In the last episode, we talked about how to approach LinkedIn with a view to building long-term relationships.
In this second part of the conversation, Adam Franklin and I talk about the 5-Step process to improving your LinkedIn presence and building better relationships.
Adam's the author of Web Marketing That Works an Amazon no.1 seller, a professional speaker, a university lecturer, and CEO of Bluewire Media.
Here are some questions we aim to answer in this conversation
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Ash Roy and Adam Franklin Video Transcript (This transcript has been auto-generated. Artificial Intelligence is still in the process of perfecting itself. There may be some errors in transcription):
Transcription
Ash Roy 0:00
Hey, it's Ash. Thanks for tuning into the productive insights podcast or the productive incest YouTube channel. This is the second part of a two-part conversation where I spoke to my friend, Adam Franklin, about his sidestep framework to use LinkedIn as a business growth tool. I hope you find it useful. You can find this second part of the conversation and the related show notes@productiveinsights.com forward slash 2 1 8. Thanks. And I'll talk to you soon.
Ash Roy 0:32
All right. So we have 10 other requests. We optimize our profile. If the profile is well optimized and that addresses a pain point of our target audience, they accept, we send out an email to them. We talked about that, that second email or the first email after connecting with them. And we also touched on how to reconnect with dormant connections. What happens next?
Adam Franklin 0:55
So let's think about now the new, the brand new context. All right. So it built up the courage. We've introduced ourselves to a stranger they've accepted rather than go quiet for 10 years. What do we say to a brand new person? There's a few different things and it depends on your personality. Depends on how fast you want to move these relationships. But one that I personally use quite a lot is, Hey Ash, nice to meet you just quickly. Would you like me to send you the latest version of my popular marketing template? So that's a quite avoid type of conversation starter.
Ash Roy 1:32
I'm sure the other person's thinking, well, there's a sale coming on the back of this. So how do you address that?
Adam Franklin 1:37
Well, I mean, it's a business platform. The other thing too, is that LinkedIn is a professional platform. I don't know why so many people are so scared of using it to talk about business. Like we're all on there with our professional work hat on here to look for people that can solve our problems.
Ash Roy 1:54
Great point actually
Adam Franklin 1:56
Turning up at a funeral and trying to sell an insurance product. You know, that's inappropriate prospecting at a, at a wedding. I mean, that's probably what people, some people do, but take a few. You're not going to prospect at a funeral. That's not appropriate, but LinkedIn is a business platform. Every business owner, every professional, they have problems. And I know that there's half a dozen things that if someone wrote to me and said, Hey, Adam, I can help you with this. I can help you with that. Would you be interested? I'd be like, thank you. I don't have enough head space or bandwidth at the moment to go out and recruit somebody and to really find these six people, for example, but I've got problems as everybody does often, I'll say, look at marketing as an interest to you, would you like a copy of my popular marketing template? The big difference is asking for permission to proceed. You're not just saying, Hey, here's my template. And Remy and Daniel fried.
Ash Roy 2:45
That's a great point permission. And yes, not ramming the template, but asking them, would you like me to send it? Because that gives them control and they get to say yes, if they want it now, what happens if they don't reply? Which people tend do, they don't usually come back and say, no, thanks. They just don't reply. So how do you deal with that?
Adam Franklin 3:04
Yeah, you're right. There are other times. Yes. Sometimes they say no most of the time, you don't get a response. Another time you won't get a response. So you have a follow-up process and a three parts you can use as many or as few as you like. What I recommend saying first up is I didn't hear back from you dot, dot dot. I just want to button this back up. Would you like me to send you a copy? Are you interested in this?
Ash Roy 3:27
Here's an objection.
