What do you do to pre-book a lot of meetings before the show, make a splash during it, and turn these new connections into deals? One word: LinkedIn!
In this episode of INSIDE Inside Sales, Darryl is joined by Brynne Tillman, the LinkedIn savant rock star, who boasts 60K connections on this social media platform, to talk about how to use it before, during, and after the conference to build real connections and ultimately drive sales. You’ll hear how to connect with all the speakers at the conference via different social media channels, check out their engagement and shares, identify others who will be at the event, and start engaging with those you think you can add value to.
Darryl Praill: How is everybody doing today? Another week has gone by, you doing okay? Life is good. Did you hit your number? How's your activity levels doing? Are you reaching out and growing your personal brand? It's all those kind of things that we like to ask about and see how you're doing, and usually when I ask all those questions that get a lot of eye- rolls, I get a lot of polite statements about," Sure, yeah, totally grown my brand. Absolutely doing those dials, you know it Darryl," but you and I both know that you're probably not. And that's okay. I'm not saying that in judgment. I truly am not because at the end of the day, I always say to you, it's not the activity that matters as it is so much the outcomes. If you're having good outcomes, then you're a rockstar and I applaud you. But if you're not having good outcomes, then I would suggest you need to do something, either more of what's working for you or maybe something that you're totally avoiding. Many people avoid using the phone, that's a good example. Others avoid using social media, which I still don't get to this day, but you do, right? Because you just, you're not good at it, or you don't get engagement, whatever it might be. So you got to do more activity, get out to get more outcomes. You got to do the stuff you're avoiding, and some of it is just kind of like what I like to refer to as," When in Rome." So it's the classic" When in Rome, you do as the Romans do." That's what you do. So sometimes there's opportunities that are knocking on your doorstep when you're in Rome. Now, what do I mean with that? Well, I'll use an example. Here's an example coming up, as you all know, as I tease you every single episode lately, is the OutBound conference. And so that's starring every single kick ass sales leader, thought leader, visionary rockstar in the industry. As I like to say, it's the only show put on by sales reps for sales reps. And when you're at a venue like that, that's my Rome example. Well, I'm going to be there. I'm in Roman, that's because I'll be in Atlanta, Georgia at the Atlanta World Congress Center, I think that's what it is. And it's like, what do you do in those moments to take advantage of the circumstances and drive revenue? I was having this thought the other day and I'll give you context. So some inaudible, I'm going to be surrounded by all of these really smart people. So I need to make sure that I bring my camera. So I've got my handy dandy, little Osmo Mobile Pocket 2 camera with the wireless mic that I can use as either clip on for me or as a handheld mic to go back and forth. I can interview all these people. And I have a gazillion pieces of content for the next six months. And I can associate my brand with their brand and people will think I'm a real player. And when, of course I'm not you and I both know, and my kids right now who are in their twenties are just cringing that I even made that sound, just okay, excuse me. So that's an example. Now, another example, when you're there is none of you have this house full of smart people, you have this house full of people wanting to be smarter, just like you because you listen to the INSIDE Inside Sales show. So in my case, I'm thinking, how do I get my message blatantly in front of this audience so they stop by my booth and they check it out and maybe they get a demo. Do I have tchotchkes and giveaways? Do I reach out, do I offer them a killer deal? By the way, VanillaSoft100 gets you 100 bucks off the show if you've not yet registered. So this is what I'm thinking about. And a good example of that, which is going to lead to where we're talking about today, is the fact that often the hardest thing about... The most exciting thing about these big events, any event you go to, we'll use OutBound today as an example, but it could be any event because the event's coming back, is you could have 300, 500, 1000, 2,000, 5,000 people, at that facility. You can't reach them all, so what do you do? And that my friend is when you can get guerilla using tools that allow you to reach at scale and drive outcomes. So you can come back with closed deals in the hand and say to management," You should send me to more of these gigs because it's like fish in a barrel baby. I'm just taking them out. I'm taking orders, I'm closing deals." So what is that? What is that a vehicle that lets you, at an event, go and reach at scale so you can do exactly that because I'm going to be using it. Well my friends, guess what? It's LinkedIn. That's right, it's LinkedIn. It's LinkedIn as if you've not heard that enough, right? So who's the right person, the right LinkedIn savant rockstar. I was looking at their profile today and they have over 60 fricking thousand followers, and I was just a little bit jealous and annoyed at the same time. So who am I talking about? If you don't know, then you've been sitting somewhere far, far away. I am talking about the one, the only Brynne Tillman. Brynne, welcome to the show.
