September 2, 2024 • 18 mins
Unlock the secrets to mastering LinkedIn for business growth with our special guest, Colin Hirdman, co-founder of Monkey Island Ventures and Rainmaker. Discover how Colin transitioned from traditional cold email outreach to embracing LinkedIn as a powerful tool for business development. In this episode, Colin breaks down his three-layer LinkedIn strategy, focusing on the importance of authenticity and an educational approach, rather than direct selling. You'll learn how to engage your audience and understand their pain points to effectively grow your network, leads, and sales.
We'll also dive into the incredible potential of LinkedIn's Sales Navigator and LinkedIn Live. Colin shares his expert insights on using LinkedIn Live to build trust and convert prospects into clients without the typical sales pressure. He provides a step-by-step process for creating impactful live streams and offers a detailed PDF guide to replicate his success. This episode is brimming with actionable advice and practical tips for anyone looking to elevate their LinkedIn presence and drive significant business growth. Don't miss out on this opportunity to transform your LinkedIn strategy and achieve outstanding results.
LinkedIn Livestream Recipe - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MbJN919iiXDkTkkPb9rWGcjaVnZIfO1o/view
Connect with Colin Hirdman:
Website: https://www.rainmakergrows.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinhirdman/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Natalie Guzman (00:00):
Welcome to the Virtual Antics Podcast, where we
help entrepreneurs streamlinetheir business to six figures
and beyond.
These short, sweet andinfo-packed episodes will
inspire, educate and leave youfeeling motivated to take one
more step forward in yourbusiness.
So put down your never-endingto-do list, because in this
podcast, we are interviewing thebest of the best in the
entrepreneurial world as theyspill their secrets to success.
(00:23):
This podcast is sponsored byNendora, the all-in-one software
for entrepreneurs to grow theirbusiness, with unlimited
landing pages, automations,emails and text campaigns, and
so much more.
I'm your host, natalie Guzman.
Now let's get into it.
Welcome to Virtual Antics, thepodcast where we explore the
dynamic world of businessautomation, virtual assistance
and entrepreneurship.
(00:43):
I'm your host, natalie Guzman.
Today, we have an exceptionalguest on the call.
It's Colin Hirdman.
His entrepreneurial journeybegan just a week after
graduating college and he hassince built and sold multiple
businesses.
As a co-founder of MonkeyIsland Ventures, named after a
childhood park super cool.
Colin and his partners havecreated over a dozen successful
software and service over thepast years.
(01:04):
Now Colin is focused on theirnewest venture, rainmaker, which
helps founders, businesscoaches and sales teams grow
their LinkedIn networks, leadsand sales through their
innovative, authentic engine.
Colin's insights intoentrepreneurship and LinkedIn
strategies are sure to inspireand provide valuable takeaways.
Welcome, Colin.
How are you doing today?
Colin Hirdman (01:22):
I'm doing great.
Natalie, Thanks again forhaving me.
I'm really excited.
Natalie Guzman (01:26):
I'm so excited, like I told you a little bit
before, this is that I reallybrought you on for me because I
love LinkedIn.
I think it's such a cool tool,but I'm not utilizing it for my
business.
I'm like if I'm needing this,then my listeners are totally.
Colin Hirdman (01:41):
Absolutely, yeah.
No, I think there's someeducational stuff that I'll be
able to share today that youraudience will be able to put
into practice later today orright after they end up
listening to it.
Natalie Guzman (01:51):
All right, so let's get into it.
So how'd you get into LinkedIn?
I know you own several othercompanies.
Is that kind of what broughtyou on to the venture?
Colin Hirdman (01:59):
Yeah, it's certainly been kind of a winding
road.
So, yeah, in 2007 is when Istarted Monkey Island Ventures
with Josh and Zach.
We've all known each othersince we were about five years
old and it is, in fact, namedafter a park we played at when
we were kids named Monkey Island, located in St Paul, minnesota,
and yeah, so we built a bunchof different SaaS and service
(02:19):
companies over the years andprobably about five years ago I
was doing a lot of like coldemail outreach and LinkedIn
automation and just really kindof working across those two
avenues and LinkedIn.
I ended up realizing I wasgetting more and more traction
with, and so over the last sixmonths I have really focused in
(02:41):
on LinkedIn and that's when westarted Rainmaker and that's
what my entire, 100% of my roleis focused on growing that as a
business and it's been anabsolute blast.
I love it.
And so I'm ready to kind ofshare the way that I think about
Rainmaker If there's anyspecific questions you have, or
else I can kind of get into theway that I think about it.
