#CX 24 - Is Your LinkedIn Prospecting Helping or Hurting? w/ Ethan Beute

WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.160 --> 00:00:04.200 A relationship with the right referral partner could be a game changer for any be 2 00:00:04.360 --> 00:00:08.509 to be company. So what if you could reverse engineer these relationships at a 3 00:00:08.589 --> 00:00:14.230 moment's notice, start a podcast, invite potential referral partners to be guests on 4 00:00:14.349 --> 00:00:19.510 your show and grow your referral network faster than ever? Learn more. At 5 00:00:19.589 --> 00:00:29.300 Sweet Fish Mediacom you're listening to be tob growth, a daily podcast for B 6 00:00:29.420 --> 00:00:33.700 TOB leaders. We've interviewed names you've probably heard before, like Gary Vander truck 7 00:00:33.780 --> 00:00:37.609 and Simon Senek, but you've probably never heard from the majority of our guests. 8 00:00:38.289 --> 00:00:42.250 That's because the bulk of our interviews aren't with professional speakers and authors. 9 00:00:42.850 --> 00:00:46.689 Most of our guests are in the trenches leading sales and marketing teams. They're 10 00:00:46.689 --> 00:00:51.640 implementing strategy, they're experimenting with tactics, they're building the fastest growing be tob 11 00:00:51.759 --> 00:00:55.119 companies in the world. My name is James Carberry on, the founder of 12 00:00:55.119 --> 00:00:59.000 sweet fish media, a podcast agency for bb brands, and I'm also one 13 00:00:59.039 --> 00:01:02.640 of the CO hosts of this show. When we're not interviewing sales and marketing 14 00:01:02.679 --> 00:01:06.549 leaders, you'll hear stories from behind the scenes of our own business, will 15 00:01:06.549 --> 00:01:08.870 share the ups and downs of our journey as we attempt to take over the 16 00:01:08.909 --> 00:01:19.500 world. Just getting well? Maybe let's get into the show. This episode 17 00:01:19.540 --> 00:01:23.420 is about some thing that I got tired of, so I went and got 18 00:01:23.540 --> 00:01:26.500 some feedback. I think you're probably tired of the same thing. My name 19 00:01:26.540 --> 00:01:30.540 is Ethan Butte and the host of the customer experience podcast and cohost of the 20 00:01:30.620 --> 00:01:34.650 CX series on BB growth. And here was my issue. This is a 21 00:01:34.810 --> 00:01:40.209 Linkedin Post that I'm going to read to you that I published and Got Sixteenzero 22 00:01:40.569 --> 00:01:45.329 views and counting, hundred and twenty plus comments and counting, and forty plus 23 00:01:45.569 --> 00:01:51.120 reactions and counting. Honest question, when you accept a linkedin connection request in 24 00:01:51.120 --> 00:01:55.760 the person immediately hits you up with an unsolicited and irrelevant sales pitch in a 25 00:01:55.799 --> 00:01:59.840 direct message. What do you do? And I got a lot of answers, 26 00:01:59.879 --> 00:02:01.709 again, more than a hundred and twenty comments and counting, before I 27 00:02:01.829 --> 00:02:06.349 share several things that I learned. Here's the set up here. I believe 28 00:02:06.430 --> 00:02:09.030 that customer experience is the single most important thing that you can do today, 29 00:02:09.469 --> 00:02:14.310 working on creating and delivering a better experience for your customers. It is the 30 00:02:14.389 --> 00:02:19.860 differentiator of Your Business and it's comprised of every single touch point. So when 31 00:02:19.900 --> 00:02:23.219 you think about the sales people in your organization and some of those touches that 32 00:02:23.259 --> 00:02:28.740 your Bizdev people and your salespeople are making, probably and linkedin probably with connection 33 00:02:28.900 --> 00:02:34.449 requests, probably with direct messages, this is very often the first touch that 34 00:02:34.689 --> 00:02:38.610 one of your future customers is getting. It has a slightly outsized impact on 35 00:02:38.729 --> 00:02:44.759 the reputation of you and your company and the expectations you're setting for your customers, 36 00:02:44.840 --> 00:02:46.960 in your future customers, about who you are, what you're about and 37 00:02:47.120 --> 00:02:52.080 how you operate. And so if your sales team is doing this, I've 38 00:02:52.120 --> 00:02:54.639 got some bad news for you. I went in and soft scored all those 39 00:02:54.759 --> 00:02:59.830 comments again, a hundred and twenty plus and counting, and the number one 40 00:02:59.949 --> 00:03:04.710 response was I immediately disconnect from the person. I kill the connection I just 41 00:03:04.830 --> 00:03:07.949 accepted. That's twenty eight percent of the responses, twenty seven point six to 42 00:03:08.030 --> 00:03:12.900 be exact. Twenty three point seven percent of people simply ignore the message. 