Dorie Clark is a personal branding expert and in today’s episode of The Salesman Podcast, Dorie shares the 3x super practical steps we need to take to be known as an expert in our sales space which makes selling so much easier.
Featured on this episode:
Resources:
- DorieClark.com
- Dorie on Linkedin
- @dorieclark
- Book: Entrepreneurial You: Monetize Your Expertise, Create Multiple Income Streams, and Thrive
- Book: Reinventing You: Define Your Brand, Imagine Your Future
Transcript
Will Barron:
Do you want to know the three step framework to becoming an expert in your industry, which makes deals come to you and makes deals so much easier to close, it’s a no brainer to implement this and to invest a little bit of your time into becoming an expert, then this episode is for you.
Will Barron:
Hello Sales Nation and welcome to today’s episode of The Salesman Podcast. On today’s show we have Dorie Clark. She’s the author of the brand new book, Entrepreneurial You, which is available on Amazon. You can find it on her website as well over at dorieclark.com.
Will Barron:
On today’s episode we’re diving into personal branding, becoming an expert in your industry, in your niche, in your vertical, and the benefits of this. This is different to earlier episodes on The Salesman Podcast where we covered personal branding before, because we’re getting crazy practical.
Will Barron:
There’s three steps to doing this, to achieving this, and we guide you through each one of them. And so with all that said, let’s jump in to today’s episode. Dorie, welcome to The Salesman podcast.
Dorie Clark :
Thank you so much for having me. It’s wonderful to be here.
Will Barron:
You’re more than welcome. I’m glad to have you on. I’m enjoying the smiles. I can feel the energy coming across the screen we’re recording through at the moment. So, I appreciate that. And we’re going to dive into branding. And I want to put the spin on this personal branding and becoming seen as an expert within your space.
Understanding Personal Branding for Sales Professionals · [01:10]
Will Barron:
So, before we get to the crazy interesting, the practical, the useful side of this, let’s take a step back. How do we know what our branding is at the moment within our industry, if we have one at all? How do we know what people think of us, I guess, before we start to proactively work on some of this stuff?
“If you don’t know what your current brand is, it’s almost impossible to get to the destination you want to be at, because you just have no idea what to emphasize or deemphasize.” – Dorie Clark · [01:36]
Dorie Clark :
That is an important question. And you’re right, it’s definitely the starting point. Because if you don’t know what your current brand is, it’s almost impossible to get to the destination you want to be at, because you just have no idea what to emphasise or deemphasize. So, one thing that I suggest in my first book, Reinventing You, is something called the three word exercise, which is a very quick way to try to get at this information.
Dorie Clark :
And so the assignment for folks is over the course of the next, let’s say week, go to about half a dozen friends or colleagues that know you reasonably well. And you ask them a really simple question, which is, “If you had to describe me in only three words, what would they be?” And the trick is, number one, you need to write it down because it’s very easy afterwards to forget what the first person said about you.
Dorie Clark :
You want to be comparing and looking for trends and patterns. For almost everybody, you are going to see a cluster of traits that they focus around. And the reason this is significant, Will, it’s not that you’re probably going to hear something you’ve never heard, or never thought of before. I mean most people have kind of a sense, but the part that we don’t know and the reason this is valuable is that it’s very, very hard, if not impossible, for us to know without asking what other people think is most distinctive about us, what’s most unique about us. And so when we find that, it begins to give us a clue as to avenues that we can really lean in on and pursue.
Will Barron:
I think you said something important here, or two things. One I’m going to come back to, which is empathising and going on what we’ve already got and distinctive, and whether that is the strategy to grow who we are, or try and change the perception of who we are. But writing stuff down as well. I know when someone gives me poor feedback, if I don’t write it down… and good feedback as well. If I come back to it a few days later, I’ve changed it.
Which is More Important: Perfecting the Art of Selling with No Personal Brand or Being a Little Good at What You But Have a Strong Personal Brand? · [04:40]
Will Barron:
Eyewitness testimony is horrific as a form of evidence in testimony in court, or in elsewhere. And so I know if I don’t write stuff down, if it’s bad feedback, I’ve made it less bad. If it’s good feedback, I’ve probably made myself out to be 10 times better than what I was in the first place. So, I think that’s an important one. But before we get onto, again, I just want to kind of build up to the most important bit and the practical bit of the show of whether we emphasise our best traits, whether we try and get rid of the poor ones, how we strategize this.
Will Barron:
Which is more important when we’re talking about personal brand, becoming an expert in our industry, in our world, is it the perception of what other people have of you, or is it the facts and whether you actually are an expert or not, if that makes sense?
Dorie Clark :
Yeah, definitely. So, I would say that if we had to… I mean clearly they’re both important, right? But if we had to weigh them, then what certainly is most important is what your actual substance is. I mean the jig is not going to last long if everyone thinks you’re an expert and then you actually get in the room and you say, “I don’t know.” It’s never going to survive. And what we want to do, of course in sales, is build long term relationships, trusting relationships where people will buy from you again and again, not just the one time quick hit.
“I think the problem that a lot of really talented sales professionals have is that they do have the knowledge. They are really smart, really sharp, have a lot to contribute, but that isn’t getting seen. And that’s really the challenge with branding, is how to break through in a very crowded marketplace so that people actually notice you.” – Dorie Clark · [04:45]
Dorie Clark :
I think the problem that a lot of really talented sales professionals have is that they do have the knowledge. They are really smart, really sharp, have a lot to contribute, but that isn’t getting seen. And that’s really the challenge with branding, is how to break through in a very crowded marketplace so that people actually notice and understand, “Oh, this guy really does have something to say. I should be listening.”
Building a Personal Brand: To Niche or Not to Niche? · [05:10]
Will Barron:
Is the skill here then, or the twist, to have better, whether it’s content, whether it is speaking on stage, whether it is to be better than everyone else, or is it to niche down and find a little hole for yourself where it isn’t overcrowded?