Natalie Guzman (03:01):
Yeah, I'm really interested because one of the
things I've heard about is thatyou know we always say, try to
find you, go to the social mediasite where your target's right,
and a lot of us.
Our target market is businessowners and we're business owners
.
That's on LinkedIn, and I'veheard through my research that
LinkedIn is one of the mostunderrated social media
platforms, especially if you'reusing it to highlight your
(03:22):
business.
Is that correct?
Colin Hirdman (03:24):
Oh, no, no, no question.
I mean, you know, at the end ofthe day, linkedin is still a
social network it's all humanbeings but they are there for
business purposes, and so it'sreally the perfect platform to
to grow, as long as you stayauthentic.
And I think I bring in aneducational mindset.
Some of the stats that I talkabout are, you know, like I
(03:46):
think three new people arejoining LinkedIn every second,
and decision makers are onLinkedIn.
I think you'd be reallysurprised at how many of your
prospects I'm talking generallyare on LinkedIn, and you know,
most people are lurkers,regardless of the network.
Very few are the ones creatingcontent, and most people are
(04:06):
lurkers, regardless of thenetwork, very few are the ones
creating content.
So there are a lot of activepeople on LinkedIn daily, weekly
and monthly.
That are your prospects.
Natalie Guzman (04:18):
So what?
Yeah, you can kind of take itfrom here, kind of give us a tee
on how business owners canreally use LinkedIn to leverage.
Colin Hirdman (04:21):
Nope, that sounds great.
So the way that I think aboutLinkedIn is on three layers,
okay.
The first layer is philosophy,the second layer is audience and
the last year are the campaign.
So, philosophically, what Ifound, you have to come at
LinkedIn from a mindset of beingauthentic number one.
So you have to be authentic towho you are as an individual and
communicate in the way thatyou'd normally communicate with
(04:43):
people.
And then you also have to beauthentic to the brand, or
brands that you're representing.
Okay, so if you're coming inauthentically, you're already
coming into it the right way.
But the other thing to reallyrealize is that nobody wants to
be sold on LinkedIn.
Okay, we've all gotten, youknow, those spammy messages and
all that.
You won't ever succeed by doingthat on LinkedIn.
So nobody wants to be sold.
(05:04):
But virtually everyone iswilling to be educated on
LinkedIn, and so that's reallythat educational mindset that
you have to come into LinkedInwith.
And the last thing I'll say isthat if you're a founder, an
entrepreneur, a marketer, asalesperson, it's really
incumbent on you, it's yourresponsibility, to understand
what it is that your prospectswant to be educated on.
(05:26):
What are their pain points,where they're willing to learn
and, more specifically, whereare they willing to learn from
you?
And if you're not able tofigure that out, you're going to
have a lot of struggle onLinkedIn.
So, again, it's up to you asthe founder or the marketer, as
a salesperson, to figure thatspecific thing out so you can
(05:48):
approach them with aneducational mindset.
You know, one thing thatshifted a lot for me over the
last probably six months is thatI'm spending a lot more time
thinking about how I can engagemy audience quickly with
educational materials and lessso around, like the individual
posts that I'm making and seeing, like how many likes or
(06:09):
comments I'm getting, because Ireally want to hone in on how I
can grow a larger first degreenetwork of good quality
prospects, but I also want togenerate leads and sales, again,
all doing this withauthenticity and education in
mind.
Okay, so that's the philosophythat I think everyone needs to
have when they come intoLinkedIn.
(06:30):
Then the second one is audience, and the way that I'm building
out audiences for myself and ourRainmaker clients is most of
the time it's through salesnavigation, and I'm generally
able to build good audiencesthat perform well just off of
that.
But one of the things that I'vebeen thinking about the last
couple of months is aroundaudience intent.
So how do you better seeprospects that are already
(06:52):
further down the pipeline,further down your sales funnel,
and how do you identify them soyou can reach out to them and
hopefully help them make apurchase decision soon?
So one of the things that Ithink about are two areas I'll
get into right now.
One is LinkedIn events.
Okay, so if one of yourcompetitors or if a industry,
(07:13):
association or organization isputting on a LinkedIn event that
has to do with what you dospecifically or what you might
do tangentially, if you go andyou press the attend button and
you attend that event as well,you are now able to see the
entire audience that is alsoattending that event.
So one of the things that youcould do is you could say, okay,
(07:35):
I'm going to attend this event.
Now I can see everyone elsethat's also attending the event,
and I want to build an audienceof all the people that are
attending this event that arealso business owners of these
size companies or within theseindustries.
I know they're attending thisevent because they're interested
in this topic and if I can helpsolve for that topic, I would
want to create first connectionswith those kinds of people as
(07:56):
well.
So that's one shortcut aroundaudience intent.
