Software Sales Tips by Matt Wolach

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Scale Your SaaS

Your Guide To LinkedIn Do’s and Don’ts – with Donald Kelly

In the fast-paced world of software sales, finding innovative ways to connect and engage with potential clients is paramount. Recently, I had the pleasure of featuring Donald Kelly, Founder and Chief Sales Evangelist at The Sales Evangelist on the show. Donald’s journey, insights, and strategies offer a masterclass in sales evangelism, emphasizing the importance of passion, personalization, and platform utilization. Join us this week for another episode of Scale Your SaaS with host and B2B SaaS Sales Coach Matt Wolach.

PODCAST-AT-A-GLANCE

Podcast: Scale Your SaaS with Matt Wolach

Episode: Episode No. 320, “LinkedIn Do’s and Don’ts – with Donald Kelly”

Guest: Donald Kelly, Founder at The Sales Evangelist

Host: Matt Wolach, a B2B SaaS Sales Coach, Entrepreneur, and Investor

Sponsored by: Leadfeeder

TOP TIPS FROM THIS EPISODE

Utilize The Art of Personalization

Personalization extends beyond connection requests. Donald advises engaging with potential clients’ posts by liking and commenting thoughtfully. This not only catches their attention but also demonstrates genuine interest and builds rapport. Additionally, Donald recommends sending personalized video messages, which stand out in a sea of text-based communications and make a memorable impression.

Ensure Relevance is Key

Relevance is crucial in today’s crowded marketplace. Donald stresses that sales outreach must be tailored to the recipient’s specific needs and interests rather than driven by the salesperson’s agenda. By focusing on what is relevant to the potential client, SaaS sales professionals can cut through the noise and establish meaningful connections.

Best Tips on Software Sales Evangelism

Donald’s approach to sales evangelism is a refreshing departure from traditional sales tactics. By embracing the role of an evangelist, focusing on personalization, and leveraging platforms like LinkedIn, Donald demonstrates how software sales professionals can build stronger, more authentic relationships with their clients. His insights remind us that sales, when done right, is not just about closing deals but about making a positive impact and genuinely helping others. For anyone looking to elevate their sales game, adopting the principles of sales evangelism as championed by Donald is a compelling path to success.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS

The Genesis of The Sales Evangelist

Donald’s inspiration to start The Sales Evangelist is rooted in an intriguing blend of technology and personal experience. During his college years, Kelly was introduced to the concept of an evangelist through Guy Kawasaki, Apple’s Chief Evangelist in the 90s. This unique merging of evangelism with business sparked Kelly’s imagination, planting the seed for what would become The Sales Evangelist.

Donald’s first foray into sales evangelism occurred at a networking event. Frustrated with the mundane titles of “Account Executive” and similar roles, he introduced himself as a “Technology Evangelist.” The response was overwhelmingly positive, leading to numerous conversations and connections. This experience solidified his belief in the power of a unique and engaging title, ultimately leading to the creation of The Sales Evangelist.

Sales Evangelism: Beyond the Stereotypes

One of the most compelling points Donald makes is the need to reframe the perception of sales. Software sales professionals often face negative stereotypes, making them hesitant to proudly proclaim their profession. Donald shares a personal anecdote about meeting a former high school acquaintance who had become a district attorney. When Donald enthusiastically mentioned he was in sales, the acquaintance’s reaction was less than encouraging, leading him to question his career choice.

However, Donald soon realized the significant impact software sales professionals have. He began to see himself not just as a salesperson but as a consultant and industry authority who could profoundly influence companies. This shift in mindset helped him embrace his role and evangelize the benefits and importance of the sales profession.

LinkedIn: The Modern Evangelist’s Platform

Donald highlights LinkedIn as a crucial platform for modern software sales evangelism. He explains that LinkedIn is where B2B SaaS sellers’ target audience hangs out, making it an invaluable tool for building business relationships. However, he quickly points out that LinkedIn’s effectiveness hinges on how it is used.

