Speaker 1: 0:19

Thank you. Meet Evan Polin, the president of Polin Performance Group. A master in sales coaching with over two decades of experience, evan is not just a consultant. He's a force in sales, focusing on mindset, planning and skill development. He's also the co-author of Selling Professional Services, the Sandler Way. Joining him is Craig Andrews, partner and CEO of Beholder Agency. An expert in growth marketing With 20 years under his belt, craig blends marketing creativity with strategy to propel businesses forward, making Beholder Agency a leader in effective marketing solutions. Together, evan and Craig are here to share their wisdom on winning strategies, best practices and transformative insights that will fuel your growth. Get ready to revolutionize your sales and marketing approach right here on the Sales and Marketing Playbook Unleashed.

Speaker 2: 1:11

And welcome to the Sales and Marketing Playbook Unleashed. I'm Craig Andrews and my partner in crime, or the guy who just makes us both look good, evan Polin. How are you doing today, evan?

Speaker 3: 1:20

I'm doing great, Craig. I'm not sure I'm ready for all those flowers and compliments, but I appreciate it.

Speaker 2: 1:26

Well, let me tell you something I'm excited about this show. You know why I'm going to say it. Hopefully there's no kids in the room, but we got a badass coming on the show today. Badass coming on the show, and you know why? Because she's a perfect blend of the merging of the you, yourself and myself From the sales and the marketing side, of the merging of the you with yourself and myself From the sales and the marketing side. She is a badass when it comes to business development using LinkedIn Very important for everybody to understand that. I know that you love LinkedIn. I'm still trying to get used to it. For me, it's more of a distribution piece, but she's going to explain to us because I was on a seminar with her and she just made me go oh, I need to be using LinkedIn. I need to be using LinkedIn more often. So before we get started, evan, why don't you give everybody an introduction of who you are and what you do?

Speaker 3: 2:11

Sure Evan Poland, poland Performance Group, providing sales coaching, sales consulting, sales training for professionals who are really looking to proactively grow their business and get from where they are now to that next level, whatever that next level might be. And, craig, why don't you remind everybody what you do for your day job when you are not the podcast host of the hottest sales and marketing podcast out there?

Speaker 2: 2:36

Awesome. Craig Andrews with Beholder Agency. We are a growth marketing agency. We, in the same, take clients from where they are in growth mode and try to sell them higher, using marketing strategies and techniques to help them grow year after year. Now to be to be left to be go as we continue. I don't know why I'm fumbling today. I've been up since six o'clock this morning. But as we continue, I want to bring to the stage Angela, the business development badass. And here she is. Hi, angela.

Speaker 3: 3:04

How are you Welcome, Angela.

Speaker 2: 3:07

Glad to be here. You said good morning, but we know you're in California, so we're just expanding across the country here, bringing our audiences Coast to coast. Coast to coast. Great people, great people. Angela, why don't you tell everybody who you are and what you do?

Speaker 4: 3:31

I'm Angela Duns. I am the owner of BizDev Badass and I work primarily with attorneys and high-level professionals to really help them understand. You know, I think one of the biggest gaps right now is that people don't understand how to build relationships on the digital platform, and LinkedIn is the best place to do that if you're B to B. So how do you do things in a way that really moves people through that whole client journey in a very casual way, that shows people what your values are, what your services are, and you make things super clear for them? Because the sexiest thing on LinkedIn right now is clarity.

Speaker 2: 4:08

Wow, you hear that, evan. I heard some of your terms there from your sales training. I heard clarity, Don't bore them. After our elevator pitch piece, I heard in terms it was really sexy, which I've never heard anybody call LinkedIn sexy before, so I'm really excited.

Speaker 3: 4:23

If LinkedIn helps me grow my business and bring in revenue, then it is sexy when it helps me bring in more revenue.

Speaker 2: 4:28

Touche, touche. So, angela, why don't we tell our audience here in terms of why clarity is so important on LinkedIn? Let's start with that.

