In today’s episode of the Social Selling Show, Daniel and Will break down the major themes in Daniel’s new book: The Ultimate LinkedIn Sales Guide: How to Use Digital and Social Selling to Turn LinkedIn into a Lead, Sales and Revenue Generating Machine.
Featured on this episode:
Resources:
- The Daily Sales LinkedIn Page
- Book – The Million Pound LinkedIn Message
- Book – The Ultimate LinkedIn Sales Guide: How to Use Digital and Social Selling to Turn LinkedIn into a Lead, Sales and Revenue Generating Machine
Transcript
Will Barron:
This episode of the show is brought to you from the salesman.org HubSpot Studio. Welcome to the Social Selling Show with myself, Will Barron, founder of salesman.org, and the king of social selling, and second time author, Daniel Disney. Daniel, how’s it going, mate?
Daniel Disney:
Will, I am doing very well. As you’ve just given it away, it is the day that my second book has come out. The Ultimate LinkedIn Sales Guide. You’ve got a copy there with you and very excited to have this book come out, Will.
Will Barron:
I’m excited to get into it. I’m excited to read it. Daniel sent to me… So the book launched today and I got a copy yesterday, so I’ve genuinely got questions for myself, mate, because I’ve only managed to flip through it. I’ve not managed to go super in depth into it yet. So hopefully we’ll be able to give a bit of a summary of the book in this episode, go through and get some key actionable steps for the audience as well. And hopefully, just to be very blunt here, I’ll be blunt if maybe you want to be slightly more humble here, but I’ll try my best to convince the audience to buy as many copies as possible.
Why Daniel Decided Now Is the Perfect Time to Write His Second Book · [00:55]
Will Barron:
So with that said, the first thing I want to ask you about the book, Daniel, is why is it time to write the second book? Is it a direct follow-up from the first, or has LinkedIn and social selling just changed so much that we needed to start from scratch?
Daniel Disney:
I’ll tell you what it is, it’s both of those things. So the first book I wrote and published was The Million-Pound LinkedIn Message and that book focused purely on LinkedIn messaging. So it didn’t cover all the other ways that you can utilise LinkedIn.
Daniel Disney:
And for me, as a first time author, it was a smaller book to sort of do first time round. I always wanted to write this book, the sort of ultimate comprehensive guide, but as a first book, it was quite a daunting task. What I wanted to do was kind of just get comfortable with writing, and so I thought I’m going to focus on one thing, probably the biggest problem in sales with LinkedIn at the moment, which was spammy LinkedIn messaging.
Daniel Disney:
And so I wrote The Million-Pound LinkedIn Message, that gave me a lot of experience and confidence. And it also got me the opportunity where I was approached by publishers, and Wiley made an amazing offer to publish the book. And so I got to work and this is the ultimate. It is what it says on the tin. It’s the ultimate LinkedIn sales guide. I wanted it to be a comprehensive A to Z guide of everything that sales people need to know about. LinkedIn.
How Building a Massive Online Presence Makes it Easier to Market Self-published Books and Attract Other Established Publishers · [02:17]
Will Barron:
Well, you’ve literally taken the second question out my mouth, which is how did the deal with Wiley come about? Because I think this is interesting for… I find it interesting. I’m thinking the audience will find it interesting as well of, am I right to make the assumption here that when you self publish a book and then you have a big enough audience on social media, which is what you built, is what we talk about all time on the show, new opportunities come about, is that how the Wiley deal came about?
Daniel Disney:
Yeah, absolutely. It was a mixture of two things. Obviously, publishers rarely get to approach someone who hasn’t written a book previously…
Will Barron:
Sure.
Daniel Disney:
Or had a successful book. And I’m very fortunate The Million-Pound LinkedIn Message was quite successful. From what I’ve heard, and I wasn’t aware of this myself, the average amount of copies of self-published book sales is around 300 to 400 copies in the first year. And I was able to ship out over 4,000 copies of that book, which is pretty good for self-published.
Will Barron:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Daniel Disney:
So Wiley approached me with an interest in whether I was writing any more books, and it was a bit of a process pitching it, going through explaining what my vision was, and why I foresee it being. And yeah, we were able to get something arranged.
Daniel Disney:
And for me, writing a book wasn’t something that was on my list. It wasn’t something I set out to do. As we’ve covered so many times in this episode, my passion is just helping companies and salespeople leverage LinkedIn. But to be able to put something in a book that I know people can buy, use, and apply was an amazing process. And to have it, I guess, verified by a publisher, was pretty cool.