“If you constitutionally are capable of niching down, then it actually is a pretty good strategy because it enables you to set yourself apart very quickly, very rapidly.” – Dorie Clark · [05:46]
Dorie Clark :
So, you can approach it multiple ways. In my most recent book, Stand Out, I actually have a whole section on this, because it is such a common and important question about whether you should pursue a niche or not. And here’s my take on it, essentially if you are able to do that, if you constitutionally are capable of niching down, then it actually is a pretty good strategy, because it enables you to set yourself apart very quickly, very rapidly.
Dorie Clark :
It makes sense, if there’s fewer competitors, then you’re able to really dominate it. That being said, in all honesty, there are some people whose personality types just don’t lend themselves to that. They don’t like the idea of specialising. They’re kind of allergic to it. I actually consider myself one of those people, that it’s very hard and painful. So, you shouldn’t make yourself niche down if you don’t want to, but if you can, it is a pretty good fast track.
“If you want to become a recognised expert in your field, the three things you need to concentrate on, number one, content creation. This is just getting your ideas out there so that people know what your ideas are and can see that they’re good ideas. Number two is social proof. This is basically your credibility. Why should people take you seriously? What affiliations do you have? What are the markers that you know what you’re talking about? And then third and finally is your network. And your network, of course, is important because, A, you’re judged by the company you keep. B, they are your earliest ambassadors and can help spread the word about what you’re doing. And, C, they’re often the people that you have an honest enough relationship with that they can kind of call you out sometimes and say, “Will, this is a great idea. This one’s terrible. Don’t do it.” – Dorie Clark · [06:52]
Dorie Clark :
Instead, I would say that when it comes to developing your expertise in the marketplace, I’ve actually created a framework about how to become a recognised expert. This is something that I developed in Stand Out and have just worked with hundreds and hundreds of professionals over the years to modify. And ultimately there’s three levers to push. And we can talk about any of these in more detail, but if you want to become a recognised expert in your field, the three things you need to concentrate on, number one, content creation.
Dorie Clark :
Just getting your ideas out there so that people know what your ideas are and can see that they’re good ideas. Number two is social proof. This is basically your credibility. Why should people take you seriously? What affiliations do you have? What are the markers that you know what you’re talking about? And then third and finally is your network. And your network, of course, is important because, A, you’re judged by the company you keep. B, they are your earliest ambassadors and can help spread the word about what you’re doing. And, C, they’re often the people that you have an honest enough relationship with that they can kind of call you out sometimes and say, “Will, this is a great idea. This one’s terrible. Don’t do it.”
Which Approach Guarantees the Biggest Rewards: Eliminating the Negative Traits From Your Personal Brand or Working on the Positive Aspects of Your Brand? · [07:47]
Will Barron:
Okay, well, we’ll run through those three. We’ll use that as a structure for the rest of the interview after this, because you kind of alluded to it earlier on Dorie. When we get all this feedback, when we narrow it down, when we get the good, the bad, when we perhaps hear and get insights about ourselves that perhaps we knew, but we didn’t realise were so positive from our customers, from our friends, whoever it is that we gathering all the data from, are we looking to, or which has…
Will Barron:
Let me put it this way, which has the best bang for buck, sales people are clearly busy, their personal brand might be something that they’re doing on the side alongside selling and growing their revenue internally within the organisation they’re working for. So, it might not be the full-time kind of job and role. Clearly the melt into each other and one helps the other out, but which is the best bang for buck, removing the negative traits about our personal brand, or working and developing the positive traits on our personal brand?
“If you have a weakness that is so glaringly deficient, then the most important thing you can do is eliminate that weakness, because it drags everything else down. It almost just renders everything irrelevant, however good you are.” – Dorie Clark · [08:39]
Dorie Clark :
So, I’m going to give you a little bit of a if/then answer, Will. But the very short version, again, if we had to choose, if you have a weakness that is so glaringly deficient, then the most important thing you can do is eliminate that weakness, because it drags everything else down. It almost just renders it irrelevant, however good you are. So, for instance, I mean if we think about people’s personal lives, you could be the smartest, most charming, wonderful guy, but if you constantly flake out on your engagements and you tell your friends you’re going to be there and you’re never there, well, I’m not going to invite Will to my party anymore.
Dorie Clark :
No matter how fun he is when he does show up. So, you’ve got to get rid of the bad, if it’s a glaringly bad thing. However, if your negatives are all sort of in what I will call the average range, like it’s just like, “All right, well, Will isn’t the best at this, but whatever.” Then if that’s the case, then go with your strength.
Will Barron:
I’ll give a complete and probably harsher example of what you gave then, Dorie, of in medical device sales there was one guy, he must have been 55, 60. He’d been in the medical device world for 30, 40 years, crazy knowledgeable. And he was one of the competitors when I lived down south in Essex, here in the UK. But he was a complete asshole. He was arrogant. No one liked him. He wouldn’t dress the part. There was multiple elements to it, which led everyone just to know him as the asshole rep.
Will Barron:
He worked for a huge company, so different NHS Trust, different surgeons had to work with them for the specific products that he sold. But they would rather me be in the theatres, and this happened multiple times, of I’d be invited in with open arms. I wouldn’t know, especially at that point, I wouldn’t be half, a third, 10th as knowledgeable as what he was about the products, the offerings, even the procedures that we were doing.
Will Barron:
But the surgeons would rather have me come in. I’d be asking questions, because I was curious, I’d have a conversation with them. And I’d be stood there, he would come in, ask two questions and then literally be pushed out of scenario. And I know, I spoke to him about this multiple times because he was asking me what I was doing to get on the good side of all these surgeons. And the response was simple. It was just, I was being curious and I was a 23 year old lad who would just not impose himself, not try and be the centre of attention. And there’s a stereotype here, of course, but if you are in a operating theatre, you’ve got this hot head surgeon with his hand inside a patient, both physically and metaphorically.
