People Buy from People: Pandemic or Not

why don't we go ahead and get this guy going um all right welcome everybody for those of you who are still here um this is it this is our last presentation of the day um and we are definitely ending on a high note um very excited about this um I am going to think I'm sharing my screen right now let's see we are next going to be hearing from Priscilla mckenny president of little bird marketing uh with a very cool topic people buy from people pandemic or not um I'm looking forward to sitting back and and listening to this one it is 6 o'clock here in Charlotte North Carolina so I am prepared to enjoy this I've got my my glass already poured of my Gaelic a from Highland Brewing Company out of Asheville North Carolina uh no endorsement bilocal um and I'm I'm ready to shut up you know for every other presentation thus far we've gone through our ground rules but this is the last one everybody's behaving themselves uh I said at knock on wood that Tech has been our friend so we're gonna throw these out the window um no do continue to engage um stay active in the chat the Q&A um on social on the hashtag QV i2020 uh outside of that I got nothing left to say I'm going to shut up hand off to Priscilla and let her do her thing awesome awesome so I'm gonna go ahead and grab my screen share here in just a second but I want to tell you all I know it's been a long day for you I'm sure and even though it's been really good um as with anything uh you know it's a wind down so I just wanted to let you know I'll be as quick as I can but what we're going to do is make sure that before you get started please connect with me on uh LinkedIn and let me you know make sure that you told me hey I I saw you there and and I just want to have a great conversation with you I'd love any kind of feedback positive or negative but really it's about the engagement and it's about us you know it would be ridiculous for me on this topic to not then acknowledge the people that are on this call so please do me a favor and actually connect with me and make it meaningful and share something that you learned in this so I am especially grateful at this point with the pandemic that we've been incredibly busy and I know that's not the case for a lot of people and that's how I'd like to walk into this uh particular presentation is to say I understand that everybody is in a different situation and so I know that everything I say is not going to apply uh directly to you right now but I want you to understand that sensitivity that I have and why I think it's very possible to bring that sensitivity and that authenticity into your presence online and that will actually help us go through any hard time not only you know a pandemic but there's many other Hard Times To Be had during business so in in that sense anything that you can learn today you can apply I know you can't you know you're not going to be able to take in everything I have to say today I do teach all the time on LinkedIn and I teach 12we sessions I can't possibly cram it in but I hope that you take away two or three things that really make a difference uh for you in terms of um how we actually sell people to people I am going to have a Q&A session so please make sure that you uh just jot down a quick question and I'm I'm happy to take it on any of these any of this subject matter and we're not talking about Twitter per se exactly today but I'm also happy to take a um take a question about Twitter so um it is no no doubt that the rise of social media is just absolutely obvious and fundamentally it has has changed the way we live and we do business and research shows some a very frightening statistic now and that's about how people go about and buy and so you look at this picture this is just obvious everybody goes uhuh this is how we live there's no no no big deal here um hold on one second I have a little hard time there we go but this is the research and this should frighten us as companies as insights Prof professionals uh as sales directors as CMOS whoever is on this call the reality is that now the buyer is on an anonymous Journey looking for what it is that will solve their problem and they are 57% of the way through their buying process before a sales rep or a company rep or anybody is even aware of what they're doing so being 57% of the way through the purchase decision is a problem if we don't get online if we don't um present ourselves as people that they can do business with so as soon as we say we want to go online because everybody's online and we want to be found enter the noise so this I keep this stat up as soon as it comes out for 2020 I'll definitely post this and and up um um upgrade this presentation but in 2018 this is what was happening in a minute representation of what was happening in one internet minute and here's what we have for 2019 so let's single out just for example the Twitter 87,500 people were tweeting in six in those 60 seconds and let's actually take a look at um uh let's actually take a look at oh one thing that like that actually interestingly went down was there was 2.4 million snaps created in 2018 and then 2.1 million the next year the one thing I want to show you on this really is about Google 3.8 million search queries and so when we think about how we show up and who shows up I want to remind you that whether you're on on Twitter or you're on LinkedIn or Facebook or whatever it is you are for business those are nothing but websites websites that rank websites that can be found through Google so please don't just isolate it and think oh it's a social media channel therefore um it only counts you know on its own no it's actually being it um connected through the Google ranking so what companies are doing right now is they're saying well um we're not really sure what to do and I love this this particular comic strip but what if we don't change it all and something magical just happens um I think that's a lot of wishful thinking and obviously we have a lot of people burying their head in the Sands with what's going on the pandemic and saying well we just won't pivot we won't change we won't do anything else and we'll just hope that people maybe in this instance quit you know buying from people maybe