June 11, 2024 • 29 mins
EPISODE SUMMARY
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
- Ensure Relevance is Key
- Best Tips on Software Sales Evangelism
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
- The Genesis of The Sales Evangelist
- Sales Evangelism: Beyond the Stereotypes
- LinkedIn: The Modern Evangelist’s Platform
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/
Get even more tips by following Matt elsewhere:
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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 funtoday. And what we do here is we
help you understand how to growyour company. So you got to grow
some leads. You got to get someleads. Yes, we're going to help
you with that. You want to knowhow to close those leads. You
want to know how to scale a teamthat can do that for you. All of
those things we deliver. Andwhat we do is we bring the best
(00:22):
in the world who have done thisand has shown some amazing
process. We bring them in frontof you, ping them, ask them
questions, so that they canshare their experience and their
knowledge with you. If you wantthose things, definitely
subscribe right now. That wayyou're going to be able to get
all of the best updates andinsights into the best things
that are happening in the worldof SaaS now, and one of those
(00:43):
experts, I'm so excited thathe's with us. This guy knows his
stuff. He's been doing it for awhile. We can learn a lot from
him. I've got Donald Kelly withme. Donald, how you doing?
Donald Kelly (00:52):
I'm doing well, man, oh my goodness. Matt, thank
you. This is I'm getting sopumped 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 metell you who Donald is. So he is
the Founder at The SalesEvangelist, and he is the Chief
Sales Evangelist. What he does?
He oversees business developmentstrategies for small to midsize
organizations. He conductsworkshops, keynote
presentations, designs salesprocesses and more to make sure
(01:23):
that sales, individuals andexecutives, achieve outstanding
results. He also has his ownshow, the sales evangelist
podcast. This thing's beenrunning more than 10 years. He
has had some amazing topics onthere, so definitely go check
that out. But Donald, thanks forbeing on the show.
Donald Kelly (01:40):
Dang bro. I like that intro. I appreciate that,
man. Thank you so much forhaving me. And when you say all
those things, I started thinkingabout like, yeah, 10 years
craziness.
Matt Wolach (01:49):
It goes by quick.
This shows four years old, andit feels like just a blink of an
eye. So I totally get it. Tellme what's been going on with you
lately? What's what's beenhappening?
Donald Kelly (01:58):
Yeah, I mean, I think for us, the biggest thing
here is we've been camping outon LinkedIn a lot, spending a
lot of time there. Businesswise, creating more content and
doing a lot more things, andprobably would dabble in some of
this stuff today. And familywise, we're just, you know, we
are here cooking with hotchicken grease. Man, family's
doing well, my wife, kid and Iand enjoying in South Florida
(02:19):
before we get into theblistering, 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 yourbody's cooking in hot grease in
the middle of the summer. But Itotally relate, because I'm in
Arizona, but it's a dry heat,right? So that's good stuff. You
mentioned LinkedIn. I definitelywant to talk about that in a
second, but I want to go evenfurther back. What gave you the
idea to start The SalesEvangelist? Where'd that come
(02:49):
from?
Donald Kelly (02:51):
Yeah, so in college, I read a book, or I was
supposed to read a book in anentrepreneur class by Guy
Kawasaki, and we had to look uphis bio, and Apple guy was
Apple's Chief Evangelist back inthe 90s. And when I first heard
that, I was thinking, Manevangelist. The only time I ever
heard that term was, like inchurch. But this guy took it and
married it with marketing, withbusiness. I'm like, That's
(03:11):
brilliant, because it gave methis rich, vividry, a visual,
like, I'm thinking with thisguy, like going out on a
rooftops or in a corner or tocompanies or everywhere, and
talking about Apple. And he wasa big, passionate, passionate
about that with Woz and jobsback then. And so fast forward,
I got into one of my first gigin a tech space, in a technology
aspect, not necessarily softwareat the time. And we went to this
(03:32):
networking event, Matt andeveryone there was, you know,
talking about their roles,account executive, blah, blah,
blah, you get it. And then oneguy, it came to me, and I just
had the Apple iPad number two atthat point. And I was like, this
is boring. I came to the firstone, and it was kind of lame.
Second time I just had it inmind. Had to stand up and say,
I'm the technology evangelist.
Our company went to the roof, tothe mountaintop, and came back
(03:55):
with the latest and greatestideas of how to help your
organization when it comes totech. Bro. After that
conversation that networkingevent, like so many people, came
and started talking to me, so itgerminate this idea in my head,
and started thinking about it.
So fast forward, when I got intosoftware sales, and I just, I
went through some trainings andenablement, and I was just,
(04:16):
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 oneof my friends was like, you
should consider a podcast. Andhe was like, man, you're like an
evangelist for sales. And then Idid. I said, Well, I was a
technology evangelist at onepoint, and it just hit right
there. And it was a formationfor what became the sales
(04:37):
evangelist, a brand, and thatidentity, that kind of came from
that, like just thinking aboutthat visually, like we are
evangelizing what we're seeingwork for sales professionals.
Because so many of us,especially back then, think
about 10-15 years ago, like 20years ago, for instance, like
you didn't have, like, acollective community where you
can go to besides maybe, maybe ablog. But. Really didn't have
(05:00):
that community. So we wanted toshare what was working, and to
help so many sales professionalswho get into a into a world
where they don't have thatguidance, that process, kind of
like what you talk and teach on,like what's what's going to help
them be successful, besides thegift of gab, garbage. So
anyways, we started evangelizingwhat's been working, and it's
been a journey since, and that'swhere it led to where we are. So
(05:21):
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'thave the best reputation. And
you know, if people, they neverwant to say at a cocktail party,
like, I'm in sales, they wouldmuch rather say, Oh, I'm an
account executive at this thingor whatever, and it's so sad,
because it's so great. Weliterally are helping people
(05:47):
make their lives better. If youthink of what we do it, it is a
really good thing, but there'sjust this, this bad kind of view
of sales and what we're doingright? 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 cameback home to work in in South
Florida. I went to high schoolhere. I went to a prestigious
school of downtown drive, theSchool of the Arts, and it's an
art school, but it was like aprivate school. It's public
school, but it's amazing, greatexperience. And what happened
was, I remember, like, you know,traveling the country, doing
(06:21):
these debate tournaments withsome of these kids and some
kids, and some of them just wentoff and became lawyers and all
the stuff. So I came back homeand 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 waslike, What are you doing? And I
said, I'm in sales. Reallyexcited. Should have seen the
look on his face, Matt, it waskind of like, holy moly. Like
you Oh, okay. And he's like,Yeah, I'm a district attorney
(06:43):
with the, you know, the city, orwhatever it was. And I was like,
Oh, man. So then seeing Adam'sface, I remember the location
was on clematis, and what's thatcanyon, Banyan, or nothing,
whatever cross street was. But Iremember that location, though,
and I remember that feelinglike, should I be excited for
this? This This was again, likewhen I first started in sales,
like, should I be excited forthis? Did I go lower than my
(07:06):
capability? Should have goneinto law, but I knew I wanted to
do business and specifically,like, marketing and sales. So
anyways, after this, and after Istarted going, you know,
becoming more I got over thathump and Matt and got past the
whole Adam issue, and then Istarted realizing the lives that
we were changing. And go back towhat you're saying. What you're
saying, I didn't have a limit onincome, and I'm sure I started
making more money than Adam, youknow, as my career went on. But
(07:28):
impact though, like, how can I,I can have a pivotal role in
helping adjust and changecompanies with our solutions
that we're offering. And as Icame to realize how critical we
were, and not just like, youknow, order taken, but we were a
consultant, so to speak, orthese industry authority
leaders. And as I fell intothat, and I got into my lane,
(07:49):
and I feel that so many of us,especially starting off, and so
many that are have a bad look onsales, get into those Adam
experience and get a distaste
Matt Wolach (08:02):
that's amazing that you have that story, because
it's so true, and it is funnythat good salespeople are making
two or three times as much as alawyer. So but, but you, oh,
you're a lawyer, like it hasthat kind of aura around it as
Oh, you're a salesperson. That'sall you. And it's like, what?
