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On today’s show, Fred interviewed interviewed LinkedIn for Selling Effectiveness expert Jessica Samuels. She will be the presenter at the September 4 IEPS Selling Essentials Workshop. Register here to attend the virtual event.
Center for Elevating Women in Sales Leadership President Gina Stracuzzi cohosted the show.
Watch the video of this podcast on YouTube here.
Find Jessica on LinkedIn.
JESSICA’S TIP: “LinkedIn is no longer optional. It has to be the most powerful sales tool and trust-building mechanism that we use today as a sales force.”
THE PODCAST BEGINS HERE
Gina Stracuzzi: Jessica Samuels and I have become best friends about three years ago, and it blossomed into so much more. Now she’s an integral part of the Women in Sales Leadership Forum faculty. Everyone loves her session. She really walks the women through how to really shine as a leader on LinkedIn. I couldn’t be happier that we’re having her as part of the marketplace, because if companies aren’t using LinkedIn, as she will help us understand, and really shining as salespeople, you’re missing a bunch of money, and Jessica’s all about the money. Let’s make some money. I love that about her. Welcome, Jessica. Tell us a little bit about yourself, the parts that I left out.
Jessica Samuels: Thank you, Fred and Gina. I appreciate the introduction and the opportunity to be here today. I am the CEO of Evolve Career, an executive leadership and career development firm. I wear many hats. I serve as an executive leadership and career coach, as well as a business coach, fractional chief HR officer. I’ve spent over 20 years leading HR talent and executive development functions inside of organizations, ranging from federal agencies to fast growth startups and Fortune 500.
Over that corporate career, I also launched this boutique coaching and consulting firm. My entrepreneurship journey is just as significant as my corporate journey as well. The reality of it is we’re all selling. We’re selling every day. Until we start to see that we are all salespeople, whether we are managing a P&L or we’re a sales manager or a chief revenue officer, we have to get comfortable with sales.
In this digital age that we’re in, now LinkedIn is a superpower of a tool that I’ll speak to a little bit more as well. Whether you are aiming to elevate internally to a C-Suite promotion, you’re looking to land a board seat, you’re launching a profitable business, whatever it is, this subject is going to pertain to you because LinkedIn is a true MVP tool, whether you are looking to up your sales game, or whether you’re looking to elevate the corporate brand strategy that your communications department has built, and you’re realizing we’re not meeting our goals, we’re not meeting our quotas and we’re not growing the revenue the way we need to. The whole fun part about today is I’m going to actually talk about how you can do that without relying on funnels or ads.
Fred Diamond: One thing we neglected to mention is on September 4th, you’re going to be the headlining speaker at the Institute for Effective Professional Selling’s Selling Essentials Workshop. It’s going to be September 4th, 8:00 AM Eastern Time. We’ll open the doors, we’ll start the session at 8:30. It’s a hundred percent virtual, so anyone from around the world will be able to participate. We’re going to talk at the end in a little more detail about that particular event, but we’re excited about that.
It’s interesting, Gina, you and I, we’re both on LinkedIn all the time. We post frequently. We use it for prospecting. We use it for connecting. But Jessica, a lot of sales professionals struggle. A lot of selling professionals, just for some reason, they’re not as adept at using LinkedIn for the things that we discussed. Why do you think that is? Why do you think selling professionals struggle to take advantage of all that LinkedIn offers?
Jessica Samuels: I think it’s two reasons. I think it’s mindset and I think there’s a lack of appreciation for a method behind it. After I talk with folks all the time, I say, “Are you on LinkedIn?” They say, “Yeah, but I just get so overwhelmed when I get on there.” You’ve got the feed, you’ve got some notifications going off, and it can be overwhelming. But from a mindset perspective, these professionals still treat LinkedIn like a digital resume or a job board. “I can’t be on LinkedIn. My company’s going to think I’m looking for work.” But here’s the reality, 78% of businesses that use LinkedIn strategically are outperforming their competitors in revenue growth. LinkedIn is no longer optional. It has to be the most powerful sales tool and trust-building mechanism that we use today as a sales force. That’s number one.
