May 27, 2025 • 30 mins
Colin Hirdman, a seasoned entrepreneur, elucidates profound insights into the realm of leadership and business development in this enlightening discussion. At the forefront of our dialogue is the introduction of his latest venture, Rainmaker, a startup designed to optimize lead generation and sales acquisition on LinkedIn. Colin recounts his entrepreneurial journey, which commenced immediately after his college graduation, leading to the establishment of multiple successful companies alongside his long-time friends. Central to their collaborative success is a set of core values encapsulated in the concept of the "five Fs": freedom, finances, family, friendship, and fun, which guide their business practices and interpersonal relationships. This episode serves as a catalyst for aspiring leaders to comprehend the significance of authentic engagement and strategic audience building as essential components for success in the business landscape.
Takeaways:
- The significance of establishing core values, such as the five Fs, cannot be overstated in cultivating a successful team and company culture.
- Entrepreneurs must prioritize building authentic relationships over merely pursuing sales, particularly in platforms like LinkedIn.
- Automation and strategic audience building on LinkedIn can significantly enhance a company's ability to generate leads and sales.
- It is imperative to adopt an educational mindset when engaging with prospects on LinkedIn, focusing on providing value rather than simply selling.
- Regularly connecting with a targeted audience and engaging with them through thoughtful communication fosters meaningful professional relationships.
- The process of nurturing first-degree connections should involve genuine interactions, which can lead to fruitful business opportunities.
Links referenced in this episode:
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Rainmaker
- Monkey Ventures
- Monkey Island Ventures
- Agurian
- Cloudburst
Mentioned in this episode:
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Unstoppable Leadership Spotlight - Welcome
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(00:58):
Well, hello everybody andwelcome to another amazing episode
of the Unstoppable LeadershipSpotlight podcast where we hear from
amazing leaders and their gamechanging insights. You know, our
goal on this podcast is tohave and make great leaders. Even
better, because great leadersat great companies make great team
members. So today we haveColin Hirdman. He has a wealth of
(01:23):
experience, but he has truegreat experience building companies.
And he has a new startup,Rainmaker, which is going to actually
help you reign in all theleads and the sales that you want
on LinkedIn. So love the name.I just have to also share he does
have another company calledMonkey Ventures, Monkey Island Ventures.
(01:45):
And I had to mention thatbecause my quote unquote spirit animal,
I didn't share this with youis the monkey. And I actually collect
monkeys. So if you came to myhouse, monkeys all over the place.
So some people collectelephants, I collect monkeys.
So my grandma collected owls.
Oh, there you go. Right. Sowelcome to the podcast, Colin. So
(02:07):
you have shared, you've had agreat career. You started right out
of college, right, Workingwith your high school friends?
Well, so the first company Istarted a week after graduating from
college was not with myfriends yet. So I had that company
for a little over a decade. Igraduated a criminal justice degree,
(02:30):
which I never used and I nevertook a business accounting or marketing
class in college. So it wastrial by fire. I learned entrepreneurship
just by building thatbusiness. And then I sold that. And
in 2007 is when Josh, Zach andI came together. And so I sold the
business in 2006, 2007, justkind of serendipity brought the three
(02:52):
of us together. Josh movedback up here from Uruguay. His dad's
side of the family is fromthere. He's down there for about
a decade. And then Zach washelping a children's publishing company
get sold. And so he kind ofworked himself out of a job. And
so three of us, yeah, decided,you know what, let's go into business
together. We'd been kind ofconversing and talking about entrepreneurship
(03:13):
and business ideas and allthat. And yeah, since 2007, we've
built probably close to adozen SaaS products over the years.
We have three kind of servicebased companies right now. Agurian,
our digital marketing company,Cloudburst, our software development
company, and Rainmaker, whichis kind of our LinkedIn startup.
(03:36):
And you know, I think morethan anything, you know, I've known
those guys since we're allabout five years old. And Monk Island's
named after a park the threeof us used to play at. When we were
kids, located here in the TwinCities. And having them as business
partners has just beenfantastic because we just know each
other innately. We trust eachother, and we've always put our friendship
(04:00):
and family ahead of money. AndI think that has really allowed us
to navigate a lot of the upsand downs of building businesses
together. And we even came upwith kind of the five Fs as our core
value, which is freedom,finances, family, friendship, and
fun. And those are the kind offive core values that we live by.
(04:20):
So, yeah, it's just been afantastic journey with them, and
I look forward to doing a lotmore with them as well.
That's really fantastic. So Ijust have to highlight this. So,
listeners, that was a huge,huge insight. Your five Fs is your
(04:41):
values, and having that. But,you know, a. That you as a, as individuals
live by, but as a, as athreesome team company live by is
so important for any success.And I think. So tell me, and tell
(05:02):
the audience, too, that, like,how do those values come into the
overall makeup, so to speak,of the company and how you guys lead?
Yeah, yeah, that's a greatquestion. So, you know, the, you
know, the, the other two, thedigital marketing company and the
software development companythat have employees and whatnot,
(05:25):
we use the eos, theentrepreneurial operating system
and traction to run those twocompanies. And that's where kind
of we got the core values. Butthere's lots of other aspects to
that program that you followthat really, I think, leads into
(05:45):
leadership and really tryingto look at, I'll use your term, all
the team members and trying toelevate them and also delegate in
ways that allows them tobecome leaders. And, you know, I
think more than anything, whatthe three of us want is to, you know,
(06:08):
build thriving businesses thatare providing for, you know, us and
on and our team members. And,you know, I think we do a really,
really good job of that. And Iwould highly encourage those listening
that, you know, if there arepeople in your life that could be
(06:29):
a business, the ways that Zachand Josh are, for me, the ups and
downs of entrepreneurship, youcan't get away from that. It's just
incredibly difficult. Buthaving people that, again, you can
innately trust and will bethere for those ups and downs, I
think just makes that journeyso much more valuable.
