Daniel Disney is a world renowned sales expert on a mission to help everyone working in sales learn how to successfully sell on social media. In this episode of the Salesman Podcast, Daniel goes through the exact social selling strategies you need to implement right now to win in B2B sales.
Featured on this episode:
Resources:
- FREE SalesSchool Workshop – Start HOT Calling To Remove The Fear And Failure From Cold Calling
- TheDailySales.net
- Dan on Linkedin
- The Daily Sales on LinkedIn
Transcript
Dan Disney:
My honest opinion, I don’t think there is anyone that shouldn’t be using social media. I think every single person within a business, whether it’s within the sales team or the entire operational structure, their social presence can really influence every part of the sales process. And I think you’re starting to see a lot of them come into that. Like you say, farmers, construction, a lot of these things are starting to come into social because we are becoming quite a social type of people. I’d probably say at the top end of the funnel and the prospecting part, I think social has the biggest impact in driving pipeline in.
Will Barron:
Hello Sales Nation, I’m Will Barron, host of the Salesman Podcast, the world’s biggest B2B Sales Show, where we help you negotiate your target but really drive in sales. If you haven’t already make sure you click subscribe and with that said, let meet today’s guest.
Dan Disney:
Hey, it’s Dan Disney here, a passionate social seller and also the founder and owner of The Daily Sales.
Social Selling and Why All Salespeople Should Be Selling Via Social · [01:01]
Will Barron:
In this episode with Dan, we’re diving into how we can speed up the sales cycle, using social selling. How we can differentiate from the competition and a whole bunch more. So let’s jump right in. First, let’s hopefully disqualify some of the audience here. Who shouldn’t be using social media in the B2B sales roles. Is there any verticals, positions, should SDRs be using it? Should account managers be using it? Who shouldn’t be using it?
“I don’t think there is anyone that shouldn’t be using social media. I think every single person within a business, whether it’s within the sales team or the entire operational structure, their social presence can really influence every part of the sales process.” – Daniel Disney · [01:18]
Dan Disney:
Do you know, I really appreciate that you want to try and disqualify people but my honest opinion, I don’t think there is anyone that shouldn’t be using social media. I think every single person within a business, whether it’s within the sales team or the entire operational structure, their social presence can really influence every part of the sales process.
Everybody’s on Social Media, You Should Be Selling On It Too · [02:00]
Will Barron:
And is this on a sliding scale as, I don’t know if you’re selling, I’ve just been to the great Yorkshire show up here in North Leeds. So there’s loads of tractors and stuff like that. I’ve got no idea apart from, they looked really awesome and we got to go and play on them as a man child. I don’t imagine, having said that though. I’m taking the words back as I say, I was going to say, I don’t imagine there’s that many farmers that spend that much time on social media but there’s probably a bunch of young farmers that do. And that the cliche example that I was going to use is perhaps people selling farming equipment, wouldn’t be finding their customers on there. So having said that, do you reckon most people, most potential buyers are on social media right now?
Dan Disney:
I think most buyers are in some form. Like you say, there’ll be younger ones that are on it more but I don’t think it’s an age thing. There are a lot of older people, when I say old, older than me, that will use different networks, different people use different platforms. So yeah, I do think it’s quite a much more widespread thing. I think different industries will adapt to it at different stages. I think five years ago, there were a lot more industries that people could argue weren’t as active on social. And I think you’re starting to see a lot of them come into that. Like you say, farmers, construction, a lot of these things are starting to come into social because we are becoming quite a social type of people, in a personal level, as well as a business one.
Dos and Don’ts of an Effective Social Media Sales Funnel · [03:13]
Will Barron:
I know in medical device sales, I only have had one surgeon try and add me on Facebook and I didn’t friend chase after anyone else but that was four or five years ago now. But yeah, I guess it becomes, over time it becomes more and more normalised for people who aren’t particularly techy. So on that front then should we be spending more time on social media and we’ll dive into the ins and out to that in a second but at the top end of the funnel of the sales cycle of pushing people in there or do we need to spend more time and more efforts further down the pipeline to I guess, establish relationships over social?
