know, go with a, an idea. I have a couple thoughts on how we've been utilizing LinkedIn. Just like how you and I have been able to connect our team and I do things like this all the time and I would love to share with you at least, you know, see if you're open to it, some thoughts on what your sales team can do and to help increase their LinkedIn opportunities.

Would you be open to a seven, to five to seven minute. because if I can't share something with you in five to seven minutes, it's not 10 minutes, then I'm not, It's not, It's not gonna be important and it's not gonna be worthy. I need to be able to share my value to you in five to seven minutes, and you probably say, Yeah, sure.

And we land an appointment. That's an appointment. Even if it's not for a demo, it's an appointment that I am able to. Talk and bring value to you. But that's one of the story. That's those a couple things. How I utilize it when it comes towards connecting with folks, we can talk about sharing content and then engaging further.

[00:28:57] Darryl Praill: Oh yeah. I wanna get to that, but I want to stop you. There's three takeaways that I, I react to when you were, we were discussing connecting takeaway number one. I love that you were bridging from channel to channel and you were, and then take away number two. So in other words, what you're doing is you're opening up multiple channels to engage with this person as oppos to just being reliant upon one.

It's like a backup plan. A plan being a plan C, if didn't respond here. Well, I did start a conversation over there, the second one. Was the cross-referencing. Hey. Yeah. And your email was, you know, Hey, you know, I'm the guy I talked about Tim Horton's on, on LinkedIn or Starbucks, right? So that was the cross-referencing.

Just like when you make a phone call, folks, your voicemail can say, I'm the guy who reached out to you on the Tim Horton's conversation. Just wanna try to connect you live, right? So they, they know who you are. So they see multiple touches, multiple channels. You're bridging, your cross referencing. Those are the first two things.

The last thing though, that was the most compelling to me at all was did you guys pick up on how patient he. Did you? He was incredibly patient. Too many my, my youngest. Hated sports growing up. Why? Because they wanted to be I, we used to always laugh for Canadians, though. They wanted to be Wayne Gretzky.

Wayne Gretzky. They wanted to get, you know, 200 goals in a season and they could barely skate. And they get so frustrated because they weren't a rockstar. So they gave up. In other words, Using another sports analogy, they wanted to hit a home run every single time. Mm. What Donald was giving you, it was a whole bunch of singles.

He was saying hey, I want, I send this video. I'm the guy with the Starbucks. Just wanted to show I'm a real person. There's no real call to action there. He's just, that's just a touch point. He said permission to ask a question. Boom. Now he's gotta wait. He's gotta wait for them to respond. All right?

And then they come back, and then he would, you know, give his spiel and then ask another question. All right? In other words, he was saying this exchange could take weeks. But I'm patient as opposed to trying to hit the home run, trying to get it one and done, which is what people are doing when you, when you send the connection request and you send the pitch and you do the ask all at the same time, and that's why it doesn't work.

Patience. Yeah. Patie, no one wants to feel. Cornered or pressured? Cause what do they do when they feel that way? They walk away from it. They say, I don't need this shit. And they just walk away from it. Yeah. So huge play there. I dunno if you caught that, but that was, I think everything he was saying, his messaging, his approach is spot on.

But it was also, he was bridging channels. He was cross-referencing channels and he was patient as hell. So love that about your, your boy there.

[00:31:29] Donald C Kelly: And you see the beautiful thing about that too, whether you're using Vanilla Soft, or Outreach or whatever those platforms that you're taking advantage of, just like, you know, just extend your sequence a little bit and just utilize, just give yourself those reminders.

But if I'm doing that every single day, like in the California Gold Rush, there wasn't a lot of people who got a big, like, found big chunks. There's a story I hear about a go a, a gentleman went to California, sold all that he had and was trying to make it big. And wasn't making anything. And then what he realized, he saw old prospecting.

He's like, Bro, what do you didn't say, bro. Back then he was like, So what are you doing? And this guy had a big sack of gold on the siding. He's like, That's what I want. And then he said, How'd you do it? And this old prospect, he just kind of showed him. He's like, I just, he took two of rocks, knocked it out, open together and saw some flakes and put his flakes in his.

