Unlocking LinkedIn Sales in 2023: Dive Deep with Niraj Kapur (LinkedIn Top Voice)

TRANSCRIPT

016 Reach Hidden Decision Makers to Increase Sales on LinkedIn. Guest: Niraj Kapur

Michelle J Raymond: [00:00:00] Welcome everybody to the LinkedIn for B2B Growth Show. I'm your host, Michelle J Raymond, and I this week am joined by not just one of LinkedIn's top voices, but someone that I actually call one of my friends Niraj Kapur. Thank you for joining me this week.

Niraj Kapur: Michelle. Greetings from Greece. It is so lovely to see you.

Michelle J Raymond: I can't believe you're doing this while you're on holidays, which makes it even more special. So I do appreciate you, but I'm gonna jump straight into this cause I've got 30 minutes to spend with you. I wanna pick your brain on sales because I'm just really worried about people right now. It's a tough financial year and people are struggling and they think LinkedIn's gonna be the silver bullet and which it can be, but it's not quite so simple.

But can you tell people that are listening, what was your journey like on LinkedIn? Where did you get started? What's it been like up until this point?

Niraj Kapur: I started very early on LinkedIn. It was about 2008, 2009. However, I didn't use it properly. I used it purely as a function. I'd look at it every six months and think of a job option.[00:01:00]

I had maybe a few hundred connections. It was never used properly until 2018. And the reason I used it 2018 properly is cause after 23 years in London, I quit my corporate job and I set up my own business and I went into massive panic mode because an intelligent person would spent six months to 12 months thinking about this carefully, I just jumped ship.

I'd written a book called Everybody Works in Sales. It became a best seller. I saw the huge number of royalties coming into my bank account and thought, yes, I'm gonna make it. I'm gonna be a bestselling author. Life's gonna be beautiful. And after two months, the royalties ran out and then I started to panic.

And I did what a lot of people do when they panic on LinkedIn and they shouldn't do. I started selling, not aggressively, not horribly, but all my posts were, buy my book, hire me, buy my book, and I just wasn't making the progress and getting the respect that I felt someone of my knowledge and experience and kindness really deserved on LinkedIn.

Michelle J Raymond: And you've been in sales about the same length as me, 20 plus years as how we're gonna call it. I love it. [00:02:00] I think it's the best job in the world. For others, they probably are sitting there thinking it's the worst job in the world. So an off-topic question. What happens? You scrolling the feed, picture this scroll, scroll, scroll, and then there's a post that you come across that says, stop being salesy on LinkedIn.

What do you think when you read a post like that?

Niraj Kapur: I wish more people would stop being salesy on LinkedIn. But what I find ironic is that a lot of people, especially the big ones in Instagram and Twitter, who can't make LinkedIn work for them, they're the ones who go on LinkedIn to stay stop being salesy, and they're the ones who sell to, very heavily.

That's just my personal experience. I do invest very heavily in myself and I find when I change my attitude and my business model from selling, to serving, that was a massive like light bulb moment. I've been really searching for that light bulb moment for quite some time, and it's very important I say that to everybody watching and everybody listening because good things take time and I've been searching for quite a long time thinking how do I [00:03:00] make LinkedIn work for me?

And once I started serving other people and helping others first, then all of a sudden sales became so much easier. I'll give you an example of you and me. I didn't know you, but I bought your book Business Gold, really because I wanted to support you and I always like to support my colleagues who are doing podcasts and my colleagues who are doing books.

And I bought the book and I was like, oh, thank God. It's actually a good book. There's nothing worse than buying a book from somebody going, oh God, what am I supposed to say to this person? I can't look them the eye anymore. But Business Gold was a great book. And when your second book LinkedIn Branding Playbook came out, I was even more excited.

And I actually enjoyed that more cause it was a bit more relevant to me. Both books were very good, but I thought the second one really, I thought this is superb. And anybody who wants to start their LinkedIn journey should be reading this.