Another one would be using aperson as a proxy.
So one of the things that I'vedone is I identified a few
people that are on LinkedIn andthey publish a lot of content
about how to succeed on LinkedIn, and I reached out and created
a first connection.
Well, I can go into SalesNavigator or LinkedIn search and
say, ok, here's this person, Iwant to see everyone.
(08:19):
That is a first connection tothis person, but as a second
connection to me, that is also afounder or a sales executive or
a business coach, right, and soI know that they're probably
following this person onLinkedIn because they want to
learn how to grow on LinkedIn.
Well, if they want to learn howto grow on LinkedIn, then
they're probably would beinterested in Rainmaker.
So that's another way of likekind of short cutting into an
(08:42):
audience is using a person as aproxy.
So we've talked about philosophy, we've talked about audience
and audience intent, and thenthe final one, our campaign.
And the way that I think aboutit is I'm typically, for myself
and for clients, reaching out to25 new people a day, monday
through Friday during normalworking hours 125 people a week,
(09:03):
500 people a month and, acrossmyself and all of my clients,
getting between like a 15 and50% connection rate.
Okay, so that that by growingout your first connection
audience of prospects, that'sgiving you an opportunity, that
when you post content or whenyou create events, that you have
a larger audience to pull intoseeing your, your content or
(09:25):
attending your events, and youknow, a lot of times.
Another foundational thing iswe'll plug in like a drip
message campaign to those newconnections.
But again, this is where youhave to experiment.
But you also have to come withlike a go-giver mindset like how
can I benefit this person?
So I'm imploring everyone onthat the message that you and
(09:47):
just really quick, when we dothe outreach, we're not sending
a message when we do the initialoutreach connection, Because I
think even that can feel alittle bit weird, a little bit
spammy.
You know, if you say, hey, Iwant to connect with you because
we went to the same college orI want to connect with you
because I think your content is,you know, is really great or
something you know that'salready putting off, you know,
some red flags to people, thenumber one reason why people
(10:09):
connect with each other onLinkedIn is mutual connection,
and so that's one of the kind offilters that we look at.
So, but that first messageafter someone connects with you
should just be like a thank youmessage.
You shouldn't be trying to helpthem, you shouldn't be trying
to sell them, you shouldn't doanything, but just have a nice
thank you for connecting message, and then what we'll do is
(10:30):
we'll follow up, like three toseven days later, if they
haven't responded to, withanother message.
So I'll give you an example Oneof my clients owns a law firm
and is breaking into theblockchain space, and the
follow-up message to his firstmessage would say something to
the effect of like hi, natalie,I find myself more and more
(10:52):
writing about the intersectionof blockchain and law, and I'm
wondering if there's any topicsyou'd have interest in me
writing about.
Okay, so a couple of things arehappening there.
Number one knows that forblockchain founders, there's a
huge pain point around law andblock okay, and that those
founders are always looking formore information around you know
what what they can and can't bedoing here in the United States
(11:14):
around blockchain.
Number two he has establishedhimself as an expert, as a
lawyer and he's writing abouttopics and he's opened up
dialogue now for them to respondback to him with yeah, I really
love it.
You know if you might writeabout this or I'm having
problems here, could you help me?
Could you write about this?
Right?
So he's really opening up anarea for conversation.
He's giving an opportunity towrite about these topics based
(11:37):
off of feedback he's getting.
So those are some examples ofjust authenticity around your
outreach and your connections.
One minor detail, just kind ofaround like hygiene of your
LinkedIn account, is that after30 days we rescind the LinkedIn
connection request if they don'tconnect, and then there's a
three-week period of time thatyou can't go out and invite them
(11:59):
again, but after that threeweeks you can invite them to
connect again, and so you'rekind of creating these pools of
people that you could reach outto again in the future.
But a lot of times peoplearen't connecting back.
It's not that they don't wantto connect with you or they
think you're a bad person.
A lot of times is they're notpaying attention and your invite
might get pushed down in theiralert.
So those are a couple of justkind of general things.
(12:20):
So maybe I'll pause right hereand see if you have any specific
questions.
Um cause, there's another areathat I think would be of high
value to talk about from acampaign's perspective, but I'll
stop here and see whatquestions.
Natalie Guzman (12:33):
Yeah, could you just explain for listeners?
Um, I understand what salesnavigator is, but can you give a
review of what it is and whybusiness owners might want to
utilize?
Colin Hirdman (12:41):
Yeah for sure.
Yeah, so sales navigator is atool created by LinkedIn that
you have to pay for and I thinkit's like around $100 a month,
something like that and itallows you to build audiences of
prospects and then you can savethese prospects to lists, and
you can do that through accounts, you know, which are.
