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Segment 19 - Expert Panel Discussion

I'm going to pick on you first jill because you came from all these big companies and as maybe they started to lou to and it is my case you know I work for a very small company they all work for very small cos I'm guessing that a majority of our viewers out there in internet land do as well and so I'd love to hear a little bit about your journey now starting was your first time to start a company right now so I'd like to hear just a little bit of what have you what have you struggled with what's been a surprise for you what are you still trying to figure out how much time do we have that's what I wanted to hear yeah um you know it it has been a struggle in terms of there's so much to dio and everything either requires time for money or both and you know I knew that I needed to have a website and um you know, I didn't wantto I didn't wantto invest a whole lot of money and so I actually threw my network had been introduced to the founders of a new company that just came out of beta and t...

hey worked with me um volunteered there not only their services their time but the platform and got me up and running you know, a weekend in their conference room white boarding pizza and beers and you know, they rallied tto help me? Um, so I really didn't have to spend any money on rev one of the website. 00:01:57.577 --> 00:02:03. But you know, I I now need to create my own content 00:02:04.21 --> 00:02:10. and I'm not actually a writer I don't enjoy writing 00:02:10.47 --> 00:02:15. it stresses me out I love this you'll feel better 00:02:15.26 --> 00:02:19. ok just e I have writing in one hundred forty characters 00:02:19.64 --> 00:02:24. that's nice style of writing um everything else yeah 00:02:24.79 --> 00:02:26. but I just you know and and 00:02:27.97 --> 00:02:31. I'm a sales person I'm really not a marketer I know 00:02:31.41 --> 00:02:35. a lot about marketing because my buyer was in marketing 00:02:35.26 --> 00:02:37. for over a decade so I have that benefit of knowing 00:02:37.47 --> 00:02:42. a ton about marketing but I'm not a marketer so it's 00:02:42.65 --> 00:02:47. you know piecing together who can help me with content 00:02:47.2 --> 00:02:50. from a writing perspective then who can help me with 00:02:50.53 --> 00:02:53. graphics you've got beautiful graphics on your stress 00:02:53.92 --> 00:02:57. feast stress free selling like I imagine you didn't 00:02:57.16 --> 00:03:01. do that yourself I could do a lot of things I've been 00:03:01.73 --> 00:03:04. doing this a long time you know the thing is I listen 00:03:04.51 --> 00:03:06. to you talk about that was so interesting is that 00:03:06.59 --> 00:03:09. you no different than a plumber in a lot of ways and 00:03:09.15 --> 00:03:11. that you know that skill you have that craft you love 00:03:11.5 --> 00:03:14. doing that skill in that craft but then figuring out 00:03:14.23 --> 00:03:17. how to put all the pieces together in a business is 00:03:17.04 --> 00:03:18. a real challenge and that's the challenge that that 00:03:18.97 --> 00:03:22. certainly all of you guys faces well but I will say 00:03:22.0 --> 00:03:24. the one thing that that the point I really want to 00:03:24.17 --> 00:03:27. make from what jill talked about so much is as is 00:03:27.79 --> 00:03:31. that she built an asset actually that has really she's 00:03:31.75 --> 00:03:34. been that's been portable that she's been actually 00:03:34.13 --> 00:03:37. able to take into a whole new career really in a lot 00:03:37.7 --> 00:03:40. of ways and that's really I think if you take anything 00:03:40.78 --> 00:03:44. from this idea of always be connecting is that that's 00:03:44.36 --> 00:03:46. what you're really doing that there it's kind of like 00:03:46.23 --> 00:03:49. brick by brick you're building this asset that grows 00:03:49.41 --> 00:03:52. and has more momentum even though you're in completely 00:03:52.32 --> 00:03:54. different place than what she's talking about and 00:03:54.93 --> 00:03:58. the types of people that she's calling on that concept 00:03:58.53 --> 00:04:02. of building an asset and investing in yourself is really now starting to pay not only in business as you start a business but also in somebody was willing to build a website for you somebody was willing to do other things for you because that's part that network is part of your asset I'm sure you'll find somebody to write content for you at some point here before too long and I think that's that's really probably the key distinction yeah it's ah you know I think because I've lived with the value system of give to give and always be helping other people and always be connecting them to resource is you know in my time of need people came and I didn't even have to ask like a lot of times it's like give give give give and then ask cause you and sales you got to get the order so you give and you give and give and then you ask for the order but you know I didn't even have to ask because people just came tio you know chip in so but it is it's very overwhelming it is you know getting a standard speaking agreement um getting an invoicing system being able to accept credit card payment right so I decided I would like a fax machine faxes eso yesterday well let me let me switch to first because I wanted I wantto spend the limited time we have to really also here a little bit about you know you gave a great presentation about using the tool linked in but I'd actually like to dive and say well what what people actually do there that work there you know what we see this is this big network thanks andi actually loved to hear you know well let me let me give it a couple of parts here because I also want to see if you can answer a test question where I was talking about the various off my body yeah in front of live on where I was talking about the very switch network was bigger and I said I bet you coco no the actual statistics so so what is the ranking in terms of let's just use users just yours and then I'll come back to the part of I don't know. The exact stacked right king but I believe face because the absolute largest that's what I said I want to say that no I should really know this I feel bad or prom it's holly twitters and then and then link and I think that they that's by design like lincoln doesn't matter it doesn't matter to them if they're the largest they want to be bigger but you know they're the professional network where as many of them have much deeper deeper layers it's it's very focused on their network I was just curious about that and I think I actually that was my guests of the order as well but all right so let me go back to that question about what is what people actually do it linked in you know what it is you know because they're tens of thousands of people there now what do they do it's it's a good question way worked really hard no I think you know I thought that I was really busy before going to lincoln I'm much busier now you know we you let's go outside of work I mean we all have jobs we you know I've been social marketing so I've managed social channels for the brand I help the other business units within the company leveraged their social networks we have a monetization team that how do we monitor monetize the product we have developers we have way have any software company you know I think the most important thing about lincoln and working at