Outbound Prospecting on Linkedin

Video Overview

Reply rates to cold outreach emails are often just a couple of percent.

Prospects are more savvy to “personalized” emails and it’s harder than ever to break through the noise.

Especially when you’re competing against over 100 other emails each day.

So how do you still connect with cold prospects?

In this episode of the B2B Rebellion, Morgan J Ingram shares how he breaks through the noise using LinkedIn and video outreach to connect with cold prospects.

Learn: - How to transfer email prospecting to LinkedIn - Tips to get started with LinkedIn video messaging - His 10/30/10 cold outreach format

Speakers

Related Content

Outbound Sales Series: Advanced B2B Social Selling On LinkedIn Personalized LinkedIn Outreach: Fundamentals of Successful Outreach Campaigns

Interview Transcript

Andy Culligan: Hey, guys. Welcome back to another episode of the B2B Rebellion. Really happy to have with me here today Morgan J. Ingram. Morgan and myself have been speaking over the past couple of months, most, I'd say at this point and we've already had Morgan off for one of our webinars and his style has been really, really cool, especially on the webinar, it was very conversational.

There was a lot of back and forth banter between himself and our guests on the webinar, went really well. And myself and Morgan think very similarly alike, it's really interesting to pick each other's brains a little bit, especially around what's happening with the new LinkedIn algorithms and so on.

Morgan works with John Barrows sales, so he's a sales trainer there, but Morgan also comes from a background of sales himself, having been in tech sales so he worked with a company called Terminus. Terminus, being the founders of account-based marketing, I would say. I've worked with Terminus in the past myself back in 2015 when nobody else was really talking about account-based marketing apart from Terminus.

And the great thing, and this is something that I really pushed for when we have guests on this show, is if somebody is a sales trainer, they should really have done it themselves and understand the struggles of being in sales, especially in tech sales, where things can change real quick.

Morgan Ingram: Yup.

AC: Morgan, welcome, mate. It's really great to have you.

MI: Happy to be here.

AC: Good. So tell us, I've given you a short introduction there, but do you wanna put a little bit more meat on the bone there and tell us a little bit about yourself, where you're based, what your focus is and so on?

MI: Yeah, so I'm based out of Atlanta, Georgia, born and raised. Most people, when they have said they have been to Atlanta, they probably have been to the airport. That's maybe probably about it, maybe have gone...

AC: Three times, three times...

MI: Yeah, airport, it's a good airport. So my background is, I started off as an SDR, cold-called to get my job, and from doing an SDR role, that's where I first started into sales. And then four months later, I created something called The SDR Chronicles and that was a YouTube channel that documented my journey and that's what really elevated brands. So I was one of the first people that started to really created content that was in a individual contributor role. Now, everyone is out here now, but I was one of the first to be able to do that on my YouTube channel and that's something that helped me...

The reason I'm telling you all that is because it helped me grow my brand in a very quick way because it was different and unique, and it was, interrupted everyone's pattern and then that got me promoted to SDR Manager and I have 13 reps, so it's a lot. It's a lot of reps as a... I wasn't director, I was a manager. And 99% of those people are older than me. So that was all a very interesting experience being a manager and having people that reported to you that were older and getting their respect and things of that nature, so that was a little different.

And then I got founded by John Barrows, which most of you probably know, essentially, the godfather of sales training. He's been doing it for... I'll admit it, y'all. Everybody knows who he is, for the most part, in SaaS. And so he found me on YouTube, recruited me to get on his team and I've been on the team for three years now. So, it's been a very impactful and awesome journey.

AC: Nice. Over those three years, how many clients do you reckon you've worked with?

MI: Wow. 100 plus?

AC: Wow! That's a lot.

MI: Yeah, yeah, 100 plus.

AC: That's a lot. What's it...

MI: Yeah. Globally, too, so it's been cool. I've been to APAC, I've been to EMEA, I've been to the States. And I know you mentioned one piece there is like, what do I do? So day-to-day is I train clients on prospecting. So, top of the funnel, how do you break into accounts, etcetera. Wait, what was the question you asked?

AC: No, no, I was just gonna say, that's amazing to be part of that and be able to travel quite a bit 'cause I know people... I've spoken with sales leaders and so on, that are based out in the US. Typically, you're more or less US-focused, but to be able to get that sales experience or to be able to break into those other markets with John Barrows, that must have been super interesting, man.

