Last week, we covered part one of my LinkedIn masterclass, seven reasons why every B2B business owner and leader needs to add creator mode to your profile. This week, we're getting to part two: prospecting - how to get 10 to 20 real leads or more from LinkedIn every single month. Let's jump into it.

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The Ultimate 97 Point Marketing Audit Checklist

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TRANSCRIPT

Brian Webb:

This is the Learn More Earn More Business Growth Podcast.

Brian Webb:

Hey everyone. Welcome to the show. I'm your host, Brian Webb. This podcast is designed to be your number one premier place to learn the framework, secrets, and growth hacks to grow and scale your business smarter and faster. While you're working on pursuing your dreams and growing your business, I'll be here to help you make better decisions and avoid costly pitfalls and expensive mistakes along the way. Let's go ahead and jump into today's episode.

Hey everyone. Welcome back. Last week, part one of my LinkedIn masterclass. This week, part two. I'm going to teach you how to prospect like a pro. Next week, I'm going to teach you how to make a sales funnel that starts with LinkedIn. I would say that the vast majority of people who are on LinkedIn, business owners, and business leaders, you know that you should be on the platform. You know that it's where your prospects are. And you're doing stuff. Maybe you're posting here and there and you're hitting the like button from time to time, but you're not getting any leads from it.

If you haven't done so yet, go back and listen to last week's episode, where I teach you how to turn on creator mode and the seven reasons why you should. This week, we're going to talk about prospecting. And by the way, I'm sensitive to the fact that this is an audio platform. So if you want to see what I'm going to teach here today, go check out the Learn More Earn More newsletter on LinkedIn. And if I gave you the URL to the newsletter, you would never find it. So instead, just go to: learnmoreearnmorenewsletter.com. It will redirect you. You can go there and see the scripts of everything I talk about. Basically, you can have the framework right in front of you.

And if you're not subscribed, go ahead and hit that subscribe button. That way, you'll get notified every time I launch a new article, which is at least weekly, by the way. And every single one of them are to help you grow your business smarter and faster. Let's get to it. Here is how you prospect properly on LinkedIn.

Step number one, you've got to know who your ideal customer avatar is or who they are. And we're not going to even talk about that today because I've already covered it. In fact, if you go back to the podcast to episode number seven, I basically teach you how to create the perfect ideal customer avatar to grow your business. So go check that out. And once you learn how to do it, go check out my free tool at whatboxdigital.com/avatar. There's a form right there. You walk through all the questions. It will email you the results. It's a great tool, and it's free your favorite price. But step one, you've got to know who you're targeting.

Step two, you need a sales navigator account. That's an upgraded version of LinkedIn. It's a completely separate platform. Obviously, it's connected to LinkedIn, but it's a completely separate platform. You've got to have a sales navigator account. So now that you know who your ICA, your ideal customer avatar is or who they are, and now that you have your sales navigator account, we got to go find them. We got to go get them. You're going to go perform a search for your ideal customer avatar. And sales navigator lets you do that. It's absolute bliss if you're trying to grow your business on LinkedIn.

The beginning of your search might start with manufacturers. It might start with law firms. It might start with medical practices. You start by choosing whom you want to target. And all of the filtering parameters that you need are right there. You can filter by connection level; first-degree connection, second, or third. You can geographically target. Maybe you want to target just Texas; maybe Michigan; maybe the United States; maybe worldwide. You can target based on years of experience, company headcount, their role, or their job titles; spotlights, meaning changed jobs in the last 90 days, or maybe they were mentioned in the news in the last 30 days. Or a good one, posted on LinkedIn in the past 30 days.

And again, if you go to learn moreearnmorenewsletter.com, I'll include some screenshots so that you can see that in case you don't yet have your own sales navigator account. So, we've identified our ideal customer avatar. You've got your sales navigator account set up. And you're going after one of your ICAs, ideal customers, on sales navigator.

Step three, you're going to pick 10 to 20 of the people in that search per day, Monday through Friday, and you're going to go and engage with their profile. You're not sending a connection request. You're just going to go and view their profile, for example. You're going to go and like a recent post. Comment thoughtfully on a recent post. Basically, you're just showing up before you even send that connection request out, to begin with. Now, step three can really be steps three, four, and five, meaning you could just go do it once.