Brynne Tillman: Darryl, thanks for having me. I have big shoes to fill there to, but yeah, I'm excited. Very excited to talk about how do you use LinkedIn before, during, and after the conference. Now at scale is interesting. At scale is going to be different for everyone because the way that we look at it is it's truly about building real connection and real conversations. So we have to think about what scale means to every person, but LinkedIn absolutely allows you to connect and engage before, during, and after the conference to very targeted people that you want to have these conversations with. So I'm excited to talk about this topic.
Darryl Praill: I'm equally excited. I got to tell you because I mean, here's an example, right? And tell me folks, if you can listen. We all have bosses, right? You have a boss, everybody's got a boss. I got a boss. And my boss is saying to me, there are... We're spending a lot of money to send a lot of people to this show and have a splash. You got to be able to show me an ROI on that. So it's the whole idea of what do I do, as you said, how do I work before the show to create hype and anticipation? Maybe pre- book a lot of meetings. What do I do during the show? And then when I do after the show to make sure those conversations we had don't go anywhere. They actually come back and they become deals. So that's the thing to me. Let's just start with the before. Talk to me about using LinkedIn before where would you start. If you remember, so you're, you're a regular sales rep and you're coaching them. What would you do before?
Brynne Tillman: So the first thing I would do is go into LinkedIn and other social media platforms and follow and or connect with all of the speakers. Let them know that you're going to be at OutBound and you're very excited to see them and see them speak. In fact, if you really want to take it one step further mentioned the book that they've authored or the podcast they're a host on and make them feel like you really reaching out, that you took some time to personalize that message. The next thing you want to do. And you can find all of this on the OutBound conference, in any conference, usually you can see all the speakers, is once you're following them, start to look at their shares and the engagement, both on theirs and any of the speakers or the people running the event, and start to identify the people that are engaging, that are telling you that they're going to be at the event. And look through that and make some decisions on whether or not we want to connect with them, set up times to speak. I mean, there are a lot of opportunities and you can even follow the hashtag and start to see who's using the hashtag and start engaging with those people prior. Now you said something really important, which is set up appointments. Now these speakers are there for a few days, right? They're speaking for an hour, maybe two times, but most of their time, they're either at their booth or they're walking around and engaging with everyone else. So not a bad idea for the right ones, the ones where you can bring them value, is to set up a time in advance where you can meet with them. Once you're on the calendar, and you can, if you know they have a booth, then schedule it at their booth, but make sure you get it on their calendar and you get their cell number and your cell number. I add that too and they get yours in the calendar invite. And now you can schedule 8, 10, 12 very targeted meetings prior to the event. That's just a couple things.
Darryl Praill: So I really liked that because you can also start to do even just scheduling them prior to the event. When you do schedule them, and that's the thing, we talked about, you can schedule meetings in advance, the before, to take place during the event, or if you want to, you can actually schedule meetings to take place before the event. And then if there's interest there, then what you can do is you can say," Hey, let's hook up with a whole bunch of people. We're going to get maybe 10 or 20 people together and going to go out and do this thing because we're all shared interests." Or you can actually say," I'll actually show you the product or the service in more detail there." So you're right. You can do it before the event, but you can actually also do it earlier than because one of the things that will likely happen, I'll warn everybody now is, and I do this. I've already got people already reaching out to me, wanting to meet up for a beer and coffee, and I always like that once he asked me to for beer. So let's meet for coffee and I'm trying to figure out if I like the beer people more than the coffee people, it all depends on my mood.