Come on. So I'm glad that youare out there evangelizing our
industry, because I think itdoes need some some good PR out
(08:24):
there. But I want to ask you,because you talked about
LinkedIn, I think LinkedIn is anamazing channel if people use it
right, it's a terrible channelwith people use it wrong. Like,
maybe that's where some of thisbad connotation came from all
those LinkedIn spammy messageswe get. So tell me, why can
LinkedIn be a really goodchannel 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 agood and a bad about it. It's
everyone that we want to get incontact with, as B2B sellers.
That's where they go to hangout. Or if they don't, they have
it. And here's where LinkedInstarted making, you know, like
you started have a good, goodJuju from LinkedIn. Obviously,
they're owned by Microsoft rightnow, and LinkedIn has been
getting into the zeitgeist ifyou've watched TV shows. I
(09:04):
remember, I was watching a showthe other day, and my wife and
all of a sudden the person waslosing their job. It was, it was
a Christmas time, sorry. And itwas an Eddie Murphy movie on, I
think it was on Amazon, and hewas lost his job, and his wife
said, Do you need to go updateyour LinkedIn profile? And when
she saw that, I was like, Holycrap. LinkedIn is really
officially, like, there it is inthe in the zeitgeist, for
(09:26):
exactly what that is. So here'swhat I want to go back to there,
even if they're not active on aplatform, they're present at
HubSpots event last year,inbound, their CEOs on stage.
And she said this in her keynotespeaking. She was talking about
search, and how people aresearching, changing their
behaviors when it comes to liketraditional going to search on,
you know, Google forinformation, 44% of executive
(09:48):
four, four percentage ofexecutives said that they
discovered new solutions viasocial. Now, the majority of
that place where they're hangingout is a platform such as
LinkedIn. But now if we knowthis is a goal, so. That's the
first top level, like the toparea. Why is it so great? Is
because of that. Now, the two,the bad part of that is because
they're there. So everyonefigure, if they're there, it's
(10:09):
like, I can, you know, shoot afish in a barrel, like I'm going
to be successful. And yes, maybethat was the case at, you know,
20 years ago, when you first goton LinkedIn. However, that's not
the case right now. And becauseof that, we saw people over the
years went through automationand the spamming. We still seen
some of that, but we need tomake sure we adjust it. So why
does it work? And everything I'mteaching, everything I'm sharing
with you, stuff that I do, andanyone could challenge me on it,
(10:31):
because I do it and I make moneyoff of it's my much money making
platform. And to fulldisclosure, I do LinkedIn is
because I've done this andevangelize so much on a
platform, I'm an influencer withthem. 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 dois I down here in South Florida,
(10:52):
there's a community calledWellington. If anybody's
familiar with the question,community, it's like, you know,
this is where you go trick ortreating. Like as a kid, they
have money and amazing full sizecandy bars. Full size candy bar
community. Everybody has one ofthem in their town. So what I
typically would do justvisualize this here for a
minute. You go to, you know, goto Wellington. I'm going to the
house, because that's wherepeople hang out, quote, unquote,
(11:13):
LinkedIn, but I'm going there,and I'm going to the houses
where the lights are on, becauseI don't want to waste my time. I
have, like, two, three hours oftrick 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 gotto maximize it. People go on
LinkedIn, and they go toWellington, so to speak, and
they're going and knocking onevery single door, and they're
saying, well, it sucks, becausenobody has given us full size
(11:33):
candy bar. Well, none of thosepeople are home. But how do you
figure out if people are home,if they're engaged on LinkedIn?
And potentially those people whoare willing to discover things
of 44% the thing. And if I gotoo 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 youcan do it with Navigator in a
manual ways. I go find wateringholes on LinkedIn. So if I'm
selling to, you know, CMOs, I'mgonna go to like platforms like
HubSpot, or maybe like Marketo,or some of these places where
the people may hang out to getcontent or information, those
communities, and therefore I'mgoing to engage on those posts
(12:09):
and see if I find my ICPs. Thoseare the people that quote,
unquote lights are on. They'reactive on LinkedIn. They're
sharing, they're sharing theircomments or engaging on pieces
of information that's relevant.
Now the easier way, that's verymanual, easier ways I go to
Navigator, and what I do is Isearch for people, in my case,
for VPs of sales and VPs of, youknow, sales directors and CROs
(12:29):
that may be active on aplatform. And sometimes I look
at people who've changed jobroles. So you can, you can
filter if somebody's posted on aplatform in the past 30 days.
That's money right there,because now you can create
engaging content. So I'm goingto the houses where the lights
are on that are more than likelyto buy, quote, unquote, and that
people that are posting andengaging on a platform, and this
is where most people make themistakes they do, the dumb
(12:51):
connection requests. And I'm abig and I did a poll on this,
and there's a there's differentcamps going on right now, but
I'm going to put my stake in myline in the sand and tell you
what side I'm on. I'm firmlyplanted my flag on the side of
personalized connectionrequests. And here's why
LinkedIn, they're the overlords,right? But LinkedIn started
charging right now for peoplefor a personalized connection
(13:12):
request. I mean, do you feelthat that's just a dumb feature,
and that's why they're justgoing to charge for it, or do
they have data that you don'thave, and I don't have, that
indicate that increases a highchance of engagement or
connection back. So I mean,that's the first thing. So if
they're charging for it, theremust be a reason behind it.
