Outbound Masterclass: Cold Call, Email, and Social Sell like a Pro [Webinar Recap]

There is a mind-blowing amount of data on the internet — from cat videos to conference presentations, we create an estimated 2.5 quintillion bytes of data every day.

To put that in perspective, the Apollo Guidance Computer — the one that helped put people on the moon — had just 2048 words of erasable magnetic-core memory and 36-kilo words of rope memory.

We've come a long way.

But, most of the content that gets put out there? It's crap. It's fluff, it doesn't actually tell you how to do anything.

You don't want to waste your time.

I don't want to waste your time, either.

If you want actual, real steps you can take to use social selling to up your game, draw in leads, and build a professional personal brand, then you're in the right place.

The Leadfeeder team was joined by Daniel Disney and Kevin KD Dorsey for an action-packed webinar about social selling.

Daniel Disney is a proper social selling expert. He's opened up 25 million GBP in LinkedIn leads, earned 600,000 followers on LinkedIn, and he's also the author of a book, The Million-Pound LinkedIn Message. Great guy, strong social seller. 

We also talked with Kevin KD Doresy, the VP of Sales at PatientPop and one of the most influential sales leaders on LinkedIn. He's actually won awards for that and he just started his own private content stream of Patreon, which is called the Inside Sales Excellence.

Below is a recap of our recent webinar, but I strongly recommend you watch the full webinar recap, cause there is a ton of great information for how to do social selling right — and even cold calling right.

Note: Ready to connect with high-quality leads on social media? You can try Leadfeeder free for 14 days here to see which companies visit your website and target the right accounts who will love your product.

5 social selling mistakes the worst sellers make

Some people don't fully understand why social selling matters, or why LinkedIn is important as a sales tool.

Here's the deal: every single one of your prospects, every single one of your customers has a different preference.

For some people, the only way you will ever get through to them is by picking up the phone.

A lot of people aren't going to answer your cold calls. I actually talked to a decision-maker from a manufacturing company with a few million-pound turnover each year, they do take cold calls. Period. 

But they spend a few hours on LinkedIn in the morning, two hours on LinkedIn in the evening, that's where you are going to reach them. 

That's where social selling is going to be most effective. 

But, before we dive into how to do social selling right, I want to cover what most people are doing wrong. These are the most common mistakes that sellers make:

Terrible Linkedin profiles 

One of the biggest mistakes companies and sellers make is having a terrible, disorganized LinkedIn profile. They are missing information, or they are so focused on how great they are at selling that they totally forget that this is a social platform. 

Their profile makes it really difficult to understand what it is they actually sell, what problems they solve, and who they help. 

Not sharing good content 

Most salespeople just re-share the company's posts, and usually, it's because marketing has told them to. You can't really blame salespeople for this, but when you look at their feed, it is just a blind re-share of the company's blog. 

It's not getting good engagement, it's not generating opportunities, it's not growing their personal brand.  

Sending pitchy Linkedin messages 

How many times have you gotten those terrible, pitchy LinkedIn messages, "I did a blog about this today," "I've written a book about it."  

Honesty, it's shocking what some salespeople send. And they think it's actually generating sales. If you send the right messages, you can fill your pipeline through LinkedIn — but those pitchy messages aren't it. 

It's all about how you write it, what you say.  

Not growing their Linkedin network

Most salespeople don't focus on growing their network on a regular basis. Either they only connect with people they think are ready to buy from them, or they're just not growing it on a regular basis. 

They're stuck there with maybe 500 connections, when in reality they could have 5,000 connections, 15,000, or anywhere up to the limit of 30,000 connections. People say, what about quantity over quality. Here's the thing — you don't have to choose. You can have a large network of quality prospects.

Zero personal brand

This really pulls all the mistakes together into one. If you have a terrible LinkedIn profile, you aren't engaging enough, and you're not creating content consistently, then no one is going to know who you are. 

So when someone posts on LinkedIn, saying, "I'm looking for a software provider for this," they're not going to get tagged. With a solid personal brand, other people will do the selling for you, "Yeah, I can really recommend John Smith from this company."  

Not using search and filters 

There are so many ways to find your prospects on LinkedIn and connect with them. A lot of people don't know how to use filters or how to use different search tactics to find the right prospects. It results in tons of missed opportunities. 

