Transcript
Dave Bricker (00:05)
Want to expand your speaking and storytelling skills and grow your influence business? This is Speakipedia Media brought to you by speakepedia .com. I’m your host, Dave Bricker, bringing you straight talk, smart strategies, and amazing stories from visionary speakers and thought leaders. My guest is a profit attracting expert. She’s the founder of Profit GPS.
a social selling done for you marketing and training firm, specializing in rockstar personal branding and direct messaging targeted lead generation. She marries her marketing skills with her soul’s purpose to empower business professionals to live richly fulfilling lives. She helps countless small and medium sized businesses identify their strengths, recognize their weaknesses,
develop opportunities and banish stumbling blocks. Her Go for the Gold Sales Genius Mindset program guides her audiences on how to break through price objections. Please welcome professional speaker and LinkedIn marketing expert, Marilyn August.
Marilyn August (01:14)
thank you so much. It’s so much fun to be here.
Dave Bricker (01:18)
So Marilyn, let’s jump right into this topic of LinkedIn because this platform has so much potential and yet it seems hardly anyone knows how to use it well. And that’s going to tie into other aspects of today’s conversation. But let’s start with the basics. Why should people focus on LinkedIn?
Marilyn August (01:21)
Sure.
because they have no choice. There’s 850 million users, particularly if they’re B2B businesses. Where else you gonna go? Seriously. It isn’t a choice anymore these days, just like it’s not a choice to have a website. Would you be in the marketplace without a website?
I mean, it just, that’s an interesting question because there are still people who say, I don’t know anything about it. I never use it. Sure, if you wanna be invisible, but if you wanna book speaking engagements, let’s face it, you’re being checked out.
Dave Bricker (02:16)
Yeah, it is one of the places that people look. And what would you say? Because somebody may not really know the difference and somebody saying, well, I’m on Facebook. It’s got more people than that. I’m on Instagram. It’s got more people than that. And this is a very different platform, isn’t it?
Marilyn August (02:33)
Yes, Dave, I’m so glad you brought that up because LinkedIn, this is gonna be a radical statement. LinkedIn is not social media. digital marketers tend to group it with social media, but it’s not social media, it’s social selling. The big difference, most important difference is that it’s personal. So I like to tell my clients, likes never go to the bank.
So don’t tell me how many followers you have. Don’t tell me how many likes you have. All that is very fancy and very nice. But what are the results that you take to the bank? It’s one -to -one connections, one -to -one marketing. So I call LinkedIn social selling because it’s virtual to real relationships. And it’s the number one mistake.
that most people make because they’ve been taught that they’re all the same and they’re not all the same.
Dave Bricker (03:36)
And it’s interesting, I completely agree with you. I always say followers are not dollarers. It doesn’t…
Marilyn August (03:42)
That’s even better. That’s even better. I just say, likes don’t go to the bank.
Dave Bricker (03:47)
Right, which is actually maybe not quite as clever, but easier to understand and pronounce. So, so keep that one. But yes, everybody’s, they get that, that little dopamine hit when they get a like, somebody liked my post. So what did somebody engage with you? Did somebody join your program? go to your website. Did somebody take some action other than saying, I like this.
Marilyn August (04:00)
you
Exactly.
Dave Bricker (04:15)
which basically just trains the algorithm to send you more of the same kind of junk.
Marilyn August (04:22)
Yeah, and there are actually bots that like posts. So a like is pretty worthless. I hate to break the bubble, but it’s pretty worthless. And as is the illusion that because somebody saw your posts, they’re gonna hire you. I’ve been writing posts for longer than some people, too long. And the truth of the matter is I’ve never been hired because somebody saw them post and liked me.
So you’re right on track. It’s all something that unfortunately people have been sold without a lot of thought through it, by it or with it.