And he was like, Seriously, that's what's happening. And that's the way this guy got so much gold was that he was, he wasn't like finding big nuggets. He just took these rocks, break them. You find the gold and you put the livers, or, you know, sifting in the, in the water and finding little gold in pieces and you put 'em into your thing.

Those pieces add up. So if you're doing this, remember 10 to, if you're 10 to 10, send it 10 to 20 connections per day of those ideal customers you're trying to reach out to. You're building up your, your pool, and then you're going in and you're engaging with. That's gonna lead to appointments. So if you get like four or five appointments per week, that's probably gonna be light years over your folks who are probably getting one or two doing their mass spamming. So anyways.

[00:32:50] Darryl Praill: Patience is a virtue.

[00:32:51] Donald C Kelly: That's the first part.

[00:32:52] Darryl Praill: Let's talk sharing.

[00:32:53] Donald C Kelly: Sharing content. 2% of LinkedIn user share content. So what I would, until all of you right now is a sales rep, write this down. Think about the top 10 objections that you get on a day-to-day basis. Top 10 objections. Yes. You know, not interested.

We have something in place already. Or, you know, let's back up. Something in play Objection related to your product or your service. So if I sold water you know, might say, Donald I don't believe in port purified water. I'd like spring water. One, objection. Two. Buying water is a waste of, you know, damaging the environment.

Three whatever. So I'll get all of these things. I'm doing that because I have water on my desk, . So but if that's the case, you, you know, you know those objections. So then you take those objections and you put them in the sub as your post on LinkedIn, and then you battle challenge that. So you might.

But these are things that are gonna perk up for your ideal customer because they're gonna say, Yeah, that's what I see. That's correct. So objection may be that I put up there is like buying water is a total waste of money, dot, dot, dot all caps. And then underneath that, I'll put. I, this is what I get all the time from pro, from pe, from potential customers before they partner with us.

And here's the reason why. This is, you know, why they feel this way. It's because of this, because of this, and because of this. However one of the things that we've seen to help clients or help people to, to better utilize water in their offices or you know, at home is to do blanky to blank and blanky to blank.

I'm curious to hear what you feel on that. Is that something you believe True or? It's an easy response that people can reply to it in the comments, so they're not even gonna gimme a true or false on that. Or I might do a. Same idea. Buying water is a total waste of money. Yes, no, maybe I don't even drink water.

I drink soda . So then now the poll is gonna go, What's gonna happen again? People are gonna react to that poll and vote on that poll, and people are gonna react to my post. Even if they don't comment, they might like co, you know, clap or whatever. Now, those who do that, I look at those people and then I go back in.

Cause again, most likely those are gonna be people Of my 10 to 20 people I'm connected with every single day. So they're gonna be on that post. So then I will go and interact with those folks on that platform. So if somebody didn't take an appointment for me, weren't interested right now, but I'm still engaging and sharing relative relevant content, they might like one of my things.

And then I might drop a comment and say, Hey Darryl, I saw that you interacted on my post about the water. Thank you for doing that, outta curiosity. What do you feel? Is it a waste of money from your standpoint or is. and then now I'm starting a conversation with you again. Maybe we didn't, the Tim Horton thing didn't pan out, but now months later or weeks later, you're engaging with my stuff and now we can engage with conversation.

And then that usually, you know, it might say, Yeah, I think it is or not. It's like, you know, I feel this, you know, I can see where you're coming from with that. If I were to share with you a idea or I give you a couple tips of how you guys can utilize water more in your office, would you be open?

Okay. Yeah, sure. And then now that leads to a conversation, leads to the appointment. And then coming back to the poll as well, I might see all the people who voted that water, you know, having water in the office isn't, you know, is good or whatnot. Might say, Hey Darryl, I saw that you engaged on my poll saying that water is good.

I appreciate that. Thanks man. Outta curiosity, why do you guys feel that way? And then that might lead to the conversation. The two different comments, right? I might say, Thanks for engaging on my post, appreciate that. And you might say, Hey, no problem. Then I might say, Hey, curious about your, your comment though.