lincoln is that is that we live our values you know we believe that relationships matter and we we echo that through the company you know we are told from day one that you're the cultures the company and one of those key aspects is act like an owner you know every employee's empowered and if you're not empowered you escalate it because no one in the company field disempowered you know demand excellence if you're going to do something do it right you know it's what we call it doing fewer things better you know why try and boil the ocean when you don't have to find this three or four things that are going to have the biggest impact this month quarter whatever the time maybe and execute on those the rest of it who cares you know we have ah whole process for that well let's turn to thanks thanks for that little peek inside you know well after you guys went all go to the headquarters arlington we could probably drive down teo let's do it so let's go teo do have cem some comments for our questions really for any of us or what we really do it sometime have been coming in for either one of you but always curious to know everybody's perspective so this one is just a general question about how do you keep in touch with your network if nurturing relationship is all about personalization how do you make people feel that you're reaching out to them individually? Do you have a list of high priority people that you contact regularly so the short answer is you have to reach out to them individually it matters uh but yeah, you have to have keep lis I mean, some of the information you're sharing is very generic in nature it's to your ecosystem but you should know who those people are that you want to keep in contact with on effect I'll let jo go into this because I think that she has done an amazing job in this vein in her career. Yeah yeah so you know, as a sounds professional I would not lose sight of the fact that I had a quarterly number tto meet and so I every day every deal was my rhythm. So yes, I was using social but I would look at my pipeline and I would say every deal in my pipeline where is it? Where are they in the buying process and how can I get them further along in their buying journey? And I would say is there a piece of content that is relevant to the individual and the stage in the buying process and I would use either email or potentially social to deliver that piece of content to that person so I never lost sight of the fact that my job was to progress and close deals but also on twitter, I use a lot of lists, building capabilities, so I've got a list for women in business, women, leaders who I look up, tio. Um, I've got a list for social business experts. I have a list for social selling experts, and so, you know, there's, never there's, never a down moment for me anymore, right? I'm I've got everything on my mobile devices. I'm that kind of person, who's, you know, bumping into you on the sidewalk because I'm tweeting while walking, you know, I'm addicted to learning as well. Do you have a sense of how long sale cycles khun b cut with social selling? Yeah I mean I it's all about relationships so um not just so you can you can start to see if there are relationships that other people have in your sphere of influence right in your network and you can ask for introductions again the biggest influence of a sale of someone making a purchase decision is a recommendation so you want referrals you want recommendations and so you use I you know, I think this is just research right? You're like if you're a detective you're trying to figure out like who's connected to whom and what piece of information you can use to build that relationship and establish more trust and accelerate that sale cycle um so you khun totally shorten and compress the buyers buying process typically by looking for relevant relationships that will help you turn that into revenue and I would actually just add to that that you could cut it more than in half ah again it comes down to relationships if the person is ready to buy they have the money in the bank and they say I need something whatever that something is and they start looking for whatever it is that but that's the buying process you can nail that down if they know the right person to get in contact with in that connection the relationship matters will buy from them in twenty four hours. We see it all the time and I think it goes a lot to this trust thing we've been talking about the whole program is that it speeds that cycle up because there are a lot of the ultimate decision is made because you had the right thing other people talked about you I was able to read the specifics of what you're offering me I liked all that and then I knew somebody who knew you I mean it's kind of that all that stuff comes together to either short or make it happen I think is really what happens yeah oh actually add so part of what I'm doing as an upfront contract with my new customers is I say look, you know if I do a really great job and I knocked it out of the park would you be willing to write a recommendation for me on my lengthen profile and I get that agreement upfront so it's not after the fact and those recommendations that I've been getting for the public speaking I've been doing they're cold and you really can do that in many many ways I mean that could just you could be sitting across the table from somebody was getting ready to sign and buy your product to say look, we know we're going to do such an incredible job and you will be thrilled with what we agreed upon today so in ninety days I'm gonna come back to you and and we're gonna measure those results did you get that result and then I'm gonna ask you to introduce me to two other people who need to get that result as well I mean so you can really take that upfront thing a long way free linked in basic nineteen ninety nine a month linked in sales plus forty seven ninety nine a month three options I'm curious with the esteemed expert panel says for all of us are we good with free do we have to go to basic at nineteen ninety nine a month? Is that a good investment for all of us? Tow swallow that pill now you can answer this I'm really curious what you what you all would say on let me answer is one I love to hear your opinion but knowing these guys this audience that I do you know very few of them to be to be so I mean the real consideration in any answer is what's your objective what's the best you see every time where you're gonna get the most bang if your butt so that I'll throw that in but then I let you talk about most of you guys talk about, you know what are the advantages of that? Yeah, yeah so I'm it really depends on the use case and for me when I was a dell'acqua we used the the the mercedes um or the ferrari or whatever we want to call it and it was extremely valuable, like it really helped me get my job done when I moved out of that role and eloquent into a new role, and they took my license away. My company did, and I had to go to free. It was like, uh, no, and I know I bumped int o into walls where I needed more functionality. So I actually went to the mid range one. But if you're not bumping into walls and you're not hitting limits and you're not, you know, you're not. You know, you really have to look at what's your use case scenario. Are your customers there isn't gonna help you grow your network, um, and and that's, how you make the decision to pay or not.