they will go back to just being loyal to a brand for no other reason or maybe they will just magically find Us online even though we're super specialized insights company that does it differently than everybody else does whatever the special little snow snowflake that you are but this I think we all can agree is not going to work so the issue that we have today and what I was talking about the people buy from people in pandemic or not is that we have to as a salesperson or as a customer service person or as an insights professional we need to somehow insert ourselves somewhere along the buyer Journey while it Still Remains Anonymous and how do we do that well we do that very specifically and very um inexpensively by showing up online in a dynamic and really in the best way possible what's been so cool about social media um or as guy Kawasaki would call it uh he calls it God's gift to entrepreneurs is that no longer do companies or professionals or Freelancers or moderators or field directors no longer do they have to go to the Madison Avenue agencies and say hey can you create an ad for me no they can go directly to the consumer and in going directly to the consumer is fundamentally changed how consumers are behaving and they are expecting more of a human experience and I actually put this slide in here because at a lot of insights conferences that I've been to recently and spoke at lately a lot of people are talking about the rise of humanity the rise of the humans in context of the data and I just want to remind you that the rise of the human also involves Us in terms of how we pitch our way wees and how we show up to be able to supply the survey the you know the qualitative study the focus group The whatever it is but we have to honor the rise of the human and if you embrace it then you'll do much better in business for sure I love this uh this movie I don't know if anybody can identify it it looks familiar to anyone I'll give you a second but this is out of Glen Gary Glenn Ross and he talks about the ABCs of selling ABC ABC he talks about it all the time this is the nice Ginsu Knife Set he's going to give away but um this kind of mythological set of leads that somebody is going to get if they're a good salesperson is absolutely super old school and ABC for him stood for always be closing and what I would purport is a change in mindset and that's what I would call abh so I'm going to give you a couple of a breakdown these are six mindset shifts that I'd like to offer to you before we get into even how do I go about showing up online because if you can grasp these particular mindsets and then tweak what you do online accordingly you will absolutely honor the rise of the human and show up in a way that people can grasp and people actually um will desire to work with you no matter what company you're at no matter what service that you provide so the first thing I like toind mind people is um and I usually talk with a lot of insights people so I like to do a poll real quick so if you are a die hard if you prefer Uber kind of you know think about okay who's who who's an Uber person and then who loves lift so I'll get a room and it'll divide up and honestly I usually get about well it depends upon where I am in the country or where I am in the world sometimes I'll use a Black Cab as an example but my point is this you have personal pre some people like to grab an Uber they like the app they like the interface some people you know love lift but then my next question is this the last time you got in that Uber or you got in that lift did you say to the driver just take me anywhere you want to go we don't because that's ridiculous but what happens is that people have personal preferences Facebook Snapchat Twitter LinkedIn and then we get in that vehicle and we say oh just take me anywhere you want to go and so the huge mindset shift that needs to happen when we agree that people buy from people is that it does not matter what vehicle we have what vehicle we drive it matters how we show up and if we know where we're going if we can provide those instructions I'm on LinkedIn just constantly and like I said I teach it um but the reality is that people get really uh you know um went into the black hole that is social media and I think that's why some people are afraid of going there professionally is because it just zaps your time but I argue that it zaps your time if you go out there and you let it co-opt your time and you say just take me anywhere you want to go I guess I'll just do the next thing that you're asking me to and if you look at the screen on LinkedIn there's constantly all kinds of noise there's things that LinkedIn wants you to do but you have to always be the person who holds tightly to but what is it I'm here to do and if you can change that mindset you can really make a go on social media the other one is a hashtag that we started out on uh on LinkedIn and I'd love for you to follow it or give us some kind of a shout out there but it's hashtag always be helping and those that's what we call team abh it's no longer the ABCs of closing but abh how can you go out and help if you can help your most ideal client solve a problem even if it's not one that directly brings you Revenue you build rapport with them and then you will be able to get a shot at the business I know there's a lot of covid-19 studies going on every company has one um or so it seems and I get that those are being very overtly helpful but we need to be mindful also of who is it that it's helping who could we get it in front of if you know a particular stat on your particular covid-19 study that would be really helpful sa for someone in travel then make sure you're tagging someone in in travel make sure you're answering a question make sure that you're actually delivering the the goods to the person to whom it would be most helpful the other mindset shift I talk a lot about is show not tell you know in kindergarten the person at show and tell who actually brought the Rubik's Cube with them to explain it to someone was far more popular than the person who talked about it oh it's a cube it has colors it's like the rainbow you know this is not interesting if you say you your company delivers fantastic insights don't tell