Yeah, no, and it's. And Ithink that's really true, you know,
(06:52):
really key to have thosepeople, you know, you. You need to
always surround yourself.Right. Whether it's with accountability
partners and the people thatyou surround yourself with and it's.
And the people that you'redoing business with, it really does
matter. And so how does thatincorporate, you know, those values
into, you know, what youactually do for business every day?
(07:14):
I mean, right now, youmentioned that you are working on
your newer startup, Rainmaker.
Yeah.
Those values transcend overinto Rainmaker.
Yeah. Yeah. So I think morethan anything, the, you know, when
(07:35):
you look at the five Fs, Ithink part of what we want and what
we've learned is creatingbusinesses that, that traction to
get customers. I can say thatwe have built products in the past
and we have thought, you know,the market needs this and we release
(07:58):
it, and it's just crickets.Right. It's not fun trying to grow
a company that isn't gettingtraction. And so I think part of
what those five Fs do for usis also make us look at the reality
of the situation and so forth.You know, for, for Rainmaker, kind
of one of the reasons why wewanted to start it was, you know,
(08:20):
as a. As another kind ofrevenue driver. So it fits kind of
the finances component. It, itleans in the way that the model is
created to still creating, youknow, freedom for, for the three
of us and kind of lends itselfwell to the way that we want our
business to, to function. And,you know, there's certainly in, for
(08:42):
me, an element of fun inlaunching something new and bringing
that to market and gettingcustomers and seeing traction. So
that's fantastic. And then thefriendship and family, when we get
together quarterly, we planevents for just the three of us,
but then also we're doingstuff with our wives together. And
(09:05):
then we even will rent anAirbnb twice a year and bring all
of our families together anddo one in the summer and one in the
winter. Winter. So, yeah, Ithink just, you know, more than anything,
just having businesses that,that work, that are getting traction,
that provides a lot of valuejust across all those five Fs. And
(09:26):
then that, you know, reallykind of bleeds down into everyone
else that's kind of joining usthrough this journey.
Right. So I, you know, Ilooked. I was looking at the Rainmaker
site, and as you're talkingand you're talking about the F's,
I'm. I'm thinking whatRainmaker also does is that it's.
Does provide some of those F'sfor your clients. Right. Freedom
(09:50):
finances, the financial part.Yeah. And it probably makes the calls
or the conversations that theyhave a little bit more fun.
Right? No, very, very true.But no, I think that's exactly right.
I mean, I think on the freedomside, you know, because we're using
(10:11):
an element of, you know,automation on LinkedIn that's just
freeing up time for the. Forthe, for the client. But then at
the same time, the financespart, I want LinkedIn to be a revenue
driver for my company, andthat's what my clients want as well.
And I think a lot of times,you know, people get caught up in
(10:33):
utilizing LinkedIn and reallyfocusing, I think, too much on, like,
posts and likes and commentsand all those kinds of things, and
not focused enough on kind ofbasic, you know, business marketing
and sales fundamentals and howyou can use LinkedIn. And I can get
into some of that at theappropriate time, because I think
(10:53):
some of that your audience andyou will really enjoy, because you
could literally start applyingthat immediately after listening
to this podcast.
Yeah, well, and actually, thatbrings me to my next question, which
is, what got you started downthe path of Rainmaker and starting
LinkedIn? I mean, I will, youknow, I. Looking at your. At the
(11:14):
site, you know, you know, oneof the things it said, it's like,
we all hate being sold onLinkedIn. Oh, my God, the cringe.
Like, you know, like, and, AndI'm sure listeners, you've probably
heard, you know, had this too.And I've made posts about this because
it's nails on a chalkboard forme, where it's like, yes, I want
to connect with you. And Ilook at people's profiles. It's like,
(11:34):
I help coaches, blah, blah,blah. And I'm like, oh, I'm going
to connect with you. And it'sgoing to be a sales call, it's going
to be a pitch, and they don'twant to get to know me, right?
Yep, yep, yep. No, agreed. AndI think that's. That's really a key
component. So when I think of,you know, LinkedIn and the way that
(11:55):
I've kind of broken out, theway that you should approach it,
it's kind of three levels. Oneis around the philosophy of how you
should approach LinkedIn. Thelevel underneath that then is audience
building. And then the bottomlayer then is activating that audience.
And so the philosophy, really,for me, it's very simple. Number
(12:17):
one, you have to be authenticand genuine on LinkedIn. I think
most people do a really goodjob of that. LinkedIn's not a toxic
social network. It is the onlyreal business social network that
people are participating in.So you need to be there and, you
know, you need to Be authenticand genuine to yourself, but also
to the brands that yourepresent. The second thing is you
(12:38):
need to approach it with aneducational mindset, because like
you just said, nobody wants tobe sold on LinkedIn. We all hate
getting those messages wheresomeone wants to sell us something
or they want to book a meetingright away when they haven't done
anything to kind of buildrelationship with us. And the last
thing is, and this is wherethere's a lot of kind of responsibility
(13:00):
on the owner or the founderor, you know, the. Anybody that's
sitting in the sales ormarketing seat, which is, you have
to understand the pains andbarriers your prospects are trying
to overcome. And from that,you should start to identify, okay,
well, what is it that theywant to be educated on? And most
importantly, what is it theycan learn from you? What can you
teach? And I think that'sreally the philosophy that can have
(13:24):
you achieve a lot of successin growing a network. Leads and sales
is being genuine andauthentic, that educational mindset
and then figuring out what itis your audience can learn from you.
What can you teach?
Yeah, no, and it's, it's. Ithink that is so true. What can you
teach? And I, And I think theother key part is, you know, what
(13:44):
you said is like, again,nobody wants to be sold to.
