49:19
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, linkedin, business, companies, content, clients, day, bonnie, video, reach, post, talking, salesforce, ton, creative, manufacturing, grew, selling, sales, creating
SPEAKERS
Damon Pistulka, Alex Sheridan
Damon Pistulka 00:04
all right everyone welcome once again to the faces of business i’m your host Damon Pistulka and with me today i have alex v sheridan thanks for stopping by alex
Alex Sheridan 00:16
hey thanks for having me excited to be here
Damon Pistulka 00:18
yeah awesome awesome having you man because i tell you i am so jacked when i see your videos on you are without a doubt the most creative video guy i see on linkedin and i just love them and i’m excited to have you here thanks so thank you for being here today so that you know this show is pretty pretty low key we don’t have near the production value that you do but we do like to let people talk about themselves a bit so we understand their background so kind of give me a little bit of your history and really what where you started out and how what really got you into video
Alex Sheridan 00:57
yeah so i was working for a multibillion dollar staffing firm for six years and i always had this to kind of voice inside my head telling me that i wanted to do something else i wanted to impact more people i wanted to start my own business i wanted to you know use some of the creativity that i thought i always had that i felt like was literally just sitting inside me doing absolutely nothing it’s almost like if you think about you know your breathing think about your potential the same way it’s just sitting in there it’s like something that you literally could cash out on but you’re just you just got to sitting there doing nothing for you that so it’s almost like making your money work for you
it’s the same thing working with your potential and your creative creativity so anyways i’m working in this company and i decided in 2019 that i’m like i’m going to go for it you know i’m going to take the leap of faith and i’m going to start my own business on the side of course right so we’re gonna nice six figure job i’m hitting contest i’m getting bonus money i’m doing all right and so i’m gonna start this company and i’d always done sales and i trained other people on how to sell our staffing services and i figured well i’ll get into sales consulting you know and i’ll start teaching other companies small and midsize companies who don’t have formal trainings and processes
and they really don’t understand sometimes as much as where i came from right a system in place and we did it well and so that was my strategy that was the game plan that’s why i started off doing and then what happened very quickly i started posting content on linkedin late 2018 zero followers and i just started posting content i started creating videos and i said you know what i’m going to go for this i’m going to create some content that’s different than what i see on linkedin i’m going to use some humor i’m going to use my personality i’m going to be myself like i’m going to be my you know i’m not going to hold back i’m not going to get on there and be like okay today’s tip of
the day is you know like i was just gonna be myself and i wasn’t sure how people were going to receive it i didn’t know if they were gonna like it or not like it but i figured it was just it was me and i felt like maybe linkedin needed a little bit more of that and so i got on there start creating content and again keep in mind i’m still going the sales consultant route right sales training sales consulting and so i get on there i posted videos what i quickly noticed was that because of the videos i was posting that they were a little bit more creative and they were they were not good videos to be honest but i think for the for the time there wasn’t many people doing that type of stuff you know so
i was kind of like one of the pioneers of like the creative green screen and all that stuff so it was nothing that what i would do today but they were okay they’re they’re decent but people were coming to me and they’d say alex how are you making these videos and and it looks like you’re having some success on linkedin we haven’t quite figured out linkedin we’d love to learn from you and a light bulb went off and i was like man i bet there’s an entire business around this and i thought to myself again this is late 2019 i thought to myself i was like you know i think that we’re probably going to go heavy video and virtual and digital and i’m like i see social selling becoming way more relevant
i think linkedin is going to be one of those platforms that really takes off in the next couple years i had all these thoughts they’re just complete conscious like i had no facts to back it up it was just my intuition and so i said alright january 2020 i hadn’t really done anything in that business yet right it was just like the marketing and figuring things out and posting content i was like winning clients so january 2020 i decide i’m going to pivot i’m going to make this change
i’m going to go all in on content video marketing social selling linkedin specifically february 2020 i win my first clients a month later when my first client six months later a COVID happens obviously in march that just expedited everything that i thought was gonna happen by like 10 years right yeah because overnight we all had to go visit like digital and video and that kind of social selling and so six months later july 2020 i was making more money than i was at my corporate job my corporate six figure job and i put in my notice and i went all in on this company july 2020 i’ve been doing it ever since
04:52
nice
Damon Pistulka 04:53
nice yeah you go you said a few things so we look back at your old videos he say well they were they were kinda okay so so what do you mean by that i mean your your videos i’ve been gone back and look through them and yeah they’re different but and you’ve obviously stepped it up a bit but when you look back on what do you think
Alex Sheridan 05:14
well you got to go back a little ways right so like if you go back you know years maybe even past that which is hard to do on linkedin because it’s not like instagram or other platforms where you can scroll through a ton of videos at one time you got to go through every single wall so it’s kind of like it takes a little bit of time to get there but they were so bad i mean i was the mistakes that i made so people can kind of learn from them was you know i talked for four to five minutes and just kind of was all over the place didn’t have a clear very clear message