Dave Bricker (05:00)
Again, right in sync with you. And with your sales and marketing background, you’re well qualified to address many of the mistakes. Some of these mistakes have to do with not knowing the full capabilities of the platform and others. think a lot of them have to do with people not knowing how to sell regardless of what platform they’re on. So let’s cover the LinkedIn side of this first.
and start at the beginning. And I’m sure we could spend the whole session on this, but what goes into a good LinkedIn profile?
Marilyn August (05:36)
glad you started with the profile, Dave, because the number one mistake people make, and I’ve kept saying the number one mistake they have, I actually have a whole rubric and you can check my post that says stop stupid stuff, because there’s so much stupidity. I mean, I used to have a file of would you believe this, but now I call it stop stupid stuff. The entire system revolves around your profile, which is why it
fascinates me and frustrates me that even today I see profiles written in the third person as if they’re resumes. So there’s two biggies. One is I see resume style profiles telling me how great you are and what you’ve done in the past. And I have really bad news. gives, nobody cares what you’ve done in the past.
And the other style I see is the profiles written as an advertisement. This is me, this is what I can do for you. I am so great. And if I swear, if I see the words I love or I’m passionate about, or I care about, those words send me into outer space. It’s like a, what? I don’t care what you love. I care if you can solve my problem, my business problem. So.
There’s so many things that are critical about the profile. That’s why I call it your personal brand. A profile should operate like a 24 seven sales machine, highlighting you and your value proposition. And I go even deeper than that, putting the intangible into tangible words. One of the questions I was just talking to somebody this morning, and one of the questions I asked,
is of all the things that you could do in the entire world, why are you doing this? So it goes pretty deep into starting with the why, which is a very famous book. But a profile is a values clarification, a personal brand. And you can start above the fold with the image.
Dave, you can’t believe what I see in those photos. The basics. I mean, for goodness sake people, your photo’s there all the time. So I had one man, and I keep telling stories because you’re a storyteller, one man who had a family picture. That’s a very little tiny space in that, that circle there on your profile. And he has a photo of him and his daughter. Very appropriate on Facebook.
And when I said something to them, people get very put out by what they think they should do. And I said, well, you know, that’s not a professional photo on LinkedIn. And he said to me, yeah, but I like it. Well, how does that you and your daughter position yourself as a professional? So.
Dave Bricker (08:37)
Right, if your daughter is not your business partner, what is she doing there?
Marilyn August (08:42)
But he liked it. So what he liked was more important than what a prospect might see. in my trainings, I show a photo array flashing photos on the screen, photo images, headshots. And the purpose of it is to let people know that they make an instant decision.
about whether or not they wanna pursue to get to know this person, to even shake hands with them virtually. And then inevitably, I asked the question, which is the one person you would never do business with? And I put a ringer in there, you I thought I was really being smart, know, so sharp. I know which one the group’s gonna change. And I’ve done this training, well, you don’t know how many times I’ve done done a lot. And they always, always,
pick the one with the fancy background. They want a clean, simple, professional headshot. And it always surprises me because the guy’s wearing a suit, everything else is fine, but he has curtains behind him and they don’t like that. They won’t do business with them just based on the photo. So get a professional headshot. And I know that’s a long story.
Dave Bricker (09:53)
Yeah, that’s all right, but they’re swiping right on that photo. I think it works in a lot of different venues, different areas.
Marilyn August (09:55)
Bye.
Yes, so the photos, know, above the fold, think of it as a newspaper. And we’re a very visual society now. And can I say just one other thing about that free real estate at the top? Okay, I still see default, the LinkedIn default blank banner. And then I also see,
Dave Bricker (10:16)
Go ahead.