me show me and I'm not saying go out and give your work for free I'm saying give someone a small slice of it don't expect them just to come and ask you every question about what it is you do it you need to actually put it on showcase and some people are like oh I can't talk about myself like that yes you can we all do it's about doing it in a way where you are being helpful to someone so it doesn't mean you can go out you go out there and you be a bragio there's a lot of ways to go out and explain what your company does without just verbal verbal verbal let me tell you what's going on I love this next one and I I I I will admit that I stole it from one of my friends in the UK Adam gray he teaches LinkedIn as well but he talks about the duty of care there are too many people going out on LinkedIn and Twitter and getting followers or connections for the sake of followers and connections that is a ridiculous collection we need to be able to put people in our group who we actually can take care of and so when we invite someone to connect with us on LinkedIn we tell them why and I'm going to give you some tips and tricks a little bit later but we tell them why but we also take the time to actually get ourselves involved taking care of them you know and making sure that we can answer questions ask really interesting questions and make sure that we're delivering things that are of value to them and that's why I ask you today please connect with me on LinkedIn and give me some kind of feedback because I care that if someone is going to connect with me maybe they have an additional question about LinkedIn or about Twitter that's fine I don't want to in bring anybody into my sphere of influence and into my um my online experience if I'm not going to be able to be helpful to them and if I'm not going to somehow be able to meaningfully collect connect to them this one is really an old Sandler system um saying if you feel it say it and I started this session by reminding everybody that some of us are drinking from a fire hose with work and some of us are twiddling our thumbs and wish we could go back to work and it's hard it's really hard and so I understand that some people feel maybe it's not appropriate to be out on um social media or it's not appropriate to be selling right now um on the contrary this is uh our job and and this what we need to be doing and I really do believe that if you as a human can just if you feel it you can say it for example I can send a message to someone asking if they would like to have a meeting or would like a walkthrough of the covid study or anything like that but if I feel a little weird about it I can even say you know I feel a little weird about asking you but this is why it was brought to my mind this is how we embrace the rise of our own Humanity to be able to talk with someone online in a way that we would like to be talked to obviously that's the Golden Rule but what I like to also bring up is what I call the Platinum role and that is treat others as they themselves want to be treated right I might want to be treated a particular way but other people might want to be treated a different way I'm going to be mindful about the way they want to be treated we're going to talk a little bit more about that in Persona work but the last thing that will hopefully give you a mindset shift is this quote from Seth Goden he said that content marketing is the only marketing left and So Gone are the days of just these um advertising messages that interrupt and uh uh um and without any kind of uh personal um message are going to deliver on the scale that content marketing can content marketing has bent towards being helpful and advertising is bent on being interruptive so we've already seen a major shift here and so you need to actually change your mental view of things to understand that content is what people are looking for they're educating themselves along the process of buying so a quick word about Persona development you know how I mentioned with Uber and Lyft a lot of people can get co-opted and just you know go any Direction people well look at this someone's doing this on LinkedIn I guess I'll do this on LinkedIn it doesn't matter what other people are doing on link l in what matters is how you're showing up in front of your most ideal client again we have to say who cares about the vehicle what I need to know is where am I going and you don't know where you're going on any social media or writing a blog or writing an email for that matter unless you know who your actual audience is and so I really encourage everybody to go do uh really great Persona work and I put a link there we have a a page that's what we call a pillar page on on a website it goes all the way through what is a Persona how to do it I won't go into it here but I've got to tell you ask your marketing um office unfortunately a lot of times those get done in a silo in a company someone has done a Persona and then it got filed in a drawer but go think about who is it you most want to talk to and I have just some a couple of five questions here that what I refer to as my secret s besides of Co their demographic what's their role what are they looking for what do they do every day yeah that's we need that but what we really want to do is understand something a little deeper about them what keeps this person up at night yes they might be an insights director an in client they may be a shopper insights person I don't know what their role is but let's really go a little bit deeper and think about what is keeping them up on Sunday that's talking about their anxieties what gets them going on Monday morning that's a motivation that's a very positive we want to also talk to a very strong motivators of people who are looking for the services that we offer and I like to ask about how does fear of missing out emerg for them what is it they're afraid of missing out on are they a busy exec who can't make it to Virtual conferences like this do they want to wrap up of what's going on you know what would be helpful to them ask yourself who are they trying to impress because if you can figure that out then you can start being a help to them do they need to gather four different bids for um a focus group facility are they