5 social selling power moves to help you crush quota in 2023

Val: Happy 2023 thank you for kicking off your month and your year with us my name is Val Riley I’m head of content marketing at Insightly and I am going to be your moderator for today’s webinar today’s presenter is Sam McKenna Sam is the CEO of #samsales Consulting she is an award-winning speaker she is a sales leader and she is a brand ambassador for LinkedIn so perfect person to speak with us about that topic today and your moderator your host today is Chip house Chip is the CMO here at Insightly and he’s got more than 20 years of experience with all those great tech companies you see on your screen so before we while we were waiting we did have a poll open and I’m gonna pull up those poll results we’re talking all about 2023 quotas. Chip so how does it look

Chip: Hey Val so what I’m seeing here is nearly half are seeing their quota go up in 2023 versus 2022 and you know we have plenty that are staying the same just six percent sorry six percent are all right the quote is actually lower this year so anyway I think that’s a great way to set the stage that’s probably what I expected Sam to get your thoughts too about this poll but I’ll get those from you in a second because I want to kick us off with this awesome stat a couple of great stats actually that I think kind of form the basis for what we’re going to start talking about today so the first is from Glassdoor that says January is the month employees are most likely to think about changing jobs with almost one in five 18 setting this as the most popular month to make a move and then maybe even more compelling from LinkedIn here according to LinkedIn those in director and higher roles are 59 percent more likely to start a new job in January than any other month and Sam I know that these stats are going to play an important role in what we’re talking about today so what are your thoughts about both these stats and let’s transition to your first power tip.

Sam: Let’s think about the the quotas going up first and foremost. How how Wild is that right we’re we’re an epic layoff territory we are in Epic we did not hit our numbers territory for a lot of sascom companies and we are now in a we’re going to go ahead and raise your quota and ask you to do even more in a looming challenging economic condition so godspeed everybody but I think that a lot of these tips will help you work really smart in addition to how hard you’re already working and hopefully help you crush your goals I think one interesting thing about these numbers too right is you think this is such a perfect opportunity to track job changes if you are not already doing that right think about this 59 more likely to change jobs in January and what I think is even more fascinating about this specifically is when we look back at old data from LinkedIn in 2018 as recent as 2018 which I know feels like 100 years ago but that was 27 more likely to change jobs in January whereas now it’s 59 that’s wild right and I think we look at a lot of different things and I think you’re you’re going to see those job changes continue to probably keep up and uptick throughout the year particularly as we think about return to work and return to office conditions right we just saw that breaking news from from Disney this week if you did and say that they’re requiring four days a week back in the office and I think people it you know that flexibility is now going to become a currency so if you’re working for an employer that isn’t going to offer that and you want that flexibility you’re probably going to be more likely to change jobs to a company that does offer that flexibility so let’s dive into tip number one Chip want me to just Dive Right In right into it here?

Chip: I think you can I mean you definitely highlighted that some things have changed in the past couple of years with the global pandemic and lots more people working remotely and maybe more job changing happening so yeah I think it’s it’s a great segue so let’s

Sam: Let’s think about this this has been a power move of mine I don’t know since probably the day I became an AE but tracking those job changes right this always seems to be a light bulb moment for for a lot of people of thinking I don’t track the job changes or I do track job changes already I don’t need you and the only thing that I track is the person that moves right that’s attached to my contract record let’s say and Insightly and that moves to a different job but what you really we’ve got to think about is how many people engage with you in the buying cycle right we know that from Forester and Gartner data that up to 20 people can be involved in your buying decision you guys know this because you’ll go through it every single day so we want to think about are who are your buyers your influencers your Champions your Skeptics procurement your users right there are so many people that touch your process who are those people and where have they changed jobs too in the new year or in the coming months now if you followed us for a while at Sam sales you know that we’re big on the process around if this then that for most of the sales motions that we have and this is no no different right so if we see a job change right then of course we reach out but how do we capture that to begin with now there’s a lot of great platforms out there it would all in full transference they say that we’re a partner to champify which is a fantastic partner in terms of looking at Job changes but we can also help you with this and you guys can also not spend a dime except for a LinkedIn sales Navigator license and do this on your own so here’s what I would encourage you to do take a LinkedIn sales Navigator license and create a list that’s called jobhopper in that list every single time you speak to somebody that has a passive experience with you whether they’re created you know attached to an opportunity that you create whether there’s somebody that really wants to work with you but doesn’t have the budget doesn’t work for a company that values whatever it is that you offer decide a three-year deal with a competitor when that happens whoever those people are make sure to build a if I talk to those people then I add them to a job Hopper list and you’ll start to see right it’s not going to pay off in Spades to begin with because those people probably aren’t going to change jobs quickly but over time they will particularly if you’re a small business if you were an entrepreneur if you are a consultant like we are 11 people strong on our team or even if you’re a rep in your territory start to build that list and see where people change jobs what I love about this is this is something you can easily check on a weekly basis pop in a sales Navigator go to your go to that list and then the top tabs you’ll see anybody who has changed shops now quick caveat here this is also going to show you any boomerangs right so people who come back or who get promoted so just keep that in mind too might not necessarily be a great job change but this can also be great