They're not doing it out ofsilliness. So that's one area,
but the other side to that toois that it's more personalized.
Now, I'm not talking about apersonalized pitch. I'm talking
(13:34):
about personalized connectionrequests that makes people more
engaged or apt to connect backwith you. And if somebody has a
personalized connection requestto you and willing to connect
back to you, increases the oddsof that person doing further
engagement with you. That's mytheory. And those are the things
why I stick to this side of thesand, and plus, it's way cooler.
So what I do, if I see that youdid a post, I'm not going to do
something dumb, like, Hey, Matt,I see that we have mutual
(13:56):
connections together, let'sconnect on LinkedIn. That's
dumb. I ignore that. But if youcame to me, if I saw you posted
something really dope with likeRob Jepson and an episode that
was really cool about, you know,how leaders are five times more
likely to succeed if they doblank. I might say, Matt, love
that topic that you just sharedwith Rob Jepson. Totally agree
with that. But do you feel thatapplies to all type businesses.
(14:19):
PS, permission to connect hereon LinkedIn. You're going to
more than likely respond.
Because two things you've beentaught since you're a kid, when
someone asks you a question, toengage back with them, and this
is something that you alreadylike. It's not a trickery. I'm
really sincerely curious aboutthat, because this is a post
that you just had, and the factthat that comes around obviously
makes that engagement so muchbetter. You're more than likely
(14:40):
accept that connection request.
You're more than likely torespond to me, and then when
respond to me, and then when youdo, 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 withany size company. Look forward
to giving you back my feedback.
Have a good one, man. HappySaturday. You're gonna respond
to me. And I just grabbed yourattention, and then we started
engagement. I'm gonna stop therefor a sec.
Matt Wolach (14:58):
No, it's gold. I love it. And you're doing.
Things that nobody else isdoing, right? That's why it's
successful, because and justgoing from backwards first. So
the video like, How many timesdo you get a personalized video
from somebody who's sendingover, hey, a quick thanks. And I
talk to my clients about this,like, you want to differentiate,
because there's so much glut inthe market right now. Do a
personalized video. You do nothave to spend a lot of time.
(15:20):
What you just said is perfect.
It was like eight seconds.
Great. The fact that it waspersonalized is a differentiator
totally and I absolutely loveit. And and you talk about, I
want to ask you a question,because you talk about that
personal connection after seeingtheir post, do you also like and
comment on the post so that theysee your name come up in
Notifications? I've done that aswell, and I've seen that help.
Donald Kelly (15:42):
100%. I skipped that step, but it's, it's
critical, and I probably woulduse that question in that
because it's, it's you and I arecontent 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 Irun something, I want a human
being to like it. There's no onein this absolute in this world
that puts something on Instagramor Facebook or Tiktok and say, I
(16:04):
hope nobody likes it. I hopenobody comments on it. Like, I
want you to see the freakingvacation that we just went on
to, like, Disney Springs orwhatever, with family. Like, I
want you to see that stuff like,right? I want to get that
liking, that validation. And I'mjust being straight up with you.
That's why we do it Facebook.
Crack the code. But now thinkabout this on LinkedIn, if I go
post something, I have the gutsto post something from my peers.
I want my peers to give me anengagement, or human beings to
(16:25):
say that was great stuff Ienjoyed that. Never thought
about that strategy before.
Donald engage with me. I'm goingto jump on that comment right
off the bat, and I'm going torespond to that comment. So it's
the same concept. Think abouthuman behavior. If you can
understand psychology, you canbe successful in sales, in any
art of business, butspecifically with this example.
(16:45):
So I would comment on it, notjust say something dumb, like,
great post, Matt, all right, youwasted my time. Let me delete
that comment. But if you saidsomething like, you know, you
even if you posted like, youknow, not even that you just
posted you know, I'm launching apodcast, or just launched our
new show, or I'm thinking aboutbringing on some guests. Who do
(17:06):
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'regoing 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 theimpressions go up. You know,
2000 people, 2000 impression yoube and you feel good, but I'm
not just manipulating it, butI'm using what works like what's
going to grab your attention. Ineed to break through the noise
(17:28):
and grab that attention and apersonalized message with, you
know something, a personalizedpost, a comment on that post,
with engagement makes so muchmore sense. And here's the other
part with that. It's fascinatingtoo. I don't know why, if you do
this one reels, but I do it too.
I'll watch the reels, and morethan likely, more people will
come back, and they'll start tosay, Man, I should have came to
the comments first because thereel was so engaging or funny,
or the comments down below, it'slike its own, you know, you
(17:49):
know, own content. And peoplestart engaging. And the same
idea, if somebody engages at athoughtful engagement on a post
or a comment, and you and thatperson starts going back and
forth a discussion about it.
People come back on that andincrease the increases, the idea
of the exposure of that piece ofcontent. So in any ways, like
all of that stuff just makessense. So if you can take you
(18:10):
can say, yeah, it's gonna, youknow, I know the leaders on
this, some of them probably rosein 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 early2000s and blast idea. Or we can
come back and do focus accounts.
And I think most people havethat concept, focus accounts,
focus approach, targetedapproach, and do that at a
higher velocity in a tacticalway. And we can see that we can
(18:35):
increase the, you know, get thesame amount of those books,
appointments, appointments thatare held, and I can go back and
finish up the second half in asecond 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 isnot only smart, but you've got
to. I mean, if you're doing themass blast, spray and pray, and
you're at a higher price point,you're wasting your time, and
you're probably going to turnsomeone off who could have been
a great potential customer foryou. So I totally agree that
(19:07):
personalized method isfantastic.
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 wholepremise with this though, if I
can find that I engage with you,it increases the odds of
anything else that come backwhen it comes to a relevant
(19:30):
outreach, and that's where wefocus our clients on our word
for last year and this year hasbeen relevancy. We want it. I've
just adopted it, and I saw whathappened with my own behavior of
my team. I'm an executiveassistant. Like, when we're
going through my emails, I firstdelete all the people that I
don't know. Like, straight up.
I'll go through and look, if Idon't know you, and it sounds
(19:52):
like a pitch, delete, delete.