Why Being Approached By a Renowned Publisher is Such a Big Deal in the Writing Industry · [04:01]
Will Barron:
For sure. I think you’re being, again, quite humble there, Daniel. Being a publisher picking up something, if you would have done… If you would have pitched Wiley on social selling 10 years ago, they’d have gone, “What the heck is that? Who the heck is Daniel Disney? And why are we creating a new series of content for the salespeople? There’s enough sales books out there.”
Will Barron:
So I think you’ve got the… Clearly, Wiley have given the stamp of approval for them to get behind it, right? You’ve got the right messaging content in the right timeframe of social selling is now important, more important than it ever has been, and you’re the right person behind it.
Will Barron:
So congrats. I’m really proud of you, mate. I’m really excited for you.
Daniel Disney:
No, thank you. And that was one of the things Wiley said, which was interesting for me because I’ve been doing this for about four years now, and I’ve been using LinkedIn for four years prior to that very passionately and seeing how effective it is. And what was interesting was Wiley approached me at the beginning of last year, sort of pretty much just as the pandemic started to hit, and their sort of response was, “We can see this being a really important topic now, and more companies opening their eyes to it.”
Daniel Disney:
And it was interesting to me because I thought that was already the case. I thought this was happening years ago, and I’ve seen it myself. I think 2020, a lot of companies woke up to why LinkedIn is such an important part of the sales process, and the whole remote virtual selling piece has just amplified that massively. So I think timing played a good part in it.
Will Barron:
Yeah, for sure. So I want to… If it’s cool with you Daniel, I thought it’d be cool to go through each one of the chapters and you to give us, I guess, one practical stip, tip, a step or a tip together, a stip, a practical step or a tip for each one of the chapters to give the audience an overview to again, selfishly from my perspective, and humbly from your perspective, get this book in the hands of the audience, because clearly, it’s an invaluable tool.
The Past, Present, and Future of LinkedIn as Well as Its Impact on the World of Sales · [05:34]
Will Barron:
So if that’s cool with you, let’s start with the first chapter, which is about LinkedIn. Why do we need to know… Why are you introducing LinkedIn to people who are going to buy this book? What do we need to learn from this chapter, Daniel?
Daniel Disney:
Do you know what? That’s the LinkedIn nerd in me, Will, that was just curious about the story of LinkedIn, how it started, how it’s grown and sometimes knowing that story, because for a lot of people using LinkedIn, it is interesting, but I do realise that’s quite nerdy for me. But it’s interesting to see how it’s grown so quickly, how it has sort of dominated that space of B2B and professional social media. And it gives a few sort of insights in where LinkedIn is potentially going to go.
Daniel Disney:
But yeah, for me, it’s more about just understanding the landscape. If you’re going to start using a platform, it’s good to know where it came from and how it’s been built to use it effectively.
The Perfect LinkedIn Profile · [06:15]
Will Barron:
For sure. That makes total sense. Okay. The next chapter, the perfect profile. What would be the one thing that you’d want to share from this chapter? If you had to narrow the chapter down into kind of two or three lines, or one piece of advice, Daniel, what would that piece of advice be?
“If you want to generate sales from your LinkedIn profile, it needs to be about them, not about you. They don’t care about how amazing you are. They care about what you can do for them.” – Daniel Disney · [06:33]
Daniel Disney:
Very simply, Will, make it customer-focused. If you want to generate sales from your LinkedIn profile, it needs to be about them, not about you. They don’t care about how amazing you are. They care about what you can do for them. So making your profile customer-focused is the single biggest tip.
Is The Headline the Most Important Part of Your LinkedIn Profile? · [06:44]
Daniel Disney:
I’ll tell you something interesting, Will, I ran a poll on LinkedIn earlier this week, and I asked my audience what they thought the most important part of the LinkedIn profile was? And I gave them a choice of photo, banner image, headline, and summary, and the vast majority voted headline, which I was genuinely shocked about because that is what I would personally rate probably bottom of the list.
Daniel Disney:
But what was interesting was the majority of the comments were saying, “Actually, no, I think it’s the banner image or the summary, and either the sort of imagery speaking more than words, or the summary being a chance for you to really explain it in more detail.” But it was really interesting to see what people think the most important part is, but yes, going back, make it customer focus is the best thing you can do.