And what did I do? I bought it outta my own money. I promoted it. I asked you for nothing in return. Cause I didn't want anything. That is how you build relationships on LinkedIn. And I wish people knew this. Help other people, support other people. [00:04:00] Donate to their charities. Do what you can of support them, but don't expect them to help you in return, but just do it because it's the right thing to do.

Michelle J Raymond: I think context is everything when it comes to sales and I can't even put it into words how appreciative I was, especially when the first book came out and it stuck with me ever since. That's almost two and a half years ago. And then of course when your book comes out, I buy it.

It takes me a little while to actually read it cause I'm not as big a reader as you. But I wanted to tell everyone about it and I'll be making sure that I have all the links to your great books because they're all brilliant. Your last one as well. I think what you and I are really good at is being authentic, and that's one of the things that I value about you is your genuineness, your authentic, not as in a cliche, but you are genuinely you.

There is no pretending. There is no LinkedIn version of Niraj and then the person that you see behind the scenes. That's what I really appreciate about our, I'm gonna say friendship because I think that's what it's evolved into over the last couple of years, and I [00:05:00] appreciate that. But I love what you said about serving over selling.

For me, when I look at sales Niraj, my context for selling is, basically problem solving and helping people. So the more problems I solve and the more people I help, the money comes in and it takes care of itself. Now, when I worked in corporate, my bosses would go crazy because they'd be like, what are your stats up to?

How many customer visits? What's your GM? What's this? And I'd go, I don't care. I don't even look at it. And they'd be like, you have to Michelle. And I'm like, mate, I am smashing my sales targets out of the water. And so for me, I think mindset's a big thing. What tips can you give for people that might not enjoy sales as much as you and I do, but as per your book, everybody works in sales.

What tips can you give for some mindsets, challenges that people might have out there?

Niraj Kapur: Well, there's two things. Before anybody works with me, we always have to work on a vision board together. And having a vision board is so important because it keeps you focused. It also means on days that are challenging for you, the vision board helps you. [00:06:00] Anytime you're scared of doing something, the vision board helps you.

And the vision board consists of, personal and professional goals you want to achieve in life. So it's not just your work, it's your family, your loved ones, your kids, your nephews, your grandparents, your parents.

Whatever that might be in life. But also it's your dream holidays, your car, the home you want, and having a vision board drives you further. And the second thing is, almost 40% of my customers are introverts, which I only discovered that about a year ago. And I started analyzing really, who are my customers?

And the fact that majority were women on a one-to-one level really surprised me. And the fact that many were introverts surprised me as well. So we have to work with an introvert very differently to an extrovert. And with the introverts, you can't just say, look, pick up the phone and call people. They will not do it.

They cannot think of anything worse. They would rather speak on stage to 10,000 strangers. The worst thing for them to do is pick up a phone. So you have to adapt the way you help them and support them. And I always say, look, stop calling it selling. Let's call it helping. So with your product or [00:07:00] service, how could you help this person?

And they'll talk about things like, well, I'll talk about how my product can give benefits. I said, that's a great idea. But before you do that, how can you really help them and introverts get this? And normally say things like, well, I'd ask questions. I'd inquire about them. I'd show some interest in them first, which of course is exactly the right thing to do.

So, you know, coaching isn't me saying, do this, do this, do this. That's not how you help people in sales. It's about asking good questions. It's about supporting people. It's about really understanding the other person's business, because you cannot sell anything to anybody unless you know what their challenges are.

Michelle J Raymond: They have to have a need and you cannot create that need for them and I think this is where, when people are using crazy tools, which we'll get to later on, you are literally trying to sell to people who do not want to buy anything, which is just the craziness of it. I also had Mark on the show, a few weeks back and we were talking about selling, and I said, do introverts or extroverts make better [00:08:00] sellers?

Now, before I answer what he said? Who do you think makes the best seller?

Niraj Kapur: I have friends who are both, and my friends who are the extroverts will make the bigger sales, but the more regular sales and the more consistency is done with introverts.