Dan Disney:
It’s an interesting question. I mean, I honestly think it’s a… There’s a place for it at every stage. I think there’s a lot you can do at the top end of the funnel to drive pipeline in. Equally there’s a lot you can do to grow relationships, to find information, even when it gets to presenting your solution and then try to follow up to gain the close and even post the sale to maintain that relationship, follow up and upsell at later opportunities. Social was infused into all of it.
Will Barron:
Okay. So if you going into a company you’re going to go and help them out, you’re going to do some, if you speaking and consulting, where would be typically the biggest leverage point for a brand, would it be top of funnel, middle or far end? Which would be the biggest leverage point to double down on social?
Dan Disney:
I’d probably say the top end of the funnel in the prospecting part. I think social has the biggest impact in driving pipeline in. Obviously you can use it throughout all of it but if, yeah, if you were to put one point where you’d invest more in, I’d probably say the prospecting top end part.
Why Simply Starting a Conversation is the Most Important Part of Your Social Selling Strategy · [04:26]
Will Barron:
Cool. Well, we’ll start there then. And we’ll get practical with this, Dan. So what would be something and we all know the obvious and I’m dubious about the effectiveness of retweeting things without any added comments or any context or anything like that. So put that aside for one second. Is there anything that’s counterintuitive or anything that is super effective that not a lot of people are doing top of funnel right now that can give the audience Sales Nation a good bang for buck?
Dan Disney:
Sure. I think the biggest thing that people aren’t doing is just starting conversations. A lot of people think that social media is, like you say, retweet something, put a blog out, Reshare a blog. And then they also sit back and they wait for everything to come to them. And actually the biggest thing people miss out on is proactively going, starting conversation. I’ll give you a really quick example, people are viewing your profile, my profile, the listeners profiles every single day. And a lot of people either don’t check it or check it and don’t really do anything with it. And actually just by seeing a potential prospect look at your profile, send them a message and start that conversation. You have the opportunity to get a sale so and that’s the same for every key point, whether it’s resharing something, liking, commenting, they’re all opportunities to start those conversations. And that’s where I think social selling holds its biggest opportunity.
Tracking LinkedIn Profile Visits · [05:38]
Will Barron:
So let’s focus down on LinkedIn specifically for the B2B audience here. So clearly you can dive into and I haven’t said this, so I don’t know off the top of my head, I could find it if I looked for it and you might be able to point us in the right direction but there’s a page, I think it’s when you go on your own profile, it says these people have visited, if you pay for the premium membership, it gives you more data on that. Let’s go from the buyer’s perspective. Why would someone have visited your page? And then we’ll dive into what we should say to them and how we should outreach to them but why would they visit your page in the first place?
Dan Disney:
Well, yeah, of course it’s very similar to a website. I mean, you think there are lots of software tools now that allow you to see who visits your website because ultimately there’s a very high chance there’s a level of interest in your product and it’s the same for someone to look at your profile, they’ve got an interest. They’ve either seen a blog you’ve written, a post you’ve written, someone’s mentioned you, shared you, somehow you’ve come onto their radar through stuff you’re doing on social so they’re looking at it. So there will be a percentage, probably a relatively large percentage that’s just interest, curiosity. They probably don’t know what you do. And there will be a percentage that do see what you’re doing and that they are interested. So, it’s hard to determine just from a view in itself, whether they’re a prospect, you need to qualify and things like that but there’s some level of potential interest there.
How to Use Keywords on Your LinkedIn Profile · [07:33]
Will Barron:
And another layer of this as well, if we are getting more tactical about it, if you’ve got the right keywords in your profile for your industry. So if me, medical device salesperson in endoscopy, in Yorkshire, these kind of phrases, I don’t know how strategic you need to be about it but you can give us some thought on this in a second, Dan. But if you’ve got these kind of words, the more targeted you are on your profile and the text on there perhaps, you getting more and more relevant people searching for you because maybe someone searched for and perhaps it’s going to be recruiters more often than a customer but experts in X, Y, Z in X, Y, Z location. And so the primed to put their hand up, to say, reach out to me, I’m desperate to chat to you. So am I talking to complete bullshit here? Or should we be putting keywords into LinkedIn profiles and does it, can we reverse engineer people searching for us to be top of that search?