You know the businesses.
(13:01):
You can also do it across leadswhich are people, and there's a
bunch of different filters thatyou can use.
Do it across leads which arepeople, and there's a bunch of
different filters that you canuse, and there's a bunch of ways
that you can kind of useaccount lists in lead lists and
really continue to refine downthe types of people you want to
get in front of.
With a lot of my clients, theydon't have sales navigators, so
(13:22):
I'll just use mine to build theaudiences, but sales navigator
is a great tool for anybody thatwants to really hone in on the
types of prospects that theywant to get in front of.
Awesome, yeah.
So another really great path, Ithink, for any founder that
wants to go down the educationalpath, is using LinkedIn Live,
(13:45):
and the benefit of LinkedIn Livestreams is really what I want
to talk about here, and so I'll,I'll, I'll, I'll, natalie,
after this, I'll send you a PF.
It's just a one pager and itjust shows my entire process,
from beginning to end, of how Icreate these live streams.
But they are really, reallyvaluable, and here's why.
So the first thing I do isidentify an audience, right, so
(14:07):
I create an audience and salesnavigator, and then I'm using
the same topic, which is learnhow to grow your LinkedIn
network leads and sales usingauthentic automation, and I do
this live stream once a week.
Okay, and so I'm using the samecontent about once a week, so
I'm not having to create allthis new content all the time.
But then what I'll do is thefirst slide of the event is I
will put you know for foundersor for sales executives, or, you
(14:31):
know, for business coaches, andthen, when I identify that
audience, I will create aLinkedIn live stream event and
then I will send all of thosepeople an invite, a LinkedIn
invite, to that event.
Okay, and so when they go totheir alerts, they'll see, oh,
colin Herdman has invited you tothis LinkedIn event and they'll
click through it, and thenthey'll get to the event page
(14:54):
and they'll see.
You know what my event, my livestream is all about, and then
they can choose to press theattend button or not when they
get there.
If they choose to click theattend button, you know a number
of really kind of magicalthings happen.
Number one you have verifiedthat your topic is relevant and
that your audience is relevant.
If you are pushing out thisLinkedIn event to an audience
(15:19):
and nobody's responding, thenone of two things is off or both
your audience or your topic.
Okay, so the these live streamevents allow you to experiment a
little bit on like topics andum um prospect groups that you'd
want to target.
Uh, the other thing on thebackend of I'm clicking the
attend button that is trulymagical is that when they do
(15:39):
that, they are in thoseuncertain terms saying that they
um see you as a thought leader.
They trust your business enoughto press the attend button so
you know who they are and you'recreating enough of an emotional
connection that they'republicly giving you all of these
(15:59):
cues.
And so what will happen after Ido the live stream is that I
will follow up with eachattendee and I'll thank them for
attending the event orregistering for the event and
say if you happen to miss theevent.
Here's a link to the recordingand I'll point them back to the
LinkedIn event page where thewhere the recording is.
But then I'll follow up and sayyou know if if you're, if
(16:20):
you're interested in having aone on one strategy session to
talk about LinkedIn and more.
You know.
Here's a link to my calendarstrategy session to talk about
LinkedIn and more.
You know.
Here's a link to my calendar.
So what you can see is that Ihave gone from creating a
discrete audience andidentifying a topic for that
audience.
I have gotten them to click theattend button and I've gotten to
the point where I can send thema calendar and it doesn't feel
(16:42):
icky to me or salesy.
And it doesn't feel icky orsalesy to them either, and it's
because I am sharing myknowledge around LinkedIn and it
has driven prospects and it hasdriven clients for me in the
last three months.
So I'm actually closing a newclient tomorrow that I did a
live stream with two weeks ago.
(17:02):
So I would highly encourageyour audience to look into that
and, like I said, I'll send youa PDF of my whole process and if
someone wants to get that fromyou or reach out to me, they can
certainly do that as well.
But at the end of the day, whatRainmaker is doing is we are
really just automating the bestpractice manual actions that
everyone should be taking onLinkedIn.
(17:24):
So it's the exact opposite ofanything spammy.
We're just bringing a littlebit more strategy and scale to
your process and ability, Ithink, to thrive on LinkedIn.
Natalie Guzman (17:36):
I absolutely love that.
Thank you so much for sharingall that knowledge.
I know I'm going to go andapply that this week.
I think that's a genius.
I really like everything theyexplained using the live events
and using that as a way to's agenius.
I really like everything theyexplained using like the live
events and using that as a wayto build a genuine.
So thank you so much forsharing.
And where can we find moreabout you and your business?