Donald advocates for a personalized approach to LinkedIn. Instead of sending generic connection requests, he emphasizes the importance of tailored messages that reference the recipient’s specific posts or interests. This strategy significantly increases the likelihood of a positive response and fosters genuine engagement.

TOP QUOTES

Donald Kelly

[03:50] “Prospecting is not about selling; it’s about understanding the prospect’s needs.”

[09:35] “Building rapport quickly is a critical skill for any salesperson.”

[14:00] “Every ‘no’ is a step closer to a ‘yes.’ Persistence is key.”

Matt Wolach

[05:23] “Understanding your customer’s journey is the key to driving SaaS growth.”

[08:45] “Effective communication is at the heart of successful sales.”

[20:10] “A data-driven approach allows you to fine-tune your sales strategy and optimize results.”

LEARN MORE

To learn more about The Sales Evangelist, visit: https://thesalesevangelist.com/ 

You can also find Donald Kelly on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/donaldckelly/ 

For more about how Matt Wolach helps software companies achieve maximum growth, visit https://mattwolach.com.

Head over to leadfeeder.com and sign up for a 14-day (no strings attached) free trial: https://www.leadfeeder.com/ 

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Check out the whole episode transcript here:

Matt Wolach  00:02

Hello and welcome to Scale Your SaaS, I am super excited that you’ve joined us. This is going to be a lot of fun today. And what we do here is we help you understand how to grow your company. So you got to grow some leads. You got to get some leads. Yes, we’re going to help you with that. You want to know how to close those leads. You want to know how to scale a team that can do that for you. All of those things we deliver. And what we do is we bring the best in the world who have done this and has shown some amazing process. We bring them in front of you, ping them, ask them questions, so that they can share their experience and their knowledge with you. If you want those things, definitely subscribe right now. That way you’re going to be able to get all of the best updates and insights into the best things that are happening in the world of SaaS now, and one of those experts, I’m so excited that he’s with us. This guy knows his stuff. He’s been doing it for a while. We can learn a lot from him. I’ve got Donald Kelly with me. Donald, how you doing?

Donald Kelly  00:52

I’m doing well, man, oh my goodness. Matt, thank you. This is I’m getting so pumped and excited to be here. Man.

Matt Wolach  00:59

Oh dude, I love your energy. So awesome. And Donald, somebody I look up to. This guy is an expert. Let me tell you who Donald is. So he is the Founder at The Sales Evangelist, and he is the Chief Sales Evangelist. What he does? He oversees business development strategies for small to midsize organizations. He conducts workshops, keynote presentations, designs sales processes and more to make sure that sales, individuals and executives, achieve outstanding results. He also has his own show, the sales evangelist podcast. This thing’s been running more than 10 years. He has had some amazing topics on there, so definitely go check that out. But Donald, thanks for being on the show. 

Donald Kelly  01:40

Dang bro. I like that intro. I appreciate that, man. Thank you so much for having me. And when you say all those things, I started thinking about like, yeah, 10 years craziness.

Matt Wolach  01:49

It goes by quick. This shows four years old, and it feels like just a blink of an eye. So I totally get it. Tell me what’s been going on with you lately? What’s what’s been happening? 

Donald Kelly  01:58

Yeah, I mean, I think for us, the biggest thing here is we’ve been camping out on LinkedIn a lot, spending a lot of time there. Business wise, creating more content and doing a lot more things, and probably would dabble in some of this stuff today. And family wise, we’re just, you know, we are here cooking with hot chicken grease. Man, family’s doing well, my wife, kid and I and enjoying in South Florida before we get into the blistering, sweltering swamp heat, but it’s okay,

Matt Wolach  02:28

yeah, I mean, you say cooking with hot grease, there you go, South Florida. That feels like basically your body’s cooking in hot grease in the middle of the summer. But I totally relate, because I’m in Arizona, but it’s a dry heat, right? So that’s good stuff. You mentioned LinkedIn. I definitely want to talk about that in a second, but I want to go even further back. What gave you the idea to start The Sales Evangelist? Where’d that come from? 