The longer you take, the more conversions you're going to get when you're trying to connect with people. But if you're that business owner, that business leader, that wants the baby without the labor pains, go ahead and just do it one time. Your effectiveness will probably go down, but just do your own testing as you go. Remember, everything I share with you is a framework from which you have to go and make it your own and do your own testing because every market is different. And every user on LinkedIn is different. For example, if you've got 35,000 followers and the world sees you as a celebrity, it's not going to take that long for you to connect. If you're the guy who's just so busy working in his business or her business, and you rarely show up, well, then you're a complete stranger. It's going to take you a little longer for people to warm up to you.

Next step, send a connection request to those people that you've been engaging their profile. And I'm going to give you the script. This is what I use. Make it your own. And be conversational. Here's mine. "Hey," first name. "I'm a B2B marketer here in the Houston area. I enjoy connecting with..." fill in the blank; meaning the type of business owners and leaders that you want to go connect with. "But don't worry. I'm not here to pitch or sell you anything today. Hopefully, we will cross paths here on LinkedIn from time to time, Brian." I cannot say this loudly enough. Do not connect then pitch. This is the pandemic that absolutely plagues LinkedIn.

When you do this, what you're, in essence, inadvertently doing is you're showing up, you're connecting, you're shaking their hand by connecting with them. And then you're saying, "Give me your money." Now, the irony is we should all intuitively know that that's not how you do business, especially on LinkedIn, because we hate it when someone does that to us. Don't do that. Don't connect and then pitch.

Step five, and this is the one that you're probably not going to like because it's not as scalable. Okay. I'll get back to the podcast in just a minute. But let's face it, most marketing doesn't work. Did you know that most business owners and leaders are making the same mistakes over and over again? Like so many others, you're probably tired of relying on hope, which is a failed marketing system. You know what that is. That's when you're spending valuable time and money on marketing, and then you hope it works. You've probably thrown tons of money towards marketing mistakes and failures. You wish you could get all that money back, but you can't.

When you don't have a reliable system for generating leads and acquiring new customers, then you're doomed to exclusively rely on the loyalty of your existing customers and word of mouth. But it doesn't have to be that way. I want to give you a resource for free. You heard me right: free.

I've put together the ultimate 97-point marketing audit checklist, which will allow you to assess and diagnose what is and is not working in your marketing. And it will only take you about 10 to 15 minutes. Think of it like an MRI for your marketing, without the expensive medical bills to follow. And to get this free marketing checklist delivered right to your email inbox, just go to getmymarketingchecklist.com. Provide your info, and we'll get it out to you right away. And again, it's totally free.

I'd actually encourage you to walk through the checklist with your team and honestly discuss and evaluate every item on the list. It will be the best 10 minutes you've invested into the growth engine of your business in a long, long time. Again, don't waste another day or another dollar on failing hope marketing strategies that do not work. If you want to grow and scale your business smarter and faster and with fewer mistakes, you're in the right place. Again, totally free. Simply go to getmymarketingchecklist.com right now. Let's fix what's broken in your marketing today.

Step five, and this is the one that you're probably not going to like because it's not as scalable. Every single person that accepts your connect request, get on the LinkedIn mobile app, go to messages, click on that little microphone and send them a voice message. A sincere, heartfelt, warm voice message. Now, I'm going to give you a script. But remember, make this your own. You don't have to do it like me, but make a variation of this that works best for you and your industry sector.

Here's what I say: "Hey," first name. "I am thrilled to be connected with you here on LinkedIn. I really enjoy connecting with business leaders, just like you. I just wanted to reach out and say hello in my own voice. As you can see on my profile, my name's Brian. I'm the CEO here at Whatbox Digital and the fractional CMO for several B2B companies. My team and I help business owners and leaders create lead generation systems that actually work for growing their businesses smarter and faster.

But again, great news, nothing to pitch or sell today. I just wanted to give you a friendly hello. Please reach out anytime, if there's anything I can do for you. And I hope we'll continue to bump into each other from time to time, here on LinkedIn. So, I've created some awareness. This person, he or she, knows what I do. I ask for nothing, not a single thing.

Let's move on to the next step, step six. Wait a day or two. Send them something valuable. Help them. Give before you ask or take. In the world of marketing, we call this a lead magnet. But give them some tools, some assets, some resource that really will be helpful for them. It could be a framework that helps you to make money or save money. Maybe it's a checklist that helps you to avoid pitfalls in business. A resource that we created here at Whatbox Digital is our Ultimate B2B 97-Point Marketing Audit Checklist.

It's a 36-page, 97-point marketing checklist that will absolutely help you to be a better business owner, and a better business leader. It'll help you to conquer marketing. I'm sure you have resources that you can use in your business, but you want to show up with generosity. Not with your hand out, but with something in your hand to give.