Colin Hirdman (17:54):
Yeah, so you can certainly look me up on LinkedIn
at Colin Herdman, h-i-r-d-m-a-n.
And then Rainmaker israinmakergrowscom, and one of
the pages on the site is calledcampaigns, and if you go there,
you can see 12 differentcampaign types that you should
be considering running onLinkedIn, and all of them but
(18:14):
one you can go do yourself.
You don't, you don't need me arainmaker for.
Natalie Guzman (18:17):
Awesome, I'll make sure I put that all that in
there as well, but thank you somuch for coming on virtual
antics.
It has been a pleasure havingyou, thanks so much, Natalie.
And we'll talk to you guys next.
Welcome to the Virtual Antics Podcast, where we
help entrepreneurs streamlinetheir business to six figures
and beyond.
These short, sweet andinfo-packed episodes will
inspire, educate and leave youfeeling motivated to take one
more step forward in yourbusiness.
So put down your never-endingto-do list, because in this
podcast, we are interviewing thebest of the best in the
entrepreneurial world as theyspill their secrets to success.
(00:23):
This podcast is sponsored byNendora, the all-in-one software
for entrepreneurs to grow theirbusiness, with unlimited
landing pages, automations,emails and text campaigns, and
so much more.
I'm your host, natalie Guzman.
Now let's get into it.
Welcome to Virtual Antics, thepodcast where we explore the
dynamic world of businessautomation, virtual assistance
and entrepreneurship.
(00:43):
I'm your host, natalie Guzman.
Today, we have an exceptionalguest on the call.
It's Colin Hirdman.
His entrepreneurial journeybegan just a week after
graduating college and he hassince built and sold multiple
businesses.
As a co-founder of MonkeyIsland Ventures, named after a
childhood park super cool.
Colin and his partners havecreated over a dozen successful
software and service over thepast years.
(01:04):
Now Colin is focused on theirnewest venture, rainmaker, which
helps founders, businesscoaches and sales teams grow
their LinkedIn networks, leadsand sales through their
innovative, authentic engine.
Colin's insights intoentrepreneurship and LinkedIn
strategies are sure to inspireand provide valuable takeaways.
Welcome, Colin.
How are you doing today?
Colin Hirdman (01:22):
I'm doing great.
Natalie, Thanks again forhaving me.
I'm really excited.
Natalie Guzman (01:26):
I'm so excited, like I told you a little bit
before, this is that I reallybrought you on for me because I
love LinkedIn.
I think it's such a cool tool,but I'm not utilizing it for my
business.
I'm like if I'm needing this,then my listeners are totally.
Colin Hirdman (01:41):
Absolutely, yeah.
No, I think there's someeducational stuff that I'll be
able to share today that youraudience will be able to put
into practice later today orright after they end up
listening to it.
Natalie Guzman (01:51):
All right, so let's get into it.
So how'd you get into LinkedIn?
I know you own several othercompanies.
Is that kind of what broughtyou on to the venture?
Colin Hirdman (01:59):
Yeah, it's certainly been kind of a winding
road.
So, yeah, in 2007 is when Istarted Monkey Island Ventures
with Josh and Zach.
We've all known each othersince we were about five years
old and it is, in fact, namedafter a park we played at when
we were kids named Monkey Island, located in St Paul, minnesota,
and yeah, so we built a bunchof different SaaS and service
(02:19):
companies over the years andprobably about five years ago I
was doing a lot of like coldemail outreach and LinkedIn
automation and just really kindof working across those two
avenues and LinkedIn.
I ended up realizing I wasgetting more and more traction
with, and so over the last sixmonths I have really focused in
(02:41):
on LinkedIn and that's when westarted Rainmaker and that's
what my entire, 100% of my roleis focused on growing that as a
business and it's been anabsolute blast.
I love it.
And so I'm ready to kind ofshare the way that I think about
Rainmaker If there's anyspecific questions you have, or
else I can kind of get into theway that I think about it.
Natalie Guzman (03:01):
Yeah, I'm really interested because one of the
things I've heard about is thatyou know we always say, try to
find you, go to the social mediasite where your target's right,
and a lot of us.
Our target market is businessowners and we're business owners
.
That's on LinkedIn, and I'veheard through my research that
LinkedIn is one of the mostunderrated social media
platforms, especially if you'reusing it to highlight your
(03:22):
business.
Is that correct?
Colin Hirdman (03:24):
Oh, no, no, no question.
I mean, you know, at the end ofthe day, linkedin is still a
social network it's all humanbeings but they are there for
business purposes, and so it'sreally the perfect platform to
to grow, as long as you stayauthentic.
And I think I bring in aneducational mindset.