Speaker 4: 4:37

Oh my God, we could spend all day talking about that. Nothing seems clear right now, and a lot of people think that clever is the way to do things and it ends up being cryptic in a lot of cases. And it ends up being cryptic in a lot of cases. And please just tell me who you are, what you stand for, how you can help me solve my problems, and I'm going to appreciate that so much more. I don't want to work so hard to figure out who you are and what you do. Please just let me know and I'm much more likely to do business with you.

Speaker 3: 5:21

So, angela, a good strategy is not making people guess so that they need to do 25 minutes worth of research just to figure out what the heck you do. That's not the approach we want to take.

Speaker 4: 5:26

No, no clarity up front, honesty. You know, I think the word authenticity has been overused and people have really kind of lost sight of what that means. But I think we should go back to describing that in a way that does make sense. And authenticity is just, you know, it gets rid of that whole cognitive dissonance thing. You say what you are, you act like who you are and everything is all congruent. That is what develops trust authenticity, clarity in your message, simplicity.

Speaker 2: 6:05

And so you hit that T word which we've hit a couple episodes ago. That trust word is very important, especially from a marketing perspective, right? I think that if we can develop online, ultimately what we do is we develop a personal brand, which I know Evan's big on right now, and making sure you push a personal brand because I think I've heard you said in the seminar people are going to or no. Evan definitely said we buy from who we like, or no, evan definitely said we buy from who we like.

Speaker 4: 6:34

Yes, yes, I've been doing a whole bunch of research on this whole idea of how the which part of the brain is involved in all of these different decisions that we make before we actually make a purchase and at the very beginning the amygdala gets involved with that and it's really. Are you giving me a sense of safety and congruency? Are you who you say you are, or am I going to start squirming a little bit because something's not quite right? So that whole consistency and clarity provides trust. It allows trust to move forward. Otherwise you're always on trial.

Speaker 3: 7:12

Yeah, so, angela, I know, when we talk about in-person networking, typically people make that first impression within the first five, seven, eight seconds. Do you find something similar with?

Speaker 4: 7:29

LinkedIn in terms of a kind of feeling somebody may get from somebody's profile. When somebody looks at your profile, people will actually give you five seconds and if you haven't earned their trust or told them something that was interesting, they may never look at your profile again. If you earn their trust in that five seconds, they'll actually give you 10 to 15 seconds more. So the next thing they look at has to continue that message. And the biggest mistake that most professionals make on LinkedIn is number one. They ignore their profile, they don't do anything with it.

Speaker 3: 8:07

But I put it up 10 years ago. Isn't that enough?

Speaker 2: 8:10

With no picture.

Speaker 4: 8:16

And you might as well be an ax murderer if you don't have a picture. You know people. I mean, that is the biggest trust builder right there Friendly and approachable. You know professional, according to whatever your industry is. You know, if you're in marketing or you're an attorney, it's a little bit different rules for that. You know, if you're in marketing or you're an attorney, it's a little bit different rules for that. But the next thing that people don't do is they don't make their LinkedIn profile about the problem that they solve and the audience that they serve. It's about them and that's the kiss of death really.

Speaker 2: 8:51

You really need to make it client focused.

Speaker 3: 8:58

That's Evan's thing there. Yeah, you are talking my language. We just spent a lot of time on the elevator pitch. In another episode or two, we're going to spend a lot of time on trade shows. People don't care what we do. They care about. Are there things that we can help them with? Are there problems that we can solve? And I find when people are out at events, they give that verbal brochure me, me, me, me, me, me me and let me tell you more about me versus talking about who they help and the problems they solve. So it sounds like we're in agreement in terms of the fact that their LinkedIn profile should reflect who they help, what they help them with and what kind of impact people may be able to see if they decide to engage with them.

Speaker 4: 9:34

Yes, those differentiators are also very important. Once you're very clear about the message, about the problem that you solve and the audience that you serve, then it's all about trust and differentiation.

Speaker 2: 9:48

And so now to pivot on my side of the fence. We're talking about ways of building trust is through content. Right, and I know that you spoke about the importance of. I know you work with people in terms of the content that should be on their LinkedIn, so tell me a little bit, from your perspective, the type of content that you would want to have on there on a LinkedIn profile.