Marilyn August (10:26)
Well, I also have an array of those inconsistent branding. I see that what is on your website isn’t on your LinkedIn. So it’s a whole different look. there was a digital marketer, I think was my favorite. He was selling digital marketing and he had a default background. So inconsistencies, incongruent. I mean, that banner is brilliant.
free space. Use it well. If you’re a speaker, which I imagine a lot of people listening to this, the best thing you can do is have an image of you speaking other than talking about you speaking. If you’re a speaker. I had one of the people that I worked with
we took an array of his photos and blended them in from his speaking. So it showed him, it showed what he did rather than talking about what he did. And show don’t tell. And if you don’t have, if that isn’t, I’ve got lousy photos. If you don’t have a good photo, get a good photo or use what’s on your website. I often grab an image.
Dave Bricker (11:25)
So don’t tell.
Marilyn August (11:40)
and enhance it from the website because I do do the graphic backgrounds.
Dave Bricker (11:46)
Now you’ve brought up a couple of good points. One is this idea that you want to answer this question, why you? Why are you the person they want to hire? And there’s crossover here because if you’re speaking to a group of people you’ve never spoken to before, you have to answer that same question in the stories you tell because…
Marilyn August (11:47)
Should I? Go ahead.
Yes.
Dave Bricker (12:11)
Being a subject matter expert is cost of entry. Well, of course, you know about AI or DEI or whatever cluster of letters you happen to be talking about that day. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be here. But what is your unique perspective that we can’t get from anybody else? Because otherwise, we’re going to find somebody on the same topic who’s cheaper and tick that OSHA box. Right. So that’s a very important question to answer, no matter what it is that we are doing.
Marilyn August (12:42)
You know, it’s so fascinating that you would say that because, that there’s crossover because when I asked on one of my speaker groups, what’s your main way of getting business? How do you get your next gig? I’d say a good percentage of speakers said referrals. Okay, so picture this scenario, another story. You’re speaking, you are brilliant.
Dave Bricker (13:10)
Well, of course.
Marilyn August (13:10)
You deliver a great speech, of course they are. We knew that, we knew that going in there. And somebody in the audience says, I know a group that you need to talk to, I’m gonna make a referral. So that, and if you’re smart, you have a way to follow up with that person. And that person’s reputation is at stake when they make a referral.
We think people just hand out our names, they just don’t. So Sally tells George about you and George is the head of a big company that can hire you. What’s George gonna do? He’s not gonna call you up and say, hey, I want you to speak at our major convention and we’re gonna pay you $15 ,000. George is going to check you out. Just.
because Sally told him to. And where is he gonna check out? He’s gonna go to your website. Are you real? Is this person worth talking to? And he’s going to go to your LinkedIn profile. As I say, a skinny profile equals skinny results. I actually had this happen to me. Unfortunately, I made the referral before I looked at the guide’s profile.
Once I looked at his profile, I couldn’t refer him. How can somebody who writes profiles refer somebody that has a lousy profile? Well, it wasn’t for profile writing. It was to do something from one of my clients. I’m gonna trust my client to somebody who, I almost said jerk, to somebody who doesn’t present themselves well. Now just imagine you’re a speaker, a $20 ,000 a gig speaker.
or even a $10 ,000 gig speaker, and you’ve got nothing on your profile, or your profile reads like a resume. Come on, get real.
Dave Bricker (15:03)
Yeah, you bring up another important point. And that is so many people get, I see people get scammed like, well, how many gigs have you gotten from your website? Really? None? Well, you need a new website. Well, you’re not going to get a gig from your website. You’re not going to get a gig from your LinkedIn profile. I mean, I actually have, but that’s a freakish thing to have happen. I mean, okay, somebody.
Marilyn August (15:04)
Okay.
No, you’re not.
No, you’re not.
Thank
Dave Bricker (15:32)
long story, but once in a while, but don’t count on that happening. And you’re not going to get hired because of your social media. But when that referral happens, all of those channels are evidence that you are what you say you are, that you can deliver the transformation you claim to be able to deliver. And it’s really important to have that there. And at the same time, not expect that, OK, I’ve got a great profile. I’m going to sit back and.
Watch the inquiries roll in. It just doesn’t work that way.