Will Barron:
There’s a consultant anesthesiologist there who’s keeping them alive, there’s lots of egos spinning around this room. There’s not enough room for another ego of a sales rep to come in there and start to kind of bumping heads with people. So, he was way more experienced than I, worked for the best company. His products didn’t really compete with mine. It was more of a budget for the trust that I was competing, as opposed to specific products.
Will Barron:
But he did himself a disservice by just being arrogant and slightly annoying. So, kind of to paint a bit of colour on what you’re describing there. If he was less of an asshole, he would’ve won a tonne more business, just by keeping his mouth shut. Probably not much more than that. Okay.
Dorie Clark :
That’s a perfect example.
Will Barron:
We all probably know these people as well. We all probably know, in our organisation, the manager who’s a really great manager, but then does things on the side that hurts him or her corporately as well. So, there’s probably lots of angles to this of personal brand within your organisation, personal brand with your customers, personal brand just in general. And perhaps we can touch on some of these as we go through your framework here.
Dorie’s Take on Whether Salespeople Should Be Creating Content · [12:01]
Will Barron:
So, one, content creation. I’m going to ask you a question here, Dorie, that it splits the experts that come on the show. Should sales people, again, crazy busy, lots of calls to make, lots of emails, lots of follow up, lots of internal paperwork, should they be creating content of some sort? And we can dive into that potentially. Should they be creating some kind of content if they’re wanting to improve and work upon their personal brand?
Dorie Clark :
Well, the first part is, of course it depends first and foremost on your company policy. So, always check on that to make sure that it’s not-
Will Barron:
Forget that. We’re not worried about that.
Dorie Clark :
Yeah. But presuming that it is allowed, I actually am a fan of doing that. And I know it can be a strain, because people have a lot of obligations, a lot of responsibilities, et cetera. But here is why, Will. I think that we have probably all seen situations where you’re never a hero in your homeland, right? T.
Dorie Clark :
The people around you, they might like you, they might think you’re great, but they don’t necessarily appreciate you as fully as you deserve to be appreciated. And by doing content creation, it actually gives people outside, and that includes your customers, but also just the broader sales community or the broader community in your industry, a window into seeing who you are and what your ideas are. And I will tell you, the minute that your boss starts to get compliments about you from outsiders that you would not otherwise be expected to have connected with, “Oh, hey, I read that article that Will posted on LinkedIn. That was really interesting.”
Dorie Clark :
When they start to hear that, they realise, “Oh, I might have something here. I need to treat this guy with a little more respect. I need to be a little bit more careful so that he doesn’t just walk out the door.” And if you can do that, if you can build your brand so that you have just a little bit more power in that relationship, which comes from being known and respected more broadly, that is a really good position to be in.
Why Content Creation is the Starting Point to Networking and Social Proof · [14:16]
Will Barron:
So, I’m interested to hear, because that’s pulling on the networking side of things, that’s also pulling on the social proof side of things. Is content going to be the starting point to work on the other two factors as well?
“Content creation is amazing because it actually does kill three birds with one stone. Content creation is content creation. It provides social proof and credibility. And it builds your network.” – Dorie Clark · [14:34]
Dorie Clark :
You have identified something exactly right. And this was my personal strategy in terms of brand building early on, content creation is amazing because it actually does kill three birds with one stone. Content creation is content creation. It provides the social proof and credibility. It builds your network. So, yes, I think it’s a great starting point.
Dorie Clark :
For me personally, in my business doing marketing strategy consulting, one of the earliest things that I did to really try to take my brand to the next level, was I started blogging very assiduously and regularly in about 2010. And for several years I was writing between 10 and 15 blog posts a month. And the vast majority of them actually were interviews of other people that I was doing. And that was a great way for me to get to meet them, to meet them in a way such that I was essentially doing a favour for them up front, so they were grateful about that.
Dorie Clark :
And in the process, it was kind of my own personal education, my own professional development, cause I was hearing their ideas. So, it paved the way for a lot of subsequent opportunities.
Will Barron:
That is the best example. We talked about it on the show before. I think me and you might have touched on this in a past attempt to record this episode where we had internet issues. And that was if I was kind of mentoring myself five, six years ago, I would’ve… clearly I like podcasting, clearly I like interviewing and connecting with people. I would’ve advise myself to do a… So, Yorkshire where I am right now, a Yorkshire urologist podcast.
Will Barron:
You only need to get 15 downloads for each episode, as long as they are the consultants, the surgeons that you want to be in front of. And you only have to do perhaps one episode a week, one episode a month or so to get going. And, one, you’ve got an hour with this surgeon that you wouldn’t have otherwise, you get to dive in deep to what they’re passionate about. You get to hopefully pull out some interesting information for the other surgeons that are going to listen to this, so that they then see you as the hub of all the surgeons within your local area.
Will Barron:
And this could go anywhere, if you’re selling accounting software, you have a bunch of CFOs on your podcast. If you are selling, I don’t know, the options of this are limitless, but you are going to get the surgeon on or the person on, because you’re going to stroke their ego of the interview and then being positioned in front of their peers as an expert. And then, as you described before, and I think this is underrated in sales, because clearly sales has taken massive changes. There’s a whole 20% on the transactional end of sales reps, and I hate to say it, but SDR’s, account managers, they’re going to get cut off because they’re going to be replaced by an online order form over the next few years.
Will Barron:
And I’m really passionate about getting people the audience if they’re in those roles, to get involved within the kind of world of B2B complex selling, because that’s very difficult to all automate. But this all adds to what you were describing before, Dorie, of if you have this podcast, if you have the attention of these surgeons, these CFOs, whoever you’re selling to, you are then a really valuable member of the team. You’re not something that can be replaced by an online order form, even if you day job is just that.