Number two, the method, most sellers are just winging it. They go there and they’re saying, “Got this product. I’ve got my little script that my manager told me to use,” and they’re cold pitching, we all know we’re allergic to that, and they’re hoping their once-in-a-blue-moon content will go viral. That’s why I created this formula, LinkedIn Client Success Formula. It’s powered behind five pillars that are proven to increase your profile views, to increase your booked calls that is increasing your conversations that turn into paying clients. That’s why I’m so passionate about getting people to see LinkedIn beyond what it traditionally, we know it started over two decades ago. I’ve been on the platform for 16 years, and I’ve seen the evolution. Now when we think about selling and LinkedIn, we have to treat it beyond just the original design of it to say building a professional community unlike Facebook.
Gina Stracuzzi: Everything that you said there is so interesting. Full disclosure, I work with Jessica as a LinkedIn coach because I’m one of those people that, not so much overwhelmed, but just like, “Oh gosh, more work.” It does make a big difference. This leads well into what I want to ask, because you help me really see how what I do within the IEPS and what I do within the Center for Elevating Women in Sales Leadership, how I position that on LinkedIn makes all the difference in the world, and I hadn’t really thought about it. Let’s talk a little bit about that. How do specific roles like chief revenue officers or senior selling leaders, how do they use it? How should they be using it?
Jessica Samuels: I love this question because the reality of the matter is, we all want to have sales teams where we’re saying, “Yep, my person on my team just closed a five-figure deal, six-figure deal.” It’s happening and we want that momentum, but the reality of it is, most of our senior leaders, CROs to chief growth officers, to senior sales leaders, they’re not leading from the front. What do I mean by that?
Their brand presence on LinkedIn isn’t existent, and it’s not polished. They need to be active. They need to be visible. They are brand ambassadors of the organization, brand ambassadors for their services and their products, and brand ambassadors of themselves as executives. We have to start there. When your team starts to see you showing up, consistently, showing up with sharing smart insights, becoming this sponge around industry trends, what’s happening in our space? You don’t have to create the results, but you have to say, “What’s this company over here doing? What’s this company over here doing?” It gives your team permission to be more confident on a social platform like LinkedIn.
The other piece that we have to have more senior leaders doing is buying into this concept of social selling strategies. We have to go beyond just pushing quotas and give them a process of how they should use the tools that you’ve given them access to, to reaching those goals. One sales leader I work with in the LinkedIn Sales Accelerator, we revamp their messaging, they’re starting to book multiple five-figure contracts in 60 days or less, just by implementing a structured approach to this thought leadership as well as strategic outreach that is conversational, and less about driving the solution down a person’s throat.
Fred Diamond: Let’s talk about someone who’s brand new. At the Institute for Effective Professional Selling, we deal with enterprise companies, typically B2B, business to business, or business to government. A lot of these companies hire young adults right out of college. What would be your advice for them? Now, of course, they’re probably very conversant on social media. Probably not LinkedIn yet, although I know a lot of young adults who are in college, I love when I see their profiles, because we work with a lot of them, of course.
We also do the Office Hours Sales Professors Unplugged, so we work with a lot of universities that have selling programs. I love when a young adult in a college selling program connects with me and I see that they have 500 connections and that their recent jobs are internships, not working at a camp or something along those lines.
What would be your advice for people who are coming into the workforce as a SDR or a BDR? Then I’m also interested in someone who maybe is 10, 15 years in, but they’re not a leader. They love being an IC, an individual contributor, the account executive, they’re not really aspiring for leadership, but they represent a brand, they sell a product and/or service.
Jessica Samuels: For those that are new to this sales function, I would say your mindset shift has to be don’t focus on the sales, focus on serving. What do I mean by that? You have to start by being a human. If your prospective clients are on LinkedIn in any capacity, engage with their post thoughtfully. Really get excited, scan their profile, see where there’s potentially some commonalities. This could be as small as they love tea, I love tea. They love baseball, I love baseball. They went to school in Michigan, I’m from Michigan. Just whatever that shared connection point is, you start there, and I promise you that will build trust faster than any cold message can ever do.