for land and expand let’s say all of your existing clients where are they changing jobs to are they leaving are they being promoted are they going to another line of business that you don’t currently have a footprint into there is so much value in this now I’m going to say one more thing and then I promise I’ll stop talking on this particular topic that I am incredibly passionate about but you also want to use a little EQ when we do our Outreach right so the last thing that you want to do is reach out to someone and say congrats on your new job change do you want to buy my stuff six minutes after they changed jobs right they barely know where the bathroom is let alone what the company has and if they can buy your product so we really want to think about is urgent bird gets the worm right capitalizing on that quickly but when you do that use your EQ so I if Chip changes jobs decades from now when he decides to leave Insightly I would of course jump on that immediately ship congrats so awesome to see this job change I’m sure you’re super excited for your new adventures it’s been such a pleasure working with you the last several decades we’d love to talk to you about working with you wherever you go now could we set some time on the calendar six to eight weeks from now after you’ve had a chance to breathe and get your arms around everything that’s status quo and the State of Affairs that’s happening at your new company and talk about that about how we might be able to support you at that point what I love about this is that you’re you’re capitalizing on the momentum right on that urgency you’re making sure that you’re the first person to get to them in your category which shows exponentially higher results that you’ll get the business if you’re the first person but you’re also using EQ and you’re not making it all about your yourself so you’re making it about that buyer and saying I know you’ve got a million things on her plate I know you don’t even know where anything what anything happens what’s going on at your current company but let’s talk in six or eight weeks and that will make a hell of a difference and you’ll probably book the meeting right then and there Sam I love this tip so much and we we talked beforehand so the first thing I would call out there’s plenty of times in selling where being fast is a huge asset right like an inbound lead or inbound phone call being responsive as possible will increase your win rate right but in this situation like like you said EQ is probably the most important thing and I think the second thing I would say is all of this is predicated on the fact that you’re building great relationships with your customers today and you know one of the things that we’ve noticed is we get about seven to ten percent of our customers from former customers right so they used to be a customer at one company they changed jobs and organically they find Insightly again and choose us and so I can imagine if you really actively engaging as a salesperson here the opportunity is really right I think the cool thing to think about with that particular tip in mind Chip and for everybody listening you’ve got you’ve got that reactiveness right there’s they’re all the people that are going to come directly to you but if we think about that right with Chips data seven to ten percent of the individuals that are filling out forms on the sheet our previous clients what about all of the other people that might not proactively reach out or the perhaps don’t operate anymore in a line of business that would hire you but could still get you in the door so that’s the beauty I think of this of how many people exist out there the due change jobs and that we can even reach out to you to say I Know Your Role is a little bit different or I know the organization your Sporting’s a little different now but we would love to chat with somebody on your team you’ve had great experience with us right of course make sure you know they’ve had a great experience with you but you’ve had great experience with us anything that you can do any insights you could give would really appreciate your support all of that proactive Outreach is huge last thing I’ll say on this tip think of two tracking these shop changes guess what’s going to happen in this especially if you were an individual rep that’s tracking this when you attract these job changes people are going to move outside of your territory which stinks but you can also do some really awesome solids for your for your peers help them out a little bit say hey this buyer huge champion of ours just moved near territory I thought I’d give you the heads up here’s the CRM record right so you can take a quick look at everything send them that Insightly URL so they can do a deep dive into it and then what how awesome is that that you’ve done that for somebody else and they’ll say hey how’d you do that should I be doing it too and you can really create a system internally what a great way to stand out what a great way to tie yourself to Roi in an organization right what a great way to get promote did in the end especially if you’re already a top performer that’s great stuff Sam well let’s move on to power move number two because I know it builds on the same statistic and it it as you define it it means asking new hires at your company for warm intros to their former colleagues and so talk to us about that one of my favorite tips and I will tell you nobody does this so very very cool thing again in sales Navigator you can create a list just create a quick search if you don’t have sales Navigator number one I would say make the investment yourself it’s 900 for the year yes it is a lot of money well a moly will a payoff for spay in space for you as an individual AE make that investment if you already have it here’s this very cool search that you can do create a search and say current company in that search so this is in your Advanced tab but look for current company and put your own company and then what you’ll do is do depending on how large or small your company is you might do director plus you might do BP Plus Etc I want to make sure it’s not too broad that you’re getting you know 500 notifications every day if you work for like an Accenture or something like that but make look for those titles and then just hit search now what this is going to give you is a list of all the executives that work for your company not so exciting what we want to do is just save the search and basically every time a new executive comes comes in you’ll see who they are and what’s really fantastic about this so this might be somebody in product and engineering and finance whatever somebody that you don’t even know exists it might even be in your own department of sales or marketing or you know SDR land but you don’t know who they are because it’s a different line of business when that person comes on click on their profile hit connect say welcome oh my gosh we’re so excited to have you that executive will say wow you know what what how nice at a random you know sales person is reaching out to me