How Building a Strong Personal Brand Accelerates a Salesperson’s Career · [17:32]
Will Barron:
So, this has more underlying effects, right? This is more complex than having a personal brand will make sales come easier to you, because you’ll have no lack in trust. We can kind of go two steps deeper to all this, and it just helps you and your career, right? That’s probably the way we should frame personal branding for salespeople, is that it’s a career accelerator as opposed to something that will just get you more sales?
“Your personal brand, in many ways, is long term career insurance. Because we live in an unstable economy, unfortunately people’s jobs can go away because of a variety of factors outside their control. But if you are known and respected by people in your industry, the minute they find out that you are available, they’re going to say, “Well, Will’s available. Let’s bring him on. Let’s find something.” You don’t have to be beating the bushes and knocking on doors for six months to get hired. People are going to come to you. That’s the value of a really strong personal brand.” – Dorie Clark · [18:01]
Dorie Clark :
Yeah, that’s exactly right. And I’ll add one more onto it, Will, which is that your personal brand in many ways is long term career insurance. Because we live in an unstable economy, unfortunately people’s jobs can go away because of a variety of factors outside their control. But if you are known and respected by people in your industry, the minute they find out that you are available, they’re going to say, “Well, Will’s available. Let’s bring him on. Let’s find something.” You don’t have to be beating the bushes and knocking on doors for six months to get hired. People are going to come to you. That’s the value of a really strong personal brand.
What is Social Proof and Why Do We Need It? · [18:40]
Will Barron:
Love it. Makes total sense. Okay. So, social proof. When I think social proof, I think two things. I think really cliche quotes from previous customers that I have on a website may not work, because you could look like it’s been faked, it could look cheesy and weird. But there’s probably some merit to it, because clearly people are using it as a tool.
Will Barron:
And then I also think number of likes on a post, which to me is a terrible metric, doesn’t mean anything. But people seemingly buy into, or maybe less than what they used to, but seemingly people buy how much your content is getting liked, how many Twitter followers you have, things of that nature. Am I on the right track it, or is social proof something totally different than that?
Dorie Clark :
So, I think those are varieties of it, but I agree with you that they’re not necessarily the strongest ones. So, the way that I think of social proof is essentially the whole reason that we want and need social proof, i.e. credibility, is that we live in this very fast moving complex marketplace. People are saying to themselves, “Okay, well, who do I trust? There’s a lot of options about who I should buy from, who I should trust, who do I pick?”
Dorie Clark :
We want to give them a really clear reason to pick us. And so the problem that they’re facing is that they don’t have the time to do due diligence on you. And in some cases they may not have the expertise. I mean if you’re a medical device salesman and it’s doctors, yes, they do have the expertise. But in a lot of cases, people are buying products that they may not understand necessarily all of the minutia. They need the salesman to explain it to them.
“The shortcut or the life hack version of social proof is for you to affiliate with brands that your prospects already know and trust.” – Dorie Clark · [20:21]
Dorie Clark :
So, how do they even know who’s good or who’s trustworthy? And so the shortcut, the kind of life hack version of social proof is for you to affiliate with brands that they already know and trust. Then if they say, “Oh, well, if Will is good enough for X, Y, Z, then clearly he’s good enough for me.” It’s kind of outsourcing the trust process. So, some good ways to do that, number one, if we go back to content creation, it’s writing for publications in the industry that they’ve already heard of.
Dorie Clark :
That’s one good way. Another thing is professional associations. A lot of people forget about this, but to be a leader in a professional association, either locally or regionally, is fantastic because it really shows that you are respected enough by your peers to do that. And the truth is, most of those positions are honestly not that hard to get, because they are volunteer, people are busy. But if you take the time to do it, it gives you a special stature. And then lastly, to your previous point, quotes, you’re right, they can be fudged or whatever.
Dorie Clark :
But if you’re able to say, and people know and understand that it’s true., “Oh, well, I have consulted for, or I have worked for boom, boom, boom,” and you name prestigious companies in your industry. Then they’re able to say, “Oh, well, if they trust him, then he must be good.” So, those are some ways that I think you can kind of shortcut the social proof process.
Will Barron:
This is amazing. So, you’re building a picture in my mind. I’ve never thought about this before. So, if I’m selling medical devices into the NHS, it’s more than likely the surgeons are going to be on board because we take them away on training experiences, days out, things like this, and the product’s good and we spend time with them in the theatre. So, clinically they know that we’ve got the knowledge to back up and support their products.
Will Barron:
It’s a bit of a weird one, because it’s 50% selling, 50% account management and physically training a surgeon how to use this equipment. So, with that said, we’ve got them on board. And they love new toys. Why wouldn’t they want to spend a hundred grand on a new camera system or something like that, so they can see what’s going on there? The problem, or not the problem, the difficulty is usually getting the procurement team on board of, “Well, if we spend a hundred grand on this camera system, it’s going to go from standard condition to high definition. Well, we’re not really having any problems with the surgery so far, it’s all happening fine. We’ve not really had any major incidents with the surgeon complaining that they can’t see, because clearly the surgeon didn’t want to flag up that they’re struggling for numerous reasons.”
Will Barron:
So, it’s a difficult sell to the procurement team then. So, they’re going to Google you. They want to see, they want to assess whether what you’re saying is true or not, whether they can go on your word that going from a standard definition camera monitor in keyhole surgery is going to be beneficial on a HD. So, they Google you. They’re going to find your LinkedIn. Hopefully they don’t find your Facebook or personal Twitter. We can perhaps talk about that in a minute as well, of the negative elements of when someone searches for you. But you painted a picture here, which blew my mind. I was trying my best to shut up as you were going through it, Dorie, of if they Google you.
