Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Speaker A: Hello, welcome back to Rogue startups. I'm your host, Craig Hewitt. Today I'm joined by Ryan Musselman. Ryan is an absolute authority on social selling and selling on LinkedIn. As part of our continued LinkedIn series, we're going to be talking about the psychology of selling. You'll see really quickly in this interview. Ryan knows his shit. He knows a lot about selling and he does it very gracefully.
I can't think of a better person to bring on to talk about how we all can create content that moves people from kind of lurkers and fans to interested opportunities to customers than Ryan. We go super deep and we go super broad and how we all can use this as mostly like SaaS founders, how we can use LinkedIn to grow our business. And it's just a really great conversation. So I hope you enjoyed this interview with Ryan Musselman.
You know, when you find that perfect partner for your business, the person you say, shit, where has this person been all of my life? I found that a few years ago with clearly design and Francois, who has helped us design almost the entire castos web application, mobile app, WordPress plugin and marketing site. You know, I think that, you know the old saying that software is eating the world. I think it's never been more true, right? Software and AI are getting easier and easier and easier to build and cheaper and faster. And so what's differentiating you from all of your competition is how much your customers love using your software. It's not good enough anymore to just have good software. People have to absolutely love it. And to do that, unless you're a designer, which I'm not, you need someone who gets this stuff and is able to take the stuff that's in your brain as a founder and put it into Figma and put it into specifications for your dev team to implement. And it's really been transformative for us to work with Francois and clearly design on Kastos and really on every aspect of casdos, from, from branding to marketing to product and to promotion, I can't recommend it enough. He's a really great human being, a really great service. And Francois, running a special just for rogue startup listeners right now, go to clearly dot design. You can get a discount off of his monthly design as a service subscription. Tell him that we sent you and I hope that you enjoy. I know you won't be disappointed. Francois, absolutely amazing. And clearly design is awesome. Our chosen partner for everything, design UX and product at Castos.
I think a natural place to start here is like, why do people buy as you are operating on LinkedIn and, like, converting audience to customers? Like, how do you, how do you think about that from, like, a big picture perspective? Like, why is someone going to buy from Ryan?
[00:03:06] Speaker B: Yeah. When I think about why people buy, one of the areas where we often overlook and maybe don't spend enough time thinking about it is people aren't buying for our own reasons, meaning us as the sellers. People are not buying because we want them to buy because we've convinced them to buy. We've had a silver tongue and we persuaded them they'll never buy because we want them to buy. They'll only buy for what they want. People call this desired outcomes. I like to be a little bit more harsh with it. People are going to buy because they want it or the result of it. They're buying again, echo chamber the outcome. But that's. It's true because they're seeing the world through their eyes, not your eyes, and all they're looking at when it comes to whatever service or product you're selling, is that going to get me what I want? And if they can find that it emotionally connects them to what they want, there's a whole different playing field that takes shape there.
[00:04:13] Speaker A: I find that a lot of. Oh, okay, maybe my self limiting belief here. I believe a lot of people don't know what they want that they.
I like to say, like, they know the shit they're in, but they don't know what, like, the Green Valley over there really is. How do you as you're especially creating content? Because I think it's where it starts. You create the content, you build a rapport and the trust, and then the sale maybe comes after that. But, like, how do you think about you create content for coaches? I think it's applicable to SaaS founders. It's all the same stuff. Right? How do you say, I'm going to take somebody across this whole journey, even if they don't know they're at the starting point of the journey today? Because that's the challenge, I think, for a lot of us.
[00:04:58] Speaker B: Absolutely. And here's the big secret. Ask good questions. You don't need to worry about going into persuasion mode. You need to help them discover what they instinctively already know the answer to. What they need is inside of them. And I'm not trying to sound mystical on that. What I mean is they already know the answer to what they want at a subconscious level. When you ask the right questions, it brings that to the surface. So they rediscover. Oh, yeah. This is what I want.