And then that might lead further to the discussion. And if you know, if I say you're open to some ideas, yeah, I'm sure I'm open to hearing some more talk to you for five minutes. I jump on a call between schedule an appointment, and then you go from there. Anyways, you just identify what is that pain for me, the sales stuff I utilize.

Like say for instance you know, somebody might say, If prospecting doesn't work on LinkedIn, then I might say, Hey, if you're open to it, I'm more than willing to give you a couple ideas that's working for me when it comes towards LinkedIn. Open to a five to seven minute call. Yeah, I'm sure I'm open to that call.

On that call. I'm not gonna do a, you know, you know, a fast and switch and just try to sell you. I'm gonna give you all the value like I promised on that, but naturally you're gonna say, Donald. So tell me a little bit more about what you guys do or how does that work with you? Oh, sure. So this is how we do it.

We offer training programs specifically around it, and I'm gonna lace the conversation talking about the course, but I won't necessarily be a pitch, might say, Yeah, in our course, the, when we train teams like, you know, on how to utilize LinkedIn, here's three things that I tell 'em to do. Teach 'em how to connect, teach 'em how to share content, and I teach 'em how to engage with those people after you can share content.

Here's what you guys can do. I looked at your company before we jumped on a call. Here's some things that you guys have the blog post that went, you know, your team shared recently. How about you try doing with that this weekend, tell me how it works for you. But now I'm giving value and that's how I've seen to get those appointments.

Thoughts, feelings on that have been rapid for a minute.

[00:37:31] Darryl Praill: No, you're been great. I'm last cuz you're, you're jumping back and forth. You're going almost to share, cuz I know you got three items. Connect, share, and engage. But you're doing, you're, you're really piecing near that the share and engage like hard and tight.

Right? The share leads to the engage in a big, big, big, big way. And it was funny. As I'm listening to you, and I love that you started off by saying, think about the top 10, you know, objections or talking points that come up in your conversations all the time. So I'm just gonna kind of circle back to those who are regular listeners to the podcast.

And so if you're not. I'm gonna mention a couple shows right now that you should go back and listen to. Recently did a podcast with Casey Cheshire. We're talking about how sales reps can be podcasters and the whole point there was, you know, you need topics. And we talked about how you can go and invite your target icp, your target customers to the show.

So they can then become, you can, you can milk them for all the stories and their pains and what they're dealing with and how they solve the problem. Similarly though, on that same related sp thought, you can think about all the objections you're getting exactly like what Donald just said, and go target people in the industry you're servicing.

To address those objections. All right? Is buying water a waste of money? I've got the water king here, Susie Smith. I'm making that up. . So and we're gonna talk about it today, right? And that becomes content. Then you can then share. That's the where I was going, right? We talked about you, and now you can not, Are you sharing content?

You're the facilitator, and here's the third party expert that everybody trusts in the industry is saying that you're right. Or that, that you're credible, Yes. Or you're, or you're sparking a great conversation, which then allows you to have more reach. Cuz you're tagging that person who's your podcast host.

But then you can parcel up that content and use it in your LinkedIn. Connection efforts. You can use it in your email. You can use it lots of different ways to say, Hey, you know, I just had a conversation with Susie Smith, the, the water king. I forget my gender confusion room for a moment. And you can say, you know, here's what she had to say.

And the biggest complaint I get or concern I get all the time. What do you, what do you think? Do you agree with Susie? Mm-hmm. , Do you or is it an objection? Would love your thoughts right. That was the one thing. Another thing, going way back when, it's been a few episodes now, we had .

Mm-hmm.

was great, cuz he talks about, and I brought him up a couple times, but again, we're looking at sharing and, and, and, and Donald said, What are the 10 objections? I, I'm repeating what he's saying here. Right. So Tebow says, he talks about what's your ideal customer profile? Why does that matter here?

Well, it matters because your ideal customer profile is gonna. Objections and that you're dealing with. And so what does he say? He said you needed to know what is the one metric that matters to your target persona. What is the goal related to that metric? What is the initiative required to achieve that goal?