i wasn’t as focused in on my target audience and being very lasered in on the value that i wanted to deliver them i wasn’t always catching attention in the first three to five seconds like i know how to do now my editing was not good i didn’t even know that you could outsource editing and you can hire somebody to do really amazing edits for very affordable i didn’t even realize that like change the my world when i figured that out and so just just a lot of the common mistakes that people make in the beginning
Damon Pistulka 06:11
yeah yeah that’s cool well i forgot the as we get in you know i’m i’m only done like 50 of these so i should be better than i am but i forgot that say is what our topic of the day is how to use linkedin video to win clients and build your brand because that’s what you’re doing on linkedin now as you’re helping clients do that on linkedin through video and really showcasing your brand and i was i jumped right into the creative side of what you do because i think it’s unique what you do is unique in the way you present yourself i can only imagine that it’s helping your clients a lot but
wanted to get back and do that and you’re right it’s it’s there are these things that you have to do initially in the videos especially when you’re trying to build your brand and you’re trying to capture someone’s attention in that three minute kind of video timeframe that you’re making you really have to understand how to how to hit that impact right away to get people to listen to your your overall message and keep a visually stimulating to stay in there
07:14
absolutely
Damon Pistulka 07:15
yeah so take take me back a little bit here so you grew up you grew up in the chicago area there
Alex Sheridan 07:24
no i actually grew up downstate in a small town right south of springfield illinois which is the state’s capital a lot of people think it’s chicago but it’s not so i grew up in a small town that was right next to springfield so it was you know maybe 200 some 1000 people in springfield and yeah i mean mom and dad live in the same household my brother had older brothers in air force he’s been there ever since he was 18 did rotc program and and yeah we grew up down there and then it wasn’t till after college that i came up here really just for the opportunity
because there’s there’s there’s not much opportunity down there unless you’re going to get into maybe the political game or the police state police that kind of stuff they’re just there’s not a ton of business type opportunity and i wanted to go i didn’t want to be a you know as i say like a big fish in a small town i wanted to go to a big pond and see what it was like to play with the big boys and girls and learn some things and get exposure to you know better competition and that kind of stuff so that led me up here
Damon Pistulka 08:19
well in chicago is that i mean and growing up in the midwest right in in in a small town i mean when i say small i grew up in south dakota small so that’s 100 all small yeah that’s that’s it’s an exponentially smaller than where you grew up but but chicago and you know it is really in minneapolis some too but chicago really is a business hub in the midwest i mean it’s one of the hubs in the midwest and and there are so many more opportunities i think there whether it’s industrial whether it’s financial there’s just a lot of different things that go on there and i think it’s an exciting place to be not only because i the bears is my first favorite football team ever but that is a nice place i mean it’s
Alex Sheridan 09:04
well they just they when i was in the in the staffing world chicago had the most competitive job market and staffing market in the country in terms of just the amount of recruiters and staffing agencies and people that the competition that you had it was like there was someone literally like you know every block that you went there was a new firm and there was new ones popping up and so you just constantly had the how to learn how to beat your competitors how to stay ahead of so
Damon Pistulka 09:32
yeah yeah that’s good stuff so uh in in chicago what you know somebody is coming into the city what do they want to do
Alex Sheridan 09:41
well i’m you know i’m out so mount st charles so i’m in the city city some of the greatest like city tour person but i mean some of the some of the cool things to do if you’re into sports would obviously be catch like a cubs game a bears game the shedd aquarium is amazing we’ve got some pretty cool science museums And if it’s summertime, you know you’re doing the boat cruises roll along the river, the Riverwalk type stuff, it’s just it’s a really cool there’s so many festivals and music events and that kind of stuff.
And then if you’re just downtown in the mag mile, which is the Magnificent Mile, which is kind of you know, that is it’s the main strip, I like the, the kind of the heart of the city where the shopping and retail center is. I mean, that’s really a cool place to go. And if you’re into shopping and spending a ton of money, you can definitely do it there. But yeah, there’s quite a bit to do there.
Damon Pistulka 10:29
Yeah, I don’t know about the shopping part of it. You said do a lot of trade shows. You know that’s it’s very chill. Yeah, Vegas is a tradeshow capital. When you look in all businesses I was in in retail and manufacturing. And McCormick Place there and stuff was a lot of fun. We those kinds of things going in, and that whole mag mile goes crazy when you have those big. Oh, yeah. So
10:53
Oh, it
Damon Pistulka 10:54
is a lot of fun. It is a lot of fun. So when when we get back to business here, now we’re talking COVID hits, you know, you you start just starting your business and COVID hits? And did you get a lot of calls from people that were just like, you know, white knuckle beaded sweater? Or you know, sweating to death going? What the hell are we going to do now? Just trying to help us out? How am I going to be? So what, what what was overall? What did you What did you hear? What are some of the things that you were seeing that kind of repeated itself over and over during that time when they realize that man myself force is grounded? I got to figure Yeah,
Alex Sheridan 11:39
yeah. And there was a lot of people, you know, what I saw was a lot of people and really relied almost 100% on in person events, whether it was trade shows, whether it was they flew out and did you know workshops, or consulting events or trainings, whether it was speaking engagements, so I attracted a lot of people really quickly, you know, pretty much as soon as COVID happen, where people would reach out and say, Hey, I see you’re making videos on LinkedIn, it seems like there, you know what you’re doing, which at the time, I wasn’t like an expert, I wouldn’t call them at the time. But I knew more than maybe, you know, some people have never done it before.