At the very core of it, someone wants status or health or wealth or better relationships, right? We've heard that song and pony or song and dance, whatever that analogy is there. But the point is when you ask those good questions and you start bringing them through what it is that they want to achieve, what the gaps are, then it comes to the service and they're confronted with, oh, yeah, I do need to close those gaps because in two years, I don't want to be where I'm at now.
So asking people like, here's like a fun way to do it. This be helpful if you're a business coach, if you're in sales, right, ask someone and say, hey, today you're here in two years, what's a monthly revenue goal that you want to see happen in your life?
And they'll give you some of those answers. And then as you're going through this exercise now, say to them, all right, pretend you overshot that goal. You just massively got past that, what is that number to you? And they're going to list out their number, right? And then do another exercise in the same, in the same vein of this all the way underneath, and say, in two years you failed miserably, right, it's nothing you didn't do. Well, you didn't do the work that needed to be done. What does that look like to you? And they're going to get, they're going to give you a number.
And really what you need to help them understand is, okay, you said one hundred k a month is the overshot goal, like you achieved more than you ever thought. But you said the worst case scenario goal is ten k. Well, between one hundred k and ten k is a 90k gap. So for them to not take action is costing, at a theoretical ratio, 90 grand per month. But the biggest time waster, and all of this is what I just said, time.
They didn't do what they needed to do in that. So not only is it theoretically costing them ninety k per month where they could have overshot, but they wasted their time not being able to get what they want. So now they're starting from scratch. And so the big difference here is now you have to start from scratch and the results are going to be even further delayed. So it's a compounding disadvantage. But an exercise like that adapted to the right situation, whether you're a business coach, a life coach or so on, starts to help people realize, hey, I don't want to be there, what do I need to do to close the gap and get to where I want. And so asking those questions, painting those exercises, causing deep reflection between an undesirable state to a desirable state, will help to surface the problems and help people know what they really want.
[00:08:11] Speaker A: And on again, this is part of our LinkedIn series on a application of this to LinkedIn.
This is a post topic. This is a post. Imagine you're here, and then imagine you're here, making your viewer listener what our audience think about this stuff. Then if you get into a sales conversation with them, they've already explored this mentally. Yes. Is that the kind of path that you look?
[00:08:37] Speaker B: Absolutely. Because at that point, they're confronted with the problem. They have an idea of what they need to do. So now you, as a CEO of your company or the sales executive, now you're starting to sell possibility, and possibility will deeply connect with, oh, yeah, what if I did close that gap? Like, what would that do for my life?
And if I close that gap now, if I started closing that gap, what is it going to enable me to do in two years? If I hit this revenue number, if I hit whatever goal that is, what can I do then that I wouldn't be able to do now? How would I feel then versus how I feel now? And so when you're asking questions that cause that deep reflection, you start to help people understand that I really do need to make a change, and this is what I want that change to look like. So that's critical. And it starts to take them through the journey. It opens the conversation to be more real.
[00:09:28] Speaker A: Preston, I think one of the places I, as both a salesperson and a coach and as a customer and a purchaser of things, is it largely comes down to how much confidence do I have that you can take me to that promise land. Right. That's ultimately what it comes down to. Right. From a, again, kind of LinkedIn content perspective, how do you think about this to kind of pre overcome that objection? Yeah. So that the sales process is easier because, like, the best, right. Is like, we're selling our castos production services. I get on a phone with somebody who knows me and knows our service, and they're like, look, just tell me how much, how to pay you. Like, just like, I know you guys do a great job. Like, that's what you ultimately want because that has then been overcome already because they know me, they know the kind of work we do. There's referral, maybe, something like that. But most of the time, we're not selling in that situation. So, like, how do you think about the whole, like, the content journey and kind of LinkedIn as a platform to kind of pre overcome that objection of like, can Ryan really deliver what I want?
[00:10:32] Speaker B: Have you ever heard someone say, sell the outcome?
[00:10:35] Speaker A: Hmm.
[00:10:36] Speaker B: It's common LinkedIn advice and common advice in the world. Sell the outcome. Sell the transformation. I disagree with that advice. I believe you should sell the path to the outcome. Sell the path to the transformation.
And we're asking people to take too much of a bet when they see our free content.