I'll quick scam it, but I that Ineed to get those out of the way
first the weeds so I can getback to the mats of the world
and read your. Email and prepfor the podcast, or to, you
know, follow, respond to aclient or whatnot I and, or to
my friend who said, you know,we're going golfing this
weekend. I want to get but Ineed to get rid of the garbage
first. But if that's the case,and if you don't, and what if
(20:14):
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 justlike, we can get you leads, but,
but what I what I do is I lookand see how relevant it is to
me. And 99% of the time, peopledon't necessarily do something
that's relevant to me, per se,they do something that's
relevant to their pipeline. Onemore time, for the folks in the
(20:36):
back, 99% of the time, peopleare doing stuff that's relevant
to their pipeline and notnecessarily relevant to me. So
relevant to the pipeline is thatyou're my ICP. I can pitch you
and share something with you.
You can come into my pipe, asopposed to you have a challenge.
You're the type of people that Iserve, and I see there's a
relevant problem. So like, say,for instance, if you're posting
that you're hiring, or if you'reyou know if you, if I see your
(20:59):
company hiring, for instance,and I, you know, obviously we're
in the sales components as well.
And, you know, SMB, I might lookat you and say, All right, their
team's growing. They probablyhave a founder led model, or
they probably have some kind of,you know, model that can be
adjusted to be scaled. Can I goahead and reach out to them and
share something? And if I canshare relevant information based
on the other clients that weserve, that leads to a much more
richer conversation with theemail. So I don't pitch on
(21:21):
LinkedIn now that I grab yourattention. I take the party out
over and I start a conversationon another platform, that multi
thread. So my email now to youwill be something like, you
know, tested the model, and thenI might say, Hey, Matt, tested a
model that you and Rob Jepsentalked about, speaking about
that. SMB, I noticed that youguys are hiring and growing out
(21:41):
of curiosity. Do you guys havecurrently have an enablement
system and set up in place? Orhave you open to looking at, you
know, work with outsidepartners, but you're probably
going to respond to me at leastand give me a yes or no, because
that's how the question isdesigned. That email for sure,
and because of the engagementthat we already had, and I
bridged that gap with email,you're going to respond to it.
And I have had clients and thatdidn't respond to that email,
(22:01):
but they went back to LinkedInand had the conversation there,
and, you know, connected back tome, 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 thatbecause, at least, or you feel
like you owe me that you don'towe me anything, because we've
had engagement before on theplatform. And if you, especially
if you're multithreading, andyou have two or three
individuals in an organizationthat you can start having this
(22:22):
dialog with. It makes ourdialogs with it makes it so much
more easier to for thoseconversation 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. Yousaid you get a lot of your
business from LinkedIn. We getabout 75% of our business from
LinkedIn. It's amazing when youdo it right, how well it works,
and it's awesome to hear yourprocess and how structured that
is. That's really something thatpeople can take away. So as as
we I wish we could talk forhours on this, by the way, but
(22:52):
unfortunately, we got to wrap itup. So what advice would you
give to software leaders who arelike, Okay, I want to be able to
use this platform better. Whatwould you share with them,
Donald?
Donald Kelly (23:04):
simplify, for your team, there's three things that
they should be doing, connectshare and engage. Connect share
and engage. And what I mean bythis is connect with their ICP.
Most people, if they look, ifthey do an audit right now, look
at how many people they'reconnected to, probably say,
like, a grand 1000 people.
Enough. Those 1000, how many ofthem are their ICP? Maybe they
have like, maybe, maybe peoplecould buy from them. 10, 20% I
feel that should be at a 50%mark when you think about a
(23:26):
platform like LinkedIn, yeah,I'm gonna connect with the Adams
of the world and my colleaguesand so forth and college
friends, but it'll be absolutelyamazing at 50% of the people
that are on the platform couldpotentially buy from me. So
daily, I encourage people toreach out to their ICPs, even if
they're not necessarily on theirfocus account. Can we make sure
we have more of those people,44% of executives say that they
discover things throughsolutions, through content
(23:47):
platforms like LinkedIn. So ifthis is a case again, then can I
have my share more content andeven a brand new SDR on your
team knows more about anindustry oftentimes, or about a
product, then maybe the top tierexecutive at an organization.
And what I mean by that is likean executive may not necessarily
know everything about a CRM butthey may know how to run a
fortune 500 company. Well, Iknow enough from the product
(24:08):
training and the things thatwe've had, the case studies and
the practice about to knowenough about case CRMs that it
can help me to have more of aneffective dialog. And I could
probably answer some of thequestions that they potentially
could have so sharing content.
And what I tell them to look atis, in a discovery call or in
that early conversation thatyou're having, what are some of
the talking points that youusually have? Those are the
(24:30):
talking points, the objectionsthat you get, the questions
those who make the richestLinkedIn posts and you can
answer questions I don't feelthat I need we're not big enough
for a CRM. That would be a greatLinkedIn post right there.
Somebody could even a juniorSDR, could answer that question.
So they're connecting with theirICP, they're sharing content
once a week, and if they don'tknow what to share, go steal a
post and re curate it. Love thisawesome podcast episode by Adam
(24:52):
there. By Matt today, giving youa new name, Matt. By Matt. He
shared some insights around thisstuff that I feel every leader.
Sales and Marketing can takeadvantage of curious to hear
your thoughts, but share andthen engage. Whenever you have a
post, anyone who likes it,engage with those individuals,
and then also engage on otherpeople's content. If your sales
(25:13):
team can do those three thingson LinkedIn, they're going to
see an uptick in their theirvisibility, and they're going to
see an uptick in theiropportunity to have more
conversations and bookappointments.
Matt Wolach (25:23):
I love it. That's a great model. Connect, share,
engage. I think that that'ssomething that can really help
us take off. This has beenawesome. Donald, you are the
man. It's clear that you are anexpert at this, and I love your
energy. How can our audience getin 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 meon LinkedIn. Tell me that you
heard me here on this podcastwith Matt. And you can also go
home to thesalesevangelist.comwe do have content there 1700 -
1800 episodes and some otherstuff as well. And you can check
out, download a free some ideasthat we have for LinkedIn at the
(25:58):
bottom of our page. So, yeah.
Matt Wolach (26:01):
beautiful, awesome.
Well, we'll put all that intothe show notes. So if you're
listening, go check it outthere. But Donald, this has been
fantastic. Thanks for being hereand telling us all this.
Donald Kelly (26:10):
Hey man, I appreciate you. And I would tell
all of your listeners too, thatsometimes we don't do this at,
uh, you know, you might tellthem to do this, but they
probably don't do it. But weneed a stranger come in and tell
you, like, you know, yourneighbor kids, neighbor parent.
Tell your kids stuff, andthey're like, this is great.
I've been telling you that forthree years, but guys, go out
and share this podcast, take thelink and share it with one other
person, another leader that youknow. It's wealth of knowledge.