Brynne Tillman: And the time of day.
Darryl Praill: crosstalk And the time of day, exactly. I'm not going to have time to meet with every single person. If I did, if I had a beer with every single person, I would be blitzed the entire show, but I still do want to engage those relationships. And so for me to scale my own time, my own availability when I'm at the show, it can actually make more sense for me to have some of those meetings in advance prior to the show taking place so that when I see them there were already face to the name." Hey, how are you? It's good to see you Brynne. I've been thinking more about what you said," whatever. So you can do both. If they say," No, I'm too busy," then you can fall back to the," Well, what about now? What about tomorrow? What about next week?" So there's a double whammy you can do that on the day before. Anything else they should be doing beforehand? I love the point about connecting with them and following all those who engage with their content. That part's huge, anything else?
Brynne Tillman: I mean, I think you really have to do a little social listening and find out who's attending as well. And engaging with beyond the speakers is great. Now, one of the things I want to be careful of is that we're not creating all of these networking opportunities and pitching too soon. Right, there's some social aspect to this, there's some bring value aspect to this. There'll be an opportunity when they say," You know, tell me a little bit about what you do," but don't go into these meetings with like your pitch deck ready to go.
Darryl Praill: Oh my gosh.
Brynne Tillman: You know? There's a social aspect, there's a building rapport aspect, there's a connection aspect. They're not here to be pitched they're here... If you detach from what that prospect is worth to you during this event and attach to what you are worth to them, you'll earn the right to get the conversation after the show. And also, we'll talk about what to do during, but we want to make sure that we are not saying," Okay, we're going to schedule a time at the show. And that's where I'm going to sell them." That's where I'm going to meet them, where I'm going to connect with them, where there's going to be a true networking connection and they understand that you can bring enormous value and that they're willing. This is sort of, I've moved into what we do at the meeting at the show. But if you have the meeting prior to the show, the goal is that they know that you can bring value. They don't have to know the details and that the appointment to follow up is set. Even if it's two weeks, a week after the show. And the reason is everyone wants to pitch. They just have to remember that you respected their time, that you built rapport with them, and that there is a solution that's worth exploring. That's all you need to get to because you're not going to pitch them. No one is going to say," Oh my God, let me buy that now. Let's forget this whole OutBound conference and focus on your contract." So I want to make sure that we're not... That said if there is initial interest and they they start asking the questions, answer them. But I don't want there to be a buzz that you're just the greet and pitch guy or the greet and pitch gal.
Darryl Praill: I love what you're saying. We hammer this a lot on the show and the reason we do is because it's... We always want to go for the close, right? We were excited. We want, we want to hit our numbers. And so we all fall into the bad behavior of pitch, pitch, pitch, pitch, pitch. And what we always try to tell people is a couple of things. One is A, don't pitch. You're going to make a deposit, it's not about making a withdrawal. You haven't earned right yet, all right? Second is play the long game, right? You're playing the long, and this could be a two month, three month, six month, 12 month process, or you're not going to... Exactly what you said. Don't try to close when they're on the first swing of the bat. Cause you'll just... You'll just going to get yourself kicked out of the game entirely because you're going to just offend them. So I really liked that. So the patience thing is really, really huge. A few episodes ago, we had a conversation around the whole premise around not story telling, but story listening. Brynne used the term social listening, and it's the exact same premise here, right? You're listening for adding context and adding value. And then because what you're doing is you're building rapport. Remember in sales, the next object... The objective of any meeting, people always forget this, is to have the next meeting. That's the objective. That's the objective. So that's part and parcel of what Brynne is saying. Play the long game, don't bring your pitch deck. I love it. Okay, that's before. Let's move into," I've done all this life is good. Now it's show time. I'm there. I'm onsite. What do I do with LinkedIn to make sure I maximize my time and my investment and my outcomes?"