Donald Kelly  02:51

Yeah, so in college, I read a book, or I was supposed to read a book in an entrepreneur class by Guy Kawasaki, and we had to look up his bio, and Apple guy was Apple’s Chief Evangelist back in the 90s. And when I first heard that, I was thinking, Man evangelist. The only time I ever heard that term was, like in church. But this guy took it and married it with marketing, with business. I’m like, That’s brilliant, because it gave me this rich, vividry, a visual, like, I’m thinking with this guy, like going out on a rooftops or in a corner or to companies or everywhere, and talking about Apple. And he was a big, passionate, passionate about that with Woz and jobs back then. And so fast forward, I got into one of my first gig in a tech space, in a technology aspect, not necessarily software at the time. And we went to this networking event, Matt and everyone there was, you know, talking about their roles, account executive, blah, blah, blah, you get it. And then one guy, it came to me, and I just had the Apple iPad number two at that point. And I was like, this is boring. I came to the first one, and it was kind of lame. Second time I just had it in mind. Had to stand up and say, I’m the technology evangelist. Our company went to the roof, to the mountaintop, and came back with the latest and greatest ideas of how to help your organization when it comes to tech. Bro. After that conversation that networking event, like so many people, came and started talking to me, so it germinate this idea in my head, and started thinking about it. So fast forward, when I got into software sales, and I just, I went through some trainings and enablement, and I was just, like, taking off and cooking, like, just cooking really well, like doing really good as a rep, and I was always talking about what was working for me. And one of my friends was like, you should consider a podcast. And he was like, man, you’re like an evangelist for sales. And then I did. I said, Well, I was a technology evangelist at one point, and it just hit right there. And it was a formation for what became the sales evangelist, a brand, and that identity, that kind of came from that, like just thinking about that visually, like we are evangelizing what we’re seeing work for sales professionals. Because so many of us, especially back then, think about 10-15 years ago, like 20 years ago, for instance, like you didn’t have, like, a collective community where you can go to besides maybe, maybe a blog. But. Really didn’t have that community. So we wanted to share what was working, and to help so many sales professionals who get into a into a world where they don’t have that guidance, that process, kind of like what you talk and teach on, like what’s what’s going to help them be successful, besides the gift of gab, garbage. So anyways, we started evangelizing what’s been working, and it’s been a journey since, and that’s where it led to where we are. So we’re the sales evangelist, nothing to a religion, just like we’re just evangelists.

Matt Wolach  05:25

I think it’s fantastic, and I think it’s so important, because sales doesn’t have the best reputation. And you know, if people, they never want to say at a cocktail party, like, I’m in sales, they would much rather say, Oh, I’m an account executive at this thing or whatever, and it’s so sad, because it’s so great. We literally are helping people make their lives better. If you think of what we do it, it is a really good thing, but there’s just this, this bad kind of view of sales and what we’re doing right? It’s, it’s kind of sad.

Donald Kelly  05:58

It is. And it happened to me. His name was Adam. We I was on the I came back home to work in in South Florida. I went to high school here. I went to a prestigious school of downtown drive, the School of the Arts, and it’s an art school, but it was like a private school. It’s public school, but it’s amazing, great experience. And what happened was, I remember, like, you know, traveling the country, doing these debate tournaments with some of these kids and some kids, and some of them just went off and became lawyers and all the stuff. So I came back home and I saw Adam downtown, and I was like, Adam, how you doing, man? And he’s like, oh my goodness, so good to see. He was like, What are you doing? And I said, I’m in sales. Really excited. Should have seen the look on his face, Matt, it was kind of like, holy moly. Like you Oh, okay. And he’s like, Yeah, I’m a district attorney with the, you know, the city, or whatever it was. And I was like, Oh, man. So then seeing Adam’s face, I remember the location was on clematis, and what’s that canyon, Banyan, or nothing, whatever cross street was. But I remember that location, though, and I remember that feeling like, should I be excited for this? This This was again, like when I first started in sales, like, should I be excited for this? Did I go lower than my capability? Should have gone into law, but I knew I wanted to do business and specifically, like, marketing and sales. So anyways, after this, and after I started going, you know, becoming more I got over that hump and Matt and got past the whole Adam issue, and then I started realizing the lives that we were changing. And go back to what you’re saying. What you’re saying, I didn’t have a limit on income, and I’m sure I started making more money than Adam, you know, as my career went on. But impact though, like, how can I, I can have a pivotal role in helping adjust and change companies with our solutions that we’re offering. And as I came to realize how critical we were, and not just like, you know, order taken, but we were a consultant, so to speak, or these industry authority leaders. And as I fell into that, and I got into my lane, and I feel that so many of us, especially starting off, and so many that are have a bad look on sales, get into those Adam experience and get a distaste 