Will Barron:
I probably would have said the headline as well, without thinking too much about it, kind of bluntly off the top, if I would have seen the polls and clicked on the link, because the headline, I guess, translates… Tell me if I’m wrong, translates to different parts of LinkedIn as well, have your name and then your headline beneath it. So just go on the profile.
Will Barron:
So I would have… If I could optimise any part of it, I probably would try and optimise the headline. So maybe I’m one of the sheep that kind of went with that answer on your poll there.
Daniel Disney:
I guess if you were to think about it in a different way though, if someone was to influence you on LinkedIn, would you really care about their headline? Would that be the thing that makes you want to follow them, buy from them, talk to them, or would it be some of those other areas?
Will Barron:
For sure. Well, if you put it like that. I guess the way I’m thinking of it is the headline is your subject line of your email. If your headline says, “Hey, I’m a complete dope, don’t follow me,” then I’m probably not going to read the rest of it, right? It’s a headline of a newspaper headline… subject line of an email, but that makes total sense.
Advise on How to Grow Your Network on LinkedIn · [08:21]
Will Barron:
Okay. So next chapter, we’ll do this for all of them, right? The one piece of advice that you would give if you had to… if you could only have one piece of advice from the book? So the next chapter is growing your network.
Daniel Disney:
So the best advice that’s the single biggest advice I can give is grow consistently. Every single day, put a bit of time in your calendar to grow your audience. That means manually going out and adding connections, and then doing other activities which will come through in the other chapters, like creating content and building a personal brand, where people will then add you, but it needs to be a daily thing and you need to do it consistently.
Daniel Disney:
I was growing my audience consistently every day from day one, and I continue to do it, and I will continue to do it.
Will Barron:
How long each day, Daniel? The average B2B sales person, you’re in a room, at a theatre full of trainees, and you have to average them all out, across all industries, how long each day on LinkedIn?
Daniel Disney:
In terms of growing your network, no more than 10 to 15 minutes. In terms of using LinkedIn in total, I would probably allocate between 45 minutes to an hour, and maybe an hour-and-a-half for the super users, the ones that are really getting a lot from it.
Why You Need to Hyper-personalise All Your LinkedIn Messages · [09:26]
Will Barron:
That makes total sense. Okay, next job, the messaging. What’s the one thing you’d want to share from this chapter?
“The more you can make it about them (the buyers), the more you can make it relevant to them, the more that you can show you’ve done your homework, the more responses you’re going to get, the more conversations you’re going to open, and the more opportunities you’ll create.” – Daniel Disney · [09:37]
Daniel Disney:
Hyper personalization. You need to make it about them. You need to dig deep. With automation, with automated messaging, with spammy messaging and copy and pasted messages, the more you can make it about them, the more you can make it relevant to them, the more that you can show you’ve done your homework, the more responses you’re going to get, the more conversations you’re going to open, and the more opportunities you’ll create.
Daniel Disney:
Hyper personalization, take personalization to that next level.
Why Hyper-personalisation of LinkedIn Messages is Becoming More and More Important · [09:57]
Will Barron:
This is a stupid question, the answer is clearly, yes. But do you feel like, do you experience this, that that’s becoming more important over time? And I’ll give you an anecdote to why I think this in a second.
Daniel Disney:
Yeah. No, a 100%. It’s continuing to get important, and it’s only going to continue to get more important because automation is only going to get better. And automation is only going to continue scraping things from the profile. So salespeople are going to have to dig even deeper to keep ahead of it.
Will Barron:
For sure, and I see this and do this very literally on LinkedIn at the moment. So a message that was somewhat personalised maybe a year or two ago, I’d probably respond to [inaudible 00:10:32] Now I just ignore them unless something that is very specific to me offering me something, or asking for a piece of advice or help, or whatever it is, but it’s very specific, I’m now totally comfortable ignoring messages on LinkedIn.
Will Barron:
Like I do an email where I wasn’t like that, I said a year or two ago, and this happened to someone we know, sends me lots of voicemail messages, he’s probably listening to the show right now. And I just totally ignored his voicemail message on LinkedIn because I didn’t want to put my… I was on a computer with no speakers. I didn’t want to go to another room. I didn’t want to pull out my phone.
Will Barron:
And so I just forgot about him, and I’ve only just realised I’ve ignored now, but a year ago, I would have gone, “That message could have been anything. It could be literally the most important thing imaginable.” And so I have to go and check it out.
Will Barron:
So I feel like the more we use LinkedIn, the more fatigue we have for just crappy messaging. And clearly, this is only going to become more important over time.