43 00:03:12.939 --> 00:03:16.259 So here we are already at more than fifty percent of the responses ignoring the 44 00:03:16.340 --> 00:03:22.620 message or, worse, ignoring the message and actively disconnecting from the connection they 45 00:03:22.699 --> 00:03:25.900 just made with you or your salesperson. Some people do choose to engage, 46 00:03:25.939 --> 00:03:30.569 so I scored the engagements as positive, negative or neutral. The third most 47 00:03:30.650 --> 00:03:36.689 popular response from people who commented on this post. Seventeen point one percent engaged 48 00:03:36.770 --> 00:03:38.889 in a neutral way with the message. This was a thanks, but no 49 00:03:39.090 --> 00:03:43.520 thanks type of thing right. Neutral it's not I want to learn more. 50 00:03:43.599 --> 00:03:46.240 It's not negative, which will get into shortly. It's just a neutral, 51 00:03:46.599 --> 00:03:52.240 courteous response, but with no real potential to move forward. Next, in 52 00:03:52.439 --> 00:03:55.469 fourth place, ten and a half percent of people deleted the message or archive 53 00:03:55.629 --> 00:03:59.389 the message, so a further step from ignoring it. And, by the 54 00:03:59.469 --> 00:04:01.550 way, I tend to just ignore these messages. If I rule through all 55 00:04:01.550 --> 00:04:04.669 of my linkedin message wages, there are a bunch of these messages in there. 56 00:04:04.750 --> 00:04:09.830 I don't actively delete them, although these responses in the conversations on this 57 00:04:10.020 --> 00:04:13.780 post made me think that I should probably go that extra step of deleting them. 58 00:04:14.539 --> 00:04:16.899 Next, and this was one of the more interesting findings, people were 59 00:04:17.139 --> 00:04:20.620 equally likely, if they were to engage, they were equally likely to engage 60 00:04:20.620 --> 00:04:25.250 in a positive way and a negative way. About eight percent of people said 61 00:04:25.250 --> 00:04:29.649 each positive responses. Thanks for reaching out. I'd like to learn more or 62 00:04:29.970 --> 00:04:33.569 thanks for reaching out. I would advise you that this maybe isn't the best 63 00:04:33.569 --> 00:04:36.449 approach, but I'm interested in what you're sharing, right. So some level 64 00:04:36.810 --> 00:04:43.160 of active engagement that would produce a conversation, but there was also an equal 65 00:04:43.199 --> 00:04:46.079 amount of negative engagement, which is who do you think you are? Do 66 00:04:46.160 --> 00:04:50.199 you actually get business this way? This is an immediate turnoff. I would 67 00:04:50.240 --> 00:04:55.110 never do business with someone that open the conversation this way. So the caution 68 00:04:55.269 --> 00:04:58.310 here, of course, is that while you may get some engagement, it's 69 00:04:58.629 --> 00:05:01.629 more than twice as likely to be neutral as is to be positive or negative, 70 00:05:01.750 --> 00:05:05.389 and it's equally likely to be negative as it is positive. And then, 71 00:05:05.430 --> 00:05:10.100 finally, the most aggressive thing, block the person and mark the message 72 00:05:10.139 --> 00:05:14.500 as spam. So a few things we can learn here. First, people 73 00:05:14.660 --> 00:05:17.379 tend to be able to read these from a mile away. One quote from 74 00:05:17.379 --> 00:05:20.139 one of the comments, you can tell in the first few words, dot 75 00:05:20.220 --> 00:05:25.329 dot, dot right. So if you're using this style of communication in your 76 00:05:25.370 --> 00:05:29.290 direct messages after connecting with somebody, we can all kind of see it, 77 00:05:29.410 --> 00:05:31.490 smell it, feel it. It's popular enough now, it's common enough now 78 00:05:31.850 --> 00:05:36.319 and it's in such volume that we see it right away. So even if 79 00:05:36.399 --> 00:05:41.920 you are a sincere person, even if you do have an actual valuable message, 80 00:05:42.879 --> 00:05:45.759 you need to make sure it doesn't look or smell like all the other 81 00:05:45.879 --> 00:05:49.110 messages. So take a look at the unsolicited messages you're getting and do something 82 00:05:49.310 --> 00:05:55.670 different. Second, these are generally not welcome. People are much more likely 83 00:05:55.750 --> 00:05:59.550 to ignore or disconnect from you as they are to engage with you, even 84 00:05:59.550 --> 00:06:02.949 in a neutral way. So this probably isn't the best way to go forward. 