Some of the stats that I talkabout are, you know, like I
(03:46):
think three new people arejoining LinkedIn every second,
and decision makers are onLinkedIn.
I think you'd be reallysurprised at how many of your
prospects I'm talking generallyare on LinkedIn, and you know,
most people are lurkers,regardless of the network.
Very few are the ones creatingcontent, and most people are
(04:06):
lurkers, regardless of thenetwork, very few are the ones
creating content.
So there are a lot of activepeople on LinkedIn daily, weekly
and monthly.
That are your prospects.
Natalie Guzman (04:18):
So what?
Yeah, you can kind of take itfrom here, kind of give us a tee
on how business owners canreally use LinkedIn to leverage.
Colin Hirdman (04:21):
Nope, that sounds great.
So the way that I think aboutLinkedIn is on three layers,
okay.
The first layer is philosophy,the second layer is audience and
the last year are the campaign.
So, philosophically, what Ifound, you have to come at
LinkedIn from a mindset of beingauthentic number one.
So you have to be authentic towho you are as an individual and
communicate in the way thatyou'd normally communicate with
(04:43):
people.
And then you also have to beauthentic to the brand, or
brands that you're representing.
Okay, so if you're coming inauthentically, you're already
coming into it the right way.
But the other thing to reallyrealize is that nobody wants to
be sold on LinkedIn.
Okay, we've all gotten, youknow, those spammy messages and
all that.
You won't ever succeed by doingthat on LinkedIn.
So nobody wants to be sold.
(05:04):
But virtually everyone iswilling to be educated on
LinkedIn, and so that's reallythat educational mindset that
you have to come into LinkedInwith.
And the last thing I'll say isthat if you're a founder, an
entrepreneur, a marketer, asalesperson, it's really
incumbent on you, it's yourresponsibility, to understand
what it is that your prospectswant to be educated on.
(05:26):
What are their pain points,where they're willing to learn
and, more specifically, whereare they willing to learn from
you?
And if you're not able tofigure that out, you're going to
have a lot of struggle onLinkedIn.
So, again, it's up to you asthe founder or the marketer, as
a salesperson, to figure thatspecific thing out so you can
(05:48):
approach them with aneducational mindset.
You know, one thing thatshifted a lot for me over the
last probably six months is thatI'm spending a lot more time
thinking about how I can engagemy audience quickly with
educational materials and lessso around, like the individual
posts that I'm making and seeing, like how many likes or
(06:09):
comments I'm getting, because Ireally want to hone in on how I
can grow a larger first degreenetwork of good quality
prospects, but I also want togenerate leads and sales, again,
all doing this withauthenticity and education in
mind.
Okay, so that's the philosophythat I think everyone needs to
have when they come intoLinkedIn.
(06:30):
Then the second one is audience, and the way that I'm building
out audiences for myself and ourRainmaker clients is most of
the time it's through salesnavigation, and I'm generally
able to build good audiencesthat perform well just off of
that.
But one of the things that I'vebeen thinking about the last
couple of months is aroundaudience intent.
So how do you better seeprospects that are already
(06:52):
further down the pipeline,further down your sales funnel,
and how do you identify them soyou can reach out to them and
hopefully help them make apurchase decision soon?
So one of the things that Ithink about are two areas I'll
get into right now.
One is LinkedIn events.
Okay, so if one of yourcompetitors or if a industry,
(07:13):
association or organization isputting on a LinkedIn event that
has to do with what you dospecifically or what you might
do tangentially, if you go andyou press the attend button and
you attend that event as well,you are now able to see the
entire audience that is alsoattending that event.
So one of the things that youcould do is you could say, okay,
(07:35):
I'm going to attend this event.
Now I can see everyone elsethat's also attending the event,
and I want to build an audienceof all the people that are
attending this event that arealso business owners of these
size companies or within theseindustries.
I know they're attending thisevent because they're interested
in this topic and if I can helpsolve for that topic, I would
want to create first connectionswith those kinds of people as
(07:56):
well.
So that's one shortcut aroundaudience intent.
Another one would be using aperson as a proxy.
So one of the things that I'vedone is I identified a few
people that are on LinkedIn andthey publish a lot of content
about how to succeed on LinkedIn, and I reached out and created
a first connection.
Well, I can go into SalesNavigator or LinkedIn search and
say, ok, here's this person, Iwant to see everyone.
(08:19):
That is a first connection tothis person, but as a second
connection to me, that is also afounder or a sales executive or
a business coach, right, and soI know that they're probably
following this person onLinkedIn because they want to
learn how to grow on LinkedIn.
Well, if they want to learn howto grow on LinkedIn, then
they're probably would beinterested in Rainmaker.