Will Barron:
And for me, medical devices says we’ll bounce off the page picture so they can put the kind of name to the face, make sure it’s me. Underneath it perhaps has a couple of the NHS trust logos that I’ve worked with. Underneath that perhaps it does have a couple of quotes from surgeons that I’ve took on training courses. And to get them all it is, is you’ve taken away for two days on a training course to Germany. They’ve got loads of value out of it. You just say, “Hey, can you give us a quick quote? Can you tell us what your experience was on this course working with me?”
Will Barron:
It’s very unlikely that they are not going to give you a quote, or they’re going to call you out for being an idiot or whatever, because they want to go on more of these courses. So, clearly you have to give the value first, then you ask for the quote on the back of it. But if someone was to Google that, see that, see a bunch of surgeons, even in the… so a trust is essentially the organisation. So, there’d be Leeds, Bradford teaching hospitals. So, there would be a bunch of surgeons in there.
How Having a Positive Online Presence is a Sure Fire Way to Building Social Proof · [24:20]
Will Barron:
So, if I was selling to Leeds, Bradford procurement team, and I had quotes from the surgeons that they work with all the time, it almost puts me in a position where they’d be crazy not to work with me. They’d be crazy to work with someone else who doesn’t have this data, these quotes, this social proof on the website. So, just as you were going through that, Dorie, that really practically is a five minute website that you can build with a free online website bill that doesn’t have to look fantastic.
Will Barron:
Is that something that we should be aiming for? Is that social proof and the fact that when someone Googles your name that comes up above all the other stuff that you don’t want them to see, is that a worthwhile investment for the audience, do you think?
Dorie Clark :
Yeah, I think absolutely. Because these days, of course, you no longer can just concentrate on your reputation in real life with the people that know you personally, there are going to be a lot of people that you’re dealing with that maybe you even have met them personally. But if they want to do a little bit more background check on you, obviously the first thing they’re going to do is go to the internet. And above and beyond that, there’s plenty of people that you might be making sales to, or some preliminary encounter where they haven’t met you at all. And so online is either the first or a very quick second of how they determine more about who you are. And so taking the time to create a place for them to go that expresses your value is terrific.
“Research has shown time and time again that we can “get away” with a lot more self-promotion visually and in terms of the written word, than we can orally. So, if you were meeting somebody and you were to say, “Hi, I’m Will. Let me tell you all about my credentials.” People get sick of that so fast. They don’t want to hear it that way, because it seems obnoxious. But researchers have shown that literally if you’re presenting people with that same information, but they are reading it instead, they don’t attribute it to you bragging about yourself. They just think, “Well, oh, here’s this factual document about who Will is.” And so they read it and they take it in and then say, “Well, Will’s a smart guy.” – Dorie Clark · [25:52]
Dorie Clark :
And the other key thing here, the reason that a website can be so powerful, is that research has shown again and again that we can, I’ll put it in air quotes, we can “get away” with a lot more self-promotion visually and in terms of the written word, than we can orally. So, if you were meeting somebody and you were to say, “Hi, I’m Will. Let me tell you all about my credentials, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” People get sick of that so fast. They don’t want to hear it that way, because it seems obnoxious.
Dorie Clark :
But researchers have shown that literally if you’re presenting people with that same information, but they are reading it instead, even though of course you wrote the website, they don’t attribute it to you bragging about yourself. They just think, “Well, oh, here’s this factual document about who Will is.” And so they read it and they take it in and then say, “Well, Will’s a smart guy.”
Will Barron:
And just to double down on this, because I mean I love these episodes when they get real practical, Dorie. So, I thank you for kind of teeing all this up. I’m going through, we kind of mentioned it before we clicked record, so I won’t say the company in case it doesn’t get pulled off, but I’m going through a kind of decision to buy making process with a huge company in the sales space at the moment, hopefully for 12 months, 2018, a deal to wrap up most of their ad space that we’ve got. Now I’m working with them. I can see, because I track the links in my email, specifically in the signature, I have a link to all the companies I worked with in the past, a link to our media kit, a few of the links that go to different areas of social proof.
Will Barron:
And I can see when this email gets forwarded onto someone else, or when the proposal goes to someone else, I get a flurry activity on all these links. And so you’re almost scaling your ability to get in front of these people and to share social proof by having a super simple website, by having even just a good LinkedIn profile, it does a lot of this as well. So, I think this is really useful for the audience and perhaps you don’t want to go through the nerd kind of angle that I’ve done of tracking everything. But I also use that as data of when someone clicks through, they look at the media clip, they click on a couple of posts in the media kits. I know that then they are educated to the point where I can skip all that conversation.
The Difference Between Personal Branding Right Now and Personal Branding from 20 Years Ago · [28:22]
Will Barron:
They know male to female ratio, they know the number of sales people who listen versus sales directors, VP’s. I can get rid of all that, or I can go in a follow-up email later on. I can get down to the nitty gritty of the storytelling that we can do, the branding, the marketing, and it changes the whole dynamic of the conversation. So, bring this background now to the framework as you describe it, the networking angle of this. Perhaps 20 years ago, a just before I was in sales, networking would be a big element of this. It’d be going to different events, it’d be going to industry events, it’d be physically shaking people’s hands.
Will Barron:
Is this something that we’ve lost the art and the skill of, and we leverage the internet too much? Is the internet just better at this and that’s why we’ve done it? Or is it perhaps because we’re nervous of going and introducing ourselves to people that we don’t know?
Dorie Clark :
Will, I think that certainly we can all think of people who are hiding behind the internet, right? Clearly it’s not ideal if you’re using the internet as a way of avoiding talking to people or, “Oh, I can’t possibly call them. If they’re not responding to email, I’ll just email them again.” I mean more of the same is not going to work if you’re hitting a roadblock there. So, I think that there are limits, but the internet also, of course, presents a lot of other opportunities.
