How to Master LinkedIn for Business Development – In Just 7 Minutes with Brynne Tillman

Resources/Links:

• Brynne Tillman created a presentation for you:View it Here:
  https://ptdrv.linkedin.com/fxs6f75

Summary

Brynne Tillman, known as the LinkedIn Whisperer is the CEO of Social Sales Link and author of The LinkedIn Sales Playbook.

In this episode, Brynne shares how she guides professionals to establish a thought leader and subject matter expert brand, find and engage the right targeted market, and leverage online platforms to attract, teach and engage targeted markets.

Check out these episode highlights:

• 01:28 – Brynne’s ideal client: Anyone who is selling to B2B and that their prospects are hanging out on LinkedIn.
• 01:42– Problem she helps solve: Anyone who’s responsible for bringing in new business, struggle with the very top of the pipeline. They really have a hard time scheduling that very first sales conversation. And either they’re coming across too pitchy or they’re afraid to make phone calls or reach out. And they freeze, “if I could just be in front of more people, I would kill it”. And so that’s what we do.
• 02:40 – Typical symptoms that clients do before reaching out to Brynne: The bottom line is that you’re not in front of enough targeted buyers in a high credibility way. In a way that they’re excited to take your call and really interested in learning from you.
• 03:56 – Common mistakes people make when trying to solve that problem: It’s connect and pitch, or connect and ignore, or not connect at all
• 04:45 – Brynne’s Valuable Free Action(VFA):” Identify who your targeted buyers are by company, by title, by industry, and looking, searching for them using LinkedIn’s magic, second-degree filter. That allows us to see who in our network is connected to us through a shared person or shared connection.”
• 06:54 – Brynne’s Valuable Free Resource(VFR): Calendly, you can have people schedule calls with you.
• 07:57 – Q: “What do I do about, ‘if I’m not a blogger with content?'” A: Learn how to curate content. Content in your industry that your buyers would be interested in, read through it and add your own two cents and just engage on other people’s stuff.

Tweetable Takeaways from this Episode:

“Learn how to curate content in your industry that your buyers would be interested in, read through it and add your own two cents and just engage on other people's stuff.” -@brynnetillman Share on X

Transcript
(Note, this was transcribed using a transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast)

Tom Poland 0:09
Hello everyone, and a very warm welcome to another edition of Marketing The Invisible. I’m Tom Poland, beaming out to you from Little Castaways Beach in Queensland, Australia. Joined today by Brynne Tillman. Brynne, a very warm Australian good day. Welcome to the show. Where are you hanging out?

Brynne Tillman 0:24
I am hanging out in the suburbs of Philadelphia, USA.

Tom Poland0:28
Philly. Fantastic. Thank you for that, Geographical references are locked in. For those of you who don’t know Brynne, she’s the LinkedIn Whisperer, and LinkedIn is an absolute freakin goldmine. So, this is going to be a highly valuable seven-minute interview. She’s also CEO of the Social Sales Link and author of The LinkedIn Sales Playbook. So, Brynn actually wrote the book on LinkedIn, literally, just pretty cool. She and her team help professionals responsible for business development schedule more sales conversations with targeted buyers. So Brynne, you are very, very welcome to the show because pretty much everyone listening to this is a professional wanting to develop business and they’re probably scratching their head as to how exactly to mine that gold in the gold mine that is LinkedIn. So, our title is, “How to Master LinkedIn for Business Development”. We’re going to do that in just seven minutes. Brynne, your time starts now. Question number one, who is your ideal client?

Brynne Tillman 1:28
My ideal client is anyone who is selling to B2B and that their prospects are hanging out on LinkedIn because we help them find them.

Tom Poland 1:38
Perfect. And question number two, what’s the problem you solve for them?

Brynne Tillman 1:42

The problem I solve is most sales professionals, and business development folks, and entrepreneurs, and anyone who’s responsible for bringing in new business struggle with the very top of the pipeline.

They really have a hard time scheduling that very first sales conversation. And either they’re coming across too pitchy or they’re afraid to make phone calls or reach out. And they freeze and say, “If I could just be in front of more people, I would kill it”. And so that’s what we do.

Tom Poland 2:16
So, question number three, six minutes left, we’ve got this professional who’s wanting to generate more prospect, more sales, more clients, and they’re going to be experiencing some symptoms in their life, stress, anxiety, etc. What would you say are some of the typical symptoms, if someone’s listening to this, in other words, how would they know they need what you’ve got and they need to listen up hard?

Brynne Tillman 2:40

The bottom line is that you’re not in front of enough targeted buyers in a high credibility way. In a way that they’re excited to take your call and really interested in learning from you.