So I was happy to help. But they reached out and they were like Alex, our business and are in for the solopreneur my business has gone from, you know, X amount to zero basically overnight. Yeah, like, literally overnight, their entire business is upside down now, because everyone canceled everything. And we weren’t even sure when that was going to come back. And the more deep we got into it, as you remember it first it was kind of like, Alright, a few weeks, maybe it’s gonna be a little rough for a while. And then it was like, Okay, this thing’s gonna be. Yeah.
And so I think that’s when it clicked for people like really summertime when people are like, man, if we don’t get on LinkedIn, and we don’t start building a digital brand, and we don’t start putting out videos, and we don’t start understanding how to social sell, how to engage our customers and meet them where they’re at, which they’re all for the most part to some extent on LinkedIn. And you can reach these folks, after hours, you can reach them on the weekends, you can reach them anytime you’re posting. And so it really opened the door for a whole new way to reach clients, and engage with them and really build a brand so that the customers come to you.
So I think what’s really changed in sales nowadays is the community is becoming the new pipeline. So if you think about, you know, old days, you have the CRM and you have, you know, Excel sheet, or whatever it is, and you put names in there or companies in there. And that’s your pipeline. And there’s nothing wrong with that. I think there’s still a place for that 100%. But what you also have to think about is how do you start creating a community around that group, where you’re providing value to them. And so there’s a ton of different ways that you can do it.
But part of it is by putting out content by creating useful and valuable information for these people to consume every single day, every single week, newsletters, LinkedIn groups, Facebook groups, you know, there’s a million different ways to do it. But how do you create a community around that group, so that you’re always Top of Mind, you’re continuously providing value to them, and when they’re ready to purchase? You don’t even got to track them down. They just hit you up and say, hey, I’ve been following you for the last two months. I’ve caught every video you put out. I want to work with you. Now’s the time two months ago, I had some things going on, but already. Yeah, that’s it.
Damon Pistulka 14:11
Yeah. Well, you you you brought up a couple things here that I want to ask you some questions on once you watch the first one, you talked about social selling. And I think that’s that’s something that people say a lot, but they really don’t understand what that means. So I would like you to kind of explain what’s your take on social selling?
Alex Sheridan 14:30
Yeah, it there’s there’s a ton of like different avenues that you could go down. I think if you’re working with big clients, like let’s say you’re trying to get the attention of like apple or Microsoft or LinkedIn or Salesforce or you’re working with those bigger enterprise type companies, that’s where I think a lot of the creative I think you got to do it, you definitely have to do a ton of research, right? Because you’re trying to meet these people and you need to understand their problems and what they’re trying to solve and, and what they’re going through.
You can’t just blindly cold call them it’s not going to be super effective but if you learn all information and you can put together creative videos or you can put together something to get the attention of them which by the way would also get the attention of your competitors their competitors and your other clients so you know putting out let’s say let’s say i’m targeting salesforce right yep i put out a video that’s super creative it’s well done and it’s targeting salesforce but it’s talking about how i can help them solve their problem maybe it maybe let’s just say stay on linkedin for a second
maybe i put together some creative video or talks about hey your i’ve seen your salesforce folks it seems like there’s an opportunity to help train them on linkedin what if hey imagine 100 of your reps are all out there building their personal brand creating content social selling generating meetings actual qualified meetings yeah with decision makers every single week and then i do the math right and then i go dude it just kind of like skyrockets up i got a cool little presentation where it’s like millions millions millions of dollars in extra revenue hey i want to come work with you can you give me five minutes 10 minutes to show you what i’m all about well that video if it’s well done in
creative as you know it’s going to get attention so if i tag some salesforce people in there and i bring them to the conversation and maybe i definitely would have some conversations beforehand right to draw some to get some exposure around it they all see it which would probably land me a meeting with salesforce to summit at some level if enough people saw it but also other companies are going to see it and they’re going to say man if that’s what salesforce is probably going to do then why doesn’t our company do it because yeah we only maybe have 10 or 20 reps but if our 10 or 20 reps started doing all this that’s a lot after revenue and exposure for our brand so that’s kind
of one angle but the angle that i’m mostly working with folks on and companies with and even sold up indoors is using things like sales navigator where you know you’re not going to pick up the phone and cold call or send a cold email anymore it’s not as effective but what you can do is you target very specific people in sales navigator which is an extension of linkedin that’s a paid platform that they provide it’s like 79 bucks a month it’s nothing crazy it’s something crazy and if you know how to use it you’re getting way more than that return on investment but what you do is you target hyper targeted people you find them you find people that are posting content on linkedin in the last
30 days you can search based on that and then what you’re doing is you’re going in and engaging with the post that they create and so then what you’re doing is warming up a conversation you post something i’m targeting you daymond and i’m like you post something on three ways on how to close a deal better i see it i searched i’m going through my lead list i can build a lead list on there almost like a mini crm it’s really cool and so every time you post i can now see it or i can track you and so i go on your posts and i’m like daymond amazing you know i found that hey these three these three all three ways really work well for closing i’ve actually added this and found it super effective
to have you tried this i start a mini conversation or don’t but either way then when i send that connection request it’s personalized like i said Damon would love to be connected with you just caught your post on three ways to close a deal more effectively man that was awesome stuff i’d love to see more content like yours hopefully i catch mine happy to connect with you then when they accept the connection request then i can go into my direct messaging i can use video dms like and again personally reach out and i know there might be some people listening to be like that seems like a lot of work but here’s the thing when you build a process and a system around it and you’ve repeated this many