Michelle J Raymond: That's basically what he said as well. And they make really good listeners and so because they make good listeners, they ask those questions, like you just said. That tends to be the ones that will consistently take actions. Cause sales is one of those things that for every No, you just gotta keep going, right? There is no end game. There is no stop point. And that vision board that you use, I, I use it in a similar way, and I guess Simon Sinek would say, what's your why?

Because when you get 10 No's in a row, that's the thing that gets you up off the ground to have another go. So I love the idea of a vision board. I've never used that but I always say to my clients, we need a game plan. Like, what are the goals that you have before we even touch LinkedIn [00:09:00] or any other social platform?

What's the game plan? And so I think you and I are very, very aligned without even setting this up before the call. So, I love that. When we talk about LinkedIn, Niraj, like we use words around the platform or other people might read or see them, like things like lurkers, those silent majority who are in the background watching everything on LinkedIn.

And the stats depends who you listen to. Anywhere between, 97, 99% of people fall into this category. They're not posting, they're not commenting, they're not liking, but they're logging in every day. Now. I tend to find that that's where most of my sales comes from. What's your approach for dealing with how do you sell to the people who aren't visible?

Niraj Kapur: We do two things. What I've found, and again, everything I do, I base on my success and the success of my clients. I don't base it on research from other people. Cause research that you get from two years ago or one year ago is out of date in 2023. It [00:10:00] just is, you cannot use research from years ago. And also from the people I speak to who are very successful, I like to surround myself with people who are always smarter than me or who at least think differently to me.

And I'm always asking their opinion as well. And plus, I've got a brilliant coach who you know as well, John Espirian. So I'm always asking John's advice and insight as well. What I find is two things. First of all, consistently good content. Let me rephrase that. Consistently valuable content is very important.

 The second thing is standing out. I am nowhere near the best, even though I'm grateful to be a LinkedIn top voice. There are people out there way smarter. John Espirian is smarter than me, Kevin Turner, they're all way smarter than me on LinkedIn. They know every little nuance and every little thing that's happening.

I don't, but I focus on the core things, profile optimisation, writing amazing content and selling. All I do, and I can talk about that all day long, and I love doing it. The one thing to be aware of as well. I know a lot of people who won't accept invites from someone, say, who's a secretary because they say, well, a secretary's not my [00:11:00] audience.

And what I did was I accept secretaries, I accept virtual assistants. I accept people like that as long as they send me a personalised invite because here's why, you have no idea who knows that secretary? You have no idea who knows that virtual assistant, one of my best clients in 2021 in Ireland came from a secretary who'd been following me, liked my content, and told her boss about it, and he hired me.

My biggest client in 2021, I did a post a month ago on LinkedIn about how someone had been followed me for almost eight months. Not even saying a word, not even liking or commenting on a post, not your single message, but they liked my content enough to want to connect with me.

And noticed I said eight months. I didn't say eight days. LinkedIn is a long game. Anything good in business takes a long time.

Michelle J Raymond: I think realistically sometimes I've had people reach out years later. Working with a current client right now, and it's about three or four years that I've known the company.[00:12:00] It's from a former industry that I used to work in. I didn't even know any of them were still watching my content. Cause I'd moved out of the industry and into, being a LinkedIn trainer and when they reached out, I'd never had a, like, I'd never had a comment, I'd never had a direct message from the team but they'd been watching. And I think that's the thing when you're starting out on LinkedIn, if you don't see those impressions going up or lots of likes or lots of comments, and it might feel like everybody else is having that happen and you are the only one that's not.

Don't give up because so many people are watching the silent majority, let's call it 97% of people fall under that category. So for me, how do I do that? Number one, I think you have to trust the process a little bit. So I, I love what you said. It is about showing up consistently. When you say add value with your content, how do you define valuable content?

Niraj Kapur: Well, first of all, I mix my content up. I see a lot of people doing the same text only content all the time, and the most successful [00:13:00] kind of content is when you vary it. So I'll do a video one day a week. I do a carousel post one day a week. I will do a text post one day a week. I'll do a text with a photograph post one day a week.