And then we lead them to, let's call it a ten k offer. The gap, the chasm of trust isn't there yet for them to make a decision like that. I'm not saying it's always like that. Sure, people make decisions and they buy things that are even more expensive than ten k. But on a more consistent, rigid, gritty sales process, that gap is too big.
And what you're trying to do is sell this big outcome with some form of a guarantee. This might resonate with many people who are listening to this. Instead, sell the path that gets them there. And here's what I mean by that.
If you're selling just the outcome, then you're trying to have them jump over this trust chasm that isn't established. But if you build a swing that helps them meet in the middle, build some momentum to that outcome, then it's going to be better. So for me, and in my own experience, I help people, coaches specifically craft their ten k offer. But I don't just start selling my own ten k offer to them to help them do this. I have them meet me in a workshop format, or a live speaking format, or a one to one environment where I'm not focused on selling to them. I'm focused on empowering them to think about their problem, reflect on their problem, overcome the gaps that they need to get to. And so you think of it as a swing. What I'm doing there is outlining the transformation through the path. Meaning, hey, if you want to get to this fifty k a month business, step one, we have to fix your lead flow. And there's three ways we do that. One, we create leads from scratch. So do you know how to create leads from scratch? Grade yourself on that. Right? A, d, f, whatever that is. Two, content leads. If you're posting content, do you get leads from content? Three, curated leads. Do you know exactly what to say to someone to make them a lead, or move a lead through a process to a yes. So we go deep in that category and we outline how if we fix that particular path with whatever it is, the training that I'm going to give them, then we can move on to the next checkpoint, which is conversion. So we've got the leads now we've got the conversion. I'll walk them through a series of questions. Then we walk them through the final checkpoint, which is building your enterprise. Now there's a story, a path. We're getting the leads, we're converting the leads. Now we've got clients. How do we service them? How do we do it in a way we're not working 80 hours per week. How do we do it in a way that can strategically expand with new partnerships or affiliate programs? So now we're thinking about the totality of our business and we've seen the pathway of solving critical problems along the way in order to get to that high income per month outcome that we're seeking. But if I don't unpack the leads and the conversion and the enterprise, and I just say, we're going to get you to month feels a little too pie in the sky. Almost as if I was on this playing field with them, met them where they're at, then I left it and went in the sky and I said, hey, just come up here. Just jump up here with me. They can't get. They can't get that or they can't get.
[00:13:57] Speaker A: So a lot of folks listening to this will be running like B two B SaaS businesses. And I think it's maybe even more so applicable. This concept is more so applicable to that. Because what's happening is like, we sell enterprise SaaS.
We have folks in our pipeline right now where the analogy is absolutely the same. It's like you have content, it's the website, it's shit on LinkedIn, whatever it is.
They come in. And that workshop or exploration is the demo. It's the discovery call and. Or the demo.
And that's where you're talking about that path. It's like, hey, what's your problem? You do development there, then you show that path, which is the product. In our case, it's the SaaS application to say, this is that vehicle that will get you to where you want to go.
Yeah. I think that the psychology of a demo is often underrated in most b two b SaaS environments. And it is. I always say you want to get someone kind of pissed off at the beginning, right? You want them to, like, deeply understand the pain that they're in right now. And then you turn the page and go, look, this can solve that. Pain you're in.
[00:15:14] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:15] Speaker A: And that really is like that path or vehicle you're talking about.
[00:15:18] Speaker B: Can we. I want to tap into that for a second. In my opinion, the number one thing, the number one mistake or one of the biggest mistakes I think a SaaS company makes is calling the demo a demo.
Like schedule a demo. Come into the demo as all that ever screams these days is, oh, cool, a sales call, right? You're just trying to sell me and show it to me. Call it something different, right? Think red velvet here, right? I still think red velvet is different, but I know it's chocolate cake. It's just red.
The whole point of what I'm saying is that you are calling it a demo. Everyone knows what a demo is. That language is dull, it's worn out. It screams sales call, pitch and so on. How convenient. They're going to show me a demo, solve a problem, something relevant to that, and call it something to your pathway to x or how to solve for x. The demo is inherent in the lesson of the how to. So don't use language like demo. If you're trying to get people to the demo, right. Speak to the problem or the want of the people who are going to use the product you're going to use.