Brynne Tillman: Well, so there are a few things in pre- work. We're going to connect with a lot of people in the next couple of days. So what I want you to do is pre- write a little message that says," Great meeting you at OutBound and looking forward to connecting with you on LinkedIn. And I'll follow up with you after the event." And have that ready to go. Why? Because we're going to connect with a lot of people. It's really hard to type a personal message, but we need when we come back to know who I connected with, don't mix it up with the people that connected with you in the middle of the... from somewhere else. And so it helps us when we look back that we know that's where we met them. I would say," PS. I'm looking forward to continuing our conversation around," and then all you have to do is type a little bit about what you just talked about. And that just makes that that much more personal. So a lot of people don't realize you can add a personal note to a connection request on mobile, but you have to do it right. You can't just send a message on LinkedIn. I'm going to see if I can show this. I'm not sure if I can, but when you want to send a connection request on LinkedIn, if we go in here, if you just hit connect, right? It's going to send without a message. But if you click on those three dots...
Darryl Praill: Yep. I love that customized message.
Brynne Tillman: There is, second to the bottom is personalized... let's see if that comes through. Personalize your message. So you can open that up. You've got your copy and paste ready. So you do Darryl paste and then it said, PS. I'm looking forward to continuing our conversation, I can say whatever it is we just talked about. I've personalized this enough. I'll remember, and I send. That's number one. Now, number two, it's really hard to type in someone's name when you're in a crowded room and there's a lot going on. So LinkedIn actually has a really fun feature.
Darryl Praill: Ah, you're me.
Brynne Tillman: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, well the find nearby has gone away.
Darryl Praill: Oh, it's gone away? Oh, that makes me sad.
Brynne Tillman: I know, but there is a QR code. So if you look here, right at the top, there is a QR code and if you click on that, there are two things that open up. There's my QR code and there's a scan, right? So I can scan a QR code. So, keep that open and then you can scan other people's QR codes. You can show them how to do it, they think it's really cool. And you can scan theirs and you go... You don't have to just type in their name and spell it right. And then you've got your... You just go your three dots, personalize, invite paste, a couple of nice words, and you're done.
Darryl Praill: I love the QR code. I'm playing on the app as I'm talking to you. And it was so drop dead simple. So for those who are wondering where it is, you're in the app. It literally, for me inaudible, that's wrong, my top store, I have my profile picture, I have the search bar and right within the search bar is four little squares. Just tap on that, and that's when you can actually share my code, save the photos or they can scan your code, et cetera, so it's all good. That's brilliant. crosstalk
Brynne Tillman: Yeah. And make sure you've got that note so you do remember where you met them.
Darryl Praill: So what I do in the notes side and you do something different? I'm assuming there's apps. We can probably have hot keys for some of the messages. I just created their...
Brynne Tillman: Every phone has their own hot keys, actually.
Darryl Praill: Yeah, I just use a note. I just create a note and I create a series of some of the boilerplate copy, I want to meet. It could be a partnership, it could be a prospect, it could be a speaking opp and I've got kind of a boiler plate that I can just, select, I can highlight it, tag it, I'm sorry. Copy it, my clipboard and away I go. Nice and easy.
Brynne Tillman: Yeah, and that's what I mean. That's exactly what I was saying is to have that copied and ready to go. But the iPhone under settings, keyboard, settings general, e- board text replacement, you can put in entire paragraphs with a little code that says," plus OB" for OutBound, right? And you know, that's your texts. So there are definitely ways to do that. And you may have a couple. You may have ones that are specifically for people that you've scheduled a time to follow up." I'm looking forward to our scheduled time next week to catch up." And you may have one that," I'm looking forward to reaching back out to you next week to schedule a time," right? Like you can have a couple of different ones based on that conversation.
Darryl Praill: Love it. So you can set up keyboard shortcuts. You can use notes, both of these are killer and you're right. Because they're at the show, there's a lot of hand, a lot going on, especially in those coffee breaks where everybody's like milling about and trying to get as much in as possible. Whatever you can do to optimize that? Brilliant. QR code? Dynamite. All right, what else can we do during the show?