The other piece around posting, you’re like, “Well, gosh, I’m new. I don’t have any advice to give.” I want you to fail forward, meaning, ask those questions out loud. Start learning publicly and be someone that’s curating, “Here’s what all of these other companies are doing. What advice would you have for someone new in this field, those of you that are more seasoned for someone like me?” You’re going to get so much interaction around that. You can also spotlight case studies and wins that your organization has won as a team. The possibilities are endless.
Now let’s switch to those mid-career professionals. If you are 10 plus years and you’re aiming for that next leadership promotion internally, your brand should reflect that. You should be showcasing your impact over the years. How you’re developing people, how you’re innovating, how you’re bringing suggestions to solve real-world problems.
The other thing is, spotlight those client wins. I’m telling you, one of my clients messaged me just the other day, “I have 3Xd my investment with working with you already.” This girl is on fire. The next week, I am blocking out her name and everything, but I’m creating a post around that, because those are real results. She came to me burnt out, and she is banking deals just by our coaching sessions. That has to happen with our mid-career folks. Help the organization see that you have VP level status, that you can do the job, that you can develop your sales people, and you can be a brand ambassador for the organization beyond what the corporate communications or marketing function can ever do.
Gina Stracuzzi: You know, because we’ve talked about this in the forum, people don’t know where to begin when thinking about how do they, “Okay. Great, Jessica. You talk about maximizing my profile. Well, what does that mean and how do they start?” Maybe we should start with what are people doing wrong, and then how do they make it right?
Jessica Samuels: I love this question as well because the thing that they’re doing wrong is they’re treating their LinkedIn profile like a boring biography or a glorified resume. It is so much more than that. It has to be the splash page, the landing page of how you are solving problems for your ideal client. That’s the purpose of it. People are going to go to your profile and look you up before they have a meeting with you, a demo call, an interest meeting. They’re going there. They’re not going to your company’s website. You got to start there. Your LinkedIn profile is the sales landing page.
The second thing that we can start to do is now improve it. Remove the vague headlines and they sound all cool and creative. Make it plain. Make sure that it is easy. You are the go-to gal for that. You’re the go-to guy for this. That is going to help people see, “I’ve been dying to meet somebody like you.” The other part of our profile, you’ve got outdated job descriptions, there are no about sections or summary sections on there, and there’s no call to action. You are not telling people what to do. You are making it hard for them to buy from you. Make it easy for them.
I’ll build off of what I just said a bit more is now what do they do? I’ve talked about all the things that they’re doing wrong. What do they do? Create a clear headline. Your summary should position you as the trusted guide, not a job seeker. You need to be pulling in credibility-building content and there has to be that call to action to whatever you want them to do. If your company’s hosting an event, you all have a demo, then drive them there. If you want them to book a call with you, do that. If there’s a lead magnet that you want them to download, that should be really easy to find on your profile.
Fred Diamond: One thing you just said I really like is when people ask me for advice, I say, become the guy or the gal who is the blank for blank. The cybersecurity expert for the banking industry in Chicago, wherever it might be. A lot of people are listening here and they’re saying, “Okay, this is great, but I’m a selling professional and I have a $2 million quota this year. Can I use LinkedIn to sell more of my products and/or services?” What might be some of your advice on how they can use LinkedIn to specifically advance their sales process?
Jessica Samuels: You got to create a system. I have created a system called PACER. It works across B2B, B2C, and B2G industries. The foundation of the LinkedIn Client Success Formula is around this PACER. I’ll unpack those five letters in the PACER model really quickly. The P stands for positioning and post. That means that you have to define yourself as the go-to expert, and you have to make it very clear for someone to understand your offer. Your profile plus your offer should be amplified in your thought leadership. The goal here is building trust. We know that our buyers have to feel like they know us, they like us, and they trust us before they’re ever joining a call, before they’re ever taking out their checkbook. That’s number one.
Number two is around audience. Connect with actual decision makers. I can’t tell you how many times that I say, “Well, how many connections do you have?”
“I’ve got 40,000 people,” 5,000, or whatever the number is.
But I’ll say, “Well, who’s your ideal client profile?”
“Well, it’s this, it’s this,” they haven’t defined it.
They have a network full of people that are just randoms and they’re not key decision buyers. You’ve got to be targeted around who is going to be the person to say yes to that offer.