Marilyn August (16:03)
You know, I call it a giant jigsaw puzzle, but think of your own buying habits. And then I want to tell you another story. We probably could trade stories all day, but think of your buying habits. I mean, I’ll tell a story on myself. In the olden days, and I can remember the olden days, if I wanted to try a new restaurant, I simply went in and tried it out. if I liked it, I might tell 10 people. If I hated it, I’d tell 15.
but I wouldn’t go back. Well, not too long ago, I found myself in the parking lot of a strip mall and I was looking at a new sushi restaurant, know, sushi raw fish. So I think, gee, I’d like some sushi, but wonder what this place is like. What did I do? I did what you do. I got my Google machine out and checked them out, read the reviews, got a lot of information about them, found out they had a very pleasant staff.
The food looked good, the reviews were good. I opened the door. Now think of yourself as selling intellectual property, which all of us are selling. I mean, I could see the photos of the sushi. That’s a product. You’re selling a service, no matter how you’ve productized them. So you’re going to get checked out a heck of a lot more.
then you used to get checked out before anybody will open the door. So if you want engagement, if you want the door open, or as I say, from virtual to real, you better have all those pieces of the puzzle in place and they revolve around your LinkedIn profile, no matter what other social media you have. If the profile’s lousy or all about you and how great you are, you’re not gonna get the gig.
I just have to tell you one other quick story because this illustrates what you said. I had a client I’m laughing about now. It wasn’t funny at the time. I did his profile. And of course I always ask about content because content, again, credibility, all the pieces, the jigsaw puzzle. And so he says, well, I have videos. do videos. do weekly videos. And you particularly, because you’re such a professional, Dave, you can understand this.
Now, no disparaging Italians, but some Italians tend to talk with their hands. So I looked at this guy’s videos and it was his face in the camera like this and it was all hands. Well, I made the mistake of suggesting to his ego that maybe he wasn’t getting gigs because his videos were lousy.
They were, obviously phone videos and they were him leaning into the camera lecturing with his hands. And what did he do? He blamed LinkedIn. He wasn’t getting hired because it was all LinkedIn’s fault. Not that he had lousy videos. So what you say about all the pieces of the puzzle, everything has to be of professional quality.
That’s one of my many, many stop stupid stuff stories. I have too many of
Dave Bricker (19:24)
And I love that though. I like the stories, but I also love the values. Yes, mediocrity is not going to attract anything but mediocrity and stuff that aspires to mediocrity and you know where it has to be to be there. So let’s talk about another thing. There’s the free LinkedIn account and there is the quote unquote professional account. Which one do we want and why? Or when?
Marilyn August (19:53)
Well, LinkedIn, since Microsoft bought LinkedIn, it’s gone like all the other free SaaS out there. You want free if you’re just gonna post a profile and not use LinkedIn to do lead gen. If you’re gonna use LinkedIn to do lead gen, the way I recommend. So this is so hard because…
The premium that LinkedIn offers, that premium subscription, in my opinion is worthless. It gives you very little for the value. And the sales navigator that LinkedIn offers is a little bit pricey. And if you’re not gonna use LinkedIn to do lead generation, in my opinion, it’s not worth it. Now, having said that,
Sales Navigator does two things very, very well. It’s really set up for enterprise businesses. LinkedIn is from both its advertising and everything else has really gone the way of wanting enterprise large companies. In fact, it’s integrated with Salesforce. And so that tells you what you need to know about the direction of who they want their customer to be, who they want their client to be. But having said that, Sales Navigator does
two things very well, it does sales intelligence. Meaning that if you’re selling your services or marking, let’s say you got that referral from George. Well, George isn’t the only decision maker. He may be more than one decision maker. What sales navigator does very well is it allows you to do what we used to call sales intelligence. It allows you to track
the other decision makers in the company. So I say there’s no gatekeepers on LinkedIn. So let’s say there’s five key players that are going to hire you for their conference, are going to be involved in the decision. You can save every one of those decision makers as a lead and track them and start communication with them. The money in LinkedIn, the money is in the mailbox. It’s not in the posting. That’s another myth that I debunked.