Matt Wolach  08:01

that’s amazing that you have that story, because it’s so true, and it is funny that good salespeople are making two or three times as much as a lawyer. So but, but you, oh, you’re a lawyer, like it has that kind of aura around it as Oh, you’re a salesperson. That’s all you. And it’s like, what? Come on. So I’m glad that you are out there evangelizing our industry, because I think it does need some some good PR out there. But I want to ask you, because you talked about LinkedIn, I think LinkedIn is an amazing channel if people use it right, it’s a terrible channel with people use it wrong. Like, maybe that’s where some of this bad connotation came from all those LinkedIn spammy messages we get. So tell me, why can LinkedIn be a really good channel for building business?

Donald Kelly  08:43

It’s a gathering spot. It’s where everyone that we want to get to, and this is a good and a bad about it. It’s everyone that we want to get in contact with, as B2B sellers. That’s where they go to hang out. Or if they don’t, they have it. And here’s where LinkedIn started making, you know, like you started have a good, good Juju from LinkedIn. Obviously, they’re owned by Microsoft right now, and LinkedIn has been getting into the zeitgeist if you’ve watched TV shows. I remember, I was watching a show the other day, and my wife and all of a sudden the person was losing their job. It was, it was a Christmas time, sorry. And it was an Eddie Murphy movie on, I think it was on Amazon, and he was lost his job, and his wife said, Do you need to go update your LinkedIn profile? And when she saw that, I was like, Holy crap. LinkedIn is really officially, like, there it is in the in the zeitgeist, for exactly what that is. So here’s what I want to go back to there, even if they’re not active on a platform, they’re present at HubSpots event last year, inbound, their CEOs on stage. And she said this in her keynote speaking. She was talking about search, and how people are searching, changing their behaviors when it comes to like traditional going to search on, you know, Google for information, 44% of executive four, four percentage of executives said that they discovered new solutions via social. Now, the majority of that place where they’re hanging out is a platform such as LinkedIn. But now if we know this is a goal, so. That’s the first top level, like the top area. Why is it so great? Is because of that. Now, the two, the bad part of that is because they’re there. So everyone figure, if they’re there, it’s like, I can, you know, shoot a fish in a barrel, like I’m going to be successful. And yes, maybe that was the case at, you know, 20 years ago, when you first got on LinkedIn. However, that’s not the case right now. And because of that, we saw people over the years went through automation and the spamming. We still seen some of that, but we need to make sure we adjust it. So why does it work? And everything I’m teaching, everything I’m sharing with you, stuff that I do, and anyone could challenge me on it, because I do it and I make money off of it’s my much money making platform. And to full disclosure, I do LinkedIn is because I’ve done this and evangelize so much on a platform, I’m an influencer with them. But beyond that, I just want to be aware that it’s not, this is not LinkedIn speaking. It’s DK, but what I typically do is I down here in South Florida, there’s a community called Wellington. If anybody’s familiar with the question, community, it’s like, you know, this is where you go trick or treating. Like as a kid, they have money and amazing full size candy bars. Full size candy bar community. Everybody has one of them in their town. So what I typically would do just visualize this here for a minute. You go to, you know, go to Wellington. I’m going to the house, because that’s where people hang out, quote, unquote, LinkedIn, but I’m going there, and I’m going to the houses where the lights are on, because I don’t want to waste my time. I have, like, two, three hours of trick or treating time for him to get home from a mom coming, you know, call me or something. So if this is the case, you got to maximize it. People go on LinkedIn, and they go to Wellington, so to speak, and they’re going and knocking on every single door, and they’re saying, well, it sucks, because nobody has given us full size candy bar. Well, none of those people are home. But how do you figure out if people are home, if they’re engaged on LinkedIn? And potentially those people who are willing to discover things of 44% the thing. And if I go too fast, hit me to slow down.