And just that subtle change there, I think should improve opt in rates, should improve the discussion. The agenda should be a little bit more freeing and a little bit more inviting to people who know that they need your service, but maybe haven't pulled the trigger.
[00:16:48] Speaker A: I totally agree.
Go so far as to say that in a, especially in a b two b like enterprise situation, I don't want to show my product at all in the first call, because I think that's not the point. The point is not this button does this and the report looks like that. And this is the signing page. The point is for the customer to deeply understand their own problem. Maybe first, and that's the discovery phase. And then, and there's generally. Am I like a good fit for that? And I think that's a 30 minutes call, right? Like a first call should not be more than 30 minutes. This is discovery.
And if you're showing your product in that 1st 30 minutes call, you largely are missing an opportunity. Do you agree?
[00:17:37] Speaker B: Yeah, I think there's probably qualifications we could put around that too. I think it's great to have the discussion and listen to what they're saying. What are you building towards? What have you tried that you thought was going to work so well but for some reason isn't right. Whatever those questions are relative to the rapport you're building on those calls. Amazing. If there is a natural way for you to sell without selling, to show without demonstrating, and I'll unpack that, then I think it's going to be more powerful. But the second you say, oh, great, thanks for these answers, let me show you how I'd fix it with my product. I think that's to setting someone up and that's what brings the guards up on a sales call. But rather, if you're naturally able to, I know what you're saying, and then you're not even trying to transition to a demo style. But if you're sharing your screen and being like, this is one of the ways that I've had thinking about that in my own light and, and I solved it by doing this and you're just showing for the sake of illustration, not the sake of deming a product, I think that's different. It just lands differently. And I've had someone do that before where they were talking about a business scenario and they didn't ask me if they could share their screen, whatever, they just let it naturally happen. They shared their screen without asking for permission and, and they were starting to walk me through some different thoughts that were relative to the context. So I think for the sellers and the SaaS area of this, use that to your own discretion. If there's a way where you can just naturally pull it up, you don't ask, you already assume that the sale is going to happen, but you just start functioning as if you're already at the deeper levels of that conversation without it being such a rigid, hey, well, now I'm going to show you in the next ten minutes how you can so and so and do this with our SaaS product. That's when the sales pitch starts and that's when you lose them.
Does that make sense? I send there.
[00:19:35] Speaker A: Yeah, no, totally, totally. I think, yeah, I, it's not, it's not absolute. I definitely agree. There are times when I want to show the product because it's really specific and applicable to a thing that the customer is talking about. And in that case, I like it more. I also, just from a sales perspective, like setting up a separate, I'll call it demo call where all the stakeholders are involved because largely that doesn't happen the first call. So just from a kind of sales mechanics perspective, like showing off your product to just one person in an enterprise situation is kind of a waste of time, I think.
[00:20:13] Speaker B: I think you're spot on.
[00:20:14] Speaker A: I like to just save it for later.
[00:20:15] Speaker B: Yeah. All of those sales contacts differ based on what you're selling, what that price point is. And I think probably for your context, that enterprise sales, of having that initial rapport, building the internal champion, that then gets the right people on the call for a more efficient demo. I love that stepping stone process.
[00:20:32] Speaker A: Yeah, cool. Okay, so we set stage, I think, really well for kind of what we're doing here. Right? Like, what are we doing? What's the goal of, like, creating content on LinkedIn to attract great, fit customers for us? Whether you're selling coaching or SaaS or agency or whatever, the next step in our listeners minds right now is like, craig, can you stop fucking around and tell me how I can actually do this thing so that my time on LinkedIn results in money in my bank account? Because that's ultimately what we're all about. I don't think any of us want 100,000 followers who want a thriving business. So maybe let's start exploring that. Let's start exploring.
We've talked about questions we can ask and paint the picture of where someone is now in the transformation, better word for it.