Daniel Disney:
That goes across all areas of LinkedIn, Will. It’s the same with the profile. What was considered a great LinkedIn profile a few years ago is considered a terrible profile now. The standards of everything are growing as more and more people are using it, and the level of usage is increasing, and that’s not a bad thing.
The Timeless LinkedIn Best Practices That Will Consistently Deliver Results · [11:40]
Will Barron:
How would you know… How would you work out what to include in a printed book like this then, Daniel? Clearly, some elements of LinkedIn are going to be timeless, like hyper personalization of messages, the targeting of your prospects on the, “Clearly, we want to qualify people as much as we can before we reach out to them,” that kind of thing, do more research.
Will Barron:
How do you decide what is timely and what is time-less to include into a physical, written copy of book that might be on someone’s shelves for a year, 20 years, depending on how well it did does in the future?
Daniel Disney:
It’s an interesting one because obviously with social media and things like LinkedIn, it is going to change. So probably in a year or two years time, there’ll be new features out that obviously aren’t covered in the book. And actually, my first book, The Million-Pound LinkedIn Message was purely focused on written messages, because a couple of years ago, that was the cool way people were using LinkedIn. Now we’ve got audio and video, which I’ve been able to put in this book, but who knows what might come out in the near future?
Daniel Disney:
All I know is right now, this is the most up-to-date, fully comprehensive LinkedIn book out there. And it will probably cover things at least for the next year or two.
Will Barron:
Got it.
Daniel Disney:
And then by that point, maybe there’ll be an updated revised version. That’s kind of the way these things work.
The Dos and Don’ts of Personal Branding on LinkedIn · [12:51]
Will Barron:
Cool. That makes sense. All right then, next chapter, personal branding. What’s the one thing that we should do? I’ll rephrase the question. What’s the one thing that we shouldn’t do with our personal brand on LinkedIn?
“Imagine a set of scales. If you tip it too much in the professional camp, people aren’t going to be interested. They’re not going to follow you. They’re not going to engage with you. If you become too personal and share too much personal stuff, then people aren’t going to take you seriously. They’re not going to want to buy from you. You might create some friends, but you’re not going to create customers. You need to find that sweet spot in-between where you get that right balance of professional relevant content. But you’re also sharing your stories, your experiences, and your insights.” – Daniel Disney · [13:08]
Daniel Disney:
Make it too professionals. Actually, no, I’ll do two things, making it too professional or make it too personal. Those are the two things you shouldn’t do. Imagine a set of scales. If you tip it too much in the professional camp, people aren’t going to be interested. They’re not going to follow you. They’re not going to engage with you. If you become too personal and share too much personal stuff, then people aren’t going to take you seriously. They’re not going to want to buy from you. You might create some friends, but you’re not going to create customers.
Daniel Disney:
You need to find that sweet spot in-between where you get that right balance of professional relevant content. But you’re also sharing your stories, your experiences, and your insights.
Do We Need to Be Real or More Professional When Engaging with People on LinkedIn? · [13:35]
Will Barron:
Is it that we need to be… This is going to sound quite cliche here, but that we need to be real, that we just not have this weird sales profile? I always use the analogy of your mom picks up the phone and she has a telephone voice until she realises who it is. She’s like, “Oh, hello. The Barron residence.” And she’s like, “Oh, hi, Debra. How’s it going?”
Will Barron:
Do we need to be more real as opposed to use our kind of a telephone professional voice? Is that how we could kind of imagine this?
Daniel Disney:
100%, Will, and that’s probably the single best analogy I’ve had. [inaudible 00:14:06] So I love that. Yeah. You need to be a human being and that’s a great way of explaining it.
The Most Efficient LinkedIn Sales Strategies · [14:14]
Will Barron:
Okay. And [crosstalk 00:14:12] the final chapter here, a sales strategy. What is the most counter-intuitive thing that we should do with our sales strategy? What’s the thing that you tell people, you should do this and people go, “Ah,” but then when they try it, they go, “That was amazing?”
Daniel Disney:
Engage before you message. It’s the one thing that a lot of salespeople and sales teams don’t get, they just want to send out these messages. It’s just connect and message, because that’s the sales approach. It’s find a phone number, pick up the phone and call them, and actually taking a step back and trying to do a bit of engagement first.