On to step seven, which by the way is going to feel a whole lot like step number six. You're going to wait a day or two. You're going to give them another resource: another tool, another framework, another checklist. Be creative. Go through all the assets that you have in your business that help you to be successful and share those resources with the people that you're trying to connect with. And then, I'll repeat those steps one or two more times. This has happened over the course of, let's call it, a week or so.

And by the way, when you give that resource, don't literally give it to them. Put it behind a form on a webpage or a landing page where they have to go and give their information to get it. For example, I would not just forward some news article online. If I'm going to give you that 97-point checklist, you're going to go to a landing page, and you're going to enter your name and your email address.

And if I give you additional tools and resources, they're all going to be behind a form and a landing page where you have to opt in to get that resource. And remember, next week we'll be talking about a sales funnel. And what I just told you is a bit of a teaser for part three, so make sure you're tuned in next week.

And then, based on how they have or have not engaged with me over this process of a week or two, I send them one more message. And in that message, I basically say, "Hey, I hope you've been getting some value out of these resources that I've been sharing with you. As I told you, I do..." A, B, and C. Example in my case, at Whatbox Digital, "we provide consulting services and frameworks for lead generation for B2B companies. Does it make sense to talk about what that looks like in your business?" And remember, most people will never engage with you. Most people will never work with you. Nothing you can say and nothing you can do. This is just the law of sales and marketing.

But I'm telling you, if you do these things I just taught you, you can generate five, 10, 15, 20 leads a month. And again, that spectrum can vary because how many connections do you have? How much authority do you have online? How much are you showing up on LinkedIn when you're not prospecting, or posting valuable content?

This podcast is an example. The newsletter is an example. I see someone that's posting that they're hiring. I share that with my audience. I'm demonstrating generosity. And by the way, not faking it either. And that right there might be the most valuable tip that I just shared with you today. Most people are faking it. Most people are showing up and being just generous enough to ask you for your money. So, you can go down that path, and you can fake it. And you can continue to waste your time on LinkedIn or any other social media platform. Or you can show up in a genuine and authentic way where you're trying to make a contribution to the universe. You genuinely want to help people overcome their challenges and find and pursue and achieve their dreams. But the bad news is if you're faking it, we all know it.

So don't do it. Show up daily. Do your best. Give value. Stop pitching. That's how you get leads. Isn't it ironic? It's when you stop pitching that you'll start generating more opportunities for you and your business. And check this out. Believe it or not, the vast majority of everything that I've spoken to you about today, last week, and next week, it can be outsourced.

As you can tell by everything I've shared, this can be a simple program; this can be robust. A proposal would have to be created. But 1500 bucks to two grand on the low end, up to three or $4,000 on the high end? If you want to get the benefit out of LinkedIn, but you're never going to have the time to do it, we can get you taken care of. Just text the word "LinkedIn" to 832-324-2432. 832-324-2432. Text the word "LinkedIn." We can start a conversation.

That's it for this week. I think I've talked about the marketing audit checklist three or four times. Plus, the promotion is pushing that out to you guys. You've got to go get it. Go to getmymarketingchecklist.com and get your copy. I promise you, it'll be the best 15 to 20 minutes that you spend with your team. And don't forget about next week. Come back, subscribe. Part three of my LinkedIn masterclass: How to Make a Sales Funnel That Starts with LinkedIn. Thanks for being here. I'll see you on the next episode.

Thanks for joining me today and listening to this episode of the Learn More Earn More Business Growth Podcast. We can be found on all the major platforms like Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher, and even Amazon Music. I genuinely hope you enjoyed today's episode. And if you did, I'd be honored if you'd subscribe to the show and leave us a rating and an honest review.

I'd love to connect with you on Instagram. You can find me at @BrianWebb. And the show's sponsor, Whatbox Digital, can be found at, as you might guess, @WhatboxDigital. You can also find me and Whatbox Digital on Facebook and LinkedIn with the links in the show notes. This will allow you to stay up to date and never miss out on exciting new announcements, events, special offers, and opportunities. And you'll be in the know when we drop a new episode of the Learn More Earn More Business Growth Podcast. And if you'd like to send me a DM on Instagram to say hello, or share your thoughts on how we can make this podcast even better for you, I'd love to hear from you. Again, thanks for listening. Let's go and grow together. I'll see you on the next episode.

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DESCRIPTION

The Learn More Earn More Business Growth Podcast is sponsored by Whatbox Digital, a marketing and consulting agency in the Greater Houston Metroplex. This podcast is your premier place to learn the frameworks, secrets, and growth hacks to grow and scale your business and revenue smarter and faster.

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