Brynne Tillman: Well, the another thing I might do is if you use Calendly or anything like Calendly is... Create one," Great meeting at OutBound," pick 15 minute time so that it has its own.... When when it goes into your calendar, you know that it's an OutBound person. You can add that link also to the hot key. So that immediately," I'm looking forward to scheduling a call, feel free," and you can say," Feel free to send me your preferred way of scheduling. If it happens to be through a calendar link, here's mine."
Darryl Praill: Oh, that's brilliant. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. I love this. And what you're doing here, folks, right? You're just getting rid of the friction. You're making it easier and easier and easier both for them and for you, right? Because it's in your calendar. So you block, before you do, if you're into the Calendly route, make sure you block off whatever times you need blocked off for whatever reason so all that's left for them is a tough that's all that works for you. That's the only thing I'll tell you. I love that, that's awesome. Okay. What else? Keep it coming sister. This is good stuff.
Brynne Tillman: Okay. What else to do? Take lots of pictures, share them, and tag the speakers. Tag the speaker's company. Talk about your number one takeaways. If you really want for them to recognize you and take your call later, if you are promoting them, there's this innate... If someone... If I'm a keynote somewhere, and I have five people that are just taking pictures, sharing my slides, tweeting my name... When they can reach out I 100% and making them a priority to take a call.
Darryl Praill: It's the rule of reciprocity, right? You're doing this for me. I will reciprocate for you. Absolutely.
Brynne Tillman: Yeah. So engage, engage, engage. Make sure that... And if you are sitting with people that are enjoying it, tag them." I'm enjoying hearing Darryl Praill speak. I'm here with, at Jeb Blunt, right? Whatever. Right? Talk, tag the people that you're with, ask their permission, just say," Hey, I'm taking pictures and sharing on social. Can I tag you in this?" They're like," Yeah, sure," most of them. And if they say no, then don't but so," Having a great time, sitting with person, listening to Darryl Praill say magic genius things about sales," right? So what I'm saying is the more you share content tag, OutBound, let OutBound... You'll be on everyone's radar, and all of a sudden, you've brought extreme value without having to do a whole lot.
Darryl Praill: And people are going to share or comment on your posts as well, which is going to get far more reach and engagement and then your followers will go as well at the same time. I mean, it's a win, win win, win, win.
Brynne Tillman: Yeah, so absolutely. You definitely want to do that. The other thing I would do before, which I didn't mention, is clean up your profile a little bit. You're going to get a ton of views.
Darryl Praill: Okay, kids. I did not tell her to say that, but what's the one thing I beat you up on all the fricking time? It's your profile. I love it. I love it.
Brynne Tillman: Converted from a resume to a resource so that when they show up, they don't see that you've won President's Club three years in a row, and that year 180% of quota, or that you're the best negotiator in the whole wide world, because your buyers don't care about that, only your future employers. What do they care about? The value you bring, the solution to their challenge, to their problem. They need to know that you are the subject matter expert in this area, and that... They get excited to hear from you because you're a thought leader. It's not just," I'm going to sell to them, but if they invest the 15 minutes or 30 minutes talking to me, it's time, well invested because they're going to learn." And they're going to believe that because your profile is positioned as a resource. So, and there are five things it should hit, I'll say really quickly. Make sure it resonates with your buyer, it creates curiosity, it teaches them something new, gets them thinking differently about their current situation, and gets them raising their hands and knowing how to schedule with you. That's what your profile's job is.
Darryl Praill: Those last two I love, I really love. Get them thinking differently about that and making them want to reach out and talk to you about it. I mean, those... They're curious. Wow. That's that's gold. I mean, that's... Folks. Why would you not do that when they're going to reach out to you as a result because you've intrigued them? They're going," I need to know more." Wow. It's such an easy, easy, easy way to go. Okay. Anything else during, or are we onto the after?
Brynne Tillman: I mean, let's go to after, I'm good.
Darryl Praill: Let's do it.