Matt Wolach  11:43

I love it, dude. I’m eating it up.

Donald Kelly  11:46

So what I typically do, I tell people, you can do this a manual way, or you can do it with Navigator in a manual ways. I go find watering holes on LinkedIn. So if I’m selling to, you know, CMOs, I’m gonna go to like platforms like HubSpot, or maybe like Marketo, or some of these places where the people may hang out to get content or information, those communities, and therefore I’m going to engage on those posts and see if I find my ICPs. Those are the people that quote, unquote lights are on. They’re active on LinkedIn. They’re sharing, they’re sharing their comments or engaging on pieces of information that’s relevant. Now the easier way, that’s very manual, easier ways I go to Navigator, and what I do is I search for people, in my case, for VPs of sales and VPs of, you know, sales directors and CROs that may be active on a platform. And sometimes I look at people who’ve changed job roles. So you can, you can filter if somebody’s posted on a platform in the past 30 days. That’s money right there, because now you can create engaging content. So I’m going to the houses where the lights are on that are more than likely to buy, quote, unquote, and that people that are posting and engaging on a platform, and this is where most people make the mistakes they do, the dumb connection requests. And I’m a big and I did a poll on this, and there’s a there’s different camps going on right now, but I’m going to put my stake in my line in the sand and tell you what side I’m on. I’m firmly planted my flag on the side of personalized connection requests. And here’s why LinkedIn, they’re the overlords, right? But LinkedIn started charging right now for people for a personalized connection request. I mean, do you feel that that’s just a dumb feature, and that’s why they’re just going to charge for it, or do they have data that you don’t have, and I don’t have, that indicate that increases a high chance of engagement or connection back. So I mean, that’s the first thing. So if they’re charging for it, there must be a reason behind it. They’re not doing it out of silliness. So that’s one area, but the other side to that too is that it’s more personalized. Now, I’m not talking about a personalized pitch. I’m talking about personalized connection requests that makes people more engaged or apt to connect back with you. And if somebody has a personalized connection request to you and willing to connect back to you, increases the odds of that person doing further engagement with you. That’s my theory. And those are the things why I stick to this side of the sand, and plus, it’s way cooler. So what I do, if I see that you did a post, I’m not going to do something dumb, like, Hey, Matt, I see that we have mutual connections together, let’s connect on LinkedIn. That’s dumb. I ignore that. But if you came to me, if I saw you posted something really dope with like Rob Jepson and an episode that was really cool about, you know, how leaders are five times more likely to succeed if they do blank. I might say, Matt, love that topic that you just shared with Rob Jepson. Totally agree with that. But do you feel that applies to all type businesses. PS, permission to connect here on LinkedIn. You’re going to more than likely respond. Because two things you’ve been taught since you’re a kid, when someone asks you a question, to engage back with them, and this is something that you already like. It’s not a trickery. I’m really sincerely curious about that, because this is a post that you just had, and the fact that that comes around obviously makes that engagement so much better. You’re more than likely accept that connection request. You’re more than likely to respond to me, and then when respond to me, and then when you do, I’m gonna drop you a video. I’m gonna say, Matt, all right, I am taking you up on that. Imma try it. You said it works with any size company. Look forward to giving you back my feedback. Have a good one, man. Happy Saturday. You’re gonna respond to me. And I just grabbed your attention, and then we started engagement. I’m gonna stop there for a sec.