trying to come and win a an amazing you know focus group facil so they can impress their boss or are they just fing a bid wh what's going on with this person in this role I love this question question but you don't always know the right answer to this but it is actually very interesting to contemplate and that is what are they afraid to admit so for example for me I'm in marketing world all the time and the reality is I'll have CMOS CEOs even even people who are graphic designers even people who are involved in social media say to me very quietly um sometimes at the end of a cocktail hour you know I really don't understand how to use a hashtag I'm like wow that's interesting it's an interesting to know that there are things that we consider in our work to be so standard and so obvious and they are not obvious to everybody so I might ask you when you think about your ideal client Persona someone you want to actually go out and who who do you want to buy from you what kinds of things are they afraid to say could you answer a few questions that are maybe a little bit more basic or could you just ask hey what do you think about and I'll use my world what do you think about you know the changes in using hashtags I might bring up a topic in a very uninterrupted to connect to so that they will buy from you so this is really the juice of what I have to share tonight um and you know I have a lot of slides that show four examples of all of these but it's very hard to fit in this small of a time and I hope that if I rattle through these pretty quickly you'll get something really valuable and maybe you could even jot the rule down or the tip or the trick and ask me um on LinkedIn to clarify something for you and I would be happy to but a lot of people say well I want you to come and show us like some tips and tricks about how to do things better online and I'm like that's great and you can see I'll put it here I know you want it but for me the mindset shifts this like are so important the looking at it from the perspective the Persona is so important before you get to these tips and tricks because these are tactics but the other things are long-term strategies that will really help you shine but these tips and tricks really work for me I've created them over many many years the last one is not mine but it's a reminder the first one is vice versa and what that reminds me and I I kind of use these I think you can see these as anchors just to remind me about the real world of how it works out on LinkedIn and Twitter but with vice versa I say if I'm if I'm connected with them on LinkedIn let me go see if I can connect with them on Twitter and if I connected with them on Twitter originally let me go see if I can find them on LinkedIn and I'm using those two back and forth because really for business so in especially in U North America this is what we use for business and I've left Facebook out of this conversation for a reason but vice versa is important because you have people who show show up with a little bit different issues on fa on um Twitter than they do on LinkedIn they show up maybe a little bit differently when they're on LinkedIn they're really involved in a little bit more longer format learning when they're out on Twitter it's really up in the moment like I'm when I'm in conference season and I'm going to visit people and I'm I just happen to comment on something you know I can tweet 20 25 times a day based on what's going on but I don't live like that on LinkedIn and so if what you are offering is something that is a quick decision then you want to make sure that you are connected with them on Twitter or if it if you need a lot of exposure or visibility to people but if you um you connected with them on LinkedIn as it turns out they actually are far more active on Twitter then you're going to end up losing them and so the vice versa just reminds me that anybody that I met on Twitter I need to go find on LinkedIn and vice versa my rule of 15 comes into talking about people tell me all the time well I don't know what to write or I don't want to be salesy to which I usually respond well then don't be salesy don't avoid LinkedIn just don't be salesy but the rule of 15 specifically states that for every 15 posts this is the way to actually break them down 10 of those posts need to be interesting right so they need to show that you're interested in the subject matter they need to show that you are a good source of information that you understand the subject matter they need to be interesting in some way the next four need to be overtly helpful a guide um a reminder of a date of an event um uh turning someone on to a great blog that's not your own something that's helpful like oh I found this checklist it could be something that belongs to your own company so think lead magnets right or maybe covid studies um as long as it was overtly helpful for that 10 and then that four you earn the right to actually pitch your wares one time to ask for the sale shame on the person who lives on social media all the time and never asks for the sale because people show up there specifically as a business in a professional Marketplace in order to be seen and to see what's available on on in business so we do need to actually ask for it but unfortunately people get that balance wrong so often that it comes out as salesy or slimy so the rule of 15 can really help you feel confident that you're not over salesy online offline this is really hard during the pandemic but believe me it'll come back in a way that we can do it but I always remind myself if I met someone online I try and take it offline I happen to travel a lot that works for me but a lot of people wouldn't even do that say they were in Chicago for the day they wouldn't ask someone who they were connected to on LinkedIn in Chicago for a coffee real quick but I do that all the time and I'm telling you that it is worth the effort now maybe you don't travel but you're connected to people locally if you if it was worth it meeting them online it more than likely is worth it to meet them offline of course there's an exception to the rules but I think you get my point and that this is an anchor that can be very helpful in order to get more and more people to buy