Dan Disney:
Oh, do you know, Matt, that is one of the single biggest point. It’s something I teach in all of the classes I do. And I see this. So I always get people that have been in my class. They’ll always message me afterwards. After they’ve filled their profile with keywords, relevant words, they always get found within the first five to six days, they’ll get prospects messaging them, it might just be one, it might be two, it might be more but people will find them up in the search because people do search. That’s how we buy now, we search for things, whether it’s social media, Google and if you’ve got those words in your profile, it means it brings you to the top of that list. And I’ve seen people that I don’t know, like you say, if you were selling in the medical industry and you don’t have any words to do with that at all in your profile, it means you’re not found. So it’s a very, very simple but very powerful tool.
Will Barron:
For sure. And how do I say this? So on the down low, even though I’m saying this to 20, 30,000 people, there’s genuine interest in a company acquiring the podcast and stuff at the moment. And the reason I say this is, I’m guilty of not checking my LinkedIn profile enough, not into messages often enough. It just takes a lot of time and I’ve not really got much to sell. So I’m doing it for community building versus hard cold cash in my pocket. I checked it the other day, just randomly as I, perhaps a couple times a week, I’ll spend an hour or two on there answering questions and going through all the comments and that side of things. And I went on there and this brand that are looking to potentially acquire our company, the CEO had visited the profile, the CFO, the CMO who I’m dealing with one to one and a whole bunch of people from the organisation had been on the profile.
How to Use Social Selling to Speed Up a Sales Cycle · [09:30]
Will Barron:
So this took this inquiry that I had about a potential acquisition and a few phone calls for the next level that actual research is going on within the organisation. So clearly if you can reverse engineer us for a product that you’re selling, it’s inbound leads, you’re being your own little marketing team. So moving further down the funnel from the, how can we use social, Dan, to perhaps speed up the sales cycle? Because especially if we’re doing these longer deals or longer deal sizes and bigger value deals. I know for myself, it can be anywhere from two months to two years to do the big fair to refer instruments we were doing in medical devices. Is there any way we can use social to, I guess, stay top of mind so we don’t get forgot about and then speed up the actual process as well?
Dan Disney:
Well, social’s a power for relationship building. Do you… I mean, we all know how nice it is when someone clicks like on one of your posts or writes a comment or shares it, it gives you a really, I mean, there’s a good feeling, there’s chemicals that have been analysed that come from it. And so if you can provide that for your prospects and customers, it really heightens that relationship. If you can engage in their content, help, like you say, keep you top of their mind on a constant basis. And we all know as sales people, how hard it is chasing people up and you’re trying to phone them, they’re not answering your calls, they’re not replying to your emails but actually you can use social to click like on their post and give them a little reminder that you’re there or add a comment.
Dan Disney:
Give them some really nice stuff that makes them want to reciprocate that and perhaps get back in touch with you, come back and, and follow up on the deal that you’re chasing them with. In terms of speeding up. I mean, again, it’s probably all the information you can take from social. So looking at those buying signals that they will be publishing the sort of content, the latest news that’s going on with them and just leveraging that again, to perhaps start conversations that can help you bring you and your deal back to top of their agenda.
Buying Signals and How to Leverage Them in The Sales Process · [11:10]
Will Barron:
So I want to get into the cadence of this and how we do it with some kind of a system without just spamming people. So we’ll come onto that in a second. We mentioned something interesting here. What would be an example of a buying signal that we’d find over social that could, if someone’s in the middle of a deal, perhaps we could leverage that to speed the deal up, what be an example of that?
Dan Disney:
I’ll tell you what, a prime one that I had and my experience prior to doing what I do now, was IT sales. So like you with medical sales, for me it was IT, IT education and one of the buying signals I saw and it was midpoint through a deal was an article went live in the press and obviously was then released on social media of this company building a huge new IT office up in Birmingham and everything was confirmed for, I think it was 500 IT staff. So everything really became public. Now we’d already established a lot of these key points but then going public about it, the engagement that followed, it gave me something to then bring back to the table just to add a bit of fuel, a bit of fire to the deal.