many times it’s just like anything you can i can go through 10 of those sequences 15 of those sequences in 2030 minutes because i’ve got a process down right and it’s all set up and i’ve got the templates in place so it’s it’s not as much work as people think but it’s so incredibly effective and in an age when everyone’s getting automated stuff and they’re getting spammed and they’re getting these generic messages that they just they just kind of they just don’t really work super well when you’re the one of a few people that are actually sending personalized messages that are specific to that potential customer that’s how you win
Damon Pistulka 18:56
yeah yeah that’s a good that’s a good way to explain it too because the the the social selling really brings the personal element into the to the sales process
Alex Sheridan 19:09
yeah it’s the same way if you’re like think about cold calling the company if you cold call the company and just said hey i’m alex i work for impacts marketing we help companies just like you generate more revenue on linkedin and you know enable their teams to social sell build brand all that stuff you know maybe they take my call maybe they take a meeting maybe they don’t but if i called up and i was like damon hey i’m specifically reaching out to you man i understand that you’ve hired three reps in the past two months from checking the report or whatever indeed or whatever it is hey i’m curious if you’ve thought about this isn’t this i’ve got a couple things i’d love to show you either
way you could get some value out of it it’d be things that you can implement with your team either way i think you’d find i think you’d find really useful but who knows maybe there’s an opportunity for us to partner down the line do you have a few minutes to chat about it so that’s kind of the new way to approach it is like you’re you’re you’re doing your research you’re being specific you’re personalizing it’s relevant and it’s providing value before you even walk in the front door so even if they never use me i can provide value to them so they’ll remember me and if they are going to use someone like me i’m going to be the person i go to
Damon Pistulka 20:11
yeah yeah that’s that’s awesome that’s awesome well and i wanted to share to people if you’re listening on linkedin a i forgot to say this at the beginning like i usually do let us know where you’re listening from and if you got any questions for us today to ask alex that’d be great to just go ahead and drop in the comments on linkedin or facebook or wherever you’re listening in and we’ll do that as well but you again you come back to this this a couple key points
here that we drive home all the time when we’re working with people you got to have a sales process you got to assad says has to you know it’s like okay informal formal whatever you want to call it you have to have steps in your process you should follow steps you should have them set up and also they they get repeated regularly and the more formal you can make it at least you know if my sales process that’s formal sucks it we can change it we know everybody yes
Alex Sheridan 21:05
and then just change it and keep working on it but if you don’t one way this way one way that way you get you get that kind of results to ugly but well the number one reason that people don’t generate rev actual revenue in business on linkedin from an outbound standpoint i’m just put the content stuff aside the marketing stuff aside from a sales perspective social selling perspective is is the number one reason is because that one they just try to automate it and not really put time into it or two they don’t they don’t have a process they don’t have a system so they’re not
i go how many you know how are you working your social selling walk me through what you’re doing and they’re like well i kind of send a message here or send a message there and that’s just not going to cut it right so you need dedicated time to do those activities and when you do them you got to know how to do them and you got to know how to do them effectively and you got to know
how to make sure that it’s not taken up all of your day either because you don’t want to spend all day on linkedin i can’t spend all day on linkedin either and a lot of my businesses come through there but you’ve got a business to run you’ve got clients to take care of you maybe got a team to manage so it’s about doing not doing a ton more but just making what you’re doing really effective
Damon Pistulka 22:13
yeah i think that’s that’s ultra important is being effective with your time and and getting getting that that process to be effective because you know i can still remember the first time i received a personalized video and it was like five years ago and before anybody did it i was like whoa how the heck yeah what was going on oh this was a video guys sent
it so it’s so and you know those things stick out and i do i’m on do a clubhouse shroom couple a couple few days week with rio donal he’s a creative guy out of the uk and he talks about that personal message personal video message with the phone drops it into jobson into a message to potential client and he works with big clients and he said it’s effective he said you wouldn’t believe how many people respond and you can get meetings you can talk to them and do what you want to do just by taking that time to research and do like your personal video message
Alex Sheridan 23:18
well this you know that yeah i mean that it’s so effective i mean just like you said when you get those messages it’s like wow i’ve never even you hardly ever see it so for that perspective alone even even if you didn’t say the right thing you’re just your approach is so unique and innovative that it stands out and helps you build your brand because yeah it will take you more seriously they respect you more because you’re you’re coming at them from a personal approach but you know companies companies founders you know employees everyone has to start to evolve right now if you’re not already i mean the digital age is here and it’s not going away and you know if you look at the history of all
business businesses the ones that didn’t survive didn’t adapt and evolve when things started changing they stayed the exact same and they said you know what we’ve always done it this way and this is what we’re gonna do is not going to change and then one day what you’re doing before is not enough anymore and pretty soon your competitors are just years ahead of you and now you’re trying to catch up and sometimes it’s too late so i think companies really
got to understand that you know that that this is something this is not something to play around with this is not something that you want to take lightly you know that you need to build a brand you need to understand how to navigate these waters on social media specifically linkedin if you want to be a business of the future