But I think a lot of people drop the ball there. Like, let's assume they can create content in their niche, largely. That doesn't result in customers just because they created great content. Where do you see people drop the ball?
[00:21:37] Speaker B: Yeah, I think one of the biggest misconceptions today, and you hear this from a lot of large creators, is that, oh, my business is organic only. It's all inbound from my content.
And that is actually a more nuanced message than we might perceive, because on the surface, we're seeing large influencer, lots of engagement, great following, great comments. People love this person, and it sends the message of, if they can do it, I can do it, too. And it's not so much that someone can't do it or replicate that success, but that influencer is still direct messaging people. They're still going through a sales process of their own to curate and create leads. And so one of the things that I commonly hear, I also think is a dull message these days, is get leads and air quotes. I hear everyone say, get leads. Better to create a client. Getting leads versus creating a client. Okay, well, how do you create a client? Sure, you're still posting, you're still staying active in terms of making sure your content is out there. But what it's doing and what you don't recognize or see initially is that it is warming people up. Cold readers are becoming warm leads. But that doesn't mean they're raising their hand to message you, to speak about your service. It just means that they're starting to become more present to the problem they have and the context or solution of how you can solve it. And so be mindful of the people who are engaging with your content, looking at your profile, connecting with you, and begin messaging with them. Not to sell them, to get on a call, not to ask them, what's your biggest problem in the past 90 days? Ask them a simpler question.
Hey, John. Or hey, Craig, what are you building towards these days? Hey, Craig, thanks for connecting. What are you building towards these days?
Let them say it. Let them answer the question right. Or hey, Craig, thanks for connecting. Thanks for, thanks for connecting.
Do you post content on LinkedIn, start the rapport building process and I'm not trying to say do that. Then ask this question. Then ask this question and then make your offer. What I'm saying is just keep curating. You're going to have to do that. You're going to have to calibrate with that person. The more familiar and warm they are to you, the more open they're going to be to an invitation to something deeper. Right. We'll use air quotes of a demo call because we don't want to call them demo calls anymore. But that would be an example.
[00:24:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:08] Speaker B: You know, hey, Craig, by the way, I am doing x. Do you know anyone who might be looking to need this? You're asking them to attend indirectly. So now they either, and who knows? Maybe they actually do know someone that comes and they also want it as well. But that's what I'm saying is there's an indirect, there's a way to be so direct that feels indirect without you jumping the gun, rushing to get the demo and so on. And for a sales executive in the SaaS, they may say, that's great. I don't have the time for that. Well, you're in trouble then, because you're going to have to build a pipeline of people and relationships. There's just that ramp up period. We know that. Right. I was listening to some sales training today that was back from the nineties, literally called the psychology of selling.
And such a great point was made that when you start a new sales role within the first 30 days, the amount of people you contact and the qualitative nature of those contacts will determine how the next 90 days play out for your sales. So if you're always in this ramp mode of constant contact, constant warming up, prospecting daily for the sake of building those relationships in 90 days or quarter over quarter, it's impossible for you to not sell because you have too many people to sell to. You're trying to create your own good problem of having too many people to sell to. But if you're only relying on content, bringing us full circle here, it's going to be the least optimal way to do that. Content is one side of the coin, direct relationship and curation is the other. Content just helps the other side happen faster, more natural, less indirect, more warm. So we need to be building relationships. This will never not be true. It will always be the only strategy. If that's all you have.
[00:25:55] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm just going to restate what you said because this is everything. When it comes to actually utilizing LinkedIn as a place to generate revenue, which is content or comments. Engagement and organic content on LinkedIn enables profile views. CTA's in your profile like the featured link or you being able to see, especially if you have sales navigator who has viewed your profile and you reach out to them.
[00:26:27] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:26:28] Speaker A: If they commented on your shit, right, you should definitely reach out to them. If they viewed your profile but didn't click the calendly link, you can check out my profile or yours because they're very similar.