Dorie Clark :
And we were essentially alluding to this earlier, because the sales cycle has changed fundamentally. It used to be that every step along the way, the salesperson would have to introduce the idea of the product and explain the product and guide people through every single step. And for most customers, they got information that way, because that’s how they had to get information. It’s not really that they necessarily loved it. I mean some people did, but a lot of people didn’t, because it is kind of a waste of time in some ways.
Dorie Clark :
Nowadays, most customers really like the opportunity to do a lot of the research themselves in a preliminary fashion. They research the product, they research the company, et cetera. And so people are already pretty well informed. They’re already, let’s say halfway or more even sometimes, down the sales cycle, down the pipeline, when the salesperson even gets involved. And so what you need to do for people is different. The relationship building becomes different.
Dorie Clark :
And this is the place where your brand actually really matters and the level of trust that you have as a trusted expert really matters, because they don’t need somebody to essentially be a human website and be like, “Oh, let me tell you about the product specifications.” They need somebody that they feel really good. Like, “Oh, this woman really knows about all the arcane questions that I have, all the stuff I couldn’t get on the website. What if this? What if that?” And if that salesperson is able to tell them, fantastic. That’s the person that they want to be going with.
Will Barron:
And I don’t know if there’s any data on this, I’m not trying to put you on the spot here, Dorie, to kind of get it out of you, but I’m sure it would be of interest to the audience. I know in Google, it’s the first link after the advertisements gets 50% of the clicks, then it’s 20%, and then it rattles down to essentially zero when you are on page three or four or five. Do you think, or do you know that this works the same when people are researching product, services, and they go to say that they’ve got four or five salespeople they could reach out to?
Selling with Social Proof and Why it Works · [31:40]
Will Barron:
Are they substantially or statistically more likely to reach out to the salesperson who has all this data, because has all this social proof, has the network and has the content out there? Because if that’s the case, even though you’ve lost the opportunity to influence further down the sales cycle, it doesn’t matter because you’re the number one prospect. And if everything else goes smoothly, you’re going to win the business before you’ve even opened your mouth and had a conversation with them, right?
Will Barron:
Which is crazy powerful. So, again, I might be just asking your opinion here as opposed to data on the subject, but are we more likely to be chosen first to be the first contacted if we have a great LinkedIn profile, if we have the social proof on our websites?
Dorie Clark :
So, Will, I’m not aware of specific studies that have studied this question because it be a little hard to arrange the experiment, but qualitatively, and certainly through anecdotal research, the answer is absolutely yes. People want to gravitate to the person who has the most social proof.
Dorie Clark :
And in fact, in my book Stand Out, I tell this story of a woman named Robbie Kellman Baxter. And I think she’s really the perfect example here. She is a marketing consultant in the Bay Area and she has more than 50% of her business that has come to her as a result of one connection, which is the fact that she went to the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Dorie Clark :
And the reason that that has been such a big attraction, such a big draw, it’s not that people are randomly saying, “Oh, you went to Stanford, I have to hire you.” It’s that she has really doubled down on that. She’s kind of made the centrepiece of her marketing efforts, because it was an experience she really loved. And so, she said, “Oh, you know, this is something that I enjoyed and it’s a good networking opportunity.”
Dorie Clark :
So, over the years, she’s just continued to do things. She started out writing the Class Notes column of the alumni magazine. Then she was the chair of her class’s reunion. Then she went to the career services’ office and became friends with them and said, “Hey, if people have questions about becoming a consultant, send them to me, I’m happy to help.” Then as a result of that, they nominated her for being one of the leaders of a women’s leadership conference they were having. So, she got more and more enmeshed over time. There’re these alumni list serves and Robbie became really well known in the Stanford community. And so whenever anyone would post something and say, “Hey, I need help with marketing with blah, blah, blah,” immediately 10 people would write and say, “Well, you’ve got to talk to Robbie.” And so she just ended up getting a huge amount of business from that.
“If you double down on your social proof, your name begins to circulate. You become top of mind for people and that’s the place we want to be in.” – Dorie Clark · [34:29]
Dorie Clark :
And so, in that case, her social proof came from her connection to the community and just her level of being immersed with it. So, I think that if you do double down on your social proof, your name begins to circulate. You become top of mind for people. “Oh, obviously if you want someone who knows about this, you’ve got to talk to this person.” That’s the place we want to be in.
Will Barron:
Interesting. So, I get this, even though the whole… And it compounds me sometimes, but even the whole premise of this podcast is that, I was only ever a B player in my sales role. I was no kind of like… I wasn’t… I would hit target, but I wasn’t crushing it. And the whole premise of the show is that I’m no sales expert, I am here to learn from the true experts like yourself, Dorie. I’m seen increasingly, as the kind of years go on as I put out the show, people… And clearly there’s an element of people that want to get in front of my audience with this as well. But I’m getting asked to do panels, so I spoke down in London a few days ago, at the Sales Hacker Conference down in London. I get asked and tagged in LinkedIn post all time of, “Will, what’s your opinion on this?”
Will Barron:
And you know, maybe I don’t value my opinion as perhaps as much as other people should. And there’s an element of I play on that slightly, so I can say things that other people can’t because of that. I can be more brutally honest about certain things than someone who works in the sales industry or a sales trainer who has a manager, has a job, versus owns the company. I could clearly say whatever I like. So, perhaps people like that as well. But it’s interesting to me that the whole premise of the show is that I’m not an expert, that I’m here on this journey trying to learn alongside the audience. Yet, the more contents I put out, the bigger my network gets, the bigger the level of social proof that I have, the more people are asking my opinion on things. And so, that inadvertently sets me up as an expert in the eyes of others, when people are asking for my advice on certain subjects.