from you online so online offline if you met them offline get you know make sure that you follow up and get connect Ed with them online so that they get to see you over and over again too many times have people meet people at a conference and they won't see each other until the next year of the conference why they could have connected online and really kept that relationship going and built some professional Rapport it's a lot of things we miss out by not doing that I'd like to remind people please get out of LinkedIn jail that is not the only place to comment to to connect with people and too many times LinkedIn jail is like who wants more emails nobody and so LinkedIn mail becomes this a whole another email set that I've got to take care of well I don't live and die by that LinkedIn mail that's a very passive way that people get information but actually moving yourself over to the feed and commenting on things that people are doing is absolutely the juice of Twitter and of LinkedIn and I'm telling you if you take nothing else from this you have to learn that whether you're going deeper with a particular client that you already have or if you're looking for that next new client the way to prospect is to get out of LinkedIn jail the way to service and go deeper with your existing clients is to get out of LinkedIn jail you don't want to be in the mail slot you want to be over in the feed and the easiest way to do it let's just say for example I'm going out after the CMO of Netflix or insights manager whatever it is so I find that person well I did a good job finding them but instead of now sending them a lame email in LinkedIn and getting in their LinkedIn jail I'm gonna actually go out and go to their click their face and go to their profile and then once I'm in their profile I can SC scroll down just a little bit and see where their activity is and then I'm going to say see all on your activity and then I'm going to go over and say well I want to see their posts and voila if you want to talk to Priscilla then go to Priscilla's post she made because guess what people like when they engage with their posts so go out if you're prospecting or going deeper with a current client go out and find their posts and start com uh conversing there it's a much better way to have something breathing and living because other people are seeing it and they appreciate that you notice them very quickly people ask me all the time about should they connect with every everybody who tries to connect with them and my answer is always Wayne why and it's kind of a funny anchor that I use because I had a guy named Wayne why who was constantly trying to connect with me and he was a logistics specialist a truck driver a Tracker a personal investigator I mean List went on it was total creepsville and so I remind you yes you can control who you can add into your uh connections and into your sphere of influence and like I said with the duty of care be careful who you let in because you need to take care of them and if it makes no sense for me to be taking care of Wayne why then why should I have him in my connections I have about 7,000 connections I could probably have 13 or 20,000 but I constantly Whittle think someone does something sales it to me by you're out someone tries to use me to get to someone else in my network without actually asking me by you're out and so I have a sphere of influence that is very very well cultivated ated and very well curated so I always ask myself Wayne why two last things tips and tricks that'll really make a big difference for you online and help you rise out of the noise so that people can buy from you as a person and not because of what company you work for in fact no matter what company you work for once you start getting into um into social media you know that you're looking for great post and you know you're trying to understand that your most ideal Persona and so it should make you listen and what I like to listen for is when a perfect and ideal client says to me and then they say something the moment someone expresses that kind of frustration I am on it I'm absolutely on it because I'm listening and I'm going to write that down that's going to be the beginning of my next post if they say you know something that that's just been frustrating them forever they can't seem to get it resolved I know that is the beginning sentence of what I'm going to actually show that I can resolve last thing on this is the golden hour LinkedIn absolutely absolutely has a golden hour when you post to it tweets only last three minutes so it doesn't apply to Twitter but uh for a golden hour LinkedIn absolutely decides whether your post is worth sharing to the world within the first hour that it's been posted and so you need to develop what I call a group of friendlies you need to post what you're going to post but in your comments you need to tag people who would think this is relevant tag people who you think would help you um find the right people for the content you created that's a list of friendlies you can do and that's kind of a nice interesting kind of a shortcut you don't want to be slimy then don't be slimy don't tag someone that they have no idea why you're tagging them I'm talking about meaningfully tagging people who you you created this content who was it for who would do well to read it and to know about it and if it answers nobody then you shouldn't post it so keep in mind that golden hour you need to actually nurture and take care of your post in the first hour otherwise nobody's going to see it so I'll leave you with this last thing about how to calendarize it because people often say to me oh my gosh you know how much time I don't have the time to take care of social media how much time should I be doing and there's a lot of questions around that and so what I usually tell people is start with 15 minutes a day out on LinkedIn at least and and make sure that you stay consistent with it and don't overdo it the worst thing you can do is go out and do a whole bunch of stuff because you kind of get excited and you can't take care of that much stuff and all a sudden you get busy at work and it all falls apart LinkedIn and really any of the social media channels do not reward a lack of