Right.
At all. At all. And so it'slike, don't be that. Don't. You know,
if you're worried about beingcringy, then I guess what then I
going to. I bet your messageis cringy.
Right?
Right.
Agreed. Yep.
If you're questioning it.
(14:04):
Right, Exactly. Yep. Yep. Sothen kind of that layer, then underneath
it, once you've adopted thatphilosophy, is building out, like,
audiences of people that youactually want to start connecting
with. I typically use SalesNavigator, which is the sales tool
that LinkedIn offers, butthere's a couple of growth hacks
that I've identified. So oneis LinkedIn events. So if you have
(14:29):
any direct competitors thatare putting on a linked event, or
maybe there's a industryorganization that's putting on a
LinkedIn event that is arounda topic that your business solves
for. If you go and attend thatevent, you can also see everyone
else that's also attendingthat event, and you can actually
start building out a prospectlist of people that are publicly
(14:49):
raising their hand and saying,this is who I am, and I'm interested
in learning more about thistopic. So that's one great way of
starting to build out aprospect list of people that are
already further down thepurchase Path. And then another one
is using a person as a proxy.So there's a woman named Brenda on
LinkedIn. She has about 70,000followers. She talks a lot about
LinkedIn profiles and LinkedInposts and likes and comments and
(15:12):
all those kinds of things. SoI reached out to connect with her,
she connected back with me.And because her connections are open,
I can look and see, okay, whoare the, you know, second degree
connections to me, but ourfirst degree connections to her that
I would want to connect with,right. So I could identify, you know,
founders or sales executives,you know, in certain geographies,
et cetera, that are followingher, most likely because they're
(15:35):
trying to learn how to grow onLinkedIn from her content. Therefore
they'd be a good candidate forRainmaker. Okay, so those are two
kind of growth hacks. One isLinkedIn events and the other is
using a person as a proxy.
Now do you have to have SalesNavigator for to, to, to work that
way to work those texts?
Nope, nope. You can useregular LinkedIn search as well.
(15:57):
You just don't get some of theother benefits of additional filters
and save searches and thingslike that that you get out of Sales
Navigator.
Yeah, no, that's. Those arereally, really great hacks. Listeners.
Really game changing insightson using LinkedIn. So what, what
made you like go down thispath with LinkedIn?
(16:18):
Well, because I wanted tomostly for our software products.
I wanted to get gauge interestand get beta users. And so using
LinkedIn I could target peoplethat would be good candidates. And
I was able to get, you know,lots of signups, like email addresses
(16:41):
of people that would beinterested in our product before
we even launched and then alsogetting beta users to start using
the software and giving usfeedback and things like that. So
that's, that's kind of whatgot me going kind of deep into LinkedIn
and how to use it. So.
Yeah, so, so I'm. Because I'mnow like, what is one of the biggest
(17:08):
pet peeves you have? I mean, Iknow we've kind of talked about some
of them, but like, what's beenlike one just that you see on LinkedIn
that you're just like, okay,please people don't do this.
Well, I think people spend toomuch time and focus on organic posts
and worrying about likes andcomments and impressions. You know
what, what I was talkingabout, you know, kind of that the
(17:31):
first layer philosophy, secondlayer audience. Well, the bottom
layer is activating thataudience. Right. And the way that
I'm typically activating theaudience for myself and clients Is,
you know, once, once I havethe audience identified, the number
one thing that I need to dois, and what I tell your audience
(17:52):
needs to do is start buildingout those first degree connections.
And our cadence is reachingout to 25 people a day, Monday through
Friday. So 125 people a week,500 people a month. You're typically
going to get about a 20 to 25%connection rate back. We're almost
never using a connectionmessage. And if someone doesn't connect
(18:14):
back within 30 days, thenwe'll go and withdraw the invite.
And then there's a three weekperiod of time in which you can't
reinvite that person, but youcould after that three week period
of time is up. So everything Italked about there, your audience
could go do manually right nowyou can go withdraw invites, you
can start identifying peoplethat you want to connect with. You
can start connecting with 25people a day. And I think too many
(18:38):
people undervalue the value ofa first degree connection. You know,
once you get that first degreeconnection, then it's about relationship
building, right? And there'sall these different ways in LinkedIn
that you can use to actuallystart building relationships with
those first degreeconnections. And you know, the, a
few things that we, that Iwould recommend you do after you
(19:00):
get that first connection, onewould be building out like a message
campaign. And you know, with amessage campaign, again you need
to be like a, I don't know ifyou've read the book the Go Giver,
but you have to provide,right? And without expecting anything
in return. And so that messagesequence that we typically use is
that first message, you know,goes out one to three days after
(19:22):
someone connects with youthat's just thanking them for the
connection authentically. Soyou're not selling anything, you're
not even trying to help,you're just thanking them authentically
for the connection. And ifthey respond, great, take that conversation
wherever it goes. If theydon't respond, then maybe a second
message would go out seven to14 days later. So I'll use myself
as an example. I wasconnecting with sales executives
(19:43):
here in the Twin Cities andcreated a list of around 300. About
120 connected back with me. Myfirst message was thanking them for
the connection and somethingabout, you know, both in the Twin
Cities. And then my secondmessage was asking them if they knew
of any good networking eventshere in the Twin Cities. Right. And
so I started to get some, youknow, response from some of those
people, which was great. Thethird thing I did was invited them
(20:06):
to participate in a LinkedInpoll that was focused in on kind
of the pain that they havearound using LinkedIn, not able to
generate leads and sales. Andwhat do they see as the biggest problem
to that? And I got about 40 ofthe 120 to participate in the LinkedIn
poll. And then the last thingthat I did, which is really my favorite
(20:27):
B2B tactic on LinkedIn, is Iinvited them to one of my LinkedIn
live streams where I teach howto grow your network leads and sales
using LinkedIn. And I gotaround 60 of them to register for
that event, that livestreamevent. And so that kind of example
that I gave, if you'll notice,number one, it has nothing to do
(20:49):
with organic posts. It haseverything to do with understanding
your audience and reaching outto them in ways that isn't spammy.