Will Barron:
And so, and perhaps this was a little while ago, so you’d leverage it differently now but how would you leverage that article, that press now to get in with an organisation like that or to get top of mind and reengage with an organisation?
Dan Disney:
Yeah. So it’s something you use in conversation again, instead of the aggressive cold sales type approach it’s going to them with, look, saw this article really fantastic stuff. I mean, I do this now. I use all these things to this date for prospects that I’m trying to sell to, whether it’s social selling or whether it’s the daily sales and I will look, follow them and use content that they put out or content that they’re included in. Again, the key point is just to start friendly non sales type conversations that then can lead into sales type conversations.
How to Build Relationships Via Social Media Without Pissing People Off · [13:00]
Will Barron:
And I like the way you paused for emphasis when you said friendly. And I don’t want to belabour this point because unless someone is completely on the spectrum, most people will be able to understand this but how do we draw the line between cadence of my boss says, I must follow up and do this and do that and do that versus a friendly conversation which actually builds a relationship rather than just pisses people off over the long term?
Dan Disney:
Well there’s that fine line, isn’t there? From being too much of a friend where and I’m working on a blog at the moment about the sales friend zone, where a lot of sales people take that too seriously, where they just don’t want to sell and they do everything but sell. And all they end up doing is becoming that person’s friends and they never win the deal from it because they’re too friendly. And then the opposite end of the really aggressive sales person, that’s constantly pushy, only interested in the sale. So it’s finding that midpoint balance where you are genuinely interested in that person and their business and what they’re doing, you do care about what’s going on but you are keen to help them with your solution. It’s, I don’t know, I think that’s the perfect midpoint.
Time Management and Why You Cannot Help Everybody on Social Media · [14:01]
Will Barron:
And how do we leverage this into influence? Because clearly we want to… Well, it’s not clear but I know from my experience, there’s no data on this. It’s probably difficult to build data on this. The more people I help build podcasts, the more people I help, you don’t need any help, you’re crushing it with your social media profiles but when I have you on the show and I help, can I promote you and get you in front of new audience, that comes back around over time, not of everyone but I always say that the 10 people that you help, one person will help you back more than 10 of them combined. That’s the thought process I have with all of it. But how do we cadence this? How do we put it into a spreadsheet if we can? Because I don’t want the audience to go away thinking, “Oh, I’ve just got to have loads of friendly conversations and everything will work out.” Because that might work six months, two years from now, it’s not going to help you hit your target this month.
“What you give, whether it’s through content and things like that, helps build relationships. And those are the people that they do become your customers at some point or they’ll refer you to customers.” – Dan Disney · [15:22]
Dan Disney:
No, it’s the very tricky part of social and you’re right, it’s very difficult to measure. And I think for me, it’s always been key to just have it as part of a balanced mix of other activities. So, you’re doing your cold calling, you’re doing your emails, you’re doing your phone calls and meetings, et cetera. And that value giving social content type stuff is just a part of that. But you afford the ability to do that by focusing on other activities that bring in quicker results. So by being on top of those activities, it gives you the time to then, I mean, like for me, I’ll go and speak at loads of events and give as much content as I can. I’ll do profile reviews for people or answer questions because you’re right, what you give, whether it’s through content and things like that, helps build relationships. And those are the people that they do become your customers at some point or they’ll refer you to customers. So it’s but you can’t just only do that. You need to earn the right to be able to do that.
How to Use Social Media to Push Deals Over the Line · [15:45]
Will Barron:
So we’re going down the funnel here. This is hopefully the method behind the madness of the show. So we’re getting towards the end of the funnel. What can we do when there’s been buying signals? We’ve been in front of them, we’ve built relationships, is there anything we can do in that time where we are very literally sending proposals, when we are when these proposals come back when we’re? Even for me, one of the biggest pain in the arses to sell into the NHS was, we’d send a quote, not hear anything back for six months and then they’d be complaining that we didn’t chase up the quote because they want the equipment. Because there was gaps in communication along the procurement route. So at the far end of the funnel and I think this is where people focus less on social than anywhere else. Perhaps. Is there any ways we can use social, whether social media, whether it’s content, whatever it is to push those deals over the line that are just nearly there?