Speaker 4: 10:07

Well, video is the fastest path to know, like and trust, so of course, I'm going to talk about video. Now. Attorneys, who are my primary audience, are really afraid of video. That is changing. I'm working with two attorneys right now that are really doing a good job. One of them is a litigator, One of them is an entertainment attorney, and there's just so many things happening in both of those fields right now that just giving industry updates is something that is so helpful, because all of us we don't stay on top of that. So just giving people industry updates in whatever your industry is I mean marketing has changed so dramatically. You know, a third of the marketing agencies that were out there at the beginning of the pandemic are gone. Now they're gone. We've over-promised and under-delivered for years.

Speaker 3: 11:08

And Angela, you're talking about video. You're telling me that video is more engaging than reading a long article.

Speaker 4: 11:16

You know, one of my colleagues put a poll out on LinkedIn and asked what people would like to consume on LinkedIn and they said articles. And I was like mind was blown because, from what the research that I have seen, top executives, ceos, c-suite professionals, decision makers are 67 percent more likely to watch a video than read a post. And they are the voyeurs on LinkedIn. They don't engage a lot, so you're not going to see statistics and vanity metrics that they visited your profile or read one of your posts, but they are searching and the people who win that search won't know until they've won it.

Speaker 2: 12:08

And think about it this way, to that point, about the CEOs right Before they even get in the room with you, they've probably researched who you are and what you've done. So all those people, evan, who are out there, trying to hit those high-end executive C-suite guys.

Speaker 4: 12:33

Believe me, they're looking at who you are and what you do, whether they decide to take the meeting after you did all that work to get in the door in the first place. And if they decide no, by looking at your profile you're an early exit from that. 70% of the buyer journey happens without our knowing it.

Speaker 3: 12:47

And I don't know about our audience. For me personally, I'd rather have two or three managing partners. Ceos look at a video I post and tell their director of marketing, their business development director, hey, go talk to him. Then have a hundred associates, a hundred lower level sales people, look at it, engage with it, because they have five hours a day that they're not out there in the field doing things to be able to do that. That doesn't help me as much as those two or three executives who see it tell their people, hey, go talk to this person. And for me personally, that's where I see a win when it comes to the content and engagement.

Speaker 4: 13:30

Yes, and I think these are some of the things that are the most misunderstood about LinkedIn it is not a direct conversion tool.

Speaker 2: 13:40

Hold on one sec. Say that again, please. Please. Say that again.

Speaker 4: 13:46

LinkedIn is not a direct conversion tool. Not a direct conversion tool but it is a part of every single step in the client journey. They will look at your profile many, many times. I've heard seven to 12 times they may look at your profile before they actually decide to get into an initial consultation with you. So your profile is super important in part of that.

Speaker 4: 14:18

Now, most people because they can't measure where LinkedIn enters that whole client journey think that it's not a part of it, and so you really have to understand that buyer journey and honestly just look at your own behavior. That will give you some great clues into how people are using LinkedIn to make purchasing decisions people are using LinkedIn to make purchasing decisions.

Speaker 3: 14:46

So, angela, that's exactly what I was going to say. Whether I'm having a networking conversation with somebody, I'm vetting them in terms of somebody that I may do business with. They're a prospect of mine and I've got a meeting with them coming up. The first thing that I am doing, before I even go to their website, is I am going to their LinkedIn profile to see what it says about them, to see who they're connected with, to see what their experience is, before I'm ever going to their company's website.

Speaker 4: 15:14

And if you're an attorney, I mean we all know what attorney websites are like. The American buyer association says that 94% of referrals to attorneys never look at the company website. They go to the LinkedIn profile first for the individual.

Speaker 2: 15:36

That's right, and actually I'm going to throw a little plug in here.

Speaker 2: 15:39

I know it's not LinkedIn associated, but one of the things that's kind of turned our business around is local SEO, and local SEO hits a similar type of algorithm as LinkedIn does.