It's not selling anything. Andwhat it does, it starts to open up
the opportunity then for youto engage in a meaningful way, not
only in sharing your knowledgeand positioning yourself as a thought
leader, but for example, theLinkedIn livestream to those, you
(21:11):
know, 50 or 60 salesexecutives that signed up. I send
a message to all the attendeesafter the event and the message is
typically like, hey,Jacqueline, thanks again for registering
for the LinkedIn live streamthat I led. Here's a link to the
recording, right? And therecording still lives on the LinkedIn
(21:31):
event page that they can goand watch if they weren't able to
make the live stream or ifthey wanted to watch it again. And
then underneath it, you canhave different calls to action. My
favorite call to action is ifyou ever Want to chat LinkedIn strategy,
feel free to grab some timeconvenient for you here. And I give
my calendly link, right? Sobecause they're opting in to learn
from me, they find that thecontent is interesting. They see
(21:54):
me enough as a thought leaderthat entrust me enough that they
click the attend button when Isend that message after the event
is over and give them mycalendar link. It doesn't feel spammy,
it doesn't feel icky in anyway. It's just a natural next step
for them to potentiallyinteract with me and learn more and
further the relationship. Soall that is just kind of a, I think
(22:16):
the right way to use LinkedInand that's why I've been using it
for five years and have beendoing it for about a year now since
I stood up brainmaker for my clients.
So, yeah, you know, Colin, Iabsolutely love it. You know, I talk
a lot about, you know, twoSteps like the two steps that you
need to take to createmomentum and you know, you could
(22:37):
break down your follow upsequence almost like, you know, it's
like two, you know, the firsttwo steps and then the second two
steps and it's, it creates areally great pattern and it's, but
part of that too is as you, asyou shared, you're giving information
and, and creating the trustwith, with somebody and you are making
(22:59):
the connection and buildingthe relationship versus just throwing
up on them.
Exactly. That's right. Yeah.So part of it is, yeah, really knowing
and understanding your, youraudience. And you know, one of the
things I've, I've createdfirst connections across a number
of different verticals.Typically it's founders, fractional
(23:23):
sales executives, EOSimplementers and business coaches.
Right. And so I can tailor mymessaging to each of them. I can
tailor, you know, my, my livestream content to them. Even though
the live stream contentitself, the deck that I use is almost
the same to each of thoseverticals. When they get to the event
(23:44):
page, like the image I usewill say LinkedIn growth webinar
for founders or for salesexecutives. Right. And so even though
the content's essentially thesame, when they get to that page,
they see the topic and that'sinteresting. But then they also see,
oh, it looks like this wasmade just for my title or for my
industry. Right. So. Andthat's just a great way to increase
(24:05):
your attendance rate.
No, I, absolutely, I love thatbecause goes back to one of my first
loves and where I grew up inis actually direct marketing.
Yeah.
And you're directly marketingto the right person, you're speaking
to them, their language, theirbenefits. It's, you know, it's, you
know, it's using somebody'sfirst name in a message, it's sharing
(24:28):
their, their title. It makesit so much more relatable.
Absolutely. Yeah. Yep. Nope,that's, that's exactly right. And
you know, with, you know, ifyou think about, you know, if you're
growing out that first degreenetwork week in and week out and
you're doing some of theseother activities in an authentic
kind of go giver mindset.Well, when you do post organic posts
(24:51):
now you have a larger audienceof ICPs that might see it. And when
those people see that, it'salso kind of getting meshed in the
other things that they'reseeing from you that we've discussed.
So that makes your organicpost even that much more impactful.
Yeah, no, I, I, I, I, youknow, all those activities because
when you do again, as you justsaid, as you make those other posts,
(25:13):
then it also makes you morerelatable because people start to
see you in a different way. Soit creates that full package. It's,
it makes it so that the poststhat you're doing aren't a waste.
Right, exactly right. You knowthat you know, at least some of your
ICPs are going to see it. Ithink, you know, for any given organic
post you do, maybe 10% of youraudience sees it. And what percent
(25:35):
of that are ICPs that youreally want to get it in front of?
If you're not building thatout, then it's going to be a bunch
of people that you might haveworked with before and friends and
stuff like that. So you reallythat that whole process that I discussed,
you know, your audience shouldgo back and listen to that and just
start doing that. That willhelp you start to turn LinkedIn into
(25:59):
more of a lead and sales generator.
Right. You know Colin, I lovethis conversation and I love also
like just, you know, theaudience to really take, you know,
we're talking about LinkedInand we're talking about, you know,
Rainmaker, the company andColin and what he's doing. But also
(26:19):
think about these key tactics,not Even just for LinkedIn but how
you also are doing and howyou're communicating with your team
in your sales. Because it'sabout building the relationships
that you have. The more youcan make those connections again
with your team members andoutside people as well, the bigger
(26:41):
you are going to grow and thetighter the relationships. And people
love doing business as we allknow, people that know like and trust.
So build those relationships,don't sell.
Agreed. Absolutely agree withthat. Everything you said, perfect.
So with that note, Colin, howcan people find you and connect with
you?
Yeah, rainmakergrows.com isthe website so you can learn more
(27:05):
there. On the resources pageyou can actually download a one page
PDF that outlines my entirelive stream process from beginning
end on how they should do it.There's also a PDF that talks about
kind of sales growth onLinkedIn and the free consultation
button just connects to me thecalendly with me. I'm the only person
(27:28):
right now in Rainmaker, so itwould be with me. And then I'm also
the only Colin Herdman on theInternet so feel free to reach out
to me on LinkedIn and I'llconnect back with you.