to welcome man you’re like knowing that you have ulterior motives here as soon as they accept you in their first degree connection you can pop back into Navigator you can click on their 500 connections that little 500 connections and sales Navigator and then in two clicks go and look and see who they know in your existing book of business so what this service is for you right away is anybody that that new executive Chair Company might know or might have connections to into the territory especially if you’ve gotten a new book now what a great exercise to do look for anyone that’s coming to the company in the last 90 days and just run this right now but you can reach out to them and say yeah great okay very excited you’re here hey by the way you happen to know three people at this particular company I have been trying to get in there do you happen to know them here’s a little bit of context and history on the account of the efforts I’ve already made any advice you can give and think about how you can send one email right one message one slack one whatever and send three different things you could even send three different companies and say I’m hoping I could ask for a little help I’m sure you were drinking from the fire hose I hate that saying think of somebody that’s something else send me something more creative to say than that but when you say that right you’re reaching out and saying I could use some help here’s the great thing about that when new Executives join a company one of the things they’re most eager to do is make impact as quickly as they can and what’s the easiest way they can impact even if they’re not in sales it’s by helping sales right so they’ll take some quick time and help you out and on top of that you are going to stand out because I bet you’re probably the only person that’s going to reach out to do that I will tell you that when I joined LinkedIn years ago only one person did this to me and it was because she was chasing an account for trying to close Florida State University where I went to school and she was like do you know anyone there and I was like not really but it’s huge huge huge kudos for even reaching out and thinking about that so it’s an easy move you’ll get a notification for any new night new Executives to join you can make this part of like your 30-minute you know goal of prospecting every single Monday if there’s anybody here take 30 minutes do a quick check write out these emails give context what a payoff in multiple ways so if you’re doing this right Sam you’re you’re doing as kind of as much work as possible for the person you’re asking the favorite from right so you’re sort of laying it out for them yeah yeah and using words that make it feel like a relatively low lift a exactly and I I think this is something that happened to me at LinkedIn all the time where people would reach out and they were like Sam it’s Bob do you know Chip house can you introduce me and I’m like no who are you Bob I don’t know who Bob is I don’t know what efforts Bob has made before to try and to get try to get in this account so that context is really key but if somebody reaches out right can actually be on LinkedIn welcomes me to the organization Etc and then sends me a slack or an email and says hey thanks for connecting I actually had a quick look at your LinkedIn Network and I saw you were connected to three of my top accounts right these two people at Dupont these four people at Insightly and these two other people at wherever it might be I’m below I’m giving some quick context on the efforts I’ve made into these accounts and you know all the all the moves we try to get in we haven’t quite yet opened the door I wonder if you know any of these individuals well enough that you’d be willing to make an introduction for us so think again like you are setting yourself up right you’re really giving that person such a positive impression of who you are not only just by student strategically and wisely reaching out but second by giving all of that context well you also have to think about right is word travels like that right so that person’s Superior or their peers are going to say how was your first week are you getting settled that person’s probably going to mention you and say I tell you you know I’m really impressed by Bob reached out is he well known in the organization oh yeah yeah he’s a he’s great or he’s new tell us about your experience right and then what an awesome opportunity for you not only to crack into those accounts but to get visibility in the organization final thing here right we know the smartest way to open doors is through relationships it always will be so the faster we can get that intro right not only does that speed us to the lead but it also speeds us to trust now a quick power move here that I’ll say let’s say I go to Chip and I say Chip I see that you welcome to welcome to Sam sales Chip decades from now when it comes to work for us welcome to Sam sales would love your help on cracking some doors open do you know these individuals if Chip says yes I know these two people and I can offer introductions when Chip is nice enough to make that introduction right and connect us one other thing that I’m going to do is I’m going to want to come armed with some show me you know me right there’s a reason why it’s framed here behind me it is so important to our sales process so take a quick look at that individual do you have other common connections so there are other people that they know perhaps that are already your existing clients or that of your companies so anything that you can show to do show that you’ve done a little bit of homework and say and talk about their alma mater their Hometown other people that they that they might know even if they’re not your clients or comment on something they’ve written little things like that particularly additional common connections can go such a long way in building that trust so if you think about it if Chip introduces me to someone I already have one vouch right I already have one referral one one one word of recommendation but if I go back and say Chip thanks so much Bob great to meet you I also see that you’re connected to these two individuals they’ve been clients of mine for a decade on clients of hours for a decade so lovely to to meet you know more people that know each other you’ve now exponentially increased the trust that you’ve already built by having the referral from Chip and probably increase the odds that you’ll get that meeting yeah if there’s a power tip for 2022 it’s probably show me you know me Sam you know so thanks yeah yeah we we love it I think we’ve learned a lot from it I think it’s it’s super helpful for just a helpful lens to think about CRM and think about LinkedIn and this the power of the the data to stick your interactions more personal yeah and that that’s it too right like let’s even let’s even kind of give a power tip around that there is so much information available in your CRM so think about that right pop in your Insightly take a look at your contract records in there what do