Tom Poland 2:55
So, there are two things you said there, one, and I want people, just to highlight for folks, targeted, I think you said high quality or high credibility way,

Brynne Tillman3:05
High credibility. So, if you were coming into their ecosystem already vetted by someone into your network, right? And we are talking about social proximity, we could talk about this in leveraging your common connections. But you know, a lot of times, even if we do get on the call or with the right person, you’ve come in with no credibility or low credibility, and so, yeah. So, we fix that.

Tom Poland 3:30
So, this leads us nicely into question number four. Four minutes, 45 seconds left. So, some of the common mistakes, please, that people make when they’re trying to solve their prospecting problem. You’ve mentioned a couple already, perhaps that they aren’t targeting the right people or if they are targeting the right people, they’re not doing so in an environment that establishes their credibility. So, what are the common mistakes that people make when they’re trying to solve this problem before they find out about your solution?

Brynne Tillman 3:56
Yeah. So, the first thing they do is connect and pitch, big mistake, right? It’s like nobody wants to be sold. It’s like meeting someone at a bar and asking them to marry you, right? You don’t want to do that. The other is connect and ignore. So, you don’t know what to say. So, I’ve connected with all the right people but I’m not starting a conversation. And so those are the two biggest mistakes. And then not connect at all would be number three.

Tom Poland 4:23
Right. So, it’s connect and pitch, or connect and ignore, or not connect at all. Three big mistakes. Thank you. Just under, well, three minutes, 45 seconds left. So, we have plenty of time. It’s a whole world of time there. Question number five, what’s one valuable free action that a listener or viewer could take that’s not going to solve the whole problem, they probably need Social Sales Link for that, but it might take them a step in the right direction?

Brynne Tillman 4:45

This is my favorite tip and I can’t wait to share this and it’s all around leveraging social proximity. That is identifying who your targeted buyers are by company, by title, by industry, and looking, searching for them using LinkedIn’s magic, second-degree filter.

That allows us to see who in our network is connected to us through a shared person, or shared connection. We can do this in many different ways. But once we’ve identified who we want to know and who we know that knows them, we can make some decisions. We can reach out and ask for one of three things. A referral, if it’s a client or someone that has experienced us.

An introduction, if it’s a valuable networking partner that knows you maybe didn’t experience you or hire you, but by making an introduction they can vouch for you as a human and as a good person. And third is the permission to name drop. So, if you notice that someone in your network knows 12 people that you want to get in front of and you have a conversation with them and they say, “Tom, you know 12 people that I am dying to get in front of because they run these names by you”, and we have this whole conversation. And of the 12 you know eight, and you think these eight would be great for me to talk to.

Now I could never perceive you, “Could you introduce me to eight people?” That’s just, and it’s a ridiculous amount of work that I put on someone. But I can say, “Hey Tom, of these eight, is there anyone in here you feel comfortable introducing me to?” And maybe you’ll pick one or two. Now I have six left. What do I do with them? I say, “Tom, would it be okay if I reach out to them directly”, mentioned we had this conversation and then you thought it made sense for me to talk to them. And you would say, “Absolutely”. And so that’s how we fill our pipeline at a high level of credibility, really quickly, and convert these targeted buyers into phonecalls.

Tom Poland 6:45
Golden there. Thank you. Just out of 90 seconds left. Question number six, one valuable free resource that we could direct people to that’s going to help them even more.

Brynne Tillman 6:54
My favorite is Calendly, it’s a premium, but you do get one for free. And you can have people schedule calls with you. I can’t live without it. I would pay it before I pay my water bill. And I pay $10 a month. That’s nothing even when you do pay, but you can get one link that connects to your calendar and people can click through and schedule.

Tom Poland 7:16
Perfect. Thank you. And I think you have a nominated landing page as well for another resource. I think it’s ptdrv.linkedin.com/, anyway, we’ll post that. We’ll post it.

Brynne Tillman 7:29
Yeah. So that’s free resources. That’s through sales navigators point drive, and there are tons of resources in there.

Tom Poland 7:36
Fantastic. Well, we’ll post the link folks, you’ll have to go to leadsology.guru/podcast and look for this interview, the link will be there. Thank you very much. And wow, only 25 seconds left. What’s the one question I should have asked you but didn’t.

Brynne Tillman 7:50
The one question is, what do I do about if I’m not a blogger with content?

Tom Poland 7:55
And at 15 seconds, what’s the answer?

Brynne Tillman 7:57
So, learn how to curate content. Content in your industry that your buyers would be interested in, read through it and add your own two cents and just engage on other people’s stuff.

Tom Poland 8:09
Brynne, thanks so much.

Tom Poland 8:12
Thanks for checking out our Marketing The Invisible podcast. If you like what we’re doing here please head over to iTunes to subscribe, rate us, and leave us a review. It’s very much appreciated. And if you want to generate five fresh leads in just five hours then check out www.fivehourchallenge.com.