Oh well that is fantastic. Andwe will put all of those links in
the show notes as well. SoColin, thank you so much for being
an amazing guest and myaudience. Thank you so much for listening.
If you have gotten amazingtips from this or insights, which
(27:51):
I'm sure you have, please dome the favor of hitting the subscribe
button and also share theUnstoppable Leadership Spotlight
podcast with your friends andcolleagues. Because if we can help
make more leaders that areamazing and unstoppable, we'll make
a world that's alsounstoppable as well. So I'm Jacqueline
Stinger, your host, and Ithank you all for listening. And
(28:12):
again, thank you Colin forbeing a great guest.
Thank you so much.
Well, hello everybody andwelcome to another amazing episode
of the Unstoppable LeadershipSpotlight podcast where we hear from
amazing leaders and their gamechanging insights. You know, our
goal on this podcast is tohave and make great leaders. Even
better, because great leadersat great companies make great team
members. So today we haveColin Hirdman. He has a wealth of
(01:23):
experience, but he has truegreat experience building companies.
And he has a new startup,Rainmaker, which is going to actually
help you reign in all theleads and the sales that you want
on LinkedIn. So love the name.I just have to also share he does
have another company calledMonkey Ventures, Monkey Island Ventures.
(01:45):
And I had to mention thatbecause my quote unquote spirit animal,
I didn't share this with youis the monkey. And I actually collect
monkeys. So if you came to myhouse, monkeys all over the place.
So some people collectelephants, I collect monkeys.
So my grandma collected owls.
Oh, there you go. Right. Sowelcome to the podcast, Colin. So
(02:07):
you have shared, you've had agreat career. You started right out
of college, right, Workingwith your high school friends?
Well, so the first company Istarted a week after graduating from
college was not with myfriends yet. So I had that company
for a little over a decade. Igraduated a criminal justice degree,
(02:30):
which I never used and I nevertook a business accounting or marketing
class in college. So it wastrial by fire. I learned entrepreneurship
just by building thatbusiness. And then I sold that. And
in 2007 is when Josh, Zach andI came together. And so I sold the
business in 2006, 2007, justkind of serendipity brought the three
(02:52):
of us together. Josh movedback up here from Uruguay. His dad's
side of the family is fromthere. He's down there for about
a decade. And then Zach washelping a children's publishing company
get sold. And so he kind ofworked himself out of a job. And
so three of us, yeah, decided,you know what, let's go into business
together. We'd been kind ofconversing and talking about entrepreneurship
(03:13):
and business ideas and allthat. And yeah, since 2007, we've
built probably close to adozen SaaS products over the years.
We have three kind of servicebased companies right now. Agurian,
our digital marketing company,Cloudburst, our software development
company, and Rainmaker, whichis kind of our LinkedIn startup.
(03:36):
And you know, I think morethan anything, you know, I've known
those guys since we're allabout five years old. And Monk Island's
named after a park the threeof us used to play at. When we were
kids, located here in the TwinCities. And having them as business
partners has just beenfantastic because we just know each
other innately. We trust eachother, and we've always put our friendship
(04:00):
and family ahead of money. AndI think that has really allowed us
to navigate a lot of the upsand downs of building businesses
together. And we even came upwith kind of the five Fs as our core
value, which is freedom,finances, family, friendship, and
fun. And those are the kind offive core values that we live by.
(04:20):
So, yeah, it's just been afantastic journey with them, and
I look forward to doing a lotmore with them as well.
That's really fantastic. So Ijust have to highlight this. So,
listeners, that was a huge,huge insight. Your five Fs is your
(04:41):
values, and having that. But,you know, a. That you as a, as individuals
live by, but as a, as athreesome team company live by is
so important for any success.And I think. So tell me, and tell
(05:02):
the audience, too, that, like,how do those values come into the
overall makeup, so to speak,of the company and how you guys lead?
Yeah, yeah, that's a greatquestion. So, you know, the, you
know, the, the other two, thedigital marketing company and the
software development companythat have employees and whatnot,
(05:25):
we use the eos, theentrepreneurial operating system
and traction to run those twocompanies. And that's where kind
of we got the core values. Butthere's lots of other aspects to
that program that you followthat really, I think, leads into
(05:45):
leadership and really tryingto look at, I'll use your term, all
the team members and trying toelevate them and also delegate in
ways that allows them tobecome leaders. And, you know, I
think more than anything, whatthe three of us want is to, you know,
(06:08):
build thriving businesses thatare providing for, you know, us and
on and our team members. And,you know, I think we do a really,
really good job of that. And Iwould highly encourage those listening
that, you know, if there arepeople in your life that could be
(06:29):
a business, the ways that Zachand Josh are, for me, the ups and
downs of entrepreneurship, youcan't get away from that. It's just
incredibly difficult. Buthaving people that, again, you can
innately trust and will bethere for those ups and downs, I
think just makes that journeyso much more valuable.
Yeah, no, and it's. And Ithink that's really true, you know,
(06:52):
really key to have thosepeople, you know, you. You need to
always surround yourself.Right. Whether it's with accountability
partners and the people thatyou surround yourself with and it's.
And the people that you'redoing business with, it really does
matter. And so how does thatincorporate, you know, those values
into, you know, what youactually do for business every day?
(07:14):
I mean, right now, youmentioned that you are working on
your newer startup, Rainmaker.
Yeah.
Those values transcend overinto Rainmaker.