(26:31):
Every single episode, I've beenable to go back and check out
the pod, and it's amazing. Soplease, 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 thatwould be really helpful for us,
but also you'll be helpingothers share the amazing
knowledge of Donald Kelly, soDonald, 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 nexttime. Take care.
Hello and welcome to Scale Your SaaS, I am super
excited that you've joined us.
This is going to be a lot of funtoday. And what we do here is we
help you understand how to growyour company. So you got to grow
some leads. You got to get someleads. Yes, we're going to help
you with that. You want to knowhow to close those leads. You
want to know how to scale a teamthat can do that for you. All of
those things we deliver. Andwhat we do is we bring the best
(00:22):
in the world who have done thisand has shown some amazing
process. We bring them in frontof you, ping them, ask them
questions, so that they canshare their experience and their
knowledge with you. If you wantthose things, definitely
subscribe right now. That wayyou're going to be able to get
all of the best updates andinsights into the best things
that are happening in the worldof SaaS now, and one of those
(00:43):
experts, I'm so excited thathe's with us. This guy knows his
stuff. He's been doing it for awhile. We can learn a lot from
him. I've got Donald Kelly withme. Donald, how you doing?
Donald Kelly (00:52):
I'm doing well, man, oh my goodness. Matt, thank
you. This is I'm getting sopumped 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 metell you who Donald is. So he is
the Founder at The SalesEvangelist, and he is the Chief
Sales Evangelist. What he does?
He oversees business developmentstrategies for small to midsize
organizations. He conductsworkshops, keynote
presentations, designs salesprocesses and more to make sure
(01:23):
that sales, individuals andexecutives, achieve outstanding
results. He also has his ownshow, the sales evangelist
podcast. This thing's beenrunning more than 10 years. He
has had some amazing topics onthere, so definitely go check
that out. But Donald, thanks forbeing on the show.
Donald Kelly (01:40):
Dang bro. I like that intro. I appreciate that,
man. Thank you so much forhaving me. And when you say all
those things, I started thinkingabout like, yeah, 10 years
craziness.
Matt Wolach (01:49):
It goes by quick.
This shows four years old, andit feels like just a blink of an
eye. So I totally get it. Tellme what's been going on with you
lately? What's what's beenhappening?
Donald Kelly (01:58):
Yeah, I mean, I think for us, the biggest thing
here is we've been camping outon LinkedIn a lot, spending a
lot of time there. Businesswise, creating more content and
doing a lot more things, andprobably would dabble in some of
this stuff today. And familywise, we're just, you know, we
are here cooking with hotchicken grease. Man, family's
doing well, my wife, kid and Iand enjoying in South Florida
(02:19):
before we get into theblistering, 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 yourbody's cooking in hot grease in
the middle of the summer. But Itotally relate, because I'm in
Arizona, but it's a dry heat,right? So that's good stuff. You
mentioned LinkedIn. I definitelywant to talk about that in a
second, but I want to go evenfurther back. What gave you the
idea to start The SalesEvangelist? Where'd that come
(02:49):
from?
Donald Kelly (02:51):
Yeah, so in college, I read a book, or I was
supposed to read a book in anentrepreneur class by Guy
Kawasaki, and we had to look uphis bio, and Apple guy was
Apple's Chief Evangelist back inthe 90s. And when I first heard
that, I was thinking, Manevangelist. The only time I ever
heard that term was, like inchurch. But this guy took it and
married it with marketing, withbusiness. I'm like, That's
(03:11):
brilliant, because it gave methis rich, vividry, a visual,
like, I'm thinking with thisguy, like going out on a
rooftops or in a corner or tocompanies or everywhere, and
talking about Apple. And he wasa big, passionate, passionate
about that with Woz and jobsback then. And so fast forward,
I got into one of my first gigin a tech space, in a technology
aspect, not necessarily softwareat the time. And we went to this
(03:32):
networking event, Matt andeveryone there was, you know,
talking about their roles,account executive, blah, blah,
blah, you get it. And then oneguy, it came to me, and I just
had the Apple iPad number two atthat point. And I was like, this
is boring. I came to the firstone, and it was kind of lame.
Second time I just had it inmind. Had to stand up and say,
I'm the technology evangelist.
Our company went to the roof, tothe mountaintop, and came back
(03:55):
with the latest and greatestideas of how to help your
organization when it comes totech. Bro. After that
conversation that networkingevent, like so many people, came
and started talking to me, so itgerminate this idea in my head,
and started thinking about it.
So fast forward, when I got intosoftware sales, and I just, I
went through some trainings andenablement, and I was just,
(04:16):
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 oneof my friends was like, you
should consider a podcast. Andhe was like, man, you're like an
evangelist for sales. And then Idid. I said, Well, I was a
technology evangelist at onepoint, and it just hit right
there. And it was a formationfor what became the sales
(04:37):
evangelist, a brand, and thatidentity, that kind of came from
that, like just thinking aboutthat visually, like we are
evangelizing what we're seeingwork for sales professionals.
Because so many of us,especially back then, think
about 10-15 years ago, like 20years ago, for instance, like
you didn't have, like, acollective community where you
can go to besides maybe, maybe ablog. But. Really didn't have
(05:00):
that community. So we wanted toshare what was working, and to
help so many sales professionalswho get into a into a world
where they don't have thatguidance, that process, kind of
like what you talk and teach on,like what's what's going to help
them be successful, besides thegift of gab, garbage. So
anyways, we started evangelizingwhat's been working, and it's
been a journey since, and that'swhere it led to where we are. So
(05:21):
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'thave the best reputation. And
you know, if people, they neverwant to say at a cocktail party,
like, I'm in sales, they wouldmuch rather say, Oh, I'm an
account executive at this thingor whatever, and it's so sad,
because it's so great. Weliterally are helping people
(05:47):
make their lives better. If youthink of what we do it, it is a
really good thing, but there'sjust this, this bad kind of view
of sales and what we're doingright? 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 cameback home to work in in South
Florida. I went to high schoolhere. I went to a prestigious
school of downtown drive, theSchool of the Arts, and it's an
art school, but it was like aprivate school. It's public
school, but it's amazing, greatexperience. And what happened
was, I remember, like, you know,traveling the country, doing
(06:21):
these debate tournaments withsome of these kids and some
kids, and some of them just wentoff and became lawyers and all
the stuff. So I came back homeand 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 waslike, What are you doing? And I
said, I'm in sales. Reallyexcited. Should have seen the
look on his face, Matt, it waskind of like, holy moly. Like
you Oh, okay. And he's like,Yeah, I'm a district attorney
(06:43):
with the, you know, the city, orwhatever it was. And I was like,
Oh, man. So then seeing Adam'sface, I remember the location
was on clematis, and what's thatcanyon, Banyan, or nothing,
whatever cross street was. But Iremember that location, though,
and I remember that feelinglike, should I be excited for
this? This This was again, likewhen I first started in sales,
like, should I be excited forthis? Did I go lower than my
(07:06):
capability? Should have goneinto law, but I knew I wanted to
do business and specifically,like, marketing and sales. So
anyways, after this, and after Istarted going, you know,
becoming more I got over thathump and Matt and got past the
whole Adam issue, and then Istarted realizing the lives that
we were changing. And go back towhat you're saying. What you're
saying, I didn't have a limit onincome, and I'm sure I started
making more money than Adam, youknow, as my career went on. But
(07:28):
impact though, like, how can I,I can have a pivotal role in
helping adjust and changecompanies with our solutions
that we're offering. And as Icame to realize how critical we
were, and not just like, youknow, order taken, but we were a
consultant, so to speak, orthese industry authority
leaders. And as I fell intothat, and I got into my lane,
(07:49):
and I feel that so many of us,especially starting off, and so
many that are have a bad look onsales, get into those Adam
experience and get a distaste
Matt Wolach (08:02):
that's amazing that you have that story, because
it's so true, and it is funnythat good salespeople are making
two or three times as much as alawyer. So but, but you, oh,
you're a lawyer, like it hasthat kind of aura around it as
Oh, you're a salesperson. That'sall you. And it's like, what?