consistency start very small but what I suggest is that you very much calendarize things you're doing maybe one day you're going to prospect for those first 15 minutes maybe the next day you're going to go comment on clients prospects posts stay doing the same thing this is like batch processing right maybe the next time you're going to add a note to somebody you're going to actually go in um to LinkedIn mail and make sure that you create some kind of a note maybe you're going to go oh I'm sorry I'm sorry ad note was what I meant to say is like when you actually are prospecting for people you need to make sure that you go click their face and instead of just saying you want to connect you actually want to add a note and you want to tell them why you actually want to connect with them and the way that you find people that are absolutely great opportunities for you to connect with is by seeking them out in other people's feeds if there's been a feed where someone has you know received 900 views and they've gotten 93 comments I and it is per pertaining it's pertinent to what I do and what I sell I want to go through every single one of those people who commented and look for people who are not my first connection if they are a second or third connection I want to click on their face and I remind myself to calendarize this by saying add notes because what I want to do is click on their face and add a note when I want to connect with them say hey I saw your comment on Bill mcdow's LinkedIn post that was really interesting I'd love to connect and you add this note because you want to make sure that you're being meaningful and you're being strategic with who you're connecting to uh recently added this could be another thing that you calendarize maybe this is on a Thursday you always go to your your um Network and it will automatically put it in a recently added um format and you want to make sure that within a week of connecting to somebody you send a personal note so actually work your recently added feature in LinkedIn the last thing is tagging maybe you just want to take 15 minutes to actually go tag a couple of people and posts you think would be helpful to them doesn't have to be promoting you or your company but doing something that is Meaningful my last tip in that is just maybe you want to use the P Pomodoro method it's not my method it's been around for a long time but it's just about setting a timer social media can be a black hole and so if you don't actually go out there and set a timer you will not be focused and a last little tip about that is when I set a timer let's say it's for 15 minutes I'll let it countdown 1459 1458 okay now I'm working on this because I've just trained my brain to tell me that we're focused and we got to get something done so I just wanted to leave this by saying you know I talked about this as people buy from people e pandemic or not and I've got to say that a lot of people freak out about what they're supposed to say online but I have seen and shown over and over and over again that being yourself and putting a genuine me message of something you think whether it's fancy or not actually does the traction and so this was a simple message that wasn't you know about what I sell or what I do but it was just a comment and I made an interesting video about my feelings on the pandemic right at that time and you can see from this 2,150 views 91 likes and 42 comments this started great conversation it was meaningful and uh and it's not that hard hard so you can see it's not overly polished um it is natural um conversationally conversational speak and I didn't have to sell something I just could go out there and be myself and as um Oscar wild said you know be yourself everyone else is already taken so you can bury your head in the sand and just say well you know people aren't buying from anybody right now because everything's slowed down and blah blah BL whatever your your particular um excuse of the day is bury your head in the sand be like I don't I don't know what should is it appropriate should we be online should we be calling client you know or you can actually get out there um companies also and if you're in a in a more of a marketing a CMO you know position or wondering you know I I I totally understand you may be paralyzed about what to do about marketing budget or what to do about sales budget and Biz Dev but this is where uh complacent Brands go to die I do love Tom Fishburn he's great he should follow him online so that's what I have um today to share with you about how it is absolutely true that people buy from people they don't buy from companies they're really the idea of loyalty is going away and so if that's the case how do we show up and really you know shine a light on the people the people the person that we are so that they can actually connect with us and make it meaningful that's what I have I will take questions all right I have one question to start us off and then we'll we'll jump into others um you know throughout your talk I I can't help but think about this and and you know a lot of our audience is is you know folks on the the corporate side of research who may not actually be actively selling um to others but the application of these these Concepts and tactics to you know what I can do as a a corporate Insight professional you know when engaging with either the folks who I support um you know other Heavy Hitters within the business that I'm in or even you know God forbid those who are in companies that I want to be a part of absolutely everybody's selling something so if you're not selling corporate research but you know you're actually selling then your business expertise and your you know your unique Knack uh to uh to you know create to you know put a research project together that was kind of goes into the Persona question who they trying to impress everybody has boss so we've got to show up and we've got to actually put ourselves out um you know professionally to the world because people are looking at our company so let's say I'm not trying to sell anything but I am I'm selling the brand that I'm representing right in that moment so it really does qualify but I hear what you're saying is that it feels like if you're not directly