The third letter is C, conversations. This is around getting your direct message outreach strategy to convert cold prospects without cold pitching, that they are saying, “Can we jump on a call? I’d love to talk to you.” They’re asking you to talk with you. In the while, you’re qualifying them in that conversation, so when they get on a call with you, they’re pre-sold. That’s what we’re trying to get to from LinkedIn.
The E is events. Now, I know you all are salespeople, maybe there’s some marketers on the call or customer success, but think about an event strategy that you can deploy in your organization. This can be weekly, monthly, every other week, whatever it may be, but this is the fastest way that you can grow leads in your organization. You can partner with your marketing team to do this, to spotlight experts or you’re the expert, but whatever it may be, that is a high traffic lead generation tool. One of my events alone brought in 600 leads that turned into five-figure clients, and I’m a little old me. Then the R is revenue systems. You have to automate your onboarding, your follow-ups, and your lead tracking so that you can scale without it making you feel overwhelmed.
Gina Stracuzzi: Now we’ve talked about sales and how you can position yourself better. A lot of people want to be considered thought leaders. They feel more comfortable doing that, or they think they would like to, than trying to sell on LinkedIn. What advice do you have for people who would like to be seen as a thought leader?
Jessica Samuels: This is great. We even hear a lot of that in the WISL Form. It’s, “Hey, I’m introverted,” or, “Hey, I really am not comfortable with using LinkedIn as a sales tool, but I do have a passion, like women health or human trafficking, whatever it may be. I want to speak about that.” Fred, you do a great job with the awareness around Lyme disease. If you’re wanting to be a thought leader in any capacity, the first piece of advice I’d say is don’t expect to go viral. You want to be valuable. If you remove the, “I want to have all this engagements and these likes,” look, there’s a lot of LinkedIn folks online that have hundreds of thousands of contacts and followers, and they’re broke. They’re not bringing in the revenue and the profits that you would think. We don’t want to equate virality with profitability.
The second thing around this is using LinkedIn as a thought leadership tool to show up consistently. Your following will want to see, are you posting once or twice a week? Are you a Monday momentum kind of person, and Wednesday wisdom? Then stick to that. Then it allows you to position yourself for paid speaking engagements, strategic advisory roles that won’t compete with your full-time role, but they will position you as the industry expert. Then when you meet a cold prospect, they have the wow factor, the girl crush, the guy crush moment. I can’t tell you how many times that’s happened for me and my clients when they say, “Wow, you’ve posted all of these events. I read your content all the time. I’ve been following you for some time. I read that post and it really helped me in this situation.” Then when they have the budget to buy, you’re top of mind.
Fred Diamond: LinkedIn’s one of those things, the old expression that 80% of success is showing up. The other 20% is luck.
Jessica Samuels: You know 1% of users on LinkedIn are posting content. You’re going to be a very small percentage of people that are actually doing something out of the 1 billion users that are on the platform worldwide.
Fred Diamond: Yeah, and not everyone’s going to respond to you. I like your comment there about don’t expect to go viral. You might, if you’re consistent and you present all the things we talked about before, how to have a good profile, how to present your brand, how to present what you offer the right way, how to show up. If you do these things with a consistent process, like you talked about, and I love the PACER concept, hopefully things will be successful for you. You can track things back to your involvement with LinkedIn. It’s such an amazing tool.
One of the best things about the Institute for Effective Professional Selling is a lot of people look at us as a resource for sales tool providers and sales consultants and speakers and trainers. I’m excited to say that you are our LinkedIn expert as part of the Selling Essentials Marketplace. Let people know what that means. In a minute or so, just give us an overview, and you’ve talked about this a little bit, what do you offer selling organizations so that they could bring you in to be valuable for their organization?
Jessica Samuels: First and foremost, one, it might make sense for us to partner around a LinkedIn profile makeover for sales leaders. Positioning it, going from that resume to that lead magnet, done for you positioning, and then also branding that turns your profile into a client attraction magnet. The second could be more of an employee engagement tool to get everyone excited as an employee workforce, that they are brand ambassadors of the organization. That could be a speaking event, virtual or in person. Then the third way to work with me is either one-on-one or group coaching, where this is the LinkedIn Sales Accelerator. It’s a six-week program that really helps you build a repeatable system around your lead generation, your content, your prospecting, and your conversion.