Come on. So I'm glad that youare out there evangelizing our
industry, because I think itdoes need some some good PR out
(08:24):
there. But I want to ask you,because you talked about
LinkedIn, I think LinkedIn is anamazing channel if people use it
right, it's a terrible channelwith people use it wrong. Like,
maybe that's where some of thisbad connotation came from all
those LinkedIn spammy messageswe get. So tell me, why can
LinkedIn be a really goodchannel 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 agood and a bad about it. It's
everyone that we want to get incontact with, as B2B sellers.
That's where they go to hangout. Or if they don't, they have
it. And here's where LinkedInstarted making, you know, like
you started have a good, goodJuju from LinkedIn. Obviously,
they're owned by Microsoft rightnow, and LinkedIn has been
getting into the zeitgeist ifyou've watched TV shows. I
(09:04):
remember, I was watching a showthe other day, and my wife and
all of a sudden the person waslosing their job. It was, it was
a Christmas time, sorry. And itwas an Eddie Murphy movie on, I
think it was on Amazon, and hewas lost his job, and his wife
said, Do you need to go updateyour LinkedIn profile? And when
she saw that, I was like, Holycrap. LinkedIn is really
officially, like, there it is inthe in the zeitgeist, for
(09:26):
exactly what that is. So here'swhat I want to go back to there,
even if they're not active on aplatform, they're present at
HubSpots event last year,inbound, their CEOs on stage.
And she said this in her keynotespeaking. She was talking about
search, and how people aresearching, changing their
behaviors when it comes to liketraditional going to search on,
you know, Google forinformation, 44% of executive
(09:48):
four, four percentage ofexecutives said that they
discovered new solutions viasocial. Now, the majority of
that place where they're hangingout is a platform such as
LinkedIn. But now if we knowthis is a goal, so. That's the
first top level, like the toparea. Why is it so great? Is
because of that. Now, the two,the bad part of that is because
they're there. So everyonefigure, if they're there, it's
(10:09):
like, I can, you know, shoot afish in a barrel, like I'm going
to be successful. And yes, maybethat was the case at, you know,
20 years ago, when you first goton LinkedIn. However, that's not
the case right now. And becauseof that, we saw people over the
years went through automationand the spamming. We still seen
some of that, but we need tomake sure we adjust it. So why
does it work? And everything I'mteaching, everything I'm sharing
with you, stuff that I do, andanyone could challenge me on it,
(10:31):
because I do it and I make moneyoff of it's my much money making
platform. And to fulldisclosure, I do LinkedIn is
because I've done this andevangelize so much on a
platform, I'm an influencer withthem. 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 dois I down here in South Florida,
(10:52):
there's a community calledWellington. If anybody's
familiar with the question,community, it's like, you know,
this is where you go trick ortreating. Like as a kid, they
have money and amazing full sizecandy bars. Full size candy bar
community. Everybody has one ofthem in their town. So what I
typically would do justvisualize this here for a
minute. You go to, you know, goto Wellington. I'm going to the
house, because that's wherepeople hang out, quote, unquote,
(11:13):
LinkedIn, but I'm going there,and I'm going to the houses
where the lights are on, becauseI don't want to waste my time. I
have, like, two, three hours oftrick 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 gotto maximize it. People go on
LinkedIn, and they go toWellington, so to speak, and
they're going and knocking onevery single door, and they're
saying, well, it sucks, becausenobody has given us full size
(11:33):
candy bar. Well, none of thosepeople are home. But how do you
figure out if people are home,if they're engaged on LinkedIn?
And potentially those people whoare willing to discover things
of 44% the thing. And if I gotoo 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 youcan do it with Navigator in a
manual ways. I go find wateringholes on LinkedIn. So if I'm
selling to, you know, CMOs, I'mgonna go to like platforms like
HubSpot, or maybe like Marketo,or some of these places where
the people may hang out to getcontent or information, those
communities, and therefore I'mgoing to engage on those posts
(12:09):
and see if I find my ICPs. Thoseare the people that quote,
unquote lights are on. They'reactive on LinkedIn. They're
sharing, they're sharing theircomments or engaging on pieces
of information that's relevant.
Now the easier way, that's verymanual, easier ways I go to
Navigator, and what I do is Isearch for people, in my case,
for VPs of sales and VPs of, youknow, sales directors and CROs
(12:29):
that may be active on aplatform. And sometimes I look
at people who've changed jobroles. So you can, you can
filter if somebody's posted on aplatform in the past 30 days.
That's money right there,because now you can create
engaging content. So I'm goingto the houses where the lights
are on that are more than likelyto buy, quote, unquote, and that
people that are posting andengaging on a platform, and this
is where most people make themistakes they do, the dumb
(12:51):
connection requests. And I'm abig and I did a poll on this,
and there's a there's differentcamps going on right now, but
I'm going to put my stake in myline in the sand and tell you
what side I'm on. I'm firmlyplanted my flag on the side of
personalized connectionrequests. And here's why
LinkedIn, they're the overlords,right? But LinkedIn started
charging right now for peoplefor a personalized connection
(13:12):
request. I mean, do you feelthat that's just a dumb feature,
and that's why they're justgoing to charge for it, or do
they have data that you don'thave, and I don't have, that
indicate that increases a highchance of engagement or
connection back. So I mean,that's the first thing. So if
they're charging for it, theremust be a reason behind it.
