Is not being "salesy" enough sabotaging your B2B marketing results on LinkedIn? In this episode we share three great lessons you can learn from social selling to improve your marketing results.
Key moments in this episode:
00:00 Embrace the Salesy Approach
00:52 The Sales vs. Marketing Debate
04:42 Social Selling on LinkedIn
06:49 Lesson 1: Know Thy Customer
10:30 Lesson 2: Reframe Your LinkedIn Strategy
14:15 Lesson 3: Humanise Your Brand
18:18 Bridging Sales and Marketing for Better Results
ABOUT MICHELLE J RAYMOND
Michelle J Raymond is an international LinkedIn™️ B2B Growth Coach. To continue the conversation, connect with Michelle on LinkedIn™️ and let her know you are part of the community of podcast listeners.
Connect with Michelle J Raymond on LinkedIn™️ - https://www.linkedin.com/in/michellejraymond/
B2B Growth Co offers LinkedIn™️ Training for teams to build personal and business brands and a LinkedIn™️ Profile Recharge service for Founders/CEOs.
Book a free intro call to learn more - https://calendly.com/michelle-j-raymond/book-an-intro-call-15mins
Social Media for B2B Growth Podcast is a fully accessible podcast. Audio, Video, Transcript and guest details are available on our podcast website - https://socialmediaforb2bgrowthpodcast.com/
Subscribe to our YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/@MichelleJRaymond
#LinkedIn #SocialSelling #B2BMarketing
00:00:00
Michelle J Raymond: Listen in B2B marketers.
00:00:01
If you want better results on LinkedIn, it's time to get more salesy.
00:00:06
Yes, you heard me right.
00:00:08
More salesy.
00:00:10
And in today's episode, I'm going to give you three great reasons exactly why.
00:00:32
G'day everyone.
00:00:33
It is Coach Michelle J Raymond and welcome back listeners.
00:00:36
I hope you're having an awesome week and we're going to do a bit of a deep dive
00:00:41
into all things selling in this episode.
00:00:43
And it's something that I'm absolutely passionate about.
00:00:47
And a question that often gets raised, especially in posts around the place.
00:00:52
Who's better at LinkedIn?
00:00:54
Are marketers better at LinkedIn or a sales people better at LinkedIn?
00:00:58
Now, as someone that spent 20 years in B2B sales, you know, that I'm going
00:01:03
to sway a little bit to that side.
00:01:05
And once upon a time, if you'd asked me, I would have been sales all the way.
00:01:11
But what's happened is I became a business owner around four and a half years ago.
00:01:16
And I very quickly with a baptism of fire, got to figure out exactly how important marketing is.
00:01:24
And because I work with B2B marketers predominantly, I've realised that the
00:01:31
words that come out from them so often when I'm coaching and training them are Oh no,
00:01:36
Michelle, we don't want to be too salesy.
00:01:39
And I'm like, no, you can't say that.
00:01:43
But what I know that you actually mean is you don't want to be like those people that
00:01:48
just connect and pitch for no real reason.
00:01:52
It's a numbers game, spray and pray, all of those kinds of analogies.
00:01:56
I understand that you probably don't want to do that.
00:01:59
And I don't want you to do that either.
00:02:01
That's not what we're talking about in today's episode.
00:02:05
Hang in with me because the three lessons I'm going to share from my experience are
00:02:10
really going to help you generate more engagement, get better reach, and ultimately
00:02:15
generate opportunities for your business.
00:02:17
No matter whether you're running the Company Page or helping people within
00:02:21
the business create their personal brand, there's something for everyone in this.
00:02:26
I am passionate about sales.
00:02:28
I love it because I have a brilliant context that keeps me going every single day.
00:02:35
And if you don't have a context for how selling can be fun or why you could be
00:02:40
passionate about selling, I want you to steal mine until you come up with your own.
00:02:45
And my context for selling is I love it because it's just problem solving and helping people.
00:02:53
The more you do of both, the more the leads and opportunities and revenue takes care of itself.
00:03:00
So problem solving, helping people.
00:03:03
That's all sales is to me.