Ash Roy 3:29
The other person is probably thinking, well, if I wanted it, I would have said yes in the first place. So
Adam Franklin 3:35
To use the one site, I just want it to bump this back up to the top of your messages that is acknowledging that like even on email, which we spend all day on. Yes, we miss a lot of emails and LinkedIn, most people log in every few days at most. And so too, they probably that you're acknowledging it, probably miss it in the first place. And it does come that from how you frame it and how you value your own staff. Like you might frame your resources. I've just created this for my private coaching clients who are all paying money to access it. It's based on the 280 high-quality guests I've had on my podcast. And there's some really good business growth tips. I would normally charge for something like this, but would you like me to send you a copy? That is something you're giving them a glimpse of something valuable behind the curtain, which is much more valuable than if it's like, oh, do you just want my marketing brochure or no, thanks. But if it's something super valuable, they will. And it's worth following up because you value it. And because it is valuable, like if I wrote you and said, Hey, Hey Ash, I've got tickets to the ashes cricket game coming up. That's a valuable thing that I'm offering you. Now, if you didn't write back, I would probably say, Hey, actually I didn't hear from you. Do you want to come along with me? If you still didn't ride back, Ash, you interested in coming to the cricket with me Because I know what I'm offering is valuable to you. And I don't want you to miss out. And you, I think you would be upset if I offered it to you the first time, and then you missed it. And I gave that ticket to somebody else. Or man, I would have definitely come to the STG with you. I just didn't see it. Why didn't you follow up? Oftentimes lead magnet isn't as valuable as to get to the cricket, but to some people, it is like some people are not just in the cricket. Some people would much rather solve their, their business growth challenge
Ash Roy 5:21
For our American listeners. Cricket is something like baseball. SEG stands for Sydney. Cricket ground said, Gordon knows what cricket is, but he's the only American I know of that knows what cricket is. And he even knows who Don Redmond and is, which is very impressive. But for the others, cricket is like baseball, but better,
Adam Franklin 5:40
Yes. Longer game. That can be five days long, which really confuses a lot of American listeners. But yes, I would be like me having baseball tickets at Yankee stadium. And so, yes, there's a follow-up process. Typically three is more than enough if you don't get a response after that. No worries. But we know that we are going next time. We've got something valuable to offer. We'll go back to these people in a month's time in two months' time and say, Ash, I'm running a workshop on how to grow your marketing funnel or grow, grow your marketing pipeline. Would you like a ticket? Would you like the registration link? And again, more often than not, I'm offering something. I'm not ramming it down your throat. If we can always be coming from a place of generosity, that's what LinkedIn is great for. I think that should help reframe this in a lot of people's minds from harassing people or spamming them or badgering them to, I've got something of value. I'm offering it to you. It's up to you if you want it great. If you don't. No worries, but I just don't want you to miss out
Ash Roy 6:43
Posture is really important. And actually, you know, in episode 200, Seth Godin talked a lot about this. He talked about generosity at the time. It didn't really hit home properly, but now as you're talking about this, I'm realizing, yeah, that makes perfect sense. As long as you're coming from a space of generosity and the spirit is one of generosity that matters. What I talked about a lot in that episode was about empathy, which is one of the least used words in marketing. And in my opinion, one of the most important empathy and generosity really go hand in hand. Don't they?
Adam Franklin 7:18
I totally agree with that 100%, we need to be human beings with this. I mean, part of what makes the message resonate with people too, is that if you've been deliberate and strategic with who you have reached out to, then that message is going to be more appropriate, correct? Your connection with coaches and business owners. If you have deliberately reached out to, I know you're a global business, but let's just say you're Sydney-based. If you had spoken specifically on coaches and consultants and business owners in Sydney and your content is specifically tailored to them, you're going to get a much higher response rate because it's useful to them. But if like many people like me, I'm guilty of it over the years, accepting people's connection requests, Willy nilly, and going, I wonder why my newsfeed's full of junk because all these random people that have no relevance to me posting stuff, it's not LinkedIn's fault. It's your fault or my fault for connecting with all these random odd VODs and then wondering why my news feeds full of irrelevant stuff. So if you could be cure out your list, you reach out to people strategically and deliberately the content that you publish and the messages that you send people offering content. It's going to be a lot more relevant to them.
Ash Roy 8:31
A really good point. I want to bring out if you're practicing empathy and you're making it about your prospects and how you can help them, you are more likely to connect with the right people. And you're more likely to send the correct messages that are relevant to people at a point in time when they're needed most
Adam Franklin 8:49
100%. Okay. Should we look, just look at a couple of different types of conversations, set of messages aside from offering a resource?
Ash Roy 8:57
Sure.
Adam Franklin 8:57
What we want to do mainly is just start a conversation. That's its main goal. It's not to book an appointment or sell anything that can come way down the track, but it's just to engage. And so we want to keep it normally really quite easy for people to respond. And that's why having a this or that type of question is often pretty handy. For example, Hey Ash, not to mention congrats on what you're doing at productive insights, just to acknowledge that. I've seen what you do. Quick question. Have you ever sent your team on sales training?
Ash Roy 9:31
That's a very clear yes or no answer.
Adam Franklin 9:33
Thank you. Yeah, I have actually. Or you know what I haven't but I've been meaning to, or no, my team's perfect at sales already. Hey Ash. Quick question. Do you manage all your finances yourself or do you use an outsourced CFO? Yeah. There's obviously got to relate to your specific business, but it can be very easy. This, all that time conversation status. If you're going completely playful, you could say, Hey Ashley, it's great to connect. This is the question I ask all of my new contacts, but what's something fun about you that isn't on your LinkedIn profile or what's a random fun fact that I wouldn't know about you from your LinkedIn profile.
Ash Roy 10:10
I play the guitar, but not everybody else agrees with me when I play the guitar that I'm a guitarist.
Adam Franklin 10:15
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It's fun. It breaks the ice and we're talking as friends.