we know even if you think about how you can do this with an inbound lead that you get or meeting this book by your your SAR your bdr take a take a look at who that person is right take a quick look on their LinkedIn profile and see does their name appear in your CRM otherwise right do you have a record of this individual have they been a repeat buyer have they been tied to Opportunities before do they even just show up and if they have a relatively well-known name right like a Bob Johnson or even Sam McKenna if they have something like that just tie it to their old company right take a look on your CRM and find that because gosh will you impress that person if you say I see that you worked at these two companies before and that you’ve had a lot of conversations with us in the past it seems like you’re probably already quite familiar with what we do I would love a little bit of background on that you come prepared you’ve got that show me you know me and the person’s like finally a rep who does their homework yeah it just allows you to have way more human interactions with people so this is it’s a great segue to Sam to power move number three which also Builds on top of this data but kind of through a different lens so if job changes are happening they might also happen such that you as a salesperson inherit a new book of business yeah and so what are your tips around that this is my favorite especially I think I say that for everyone now you guys are just gonna think I’m a liar because they’re all my favorite but this for this really is one of the easiest moves that you can do in sales so if again if you guys have been following me on Sam sales for a while you know that we talk about prospecting right and sales in general it’s just a huge game of Sherlock Holmes it’s one of the things that I love the most about sales right we can put all these little pieces together we can do all this sleuthing and a new book is no different so with a new book obviously you want to segment first right particularly for some of you who work for smaller companies and you’re like I have seven thousand accounts in my book what am I supposed to do so segmentation is really important making sure we’re going after our lowest hanging fruit first according to you know the verticals that we are really successful in ETC obviously important but the other thing that I like to do is what I call my 18-month CRM hack so take a quick look through your Insightly records right have a look at the any opportunities that were closed lost or closed canceled in the last 18 months now if you have an enormous book 18 months is going to be bananas so take a look from 12 to 18 months ago start there and then slowly work your way backwards right nine months to 12 months ago and then closer to you now but what you’ll do with that that let’s say six months of data from a year ago to a year and a half ago when you look at that report what we want to see is who is the person that was attached to that contract record on the client side so let’s say we looked at that at Sam sales let’s say Chip you know was attached to one of our records and and somebody new on our sales team got Insightly in their book they would go and say okay Chip and the next thing they would do is say is Chips still have Insightly did he leave did he get promoted is there another line of business where did he go if he moved is it my book is it in somebody else’s book Etc now this is going to take some work and it’s going to take some time it will pay off in Spades if Chip is still at uncycling and Chip is part attached to a closed loss record from a year ago I’m going to look and see why particularly for someone like Chip he’s a CMO right so if I can reinvigorate a conversation with him and if obviously CMOS are are you know my ideal client profile my buyer I’m going to want to do that so even just reaching out to Chip and just say reigniting our conversation between Sam sales and Insightly time in the next week or two question mark I might it’s not a subject line like that I might also do a really good show me you know me so I might pull something from his LinkedIn profile a recent post something like that and put a subject line together that shows him that I know him and then try to get him to open that email and take some time with me the last thing I want to do by the way when I send those emails is I don’t want to say something like hello Chip I’m the new AE assigned your account I would love 15 to 20 minutes to talk to you don’t do any of that generic sales stuff right instead think about just how to be human I saw that you’ve had some conversations with us before I know that things didn’t quite go as we had hoped but would love to see if there’s an opportunity to support you as you’re planning your 2023 year ahead a newly assigned to your account there’s a couple of things that I bring to the table in terms of expertise and product in marketing and sales and demand gen and whatever here’s a couple of things that we’re working on to help other clients if any of these are on your top strategy list would love to share a little bit what other clients are doing and then see if we could potentially support you what you want to think about in that email is you’re already showing Chip you know them you’re already driving a little bit of value you’re already saying I know a lot about this space so I can be of value to you I can be consultative right and then you’re giving two or three or four things that are that your clients right are already focused on and telling Chip this is what our clients are focused on if you are too be happy to share with you some of those strategies that they’re focused on and then again see if we can be of support too so when Chip sees that he feels hopefully like 30 minutes of his time spent with you is going to be your soul if nothing else he’s going to learn what other clients that are similar to him are doing what they’re focused on from a marketing perspective or demand gen perspective or whatever for they ever had and then it’s going to walk away with some tips even if he has no intention of buying you but here’s the thing right somebody likes you up and a CMO role or in a senior seller or senior buyer role isn’t going to just waste their time they’re going to come because they genuinely want to learn something and they have challenges to solve so share a little give first right lead with that generosity and then use that to open the door like what are you guys focused on here have you considered that is this an angle you’re taking right and then you can spin that into a really great discovery call and hopefully an opportunity again if you see somebody that’s like Chip attached to your contract record that has moved and has gone to somebody else’s territory do them a solid right but a quick look at this kind of graveyard of deals if you will will give you so much opportunity to either read my conversations or see where somebody has moved this is also fantastic by the way for the people that wanted to buy you but let’s say a different buyer got