Like, you know, they, they got halfway there, right, which is kind of what you're saying. They are not just a lurker, but they're an engager. Now, how can you help them take the step or potentially right to, to be, hey, like, hey, can we actually work together? Can I help you out with the problem you're having? I think, you know what's interesting, man, is I don't do this. I don't do this very much and it's terrible. I just don't like, I don't have the, I don't have the process, I don't have the time set aside in my calendar. I have the time, right? I just don't have 15 minutes at 930 every morning. Blocked off my calendar to do this.
But I still get the few people, and this is it. Like you get the exception who go all the way through and click the calendar link. I had two people book me today, but that's the exception. I'm losing ten people a week probably, who view my stuff, check out my profile. If I dm them, it would potentially turn into a conversation and an opportunity. Yeah. But I know I'm leaving a ton of opportunity on the table.
[00:27:40] Speaker B: Yeah. Let me tell you, as almost a 65,000 follower account, I still message daily. I can get plenty of leads from organic. I've got a great organic approach, but I message daily on purpose, because even if it's seven days after I make first contact with that person that I finally get to a point where I'm saying, hey, I'm doing this workshop, or, hey, do you know anyone that's looking to do this? Um, it's just so powerful. So powerful. And I've. I did it all week for a workshop that I'm running. And here's how this really starts to play out, too. I asked this, this woman who was my target audience if, if she was, um, interested in attending this workshop I'm doing at the end of the month. It's only $100. And I said, if, if you want to attend, I'll waive it for, for a wave the fee. And if you know anyone and want to invite them, let me know. She asked me for an affiliate link and then sent it to ten people out of nowhere. The snap of a finger is all of a sudden I created a sales rep, highly qualified, probably knows highly qualified people to now advocate on my behalf. What happens if I send 20 messages a day and do stuff like that over the course of a month? I think 20 a day. What is that times? 5100 a week? Okay, 400 people a month.
Like, if I get ten of them to work and do that, I mean, that is creating a sales team from scratch and it's also enhancing your relationships. And then when they get to whatever it is that demo call that you do, you're powerfully serving those people. Now. You've really curated a lead from step by step. You've been resourceful in your approach, and you're just going to see astronomical results from that. And it's a matter of just dialing that in.
[00:29:29] Speaker A: Do you only engage with folks who, who have kind of come inbound to you in one where they liked post or checked out your profile, or kind of sent some kind of signal there? Or are you going into sales navigator and filtering based on criteria and stuff? You might be at a different. You are, definitely.
[00:29:46] Speaker B: I do both. Now. I was very anti doing that before because I bought into the organic only rhetoric and I thought that cold outreach is the worst thing in the world and cold outreach is the greatest thing in the world. It's the worst thing in the world. When you do it the wrong way, you do it the right way, it's amazing. And what that really means is you're not reaching out to someone to try to sell them on the spot within that hour or the same day. Right now, Michael, here's how my cold outreach goes. I just connected you. I don't even send you a message, I just connecting. If they connect, great. They're qualified in one way. By connecting I'm targeted with who I connect with and then I may engage with their content. Still not sending them any messages. Or if I'm feeling it, I may send them a message saying, hey, great post by the way. Good to connect with you. That's it. Let it go for a few days. But the goal here is you just have a ramp up period where you do that and then seven days later you now have a pool of people that didn't know you existed, have become familiar with your existence through your engagement of their content, through maybe a very simple message. After connecting that, you can now decide, hey, I'm just going to go for it, invite them to my we'll use demo and air quotes again. But whatever that is.
And now your connection rates for that person going to step deeper with you should be far deeper. And that changes cold outreach in so many ways. And it's very uninvasive.
[00:31:19] Speaker A: Not to mention the fact that when you're connected and in a DM conversation with someone, they are more likely to see your content. So it's like this reinforcing kind of cycle that happens.
[00:31:31] Speaker B: Yeah, and it's a myth for someone to say sales is only getting harder and harder. That's incorrect. Sales is getting easier and easier because you can connect with more people. Old school selling was phone calls or driving to the office somewhere. Right. Getting them cold, that's hard. I can't imagine selling in that environment. That's really, that means you got to hang out at bars, networking events and so on. I know people still do that, but my point is, selling has actually become easier. People just get lost in the people process of selling because they think that the selling, they lead with selling rather than leading with the conversation, rather than leading with familiarity, rather than leading with warmth. If you just jump to the sale, no wonder you hate sales outreach. And no wonder you hate to receive sales outreach. You're just not in that mind state. But think about the times where you've bought from someone before where maybe you weren't even thinking about buying from them in the first place, but you got more and more familiar with them, their product, their solution, how it ties to what it is that you want to achieve. And then you ultimately buy. Like reflect on that, replicate that process.