Damon Pistulka 24:33
yeah now i got a question for you do you think that this is pretty much universal i mean for the across businesses in general so if i’m going to i know there’s some that yes you have to but you look at some of them you go okay i am a hphc company in your neighborhood i’ve got 1010 employees kind of thing do you think that it’s i need to be on facebook because i’m there i should be on linkedin because i’m in commercial too or what what are your thoughts on a company like that
Alex Sheridan 25:11
well you got to look at a couple of things i mean one where are your customers at right so if if none of them are on tick tock and you’re trying to get on tick tock tick tock videos and they’re gonna make a ton of sense right yeah so so are they on linkedin now i have a bunch of people that tell me like i don’t think our customers hey bonnie she said that i there’s there’s a bunch people they’ll tell me i don’t think our customers are on linkedin and i’m like really well how many how many searches have you done and what have you done and on and that kind of stuff and i always love
pulling up thanks bonnie you’re the best i always love pulling up sales navigator and i’ll show them really you didn’t think that executive was on linkedin you didn’t think this group of people were on linkedin let me show you 243 people just like them with the same job title same years of experience yeah i’d have all posted on linkedin in the last 30 days yeah so so you got to think about where your customer is now if your customer is heavy on facebook and you can create facebook groups or community a local community type feel on there then that’s fine to do and you
probably want to run some facebook ads and then they’re reasonably priced and that kind of stuff so maybe not your your number one focus or 100% of your attention is on linkedin it may be 60% or 70% facebook but then still posting content to linkedin and building a brand and having your profile optimized and and doing something on there because it is it is a platform is going to be around for a long time it’s business focused the other thing that’s unique about linkedin right now as we speak you know march 2021 it won’t always be this way but there’s a ton of organic reach on linkedin so you know it’s pretty it’s not like tick tock where it’s gonna be like you know you post one video
one day gets a couple 1000 the next day it could be 100,000 views it’s not like linkedin is not like that it’s more stable right you kind of know where you’re going to be at and i sort of like that’s a little bit more predictable but in terms of somebody getting on if you’re listening and you got like no following and you just have never made a piece of content on linkedin or anywhere you could get on here today and make some noise in three to six months like yeah i think people understand that you know you got to put in the work and you got to you know learn the skills and beat on the
crap but you could do it i started in the late 2019 was zero followers so i mean you know and so it’s just and i grew all organically to over 15,000 followers and a little over a year so it’s definitely possible it’s definitely doable you don’t need to become a social media star or a celebrity that’s not what it’s about it’s about creating enough content where you’re building brand your profiles optimized people land on it they take action not actually leading leaving your profile but actually like reaching out to you and then you know how to you know how to navigate through those social selling channels
Damon Pistulka 27:45
yeah yeah that’s good advice there good advice well you know of course bonnie’s gonna bring up tik tok she said that i know i know you
27:54
said he’s the queen she’s the
Damon Pistulka 27:56
baby i was just talking to her this morning or earlier today and she said like they’re up to like 19 million views are so insane it’s insane
Alex Sheridan 28:06
bonnie if you’re listening real quick bonnie this is interesting for tik tok so i’m posting and i don’t have a strategy i’m not super focused on their on my focus is yes that’s it that’s it right there so so most of my my videos were getting like you know a couple 100 views and then all of a sudden i had one that spiked up to like i think i got almost 20,000 views which is just like crazy and over 1000 reactions and stuff but yeah you know i always tell people i’m like look it depends on your business it depends on your audience for bonnie likes tick tock is all day every day cuz yeah they do like it just makes total sense right but she’s still on linkedin right she’s still getting a brand and built in putting out
content on linkedin which is smart but you also don’t want to do too many different things like if you’re a business owner and you’re trying to like i’m gonna be on facebook instagram tik tok linkedin you know and you end up creating like very little or you just post the same thing to each one with no context and you’re not really building a community and you end up going super wide but because you have no depth you actually don’t get results yeah and that’s what i help people do is get actual results business one you know the likes and comments and stuff are great but if it’s not translating to actual revenue then there’s something missing
Damon Pistulka 29:17
yeah yeah that’s that’s true that’s true and i think a lot of people do that you know and and it’s tempting i mean honestly i mean we do we do recycle content on our company pages we have but we generate a lot of content i mean when you look at us we are we’re we’re putting up four to six new blog posts every week with videos and everything so we got a lot of content we can circle through on our news now and someone engages with people and some of it doesn’t and the thing that i was really surprised about when i got active on linkedin probably about the same time
there’s latency in 2019 sometime i started coming back and getting accurate and creating content and doing those things is that if you show up like you’re talking about, you will have clients call you or potential clients call you and they act like they know you. Oh, yeah. Anyway, yeah, Gary, it is scary as hell. And yeah, you gotta you gotta kind of get yourself ready for that, because they’ll call you up. And it’s, it’s, it’s just as you were talking about, you know, they’ve they’ve taken the time they’ve got to know you. And yeah, maybe even like you to a point. You know, you don’t you’re much farther down the sales process before. That’s
Alex Sheridan 30:35
exactly right. That’s such a great point. And that’s what it’s about.
Damon Pistulka 30:41
vies give me a bad time she goes, how many shows you have today, but I’d like to do another one. Because I’m excited about a different show idea that I want to do, but the day it allows people to get farther down the sales process, because yeah, you know, they don’t want to come and see you unless they think you’re going to help, you know, you don’t want to, you don’t want to have a salesperson talking to you. And just to find out a it’s another useless not to use this mean, because human interaction is great.