So I tend to post four days a week, sometimes five, but usually four. And when I say value, I'm giving people advice on a situation I've dealt with. So if a client hasn't paid their bills, how do you deal with that? Everybody knows what that's like when I have a client I've been speaking to for four months and all of a sudden, despite having a great relationship with that client, I don't hear from them, they ghost me. I'm like, ah, come on. So I have to write about that.

Everybody knows what that's like to be ghosted. Everybody knows what it's like to have somebody not pay their bills. Everybody knows what it's like to work really hard on a client and to lose it to a competitor because a competitor has either promised them something ridiculous that will never happen.

Or because they've offered a 20, 30% discount. I know what that's like. So I'm always talking about things that people can relate to, cause as a business owner, the skills you learn are [00:14:00] five to 10 times greater than what you will learn working nine to five for somebody else. They just are. Unless you're lucky enough to work for a company that really invests in you.

You learn so many skills as a business owner and you really understand business as a business owner. So that's the first thing. The second thing is adding value is I'll often say, here are five things you can do going forward. And then I'll quite often, especially in my videos and my carousels, Michelle, I often have a call to action at the end.

So please DM me if you wanna make progress, contact me if you wanna generate more sales. Drop me a message if you wanna improve your LinkedIn presence. I always like to have that because, People are inundated all day long, and it's good to have a call to action once, maybe twice a week just to remind people.

Otherwise they go, that was a great post, and they scroll on. I don't want you to scroll on. I want you to contact me and do business with me.

Michelle J Raymond: The worst thing that I see is because I think the stigma that comes along with don't be salesy. Don't be salesy, don't be salesy. [00:15:00] What happens is people create this amazing, valuable content.

They show up every day and they're giving it, and they're bringing it, and you know, everybody that's reading it is absorbing it like a sponge and getting so much value. But they forget to connect the dots between, this is the product and service that I offer. I've now shown you that I've got knowledge.

I'm the kind of person you wanna work with. I can offer you the transformation that you're looking for in the content, but they actually forget just that little piece that you said. The call to action DM me, if you wanna work with me. This is how I work with clients, and I think there needs to be a bit more talking about it. What you do, what you offer, a product or service so that you connect those dots, make it obvious, and make it easy for people.

So I, when I first started out as a business owner, I had come from a sales background, thought being a business owner, would be a piece of cake because I'd just been managing somebody else's business.

But as an individual owning my own business, it was like a whole [00:16:00] other ballgame. I call it the tightrope without the net underneath. And what I learned was I was so, focused on adding value, Niraj, that I actually forgot to tell people what I did. I didn't tell them that I offered LinkedIn training, and so what would happen was I'd have these people that were really engaged with my content and then I'd see they went and did training with somebody else, and I'd be heartbroken going.

I've missed that opportunity. How did I miss it? And I missed it because I didn't ask for it. And I think sometimes we have to be mindful and yeah, connect those dots. Is there any other tips that you think for content that can help? Like, so we've got call to actions, connecting those dots. Is there anything else that content wise you think will help people sell more on LinkedIn?

Niraj Kapur: Uh, personal storytelling helps massively. I mean, when I started doing personal storytelling in 2020, that was the year everything changed for me. Nobody was really doing it back then. Now, unfortunately, a lot of people are doing it. Uh, and again, it's harder to stand out in the [00:17:00] noise, but when you tell a personal story that people can connect with, people see past your job title.

It makes you more human. And who do people do business with? People they like, people they trust, people they can relate to. There was, one of my competitors yesterday did a post to say that she went through a painful divorce a couple of years ago and she set up her business age 45. And she was terrified as a woman with two young kids, age 45, setting up her own business.

And despite being a competitor, I reached out and said, congratulations, I am so happy for you. I had to start my life over again after a divorce. I know what it's like to be in horrible debt, but I know the joy of turning my life around and my business around, which is what my personal stories were about on LinkedIn.

And earlier I talked about how I sold and I wasn't getting anywhere. Once I stopped selling and started helping people. That was a good way forward, but once I started telling my personal story, about how I'd lost so much in my divorce. How as a man, age 47, I was starting my life over again. It's so difficult making friends [00:18:00] when you're a man in your late forties.