Yeah. Yeah. So I think morethan anything, the, you know, when
(07:35):
you look at the five Fs, Ithink part of what we want and what
we've learned is creatingbusinesses that, that traction to
get customers. I can say thatwe have built products in the past
and we have thought, you know,the market needs this and we release
(07:58):
it, and it's just crickets.Right. It's not fun trying to grow
a company that isn't gettingtraction. And so I think part of
what those five Fs do for usis also make us look at the reality
of the situation and so forth.You know, for, for Rainmaker, kind
of one of the reasons why wewanted to start it was, you know,
(08:20):
as a. As another kind ofrevenue driver. So it fits kind of
the finances component. It, itleans in the way that the model is
created to still creating, youknow, freedom for, for the three
of us and kind of lends itselfwell to the way that we want our
business to, to function. And,you know, there's certainly in, for
(08:42):
me, an element of fun inlaunching something new and bringing
that to market and gettingcustomers and seeing traction. So
that's fantastic. And then thefriendship and family, when we get
together quarterly, we planevents for just the three of us,
but then also we're doingstuff with our wives together. And
(09:05):
then we even will rent anAirbnb twice a year and bring all
of our families together anddo one in the summer and one in the
winter. Winter. So, yeah, Ithink just, you know, more than anything,
just having businesses that,that work, that are getting traction,
that provides a lot of valuejust across all those five Fs. And
(09:26):
then that, you know, reallykind of bleeds down into everyone
else that's kind of joining usthrough this journey.
Right. So I, you know, Ilooked. I was looking at the Rainmaker
site, and as you're talkingand you're talking about the F's,
I'm. I'm thinking whatRainmaker also does is that it's.
Does provide some of those F'sfor your clients. Right. Freedom
(09:50):
finances, the financial part.Yeah. And it probably makes the calls
or the conversations that theyhave a little bit more fun.
Right? No, very, very true.But no, I think that's exactly right.
I mean, I think on the freedomside, you know, because we're using
(10:11):
an element of, you know,automation on LinkedIn that's just
freeing up time for the. Forthe, for the client. But then at
the same time, the financespart, I want LinkedIn to be a revenue
driver for my company, andthat's what my clients want as well.
And I think a lot of times,you know, people get caught up in
(10:33):
utilizing LinkedIn and reallyfocusing, I think, too much on, like,
posts and likes and commentsand all those kinds of things, and
not focused enough on kind ofbasic, you know, business marketing
and sales fundamentals and howyou can use LinkedIn. And I can get
into some of that at theappropriate time, because I think
(10:53):
some of that your audience andyou will really enjoy, because you
could literally start applyingthat immediately after listening
to this podcast.
Yeah, well, and actually, thatbrings me to my next question, which
is, what got you started downthe path of Rainmaker and starting
LinkedIn? I mean, I will, youknow, I. Looking at your. At the
(11:14):
site, you know, you know, oneof the things it said, it's like,
we all hate being sold onLinkedIn. Oh, my God, the cringe.
Like, you know, like, and, AndI'm sure listeners, you've probably
heard, you know, had this too.And I've made posts about this because
it's nails on a chalkboard forme, where it's like, yes, I want
to connect with you. And Ilook at people's profiles. It's like,
(11:34):
I help coaches, blah, blah,blah. And I'm like, oh, I'm going
to connect with you. And it'sgoing to be a sales call, it's going
to be a pitch, and they don'twant to get to know me, right?
Yep, yep, yep. No, agreed. AndI think that's. That's really a key
component. So when I think of,you know, LinkedIn and the way that
(11:55):
I've kind of broken out, theway that you should approach it,
it's kind of three levels. Oneis around the philosophy of how you
should approach LinkedIn. Thelevel underneath that then is audience
building. And then the bottomlayer then is activating that audience.
And so the philosophy, really,for me, it's very simple. Number
(12:17):
one, you have to be authenticand genuine on LinkedIn. I think
most people do a really goodjob of that. LinkedIn's not a toxic
social network. It is the onlyreal business social network that
people are participating in.So you need to be there and, you
know, you need to Be authenticand genuine to yourself, but also
to the brands that yourepresent. The second thing is you
(12:38):
need to approach it with aneducational mindset, because like
you just said, nobody wants tobe sold on LinkedIn. We all hate
getting those messages wheresomeone wants to sell us something
or they want to book a meetingright away when they haven't done
anything to kind of buildrelationship with us. And the last
thing is, and this is wherethere's a lot of kind of responsibility
(13:00):
on the owner or the founderor, you know, the. Anybody that's
sitting in the sales ormarketing seat, which is, you have
to understand the pains andbarriers your prospects are trying
to overcome. And from that,you should start to identify, okay,
well, what is it that theywant to be educated on? And most
importantly, what is it theycan learn from you? What can you
teach? And I think that'sreally the philosophy that can have
(13:24):
you achieve a lot of successin growing a network. Leads and sales
is being genuine andauthentic, that educational mindset
and then figuring out what itis your audience can learn from you.
What can you teach?
Yeah, no, and it's, it's. Ithink that is so true. What can you
teach? And I, And I think theother key part is, you know, what
(13:44):
you said is like, again,nobody wants to be sold to.
Right.
At all. At all. And so it'slike, don't be that. Don't. You know,
if you're worried about beingcringy, then I guess what then I
going to. I bet your messageis cringy.
Right?
Right.
Agreed. Yep.
If you're questioning it.