Metrics and Trends that Define the Current Status of Your Personal Brand · [36:14]
Will Barron:
And with this story, this is something that I’m interested in personally. So, say we’ve committed to this, some salesman is committed to improving their personal brand. They’re going to create website, they’re going to work on their LinkedIn, they’re going to go to some network… Or, industry events rather, and do some networking. They’re going to work on… Get some quotes, some testimonials, they’re going to work and narrow down the brands that they’ve worked with in the past and put it on a nice, almost like a resume/CV. And that’s going to be their mini website. Is there a way to track how well our personal brand is performing, other than anecdotally? Is there any way to measure, any specific data points we should be collecting, or any software that can help us see that there’s progress? Cause I know for me personally, if I can’t measure it, if I can’t see progress in it, I get disillusioned and bored of it very quickly.
Dorie Clark :
Yeah. I would say, Will, that there are two things that you should be looking at. So, the first one, very simply, is your Google search results. And you know, maybe once a month you can go and check in on this. But one of the metrics that I like is what percentage of your Google search results, that come up in the first, let’s say two or three pages, are things that are created by you or, and/or, are things that are exactly what you would want to be up in the initial rankings. Because for a lot of people, it’s sort of a random mix. It’s like, “Oh, here’s my LinkedIn profile. And here’s the minutes of the book group. And here my race time from a marathon that I ran when I was in college.” You know, it’s just this pastiche.
Dorie Clark :
And so, instead what you want, ideally when your name comes up, is you would like to have this sort of wall of social proof, where it’s, boom, LinkedIn. Boom, here’s my personal website. Boom, here’s my a Twitter account, if I’m doing professional tweets. You know, whatever it is. And so taking a look and just seeing how that percentage changes over time, and hopefully getting more and more to be exactly what you would wish it to be.
Dorie Clark :
The second thing is, and I put a little bit more of an asterisk on this, but there are services. One is called Klout with a K, K-L-O-U-T. Another is Kred, K-R-E-D. They’re big into Ks for some reason, and they are services that attempt to assign you a numerical score about your personal brand or level of influence online. Now, a lot of people say, with some justification, that their metrics for doing this are not the most solid.
Dorie Clark :
Famously, a number of years ago, they give Tim Berners-Lee, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the World Wide Web. He had a cloud score of 45, which of course is like out of a hundred. And it’s like, okay, dude invented the web and he has a really bad cloud score. And you know, they justify it. They’re like, “Well, he is not on social media that much.”
Dorie Clark :
So, it doesn’t necessarily reflect your influence in society, but it is one metric. So, if you take get with a grain of salt, that could be another way if you look at trends over time to see if you are engaging and doing more and more of the right thing.
Will Barron:
I’m going to… Live, I’m going to Google myself now and see where we are, because there’s a follow up and final question to this. So, if I put Will Barron in, because I think I know where I’m going to lead.
Will Barron:
So, the first result is my LinkedIn profile, but this is slightly twisted in that Google has probably associated my LinkedIn profile with my Google mail. So, it all gets a little bit weird. Then there’s the salesmanpodcast.com, salesmanpodcast.com, salesmanpodcast.com, the podcast on iTunes, my Twitter account, [Calandri Setty 00:39:56], random person on LinkedIn. Oh, based on my old Twitter handle, so that’s why that’s on there. There’s a bunch of videos, HubSpot talking about me, Google+. So, that is better than what was expected.
Dorie Clark :
Yeah, that’s pretty good, Will.
Will Barron:
There’s a chap in Sheffield, just about hour down from here, I used to go there all the time to get medical devices, there’s a big trust I used to do a lot of business with, and he’s a web designer, and he’s also called Will Barron. So, when I first started off, he held all… And he’s probably really pissed off at me. He held all the kind of first two/three pages for his web design business and that as well. On the second page, it gets into all the interviews I’ve done. So, this other Will Barron’s on the third page of the Google search results.
Do You Always Have to Go with Your Name When Building a Personal Brand? · [40:57]
Will Barron:
So, where I was going with that, Dorie, was, I wasn’t sure if this other Will Barron would be mixed in with my results, which could be perhaps confusing for someone who doesn’t know my face, who doesn’t know me personally. And it might look like I’ve got other kind of businesses going on, I’m not dedicated to one thing. So, where I was going with that was, if someone else has our name, if unfortunately we’re called Barrack Obama, clearly we’re never going to get in that first page of results.
Will Barron:
Is it then worth building a personal brand around, I don’t know, if I’m selling to urologists, the urology keyhole surgery experts, that’s a terrible search term and something that doesn’t really roll off the tongue, but is it worth considering that as well? And we’ll wrap up the show with this, Dorie. Do you always have to go after our name, or can we create the superstar medical device sales rep? Can we build that brand as well? Which would you personally go for, I guess?
Dorie Clark :
If there’s a question, typically, I would say it’s always better to go with your name, but through the content that you are creating, you can be targeted enough that ideally, if someone is searching for you, the first thing they’re going to plug in of course is Will Barron. But if they’re not getting what they want, if they see, “Oh, there’s like a million Will Barrons, which one is he?” Then they’re going to say, “Well, what do I associate with him? Okay. Will Barron, sales.” And as long as you can control that domain, the sort of second thing that people would think about, then that’s pretty good. And that will happen organically if you are creating content that’s targeted enough.
Dorie Clark :
Another thing to think about, which is relatively easy, is if someone already controls the name that you go by, this is the place where something like a middle initial… I mean, it could be a little weird, but if you just start branding yourself with that, then it can be a useful antidote, and people begin to know you that way. And then they’ll start to think about you. If it’s Will F. Barron, or whatever, as long as you drill that into people’s heads, then eventually that can be the thing that you own.