But in business terms, it was not valuable. And that, that people just don’t have time for anymore and them to to digest the content at their schedule. And your timing is so nice. And you go well, why do you have to produce content every day? You have to produce content every day? Because otherwise, if their time is when you’re not producing content, they’re not going to see you.
Alex Sheridan 31:41
Yeah, I wouldn’t necessarily say every day but I would say consistently, right? So there you go. Yeah. If that’s, you know, three times a week or four times a week, and that works for you, then then that’s good. If you can post good content every day. That’s obviously ideal. But yeah, I mean, to your point, it’s such a great point, you show up way earlier than potentially that customers even thinking about purchasing something like you offer. So that’s the power in it, where it’s like, in think of this old school sales is like if you’re only going to get in front of people, when you book a meeting with them, and you’re going to talk business, hey, what are your pain points? What are your needs?
What are you trying to accomplish? And is there a fitters are not a fit. I’m not, I can do some of that from a social selling standpoint. But from the content standpoint, I can reach somebody that maybe in three months, is ready to like really bring me in and do some company training for LinkedIn. But they’re not it’s not in budget right now. Or maybe they’re not having conversations right now. But they’ve seen my videos the past three months, well, who do you think they’re call who are gonna call when they’re ready to make to pull the trigger? And they’ve seen 50 of my videos, and they literally feel like they know me, to your point. Yeah, people get on there.
And when you post video content, specifically, it allows people to get to know like, and trust you before you ever meet with them. I mean, I’ll have people literally because my calendar link is on my, if you go to my website, I have a quick video on the front page. And then I offer to, you know, schedule a quick 30 minute call where I’m going to provide value either way, right?
Yeah. And we can see it’s a good fit. Well, if people literally watch my videos, they don’t comment. They don’t like it. We call those folks lurkers, as you probably know. And but what they’ll do is they’ll go to my page, it’s super optimized.
I’ve got testimonials on there so people know exactly what I do they see the results are proven, but then they’ll go to my website, and they’ll book a call and I got a call on my calendar where I’m like, This happens all the time. I’ll get on I’ll get on the zoom call and I’ll try and do my research where I can but I’m like where do I i’ve never interacted with this person before.
I’m like Paul, correct me if I’m wrong I did my research and I know you do But have we have we interacted ever before? And they’re like nope, I just I’ve just seen about seven year videos now and booked the call with you and now we want to work with you. So it’s just like yeah, I mean, isn’t that every salesperson his dream is that you know you don’t always have to hunt the business down it comes to you and they’re already qualified and they’re already ready to buy
Damon Pistulka 33:53
yeah Yeah, yeah, we’re having a team meeting this morning and not yesterday gala days rolling together but we were having a team meeting and we were talking about talking about working on one of our products is because we had always been custom solutions for a little bit bigger businesses right. And we’ve we’ve since released a or in the process of releasing a product meant to this the smaller solopreneur entrepreneur with a few employees kind of businesses and we’ve been refining it over the last few months and
I said you know how you know when you get a good product because when someone asks you how much does it cost it because if there if you’re talking to someone about it you don’t bring up price you don’t bring up part yes price and they and you’re just talking about what would make this better how have we done this and when people started well how much does it cost you Hmm, we might be getting close.
Oh 100% likely Yeah. Is it is it is it but it’s it’s interesting how you’re doing the same thing almost with video you’re you’re showing them enough about Are you but how you help them? How can solve the problems are looking at that without really doing much more they’re going to they’re going to not and that’s a lot, don’t get me wrong, they’re going to book that call with you, and they’re going to be ready for you to help them with a solution because they’ve made a decision in their mind. Right, you can help them and you’re the right
Alex Sheridan 35:19
exactly. 100% man, yeah, it’s so
Damon Pistulka 35:23
cool. Yeah, it’s
Alex Sheridan 35:24
so crazy. It’s I I just I’m blown away every day that there’s so many companies that haven’t caught on to that, because it’s almost like you almost when you’re, when you’re living it every day, you almost feel like you have some, you have this secret that like the world just doesn’t know about and you’re like, man, at some point, people are going to catch on to this and figure it out.
And I think this is the year based on business that I think people are starting to make the shift. But there’s still so many companies and people and founders that just that they just haven’t caught on to, and they’re blown away when they start doing it. And they’re just like, Oh, my gosh, what have I been doing this whole time? You know? Yeah, it’s crazy.
Damon Pistulka 35:59
So now do you think that your solutions, the stuff that you’re working with, does it work better if I’m targeting larger companies, or you know, when I say larger, like, you know, fortune 500 companies or smaller companies say sub 100 million kind of companies,
Alex Sheridan 36:18
both it’s a, it’s a little bit of a, it could be a little bit of a different strategy with the bigger companies, depending on who you’re reaching out to. That’s where you there’s needs to be more research more context, there needs to be probably some creative video elements to it, where you get their attention from the content, where the if you’re working with solopreneurs founders, small business owners, you probably could sometimes as simple as putting out really good content, your profile is optimized. And then you work those social selling strategies. And you can reach out and through one or two engagements, you can book a call and figure out if there’s the right fit.