Speaker 2: 15:52

That more people are going there and if they decide to go to the website, it's just for more additional information. So you don't need to overwhelm them with a lot of information. You just need to give them the facts and let them kind of come to conclusions based on the surrounding things around it Video, blogs that might support the point, other things in terms of what you're doing in the community kind of plays into that. And all of a sudden now, all of a sudden, you've created an integrated approach from the sales piece, from the marketing piece and the LinkedIn which ties together from a business-to-business perspective versus business versus business consumer, and all of that stuff becomes very important and I'll promise you guys, the listeners and the viewers who are watching us, that we're giving you a playbook here. Angela, evan and myself are telling you directly what you need to do to grow your business and if you're not doing it, shame on you. Shame on you altogether, evan. Did you have another question that you wanted to ask.

Speaker 3: 16:45

Well, one of the things I think that would be helpful for our audience. Before we get into some best practices, angela, what are other big mistakes that you see people make when it comes to LinkedIn?

Speaker 4: 16:58

Well, the number one one is you know, nobody wants to work in their own profile. I'm going to tell you I don't want to work on mine. I would rather work on you guys' than work on mine any day of the week. It's hard and there's a lot of us that really don't like this whole idea of self-promotion, or we simply just don't know what it is that our clients need to know about us that really help that whole client journey. It's just overwhelming and intimidating. So ignoring your LinkedIn profile and not working really hard on having a fantastic LinkedIn profile that is a good representation of who you serve and what you do and your credibility is the number one mistake. But then the other one is so many people are so afraid of the whole content idea and they ignore that, and content is the gift that keeps on giving. Yes, it is a commitment, but even with one post a week, you're increasing your visibility by 67%.

Speaker 2: 18:08

See what I love about Angela she comes with the data man, she comes with the facts, she comes with the percentages. And you know, evan, data, data, data.

Speaker 2: 18:17

You're a data guy. Okay, so you can choose to believe it if you, if you want, but the reality behind it is is that marketing is more of an exposure game over time. It's not a quick hit and even, as she said, one post a week, one video a week, like this podcast here is an opportunity for anybody listening, anybody watching, to learn that I'm a basketball guy, I'm a data guy, I'm a marketer. I can learn all that in 10 seconds. That's the piece. That's amazing about it. Evan, what's your perspective from a sales piece?

Speaker 3: 18:52

Well, for me before sales piece and just another piece of data, a little known fact people who listen and watch this podcast are 372% more likely to overachieve their goals than people who don't. So just putting it out there know your data, know your statistics. So that's a scientific study that was just done by a very high-end research university that I can't name here.

Speaker 2: 19:18

Got it, got it. So, angela, let's talk about LinkedIn compared to other social profiles. Tell me your perspective.

Speaker 4: 19:27

LinkedIn is the only social media platform and HubSpot. In most of their research they don't even include LinkedIn as social media. It is the only platform that was designed to be B2B. Everything else is B2C. It was designed to be like a Rolodex that's searchable, with a lot more information than you can put on a business card, right it?

Speaker 4: 19:55

was the whole idea behind LinkedIn. Its inception was to connect the right business people for the right opportunities, whether that's a referral relationship or an end user relationship, whatever that might be, it was designed for that. The other social media platforms you're just not going to find the same kind of thing or the same kind of quality or credibility on TikTok or X or Facebook, and, frankly, all of them are becoming so diluted with misinformation these days that it's kind of hard to spend time there.

Speaker 2: 20:35

That's true, that's true.

Speaker 3: 20:37

Angelo, the other thing that I personally love about LinkedIn. You can use it from a marketing perspective, putting your content out there, putting your video out there, but you can also utilize tools like Sales Navigator to mine your own network and be able to really use it as a great sales tool when it comes to referrals, introductions, leveraging your network, and there's really not too many tools out there that you can use as the dual purpose of both the marketing end as well as the sales end.

Speaker 4: 21:07

Yeah, and I do want to stress something that you just said, evan Even with free LinkedIn, you can use the advanced search feature and look at who is already in your network that might be a trusted referral partner that you forgot about because you haven't seen them since before the pandemic or whatever. You know they moved to new jersey or whatever it. Whatever has happened to them. But every once in a while, doing a search of your own network, of your first connections, to find out who's in there that you'd love to get in touch with and you haven't for a long time, and then you can use those second connections to connect with either more referral partners or end users and get more people, super saturating your network with referral partners and end users.