What are the problems related to that initiative? Right. And then what are the symptoms related to that problem? And all of that affects your messaging. So now when you're sharing, you can talk to metrics or you can talk to goals, or you can talk to initiatives, or you can talk to problems or you can talk to symptoms add to spark that conversation.

Or to engage with them directly. So it's doing your customers, it's having a third party credibility. It's having that content, it's meeting their objections straight on using the very language and environment and metrics and challenges that lay they live in every single day. Suddenly your connection rate goes to the roof.

And I just cross reference those two episodes because that's what I'm thinking of as Donald's putting it out there. I'm going, That's what I'm gonna do right there.

[00:41:21] Donald C Kelly: Oh, so good. I love it, man. And yeah, we need to check those out, so I'll make sure to look for those in the show notes as well.

[00:41:26] Darryl Praill: You're so polite. You're way too busy, man. You're a rockstar, author, podcaster.

[00:41:31] Donald C Kelly: Oh, what not. No.

[00:41:33] Darryl Praill: I'm looking at your podcast just as a total side bar, at this moment in time, he's approaching 1600 episodes. He's kicking my ass. All right, so, There we go. He's, he's gonna look at those later on. He's probably talked about it on his podcast. You should be listening to his podcast instead of mine. So there we go. Let's, let's drill down more into engage.

[00:41:55] Donald C Kelly: Yeah. So with that too, So now you, I kind of alluded to some of it there. I gave you some some appetizer. When you're engaging on your post. But here's the other piece. Oh, I love where you're going. Engaging on others' posts and also on their post. And what I mean by this is like most times, and you just understand how basic algorithms are gonna work. Like if you, Oh man, there's so many things.

There's. Several pieces that I'll tell you that where people leave food on a table. One, go back to this. LinkedIn's gonna tell you every single day when LinkedIn wants you to stay on the platform for advertising's purposes. The more engagement that they have, the better they can sell ads, blah, blah, blah, yada, yada.

Just know the game. Now we know that in the game, let's play the game. So now they're gonna tell you who view your profile. If I know who view my profile, that's a reason why they're looking at my profile, whether they're trying to sell to me or whether they think I'm freaking hot or whether they wanna buy something from me.

So usually it's not because I'm freaking hot, and mostly it's cause they're trying to sell to me, and sometimes it's because they listen to my podcast and want to learn more about me. . So then what I will do is I look at those people and I see anyone that may feel fall into my icp. So if I see, again, Daryl is, you know, I see UNC there.

Daryl is a, is a sales leader, and he, you know, is looked at my profile. Why is he looking at my profile? So I'll go back and I'll say something about it, not be creepy about it. It's like, Darryl, I saw that he looked at my. not to be creepy. I looked at yours and I'm like, Why in the world are we not connected?

Permission to connect to her on LinkedIn. That's my personality. Do whatever your personality say, but because I do that, it's funny how many know those people connect back with me and I'll say, Hey, Dar, out of curiosity, what made you decide to, you know, stop by? You know, I say, oh, because I was, you know, I love the podcast.

I listened to a podcast and I wanted to learn a little bit more about you. Cool man. How did you hear about the show? Oh, because of this blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Anything in particular? Any topics you feel you wanna hear more about? No. You've been doing pretty well on that. Well here's one question cuz I'm always looking for content.

What's the biggest challenge your sales team's facing right now? Man, a lot of sellers facing this and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Give me the, gimme the goal. All right? I have an episode you can check out for that. But I, I also because you're cool and you're also in my network, if you're open to it I, I always love to connect back with people.

Listen to me. Would you be open to a five to seven minute call and I can give you a couple ideas I have in addition to this podcast, what you can help. Sure, let's do it Donald. So I use my celebrity factor in that sense, but the views are people who are looking at your profile that we can take advantage of.

So you can do that with your, whatever your industry you're in. And then the second thing too is also people who pe, you know, job promotions or different changes, that's a trigger for us. If somebody becomes a sales leader or new role that's what I want to see as well. So they'll say, Hey, Darryl just got a new role.