00:03:05
And that's the context that we're going to go into today's conversation.
00:03:08
So now we're just going to have a quick word from our podcast sponsors, Metricool.
00:04:42
Listeners at the start of this show, I said, you need to be more salesy.
00:04:46
And what I mean by that, by my definition is how do you implement some of the
00:04:52
best practices out of social selling on LinkedIn to help you be better marketers?
00:04:58
And I think it's really important at the start of this, that we start with how I define social
00:05:04
selling, and it's a definition that I found some time ago that came through from Hootsuite.
00:05:10
And their definition is this:
00:05:13
"The art of using social media to find, connect with, understand, and nurture sales prospects.
00:05:23
It's the modern way to develop meaningful relationships with potential customers so
00:05:30
you're the first person or brand a prospect thinks of when they're ready to buy."
00:05:37
This can be done by employees that you work with, marketers running
00:05:41
Company Pages and everyone in between.
00:05:44
I've said it once, I've said it a billion times.
00:05:46
LinkedIn really is a team sport if you want to reap the benefits of that effort.
00:05:51
The reason that I share that definition that I love so much upfront is that for
00:05:56
me is what we're really trying to do.
00:05:59
How do we find the right people?
00:06:01
How do we connect with them?
00:06:02
How do we nurture them?
00:06:04
Especially when we know most of our audience and community are not in the market to buy.
00:06:09
If you read the research from LinkedIn in the B2B Institute, there's a rule called the 95-5 rule.
00:06:16
It basically says 95 percent of your audience right now are not looking to buy.
00:06:21
It's the 5 percent that are, but you know what?
00:06:24
It's too late.
00:06:24
They already had their short list.
00:06:26
They'd already been following along people's content and have probably got a list of two or
00:06:30
three potentials that they're looking to buy from.
00:06:33
You don't want to wait until it's at that point because it's too late.
00:06:37
You've already missed out.
00:06:44
Listeners, I know you're driven to be the best marketers that generate results for your business.
00:06:49
I'm going to share my first sales lesson with you that I think will make marketers
00:06:53
better at LinkedIn to help drive these business goals and help you achieve your KPIs.
00:06:59
And the first one is: Know thy customer and thy customer is not just a persona.
00:07:07
What I discovered when I was selling and, I had a career of 20 years across all
00:07:11
kinds of industries and worked with all types of different sizes of customers from
00:07:16
small family owned businesses to billion dollar companies and everywhere in between.
00:07:21
But the valuable lesson that I learned from being an account manager and going out and
00:07:27
visiting sites is that you never really know who's involved in that buying decision.
00:07:34
And they're not just a persona.
00:07:35
It's not just one person.
00:07:37
So you might have, a Persona that you think that you're creating that content
00:07:41
for, but always keep in mind who else will be involved in that buying decision.
00:07:47
Now I'll use an example.
00:07:48
When I used to go out and visit customers, I would become friends with everybody.
00:07:54
I would get to know everybody that was on that site, their name.
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Was it the receptionist?
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Was it the warehouse manager?
00:08:01
Was it the accounts person?
00:08:04
Was it the research and development person, the sales team?
00:08:08
And of course my target audience was the buyer.
00:08:12
But by becoming close to everybody in the business that I could, I got to understand
00:08:18
how the business worked, who was involved in decisions, and quite often buyers are
00:08:23
trained to not give away information.
00:08:26
They don't want to tell you anything, but you'd be amazed at what you can
00:08:30
find out from other people who aren't so strictly involved in processes like that.
00:08:35
You might also discover relationships within the business that you didn't know existed.
00:08:40
And these can be important and it can also drive what kind of content that you're creating.
00:08:46
The thing that I would say to most people is when you're connecting with people on LinkedIn,
00:08:52
don't just zero in on just the one buyer.
00:08:56
Connect with as many people as you can at that target business.
00:09:01
And you will be surprised.
00:09:04
And pleasantly surprised just exactly what comes out of this.
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Now, the people that use automation tools, they're the ones that just pick, Oh, that's
00:09:13
the head of purchasing, That's the only person.