(14:04):
Right, Exactly. Yep. Yep. Sothen kind of that layer, then underneath
it, once you've adopted thatphilosophy, is building out, like,
audiences of people that youactually want to start connecting
with. I typically use SalesNavigator, which is the sales tool
that LinkedIn offers, butthere's a couple of growth hacks
that I've identified. So oneis LinkedIn events. So if you have
(14:29):
any direct competitors thatare putting on a linked event, or
maybe there's a industryorganization that's putting on a
LinkedIn event that is arounda topic that your business solves
for. If you go and attend thatevent, you can also see everyone
else that's also attendingthat event, and you can actually
start building out a prospectlist of people that are publicly
(14:49):
raising their hand and saying,this is who I am, and I'm interested
in learning more about thistopic. So that's one great way of
starting to build out aprospect list of people that are
already further down thepurchase Path. And then another one
is using a person as a proxy.So there's a woman named Brenda on
LinkedIn. She has about 70,000followers. She talks a lot about
LinkedIn profiles and LinkedInposts and likes and comments and
(15:12):
all those kinds of things. SoI reached out to connect with her,
she connected back with me.And because her connections are open,
I can look and see, okay, whoare the, you know, second degree
connections to me, but ourfirst degree connections to her that
I would want to connect with,right. So I could identify, you know,
founders or sales executives,you know, in certain geographies,
et cetera, that are followingher, most likely because they're
(15:35):
trying to learn how to grow onLinkedIn from her content. Therefore
they'd be a good candidate forRainmaker. Okay, so those are two
kind of growth hacks. One isLinkedIn events and the other is
using a person as a proxy.
Now do you have to have SalesNavigator for to, to, to work that
way to work those texts?
Nope, nope. You can useregular LinkedIn search as well.
(15:57):
You just don't get some of theother benefits of additional filters
and save searches and thingslike that that you get out of Sales
Navigator.
Yeah, no, that's. Those arereally, really great hacks. Listeners.
Really game changing insightson using LinkedIn. So what, what
made you like go down thispath with LinkedIn?
(16:18):
Well, because I wanted tomostly for our software products.
I wanted to get gauge interestand get beta users. And so using
LinkedIn I could target peoplethat would be good candidates. And
I was able to get, you know,lots of signups, like email addresses
(16:41):
of people that would beinterested in our product before
we even launched and then alsogetting beta users to start using
the software and giving usfeedback and things like that. So
that's, that's kind of whatgot me going kind of deep into LinkedIn
and how to use it. So.
Yeah, so, so I'm. Because I'mnow like, what is one of the biggest
(17:08):
pet peeves you have? I mean, Iknow we've kind of talked about some
of them, but like, what's beenlike one just that you see on LinkedIn
that you're just like, okay,please people don't do this.
Well, I think people spend toomuch time and focus on organic posts
and worrying about likes andcomments and impressions. You know
what, what I was talkingabout, you know, kind of that the
(17:31):
first layer philosophy, secondlayer audience. Well, the bottom
layer is activating thataudience. Right. And the way that
I'm typically activating theaudience for myself and clients Is,
you know, once, once I havethe audience identified, the number
one thing that I need to dois, and what I tell your audience
(17:52):
needs to do is start buildingout those first degree connections.
And our cadence is reachingout to 25 people a day, Monday through
Friday. So 125 people a week,500 people a month. You're typically
going to get about a 20 to 25%connection rate back. We're almost
never using a connectionmessage. And if someone doesn't connect
(18:14):
back within 30 days, thenwe'll go and withdraw the invite.
And then there's a three weekperiod of time in which you can't
reinvite that person, but youcould after that three week period
of time is up. So everything Italked about there, your audience
could go do manually right nowyou can go withdraw invites, you
can start identifying peoplethat you want to connect with. You
can start connecting with 25people a day. And I think too many
(18:38):
people undervalue the value ofa first degree connection. You know,
once you get that first degreeconnection, then it's about relationship
building, right? And there'sall these different ways in LinkedIn
that you can use to actuallystart building relationships with
those first degreeconnections. And you know, the, a
few things that we, that Iwould recommend you do after you
(19:00):
get that first connection, onewould be building out like a message
campaign. And you know, with amessage campaign, again you need
to be like a, I don't know ifyou've read the book the Go Giver,
but you have to provide,right? And without expecting anything
in return. And so that messagesequence that we typically use is
that first message, you know,goes out one to three days after
(19:22):
someone connects with youthat's just thanking them for the
connection authentically. Soyou're not selling anything, you're
not even trying to help,you're just thanking them authentically
for the connection. And ifthey respond, great, take that conversation
wherever it goes. If theydon't respond, then maybe a second
message would go out seven to14 days later. So I'll use myself
as an example. I wasconnecting with sales executives
(19:43):
here in the Twin Cities andcreated a list of around 300. About
120 connected back with me. Myfirst message was thanking them for
the connection and somethingabout, you know, both in the Twin
Cities. And then my secondmessage was asking them if they knew
of any good networking eventshere in the Twin Cities. Right. And
so I started to get some, youknow, response from some of those
people, which was great. Thethird thing I did was invited them
(20:06):
to participate in a LinkedInpoll that was focused in on kind
of the pain that they havearound using LinkedIn, not able to
generate leads and sales. Andwhat do they see as the biggest problem
to that? And I got about 40 ofthe 120 to participate in the LinkedIn
poll. And then the last thingthat I did, which is really my favorite
(20:27):
B2B tactic on LinkedIn, is Iinvited them to one of my LinkedIn
live streams where I teach howto grow your network leads and sales
using LinkedIn. And I gotaround 60 of them to register for
that event, that livestreamevent. And so that kind of example
that I gave, if you'll notice,number one, it has nothing to do
(20:49):
with organic posts. It haseverything to do with understanding
your audience and reaching outto them in ways that isn't spammy.