It’s direct messaging and those are the kind of campaigns I run are direct messaging campaigns. The second thing that Sales Navigator does better than anybody else is it has 10 filters. So for example, I’m doing a campaign right now for sales managers, sales executives, and a certain size company in a certain region because I keep my searches
to a reasonable number. I often ask clients if there’s not 5 ,000 prospects on LinkedIn, don’t bother with Sales Navigator. If you can’t go all over the country or internationally, I’m actually working with a speaker who wants to speak internationally. And so we can target, those 10 filters are gold as far as I’m concerned. It’s worth every penny of the fee that you pay because it’s so targeted.
You can target by how long they’ve worked at the company, by job title, by region. And so I can also, because I run the campaign, I can also craft the messaging. That’s the other key to this. I know you’re going to ask me about that. So I’ll be, I’ll wait till you ask. the key, yeah, the sales navigator part, really, if you’re not going to do a targeted campaign,
Dave Bricker (23:18)
And we’ll get there.
Marilyn August (23:29)
It’s not worth it, but if you are gonna do a targeted campaign, and I maintain that you can’t do these manually. Now remember, LinkedIn has a 400 invites a month limit. So I say that, Dave, because this is one of my hot buttons. Those advertisements you see that people are promising you three to 500 leads a month or two to 300 leads a month. They’re scams. The only way they can do that
is to spam in mail boxes. And do people hate that Dave?
Dave Bricker (24:04)
Yeah, and I think that’s the new big business is coaching coaches on how to coach coaches and finding leads for those people, right?
Marilyn August (24:12)
Yeah, people have always sold to the coaches, but this is out of control. Yeah, I see those ads. Always cracks me up when I see a LinkedIn. I’m a LinkedIn expert ad on Facebook. It’s because Facebook’s cheaper than LinkedIn. Then I go check out their profile. I don’t even get me started. But no, really, somebody’s promising you that many leads, first of all, as a speaker, if you need that many leads, there’s something crazy here.
And secondly, they can’t do it. LinkedIn doesn’t do what Facebook does. LinkedIn will shut you down and you don’t get a second chance. So be careful out there. I needed to say that. It’s my warrant. Be careful out
Dave Bricker (24:53)
Yeah, no, good for you. Call out this the scammers and spammers. I’m all for that. I think what those people do is they get an Apollo .io account or someplace where they can just download email lists and then they start selling leads and trying to turn that monthly subscription into a profit, whatever it is. And it turns out to be a racket. Everybody’s got the same leads. About 30 percent of those leads are going to bounce anyway.
Marilyn August (24:57)
Yeah.
Dave Bricker (25:22)
But that’s a whole other topic, but yeah, yeah, don’t buy leads. We have to generate leads, which comes back to what you’re.
Marilyn August (25:25)
Yeah, that’s another hot button.
That’s right.
Dave Bricker (25:35)
buying a couple of questions because you’ve already said that you’re really focused on the lead generation rather than the content posting side of things. But quickly, there’s LinkedIn newsletters and articles. So there’s this idea, how important is long form content? And then there’s organic content, paid content, ads. How can we best share our messages on LinkedIn or should we bother?
Marilyn August (25:44)
with this.
As far as the newsletter, the long form newsletter is something new to LinkedIn and like Microsoft does, know, when Microsoft always updates you, LinkedIn changes stuff without
doing user forums. I don’t see it as any different than gathering likes. So subscribers are nice. I do one every other week, why not? You might as well do what it’s right there. But I don’t see any real, no one’s reading my newsletter and saying, I gotta hire Marilyn. But I also do email. So once you develop content, use it.