Ash Roy 10:21
I think I'm a guitarist, but not everybody agrees with me
Adam Franklin 10:24
That makes me laugh and it would move makes people laugh. So you've broken the ice and all of a sudden, yeah, you've changed compared to everybody else on there. Or you can just, again, do some a question that's genuinely genuine, but is curious. So, Ash, it's great to connect. Hey, I noticed you've got a guitar in the background in one of your featured posts. Do you apply or are you just a music lover?
Ash Roy 10:51
Right?
Adam Franklin 10:52
Like it's that's even if I have in my profile, I sell LinkedIn coaching or I sell marketing coaching or this or that. If I've asked you about something I've noticed and I'm curious about it, it would be very hard. I would believe like if you receive that, would you go, oh, he's trying to sell me something or is he just being a nice friendly person?
Ash Roy 11:09
Yeah. This is exactly what David Meerman Scott talked about in episode two 15. And he had a surfboard as do you in the background. The first question he asked me before we started recording was I see you have a guitar in the background. And then he referenced that during the actual interview. That's exactly what he said to
Adam Franklin 11:29
My, I put my, my light gray surfboard at the front there because the one behind that has a dark board cover. And when I was doing a presentation, a keynote, a virtual keynote presentation a few months back, apparently everybody thought it was an ironing board
Adam Franklin 11:45
And in the comments, which I couldn't see, cause I wasn't the host of the, of the zoom session. Everyone was saying, why is this Adam fella got an ironing in the background? Like, is he doing in his laundry or something?
Ash Roy 11:56
You're a man about the house, man.
Adam Franklin 11:58
That's right. So I wanted to avoid that confusion. But one that was more obviously a surfboard at the front. I love them. But yeah, looking for something interesting that you're sincerely, sincerely interested in is another great way to break the ice. Start a conversation again, just like real life. So there's lots of different approaches. And I think just play around with different different types. Again, it's not the end of the world. Like most people won't remember you from a bar of soap. Anyway, we're one of at the moment, we're one of 500 million people on LinkedIn. If they've accepted our connection request, maybe we're one of a thousand strangers that they don't know in their network. There's nothing much to lose. And we can go from being a stranger to being, oh Ash. And I have this bond because they've spoken about guitars and surfboards, all of a sudden you're somebody that I actually know like, and trust
Ash Roy 12:48
You become
Adam Franklin 12:49
Memorable. Exactly. Even if people don't respond that's okay, because let's talk about the content side of things. Now, if we are publishing content to LinkedIn, all of a sudden when Ash Roy shows up in my newsfeed, it goes from Aw, some stranger, one of 500 million people who have just accepted, oh, he's posting interesting stuff. He's showing up in my newsfeed. There's links to podcasts. There's photos. I see sort of guitar. All of a sudden, you're becoming more top of mind to these with these people, which means when you go back in the private messages, say in a month or two months time and say, and reconnect with them and say, you know, I'm actually running a workshop coming up on Friday. Would you like me to send you a retro link? I go, oh, actually I ignored you for the first five messages. Feel a bit guilty about that. But you've been showing up in my newsfeed. I feel like I'm getting to know you a bit now. Sure. Send through the link
Ash Roy 13:45
Sales navigator is a pretty handy tool to be able to follow people's newsfeeds and then comment on what they're posting on the newsfeed and sort of get to know them on a neutral ground and acknowledge what they're doing on a more neutral ground rather than their inbox. But my question is I've tried sending video messages and I use a tool called dub.com. There's a bunch out there there's Bon Jaro and all the other things where you can send a personalized video greeting saying, Hey, how's it going? And so on. But interestingly, I have had a very poor response rate to those. Is that what you've seen as well? Like a lot of people don't even open them or even watch them, even though there's a gift sitting there waiting at them inside their inbox.
Adam Franklin 14:24
I mean, I've sent them and I've received them, but it's probably less than like 1% of the time that I received them or that I send them. I've personally found them really quite useful when I've received them. I've actually booked calls with people because they done a short, personalized video to me, like to use a loom video. Okay. So I will record a short little 62nd video just introducing myself. Yup. And I try to include something quirky in there too.
Ash Roy 14:54
But why loom over say something like Dubb, like, with Dubb, you can tell when it's been open, how much of it they've watched, how many times they've clicked on it and all that stuff. I don't think you can do that on Loom.
Adam Franklin 15:03
You can't tell who has clicked on it, but you can tell how many people have clicked dub and then they get the real personalized, personalized wine. Like, hi Ash, this, I like to use this again just to be maximizing my time, but it mindsets. Hey, it's nice to meet you by way of a quick introduction. I'm the author of this. I do post content about marketing. I run workshops. I give away marketing templates. Similarly, A generic one feels pretty personal. And then I say, look, the random fact about me, I collect Coke cans and erasers. I'd love to learn more about, about you when you've got a chance. It's nice to meet. You. Let's stay connected. I can add that to my library. And that can be part of the conversation starter that I've shot this video as a little introduction. And then you can just use the same loom link every time without having to go. All right, I've got another 20 personalized ones to do today. Just a bit, bit more effective sometimes.