They're not doing it out ofsilliness. So that's one area,
but the other side to that toois that it's more personalized.
Now, I'm not talking about apersonalized pitch. I'm talking
(13:34):
about personalized connectionrequests that makes people more
engaged or apt to connect backwith you. And if somebody has a
personalized connection requestto you and willing to connect
back to you, increases the oddsof that person doing further
engagement with you. That's mytheory. And those are the things
why I stick to this side of thesand, and plus, it's way cooler.
So what I do, if I see that youdid a post, I'm not going to do
something dumb, like, Hey, Matt,I see that we have mutual
(13:56):
connections together, let'sconnect on LinkedIn. That's
dumb. I ignore that. But if youcame to me, if I saw you posted
something really dope with likeRob Jepson and an episode that
was really cool about, you know,how leaders are five times more
likely to succeed if they doblank. I might say, Matt, love
that topic that you just sharedwith Rob Jepson. Totally agree
with that. But do you feel thatapplies to all type businesses.
(14:19):
PS, permission to connect hereon LinkedIn. You're going to
more than likely respond.
Because two things you've beentaught since you're a kid, when
someone asks you a question, toengage back with them, and this
is something that you alreadylike. It's not a trickery. I'm
really sincerely curious aboutthat, because this is a post
that you just had, and the factthat that comes around obviously
makes that engagement so muchbetter. You're more than likely
(14:40):
accept that connection request.
You're more than likely torespond to me, and then when
respond to me, and then when youdo, 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 withany size company. Look forward
to giving you back my feedback.
Have a good one, man. HappySaturday. You're gonna respond
to me. And I just grabbed yourattention, and then we started
engagement. I'm gonna stop therefor a sec.
Matt Wolach (14:58):
No, it's gold. I love it. And you're doing.
Things that nobody else isdoing, right? That's why it's
successful, because and justgoing from backwards first. So
the video like, How many timesdo you get a personalized video
from somebody who's sendingover, hey, a quick thanks. And I
talk to my clients about this,like, you want to differentiate,
because there's so much glut inthe market right now. Do a
personalized video. You do nothave to spend a lot of time.
(15:20):
What you just said is perfect.
It was like eight seconds.
Great. The fact that it waspersonalized is a differentiator
totally and I absolutely loveit. And and you talk about, I
want to ask you a question,because you talk about that
personal connection after seeingtheir post, do you also like and
comment on the post so that theysee your name come up in
Notifications? I've done that aswell, and I've seen that help.
Donald Kelly (15:42):
100%. I skipped that step, but it's, it's
critical, and I probably woulduse that question in that
because it's, it's you and I arecontent 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 Irun something, I want a human
being to like it. There's no onein this absolute in this world
that puts something on Instagramor Facebook or Tiktok and say, I
(16:04):
hope nobody likes it. I hopenobody comments on it. Like, I
want you to see the freakingvacation that we just went on
to, like, Disney Springs orwhatever, with family. Like, I
want you to see that stuff like,right? I want to get that
liking, that validation. And I'mjust being straight up with you.
That's why we do it Facebook.
Crack the code. But now thinkabout this on LinkedIn, if I go
post something, I have the gutsto post something from my peers.
I want my peers to give me anengagement, or human beings to
(16:25):
say that was great stuff Ienjoyed that. Never thought
about that strategy before.
Donald engage with me. I'm goingto jump on that comment right
off the bat, and I'm going torespond to that comment. So it's
the same concept. Think abouthuman behavior. If you can
understand psychology, you canbe successful in sales, in any
art of business, butspecifically with this example.
(16:45):
So I would comment on it, notjust say something dumb, like,
great post, Matt, all right, youwasted my time. Let me delete
that comment. But if you saidsomething like, you know, you
even if you posted like, youknow, not even that you just
posted you know, I'm launching apodcast, or just launched our
new show, or I'm thinking aboutbringing on some guests. Who do
(17:06):
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'regoing 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 theimpressions go up. You know,
2000 people, 2000 impression yoube and you feel good, but I'm
not just manipulating it, butI'm using what works like what's
going to grab your attention. Ineed to break through the noise
(17:28):
and grab that attention and apersonalized message with, you
know something, a personalizedpost, a comment on that post,
with engagement makes so muchmore sense. And here's the other
part with that. It's fascinatingtoo. I don't know why, if you do
this one reels, but I do it too.
I'll watch the reels, and morethan likely, more people will
come back, and they'll start tosay, Man, I should have came to
the comments first because thereel was so engaging or funny,
or the comments down below, it'slike its own, you know, you
(17:49):
know, own content. And peoplestart engaging. And the same
idea, if somebody engages at athoughtful engagement on a post
or a comment, and you and thatperson starts going back and
forth a discussion about it.
People come back on that andincrease the increases, the idea
of the exposure of that piece ofcontent. So in any ways, like
all of that stuff just makessense. So if you can take you
(18:10):
can say, yeah, it's gonna, youknow, I know the leaders on
this, some of them probably rosein 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 early2000s and blast idea. Or we can
come back and do focus accounts.
And I think most people havethat concept, focus accounts,
focus approach, targetedapproach, and do that at a
higher velocity in a tacticalway. And we can see that we can
(18:35):
increase the, you know, get thesame amount of those books,
appointments, appointments thatare held, and I can go back and
finish up the second half in asecond 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 isnot only smart, but you've got
to. I mean, if you're doing themass blast, spray and pray, and
you're at a higher price point,you're wasting your time, and
you're probably going to turnsomeone off who could have been
a great potential customer foryou. So I totally agree that
(19:07):
personalized method isfantastic.
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 wholepremise with this though, if I
can find that I engage with you,it increases the odds of
anything else that come backwhen it comes to a relevant
(19:30):
outreach, and that's where wefocus our clients on our word
for last year and this year hasbeen relevancy. We want it. I've
just adopted it, and I saw whathappened with my own behavior of
my team. I'm an executiveassistant. Like, when we're
going through my emails, I firstdelete all the people that I
don't know. Like, straight up.
I'll go through and look, if Idon't know you, and it sounds
(19:52):
like a pitch, delete, delete.
I'll quick scam it, but I that Ineed to get those out of the way
first the weeds so I can getback to the mats of the world
and read your. Email and prepfor the podcast, or to, you
know, follow, respond to aclient or whatnot I and, or to
my friend who said, you know,we're going golfing this
weekend. I want to get but Ineed to get rid of the garbage
first. But if that's the case,and if you don't, and what if
(20:14):
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 justlike, we can get you leads, but,
but what I what I do is I lookand see how relevant it is to
me. And 99% of the time, peopledon't necessarily do something
that's relevant to me, per se,they do something that's
relevant to their pipeline. Onemore time, for the folks in the
(20:36):
back, 99% of the time, peopleare doing stuff that's relevant
to their pipeline and notnecessarily relevant to me. So
relevant to the pipeline is thatyou're my ICP. I can pitch you
and share something with you.