And also to make things worse, cause I'm a glutton for punishment, I started online dating. By the way, when you get divorced and go through lockdown, don't start online dating. It's just not a smart thing to do.

Michelle J Raymond: And if you want to hear about this Adventures of Niraj doing that, your most recent book has some hilarious stories in it. And if you wanna know the crossover between LinkedIn and online dating, Niraj has answered that. Can you share what the title of your book is? I don't wanna butcher it.

Niraj Kapur: No, not a problem. It's called Business Growth. Lessons learned from dating, divorce, and falling in love again. And I was amazed because I never expected people to follow me on the level they did.

I went from being like 500 followers, a thousand, 2000, 3000, 5,000, 10,000, 15. The speed was incredible. And I would do something like I'd be at a restaurant by myself and a Saturday night having dinner, and the table opposite would be empty. And I would say I was stood up again and I'm absolutely devastated. You know, it's Saturday night, I'm really vulnerable, I've got dressed up, got [00:19:00] showered, got changed, got out of the house, and I got stood up again.

And it's horrible. But you know what? Sometimes in business we get stood up as well, and it's not what happens to you, it's how you react. And people would just relate to that on such a deep level, cause it wasn't just a business post, it was a personal post as well. I talked about online dating, I talked about meeting women who were 20 years older than their profile pictures.

I talked about meeting women who end up, they were married. I talked about meeting women that I wasn't right for cause emotionally I wasn't ready. And I said there was times I met somebody and I rushed into the conversation. I was too needy. In sales, a lot of people rush into the conversations, they're too needy.

And I kept relating it to that. And then after a year of doing this and growing to quite a big following, I was truly honoured LinkedIn gave me a Top Voice of the Year award and that really helped change so much in terms of credibility with me cause it wasn't another LinkedIn coach giving it, it was LinkedIn headquarters and that made a huge difference.

And all of a sudden Americans who've been ignoring me for years, [00:20:00] Started paying attention to me and then my business just went to another level. So I'm very, very grateful. Even though the journey I went through was horrendous, I'm so grateful. I came out of it with integrity and with class and with love and more care than I ever thought I could.

Michelle J Raymond: And an amazing partner to boot. So it has a happy ending to the story, which I love. So we were all cheering you on for sure. So a question for you, LinkedIn puts stats out that they say that there's about, you know, let's call it 65% of decision makers have a LinkedIn profile. So ultimately on a B2B business platform, we know that the decision makers are here.

 How do you go about reaching those decision makers? We've spoken about content. What other actions do you take on LinkedIn to reach these people?

Niraj Kapur: Well, depending on the size of the company, there's always more than one person involved in the decision making process, Michelle. You might have one final decision maker. Just say, for the sake of speaking, it's a CEO. There's a good chance you're gonna have a financial director. There's a good chance a Head if HR. [00:21:00] Quite often a Head of Sales. A CTO you know, a market team manager, there's gonna be quite a lot of people involved in the decision making process.

So my first advice is make sure you connect with a Company's important people as well. That is absolutely vital because they're gonna be the ones who will support you or at least acknowledge your existence when it comes to making a decision. Some will support you, others will just go, yes, I know who he is. I like his content, and that's all they will say. However, that's a big deal.

I work in industries like pharma and retail where decision makers have a LinkedIn profile, they haven't updated for 10 years. To my shock, some of 'em don't even have photographs, but the CEOs of companies, they can get away with it. And so what you do in that case is you have to contact their colleagues, like I've suggested, and you have to contact them on other platforms.

I love LinkedIn, big fan of LinkedIn, but I use the telephone, I use email, I use Zoom, you know, I like to go to events that they're attending. [00:22:00] I'll try and be part of groups they're parts of. I'll make sure my name is noticed in a really good, positive way, and that's very important. Not enough people think about that, but as brilliant as LinkedIn is, you have to be thinking of multi-platform ways of connecting with people because that has shown to have the most success.