Adam Franklin 16:05
Yeah. The personalized ones I'd say for something more high stakes, like say I was looking to maybe do a, you know, do a speaking engagement overseas and it'd be conference. If I had identified who the decision-maker was or somebody in that decision-making team, I might actually craft a personalized message to them and say, Hey Ash, the reason I'm sending this video is because I've seen, you got this conference coming up. I notice you've got a session on LinkedIn that doesn't have a speaker yet. I'd like to put my hat in the ring for this. And do you know when there's a specific reason to do so? I love video messages. Yeah. But again, I mean, most to be honest, most of mine are texts. Send us texts and videos.
Ash Roy 16:46
Another tip that I've heard is useful is doing audio recordings inside a message. Probably easier to do than video as well, but just a quick hold on that record button and just send an audio message.
Adam Franklin 17:01
Yeah. I think that that format suits certain people I have sent them, but I tend to refer others via or texts sometimes just mainly because I don't, I tend to find when I receive them,
Adam Franklin 17:14
unless I've got my earphones in, you don't know what's coming. Sometimes the baby's asleep. Sometimes you want to, you know, in a, in a movie, not a movie, but you know, conference. So I mean, there can be really good. And a lot of people just find it a lot easier just to talk, then sit there and type away with their clumsy thumbs each there and nothing. Not extra good, not extra bad, just, just a different format that suits certain people.
Ash Roy 17:37
Okay. So now we are connected with the person we're having a little bit of rapport going with them. What's next?
Adam Franklin 17:44
Yeah. Step three. Is, are they interested? Is there a degree of, so connected started a conversation. Are they interested? So we're not here to dilly Detol around. If that's a phrase that American listeners will understand, we're not here to go back and forth ad nauseum with no real purpose to the conversation. We're not on LinkedIn to waste time, ways to determine if they're interested would be to invite them to a workshop or even a hypothetical workshop. You could say, Ash, I'm considering running a workshop on this because a few of my private clients have asked me to, if I run one, would you like me to send you the link, the registration link. So you don't even have to go to all the effort of committing to a webinar because that can be a bit overwhelming for some people we can just say, hypothetically, would you be interested in a registration link? And then if enough people say, yes, you can write back and say, great, I'm going to run it on Friday. Here's the link.
Ash Roy 18:40
Maybe you can even put that in the original message. Like I'm considering running a workshop and if there's enough interest, I will run it. Would you be interested? And that way if they reply with yes, but you don't run it, you can case say that. Well, there wasn't enough interest.
Adam Franklin 18:55
Oh, I probably wouldn't do it. Necessarily message. Why not? I'd probably wait. I wouldn't do it as a conversation starter. Yeah. Just to determine if there's interest, if you've got like a scorecard or something, some people have in their, in their repertoire, you can say, look, I've treaded. This, this scorecard that takes less than five minutes, that helps you determine your business growth score or your marketing score or your health and fitness score. Would you be interested in uncovering or discovering your, your school
Ash Roy 19:24
And you find that helps the survey thingy?
Adam Franklin 19:28
Yep. Absolutely. Because it's good for message three, because it's not, they've, they've connected. They've engaged in a bit of a conversation. This is something where they've either got to register, like for all indicate an interest in a workshop or indicate enough interest to bother spending five minutes filling out a scorecard because it isn't of interest to them while they want to work out their health and fitness score. Or if I got sent what's your guitar playing ability school card, I'd go, I already know at zero. And I don't have an interest in that because I'm just terrible at it. You know? So the people that do respond by virtue of the fact that they have responded, they're interested, They may not be like, yes, please sell me a guitar or so many of your top coaching, but they're interested enough to do a scorecard.
Ash Roy 20:20
Are they interested? Hand-raising okay.
Adam Franklin 20:23
Yeah. W yes. Okay. I call hand-raising the next step I call this. Yeah. Yeah. So this is, are they interested? It is kind of a, it's a very little handwriting That for, to me is like hand firmly in the air.
Ash Roy 20:36
The workshop is I understand less of a commitment, even from your, from our standpoint. And as compared to say a webinar, is it as effective as doing a webinar? Because I know a lot of people do webinars and say, webinars are very effective to generate inbound leads. How would you compare a workshop to a webinar?
Adam Franklin 20:55
Oh, I pretty much I use those words interchangeably essentially,
Ash Roy 20:58
But a workshop is less work than a webinar because it's less formal. Right. You can just send out five invitations and you don't have to organize webinar tools or whatever. You just do it on a zoom call and just send them a recording.