in the way so for instance once a long time ago when I was working it on 24 we had somebody that really wanted to buy us while they were working for Cisco and it was like we offer a competing platform not in 24 why on Earth would we spend money with a competitor and the marketer was like please no we need this money and it was like absolutely not so shut down our deal well that person changed jobs and went to SurveyMonkey about six weeks later and we got the deal pretty quickly so things like that right not all close lost and closed canceled are because they went with a different vendor or hated you or whatever right there’s always different circumstances that come into play a great great great tactic to use yeah Sam it’s so interesting all all three thus far have sort of built on top of building strong relationships you know with with your customers and your entire network frankly and then emotional intelligent that intelligence that you talk about and so the next one to me is you know it’s a bit of a pivot from the initial stat of a job chain danger but it’s one I’m really excited about you and I had a discussion earlier this year on our episode of closing time about referrals and just the power of word of mouth and the power that you you can see as not only a marketer and a company at large but a salesperson individually by really leaning into referrals and so again I’ll share a stat that that that we have it’s about 20 of our business comes from word of mouth and referrals you know and so that’s because they had a positive experience the first time around and they want to come back and they want to work with us again you know if they could and so they refer their friends Etc to to you know with their positive experiences and that’s the kind of glow you’re trying to create so if you’re individual selling person you know how do you take advantage of this I think a few things so timing timing is key right and again I think EQ probably bleeds through every product of our sales strategies at Sam sales but that EQ is really important so what we want to think about first right we’ve closed a deal they’ve signed on the dotted line that’s great where I think we missed the mark sometimes as the reps are like thanks for signing who else do you know that you could introduce us to and the client’s like I haven’t even experienced what you sold me yet it’s all your role hang on just one second so a couple things that I would say one making sure that if you are a net new business seller this referral technique is so so important to you but kind of to what Chip was talking about earlier we want to make sure that we’re building we’re investing in our relationships we’re building them we’re making sure that the services that we offer are great what we usually do is net new business seller so as we sign on the bottom line we move that to a CSM you know or an AM and then we say thanks for signing ticker and we’re off to the next what we really want to think about is how can we invest in that buyer for the long term so quick little bonus hack here once you sign a deal set a reminder for yourself throw it on your calendar throw it you know in your Insightly task whatever it is but throw a reminder for 30 60 and 120 days and what I would literally write is like email Chip see how it’s going that’s it or email Insightly team see how it’s going and with that 30 days after Chip science as he’s going through onboarding with Sam sales or whatever it is right I’m going to send them an email and say just checking in on you and say I know you’ve been working closely with our CSM team and our AMS we’re going to check and see how implementation was going love your feedbacks or anything that I can do to you know lend advice or help escalate anything that you might need just fine to pop in what your buyer is going to see is well Sam doesn’t need anything from me anymore she’s already gotten what she needs for me but she’s checking in on me anyway that’s so nice and then I’m going to do that again in 60 days I’m gonna do that again 120 days like what are the pieces of feedback I always got when I was an employee is maybe for better or worse but I always always focused on our customer first and our company second so when I would sell a deal if I found out that a customer was having a hard time I’d usually blow a gasket politely and very diplomatically and professionally of course but it was most important to me are what happens with our our company isn’t important what happens is our client is important because without our client we don’t have a company so making sure that they’re well taken care of making sure that they’re getting great communication timely communication making sure that nothing seems to be Lost in Translation between our transitions is really really valuable and what an amazing way to play the long game particularly when you’re checking in and offering your time and attention when you need nothing from that buyer so one of the things I would suggest first and foremost let’s say at that 60-day point or even if you do 30 60 90 right I would vary it a little by the way I would do like 30 61 93 just to make it seem a little bit less calculated and more authentic but at that point maybe it’s that 93 day point or maybe it is 121 day point whenever you get a positive line of communication from that buyer to say I just have to tell you this has been such a relief we’ve done so many great things right this has been the answer to our prayers for everything that we need to resolve with XYZ as soon as you either get that right proactively from the client or you ask and say was this the right decision are you guys happy with the technology you get that positive thing then go back and ask and say as you know as I’m sure you’re associate practices one of the best lines for net new revenue for us is referrals I would love to see if you happen to know any of your peers that could find Value in what we do to make it even easier for you would you mind if I took a quick look at your LinkedIn connections and sent you a few names of people we’d like to meet no let me pause here real quick most of the time when we at Sam sales talk to our clients we’re like let’s talk about referrals do you have a campaign around that do you ask for referrals and the client’s always like oh yeah yeah referrals are great 20 of our business customer referrals we’re like cool is that Proactive or reactive referrals and they’re like what and we’re like exactly so reactive referrals right exactly what Chip talked about 20 of our business comes from referrals right inbound Lanes where somebody said XYZ raved about you we would love to see a demo of your technology now proactive referrals is the the game changer here and that’s precisely what you’re doing going to one client after the next and saying do you mind if I look at your LinkedIn connections and see if there’s anybody that you know that could also benefit from our services you’re making it really easy for that buyer right worst thing they can do is say oh thanks you can be like wait why I thought you