Dan Disney:
I’ll tell you what, there’s three things I would advise. One is connect to different people in the organisation because you don’t know who’s going to be involved in those conversations or who might have potential soft bits of influence with a decision maker. So by connecting with and putting your presence and your brand with more people in that business, again helps bring you to the top of the list potentially to the top of conversations that might help again, put the spotlight back on your deal. Number two is give value, give more content, put content on a consistent basis. So again, whether it’s the decision maker or anyone else, you’re there on a regular basis, they’re seeing you, they’re thinking of you but they’re also feeling like you’re giving them something.
Dan Disney:
You’re not just hounding them on the phone to sign the deal. You’re actually giving them stuff, whether it’s value or entertainment. And the last bit is to engage in their content. So when they write a post, when they write a blog, when they do something on social, engage in it, click the like button, add a nice comment. You don’t have to do it all the time. Don’t be a creepy stalker but give them a little bit of love to again, put your name on top of the list.
Using Social Media to Educate and Entertain Your Prospects · [17:30]
Will Barron:
So Dan, you’re selling an IT solution to IBM, some giant. So they’ve got a specific procurement team. The deals done pretty much, the proposals over there. Everything’s ready to ship and procurement are slowing down, we don’t have any connections there. What would be the 1, 2, 3 steps to get in, in front of procurements, whether it be social and it doesn’t have to be social, it could be the phone, whatever it is? And then you said something interesting, giving them stuff, entertainment or education. So how could entertainment and education fall into this when we’re trying to get in front of people that we don’t know?
Dan Disney:
When you say we don’t know, how do you mean?
Will Barron:
We’ve been idiots, we’ve gone the whole sales process about engaging with the people who are signing the documents, the decision makers on board but we want to get this deal closed by the end of the quarter because it’s a big bonus for us. It’s sodding IBM, it’s could be 20 grands worth of commission right there and procurements, we’ve got no network within there. So we’re trying to get in front of them and engage them and build influence and momentum with them. But perhaps we find it difficult to pick up the phone to them because they’re like, “Who are you? We’ve got it. We’ll we’ll, we’ll sort it out when we’re ready.”
Dan Disney:
I guess the first thing I would do is find out who they are on social. That’s probably one of the easiest things to do. You can pretty much find anyone you want to, whether it’s on LinkedIn and then use that to find because this is one of the misassumptions that, they might not have a presence on LinkedIn. They’ll probably have a profile but that doesn’t mean they’re active. So find the network they’re active on and what you do find with a lot of senior decision makers, procurement, they tend to be slightly more active sometimes on Twitter. So once you’ve found out who they are, find them on Twitter and again, build that relationship, follow them, start to engage, get them used to seeing your name and hopefully through giving value through content.
The Type of Content You Should Be Creating When Trying to Influence Decision Makers Within an Organisation · [19:10]
Will Barron:
And what does this content look like? I’m trying to drill into the weeds here a little bit, literally for the audience to paint a picture in their mind, for a procurement officer, what content are you sending them, engaging on? Basically the proactive side of things. If they’ve posted something it’s perhaps easier to comment and get involved on that front but perhaps they’re not posting much. If anything, what proactively should we be sending a procurement officer at IBM?
Dan Disney:
Well, the first thing I would do is research the content that they tend to engage in themselves, be wrong for me to assume that they’re going to like blogs, for example. So you can go into say their LinkedIn profile or even their Twitter one and you can see their activity. So see what blogs they’re engaging with, what videos, you can get an idea of the tone of the content they like and then you can create that content or go out and find other examples of content like that, share it on your network. Hopefully they’ll see it. If they don’t send them a message with it directly. And just say, “Look, I noticed that you’re interested in this topic. Here’s a fantastic article. I just found about it. I hope you like it.” Again, give a lot first before you then earn that right yet to perhaps ask for something back.