I can send a stupid one and say, Hey, congratulations on promotion. What I'm gonna say is, Hey, Darryl, congrats on the recent. I'll say, This is what I say, Steal it. I say a little birdie. That there's promotion in the year. Congratulations on that. By the way, what do you say? What, what would, what's your first line of your first act, plan of action as you jump into this new.

Oh man, the team is dysfunctional. Trying to get them all squared away or you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Oh, cool man, that's awesome. Here's an episode he might want to check out if you're gonna look for stuff like that. It's, we interviewed Daryl and you talked about, you know, how to organize your team as a sales leader.

Cool. I'll check it out. And then the same idea, if you're open to it, more than willing to share a couple other insights saw what you guys were doing more than willing to share some ideas on that. But I'm engaging with people again, that I've connected with one of those maybe 10 people or 20 people that one day.

It's now it's in my profile. So that's some engagement. And the third thing is obviously your post. So Daryl, share a post and this is the, the easy one. I'm gonna see how many times you know, if Darl Co people may like it, but they don't wanna comment. So Daryl has a post, he has, you know, 30 people that liked it, and two comments.

High probability. I'm gonna grab his attention. I'm gonna look at the post, read it, and then give a thoughtful insight. Darryl, I could not agree with you more about the Pirates of the Caribbean. I really believe that there's no better one than Johnny Depp unless they, unless they brought me in as a.

As Johnny does, as the jacks per, I think I could really do that one. You're probably gonna laugh and enjoy that, but I engage on your post. And now you might like that in comment back. Then I can, that might lead to me dropping a personal message. Daryl, Love that post. I might do a video. Darryl, love that post.

Let me tell you my Jacks sparrow voice doing it. My Jacks sparrow voice. But anyways, hope you're doing well man. Congrats on the new role and thanks for always being out there. You're gonna engage, you're gonna respond back. You might like it and then I lead into a conversation, but I'm playing to your ego because you like that engagement.

And LinkedIn's gonna tell you. And then also post that you may like, even though a lot of people don't post on LinkedIn, cuz that's the objection that I get a lot of people posting. Donald, how can I still share relevant content? Or engage with them. Well, I see whatever post they like, and then I go and I make a ruckus on that post.

So if they, they like the post by Donald Kelly on a podcast, I might interact on that. Donald. Love that. This episode looks awesome. I like the third point about, you know, taking advantage of LinkedIn as a sales tool. Really feel that many salespeople drop it there. Appreciate that. And now Darryl's, more than likely is gonna see that, that.

Commented on it because there's not a lot of people who are commenting on it. But I'm gonna follow you around and do share relevant things and engage where you are. So you're gonna be like, Dang, this guy's everywhere. I got his email. He sent that awesome personal message. Let me, and then I might follow up email, I might hit you back up.

And now that helps me to, to Dr. Come up the top of your pool. Or I might engage with you with a, a personal message on LinkedIn and straight up, just ask, you know, if I might say, I'll say something like, Darryl permission to ask a. Issue Donald. And then I go with that approach. I saw you guys are hiring saw you commented on this post.

I think it's on your mind. I have an idea I think can really help you guys out when it comes to wheres those new sellers to make sure they ramp faster. Would you be open to hearing more about that anyways?

[00:47:26] Darryl Praill: That's what's really powerful about what Donald's saying here is it's just about being present.

You know what I mean? How many times have our significant others say, You're just not present. You don't talk to me. You're there, but you don't talk to me. Right? So being present now, the problem is you're gonna say you don't have enough time. I can't track a model how to do it. Well, there's tools for that.

Okay. So, yep. You know, I'll tell wraps. I, you know, depending on how gross you wanna start, take your, take your top 50, your top a. Target accounts that you wanna get into. Some simple math. Okay. Let's say there's 10 possible people that you can multi thread in an account. And so 50 times 10 is 500, a hundred times 10 is a thousand.