Speaker 3: 21:59

Yeah, I don't know how much of our listening audience knows but when I started pulling performance group a little over two and a half years ago, my sole prospecting thing was downloading my LinkedIn connections my first connection to an Excel spreadsheet out of LinkedIn into an Excel spreadsheet and I just started reaching out to people in my network and I built up 80% of my business In about six months. I got to where I wanted to be strictly through reaching out to people who were already in my network who either weren't aware of what I was doing and decided that they wanted to engage with me, or weren't aware of what I was doing, and introduced me to two or three people who they thought may be interested to engage with me, were weren't aware of what I was doing and introduced me to two or three people who they thought may be interested in engaging with me. And that was the sole way that I built my business for the first six months yeah, super underutilized tool.

Speaker 4: 22:56

I mean, who are people you already know?

Speaker 2: 22:59

you don't have to warm them up, it's just to reconnect yeah, and so what I'll say here, Angela, we're going to put you on the spot and come up with our three things that people should be doing immediately after listening to the show and before you go there. I want to remind everybody that you can see Evan, myself and the business development badass on this episode on Facebook, not Facebook Apple. You can see us on all major streams. You can see us on YouTube. You can hear us all over the place. So if you haven't liked, you haven't subscribed, you haven't commented, start today, because we have a lot of information we can give you. We're bringing you guests because we're giving what, Evan, we're giving you the playbook.

Speaker 3: 23:44

We are giving you the playbook and the tools that you need to be successful.

Speaker 2: 23:48

Absolutely so, Angela. Three things that people should walk away today and do immediately on LinkedIn.

Speaker 4: 23:54

Top three tips. Number one you're above the full view, that thing that people see when they immediately look at your profile. Get that in order immediately. Fabulous profile photo that's up to date Somebody could recognize you. Banner that says who you are and what you do and who you serve At least two of those things A headline that's very clear and a little bit more of a narrative and not a laundry list of all the things that you do and some company branding. So, number one get your above the fold, your storefront. Get your storefront in order so that people really know how you can help them immediately and you don't lose them at that first look. Number two is make everything in your profile client focused. It is not about you, it is about the problem that you solve and who you solve it for. And number three start posting once a week.

Speaker 2: 24:58

So, Angela, why don't you tell everybody how they can get in contact with you so that they can take action right away if they're not sure what to do?

Speaker 4: 25:06

Well, my website is AngelaDunzcom Super easy if you have the spelling of my name. But please look at my LinkedIn profile first, and at the very top of my LinkedIn profile there is a clickable link If you'd like to have a conversation. You actually have access to my calendar.

Speaker 2: 25:27

Awesome, evan, anything you want to say before we conclude the show.

Speaker 3: 25:30

I would just strongly encourage our audience to listen to this episode, to watch this episode. Lots of great, very easily usable tips. So, angela, thank you so much for sharing with Craig and I, as well as our audience. So, angela, thank you so much for sharing with Craig and I, as well as our audience.

Speaker 4: 25:43

Thank you for having me, you guys. It's been a pleasure.

Speaker 2: 25:47

All right, everyone Craig Andrews, evan Poland and Angela Dunn's here delivering you information that you should be taking part in immediately to help grow your business and become a bigger, stronger, better you Again. You can see us on Apple. You can see us on Prime Amazon. You can see us on everything LinkedIn, youtube, we're all there. Okay, follow, like, subscribe and we'll talk to you guys next time on the Sales and Marketing Playbook Unleashed.

Speaker 1: 26:16

Thank you for joining us on this exhilarating journey through the world of sales and marketing. Remember, the playbook is in your hands and the possibilities are limitless. Keep exploring, experimenting and innovating, and watch as your business reaches unprecedented levels of success. Don't forget to subscribe to the Sales and Marketing Playbook Unleashed on all major podcast platforms and follow us on YouTube, facebook and LinkedIn for even more exclusive content. Until next time, keep hustling and keep winning.