Michelle J Raymond: I think the other thing that being mindful of is that all day, every day, these people have C-suite titles. For instance, the people that you just recommended, they're getting bombarded daily with everybody that has sales or business development in their job title, wanting those people to connect. So I think you have to do something like you mentioned earlier about do something that stands out and personalising messages is one way that you can do that.

There's lots of other creative ways, but I want people to be mindful that the person on the other side is getting bombarded. Do not be that person that adds more to that. You know, be the person that stands out because you're different, because you're adding value from the very beginning. So if [00:23:00] you imagine their walls are up, what are you gonna do that actually makes it worth their while to respond to your message or even open it.

And I think those people that do that, and it is being proactive, if you think you can sit in the shadows on LinkedIn, and think it's all gonna happen by magic, it's certainly not. So we have to be proactive. But yeah, be smart around it, is what I would say. And don't be just one of those serial pests, where there's enough of those on LinkedIn. So I hope my listeners, don't fall under that category.

When you're scrolling through the feed Niraj, like one of my favourite places is the home feed to spot opportunities. But what do you look for in the home feed as far as in terms of potential sales?

Niraj Kapur: When I look at companies that are going through a rebrand, I look at companies who are hiring more members of staff. That's an obvious opportunity, but then there's a lot of not so obvious opportunities. So there's somebody I was speaking to this morning and I saw her post. She connected with me very recently, sent me a personalised inbound. I [00:24:00] like that.

And she owns two businesses, which is good. Not huge businesses, but two small business. Five members of staff or less, and I reached out to say, I won't mention your name, but I was noticing your posts. You don't have a headline now. If you have a headline, it really reduces number of people who will scroll by.

Also, you had, I think, 11 hashtags on LinkedIn. You only need between three to five. Also, please don't reshare posts. It's a very nice thing to do. It doesn't get you business. I hope these three bits of advice have made sense. Good luck. I didn't say, here's some advice, please hire me for LinkedIn training. I didn't say, here's three bits of advice, here's my Calendly link, let's have a chat about business.

I just said, here's some advice that will help you going forward. Let me know how you're getting on. That's very specifically worded and I find I have a lot of success doing things like that, helping people out and saying, let me know how you get on.

Now, a lot of the time people come back to me simply saying, thank you so much. And nothing else. And that's okay. But that person might often come back to me in [00:25:00] six months, 12 months, two years time. I'm currently working with a company in America right now. I met the guy two and a half years ago on Clubhouse.

I helped him on Clubhouse back in the days when Clubhouse was exciting for a few months and he hired me just cause I was so nice and caring towards him on Clubhouse two and a half years ago. So when you help people, you have no idea how much it's really gonna make their day. And I certainly can tell to you for a fact every single person that's helped me, I know exactly who they are because not that many do.

Michelle J Raymond: I absolutely agree, and I think that's the thing for me about you, your content that stands out is everything you do is done with kindness and generosity, and it stands out, and that's what I remember you for. And then there's this sales thing that you talk about. But the first things I get is your kindness, which I think is where we value align with people out on the platform very quickly, and that's what makes selling easy and fun because they are the right kind of people. [00:26:00] They know that you've got the right kind of products.

And so for me, when I'm jumping on sales calls, I love it because I know probably eight or nine times outta 10 I'm probably gonna close unless there's a financial issue, which I haven't got, you know, that clear up front. That's on me. That's some stuff I'm working on. But I know we're gonna be pretty aligned and it's gonna be a logistics conversation rather than a, am I the right person?

So let's talk about sales trends in 2023. Now, we're one quarter down, it's been a tough quarter. I think the world's in a bit of financial pain. Doesn't matter where you are and where you're listening from. What do you see is gonna work in sales in 2023 for the rest of the year and what might not work so well?

Niraj Kapur: Well I can tell you what's not working right now because I get bombarded day and night with messages and in Q1 I've received more LinkedIn spammy messages than ever before.