loved us they’ll probably say yes they’ll even more likely to say yes right because you’re taking that work off of their shoulders and instead of you saying can you think of anybody that knows the can you think of anybody that you know that’d Find value in US instead you’re going back to them to say I will look for those names which means instead of relying on them to decide who they’re going to introduce you to you can selfishly take the reins and find the names of the people that you would most like to meet now one more thing here what I always like to do is seems a little cheeky at first but stay with me is if Chip agreed to this I would go back and I would say Chip I came up with 13 names of people that you are connected to on LinkedIn that I would love to meet now the reason I’m giving 13 or 15 names is because I know that our LinkedIn networks are also often filled with people that we don’t own we’ve met you know at a conference in 2008 we’ve absolutely no idea where they are so what I want to say when I send those names over is to say exactly that I know there’s a ton of people that were connected to on LinkedIn that we don’t know how how we know them so I thought I would hedge my bets it’d make it as easy for you as possible and I would send you this batch of names hoping that you know one or two and I’m really hoping that you know it’s like six or seven and he comes back and he says I know like seven of these people they’re all my old roommates from college do you want me to introduce you to all them and I’ll be like that would be peachy just a few more things here and then I promise I’ll stop talking about this tip make sure when you send the the links over it make sure one that you are sending LinkedIn links so if I just say Chuck do you know Bob Johnson or Chuck Chip do you know Bob Johnson who’s gonna be like I don’t know who Bob Johnson is can you send me a URL number two when you send that you are about I’ll be really mindful that is the linkedin.com URL not the sales Navigator URL probably 50 of the time I get a sales Navigator URL which most of the time doesn’t work because it comes from their corporate account so be sure to keep it really easy and it’s that LinkedIn URL and the final thing that I would say is make sure you offer to ghost write that introduction so I can just write an individual introduction for you for all of them I can write you know a batch one single one that you can take and that you can drop into anybody else’s anybody’s email whichever one works for you again we’re taking the work off of that person’s shoulders and by doing that we’re also increasing the the potential that they are actually going to follow through with that final thing and then I’m done when you do this right and Chip comes back to me and he’s like great sounds great ghost write me the stuff I’ll do all the intros when I send that over I’m going to send it over and say thank you so much you know let me know if you need anything I’ll look out for for emails over the next couple of days if you have time assemptive clothes I would like you to send these the next couple of days very lightly and politely suggesting it and then if he doesn’t do it right or if I don’t hear back from Chip what I’m gonna do is probably respond about a week and then say when to pop in ask you about these and was anybody a game for an introduction no worries if you haven’t gone to it I know how crazy schedules can get if Chip doesn’t respond probably gonna let it go I might send him another email or just say something along like a nurture campaign you know reply on be like hey by the way oh my gosh I thought of you or sent him a quick DM about something to get Chip locally to say oh that’s right crap are we supposed to do those interests for Sam but if he hasn’t done it after my two asks and maybe my third little nurture I’m going to use my EQ and I’m gonna drop it either it’s just not a priority he hasn’t gotten to it there’s other things right but the last thing I want to do is annoy and nag I want to just use a little EQ there and then certainly 60 90 days I can revisit that and say but still have these intros should you be open to it last thing that you can do is you can also do your follow-up strategically on a weekend and yes that sounds terrible because you’re going to ask your your referral source to work on a weekend but they might see you on a weekend and be like I never have time to do this in the week I’m just gonna punch this out for Sam right now on a Saturday morning while I’m catching up on other work and get it done and now I will officially stop talking about this point no passion whatsoever right not at all Sam there’s like five different power moves built into Power move number four but I mean just just the discipline on the 30 60 90 doing the homework coming up with the names and then I wanted to ask you to put you on a spot a little bit because I know that you send thank you notes written thank you notes yeah it that’s a maybe a a power tip that certainly would differentiate you yeah so we we are huge on handwritten thank you notes and you guys might all be cringing thinking to pick up a pen and find a stamp and address things and yes you do but here’s the great thing so handwritten thank you notes are huge I would say number one make sure that it’s on your individualized stationary do not send it on corporate stationery you can literally go get a 20 pack of Kate Spade envelopes at a small bookstore or online or whatever and nopes and then just send those out make them a little bit more refined so just make sure it’s not too flimsy that’s just the the bougie Sam talking there but send a handprint and think you know every single time you close a deal and make sure you send it to the people that are involved in that deal what’s really important about that right is nobody does that anymore right like we do that and it is such a nice thing that stands out the other thing that we like to do is we like to send handwritten thank you notes when we lose the deal so that is one of our top Sam sales hacks what you’ve got to think about is we’re not always going to win the deal right we’re sometimes two one of six or seven or eight vendors that are being selected for something or people are looking at sko speakers and they’re looking at three or four people and we just don’t always win the deal it just happens so think about how you can set yourself apart if you send a handwritten thing you know that says Chip thank you so much for considering us for this work we of course wish it had turned out differently but wish you nothing but the best with XYZ vendor that you selected if we can ever be of help with this or frankly anything otherwise please don’t hesitate to give a shout thank you so much again just for the the chance the to potentially earn your business you’re going to knock your buyer out of your chair you know what’s also what I love about this move is the person that won the deal probably isn’t sending a handwritten thank you note so you as the loser right of the deal nobody wants to be a loser but