Adam Franklin 21:12
Yeah. I mean, the automated, both just, they're both different formats. Like whether I call like a webinar, it's just like, or a zoom meeting, whether it's informal and no structure where it's just like a freestyle type of essentially like a meet and greet type of one or a mastermind, or whether it's a workshop where you sit down and deliver 45 minutes of content for the sales pitch. At the end,
Ash Roy 21:34
I'm thinking of a webinar, more like Amy Porterfield does where you have this thing and you have a launch building up to it. And you have emails reminding people about the webinar. And that's what I'm thinking when I'm thinking of webinar like an event.
Adam Franklin 21:46
And to be fair, an informal zoom type of thing does probably require some of those reminders and stuff. So people actually turn up just the format on the day, that's going to be slightly different. So I do think that they are there. They definitely have a purpose as reminders, but I mean, whether they turn up or not is not the issue is not the, the main thing. A lot of people think I've got to get all these people into my webinar and get my attendance rate up to 30 or 40% for it to be worthwhile. But the reality is that a lot of your best prospects who are likely to become your best clients are the people that are too busy to attend a webinar. They're interested because they've registered, but the fact that they don't turn up doesn't mean that they're not a good prospect. In fact, they're a better prospect because they're busy and busy people have less time and more money generally speaking. So they're much more likely to go, you know what? I do need help with this. I just didn't have six 60 minutes to spend on a webinar because most people's webinars are a waste of time, but it's those people that don't turn up. They're the prime camp, more prime candidates for wanting to be an actual client.
Ash Roy 22:59
There's a very interesting and subtle point. So what do you do? How do you engage those people that don't have time to consume your content, but who need your content the most?
Adam Franklin 23:09
Okay. So what you do is you have a process for before and after the webinar. So either on the thank you page, or even if you don't have the registration page set up, I mean, I like, I recommend clients use Luma, which is super easy webinar registration, free software, alu.ma. So on the thank you page, I would say, thanks for registering. If you're like many people who either are too busy to turn up or just want to fast track their results, why don't we book in a 15 minute brainstorming session? And I will find out a little bit about you and give you three ways that you can help, that you can do whatever it is the outcome is that you promise on the webinar. So that way people can fast track it. And then after the webinar, you might say, Hey, I noticed you didn't attend, or I notice you. Or even if you don't even gather that data, you could just say, look, the webinar's over. Here's the replay. Or if you missed the replay, why don't we have a quick 15 minute zoom call? One-on-one, we'll fast track this and apply it directly to your, your business. So this way is there for the people that are just too busy to attend, to, to fast track. So they're the ways to get interest. And then we moved to actually raising their hand firmly in the air, which is really where we're talking about booking a call. So there's a lot of different approaches that you might use here, but say someone that's done your scorecard registered for an event. The other one is to join a Facebook group. That's another way, how are they able to demonstrate their interest? So you might say to stage three for interest, I asked Greg to connect. I look, I've got, I've got a whole bunch more resources and training lessons and tutorials over in my Facebook group. Here's the link. If you'd like to join me, or would you like me to send you the link?
Ash Roy 24:57
Is Facebook still working? I'm finding engagement and Facebook groups have dropped dramatically.
Adam Franklin 25:03
Look, I find it works pretty well. And engagement rates can just can fluctuate a bit depending on the algorithm. But if it's the right people in there on the right content, super, super valuable, we moved to stage four, allowing people to raise their hand in the air. So just like we spoke about before a good one is the fast track call format, Ash, thanks for your interest in my workshop. Thanks for requesting my scorecard or thanks for being a part of my Facebook group. If you'd like to fast-track things I'm happy to jump on a 10 minute brainstorming call to put a plan in place. Don't worry, nothing suicidal. Would you like to book a time?
Ash Roy 25:38
So we're not selling on the call. We're solving. I get that. How does that then eventually come into a sales conversation? How does that evolve?
Adam Franklin 25:46
That 10 minute call? You're delivering some value. You're also auditioning. Then there's only so much value you can give in 10 or 15 minutes. Right? Right. But you're asking questions about them and people love talking about themselves. And you can say, look, here's a couple of things that I think you could do. But from what you've told me, it sounds as though, you know, meet the criteria of someone that I could really help. I mean, if you'd like to go into a deep dive strategy call with me, I can show to show you exactly how it can help. I'd love to learn a little bit more about certain areas of your business for me to be competent that I could help. But by the end of this call or strategy, call I'll know one, if I can help you. And I'll also lay out exactly what that engagement would look like. So that by the end you could go, yes, I'm all in or no, thanks. But that's what we would guide people to. And that's where you do the selling. There's lots of different script frameworks, or I'll pick a couple out of my script, library volts. In fact, one of the best ones I've received is essentially the line. Would you like my help? So the bit that precedes that is, for example, I helped social media speakers, craft a sales presentation that helps them sell more of their products and programs. Would you like my help with this? Okay. So I received that and I knew that I was a social media speaker because I told them that on my profile, that's I go, yeah. I would like some help, actually, nothing to lose here. I'd help business owners in Sydney, you know, prepare their bass and do a 20, 22 financial plan to help, you know, identify areas of business improvement. Would you like my help with this? You know what? Yeah. It's getting to the pointy end, but most of these frameworks shouldn't come across too slimy and icky. Because again, you're always asking for permission, You're saying, would you like my help?