Matt Wolach  14:58

No, it’s gold. I love it. And you’re doing. Things that nobody else is doing, right? That’s why it’s successful, because and just going from backwards first. So the video like, How many times do you get a personalized video from somebody who’s sending over, hey, a quick thanks. And I talk to my clients about this, like, you want to differentiate, because there’s so much glut in the market right now. Do a personalized video. You do not have to spend a lot of time. What you just said is perfect. It was like eight seconds. Great. The fact that it was personalized is a differentiator totally and I absolutely love it. And and you talk about, I want to ask you a question, because you talk about that personal connection after seeing their post, do you also like and comment on the post so that they see your name come up in Notifications? I’ve done that as well, and I’ve seen that help.

Donald Kelly  15:42

100%. I skipped that step, but it’s, it’s critical, and I probably would use that question in that because it’s, it’s you and I are content creators, and I maybe I’m speaking for myself here, but I have an ego, and that ego is going to tell me that when I run something, I want a human being to like it. There’s no one in this absolute in this world that puts something on Instagram or Facebook or Tiktok and say, I hope nobody likes it. I hope nobody comments on it. Like, I want you to see the freaking vacation that we just went on to, like, Disney Springs or whatever, with family. Like, I want you to see that stuff like, right? I want to get that liking, that validation. And I’m just being straight up with you. That’s why we do it Facebook. Crack the code. But now think about this on LinkedIn, if I go post something, I have the guts to post something from my peers. I want my peers to give me an engagement, or human beings to say that was great stuff I enjoyed that. Never thought about that strategy before. Donald engage with me. I’m going to jump on that comment right off the bat, and I’m going to respond to that comment. So it’s the same concept. Think about human behavior. If you can understand psychology, you can be successful in sales, in any art of business, but specifically with this example. So I would comment on it, not just say something dumb, like, great post, Matt, all right, you wasted my time. Let me delete that comment. But if you said something like, you know, you even if you posted like, you know, not even that you just posted you know, I’m launching a podcast, or just launched our new show, or I’m thinking about bringing on some guests. Who do you recommend? I would say, Matt, you definitely should check out blah, blah, blah, they’re going to be great. Or check out this person. They’re going to be great. And then you’re going to take that to be, you know, take it to be great. You’re going to see the impressions go up. You know, 2000 people, 2000 impression you be and you feel good, but I’m not just manipulating it, but I’m using what works like what’s going to grab your attention. I need to break through the noise and grab that attention and a personalized message with, you know something, a personalized post, a comment on that post, with engagement makes so much more sense. And here’s the other part with that. It’s fascinating too. I don’t know why, if you do this one reels, but I do it too. I’ll watch the reels, and more than likely, more people will come back, and they’ll start to say, Man, I should have came to the comments first because the reel was so engaging or funny, or the comments down below, it’s like its own, you know, you know, own content. And people start engaging. And the same idea, if somebody engages at a thoughtful engagement on a post or a comment, and you and that person starts going back and forth a discussion about it. People come back on that and increase the increases, the idea of the exposure of that piece of content. So in any ways, like all of that stuff just makes sense. So if you can take you can say, yeah, it’s gonna, you know, I know the leaders on this, some of them probably rose in it earlier. I said dollars isn’t scalable. But like, Listen, you think about this, we can go back and we can do what, what’s worked before in the past, like in 1990s and early 2000s and blast idea. Or we can come back and do focus accounts. And I think most people have that concept, focus accounts, focus approach, targeted approach, and do that at a higher velocity in a tactical way. And we can see that we can increase the, you know, get the same amount of those books, appointments, appointments that are held, and I can go back and finish up the second half in a second and tell you what I do after that. But anyways.

Matt Wolach  18:46

yeah, I love it. I totally agree, especially depending on your price point, if you have a solid price point, spending that kind of time is not only smart, but you’ve got to. I mean, if you’re doing the mass blast, spray and pray, and you’re at a higher price point, you’re wasting your time, and you’re probably going to turn someone off who could have been a great potential customer for you. So I totally agree that personalized method is fantastic.