You can come into my pipe, asopposed to you have a challenge.
You're the type of people that Iserve, and I see there's a
relevant problem. So like, say,for instance, if you're posting
that you're hiring, or if you'reyou know if you, if I see your
(20:59):
company hiring, for instance,and I, you know, obviously we're
in the sales components as well.
And, you know, SMB, I might lookat you and say, All right, their
team's growing. They probablyhave a founder led model, or
they probably have some kind of,you know, model that can be
adjusted to be scaled. Can I goahead and reach out to them and
share something? And if I canshare relevant information based
on the other clients that weserve, that leads to a much more
richer conversation with theemail. So I don't pitch on
(21:21):
LinkedIn now that I grab yourattention. I take the party out
over and I start a conversationon another platform, that multi
thread. So my email now to youwill be something like, you
know, tested the model, and thenI might say, Hey, Matt, tested a
model that you and Rob Jepsentalked about, speaking about
that. SMB, I noticed that youguys are hiring and growing out
(21:41):
of curiosity. Do you guys havecurrently have an enablement
system and set up in place? Orhave you open to looking at, you
know, work with outsidepartners, but you're probably
going to respond to me at leastand give me a yes or no, because
that's how the question isdesigned. That email for sure,
and because of the engagementthat we already had, and I
bridged that gap with email,you're going to respond to it.
And I have had clients and thatdidn't respond to that email,
(22:01):
but they went back to LinkedInand had the conversation there,
and, you know, connected back tome, 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 thatbecause, at least, or you feel
like you owe me that you don'towe me anything, because we've
had engagement before on theplatform. And if you, especially
if you're multithreading, andyou have two or three
individuals in an organizationthat you can start having this
(22:22):
dialog with. It makes ourdialogs with it makes it so much
more easier to for thoseconversation 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. Yousaid you get a lot of your
business from LinkedIn. We getabout 75% of our business from
LinkedIn. It's amazing when youdo it right, how well it works,
and it's awesome to hear yourprocess and how structured that
is. That's really something thatpeople can take away. So as as
we I wish we could talk forhours on this, by the way, but
(22:52):
unfortunately, we got to wrap itup. So what advice would you
give to software leaders who arelike, Okay, I want to be able to
use this platform better. Whatwould you share with them,
Donald?
Donald Kelly (23:04):
simplify, for your team, there's three things that
they should be doing, connectshare and engage. Connect share
and engage. And what I mean bythis is connect with their ICP.
Most people, if they look, ifthey do an audit right now, look
at how many people they'reconnected to, probably say,
like, a grand 1000 people.
Enough. Those 1000, how many ofthem are their ICP? Maybe they
have like, maybe, maybe peoplecould buy from them. 10, 20% I
feel that should be at a 50%mark when you think about a
(23:26):
platform like LinkedIn, yeah,I'm gonna connect with the Adams
of the world and my colleaguesand so forth and college
friends, but it'll be absolutelyamazing at 50% of the people
that are on the platform couldpotentially buy from me. So
daily, I encourage people toreach out to their ICPs, even if
they're not necessarily on theirfocus account. Can we make sure
we have more of those people,44% of executives say that they
discover things throughsolutions, through content
(23:47):
platforms like LinkedIn. So ifthis is a case again, then can I
have my share more content andeven a brand new SDR on your
team knows more about anindustry oftentimes, or about a
product, then maybe the top tierexecutive at an organization.
And what I mean by that is likean executive may not necessarily
know everything about a CRM butthey may know how to run a
fortune 500 company. Well, Iknow enough from the product
(24:08):
training and the things thatwe've had, the case studies and
the practice about to knowenough about case CRMs that it
can help me to have more of aneffective dialog. And I could
probably answer some of thequestions that they potentially
could have so sharing content.
And what I tell them to look atis, in a discovery call or in
that early conversation thatyou're having, what are some of
the talking points that youusually have? Those are the
(24:30):
talking points, the objectionsthat you get, the questions
those who make the richestLinkedIn posts and you can
answer questions I don't feelthat I need we're not big enough
for a CRM. That would be a greatLinkedIn post right there.
Somebody could even a juniorSDR, could answer that question.
So they're connecting with theirICP, they're sharing content
once a week, and if they don'tknow what to share, go steal a
post and re curate it. Love thisawesome podcast episode by Adam
(24:52):
there. By Matt today, giving youa new name, Matt. By Matt. He
shared some insights around thisstuff that I feel every leader.
Sales and Marketing can takeadvantage of curious to hear
your thoughts, but share andthen engage. Whenever you have a
post, anyone who likes it,engage with those individuals,
and then also engage on otherpeople's content. If your sales
(25:13):
team can do those three thingson LinkedIn, they're going to
see an uptick in their theirvisibility, and they're going to
see an uptick in theiropportunity to have more
conversations and bookappointments.
Matt Wolach (25:23):
I love it. That's a great model. Connect, share,
engage. I think that that'ssomething that can really help
us take off. This has beenawesome. Donald, you are the
man. It's clear that you are anexpert at this, and I love your
energy. How can our audience getin 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 meon LinkedIn. Tell me that you
heard me here on this podcastwith Matt. And you can also go
home to thesalesevangelist.comwe do have content there 1700 -
1800 episodes and some otherstuff as well. And you can check
out, download a free some ideasthat we have for LinkedIn at the
(25:58):
bottom of our page. So, yeah.
Matt Wolach (26:01):
beautiful, awesome.
Well, we'll put all that intothe show notes. So if you're
listening, go check it outthere. But Donald, this has been
fantastic. Thanks for being hereand telling us all this.
Donald Kelly (26:10):
Hey man, I appreciate you. And I would tell
all of your listeners too, thatsometimes we don't do this at,
uh, you know, you might tellthem to do this, but they
probably don't do it. But weneed a stranger come in and tell
you, like, you know, yourneighbor kids, neighbor parent.
Tell your kids stuff, andthey're like, this is great.
I've been telling you that forthree years, but guys, go out
and share this podcast, take thelink and share it with one other
person, another leader that youknow. It's wealth of knowledge.
(26:31):
Every single episode, I've beenable to go back and check out
the pod, and it's amazing. Soplease, 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 thatwould be really helpful for us,
but also you'll be helpingothers share the amazing
knowledge of Donald Kelly, soDonald, 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 nexttime. Take care.
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