But the the power of compound there the power of content, it’s almost like interest, like it just compounds over time. So I mean, think about what you’re doing now, and add three months to it add six months to 12 months to it, pretty soon you’re going you’re going to get to a certain point, if you do it consistently, where you almost are in a position where you are turning down certain clients, because maybe you’re like, hey, this isn’t the right. You know, I’m priced. I’m priced certain people out of the products or services. Yeah. And so, you know, it could be a man, so Hi. So and there’s only a certain supply of you or your team. And so it’s just it’s a it’s a good problem to have,
Damon Pistulka 37:24
or it’s the wrong fit. I mean, that’s Yeah, for sure that that’s that’s the other thing, but I think it’s, it’s I noticed that about four months ago, it’s just funny as heck, because I had somebody that come in and that there’s one on what’s your experience, and I said, Okay, I can sit here and talk, as long as you want to talk about this. But here you go, here’s four videos on YouTube, I sent them the links to them. I said, Here I talk with people that we work with every day on this subject. That, you know, see if you see if you like what I say, what we talk about how we talk about how we help people and and go from there. And again, the content just helps so much.
Alex Sheridan 38:05
Yes. What’s becoming really big, too, I’m sure you’ve seen it as well, is the social proof is the the clients, people now want to hear from your clients. They want to see videos and testimonials, and they want us here, you know, Shelley who’s like, Oh, my gosh, I’ve gotten I’ve worked started working with Damon and we got these amazing results, and we leveled up our business 20% 30% revenue increase.
When people hear that stuff, it’s extremely powerful. And now they’re not hearing it from you. They’re hearing it from someone that worked with you. And so the whole social proof and video testimonials and that that whole, like you could almost have a business just helping people do that. Because it’s really quite large.
Damon Pistulka 38:43
Yeah, yeah, that’s for sure. Sure. Good stuff. So I got another question next. So we talked about big companies, small companies. So some people like any client night in 19 and 20. That was they would they would do oilfield services work. So a, their clients were the big, big clients. And and I bring this up not because their client size, but because of the ticket size. I mean, they would do their ticket size. If they did a small project with a client, it was half a million dollars if they did, you know, a big client is $10 million with a year or something like that revenue.
So do you think that that that, you know, think of a manufacturing client is what I think of because typically, manufacturing clients have multimillion dollar clients all day long, right? Or at least half a million and bigger is not huge in manufacturing, just because of the what you’re dealing with. So do you think that’s more important for someone like that to really be using social selling because that’s traditionally that’s that’s the face to face deal right there. We’re talking to the manufacturing. What do you think about that kind of setting for for this, this approach? No, I
Alex Sheridan 39:57
think there’s enough people on LinkedIn, these days where that still can be very and is very effective. I think the more the bigger the deals get in my mind, the more I would spend on each outreach, right? So for example, if you’re reaching out to founders and solopreneurs, and it’s low friction, there’s one to one, it’s not there’s not a ton of decision makers, influencers, that kind of stuff. Yeah, that it’s faster. And there’s less research less context, because it’s just you got to go through the people, right?
Still personalized, but it’s different approach, where if you’ve got a client that’s 500,000, or 10 million, that’s worth doing a lot of research and spending time and maybe even creating a custom video just for them and their team. And you don’t just need to post something like, well, what if they’re not like that, it’s like, well, when you create a piece of content, that’s an asset. So you can put that on your website, you can put that on an video email, you can use a software system like dub, or you can send out video emails with your own email address.
And you can have that imagine that like thing about the manifest manufacturing manager, or whoever you’re targeting the VP of manufacturing, or whatever it is VP of sales, whatever it is, and they get an email. And they’re used to getting this cold called blasted with emails all day. And then all of a sudden, they get a video from this guy or gal who is specifically addressing problems or challenges that they probably have based on their research. And they’re doing it in a creative way.
And they’re and they’re, they’re providing some type of value or solution, and then they’re asking for a meeting. That’s a game changer for these folks. So they got to get a little bit creative with their with their approach. But even if people aren’t on LinkedIn, there’s still a ton of opportunity to use content in that sort of social selling approach to still make it work. Yeah,
Damon Pistulka 41:39
yeah. Well, we had Rodney Rodney, Canada stopped by Ronnie, Ronnie does sales, and Ronnie does sales in manufacturing, like, nice, I think that that you make a great point here is that there’s two things now I’ve got a bit more gray hair than you if people haven’t noticed that. But you know, in my day, it was all face to face, right? We all we didn’t even have the internet when I was young. But now what what I’ve been preaching for a long time, I mean, over 10 years already. And I’m kind of getting tired of it. But it’s starting to come around is that the whole buying base. Now when you look in any company, anyone that’s that are in positions of authority.
And I’m not talking about a mid level manager, I’m talking about executives in the C suite, all the way down, they probably grew up with Google, they’re so used to searching for products online, and everything like that Is that the one on 100% approach to selling has been dying over the last 10 years. And it’s just been dying at a slow pace. And it’s never gone away completely, right.
Because there’s there’s always a piece and that’s a great piece. That’s awesome making those relationships. But as we talked about, people get farther down that buying process by being able to read your content, digest your content, however it is to be able to find the solutions they believe first, yeah, as you would a Google type setting before they reach out or somebody to contact them.