Reverse Engineering and Social Selling Activities · [20:13]
Will Barron:
So the reverse engineering process is I guess, content type. So audio, video, podcast, books but a lot of people comment on books but perhaps don’t write about blog posts. So then clearly you’d send them a book. So you understand the type of content. Then next step is, I guess, you mentioned the tone there. So whether it’s serious, whether it’s not serious, clearly I wouldn’t send them perhaps one of our podcasts where we’re joking around if there’s a, if it’s a more serious VP of sales versus some of the more jovial ones out there, which it may be more appropriate. And is there any other layers in this that we need to dive into?
Dan Disney:
No, I think you’ve mentioned a garrick point in terms of the tone. I have tonnes of great memes, which for some customers work great but there are going to be some customers where they don’t think it’s appropriate and it’s not to their level. So no, get the tone right. I think the other key is balance. Don’t do too much and don’t do it, not enough. Try and find that right balance where it might be, I don’t know, maybe two or three times a week. You don’t want it to become a, a daily thing where again, like I say, you’re literally stalking them, liking everything they do and posting really kissy type of comments. You want to find that nice tone where you’re showing respect, you’re showing that you appreciate them. And yeah, I think just like I say, find that right balance.
The Rise of Social Enablement Tools · [21:30]
Will Barron:
Are there any tools that we can use to, not necessarily automate but speed up from this process or just make it easier and bearing in mind, I want to talk about next, whether what we need as content assets and things of that nature. So put that to one side for a second but are there any social media tools or any, there’s probably word to describe them but tools that tell us when someone said something rather than us searching for them, if that makes sense?
Dan Disney:
Yeah, sure. There are some great tools and I’ve yet to use them properly myself. I think I’ve done this just by being present on social media enough of a time to be able to find it but there are tools out there. I think there’s a tool called Nimble that is a CRM/social tool. And there are other add-ons that you can add into things like Salesforce, where again, it tells you when your prospects and customers are alive on social. I think we’re going to see a real influx of social enablement tools. We’ve got lots of sales enablement tools out there. And I think the rise of social in business, which is going to continue, it’s going to become a bigger part of it. We will see a lot more social enablement tools that will do that a lot more effectively.
What You Need to Start Doing to Increase Your Credibility When Social Selling · [22:50]
Will Barron:
If you don’t own social enablement.com, you should definitely buy it and you should definitely have a book with that name to claim that sub segment of the sales tools market and if you don’t somebody who is listening to this, definitely will do, there’s all that kind of people in that space. Okay. So what assets do we need then, other than the obvious, which is a great LinkedIn profile. And we’ve covered that a bunch of times and I’ll links and shown it to this episode of salesman.org fewer episodes with Viveka Von Rosen and people like that, we’ve covered that. She tore my LinkedIn profile apart because it was terrible. So that’s a good laugh for the audience. But do we need a website? Do need to be creating our own content? Do we need a page with a bunch of memes so that we can entertain our people within our vertical? What do we need to be able to not necessarily be a thought leader, a guru in the space but to come across as a credible salesperson who is because that one, two steps just ahead of competition?
Dan Disney:
Yeah. I think that’s a good point because there are different types of people you can be on social media. So yes, if you want to be a thought leader at the top of that chart, you probably do need a website. You probably do need a page or a group or something, a podcast, for example, where you’re giving something back. But if you are just a and I say just, I don’t mean that in a negative way but if you are a salesperson for example and you’re using this purely to sell, then I would think, yes, you definitely need a fantastic LinkedIn profile top of the list and you do in my opinion, need to create content. And I think that’s something a lot of salespeople are going to start to adapt to be able to do. And it’s not as scary or difficult as they think. I am probably similar to you, a salesperson at heart.
Dan Disney:
That’s what my experience in life has been. I don’t have a degree in English. I don’t have a graphic design degree. All the content that I create, it’s just come from experience and passion of what I sell. So, I think creating content and building an asset pool of content because you can create content and use it in so many different ways. But I think those would be the two things you really need to leverage. I don’t think as a salesperson, every salesperson’s going to want their own website but perhaps a presence on their company’s website would help. So whether it’s a meet the team page or a place within the business website, they can contribute their content. That would probably be a good thing to leverage.