So that's another way of likekind of short cutting into an
(08:42):
audience is using a person as aproxy.
So we've talked about philosophy, we've talked about audience
and audience intent, and thenthe final one, our campaign.
And the way that I think aboutit is I'm typically, for myself
and for clients, reaching out to25 new people a day, monday
through Friday during normalworking hours 125 people a week,
(09:03):
500 people a month and, acrossmyself and all of my clients,
getting between like a 15 and50% connection rate.
Okay, so that that by growingout your first connection
audience of prospects, that'sgiving you an opportunity, that
when you post content or whenyou create events, that you have
a larger audience to pull intoseeing your, your content or
(09:25):
attending your events, and youknow, a lot of times.
Another foundational thing iswe'll plug in like a drip
message campaign to those newconnections.
But again, this is where youhave to experiment.
But you also have to come withlike a go-giver mindset like how
can I benefit this person?
So I'm imploring everyone onthat the message that you and
(09:47):
just really quick, when we dothe outreach, we're not sending
a message when we do the initialoutreach connection, Because I
think even that can feel alittle bit weird, a little bit
spammy.
You know, if you say, hey, Iwant to connect with you because
we went to the same college orI want to connect with you
because I think your content is,you know, is really great or
something you know that'salready putting off, you know,
some red flags to people, thenumber one reason why people
(10:09):
connect with each other onLinkedIn is mutual connection,
and so that's one of the kind offilters that we look at.
So, but that first messageafter someone connects with you
should just be like a thank youmessage.
You shouldn't be trying to helpthem, you shouldn't be trying
to sell them, you shouldn't doanything, but just have a nice
thank you for connecting message, and then what we'll do is
(10:30):
we'll follow up, like three toseven days later, if they
haven't responded to, withanother message.
So I'll give you an example Oneof my clients owns a law firm
and is breaking into theblockchain space, and the
follow-up message to his firstmessage would say something to
the effect of like hi, natalie,I find myself more and more
(10:52):
writing about the intersectionof blockchain and law, and I'm
wondering if there's any topicsyou'd have interest in me
writing about.
Okay, so a couple of things arehappening there.
Number one knows that forblockchain founders, there's a
huge pain point around law andblock okay, and that those
founders are always looking formore information around you know
what what they can and can't bedoing here in the United States
(11:14):
around blockchain.
Number two he has establishedhimself as an expert, as a
lawyer and he's writing abouttopics and he's opened up
dialogue now for them to respondback to him with yeah, I really
love it.
You know if you might writeabout this or I'm having
problems here, could you help me?
Could you write about this?
Right?
So he's really opening up anarea for conversation.
He's giving an opportunity towrite about these topics based
(11:37):
off of feedback he's getting.
So those are some examples ofjust authenticity around your
outreach and your connections.
One minor detail, just kind ofaround like hygiene of your
LinkedIn account, is that after30 days we rescind the LinkedIn
connection request if they don'tconnect, and then there's a
three-week period of time thatyou can't go out and invite them
(11:59):
again, but after that threeweeks you can invite them to
connect again, and so you'rekind of creating these pools of
people that you could reach outto again in the future.
But a lot of times peoplearen't connecting back.
It's not that they don't wantto connect with you or they
think you're a bad person.
A lot of times is they're notpaying attention and your invite
might get pushed down in theiralert.
So those are a couple of justkind of general things.
(12:20):
So maybe I'll pause right hereand see if you have any specific
questions.
Um cause, there's another areathat I think would be of high
value to talk about from acampaign's perspective, but I'll
stop here and see whatquestions.
Natalie Guzman (12:33):
Yeah, could you just explain for listeners?
Um, I understand what salesnavigator is, but can you give a
review of what it is and whybusiness owners might want to
utilize?
Colin Hirdman (12:41):
Yeah for sure.
Yeah, so sales navigator is atool created by LinkedIn that
you have to pay for and I thinkit's like around $100 a month,
something like that and itallows you to build audiences of
prospects and then you can savethese prospects to lists, and
you can do that through accounts, you know, which are.
You know the businesses.
(13:01):
You can also do it across leadswhich are people, and there's a
bunch of different filters thatyou can use.
Do it across leads which arepeople, and there's a bunch of
different filters that you canuse, and there's a bunch of ways
that you can kind of useaccount lists in lead lists and
really continue to refine downthe types of people you want to
get in front of.
With a lot of my clients, theydon't have sales navigators, so
(13:22):
I'll just use mine to build theaudiences, but sales navigator
is a great tool for anybody thatwants to really hone in on the
types of prospects that theywant to get in front of.
Awesome, yeah.