Adam Franklin 27:40
They're in control.
Ash Roy 27:42
Yes.
Adam Franklin 27:42
So that's the key, like, does this appeal, would you like my help? Would you like to know more hit reply and let me know if this is of interest.
Ash Roy 27:48
Okay. So let's move to the biggest challenges you've seen people have implementing this excellent strategy and these tactics and what's worked best in terms of overcoming them
Adam Franklin 28:03
Just before I answer that one, can I just move to stage five of the nurtures?
Adam Franklin 28:08
No, no, that's all right. Because once they do raise their hand firmly in the air, which is stage four, then we've actually just got to do the final bit, which is book the sales call. And this again is where people get scared and it's natural. It's human nature because they've gone. Oh yes. I would love your help with this because this is for real. Now, now I'm going to have to actually have a sales conversation with this person. And I might get rejected. I might feel uncomfortable. People get nervous, right? And often people neglect to actually book the sales call in and ghost them. Even though they've said, I want your help. So what we need to do then is just say, look, either here's my link to my calendar booking thing. Let's book in a time next week, or I see on your profile, is this the best mobile or cell number for you? Why don't I give you a call at one o'clock on Tuesday Pacific time, but just booking that call in.
Ash Roy 29:01
That's another important point. You don't want to send them a link to your scheduler because that requires them to do a lot of work, to book the call and you want to make it easy for them and remove the friction. So you just give them, you ask them for a time. Is that correct?
Adam Franklin 29:15
There's again, it depends on how aggressive or forward you want to be. And it also depends on how much volume you're dealing with and how much of a prize you are. And so just to say, you, Seth Godin, as a example, in this situation, if he wrote to, to somebody, one of us or a stranger, you might say, look, I've got five, I've got five slots. I can help people just like you do. If you're interested, I'm only taking the first five people. Here's my calendar booking link. He's framing himself appropriately as the prize. And so a calendar link is, is appropriate in that situation.
Adam Franklin 29:56
Or you could suggest a time and have a bit more manual back and forth.
Ash Roy 30:01
Oh, you could hedge your bets. And you could say, this time might be suitable. If you're interested, we can do it. Then alternatively, if it doesn't work, here's a link to my scheduler.
Adam Franklin 30:10
Or sometimes I just pick up the phone and call them.
Ash Roy 30:14
Yeah.
Adam Franklin 30:14
Okay. So I'll know their mobile or cell number from their LinkedIn profile, failing that I'll probably have it off their website.
Ash Roy 30:21
Hey, what proportion of the time do you find they have their cell numbers and their email addresses on their LinkedIn profile?
Adam Franklin 30:27
Nearly always.
Ash Roy 30:29
That's a good point because there's this tool called KCC. K I S I E, which is super handy. And it works really well with HubSpot. It integrates very deeply with HubSpot and you can send SMS messages and stuff using KCC. I even know how to get their phone numbers and email addresses from a tool called upgrade. But I just feel a bit icky about sending them a message and them being like, where did that number from? But if it's on LinkedIn and I've connected up to them within LinkedIn, then I feel more comfortable about that.
Adam Franklin 30:57
I've often thought that that people might go where'd you get my number from night and they never one. They, they, they never ask because most people have their number out there anyway. But otherwise you just say, look, it's on your way. I just picked it up off your website or your LinkedIn profile. Just wanted to give you a quick call because you've expressed interest in this. Have you got seven minutes now for a quick discussion?
Ash Roy 31:18
And that's an important point because you've expressed interest in this. You need to tie it back to them having expressed interest. So it puts the control back in their hands. It makes them realize that they've been part of it. This is not happening to them. This is happening with them.
Adam Franklin 31:34
Really good distinction there. And again, permission to proceed. Have you got seven minutes now? I'd love to learn a little bit about your business is now a good time for a quick chat. Other methods that I have used quite a few times. And again, it might feel too forward, but it actually works quite well, is just booking a time into their calendar. A lot of people, even on their website,
Ash Roy 31:57
Right?