selling something that maybe a social media platform isn't maybe quite as perf um but yeah I I I I do think it really is it just means you have to switch your persona around we've got a couple of questions coming in that shoot you know I can read them off to you or if you um why yeah this make it a little bit easier I'm not talking the whole thing why don't you read them if anybody's not in the chat and then I'll answer them yeah no problem okay so Doug is asking uh what are some good ways to introduce yourself to a new connection someone you haven't met before in person without sounding pushy or salesy I've heard complaints about I saw your profile in LinkedIn and just making sure you saw this kinds of language oh that is so great yeah okay so I love that without sounding pushy or salesy into that I always say well then don't be push your salesy so then I'm gonna answer the rest of the question so I would agree with you Doug I get I complain about people who say I saw your profile on LinkedIn and I have to say because I do this for a living I immediately get really sassy like good for you you can read I don't care of course you saw mine because I'm an influencer and a came up you know and I'm not trying to be like oh this is bragging you you this is what how you would feel it's like so it's like you know you think about people and insights you know we're always in the satification if you're a a a you know um a brand um an in client and you're you're an actual corporate researcher that is actually your job so what ification what are we going to do with this data right and so yes congratulations you have a free LinkedIn profile and you saw my profile I don't understand what that means to me and so I will write back before I connect with someone and I will say I understand you salmine if we were to connect what do you think we would talk about first and I wait to have them because I want to connect meaningfully with people and so that's how I would hand it's kind of two question questions here that's how I would handle it when people say I just make sure you saw this and I would say really why so I just want you know I want to start that conversation at every point but then you get that feeling and you know that other people don't like it and so it's very hard to go out and connect with people to which I would say find a reason now don't go read their profile and say I saw you're a Markey manager and so I thought I should connect there really I guess my question is if there is no other reason but you saw them online that I don't know that you should be connecting there has to be something but I bet there is if it is someone that you've identify that is a really good Prospect or a reason why you want to connect with them the one trick that I talked about going to their profile so clicking their face and then scrolling down to the all act to the the activity section it's about three sections down on LinkedIn and you go all the way to the right and you click see all and then it'll bring you up to their actual feed but again you have one more action you have to do there's their feed and then there's articles they've written and then there's posts and then there's something else I can't remember the fourth one but you either want to go read one of their articles or read one of their posts and if those things are important to you then you do have a reason you want to connect with them and don't be lazy and say that's because I saw you you know and I the one thing I would say here is that I use um I I have a cocktail hour rule I have so many LinkedIn roles but if you how you would say it at a cocktail party is how you would say it on LinkedIn right so first of all people go well I don't I don't talk with anybody on LinkedIn because I think it's rude and I think well when you walk into a cocktail party do you do this no it's rude to not talk to somebody you know so you want to open up conversations but you want to start small you don't want to walk in a cocktail party and say hey anyone want to go home with me tonight right so but you're gonna find small talk just like you would at a cocktail party so we're gonna find that small talk online and it doesn't need to be hi my name is Priscilla I'm stuck here at the party so I thought I'd come talk with you and that's exactly what this person's doing but it could be you know why don't you tell me why you're here or who else do you know at this party or you know I noticed you're a part of this group who do you know at this group you know so there's a lot of other questions we can ask that aren't overly contrived that are just real conversation starters we've got a question from Adam um among the big Brands who has done a good job of shifting their presence to be more relatable in that people buy from people example um that's interesting well u a lot of the brands for example um uh you look at like Amazon's done fantastic and I you know love him or hate him but I'm telling you Amazon has done a really fantastic job in doing that and I kind of would take it a little bit further and say in terms of what people call employee advocacy I don't really like that word but in terms of employee activation um you know um certainly Netflix has done a good job like that um um uh Twitter actually has done a great job Pandora's done a great job on that um where they actually get their employees to show up and be um uh you know show up as people on social media and the reason is not because they're selling something it's because people buy from people but also people want to be employed by pe people not from corporations right and so when you actually Act activate your employees to show up and be the genuine people that they can be as professionals online what ends up happening is you attract the best and brightest because people see them all online and see that they are allowed and in fact encouraged to be thought leaders and not just repping the company's marketing message over and over again and slamming it in sales down someone's throat they're allowing them and encouraging them to do kind of what I call the rule of 15 be yourself there's 14 other posts yeah I've got to post one to make a sale and to you know do what I'm doing but the other 14 can really show who I am