Gina Stracuzzi: You have so many ways to work with you, which is awesome. I know that you’re going to be doing our Selling Essentials Workshop on September 4th, so let’s talk a little bit about what you’re going to bring to that and why it’s important for people to be there.
Jessica Samuels: The biggest thing that I hear with LinkedIn is, “I don’t know what to post. I don’t know what to engage with.” I think my clients, or this title, or they work at this organization, but finding that in the system is pretty difficult for me. We’re going to talk about you, number one, stop lurking on the platform and start leading on the platform. That’s number one. But I’m going to go deeper dive on the PACER model that I just outlined a little bit ago. We’re going to talk about how you can convert that LinkedIn profile. We’re going to talk about how you grow that relevant network of decision makers. We’re going to cover how do you create content and maybe even an event strategy that drives those inbound leads and booked calls. This is whether you’re a sales rep, you’re a VP, or you’re a founder of your own business, you’re going to lead with the tools and the framework that helps you start to implement this immediately.
I want to encourage people that if you’ve built a brand on the website, or your company has built a brand, you’ve done a relaunch and you’re not getting booked calls, we got a problem. If you’re networking and you’re not converting leads, you have a problem. This workshop is going to be that missing link to give you that clear formula to go from attracting the right people, connecting with them, and closing high-value clients fast.
Fred Diamond: Gina, I’m so excited that we had Jessica. I know she’s been on the show once or twice before, but I can see the value that she provides as part of the Women in Sales Leadership Forum. I know that we also have the Fall forum. The Fall Women in Sales Leadership Forum is going to be kicking off on October 10th. The Women in Sales Leadership Elevation Conference is going to be on October 9th. It’s going to be live and in-person in Tysons Corner, Virginia. Gina, before I ask Jessica for her final action step, although she’s given us a couple dozen already, do you just want to give a quick pitch for the Leadership Elevation Conference?
Gina Stracuzzi: Absolutely. I do. I know that everywhere we turn now, everyone’s talking about AI. I will say, in all honesty, this conference won’t be different in that respect because it is about AI. But what will make it different and what is going to make it so important, it is the unique moment in history that we’re at right now, where everyone is coming into AI at the same time. We’re going to be talking about how women can leverage this moment to take their careers to the next level, and to make sure they’re part of that really strategic level thinking inside their companies, and they’re not getting left out of the conversation. Because if you’re left out, then you’re not part of where they’re going. We need to make sure that women are part of where every company is going. It is going to be a great day. I can’t tell you how excited I am about it. Make sure you come.
Fred Diamond: We’re thrilled. Jessica, thank you so much for being on today’s Sales Game Changers Podcast. You’ve given us dozens of actionable steps people can put into play. Give us a final thought for people listening to the show, watching on YouTube, or reading the transcript, one thing they should do right now to take their sales career to the next level.
Jessica Samuels: I want to just mention the AI piece really quickly. I didn’t touch on this during our podcast, but if you can start to weave in AI tools along with LinkedIn, now you’re really going to step it up another level in your sales game. But for those of you that aren’t ready to broach the AI tools LinkedIn combo, start with understanding LinkedIn social selling. What is it? Just the mindset shift around using it for your sales quotas, but that really is getting your profile wrapped up, honoring conversations through the direct message as more of a trust building tool and not cold pitching. Then being open-minded around the power of events on the platform. I’ve helped so many clients land speaking gigs, strategic partnerships, five-figure or six-figure clients by just implementing portions of the PACER model. I can’t wait to see hopefully many of you at the Selling Essentials Workshop on September 4th. Do not miss it because we are going to roll up our sleeves and get your LinkedIn in order so that you have a profitable sales channel in 2025.
Fred Diamond: Once again, on behalf of Gina Stracuzzi from the Center for Elevating Women in Sales Leadership, I want to thank Jessica Samuels for being on today’s Sales Game Changers Podcast. My name is Fred Diamond.
cast. Congratulations again for being a Global Gurus number 10. You gave some great information here.
Transcribed by Mariana Badillo