Adam Franklin 31:57
We'll have a Calendly or a whatever. And just as if you want to book in a 20 minute call, I mean next set it up so they can have prospects book with them, but I'll often just go on there and book a time and write to them and say, Hey, look, I've just booked 20 minutes in your calendar because you've expressed interest in this last message I've sent you how that works for you. Let me know if it doesn't, but otherwise I'll see you at two o'clock on brilliant on Friday. And they go, oh, thanks. That was easy. They didn't have to do anything. I'm just in that calendar. I do whatever you feel comfortable with, but there's lots of different options there. So they're the five steps connect conversation, starter interest, raise hand, and have the sales
Ash Roy 32:37
Conversation. Fantastic. I'm so glad you summarize that because I was going to do a little bit of a Roundup, but now I don't need to. And not only to remember it all, although I've been taking copious notes here. Okay. So biggest challenges. And how do people overcome them?
Adam Franklin 32:53
Almost certainly, or to fear like we spoke about at the start. I don't want to annoy people be that person, all of that, the best way to overcome that is to realize that every friend and client we've had was a stranger. Once somebody had to go first, part of that is understanding that you need to come from a place of generosity and offer something of value. That's the first part, the second biggest challenge is time,
Ash Roy 33:21
Right?
Adam Franklin 33:21
I recommend spending 20 minutes a day doing this on LinkedIn consistently. When you do that consistently, the results are there. Your network will grow. Your email list will grow. Your revenue will grow, but if you just do it in, in little bits and pieces, it will fall apart.
Ash Roy 33:39
That's another important point. I was going to ask you this earlier on at the time of this recording, I believe the limit on sending invitations to people on LinkedIn is I think is a 20 a week,
Adam Franklin 33:50
100 a week,
Ash Roy 33:52
100 a week. So 20 a day, you can get away with that without upsetting the LinkedIn gods and getting banned. It's still important to do it in a way that is tactical and strategic rather than just randomly sending out messages because you're not really building a meaningful network anyway, either for you or for the other person. You're just adding to the noise. The other question I had is you just mentioned, you'd build your email list as well. How does that work with building your LinkedIn connections?
Adam Franklin 34:20
Sure. So w when this process is set up that stage three, the interest, if you're sending somebody to register for a workshop or a webinar, there's a registration component to that, which is putting your email address in to register. So that's like an email opt in. If you're sending people to a score card type of tool, there's a registration process there so they can get their results sent to them. That's an email option mechanism as well. And to be sending somebody to a Facebook group, one of the questions I recommend before they can join is what's your best email address so that I can send you some resources built into that is mechanisms to grow your email list.
Ash Roy 35:03
Now, when you send them some resources, you're not necessarily getting an opt-in though, unless they opt in. So we need to be compliant with the GDPR regulations as well. Right. Even though I know that that's supposed to only be applicable to people in Europe, but technically it applies to Europeans traveling through Australia as well or us. So it's like, it's good. It creates good email hygiene. So the question is, are you sending them then to an opt-in page for the resources, or are you just giving them the resources, but email, in which case they're not opt in
Adam Franklin 35:36
My personal is for that conversation starter. If I offer my popular marketing template, I like to give that to them with no strings attached, because at that point I'm a stranger. I want a 500 million random pod bods on the internet on LinkedIn. I want to differentiate myself by giving something of value with no strings. No, opt-ins no nothing. So I give that some people send you straight to an opt-in page, but I find that a bit. I don't like that because if I've offered you something Ash, and all of a sudden I'd bait and switch and say, look in order to get it, you've got to tell me your details and opt in for me, spamming. It's like my, that doesn't seem right and fair. So me personally, I give that freely, of course, in that document is built. You know, there's calls to action built into it so they can sign up the stuff on my website.
Adam Franklin 36:29
But also I wait until message three that has the interest phase. So I know that my scorecard, my Facebook group or my workshop is my mechanism because they're entering their own details. That is a proper opt-in, whereas made us adding their email address to my infusion self, to like HubSpot is, is not spam compliant. So that's how I distinguished being spam compliant.
Ash Roy 36:58
Quick couple of bullet points on how to optimize your profile for people who want to be relevant quickly to their target audience.
Adam Franklin 37:06
My take is to firstly, use language that your buyers use. And typical example is if you're a mortgage broker or a home loan specialist use that language, don't say I'm a director of whatever your company name is. Unless you come in and name is like Sydney home loans. That's obvious what you do. They give you. It's like some weird name. Like I say, I'm a director of blue wire media, because that doesn't mean as much as saying I'm a marketing coach or I'm a social media speaker.