So you have a 500 to a thousand individuals that you could monitor, so you could engage now. Again, you're saying, Well, how do I do that? How do I monitor them? LinkedIn is not, you know, I have a feed. It's not the most easiest. There are some simple ways to do that. , what one is LinkedIn Navigator. You may or may not have a subscription to it, but if you have sales Navigator, you can go put those thousand contacts into in a list and, and navigator will show you here's, here's what your contacts are posted or not, and you can go right to it and respond.

That's another way, Another way you can do it. And this is what a lot of my reps do. At a gool. I'm gonna give you something crazy here. Alright? I'm not trying to pitch, I'm just trying to share it. Still use the social media management tool to go and look for specific individuals or for keywords that like your competition, right?

So we're talking about LinkedIn here, but it's not the, everything applies to the social media platform. So if somebody's on Facebook or somebody's on Twitter saying, Hey is anybody familiar with vendor? And I've gotta, I'm, I'm, I'm listening for vendor A. I can hop in there and I can say, Well, you know, I'm with vendor B, full disclosure, here's what I know about vendor A.

If you want to, I can show you how vendor B me handles that exact same situation. Let's connect. Right? So, and you can do that not just on keywords, but for individuals. So you can go beyond LinkedIn and that's the big powerful thing. So, There are ways to do that. It's really all I'm getting at is that engaging can be optimized and streamlined to conserve your time.

The biggest thing there is about making your engagement. Relevant, and there's a lot of themes in what you're hearing Donald say. You're, you're, you're really personalizing, you're contextualizing it, you're making it, you're humanizing it, You're, you're ditching the pitch tendencies. You're taking your time.

And by the way, everything we're talking about here is what you do in a relationship, right? I mean, we, yes, we've all been single. There's like a one night stand, and then there's the person I wanna bring home to mom. All right? The one night stand can be fast and. And done all right, but the one person I'm gonna bring home the mom, I'm gonna develop this relationship over time, right?

Because it means more to me. I'm gonna invest in it. I'm gonna really work hard to connect with them. This is all it is. Dude, we're out of time. There's so much more. What's the best way to connect with you? I mean, again, obviously I've talked about the podcast, the sales evangelist, and if you go to the sales evangelist.com website, Folks, you'll see all of his incredible services and capabilities.

He is. He is a stud muffin. I want to be fully clear in that he could be Jack Sparrow , he could be Jack Sparrow. But if nothing else, if you like what you're hearing here, sell it like a Mango, a new seller's guide to closing more deals. I love it. Check it out. It's got amazing ratings. On Amazon and it's not that expensive.

All right, there you go. It's not that expensive. Invested your own success LinkedIn. Best way to get ahold of you, sir. Or somewhere else.

[00:51:10] Donald C Kelly: Yeah, go to LinkedIn to connect with me, Donald C kelly. I'm also on every platform as Donald C kelly, so Twitter. I spent time on Instagram, Donald C kelly, and also on what do you call it, TikTok Donald C. Kelly.

Now, one of the things I wanna just give you as well is another little bonus as you. Look, if you want to connect with people, look at platforms where they're trying to grow their audience that they're not big on. So LinkedIn, you're gonna, you know, a little bit of thousands there. TikTok and Insta, I'm building up so.

You'd DM me there, probably get responded a little bit quicker just as something, but I do love LinkedIn. So hit me up there and we have a free program you can check out on our website as free. It's tse five part for each sales training program. Just go to the homepage and grow out to the bottom of the page and click on, put your name and email in and whatnot. And you get that free course, five part videos give you some ideas of stuff that can help you as you're out there.

[00:52:00] Darryl Praill: So I'm looking at it now. Free five part sales trading course. Get access now and it's Donald on a kick ass microphone and background. He's consistently well lit, sounding amazing. He knows the hell outta me.

Folks, if you've not met Donald before, I don't know where you've been, but he's legendary now. The best thing to do, Is to use all the mojo he just taught you today on him. Hey, Donald just heard you on the Inside, Inside Sales Podcast. Is prayer obnoxious or not? Just curious what you think and then leave it there and see what he does.

Okay folks, I had fun. He's a legend. We're gonna be back next week and do it all over again. Have a good one. We'll talk to you soon. Take care. Bye.

This episode was digitally transcribed.