85 00:06:03.029 --> 00:06:05.699 Something that I read in a lot of the comments that they prefer that 86 00:06:05.819 --> 00:06:13.379 people engage with them on their posts and actually produce some level of reciprocity, 87 00:06:13.420 --> 00:06:16.100 a basic level of connection, before showing up in the direct message box and 88 00:06:16.339 --> 00:06:20.810 communicating there, especially with a direct and hardcore sales pitch. Third, you're 89 00:06:20.889 --> 00:06:25.970 equally likely to get a positive response as you are a negative response, and 90 00:06:26.089 --> 00:06:30.290 some of the negative responses were quite funny, in the kind of passive aggressive 91 00:06:30.329 --> 00:06:33.120 category right. Some people even offered to subscribe them to things that they didn't 92 00:06:33.120 --> 00:06:38.079 ask to be subscribed to by going to their profile grabbing the email address. 93 00:06:38.399 --> 00:06:42.279 So some of it was like super aggressive negative engagement, which doesn't do anyone 94 00:06:42.279 --> 00:06:46.230 any good? Fourth, mutual engagement is double the rate of positive or negative 95 00:06:46.389 --> 00:06:49.629 kind of that. Thanks, but no thanks. And I will say fifth, 96 00:06:50.069 --> 00:06:54.629 some people do read and evaluate the message. Some of these fell into 97 00:06:54.629 --> 00:06:58.750 that neutral category. They might actually judge this. So even if it does 98 00:06:58.829 --> 00:07:01.740 get ignored and they don't reply, that doesn't mean people aren't reading the message, 99 00:07:01.860 --> 00:07:05.420 and this shouldn't come as any surprise to anyone listening. What they're looking 100 00:07:05.459 --> 00:07:10.620 for is personalization. You know who I am, you know who I work 101 00:07:10.699 --> 00:07:13.579 for, and not just in a slug my name in kind of way you 102 00:07:13.620 --> 00:07:17.129 can imagine. Or you actually identified specific problems or pain points that I might 103 00:07:17.250 --> 00:07:23.410 have and you have an actual solution that can specifically address these things. And 104 00:07:23.529 --> 00:07:27.129 the more you can communicate that in a unique way, the better off you 105 00:07:27.170 --> 00:07:31.639 are at getting those people who are actively ignoring the message but evaluated it prior 106 00:07:31.800 --> 00:07:36.519 to ignoring it to engage with you in a positive way. Sixth, and 107 00:07:36.639 --> 00:07:42.800 finally, hear the last lesson, there's a clear escalation trend in scoring these. 108 00:07:43.000 --> 00:07:46.990 Some people got scored in three categories. So they say, you know, 109 00:07:46.110 --> 00:07:50.430 initially I'll read the message, then I will ignore it. If they 110 00:07:50.550 --> 00:07:55.269 persist, I will disconnect or if they persist, I will mark them as 111 00:07:55.310 --> 00:07:59.259 spam or if they persist, I'll get very aggressive with them. So the 112 00:07:59.420 --> 00:08:03.220 more you persist in something that is not responded to in a favorable way, 113 00:08:03.540 --> 00:08:07.420 the more likely you are a to make someone angry and be get an escalated 114 00:08:07.420 --> 00:08:13.730 level of response from ignore to disconnect to block. So just because other people 115 00:08:13.730 --> 00:08:18.410 are doing something doesn't mean you should do it. Just because a lot of 116 00:08:18.490 --> 00:08:22.209 people don't like it doesn't mean that it can't be done successfully. The goal, 117 00:08:22.290 --> 00:08:24.689 of course, is to reach out, understand people, let them know 118 00:08:24.810 --> 00:08:28.079 that you see them, hear them and understand them and work to create a 119 00:08:28.199 --> 00:08:33.759 real relationship based around a real problem in a real opportunity. I hope you 120 00:08:33.840 --> 00:08:35.799 found that valuable. If you want to check the post out again, my 121 00:08:35.879 --> 00:08:39.320 name is Ethan Butt. I host the customer experience podcast. If we can 122 00:08:39.360 --> 00:08:45.230 find me on Linkedin, etch an last name is beute. I welcome that 123 00:08:45.389 --> 00:08:48.230 connection, especial if you add a personal note to it, and I look 124 00:08:48.269 --> 00:08:52.389 forward to any feedback you want to add on that post or on anything that 125 00:08:52.470 --> 00:08:54.470 I have to share their I look forward to connecting with you on Linkedin. 126 00:08:54.899 --> 00:09:03.740 Happy Prospecting. We totally get it. We publish a ton of content on 127 00:09:03.899 --> 00:09:07.100 this podcast and it can be a lot to keep up with. That's why 128 00:09:07.179 --> 00:09:11.769 we've started the BOB growth big three, a no fluff email that boils down 129 00:09:11.889 --> 00:09:16.490 our three biggest takeaways from an entire week of episodes. Sign up today at 130 00:09:16.529 --> 00:09:22.889 Sweet Phish Mediacom Big Three. That sweet PHISH MEDIACOM Big Three