What is a Content Pool and How Can You Create One? · [24:50]
Will Barron:
What is, I forget the sentence you use now but a content pool, what is a content pool? What does it look like on a computer screen with different folders and files within it? And how can that be, this is what peaked my interest, how can that be leveraged repeatedly?
Dan Disney:
Well, I’ll have to do a screenshot of my desktop. You’ll see what a content pool looks like. I think I’ve got 500 plus memes, 250 blogs, 300 quotes. That is my content pool and the way I use that on a repeat basis is when I schedule content. So I’m going on whole holiday next week for two weeks and I’m going to try and take as much of a break from this as possible. And so I’m now in the process of scheduling content for those two weeks that I’m away. So that every day there’s content, there’s probably 30% is old content from six months ago, nine months ago. And then 70% will be new content that I’ve created especially for that. So, content is an asset and whether it’s just by resharing it or taking that topic and subject and then diving into it in different ways. So I might do a meme about a pipeline and then I’ll do different things from that. Maybe it’s a blog. a video, could be a podcast, could be an ebook, for example, content could be split in many ways.
The Number of Interactions Daniel’s Memes Get Every Week · [26:15]
Will Barron:
And just on this because we’ve mentioned memes a few times, just give the audience the high level numbers of the attention that your memes get every week because it might seem like something flippant but if you are selling to CMOs and you had a page like yours Dan, doing your numbers for memes for CMOs, they’re crazy numbers. Share them with us.
Dan Disney:
Yeah. So I mean The Daily Sales has just coming up to 300,000 followers on the LinkedIn page alone. It shares content on a daily basis, probably four to six bits of content, usually two to three memes, a blog, a quote, for example and it’s making over 10, well, I think it’s over 10 to 15 million impressions each month. And we’re currently growing by about five to 10,000 new followers every single week. And again, that is just purely meme, quote and blog content shared on a daily basis. That is 95% value giving content.
Will Barron:
Hopefully that gives the audience a little bit of a like, oh shit moment of, it doesn’t have to be some sterile 2000 word blog post about how, I don’t know some, some bullshit that no one really cares about. And you’re just trying to put words on a page, which is a lot of the marketing world. There’s a crazy statistics of the number of corporate blogs that actually get more than a thousand views is so, is just tiny that it blows my mind that people can actually be paid to do this kind of stuff. And obviously there’s this scales to this, obviously HubSpot have an amazing blog for example and they get a tonne of traffic. So there’s back and forth of it. But I just wanted to highlight to the audience here that it doesn’t have to be a horrible blog post.
When to and When Not to Use Memes When Social Selling · [26:15]
Will Barron:
It doesn’t have to be… Everyone seems to be doing these cheesy LinkedIn videos now where I think, I don’t think, I know they can be more of a hindrance potentially than help depending on how good you are on camera and how much shit you’re talking essentially, if you can’t, if you are not a true expert in the space, you shouldn’t be pretending to be. There’s multiple angles to go at it. There’s my angle of, I’m just trying to learn from the experts like yourself. So I don’t need to pretend anything and I can still have a big audience and the content flowing out. So I guess on that, we’ll wrap up with this Daniel, are there any, has this ever blown up in your face? Have you ever sent a meme in an email and got a response back of what the hell is this, Dan? Are there any times that this hasn’t quite worked out for you?
“The key to creating content is just being yourself. You can’t win everyone. You can’t please everyone. When you try to be something else, when you try to be an expert, when you try to claim stuff that isn’t true, that’s where it tends to fall through.” – Dan Disney · [28:44]
Dan Disney:
Oh God, many times. I’d be wrong to lie and pretend it’s all been smooth sailing. There has been times where again, I’ve potentially used memes or emojis and things and then you get back very negative or sometimes slightly aggressive responses. So yeah. Look, it’s not for everyone. And like you say, well, I think the key is just be you, you can’t win everyone. You can’t please everyone. When you try to be something else, when you try to be an expert, when perhaps you need a bit more experience, when you try to claim stuff that isn’t true, that’s where it tends to fall through. So I’ve learned to just be me and stick to the content that I’m passionate about. That I love, the topics that I enjoy and not try and be anything more than that. And I think that’s the same, whatever you’re doing in sales, whatever your position is, just be you, find your tone, find your voice because like we know people buy from people and you can use social to show people you.