So I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a long form, but here’s the thing, people don’t have attention spans these days. I used to write blogs, when I first started writing blogs, they were 1500 words. Today I write a post, if it’s 500 words, it’s too long. so catching attention in this noisy, noisy time, I’d say the shorter and to the point, there’s a guy that I’m following that writes very succinct,
two, three line tips that really, you know, drill down on one point of what he teaches. I use Canva very well to do interesting posts. So posts are different. It isn’t that you don’t do content. It’s just that you don’t have to do them five days a week. Or as I always tell clients, if you got nothing to say, say nothing, because people are being able to spot AI.
It’s not that I don’t use AI. I may use AI as an editor, but if you’re writing AI content or you’re buying the stuff that says we’ll do 45 posts for you in 60 minutes and you got no substance or nothing to say, people are beginning to see through that. They’re not stopping the scroll. the other, so content’s important, but substance is more important.
know, quality over quantity is what I say. And again, it’s part of the puzzle, but I don’t think it’s the whole story. And as far as paid advertising, LinkedIn’s not cheap. As I said, they’re going the enterprise business model. To me, advertising is your least effective way of generating clients, whether it’s on Facebook.
or on LinkedIn and why bother? I mean, why not post instead? But, and there’s a caveat, I’m gonna have to be real careful here, LinkedIn in its wisdom, and that was said sarcastically, created this crazy algorithm that changes without notice. And one of their theories is the more people that see your posts, the more they’ll show it to you, to show it to more people.
So I’m exploring some ways to get around the algorithm right now, but they also be careful out there. If they think that you’re deliberately trying to get around the algorithm, their little gremlins will find you. Just be careful out there. I won’t recommend anything until I check it out completely, but that’s why posting is effective and isn’t effective.
and tagging 100 people to look at your post, now that gets old real quick. So it’s partly, you know, is it worth it? It’s necessary. But again, when Microsoft messes with things, they don’t go and do a user forum and say, do you think we ought to do this? They just do it. I still maintain that Microsoft hasn’t found its identity yet. Part of it thinks it’s still a job board.
Dave Bricker (29:50)
Love that.
Marilyn August (29:51)
It’s kind of a dicey question because of the algorithm.
Dave Bricker (29:57)
If you’re just joining us, you’re tuned into Speakipedia Media for aspiring and professional speakers and thought leaders who want to make more money by changing hearts, minds and fortunes. My guest is speaker marketing strategist and LinkedIn expert Marilyn August. So let’s talk a bit about LinkedIn events Because Facebook has events, LinkedIn has events, but something that I…
discovered recently is if you create an article, if you write long form content, LinkedIn will email that content
I created an article about that content, including the registration link, and LinkedIn emailed that to 4 ,000 of my followers. That’s a pretty neat feature.
the people who follow me on LinkedIn all got the email.
And I didn’t realize I had 4 ,000 followers, but all of a sudden, because of that feature, that turns that into a mailing list.
Marilyn August (30:48)
Right.
Dave Bricker (30:59)
Now, we spoke earlier about people who don’t know how to sell. This is not a LinkedIn problem. This is just one of the places where it shows up. And I think we all get so many connection requests that sound like, you have a great profile. I’d love to connect. And of course, if you do, you get an immediate pitch. So where are people going wrong with marketing and selling in general?
Marilyn August (31:28)
In general, if you use the word selling or you try to sell on LinkedIn, psychologically, you’re ruining your brand. Let’s get the distinction between marketing and sales. LinkedIn is marketing. It’s virtual marketing. And for me, one -to -one meeting is always the goal for me with my clients.
My job is to get them a scheduled meeting. Once they get the meeting, it’s sales. Sales is transactional. It’s very different than marketing. Marketing is an invitation. So on LinkedIn, you’re offering an invitation to get to know and like you. In sales, you’re getting the trust. You’re building trust so that you can close the deal.