Let's say, you've got new customer on board starting up, for example, an SDR function. Or they've got an SDR function that's maybe not doing too well at the moment 'cause it's hard to get connects, for example, but what are you telling people? What are the tips you give?

MI: Yeah, so I've been doing a lot of trainings on LinkedIn prospecting and here's the thing: We talked about like, "Hey, here's the pill that I want you to swallow." I'm a person that looks at what's going on and then I make situational changes. And that, again, that's just something that I've realised that I can be able to do because here's the thing: If you were to ask me what I would tell a client to do, two to three years ago, I was like, "Yo! Make calls." People are picking up the phone. They're not... You're getting connects and you need to be able to convert, because most people just don't know how to talk on the phone. We've created a whole workshop around it.

Now, if you see my content in the past four to five months, I don't talk a lot about cold calling 'cause I know the connects are lower. I know people aren't doing it as much. So, I wouldn't tell a client, "Hey go make 1,000 calls", that doesn't make sense. So what I've been telling people is, "Go to LinkedIn. If your buyer's on LinkedIn, you should be there because most people are more engaged on LinkedIn because they're not doing anything."

They're not commuting, they're not going on a plane, so they have more time to spend on these social networks. And all those things have increased. I think Netflix consumption has increased. Social, just, Instagram, all those consumption has increased 'cause people, again, are sitting at home. And so I've been doing more on LinkedIn prospecting, LinkedIn videos, LinkedIn voice messages and I talked to one client, this is crazy, man. They have 70% of their outbound meetings come from LinkedIn. Before, it was 30%.

AC: That's insane, 70%.

MI: 70% of their outbound meetings come from LinkedIn. So InMails, videos, voice messages, commenting, connecting with buyers, I was blown away... I was like, "What?" 70%, crazy.

AC: Man, that's... I mean... Look, there's ways of doing it and there's ways of doing it right. Those guys are obviously doing it right and there's a lot of people that are just doing it. Right? And very few people, I feel, with the outreach that I get, that are doing it right. I got one today and it was a guy, it was a web designer, actually, reached out to me and just a really well thought out and put together InMail. Cold, completely cold InMail. And normally, I just don't even look at cold InMail. You know?

MI: Yeah.

AC: There was something about it that made me click, there was something... I can't remember exactly what was said in the subject that got me interested. I was like, "This guy's doing a good job here. I gotta get him a meeting." I was like, "This is good." So what tips are you telling... These guys that get 70% of their meetings from LinkedIn, like what are they doing?

MI: Yeah. So they're doing a lot of LinkedIn voice messages and LinkedIn videos, they're doing really well on that. They're doing InMail... They're doing what they're doing on the emails and they're transferring it over to their InMails, they're finding that just email reply rates have just been lower and also the data is getting worse and worse.

So a lot of the great emails that they're writing, get bounced. And so what they're doing is they're just like, "Okay, well that didn't work, it got bounced" and they're taking those and they're going to the InMails, because that person's on LinkedIn. You're not gonna get bounced on LinkedIn, 'cause that's that person. So they're taking the emails that are getting bounced and they're doing the InMails there and then they're just taking the same email format for personalised emails, and then they're doing it through InMails as well. So it's super cool to see.

AC: Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, so you mentioned there, and the video piece as well. A lot of people worry about this. Right? It's not... And we spoke about this before, we spoke about it on the webinar a couple of weeks ago. It was like, "What tips would you give people to get started on video?" I mean, you had a rule. I don't remember what the rule was but it was like you had to...

MI: 10-30-10, you know...

AC: 10-30-10.

MI: The formula... Dude, I need to get a 10-30-10 shirt. It's gotta have...

AC: Yeah, man. You need to think of the wall behind you...

MI: I gotta get the 10-30-10, man, it's always the biggest takeaway that people have is this formula, is 10-30-10 and it's cool because the 10-30-10 in itself, is how you should be messaging buyers on LinkedIn.

AC: So tell us about the 10-30-10, 'cause... We spoke about it in the webinar but maybe people didn't see it.

MI: You sign up to my course, $100 for the 10... No. I'm just kidding...

AC: So yeah, the link you'll find just below here...

MI: Yeah, exactly. And it's affiliate...

AC: Oh, man.