we’re a loser way 80 of the time with our our closed last deals when you think about that you was the person that didn’t want win the deal you send that no people are going to be like who is this person and man I probably made the wrong decision in picking another vendor and be like that’s right you did all without ever ever having to say that now one quick note that always comes up is that’s great how do I find people’s addresses because everybody’s at home except for Disney employees too soon too soon how do I find their addresses here’s what you do simply send a note and say Chip thanks again for for all your work with us could you share your best mailing address we always like to have you know our Insightly records up to date could you share your best mailing address with us in case we ever have something we want to pop in the mail too that’s that’s it use mailing address if you say home address it’s a little creepy particularly if you live in their same town don’t ask that the mailing address is a very easy way to get that and then you’ll you’ll get their their best address I think we’ve only had one time where somebody gave us their business address and it was because they lived in in DC where I live so fair enough but everyone else typically shares home yeah no I it’s it’s powerful on the receiving end to get something in the mail and get a handwritten note so I just want to call that as a differentiator so we’re already to power move number five here Sam and it’s researching how Q4 ended for your prospects using LinkedIn their website and positioning Outreach based on their results so talk to us about how one would do do that I think this is big too right this is it’s not about us it’s about them and what a great way to do show me or know me right so if you have been talking to your Prosthetics if you’ve been negotiating a deal if you’ve been trying waiting for the right moment to get in the door right considering that a lot of organizations didn’t have great results they didn’t end up where they wanted to be a lot of organizations had massive layoffs I think I was just reading yesterday that we’ve we’ve had the biggest round of Laos in this quarter compared to April 2020 which was the the top many of you might also be in that position and looking for for roles right now but what we want to think about us we want to use that information to our advantage so for us one of the things that we’re thinking about at Sam sales everybody is saying do less with more right do less with more we have less employees how do we still get to these higher quotas how do we still get to our goals and one of the things we think about is how to do just that right so how do you utilize our services in a way to be more efficient how to even work with us in a way that might be less revenue for our organization but still a way to make impact you know some of the companies that we’re talking to about trainings that aren’t inexpensive we’re saying hey like why don’t you just do why don’t you sign everybody up for our recorded sales trainings are our Sam shorts on our website and then why don’t you host an hour or two of q a right you’re still going to get everything inside of my head out of me that’s in my head just in recorded fashion and then you’ll still get some one-on-one time for a lot less money than you would be hosting me live right we’d love to do all these live sessions but what’s most important is that we get your teams what they need so think about that right and I think what an impact you can have to buyers if you’re thinking outside of the box and instead of just pushing the same proposal you’re pushing over and over again and use that EQ now the other thing that you think about right how do they end what what podcasts have their Executives been on have core when quarterly earnings come out right when they talk about how the year ended and you get all those financial results particularly for you guys that are selling to public companies or Enterprise grade companies use that information use those quotes use things that are coming out of their of their reports and your subject lines there’s an organization that was working with us on their why and they’re like we feel like we are in need to a nice to have not a need to have right so how do we communicate that we are in need to have to an organization this is a company that we’re trying to get into we can’t get into it how do we do that and I was like well let’s let’s look at their website let’s look at their recent press releases what can we find out about them what have you guys found out about them and all the Reps were like nothing and we’re like okay great so let’s do our basic research pop on their website and we found that they had a press release recently that talked about how by 2025 they were hoping to double their valuation particles cool how are you going to get there so this is what you can do right when you take something like doubling doubling your evaluations by 2025 with and then company name you can write a subject line like that right that looks a little bit research has some show me you know me and then say what a lofty goal just write your press release so curious what’s your path to doing that curious specifically what’s your path to doing that with specific respect to and then insert the the kind of product function of that company just writing an email like that right got the attention of the buyers to say one nobody writes us that stuff and then two we haven’t really given thought to how we’re going to get there through this channel what’s your advice what a great way to open the conversation right using those quarterly results using that information of what their goals are for their head to show that you’re smart to show that you’ve done your homework and to show that you have invested 10 15 20 minutes of time in exchange for the 10 15 20 30 minutes of time that you’re asking back from them yeah great stuff Sam hey so we’re going to recap the power moves so Sam just make sure you summarize these for us and pull out any any tips that you have so again remember we want to build that if this then that process right around our job changes so anybody that you talk to anybody that’s had your opportunities your Champions or users the people who love your platform make sure you’re adding them to your job Hopper list in Navigators so they even track those job changes again creating that search in LinkedIn sales Navigator tell me anytime a net new executive low or high depending on the size of your company joins our company so I can reach out to them hit their 500 connections and then say I know you know these people at our deal any chance you know them well enough to offer an introduction again making sure we’re doing our 18-month CRM hack going back and looking at any close lost or closed one opportunities right who are the people that are tied to them on the client side are they still there have they moved have they been promoted are they in your book of business how can you read invigorate those conversations and then again thinking