So that’s why I say that LinkedIn, I build pipelines and I do lead gen. I don’t close deals for people because that’s sales. So let’s get very clear. So the people that are spamming you and pitching you, you’re not gonna do business with them. Don’t do it. You ruin your brand. That’s a no -no. This is mother speaking. Don’t do it. Don’t sell on LinkedIn.
Dave Bricker (32:50)
No, but they’re all cluttering up my feed and my inbox and they’re ruining the platform. So I’m glad that folks like you are out there teaching people how to change that conversation from price to value.
Marilyn August (32:55)
Yes, thank you.
Mm -hmm.
Dave Bricker (33:06)
All of this, hi, buy hi, buy. This kind of stuff just doesn’t work. So let’s say that there’s someone you do want to connect with on LinkedIn. What are a few do’s and don’ts for that first contact message?
Marilyn August (33:21)
Well, the first, it’s just, the first contact message is critical. And if you’re doing this manually, the best thing to do is take a moment and look at their profile and find some reason or something they do that you like. So if you’re targeting a particular person, that let’s say you heard about, I’m gonna use George again. You heard about George.
and you got his name, but the person who said they’d make a referral hasn’t contacted George for you. So very wisely, you’re gonna contact George yourself. Take a look at the profile, take two minutes, find out a little something about George or quote something from his profile, but find something nice to say about George. In my LinkedIn tips and scripts, okay, this is a commercial, I have a free ebook.
And one of the messages that I screenshot in there was a person asking to connect because they had read the other person’s newsletter and they found something they liked. I read in your newsletter that. So make it personal, real and authentic. There’s no new news here and stroke the person a bit because that way you’ll get a…
Better reply because now Microsoft again made the place where you accept connection requests a separate window. So the person has to go in there and actually accept your request. So messaging is, it’s critical. And I’ve started using humor in my message, just a touch of humor.
You can put a story, and I’ve started doing this in my profiles, when I write profiles, into two or three sentences, because you only have 300 words.
So you don’t really want to use 300 words. But crafting the message, this is why I’m a done for you. It’s probably the most important part. I keep saying the most important part to everything, but crafting the message is what will get you a yes on the connection. And I’m finding that people really appreciate authentic marketing. And I know it’s a rubric, it’s a word that’s used, but I’ll give you an example.
I get a spreadsheet, I get a list of my connections, my new connections from the campaign I run. So let’s say I’ve connected over the month with 30 people and they haven’t interacted with me. They haven’t engaged. They’ve just accepted the connection request. The next step in my system is nurturing, which means they go into a email list. The very first email to those people are telling them how I met them.
and telling them to delete me if they don’t want to be bothered and promising them, which is true, that I don’t nag them and they won’t get an email from me every other day. I cannot tell you how many replies I get of how appreciative they are that they were told how they got on my list. And opt out is welcome. And I use funny words like if you hate being here.
or you don’t wanna be bothered or your mailbox. So I say what’s going on in the marketplace in the sales training that I now am a trainer. There’s a word for that, that’s like called the takeaway. And I take it away and I get great response. People stay and they really, they write me a note and say, thank you so much.
because there’s so much garbage out there right now.
Dave Bricker (37:07)
Well, one of the points that you bring up that’s really worth reinforcing is this idea of actually doing some research on a prospect instead of scraping them off a list. so an example is I’ll get a connection request. Hey, Dave, have you ever thought about publishing a book? I write them back like I’ve published 14 books. You are not doing your homework on your prospects. Please take me off your list. Now, maybe they don’t care because to them, it’s a numbers game.
Marilyn August (37:35)
Mm -hmm.
Dave Bricker (37:35)
But that’s just a terrible way to treat people. It’s kind of insulting. And if somebody were to reach out to me and say, hey, Dave, I see you’re really into sailing and this is something we have in common, or, hey, Dave, I know I love jazz guitar the way you do, or even on a personal note, all of a sudden we have a personal connection. And that comes from looking not just at their LinkedIn profile, but…
Hey, I want this person to hire me and to pay me five figures for a speaking gig. Is it worth it for me to take my time and look at their Facebook profile, look at their Instagram? What’s going on? Because if I can find that point of connection, they are going to say, OK, Dave wants to sell me something, which is fine. We’re all selling something. That’s all right. But he’s willing to make a little investment in the relationship and.
they’re going to feel much more willing to do that in return.