It's not selling anything. Andwhat it does, it starts to open up
the opportunity then for youto engage in a meaningful way, not
only in sharing your knowledgeand positioning yourself as a thought
leader, but for example, theLinkedIn livestream to those, you
(21:11):
know, 50 or 60 salesexecutives that signed up. I send
a message to all the attendeesafter the event and the message is
typically like, hey,Jacqueline, thanks again for registering
for the LinkedIn live streamthat I led. Here's a link to the
recording, right? And therecording still lives on the LinkedIn
(21:31):
event page that they can goand watch if they weren't able to
make the live stream or ifthey wanted to watch it again. And
then underneath it, you canhave different calls to action. My
favorite call to action is ifyou ever Want to chat LinkedIn strategy,
feel free to grab some timeconvenient for you here. And I give
my calendly link, right? Sobecause they're opting in to learn
from me, they find that thecontent is interesting. They see
(21:54):
me enough as a thought leaderthat entrust me enough that they
click the attend button when Isend that message after the event
is over and give them mycalendar link. It doesn't feel spammy,
it doesn't feel icky in anyway. It's just a natural next step
for them to potentiallyinteract with me and learn more and
further the relationship. Soall that is just kind of a, I think
(22:16):
the right way to use LinkedInand that's why I've been using it
for five years and have beendoing it for about a year now since
I stood up brainmaker for my clients.
So, yeah, you know, Colin, Iabsolutely love it. You know, I talk
a lot about, you know, twoSteps like the two steps that you
need to take to createmomentum and you know, you could
(22:37):
break down your follow upsequence almost like, you know, it's
like two, you know, the firsttwo steps and then the second two
steps and it's, it creates areally great pattern and it's, but
part of that too is as you, asyou shared, you're giving information
and, and creating the trustwith, with somebody and you are making
(22:59):
the connection and buildingthe relationship versus just throwing
up on them.
Exactly. That's right. Yeah.So part of it is, yeah, really knowing
and understanding your, youraudience. And you know, one of the
things I've, I've createdfirst connections across a number
of different verticals.Typically it's founders, fractional
(23:23):
sales executives, EOSimplementers and business coaches.
Right. And so I can tailor mymessaging to each of them. I can
tailor, you know, my, my livestream content to them. Even though
the live stream contentitself, the deck that I use is almost
the same to each of thoseverticals. When they get to the event
(23:44):
page, like the image I usewill say LinkedIn growth webinar
for founders or for salesexecutives. Right. And so even though
the content's essentially thesame, when they get to that page,
they see the topic and that'sinteresting. But then they also see,
oh, it looks like this wasmade just for my title or for my
industry. Right. So. Andthat's just a great way to increase
(24:05):
your attendance rate.
No, I, absolutely, I love thatbecause goes back to one of my first
loves and where I grew up inis actually direct marketing.
Yeah.
And you're directly marketingto the right person, you're speaking
to them, their language, theirbenefits. It's, you know, it's, you
know, it's using somebody'sfirst name in a message, it's sharing
(24:28):
their, their title. It makesit so much more relatable.
Absolutely. Yeah. Yep. Nope,that's, that's exactly right. And
you know, with, you know, ifyou think about, you know, if you're
growing out that first degreenetwork week in and week out and
you're doing some of theseother activities in an authentic
kind of go giver mindset.Well, when you do post organic posts
(24:51):
now you have a larger audienceof ICPs that might see it. And when
those people see that, it'salso kind of getting meshed in the
other things that they'reseeing from you that we've discussed.
So that makes your organicpost even that much more impactful.
Yeah, no, I, I, I, I, youknow, all those activities because
when you do again, as you justsaid, as you make those other posts,
(25:13):
then it also makes you morerelatable because people start to
see you in a different way. Soit creates that full package. It's,
it makes it so that the poststhat you're doing aren't a waste.
Right, exactly right. You knowthat you know, at least some of your
ICPs are going to see it. Ithink, you know, for any given organic
post you do, maybe 10% of youraudience sees it. And what percent
(25:35):
of that are ICPs that youreally want to get it in front of?
If you're not building thatout, then it's going to be a bunch
of people that you might haveworked with before and friends and
stuff like that. So you reallythat that whole process that I discussed,
you know, your audience shouldgo back and listen to that and just
start doing that. That willhelp you start to turn LinkedIn into
(25:59):
more of a lead and sales generator.
Right. You know Colin, I lovethis conversation and I love also
like just, you know, theaudience to really take, you know,
we're talking about LinkedInand we're talking about, you know,
Rainmaker, the company andColin and what he's doing. But also
(26:19):
think about these key tactics,not Even just for LinkedIn but how
you also are doing and howyou're communicating with your team
in your sales. Because it'sabout building the relationships
that you have. The more youcan make those connections again
with your team members andoutside people as well, the bigger
(26:41):
you are going to grow and thetighter the relationships. And people
love doing business as we allknow, people that know like and trust.
So build those relationships,don't sell.
Agreed. Absolutely agree withthat. Everything you said, perfect.
So with that note, Colin, howcan people find you and connect with
you?
Yeah, rainmakergrows.com isthe website so you can learn more
(27:05):
there. On the resources pageyou can actually download a one page
PDF that outlines my entirelive stream process from beginning
end on how they should do it.There's also a PDF that talks about
kind of sales growth onLinkedIn and the free consultation
button just connects to me thecalendly with me. I'm the only person
(27:28):
right now in Rainmaker, so itwould be with me. And then I'm also
the only Colin Herdman on theInternet so feel free to reach out
to me on LinkedIn and I'llconnect back with you.
Oh well that is fantastic. Andwe will put all of those links in
the show notes as well. SoColin, thank you so much for being
an amazing guest and myaudience. Thank you so much for listening.
If you have gotten amazingtips from this or insights, which
(27:51):
I'm sure you have, please dome the favor of hitting the subscribe
button and also share theUnstoppable Leadership Spotlight
podcast with your friends andcolleagues. Because if we can help
make more leaders that areamazing and unstoppable, we'll make
a world that's alsounstoppable as well. So I'm Jacqueline
Stinger, your host, and Ithank you all for listening. And
(28:12):
again, thank you Colin forbeing a great guest.
Thank you so much.
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