Donald Kelly  19:09

Yeah and you 100% there, you know, let’s just get some ads going. That’s the case. But, but, you know, so the whole premise with this though, if I can find that I engage with you, it increases the odds of anything else that come back when it comes to a relevant outreach, and that’s where we focus our clients on our word for last year and this year has been relevancy. We want it. I’ve just adopted it, and I saw what happened with my own behavior of my team. I’m an executive assistant. Like, when we’re going through my emails, I first delete all the people that I don’t know. Like, straight up. I’ll go through and look, if I don’t know you, and it sounds like a pitch, delete, delete. I’ll quick scam it, but I that I need to get those out of the way first the weeds so I can get back to the mats of the world and read your. Email and prep for the podcast, or to, you know, follow, respond to a client or whatnot I and, or to my friend who said, you know, we’re going golfing this weekend. I want to get but I need to get rid of the garbage first. But if that’s the case, and if you don’t, and what if somebody does reach out to me, it has to be and it’s a salesperson, I do answer those, some of those some of those emails, but 90% of them is just like, we can get you leads, but, but what I what I do is I look and see how relevant it is to me. And 99% of the time, people don’t necessarily do something that’s relevant to me, per se, they do something that’s relevant to their pipeline. One more time, for the folks in the back, 99% of the time, people are doing stuff that’s relevant to their pipeline and not necessarily relevant to me. So relevant to the pipeline is that you’re my ICP. I can pitch you and share something with you. You can come into my pipe, as opposed to you have a challenge. You’re the type of people that I serve, and I see there’s a relevant problem. So like, say, for instance, if you’re posting that you’re hiring, or if you’re you know if you, if I see your company hiring, for instance, and I, you know, obviously we’re in the sales components as well. And, you know, SMB, I might look at you and say, All right, their team’s growing. They probably have a founder led model, or they probably have some kind of, you know, model that can be adjusted to be scaled. Can I go ahead and reach out to them and share something? And if I can share relevant information based on the other clients that we serve, that leads to a much more richer conversation with the email. So I don’t pitch on LinkedIn now that I grab your attention. I take the party out over and I start a conversation on another platform, that multi thread. So my email now to you will be something like, you know, tested the model, and then I might say, Hey, Matt, tested a model that you and Rob Jepsen talked about, speaking about that. SMB, I noticed that you guys are hiring and growing out of curiosity. Do you guys have currently have an enablement system and set up in place? Or have you open to looking at, you know, work with outside partners, but you’re probably going to respond to me at least and give me a yes or no, because that’s how the question is designed. That email for sure, and because of the engagement that we already had, and I bridged that gap with email, you’re going to respond to it. And I have had clients and that didn’t respond to that email, but they went back to LinkedIn and had the conversation there, and, you know, connected back to me, got your email. Donald, yeah, it’s something we look at. Let’s set up a time and talk. And they are, you owe me that because, at least, or you feel like you owe me that you don’t owe me anything, because we’ve had engagement before on the platform. And if you, especially if you’re multithreading, and you have two or three individuals in an organization that you can start having this dialog with. It makes our dialogs with it makes it so much more easier to for those conversation to germinate and to turn into ops.

Matt Wolach  22:31

Totally agree. I mean, it’s such a good strategy. We’ve used it on our side. You said you get a lot of your business from LinkedIn. We get about 75% of our business from LinkedIn. It’s amazing when you do it right, how well it works, and it’s awesome to hear your process and how structured that is. That’s really something that people can take away. So as as we I wish we could talk for hours on this, by the way, but unfortunately, we got to wrap it up. So what advice would you give to software leaders who are like, Okay, I want to be able to use this platform better. What would you share with them, Donald?