Marilyn August (38:34)
You know, that’s so true. One of my associates, man, I worked with for a while. He uses, he’s an alumni of his local, he’s connecting only with the people in his alumni association. So they have the commonality of the team that they both support and the school experience. So finding something in common, it’s great if you want to take the time to do the research.
Cause as speakers, often, I will ask how many gigs do you need a year? How many do you want a year? And if it’s an unreasonable, I had one newbie tell me she wanted 40 and I said, okay, bye. Cause I knew she didn’t know what she was doing. But as a speaker, if you have a reasonable number of gigs, the research isn’t that hard. We got the Google machine and also I have to say that when I’m running a campaign,
It’s a little more generic than that, but the second or third message is very personal.
Dave Bricker (39:37)
So Marilyn, there are so many topics we could dive into and I suspect at some point we will, but you offer a number of workshops on LinkedIn, on selling, talk a little bit about the programs and the services that you offer, who they’re for and the value your audiences receive. And include in that while I’m asking all of these compound questions, what is Profit GPS all about?
Marilyn August (40:05)
Profit GPS is, let’s start at the end. Profit GPS is exactly what it says. It’s your GPS to avoid the detours on the road to being more profitable. My goal in life is that you close more deals and you make more money. And so profit GPS is a training consulting done for you one step shop.
that you can laser through the noise out there and get the answers you need and the guidance you need in the form of a leading with LinkedIn. So I work 100 % with B2B professionals, service professionals. And I particularly like to work with people and companies that are selling their own intellectual property. In other words, not an insurance salesman.
or a mortgage broker, And my workshop is Lead with LinkedIn, which I do for small businesses, for small sales organizations, associations. I speak on leading with LinkedIn and on personal branding. My signature talk, Go for the Gold is on overcoming price objections because once you get
the person on a meeting, you gotta be able to sell them. And so it segues right into sales training and overcoming money objections. I work one -on -one with people. I’m very embedded in your business. I will not send you to a course you have to take to find out 20 hours of coursework to find out one answer to one question. It’s very personal.
I’m very fussy about who I work with because it’s very involved what I do. So I am a done for you. I’m basically, you hand off your getting the gig so that you can spend more time on stage. And that’s my goal is to be your back office and support you so that you’re spending more time on stage.
and also I’m getting on stage. So I love speaking, I love talking, you can see that, and helping people live a richly fulfilled life. That is ultimately what I’m looking for, and it takes money to do that. And I’d rather work with people who are making a difference in the world.
Dave Bricker (42:38)
And I believe you accomplish all of those goals. Where can our listeners discover more about you?
Marilyn August (42:45)
Well, obvious place is my LinkedIn profile, Marilyn August and profitgps .com. My email is Marilyn @ profitgps .com. Everything is under one umbrella. So the best place to get me is on LinkedIn. I’d love to have you reach out and tell me if I did a good job today or not. And also, I have the…
a complimentary ebook, LinkedIn tips and scripts. It’s short, it’s to the point. And if you want that, all you have to do is ask. No strings attached.
Dave Bricker (43:20)
Marilyn, I think that’s fantastic. I really appreciate you being my guest today.
Marilyn August (43:26)
Thank you.
Dave Bricker (43:29)
I’m Dave Bricker, inviting you to explore the world’s most comprehensive resource for speakers and storytellers at www .speakipedia .com. If you’re watching this on social media video, please love, subscribe, and share your comments. And if you’re listening to the podcast, keep your hands on the wheel, stay safe, and I’ll see you on the next episode of Speakipedia Media.