The more warmth you create, the better it is and you can create it faster if you're not just posting and waiting, but if you're posting and engaging.
[00:32:48] Speaker A: I think this is so important because especially technical founders love you. Technical founders, but you have like this allergic reaction to receiving cold email and cold DM's, and that's cool. Maybe what needs to happen then for you to be cool with sales motion that you're comfortable with is adapting how you sell to align more with how you like to be sold. I think that's the key is the style or the motion that we have for creating leads or creating future customers needs to be in alignment with how we are in our vibe and our brand, whether that's a personal brand or a company brand.
I totally think there's a whole bunch of ways to do this, some super aggressive, some super passive. It's got a kind of vibe, if you will, according to my 13 year old daughter, with like, with who you are and how you want to operate. So there's no single right way. Like Ryan Musselman's way is not the only way, right? My way is not the only way. It has to be. Has to sound good. Coming out of your mouth is like the gist.
Yeah. Cool. Okay, so we're, we're creating organic content that then feeds a profile, views, comments, opportunities for DM's and for people who've interacted with your stuff. And using something like sales navigator to create a list of ideal clients who haven't yet interacted with your stuff, engage with them. They're more likely to see your stuff feeds this virtual cycle virtuous cycle LinkedIn as a platform what are you most excited about as we record this on July 10? And what are you most scared about.
[00:34:24] Speaker B: When it comes to LinkedIn as a platform? I'm most excited about their embracing of video.
[00:34:31] Speaker A: Now.
[00:34:32] Speaker B: I hope that they have a different way of handling video compared to what you see on the tick tocks of the world and so on. I don't know what that is per se, or how to describe that yet, but what I hope they do their best to defend against is just basically the migration of videos that are popular on one platform coming over to another for the sake of entertainment value versus the natural backdrop of professional education, learning, growth and development that is inherent on LinkedIn. I'm not saying that entertainment value doesn't have value in and of itself, but I just hope it just doesn't become another replication of what's working somewhere else. I'd love to see how it can be deeply connected to service offerings of that person and their profile, how can they tie it back and add a new level of commerce or a new level of education?
I'd love to see some form of that, just a little bit more advanced thinking.
I'd love it if they would test the waters with this and be a creator first platform that leans into new and creative ways to monetize video or leverage video to monetize a service.
So that's my hope. Where I get concerned with LinkedIn is that they're distracted. They created LinkedIn games, which I don't think anyone was asking for. They took away pinned comments from creators, which I think people loved, and they said people didn't. They've overinvested my opinion into AI. Getting those badges. I understand getting those community badges by responding to those collaborative AI articles is a thing, but man, the human nature of that, it's not connecting people, it's connecting person to AI. Maybe there's a different metagame that they're playing there, but the idea of connecting is lost in translation of that. That's really someone disconnecting from people to go to respond to an AI generated article in order to showcase their expertise. But it turns in this free for all where the actual lesson is lost. People are going there just to engage to get their badge, not going there to engage to connect. Or we'll use LinkedIn as a language to link together.
So it's being lost. And I think those initiatives like creating games, that is not the target audience for this platform. LinkedIn games, removing comments. Sometimes I think they lean into. They don't lean enough into their power user, which would be you and me who are selling on this platform, creating on this platform, leveraging this platform. If they did pin comments would still be here. I think there'd be better commerce plays for us as service providers.
YouTube did this magically. When they started leaning into better livestream monetization, they started adding all these different ways in the platform for the creator to monetize. I feel that they. If anyone understands creator first, it's YouTube. A bit of a bias. I did work there. But my point is they are leaning into the creator's ability to create. So important.