Social Selling is All About Knowing Yourself and the Type of Content You Want to Create · [29:24]
Will Barron:
And just a final one before the final question, just on this, just to wrap that up because I think this is the really important point. I don’t want to gloss over it. How do we, it’s one thing to say, just find yourself and perhaps go off to some Buddhist temple and sit on a rug for two weeks in silence and maybe that’ll help. But how do we, especially for the younger people, perhaps listening to the show, just getting into B2B sales, how do we know the real us? What am I getting at, how do we know whether we should be corporate will in a suit, which is appropriate for some occasions?
Will Barron:
And how do we know when we should be friendly chillaxing, go into, I literally went to jujitsu and wrecked my knee today. And I’ve just been talking about that on another podcast. How do we know when that is appropriate versus the suited and booted other than making mistake after mistake after mistake, is there any way to narrow this learning path down for those individuals that are not feeling like themself, that are feeling like they’ve got to be the corporate drone in their sales role?
Dan Disney:
Do you know, unfortunately practise and experience is going to be the main solution to that. I mean, I found my voice through creating content. So, I’ve worked in sales for a long time and it was only when I started writing a sales blog or a blog about my sales career and my thoughts on sales that I found my voice and it took plenty of blogs and different of content. There were some terrible blogs in there, some good ones but it was that, that helped me find my voice. And I think it’s the same thing when you need to find, whether it’s the right time to use a meme or it does come from experience and you are going to make mistakes, just try and keep it to a level don’t try and do more than you can do and learn from those mistakes.
Daniel’s Advise to His Younger Self on How to Become Better at Selling · [31:29]
Will Barron:
I think, ever you spot on there. This is really important. Just make content, do a video, do a podcast, do whatever it is because no one’s listening for your first six months doing it anyway, your first three months doing it. So and have the ability to remove it from whatever platform you’re do in case you do screw it up completely. But yeah, I think that’s probably the best answer I’ve ever had when I’ve asked that question of, create the content, write it out and then you’ll suss out what works with you and what doesn’t. So with that, Dan, I’ve got one final question to 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 him to help him become better at selling?
Dan Disney:
Similar to the point we just made, practise more, make more cold calls, send more emails, go to more meetings, just practise more. I think as a young person I found for me, especially you value experience, not a lot at all. You just want to be so much more than you are. And I would like to go back and say, “Do you know what? Just do more, the quicker you learn, the more you practise, the better you get and the quicker you get better at it.”
Parting Thoughts · [32:03]
Will Barron:
Amazing. Well with that, tell us a little bit about The Daily Sales and your social selling master classes as well. So I know you’re crushing it with those.
Dan Disney:
Ah, no, thanks Will. So The Daily Sales is a sales platform page community it’s on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, as a website, thedailysales.net. And it just shares content for sales people, very similar to the great content that you share Will, on a daily basis. So please feel free to follow it. And yeah, the other half of what I do is help sales people and companies learn how to use social media to sell properly, not something that I’ve learned but something I’ve experienced and done. So I do a one day social selling master class, which just helps people learn the real, it’s what we’ve been talking about today, how you really leverage LinkedIn social properly to sell.
Will Barron:
Perfect. And where can we find the master classes?
Dan Disney:
So if you come to my LinkedIn profile, connect with me, follow me, you’ll see all the content for it. My website’s just about to go live. It’s danieldisney.net. So check that out. It’s there just needs a few tweaks.
Will Barron:
Perfect. Well, I’ll link to all that in the show notes to this episode over at salesman.org. With that Dan, I want to thank you for your time as always mate, I appreciate these conversations and for joining us on the Salesman Podcast.
Dan Disney:
Thank you very much, Will.