Ash Roy 37:38
It's kind of similar to the feature versus the benefit thing, right? What you do in your company, your designation, your company is the feature, but the benefit to the client is the solution that your company provides. So make it client facing or customer facing for that matter. If a lot of your customers call their customers, customers, or maybe if they use the word customers, then you would use the word customers in your language, in your copy. But if they use the word clients, you would use the word clients in your copy. So using similar language,
Adam Franklin 38:09
100%, the biggest tip easiest tip is to make your profile client friendly. Most people have their LinkedIn profile as a resume, which is fair. Most people are looking for jobs in this podcast. This show in my business, we're talking about people as business owners who are looking to in clients. So rather than talk about how wonderful I am as like a resume, we want to talk about the client and the outcomes that you can help clients achieve. And not only that, I like to include a very clear description of an ideal client. The language I use on my about section is specifically I help businesses that have one to two owners that have been going for 10 to 20 years that have word of mouth and referrals already, who work with high value clients who have revenue in the range of X to Y. So the reason I do that is because when people come to that and they can either they can self identify or not. So I like to have a pretty clear description of your ideal client.
Ash Roy 39:13
And speaking of about section, this principle also applies to your about page on your website. I believe that it makes more sense to make your about page on a website, although it's technically supposed to be about you. And sure you want to tell them a little bit about you. You want to present it in the context of how that is useful to your prospect, because ultimately your prospect is coming to your about page, which I believe is the second most visited page on most websites. They're coming to your about page to see how your about page is meaningful to them.
Adam Franklin 39:43
Yeah. I think you still certainly certainly tell your own stories, but relate it back to how it helps other people. You might say I got started in marketing when I was doing not club promotions back in the university days. And what that taught me about bringing about building a community and getting people to turn up and pay their cover charge has applied to helping my clients today, do these types of things so you can wave, you know, but you're exactly right. It, it really helps when all that stuff is related to the client.
Ash Roy 40:16
Amazing, amazing information, not just strategic, but tactical implementable. What action steps can someone take right now to get started so that they just get some momentum? Because one of the biggest problems I've seen across the board is just getting started.
Adam Franklin 40:34
The hardest part of going for a run is putting your shoes on. Once you shoes are on, it's easy to get out of the door and your a Y. So the easiest, lowest friction, easiest place to start in my experience. And this is an activity I do in my LinkedIn accelerator workshops is to actually just identify 10 or 20 people that you know already. But then you haven't contacted for 2, 3, 4, 5 years, ideally that people that you've worked with in the past, or were a prospect in the past and just write to them and say, Hey, Ash, long time, no speak. Can't believe it's been five years since we spoke about this particular project, or last time that we spoke, what's been going, going on in your world. As for me, I'm now focused on this, let's reconnect, or it's great to reconnect.
Ash Roy 41:23
I have someone in mind right now that I'm going to reach out to after this conversation. I can actually think of that person. I've been meaning to reach out to him for ages. That is fantastic. Now you've mentioned your workshops. How do people find out more about you? Where do they go? How do they find out about these workshops? Because man, if you've given us this much value in this conversation, I can't wait to check out one of your workshops
Adam Franklin 41:47
To sort of practice what I preach. I want to give listeners a way to have value with no opt-in required and then an option if they like that too, to get more of the notifications. So I've actually got a bundle of LinkedIn guides and resources. Okay? So there's a link to that which is blue wire, media.com.edu/linked in PDFs. That'll take you to a Google drive folder, no opt in, help yourself to those resources, if, and when you find them valuable, or if you just know, I want to get an invite to items next LinkedIn accelerator workshop. What I recommend you do is just go straight to my website, blue wire, media.com.edu, and download the resource on my homepage. This is actually my web strategy planning template that I co-created with David Meerman Scott back in the day. So you just, if you opt into anything on my site, you'll then be on my blue wine use. Email list has over 35,000 people that I write to once or twice a week. And once you're on that, you will get the invites to my LinkedIn accelerator work
Ash Roy 42:55
Beautifully done. Fantastic. So I'm going to say it again. The link is blue wire media.com.edu forward slash linked in PDFs. And that's an S on the end. Is that right?
Adam Franklin 43:07
Yep.
Ash Roy 43:08
Yep. So blue wire media.com. That's the most important bit. You got to remember all of our podcast episodes live@productiveinsights.com forward slash the episode number. That's a short link and then that redirects to the correct link. So Seth Godin, for example, I said it was episode 200 and that's productive insights.com forward slash 200. And they, you should find the embedded video and you should find the podcast episode embedded in the show notes and blog posts and everything else related to that. So we usually also post transcriptions in there. So you should be able to find the transcript in there. And if we have the time, we will put some good quality subheads and stuff to make it a little bit easier to read. So Adam man, thank you for your generosity. Thank you for practicing what you preach. I'm delighted to have had you on. I can't believe it's taken this long, but it really has been an honor. You're one of the most trusted and wonderful people I've met in years. Thanks so much for being on the show, man. And I can't wait to have you back on.
Adam Franklin 44:12
I look forward to it, Ash. It's it's always great chatting with you and I've really federally Angelina catch up today.
Transcribed by https://grain.co