I mean, it's been relentless and I can tell a mile off if something is copy and paste now.[00:27:00] I'm like, no, that's copy and paste. If you haven't personalised a message to me, just stop, stop copy and pasting a hundred people and thinking it's a good idea. So many companies I know buy LinkedIn Sales Navigator, And the salespeople go, whoof, brilliant! I can just spam people now. And they get relieved and they spam, they go, ah, LinkedIn sales navigator's terrible. It doesn't work.

No, it's, your messaging was terrible. So stop spamming people. A lot of companies I've been working with recently have started using automation, which have advised them all not to do, but unfortunately a lot of CEOs think they know better because their job title is CEO. They don't by the way, but sometimes they do. And so they've had a lot of automation people, and I keep a close eye on this now. I'll follow up with 'em three months later and say, how's that gone for you? And 10 times outta 10, I'll hear it didn't work. Or it wasn't what I expected.

Not one single person has gone to me automation's the best thing in the world. I know a lot of companies who have a team of virtual assistants saying, look, I have five people who will work simultaneously on your profile and do massive [00:28:00] outreaches and get you to have, you know, double your following this year. I'm currently on almost 30,000 and they're offering me 60,000 and I keep saying I don't care about 60,000 followers. I care about the quality and the relationships I have with my 30,000 followers. That's all I care about really. I know people with 3000 followers on LinkedIn who do a lot of business.

It's the quality of the content. It's how you engage with people. So please avoid automation. Please avoid a team of virtual assistants. Become a better version of you instead of waiting for somebody else to do it for you. So those are things to avoid. Things you should be doing. I've been doing this for almost a year now with great success.

I'm still surprised only 1% of people do this. Voice notes are gold. That's how I communicate with people because your tone, your enthusiasm, your energy, all these things come across so much better on a voice note than they ever will in a typed message. And you stand out and selling on LinkedIn is about standing out. It's not about [00:29:00] saying the right words, the most beautiful and eloquent way, but it's about standing out and you will stand out doing a 40 second voice note or a 30 second video than you ever will doing a generic type message.

Michelle J Raymond: I think, there's a saying that says something along the lines of, you know, when the times are tough and the tide goes out, you find out who's swimming naked.

And I think what we are seeing in a year that becomes financially, there's not as much budget to spread around then those that are doing the right practices, that have spent time building their reputation and, you know, their brands and nurturing relationships. I use that word more times than I care every week to try and encourage people.

Those that nurture will win because you'll be top of mind. People will actually value that you care about them. Let's have a moment where we actually, you know, don't collect numbers. These are people that we're talking about here in all of my sales career. I did not run around at any event and go, how [00:30:00] can I find the first thousand people and collect them and try and grab a business card. You just don't. And I think when you take the pressure off of trying to do big numbers and we do valuable and constructive and back to those visions and goals back at the beginning. I just worked with one client. She's doing a fraction of the work that she was trying to do, keeping up with this chasing numbers.

And for the record, LinkedIn's not broken. We're in some tough financial times, but those who do the right practices consistently over time and those practices, we have highlighted. Niraj has given you a masterclass. I appreciate everything that you've shared. Do you have one last final sales tip for anyone that's listening in today to help them grow their business?

Niraj Kapur: Yes. If you don't know how to do something, ask for advice, and if somebody won't give you that advice, pay for the advice.

Michelle J Raymond: It is worth paying for. Now Niraj, before we go, I do want to say congratulations on doing your TEDx talk. [00:31:00] I am gonna put the link to that, so that other people can join in and see you speak and get more of you. As will all of your LinkedIn details will be in the show notes so that people can reach out. I encourage you, go to Niraj's profile, top right hand corner underneath the banner is a bell. Go and ring that. Do yourself a favour. If sales is not your favourite sport on LinkedIn, you need a coach. You need someone like him to help you out.

And he just gives so much value in his content. Exactly what he shared today is what he does in reality, there is no difference. And I just wanna say thank you for being a friend. Thank you for everything that you do on the platform, and I just appreciate you and all the help that you've always given me.

So thank you Niraj. Thank you everybody that's joined us and I'll catch you next episode.

[00:32:00]