about how we said that 30 60 90 day reminder to check in with close one deals and as soon as we get a positive note that says we loved working with you this is so amazing we proactively ask for those referrals with all those tips that I mentioned and then the final thing keeping Taps on what’s going on with our buyers and their companies right quarterly earnings fiscal year results net hires layoffs right making sure that we’ve got part of that EQ built in maybe reaching out to Salesforce and asking them if they want help with recruiting not the right time right we want to we want to think about that use the data that’s out there in the company news to make sure that we’re offering the right thing at the right time and working with that intelligence that we have that’s so great Sam and can’t wait to go to questions so while you’re getting your your questions in please type those in now if you could I just want to take a second to talk to you about Insightly if you’re not familiar with our platform so it certainly is a modern CRM it’s mobile it it’s agile with robust features in one Cloud platform but not at Enterprise prices and we build it for fast growing companies so it’s built to scale and grow with you so you’ll never outgrow it even as your organization becomes larger and more complex and you know we hear from our customers that their teams love it they find it easy to use and adopt across their organization and if you’ve been a part of a CRM adoption before you know that ease of use is almost the most important thing will my team actually use this piece of software and you know you can see that example there from Joanna and how they’ve been able to trip revenues in less than a year leveraging Insightly customers also tell us they’re able to significantly prove key sales metrics they mentioned how they increase pipeline sales velocity deal size and predictability and they love our dashboards we just did a webinar last month on our dashboards and their you know highly customizable and in fact if you’re interested in seeing that and any other content that we have you can visit the resources section of our website to see any of those recent webinars as well so Val I’m going to ask you what what questions do we have that have come in that we want to pose to Sam one just came in from Rebecca and I think this is a good one she said Sam you said low hanging fruit on inheriting a book of business to segment how would you determine the low-hanging fruit is that the Lost accounts great question I I’m gonna guess this is from Rebecca Edwards and if so it is so appropriate because Rebecca works for a law firm and so let’s talk about this so when I became when I transitioned from an account manager to an AE so I was an AM for two years and became an AE which is really really scary for a net new business I took a quick look at my book and I said what’s my lowest hanging fruit what can I go after and I found at my company that we had three of the largest law firms in the world that were working with us and I was like well why those three right what is our white space in that vertical and then quickly interviewed those CMOS I think Rebecca even you’re a former CMO Jim Durham we’ll quickly interviewed this 3cmo said why ask for a tiny company you could work with anybody else but I have us got that information and then used that to just open up that entire vertical I think same thing too if you have a pretty Niche let’s say you’ve got you know Tech is huge for you or a particular vertical is huge look to see where does it really make sense to sell your product what is the easiest way that you can sell your product your services or your attorneys find those those verticals where you have already a great footprint and then look what’s what’s in your book territory-wise that’s open the final thing I would just say on that that I think is also especially useful for for law firms but certainly in Tech where do we have four if you again do the search and Navigator you can look for prior employer and then write yours so form a company write your company and then current company write your book of business right or your top 100 or 200 accounts put that in there and then look for anybody that formerly worked for you so alumnus of the law firm or alumnus of your check firm or whatever used to work for you and now works for them what that should have been one of my Pro one of our Pro tips Chip and Val look for those people that have have no work for your company know your value know your culture know how you deliver and now work for another organization that you’re trying to Target such an easy way in and such an easy way to find low hanging fruit we’re going to do this one more case one more question from Kate and then we’ll have to wrap up because it’s time but Kate says do you recommend working your list in LinkedIn or do you connect to your CRM and download the information Katie says she’s new to LinkedIn Navigator oh welcome newbie we’re very excited to have you with such a powerful tool what I would say I personally prefer to work out of my CRM so if I am lucky enough to have Insightly I prefer to have everything in one place I will say like that the view keeping those records keeping my data clean and everything is fantastic so awesome opportunity if you’re more of a like give it to me all in one screen person you can do that I will say I do spend quite a bit of time I definitely did as an account executive in sales Navigator so just checking those reports those leads all that data some of that does not integrate with crms so there’s some data that is private and it’s a member privacy issue that LinkedIn doesn’t allow for that that data to flow through to any CRM of any kind so you’ll still want to see that in Navigator but I would say spend honestly carve about 30 45 minutes of your prospecting time a week to spend a navigator I would spend 30 to 45 minutes of additional prospecting time in LinkedIn so commenting on Executives profiles doing all sorts of things to add to the conversation look for influencers if you Target sales leaders come and comment on my profile you will find tons of people in there that are right up your alley that you can get introduced to social selling is the way it’s a way to go and if you’re not in LinkedIn for a couple of hours a week at the at a minimum I would say You’re really setting yourself up for a disadvantage there’s so much great data and I’ll say finally on that note I get the question a lot how much time do I spend on LinkedIn a day about three and a half four hours a day a day it is that important is that powerful all right well we’ve definitely run out of time a couple more questions came in but we’ll be sure to pass them along either to Sam’s team or the Insightly team depending on who is best to answer Sam Chip thank you so much I know I learned a lot we have great power moves as Chip mentioned I think we had more than five packed in there so lots of stuff for people to chew on everybody thanks for kicking off 2023 with us and have a great day thanks again bye [Music]