Daniel Disney:
And when I say engagement, I mean try and engage in some of their content, and put your own content out, so you’re giving value. Give value first, before you then start to communicate. It has a huge impact on the process, but it is very counter-intuitive to what salespeople would normally do.
Will Barron:
Amazing stuff. Well, they are the chapters. I was late, I’ll open it up to the audience here, I’ll be real. I just totally missed the recording slot we had this morning with Daniel. I rushed over here, I’m reading the book at like 10 minutes before we get on air, because I really want to kind of get in-depth and I want to learn from it as well, because me and Daniel are going to do a project, which we’ll talk about in a future episode, where Daniel’s going to help me out with some of this on my LinkedIn profile.
Will Barron:
So if I’m mixing my words, I’m mashing my words, it’s because I’ve got so many words to get out. So that’s the chapters of the book, the Ultimate LinkedIn Sales Guide, about LinkedIn, the perfect profile, growing your network, messaging, content, personal branding, sales strategy.
The Topics Daniel Would Have Loved to Include in His Book But Couldn’t Quite Manage to Do So · [15:38]
Will Barron:
Daniel, final thing on this before we wrap up mate, is there anything that you wanted to include in the book where… because it’s quite a thick book, not to put people off reading it because the content in itself is bite sized, it’s easy to digest, but there’s a lot of content within it to get through.
Will Barron:
Is there anything that you wanted to include with it, and either your publisher Wiley, or editors, whoever it is said, “We can’t get this in because the book is going to be like 15 foot wide if we do include it?”
Daniel Disney:
Do you know what? In all honesty, Will, I got everything in this book that I wanted to get. And that’s what makes me very excited about it because I genuinely believe this is the ultimate LinkedIn sales guide, and it has everything in it that I wanted to go in it. The only thing it doesn’t have in it is whatever’s going to happen to LinkedIn over the next few years, the new features that come out, but this is going to be very relevant for a long time.
Daniel Disney:
So yes, no, I am very happy with this and excited that people can now buy their copies, get their copies. And I can’t wait to see people start to generate impact from it.
Will Barron:
Amazing stuff. Is Amazon the best place to grab a copy?
Daniel Disney:
Yes. It’s on Amazon, in hardback and on Kindle. I’m in the process of working on the audible version and getting that recorded. And it’s also on its way to a few bookshops, which I’m quite excited about. I think Waterstones are going to be stocking it in some of their scores, which is really exciting.
Will Barron:
Yeah.
Daniel Disney:
And I can’t wait to go and see it in a bookshop because that’s very exciting.
Will Barron:
For sure. Again, you are too humble to say this probably, but that would be real validation for me, to be able to walk into a shop and just get that selfie of the thing that has come from my brain, that I know have helped thousands of salespeople with over not just months, but literally years for yourself at this point.
Will Barron:
You’ve helped thousands of salespeople over years. It’s now printed. It’s hardbacked, it’s in Waterstones, that is so sick. I’m so happy for you, mate.
Daniel Disney:
I appreciate it. It’s the weirdest, surrealist feeling. I hope the audience picks up on this as I’m hoping you do as well. I don’t think about this too much. Writing a book is not… There’s nothing for my ego in this. I just want to help, and this is just work for me. This is just a job.
Daniel Disney:
So whilst it’s really nice and rewarding to see this, and exciting to know it’s in a bookshop, this is just my job. This is what I enjoy doing. And so yes, it is really cool, but it’s just normal work for me. And I’m just going to continue going out there and helping salespeople and companies.
Daniel Disney:
But yeah, it is rewarding to kind of see the final thing…
Will Barron:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Daniel Disney:
The final outcome of what all the writing and editing, and designing created. And I’m happy with it.
Parting Thoughts · [18:03]
Will Barron:
For sure. Okay. Anything to add before we wrap up?
Daniel Disney:
No. I hope for everyone that does buy a copy, I hope you enjoy reading it. And honestly, thank you from the bottom of my heart, to everyone who purchases it, any questions you have, let me know. And I really hope it helps you use LinkedIn to generate more sales.
Will Barron:
Amazing stuff. That is the Ultimate LinkedIn Sales Guide. You can find it on Amazon. We’ll link it into the show notes to this episode over at socialsellingshow.com as well. That is Daniel Disney, the king of social selling, a recently second time… How would you call it? A traditionally published author, how incredible is that?
Will Barron:
And my name is Will Barron, founder of salesman.org. And we’ll speak with you again next week on the Social Selling Show.
Daniel Disney:
See you next time.