[00:37:50] Speaker A: I don't, I don't have. I totally agree with what you said. I think video is so important and I.
I don't have this fully fleshed out yet, so maybe we can kind of wrap on it a little bit. Yeah, I think there is this combination of YouTube and LinkedIn that is ultimate selling machine. Maybe for the next couple of years, probably right like, I think LinkedIn probably has a lifespan as kind of the platform. I think it's definitely that place right now in the B two B environment. Can't imagine it being something else. But all these things have life cycles.
It has one. I think YouTube offers the opportunity for so much more deep engagement because things are a little more persistent, a little longer lasting. They're longer. You can only post video up to, what is it, 15 minutes on LinkedIn.
But I think that this is my playbook for both my coaching business and for Kastos, is LinkedIn as a place to network and spread the word and post content. But all of that content leads back to YouTube. That's the playbook these days.
I think it's so obvious where LinkedIn is the amplification mechanism to drive people to the platform that still is a platform and has an algorithm and has opportunity for discovery, but is the place where that deep familiarity and rapport building and trust can happen, which is the highest fidelity kind of mechanism, which is video.
[00:39:24] Speaker B: Yeah, I agree. Video is always going to be the most powerful medium when it's not directly in person, because you're making eye contact, you're seeing the face, you're hearing the voice, everything from inflection, deflection, all of those things can be controlled. And it's just that human element that will never ever go away, no matter what. In the same way we sell, by connecting and breeding, familiarity is the same way people are always going to connect with you. The relationship factor will never not be the and only factor, or at least the most dominant factor in this video helps you deliver that at scale. That's why it's easier to sell. You can sell through video. Social selling is not some kind of niche thing anymore. It's the new way. Just like it the old way was going door to door, call to call, office to office, and now it's just been reinvented. It's still door to door call to call, office to office. It's just reinvented at scale so it's faster and easier through social media. And when we understand that concept, start planning our marketing activities to adjust to that.
[00:40:35] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Love it. Love it. Ryan, as we wrap up, like maybe, what is one thing that you would want to leave folks who are playing around with LinkedIn? What would you leave someone with? Say, like, hey, let's get serious about this. Here's how you go.
[00:40:52] Speaker B: Yeah, I would go all in and here's why we talked about social properties here. There's any number of social properties from TikTok to x to LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube and so on. But social selling, the art of selling in any capacity or any industry, lean in to the platform. I'm not an advocate for LinkedIn only, but what I'm saying is master one platform. Understand how to connect with people at scale throughout your day, so much so that it helps you accomplish whatever strategic initiative you're after. Probably something relative to revenue or demos booked and so on. But do that on LinkedIn. Connect with people in the messages, post content, do it for six months and start being intentional with it. I'm going to contact ten people per day and it may just mean you're connecting with them and you're not messaging them for another three days. Whatever that breakdown and partition looks like for you, set the goal to say I'm going to master one platform and make it a sales channel. The end result is that it becomes a sales channel for you and from there the next KPI is then if it's a sales channel, how do I make it a meaningful sales channel or more meaningful sales channel? And you can expand your KPI's accordingly.
And then you can take all of those learnings and go master it, or hire someone else to master it on another platform for you. Just start planning those digital footprints, but really sit down and say, I'm going to master this and forward from that.
All I can tell someone is that's what I did. I had a wonderful corporate career, worked at Google, led a couple of exits, managed large teams, been an executive in the content space for a long time. And when I left the corporate world, I focused on one thing, mastering LinkedIn. Didn't have an offer, didn't have all of these different things figured out. There's far less figured out then than there is now. But it worked. Content and messaging, so simple, so boring, but it works. Master it.
[00:42:59] Speaker A: Love it, love it. Ryan will include links to kind of your LinkedIn profile and other things in the description below. Thanks so much for coming on, man. This is really great.
[00:43:09] Speaker B: Thanks for having me, man. Excited for your success and what you've all been up to. So looking forward to seeing where we go and we got to have a revisit episode twelve months later.
[00:43:18] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:43:18] Speaker B: Part two part two.
[00:43:19] Speaker A: Love it.