00:09:16
Or I'm going to target all the CEOs cause I think they're the decision makers.
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Ah wrong that is not the case in many businesses.
00:09:25
The reason that I also want you to get to know as many people and connect with them
00:09:29
yourself and follow along what's going on, you'll get a real insight into what it's
00:09:35
really like a day in the life of that person, that business, what keeps them up at night?
00:09:41
What KPIs are they driven by?
00:09:43
What's their priority right now?
00:09:45
For you, it might be that you think that it's one thing, but really in their
00:09:50
business, you discover it's something else.
00:09:52
And you can really, reel in your content strategy to align with this.
00:09:57
So get to know them, have conversations with your sales team, with your customer service
00:10:02
team, connect with people on LinkedIn from those target businesses and start to know thy customer.
00:10:30
Lesson number two really comes back to reframing exactly what you're doing
00:10:36
on LinkedIn and why you're doing it.
00:10:38
Marketers, I know that you have a whole bunch of KPIs, which you're trying to achieve.
00:10:44
And one of the KPIs that I know a lot of marketing teams are driven by, is
00:10:49
essentially, how many leads you're generating out of the marketing activities.
00:10:54
And I think when you go into just thinking about what you're doing is just about generating
00:11:01
leads, you miss out on a bigger opportunity, which I think salespeople are really good at.
00:11:07
And that is, you're going to miss out on having conversations.
00:11:11
And content that is driven to entice conversations and bring people from the industry into the
00:11:19
conversation is far more powerful than lead gen content, which is only generated to try and
00:11:27
capture, you know, maybe someone's email address.
00:11:29
Marketers, here's the thing.
00:11:31
When you're just out to get leads and that's what drives you, the people on the other side
00:11:36
that are receiving that content, they feel that.
00:11:39
They are awake to the old school we're just trying to get your email address so we can enter
00:11:45
you into our email sequence to follow you up with all of our processes that are automated.
00:11:51
Everybody knows that's, what's about to happen.
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That's why there's been the rise of ungated content as a concept.
00:11:57
And so taking a step back and going, I just want to be curious.
00:12:02
I want to get to know this community better.
00:12:05
You will create far better content that resonates and generates opportunities, which is ultimately
00:12:12
what you want, but it's a totally different experience for the person on the other side.
00:12:17
So reframe what you're doing.
00:12:19
Take a moment and think if I was to create content that was in service of the audience,
00:12:25
that was about generating a conversation and getting to know people, how would you
00:12:29
change your post that you've got scheduled?
00:12:32
The content that you've got coming up?
00:12:34
The best way that I can help you with this one is you're going to have to do
00:12:38
a sense check and read your content and go, would I like to see that content?
00:12:44
Would that entice me to want to be involved in a conversation?
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Or do I feel like that someone's just ticking a box?
00:12:51
Do I feel like that someone's just out to get me?
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What is the emotion that you leave the person with on the other side?
00:12:59
We spoke about this previously in an episode where I teach you my four step
00:13:03
framework, the R.A.T.E Framework so that you can create pieces of content.
00:13:08
And, part of that is about having empathy.
00:13:11
E is for empathy for the person on the other side.
00:13:14
So don't forget you are creating content with the intention of getting conversations started.
00:13:20
Brilliant B2B marketers are the ones that create content with the aim of creating
00:13:26
communities, creating conversations within those communities and leading those
00:13:32
conversations that will lead to leads.
00:13:35
We never want to create content on LinkedIn that is just about generating leads.
00:13:40
We want to always be conscious of what's it like for the person on the other side
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to receive it and be better than that.
00:13:47
And I have no doubt that those leads will follow.
00:14:15
Here we are at lesson number three.
00:14:18
And lesson number three, tI hink for many marketers, this is going
00:14:22
to give you a big sense of relief.
00:14:25
And the reason that I want to bring this one up is that when I'm talking to B2B marketers,
00:14:32
and often when I'm doing Company Page audits and strategies, people come to me and
00:14:36
they're like, our Page has stopped working.
00:14:39
We're not getting engagement.
00:14:41
We're not getting reach.
00:14:42
There's no conversations going on in the comments and they're feeling really frustrated.