So another really great path, Ithink, for any founder that
wants to go down the educationalpath, is using LinkedIn Live,
(13:45):
and the benefit of LinkedIn Livestreams is really what I want
to talk about here, and so I'll,I'll, I'll, I'll, natalie,
after this, I'll send you a PF.
It's just a one pager and itjust shows my entire process,
from beginning to end, of how Icreate these live streams.
But they are really, reallyvaluable, and here's why.
So the first thing I do isidentify an audience, right, so
(14:07):
I create an audience and salesnavigator, and then I'm using
the same topic, which is learnhow to grow your LinkedIn
network leads and sales usingauthentic automation, and I do
this live stream once a week.
Okay, and so I'm using the samecontent about once a week, so
I'm not having to create allthis new content all the time.
But then what I'll do is thefirst slide of the event is I
will put you know for foundersor for sales executives, or, you
(14:31):
know, for business coaches, andthen, when I identify that
audience, I will create aLinkedIn live stream event and
then I will send all of thosepeople an invite, a LinkedIn
invite, to that event.
Okay, and so when they go totheir alerts, they'll see, oh,
colin Herdman has invited you tothis LinkedIn event and they'll
click through it, and thenthey'll get to the event page
(14:54):
and they'll see.
You know what my event, my livestream is all about, and then
they can choose to press theattend button or not when they
get there.
If they choose to click theattend button, you know a number
of really kind of magicalthings happen.
Number one you have verifiedthat your topic is relevant and
that your audience is relevant.
If you are pushing out thisLinkedIn event to an audience
(15:19):
and nobody's responding, thenone of two things is off or both
your audience or your topic.
Okay, so the these live streamevents allow you to experiment a
little bit on like topics andum um prospect groups that you'd
want to target.
Uh, the other thing on thebackend of I'm clicking the
attend button that is trulymagical is that when they do
(15:39):
that, they are in thoseuncertain terms saying that they
um see you as a thought leader.
They trust your business enoughto press the attend button so
you know who they are and you'recreating enough of an emotional
connection that they'republicly giving you all of these
(15:59):
cues.
And so what will happen after Ido the live stream is that I
will follow up with eachattendee and I'll thank them for
attending the event orregistering for the event and
say if you happen to miss theevent.
Here's a link to the recordingand I'll point them back to the
LinkedIn event page where thewhere the recording is.
But then I'll follow up and sayyou know if if you're, if
(16:20):
you're interested in having aone on one strategy session to
talk about LinkedIn and more.
You know.
Here's a link to my calendarstrategy session to talk about
LinkedIn and more.
You know.
Here's a link to my calendar.
So what you can see is that Ihave gone from creating a
discrete audience andidentifying a topic for that
audience.
I have gotten them to click theattend button and I've gotten to
the point where I can send thema calendar and it doesn't feel
(16:42):
icky to me or salesy.
And it doesn't feel icky orsalesy to them either, and it's
because I am sharing myknowledge around LinkedIn and it
has driven prospects and it hasdriven clients for me in the
last three months.
So I'm actually closing a newclient tomorrow that I did a
live stream with two weeks ago.
(17:02):
So I would highly encourageyour audience to look into that
and, like I said, I'll send youa PDF of my whole process and if
someone wants to get that fromyou or reach out to me, they can
certainly do that as well.
But at the end of the day, whatRainmaker is doing is we are
really just automating the bestpractice manual actions that
everyone should be taking onLinkedIn.
(17:24):
So it's the exact opposite ofanything spammy.
We're just bringing a littlebit more strategy and scale to
your process and ability, Ithink, to thrive on LinkedIn.
Natalie Guzman (17:36):
I absolutely love that.
Thank you so much for sharingall that knowledge.
I know I'm going to go andapply that this week.
I think that's a genius.
I really like everything theyexplained using the live events
and using that as a way to's agenius.
I really like everything theyexplained using like the live
events and using that as a wayto build a genuine.
So thank you so much forsharing.
And where can we find moreabout you and your business?
Colin Hirdman (17:54):
Yeah, so you can certainly look me up on LinkedIn
at Colin Herdman, h-i-r-d-m-a-n.
And then Rainmaker israinmakergrowscom, and one of
the pages on the site is calledcampaigns, and if you go there,
you can see 12 differentcampaign types that you should
be considering running onLinkedIn, and all of them but
(18:14):
one you can go do yourself.
You don't, you don't need me arainmaker for.
Natalie Guzman (18:17):
Awesome, I'll make sure I put that all that in
there as well, but thank you somuch for coming on virtual
antics.
It has been a pleasure havingyou, thanks so much, Natalie.
And we'll talk to you guys next.
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