Brynne Tillman: So follow up, follow up, follow up, right? But a lot of it is bring value and start real conversations. So unless you have positioned it that they want to see a demo, they want to see your stuff, your followup has to be a continuation of a conversation, not the beginning of a pitch. It just needs to flow naturally, unless it was set up that way. And there will be a lot that are set up that way, and then go for it, right? But the ones are," Boy, I've really enjoyed meeting you, I really enjoyed this conversation, I'd love to talk with you after the event. Let's set up," and they schedule cause you sent them the calendar app. But there's no immediate," I need your solution." So how do we follow up? And this is even if they haven't scheduled yet, continue to talk about the event. Right? What was your... One of my favorite takeaways was when Darryl Praill talked about dah, dah, dah, dah. What were some... What was your favorite? Who was your favorite speaker? What was your number one takeaway. Let's start with the reminder of the bond that we had and where we had it. We need to continue the conversation so it naturally flows. Here's the bottom... And this is like a mindset from social selling that is critical. You need to treat the person on the other side of the message, the same way you would if they were on the other side of the table. Because it has moved from physically shaking hands or fist bumping or elbow bumping or whatever it might be to digital doesn't make them less of a human. So we need to continue... It's not like," Oh, they connected with me on LinkedIn, so they must be a lead, unless they raise their hand and say," I'm interested in your solution or at least exploring your solution," they're not a lead yet. Even if they're qualifying in your mind, you haven't earned the right to pitch them yet. You've got to slow down the outreach to speed up the outcome.
Darryl Praill: Okay, I got to write that one again. Slow down the outreach to speed up the outcome. Wow. That's gold. I wrote that one down kids, I will share that in the show notes. That's fantastic. All right. So that's the before, that's the during, that's the after. Now, of course, this is just, we're just like scratching the surface, but I love this for a lot of reasons. Because everything that Brynne has talked about here is just... You can do almost everything here on an account- based marketing campaign where you're targeting specific individuals or accounts that you want to go after. This is using the tool the way you should be using it. The event just becomes the catalyst, it becomes the excuse for you to do this. But of course you don't need an excuse if because what you do for a living is you're in sales. So therefore, you look for some commonality, right? Whether it's... And the event doesn't even need to be in person, it could be a virtual event, right? So that's the beauty of everything we've talked about here. Now Brynne, you, my friend are speaking at the Ebell Conference yet. Now, I don't want to give anything away. Can you give us a tease of what you'll be speaking about, or is it going to be secret? We know is going to be about LinkedIn.
Brynne Tillman: Yes, it is. And I am virtual, unfortunately, but it's the week that my kids, well, they're leaving for college. It's our week after right at graduation. So we will be remote and the topic in, and I'm doing this with my partner, Bill McCormick, on converting your LinkedIn connections to conversation. So how do we move them from all these people that we've ignored to engaging them and getting them interested in connecting?
Darryl Praill: Oh my gosh. So tell me why you would not follow and watch that specific episode folks, because I bet you you've got hundreds of thousands of connections right now that you need to turn into something more than just a connection. So Brynne Tillman is the place to go to, she's the CEO, she's the LinkedIn author, LinkedIn sales trainer, sales navigator trainer. Her company, social sales link dot com check it out, they are on fire. They transformed the way professionals grow their business, and it's all about us. She says, converting LinkedIn connections, the conversations, no matter what you need, social selling training for your whole team, or just best practices, e- learning, coaching. You got to do this. You can catch her obviously on LinkedIn, you can go to social sales link dot com and catch her on Twitter as just at Brynne Tillman. Of course, I love catching her on Clubhouse where she blesses me quite often with her insights. And of course, I'm an anchor when she's talking, but you know, I try hard. That my friends is...
Brynne Tillman: You're amazing. I love you on Clubhouse. Everyone sales radio on Clubhouse, Saturday mornings nine to noon, Eastern, join us.
Darryl Praill: Nine to noon Eastern. You got it. So you there folks see Brynne there. With that, we are out of time, everybody. That's Brynne Tillman, she's going to be at the OutBound Conference. You should follow her, reach out to her, connect with her. She would love to take that connection that you're going to make with her and turn it into a conversation. In the meantime we're out of here in another week is in the books. We shall see you soon. Take care. Bye- bye.