Will Barron:
Makes total sense. And just to double down on that, that is exactly why I do when I’m Googling people who’ve applied to come on the show, and I’m doing a bit of research before I accept them on. Clearly there’s somewhat of a barrier to entry of just we have experts like yourself on, Dorie, we don’t have anyone on willy nilly, not at this point anyway.
Dorie Clark :
No riff-raff.
Will Barron:
No riff-raff. I love it. So, I will Google them. And I’ll do, which is interesting, exactly the process that you just described of, if they are a sales expert, if they are a marketing expert. We’ve got Tim Kennedy, he’s a UFC athlete coming on next week, and he is in the special forces, and all kinds of stuff. But there’s another Tim Kennedy who I think is a politician. So, you search for Tim Kennedy and he doesn’t come up at the top. So, you search Tim Kennedy UFC, and he obviously dominates all the search results there. So, that was interesting of what you described as the exact process I go through. So, it would be Will Barron, perhaps medical devices, or Will Barron endoscopy, or Will Barron keel surgery research. Perfect.
Dorie’s Advise to Her Younger Self on How to Become Better at Selling · [43:40]
Will Barron:
I enjoyed this. This is super practical, this episode. Dorie, to tie things off, I’ve got one question I ask everyone that comes on the show, and that is, if you could go back in time and speak to your younger self, what would be the one piece of advice you’d give her to help her become better at selling?
Dorie Clark :
Oh, my gosh. When it comes to getting better at selling, the thing that I wish that I had known and been able to do, is early on I had such difficulty actually in my case as an entrepreneur, pricing my services and even just sort of knowing what the market conditions were.
Dorie Clark :
Now, if you’re working for sales for a company, obviously, you know what the prices are. But it can be a really difficult process if you’re coming in without a lot of contacts and connections. And so, I would say if you can invest, over invest, early on in building a network of people in your industry, so that you have trusted people that you can go to and say, “How is this done?” And just try to have that network, it will serve you in good stead for the rest of your career. Because if you are flying blind early on in just making things up, you’re going to make a lot of mistakes. And in fact, how you position yourself in the early days, anchors your perception in people’s minds.
Dorie Clark :
So, you want to be able to at least avoid a lot of the rookie mistakes early on. So, really try to get to know as many people, ask them for coffee, do whatever you can to build some good, deep… Not just, see them in the hallway, but deeper relationships, where you can ask people the hard questions about things you’re struggling with to get help and get insight early on.
Will Barron:
I have a real practical example of this, of my first role medical devices. One of the biggest companies in the space. The most prestigious company in the space. I first, kind of few days out, I’d go meet procurement. The first question they’d ask me, because they could see that they could twist my arm, cause I was new to sales and this space, and dealing with procurement officers, the first question would be, “What discount can you give us?” So, I’d go back to my boss and be like, “They need more discount,” and he would say, “No discounts.” And I’d go, “Well, I can give you this discount.” And I would just break and be totally a wuss with it, just to try and close the business. Trying to kind of get that first couple of sales on the books.
Will Barron:
Within that first month period, I went out with the top performing salesperson within that organisation. He very specifically was asked this question and dead pan face, every time will just say, “We don’t give discount. It’s a company policy, the price is the price.” And so I obviously immediately I looked up to this dude. He’s a really nice guy as well. I’ve kept in touch with him since, if he’s listening to the show, he’d be laughing his head off as I kind of quote him here and describe him, because he’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. But then I just copied that. So, every time someone would ask, I’d say, “Sorry, it’s a company policy. The price is the price. We make things easier for you that there is no negotiation. That is the price of the product.”
Will Barron:
And that is a value added statement. That isn’t that you lied, that you’re going to go and pretend to ring your manager, and you’re going to go back and forth. And you know that you’re going to, all in, you’re going to offer them a 10% discount just because that’s what you do every time. And they know that, so they ask for it. And it just sped up the discovery process of budget. It sped up the kind of trust building process of this is what we offer, this is the price, there’s no faffing around, and it made deals easier. But it was only from, as you described, spending a bit of time networking, working with this guy, going out in the field with him, that I, how to describe it, almost took it on. It was almost, I just copied it and then it became normal and real for me. And if someone would’ve just told me to do that, told me to say dead pan that we don’t offer discounts, I don’t think I would’ve been able to do it congruently.
Parting Thoughts · [47:23]
Will Barron:
So, I appreciate that, Dorie. And with that, I know the audience are going to be all in on this, because they’re going to be excited from listening to this episode, all the practical tips from it, tell us about the new book, where we can find it, and tell us where we find out a bit more about you as well?
Dorie Clark :
Yeah. Thank you so much, Will. So, I do have a new book. It’s releasing October 3rd, called Entrepreneurial You. And it is a topic that I think hopefully will be of interest to a lot of people in sales. Just how to become more entrepreneurial, think more entrepreneurially, and create multiple income streams in your own business. And that applies, and I think is important, whether you work on your own or within a company, it’s always good to have side income streams coming in as a way to make more money and have a little hedge against uncertainty.
Dorie Clark :
So, I break down that process. And if folks are interested in the book, or learning more about it, they can grab it and me at dorieclark.com. And I also do have a free resource, it is the 88 question Entrepreneurial Use Self Assessment. So, if you’re interested in creating more income streams and more revenue in your business, you can download it for free dorieclark.com/entrepreneur.
Will Barron:
Good stuff. I’ll link to all that in the show notes over at salesmanpodcast.com. And with that Dorie, I want to thank you for, I guess, the academic side of this, but then turn it on its head and giving us loads of practical steps and loads of practical tips. That means that the show, for me, is a success, if the audience can leave this episode and go and do something right now to improve their ability to sell and thrive in sales. So, I appreciate that and I thank you for joining us on The Salesman Podcast.
Dorie Clark :
Will, thanks so much.