Donald Kelly  23:04

simplify, for your team, there’s three things that they should be doing, connect share and engage. Connect share and engage. And what I mean by this is connect with their ICP. Most people, if they look, if they do an audit right now, look at how many people they’re connected to, probably say, like, a grand 1000 people. Enough. Those 1000, how many of them are their ICP? Maybe they have like, maybe, maybe people could buy from them. 10, 20% I feel that should be at a 50% mark when you think about a platform like LinkedIn, yeah, I’m gonna connect with the Adams of the world and my colleagues and so forth and college friends, but it’ll be absolutely amazing at 50% of the people that are on the platform could potentially buy from me. So daily, I encourage people to reach out to their ICPs, even if they’re not necessarily on their focus account. Can we make sure we have more of those people, 44% of executives say that they discover things through solutions, through content platforms like LinkedIn. So if this is a case again, then can I have my share more content and even a brand new SDR on your team knows more about an industry oftentimes, or about a product, then maybe the top tier executive at an organization. And what I mean by that is like an executive may not necessarily know everything about a CRM but they may know how to run a fortune 500 company. Well, I know enough from the product training and the things that we’ve had, the case studies and the practice about to know enough about case CRMs that it can help me to have more of an effective dialog. And I could probably answer some of the questions that they potentially could have so sharing content. And what I tell them to look at is, in a discovery call or in that early conversation that you’re having, what are some of the talking points that you usually have? Those are the talking points, the objections that you get, the questions those who make the richest LinkedIn posts and you can answer questions I don’t feel that I need we’re not big enough for a CRM. That would be a great LinkedIn post right there. Somebody could even a junior SDR, could answer that question. So they’re connecting with their ICP, they’re sharing content once a week, and if they don’t know what to share, go steal a post and re curate it. Love this awesome podcast episode by Adam there. By Matt today, giving you a new name, Matt. By Matt. He shared some insights around this stuff that I feel every leader. Sales and Marketing can take advantage of curious to hear your thoughts, but share and then engage. Whenever you have a post, anyone who likes it, engage with those individuals, and then also engage on other people’s content. If your sales team can do those three things on LinkedIn, they’re going to see an uptick in their their visibility, and they’re going to see an uptick in their opportunity to have more conversations and book appointments.

Matt Wolach  25:22

I love it. That’s a great model. Connect, share, engage. I think that that’s something that can really help us take off. This has been awesome. Donald, you are the man. It’s clear that you are an expert at this, and I love your energy. How can our audience get in touch with you and learn more?

Donald Kelly  25:37

Come on. You know, I’m gonna tell you guys, go to LinkedIn. Find me on LinkedIn. Donald C. Kelly, you can find me on LinkedIn. Tell me that you heard me here on this podcast with Matt. And you can also go home to thesalesevangelist.com we do have content there 1700 – 1800 episodes and some other stuff as well. And you can check out, download a free some ideas that we have for LinkedIn at the bottom of our page. So, yeah.

Matt Wolach  26:01

beautiful, awesome. Well, we’ll put all that into the show notes. So if you’re listening, go check it out there. But Donald, this has been fantastic. Thanks for being here and telling us all this. 

Donald Kelly  26:10

Hey man, I appreciate you. And I would tell all of your listeners too, that sometimes we don’t do this at, uh, you know, you might tell them to do this, but they probably don’t do it. But we need a stranger come in and tell you, like, you know, your neighbor kids, neighbor parent. Tell your kids stuff, and they’re like, this is great. I’ve been telling you that for three years, but guys, go out and share this podcast, take the link and share it with one other person, another leader that you know. It’s wealth of knowledge. Every single episode, I’ve been able to go back and check out the pod, and it’s amazing. So please, please, please help Matt and get the word out about it. This is dope. 

Matt Wolach  26:39

You heard the man, definitely dope. Thank you so much, and please share that that would be really helpful for us, but also you’ll be helping others share the amazing knowledge of Donald Kelly, so Donald, thanks so much for coming on the show. 

Donald Kelly  26:52

Thanks for having me 

Matt Wolach  26:53

and everybody out there. Thank you very much for being here. We will see you next time. Take care.