4 steps to social selling that actually works 

Now you know what not to do — which is great. But you want to know what steps you can take today to make social selling more effective, right? Good, because that's what we're going to cover next. 

Make your Linkedin profile customer-focused 

Your LinkedIn profile is the foundation of successful social selling. Say you post something today and it goes viral. You get lucky, you share something that everyone loves, and you get tens of thousands of people liking it. As a result, you get tons of people coming to your profile. "Oh no, that profile is terrible!" Like a bucket full of holes, all those opportunities are going to wash away.

• Use a good photo: I've seen people using photos that are clearly from a night out clubbing on their profile. Seven or eight years ago, it was maybe a bit acceptable. Now? We all have great cameras in our pones. Honestly, you can take a really good headshot from home. Find a nice plain background, get some good natural lighting and you are good to go. 

• Use a custom banner: Besides the profile picture, you've also got the banner. Don't waste that real estate. Create a banner with your company name and logo and a few bullet points that highlight what it is you do. It's all about planting these seeds in your prospect's mind. Use Canva, it's free and easy to use. They even have LinkedIn banner templates, and you can drag and drop logos, change the text; it's really easy to use. 

• Update your LinkedIn summary: Most of us create the summary when we're either looking for work or early on in our careers. So we end up writing it like a CV. Switch it around and make it about your customer, not about you. Your customers and prospects don't want to know how many times you've won President's Club and smashed your targets. They want to know what can you help them achieve, how have you helped similar people, and how can they get in touch? Make it about them. 

• Build your recommendations: We live in a review and recommendation world. I don't buy anything unless I see positive reviews online. If you haven't already, make sure asking for recommendations is part of your monthly cycle. No one is more trustworthy or effective at selling your product than a happy, satisfied customer who's got what they paid for.

Grow your network every day

In real life, you'd never turn down the chance to meet more people, right? Make sure you are continuing to grow your network on LinkedIn by adding five to 10 connections a day. Just avoid adding more than 20 to 30 or you'll look like a bot and could get banned.

Be open-minded about who you connect with. You're not just connecting to one person; you're connecting to their entire network. I see salespeople connect with the VP of Marketing or the CMO, but they don't connect with anyone else in the business. Connecting with everyone within your target decision-makers team, of all parts of the hierarchy, and then spread out through the organization.

Create and share useful content

So, you have a better profile and you're growing your network on a regular basis, and you're starting to see results from that. Content is where you take it to the next level. It might be scary trying to figure out how to get it right. But, making my first cold call was scary. Knocking on my first door was scary. Everything's scary when you first do it.

• Provide value in your content. Don't just talk about your product; give value. Share your stories. Share your thoughts. Share your insights. One of the biggest tips I gave at the beginning of lockdown was: Take a picture and share your home office working space. What equipment do you have? What space have you created?

• Use spaces: When people send me templates of posts they're looking to share, most of the time, the first thing I say is to stretch that post out and add more spaces; it's easier to read and it drives so much more engagement.

• Share your own stories: People want to know your thoughts, your experiences. That's what a personal brand is. People buy from people. Be a human being, and share that. That's how you get that buy-in. That's how you build trust. That's how you build relationships.

• Be creative: Seriously, get weird, be different. Here's an example: I'm recording a mini-video series with two other folks. But we're going to record it from bed, and they call it breakfast in bed. That's creative, that stands out. No one's doing that. So try and find ways that you can be different. Find ways you can do stuff that's unique to you and build a unique personal brand.

Engage with industry-relevant content

Find good posts to engage on. If you're posting on content that's not getting much engagement, you won't be seen. So try and find popular, relevant posts in your industry. The people that are posting good posts, get your name on that with a creative comment.

People will see those comments, they'll like them. You'll get likes on your comment, you'll get replies. Again, your name is getting out there, and people will come and connect you from there.

Conclusion

A lot of people approach social selling as salespeople. Which makes sense, it's the job, right? But the reality is that social selling has to be a lot softer, a lot more personal. You've got to flip the script and make it about them, not about you.

Posting content, adding a few connections, and engaging in a few posts takes less than 15 minutes. This isn't about spending hours on LinkedIn. It's about doing the right things.

When you get your name out there, you're going to find that it's a lot easier to do your job because people already know who you are, and they already trust you.

Note: Ready to connect with high-quality leads on social media? You can try Leadfeeder free for 14 days here to see which companies visiting your site and target the right accounts who will love your product.