qualitatively as a professional so those are a couple Brands I think have have done pretty well okay so in your rule of of 15 um any I guess tips for the the interesting and and be helpful um you know what are the things that come across not with an underlying agenda as it were right right well I mean the thing is everything has an agenda it's all propaganda right but I you know I do things that might be a I'm a little bit more Whimsical I am running a creative company so I get to do things that are a little funnier in this covid time I've been doing you know I've been doing crazy contests because everybody just needs a little bit of lightness you know and I'm like come on let's just help each other a little bit but I also started something called with the hashtag that I mentioned hasht alwaysbe helping where we just really come directly out and say hey have you noticed someone who's helping online you know nominate them I'll send the it's for reals because I've got a t-shirt so tell us that they've been helpful and I'll send a T-shirt and it just kind of starts creating a tribe online of people who are engaging right and when that starts happening it's not that hard to find things that are interesting and you start actually reading through your blogs your journals your emails everything else a little bit differently for example when this you know conference came um up and I saw it that it was available I thought oh I tagged a couple of friends I'm like hey this really is up your alley I think you would like it well what what's in it for me what's in it for me is that then people see that number one I'm involved in the Mr insights and I'm I'm in the no and secondly if it really is right for them I've built Rapport and so there is an underlying agenda someone else just described me the other day as altruistic and I laugh I'm like I have an agenda just like everyone else it's just that part of my agenda is overtly helping people so that when they are in a jam when they are stuck they'll call me right and I'd rather have those people who are calling me out of an appreciation than calling me out of well I guess you know maybe I'll call you now this is this what you do or not you know so I've actually self- selected the people who end up calling me by the way that I act online and I kind of use that as like a fish and bait kind of thing you get the kind of fish based on the bait you get and I think this does apply to corporate researchers if you show up online and are constantly what's in it for me what's in it for me I don't you know if you don't see the people who provide your qualitative research or your panel or anything like that as partners if you can't collabor at and talk about what's going on in industry and how the American Consumer face is changing and how the American consumers you know buying habits are changing on a radically radically you know Pace every like two hours right now if you don't show up and want to engage and talk about things that are interesting and difficult then you are then creating transactional relationships so starting conversations with people that are really more qualitative and don't necessarily lead to a sale with you is helpful you know we had a um you know we had a guide for a um I know this is gonna sound weird at the beginning but hear me out on this we had a guide a a lead magnet a download that we created like a quiz for finding what kind of wine was right you know for you and we built it for a catering company and you would think well they don't sell wine they don't why is this important to them but we were solving a problem that was peripheral to people who buy massive amounts of catering they needed to discover certain wines and they wanted to discover them a certain way and they wanted to find them find them based on affordability we took that problem created something was helpful shared it out to those people who self- selected that well as it happens that builds rapport with the catering company people who buy you know wine in that kind of quantity very often need catering and so you have to think about that whether you're a corporate researcher or whether you you know you know have a focus group facility or you're recruiting you know for qualitative whatever it is there's something that your ideal client needs that you don't sell could you help them solve that problem to build rapport and then when they're stuck they will remember you it's funny I do you know I've always been such a big proponent of of networking for that very reason like no you're you're not likely to you know land a big fish by going to this you know this dinner mixer but you might have a conversation you might meet someone that you know down the road might be able to you know put you in touch with someone who might be a an HR Prospect a a someone who I can help out from whatever capacity you just you never know so I'm loving to always be mantras I always always be networking is mine to always be helpful Alec Baldwin is is a hero with his always be closing yeah yeah well I think to on that note I will oh that that reminds me of the question someone else had about what brands are doing a good job I have to say Survey Monkey does a really good job of going out there and always being curious that's how I see them online and I think that they do very good job of just always asking interesting questions of people they don't go out there sell my stuff sell my stuff sell my stuff they ask and they ask and they ask and you think about that actually it's spoton with their brand right they always ask and I know that's somebody who's in your space and but we can learn you know from that what you know how are they actually showing up you know researchers whether they're corporate researchers or they're Freelancers or they're in qu or Quant by Nature we all should be just you know deathly curious ious right so let's go online as curious individuals very cool um let me double check to make sure we haven't missed any questions I don't think we have well I would love that if everybody you know connected with me on LinkedIn if you have questions let me know I I am trying to always be helping so I will help you by either answering that question or connecting you with someone and um as always