014: A Culture of Getting Results with LinkedIn and Video in the Sales Development Process with Jeremy Leveille

Outcome Studio Podcast - Marketing & B2B Technology Talk

Show highlights:

• 03:00 - Intro, Jeremy got interest in Sales and Marketing wanting to start in sports broadcasting, got internship, which turned into helping the sales team at the radio station. He gets success by being unique in his SDR persona, and in honor of his sports background he wears throwback sports jerseys. This has become part of his personal brand to be memorable to his prospects today.
• 06:30 - Jeremy regrets not focusing on business classes because the business acumen for sales is so important. Jeremy suggests knowing the basics of the industry, job titles, enterprise software, and what these things does for businesses as you are selling or marketing.
• 10:00 - Sales Development Representative world (SDR) and personalization in outreach. Not just for rapport but personalize to the persona and the job function. For example, build a list of your top 30 best customers, and then look at each of their top 3 competitors (that's 90 companies total. Now, you can tell a story about their specific landscape in the competitive space. Another example is that you can look at who YOUR target company sells to in order to go deeper.
• 15:00 - Tactically, we discuss how to manage volume and personalization. 5 minutes or less, get as much information as you can, but record them in your tools (Salesforce and sales engagement softwares). Example techniques, pointing two tactics at each other in the same account, or referencing job postings but then later using relevant marketing content.
• 24:00 - How to structure a Sales Development Representative team. Why we should think about inbound and outbound SDR reps.
• 25:00 - Why invest the time to go deeper and personalize up front to get prospect's attention? Because the data says it works better than blanket, blast email sends and unprepared cold calls. More blanket approach gets unsubscribes than replies, and the replies want to be taken off the list.
• 27:00 - LeadIQ's SDR and Marketing relationship is strong. LeadIQ has better social media presence than companies 10x their size, but it's the power of LinkedIn to build brand as part of strategy. LinkedIn as a lead generation tool and place to talk about the industry. Converting LinkedIn engagement from likes, profile views to meetings is NOT done in a sales-y way. It's not, "hey thanks for liking my post, now here's my product." It's content that's valuable and insightful for target buyers. It creates a natural, not-forced, organic transition. The LinkedIn content warms up the cold call to schedule the demo because the prospect has seen it.
• 33:00 - How video fits in the sales development rep process (for example, Wistia or Vidyard), using our advertising brain we can use "video views" the same way by seeing percentage of the video viewed.
• 43:00 - Data validates and shapes our tactics for prospecting content. Including, having fun on video to send to prospects. It CAN work for any industry, because we are all humans. We just have to humanize the process with the tools we have available.
• 51:00 - how Jeremy suggests getting onto LinkedIn, both for personal branding and helping your company. Crawl, walk, run social selling framework. Crawl: month 1 and 2, observe what is happening on LinkedIn in terms of the right content in your feed. Do this by connecting and following co-workers, partners, customers of your company, and industry thought leaders. If you sell to Chief Information Security officers (CIOs) follow them! Don't just connect, but connect and watch. When to connect? Wait until there is some type of two-way engagement. In the meantime, just follow them, which is different and less intrusive than connecting. Do you like a post? Actually click the like button!
• 55:00 - Walk: month 3 and 4, post industry content on LinkedIn. In the sales space, post Sales Hacker articles or HubSpot blog posts. If you sell to IT people, focus on CXO Talk or similar publications. Watch what your marketing team is doing for sharing content, and then put your own spin on it. Is your prospect and author of his or her own article? Share their post and TAG them. Your effort to build a coalition with your prospect will get rewarded sometimes.
• 58:00 - Run: months 5 and 6, start posting your own original content because you've been watching. You see what's been working. Now you're ready to formulate your own insights and opinions. When you share, be sure to say "I found this valuable for me because..." in any share or comment.
• 01:04:00 - Closing remarks, as you're prospecting in Sales Development Rep role, or in marketing and advertising, don't abuse the cell phone calls or the power of advertising to send something worth the prospect's time. A good rule of thumb: the meeting, email, InMail message, or and other interaction should provide so much insight that will help their jobs that the prospect might even pay for that information.