MI: All right, so the 10-30-10, right? And this has been really helpful, when I train clients in multiple regions, one thing I had to understand immediately was okay, I have my style. However, my style isn't gonna work for everyone and it's definitely not gonna work in some regions. So I had to figure out, okay when I deliver it, what's my mind doing? What's the steps I'm taking to deliver this?

So then I peeled it back and this is what I came up with, was 10-30-10. So in the first 10 seconds, your goal is to focus on two things, one is the trigger, right? So the the trigger is something you can find on a website or find... On a LinkedIn profile.

So an example of that would be, hey, they're hiring new sales reps. Or hey, someone just got promoted or maybe they just got a change in leadership, a CRO's coming in. Right? So that's the first 10 seconds. Or it could be a persona, so I know hey as a CMO, you care about certain things. VP of sales cares about certain things in their day to day.

You all can write out and figure what those are, it's different for everybody listening in, but an example of a priority or challenge if you guys are wondering, is one of the top priorities for enabling leaders right now is teaching the reps on how to effectively communicate to their buyers and doing that with real business acumen that's sharp and concise. Right?

So that's an example of the priority. So you take one or... You could take two of those things, right? Either you're gonna do a trigger or you're gonna do priority. And you'll always wanna say, "The reason for my video is," right? So that you're confident in it. Then, in the 30 seconds is the value prop. So the value prop, if you're wondering what that is, go take your value prop from the cold calls you're doing. Take your value prop from the cold calls and then now insert that in your video, and the last 10 seconds is just the call to action.

So what we see to be successful in terms of a call to action is a very conversational one, where it's like "Hey, are you open to learning more? Are you interested in deeper dialogue?" We've seen a lot of success from that as well. So 10-30-10, that's how to do about it and if you can do that, you're gonna see some results.

AC: 10-30-10, man. And there's an extra 10 secs added onto the end of that, which you'll give away for a $1,000, right?

MI: Yeah, exactly.

AC: But that's really really solid advice because I think people struggle with... How long should it be? How often should I do it? What step in my cadence should I do it? Should I do it straight away? And I think that works anywhere. That works, if it's your first push out in a cadence, you're trying to get through to somebody on LinkedIn, you're not having much luck on the phone, whatever, that works as a start, it can work a little bit further down, if somebody's gone a little bit quiet on you.

Because you're just gonna know more information about them. You still have to have the trigger, event and then also, your call to action in there. Regardless of where you are in the life cycle, you're gonna be able to use it. So super interesting, man. Look, that's been probably the best actionable item for people to take away from this, the 10-30-10. So I think we'll...

MI: Yeah. I think that's it right there. Here's the thing, there's so much tips and advice out there. Right? There's podcasts galore. Right? So I would, again, like you said there, Andy, I would take away just the 10-30-10. If you follow that framework I gave you and you use that on literally anything, you're gonna see more success, regardless.

AC: That's amazing advice, man. I think with that, we'll probably leave that as the advice, the Advice Section for today, because 10-30-10, because it's so simple. And it's so simple that people could take that away, I don't wanna add anything else to it because people might move away from not having it come to mind after they watch this. So, 10-30-10 is the perfect way to end this. Where can people find you, Morgan?

MI: So I would say, LinkedIn. I'm gonna say LinkedIn, that's where you can find me and I post daily content but I can't accept anymore people and I'm frustrated. So if you wanna connect with me, go on Twitter, yo. Twitter... I'm bringing Twitter back to life, Twitter is kinda hyped, so I'm not mad at Twitter right now. I've been having good conversations on Twitter so catch me out there, Morgan J Ingram.

AC: I'm gonna start getting more involved in Twitter now, man. I've taken... You've inspired me to get more into Twitter after our conversation last week.

MI: Twitter is engaging, man. I've got people replying, people are engaging with me. It's cool, man, I like it.

AC: It's an interesting one. A couple of years ago people were like, "Oh, Twitter's dead. Twitter's dead." When I started doing Twitter, I started going heavy in Twitter, I started seeing some results and then, was like, "Ah, forget Twitter, Twitter's dead, man. LinkedIn's where it's at." And I was like, "Okay, I don't have time for everything." But yeah, I'm gonna have a look again, man. I'm gonna have a look again. But look, Morgan, it's been a great real pleasure to speak with you again, mate, and I look forward to speaking with you again in the future. Yeah?

MI: Absolutely, man.

AC: Take it easy, buddy.

MI: All right, cheers.

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