And I just I can’t emphasize that enough. And I love hearing what you’re saying, especially for manufacturers, because it is so critical that I think that they incorporate these and the other kind of companies we talked about, not just them, but these types of approaches, because and you’re missing out on an entire population of people that do not want you calling him that will did just get pissed. It doesn’t matter. You’re the perfect person. If you try to call them you try to email whatever call it ain’t happening.
Alex Sheridan 43:54
Yeah, 100% man, and it could be as simple as you sign. If you signed up for dub, let’s just say I don’t like work for dub, but I’m just here. They’re a good product or service that I use. And I know the owners. If you signed up, it’s like 40 something bucks on it, it means it’s very affordable. And it allows you to send videos via email from your own email address. So even the difference maker just a 32nd video of you standing there saying, Rod, Hey, I just did some research on your company like I understand this, this and this would love to have a quick chat, I’ve uncovered some things that I think could tremendously help your team based on this, this and this.
Let me know if you’re up for a quick chat. You know, something very simple that they’re like, Whoa, I’ve never gotten a video like that that was personalized that had context to it that they did research to it. Like that is a game changer. And it’s very simple. You don’t need any crazy technology. You know, Ronnie talking about building we build personal relationships. That’s one thing that’s not going to go away and sell right?
You’re going to always be relationships, but how do you start to build relationships, you need attention. You need them to sit down with you in the first place because you can’t just say I’m going to build a relationship with you. That’s not they’re not sitting around waiting for somebody to come build a relationship. with them but they do want relations they value relationships but you got to get attention and get in front of them to then build the relationship so this is kind of like how you bridge that gap oh absolutely once you get in front of them you still got to build relationships with people and you got to leverage that no doubt about it
Damon Pistulka 45:17
yeah yeah no that’s awesome that’s awesome but yeah it is it is it makes such a difference i think if you if you’re reaching out with value and you’re somebody that contacts that you you’ve thought about their situation and maybe that you could could potentially help because so many as as you i’m sure get you know you get an email that talks to you about how i get in just pick something pick something and i get an email from somebody trying to sell me that i need to i need to develop you need help with your python programming well i don’t even know i know what python is so
Alex Sheridan 45:57
terrible man i yeah like literally look for the block button i’m so i’m like dude this there’s no context there’s no personalization so it’s like they’ll all get emails and i’m a one person company for now i outsource i have a couple people that do editing for me but for the most part i’m a one person show for the time being and then be like for your next two hires we can help you hire them and i’m like
Damon Pistulka 46:16
yeah we’re
Alex Sheridan 46:18
like it’s just so versus the person that approached me personally like hey man i you know they sent me a video or a message or something it’s like i’ve been following your lat your post on linkedin i see that you’re you just started your company in 2012 that would get my attention those are the things that i’m like wow this is this is pretty cool
Damon Pistulka 46:34
yeah yeah oh bonnie said again frozen pitches that’s right you know so so we’ve been we’ve been going on and man i’m excited i get jacked up about this because you got so you got to be so much good stuff to share but what should have i asked you that i didn’t ask you
Alex Sheridan 46:54
oh i don’t know i mean there’s probably 4 trillion things that we could cover in terms of just content creation and that kind of stuff but i feel like we had a really good conversation and hopefully brought some proflow brought some value to the to the audience i would definitely love to take some questions from anybody that’s in the comments but yeah but yeah good conversation i appreciate it
Damon Pistulka 47:11
man it is and i know rodney is probably driving he listens to us and like in the car when he’s gone but it is yeah it is i love love getting your opinion i mean because you are as i said when we started this thing you are probably one of the most creative video people i see on on linkedin i really appreciate your your content and your candor and and and your your thought process
i mean when you mentioned your sales process and other things like that you don’t mention it much but you’ve got a solid sales background staffing is a tough industry to be selling in and to be successful in it it’s it’s it’s no small feat so oh bonnie’s got one up she said what is what are you up to next or what’s the what’s the rally
Alex Sheridan 48:00
oh i got some i got some dennis dennis today ronnie says nice thanks for tuning in brother appreciate it yeah bonnie i got some really cool videos coming out over the next several weeks i’ve decided to take the creativity and then push myself to the next level as much as i can because i believe in that stretching your comfort zone and so there’s gonna be some good ones coming out i can’t spoil anything but there’ll be some good ones coming every monday nice
Damon Pistulka 48:24
nice well that’s awesome to have you here today alex and thank you so much for stopping by thank you for sharing your wisdom dude i tell you what if anybody wants to reach out to you what’s the best way to get ahold of you
Alex Sheridan 48:35
on linkedin is great i’m always on linkedin send me a message on there or email a sheridan at impacts calm or you can visit my website impacts calm
Damon Pistulka 48:44
nice nice so everyone’s got that we’ll put it in the comments on the videos as well on the blog page so bonnie wants to know if you’re signing with a music label
Alex Sheridan 48:54
no no plans of that all right i do like creating music
Damon Pistulka 48:59
oh awesome awesome good stuff well maybe we’ll have you back and we’ll talk about that that the next room cuz good stuff well thanks so much thanks everyone once again to the faces of business with with me Damon Pistulka and our sponsor edgier way love love love it alex thanks so much thank you guys