00:14:48
And when I take a look, It's perfectionism that is killing the performance.
00:14:54
And by perfectionism, I mean, ensuring that absolutely every minute detail
00:15:01
is now within the brand guidelines that were designed for other things.
00:15:06
Not necessarily social selling on LinkedIn.
00:15:09
And you might've even been frustrated sometimes that salespeople don't
00:15:13
really seem to care about that.
00:15:16
That you might think, Oh my God, they created a template that wasn't
00:15:20
the world's most perfect template.
00:15:22
And I get it from your perspective, but the more templated, the more perfect when
00:15:28
it comes to LinkedIn, the more that people feel like it's an ad, feel like it's
00:15:33
inauthentic and they don't trust your brand.
00:15:37
So often the solution that comes out of doing these audit and strategies Is I have
00:15:42
to have some tough conversations with people to say, it's time to humanise your brand.
00:15:48
It's time to pair back some of those controls and figure out how can you present your brand
00:15:57
on LinkedIn, but not necessarily be perfect and jammed into a nice, neat little box.
00:16:04
And it's not because I don't respect what brand guidelines bring to marketing.
00:16:10
I absolutely do.
00:16:12
Probably now more than ever.
00:16:14
But the problem is that you have missed the opportunity to humanise your brand.
00:16:21
There's no connection.
00:16:22
There's no feeling.
00:16:24
It feels like you're ticking a box and think about what is the content that
00:16:28
you engage with most, on the platform.
00:16:31
And safe to say, if it looks like an ad and smells like an ad, and it just feels like
00:16:36
a corporate brochure, you wouldn't engage with it and neither will your audience.
00:16:42
And it doesn't mean throw branding guidelines out the window, but maybe you need to reinvent some
00:16:47
new guidelines for what works with social selling.
00:16:51
The cool thing about when a salesperson is really good at social selling, what makes them good
00:16:58
at it is that they're just being themselves.
00:17:01
That they are sharing their knowledge, that they're passionate about what
00:17:04
they do, that they use their own language and it's authentically them.
00:17:10
That is what I'm talking about here.
00:17:12
That is the magic.
00:17:13
That is what works.
00:17:20
Think about how could you start to bring this in, especially to the Company Page content.
00:17:27
I know that Company Pages who find ways to do this with their content
00:17:33
and humanise their brand, see results.
00:17:36
And they see them quickly.
00:17:38
I've been working with one client that, I had to have a tough conversation with them and
00:17:43
say, I wouldn't stop at any of your content.
00:17:47
And it wasn't that wasn't packed full of information.
00:17:51
There was a lot of cool things that their audience could learn, but it was within a formula.
00:17:57
It was within a framework.
00:17:58
It was within a template.
00:18:00
And what was missing was their people.
00:18:02
And so think about if there were no brand guidelines, what would you do differently?
00:18:08
And have some fun and experiment with that.
00:18:11
And maybe set up what are the new guidelines that would work for your
00:18:15
brand on socials, especially on LinkedIn.
00:18:18
Shout out to all the B2B marketers that have made it this far in today's episode, because I
00:18:25
know it comes across maybe as some tough love.
00:18:27
But the thing is, I think that it's time that instead of saying sales are better
00:18:32
or marketing's better, that we learn from both sides and bring it together.
00:18:37
What I know to be true is that when you bring the best of sales and the best of marketing
00:18:43
together, then that is how you crush LinkedIn.
00:18:47
That is how you smash your results.
00:18:50
And that means getting people in the room, having conversations and learning
00:18:55
from each other, listening to each other.
00:18:57
Asking more questions, being more curious.
00:19:00
And listeners I hope that you, after this episode, go and organise a meeting with
00:19:06
those other teams, go and listen in on some calls, do some customer visits, if you can.
00:19:11
Speak to customer service, they also have interactions, which you can take that back and
00:19:17
create far better content, far better campaigns.
00:19:21
And this is how you get results on LinkedIn.
00:19:24
Marketers, I hope you've enjoyed today's episode.
00:19:27
Until next week.
00:19:28
Cheers.
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