This week on #Smallbizchat LIVE our show featured three guests, LinkedIn Sales Expert Brynne Tillman @BrynneTillman, international speaker and relationship expert Charreah Jackson @charreah and Business Expert Mike Macholowicz @mikemacholowicz.
I pulled three of the best questions from each of them to share with you. Every third Wed of the month, Smallbizchat LIVE is broadcast on my SmallBizLady Facebook Page, YouTube channel and on Twitter @SmallBizLady.
Brynne Tillman is an Amazon bestselling author of The LinkedIn Sales Playbook: a Tactical Guide to Social Selling. As a career sales professional herself, Brynne bridges the gap between traditional sales, networking, and social media. Learn more at www.socialsaleslink.com.
SmallBizLady: How do you leverage LinkedIn to get client referrals?
Brynne Tillman: LinkedIn is a very powerful tool to help you identify who in your network can help you gain access to your targeted market.It allows you to search and filter your client’s connections then choose a few key prospects. When you are with your client, run that list by them, review who they think would benefit from working with you and ask them if they could copy you both in an email or LinkedIn message. Even offer to write an introduction paragraph for them.
SmallBizLady: How do you leverage LinkedIn to to get referrals from your general network?
Brynne Tillman: Look at a list of all your 2nd degree connections and who your shared connections are. Choose one that you know well and ask for an intro.
Dear Friend, I hope this note finds you well. I noticed that you are connected to XX at XX. I was wondering if you would kindly provide an introduction for me. If you could copy us both in an email or LinkedIn message I can take it from there. To make it easier for you, I have included a short paragraph below that you are welcome to copy and paste. Also, please feel free to look through my connections, I am happy to make introductions for you as well. Thanks so much.
Brynne
I would like to introduce you to Brynne Tillman, CEO of Social Sales Link. I thought it might make sense for the two of you to connect and investigate how you might work together. Brynne helps sales professionals build their pipeline, reduce the sales cycle and close more business through leveraging the power of LinkedIn. Brynne’s LinkedIn programs have made a significant impact on the way professionals are growing their business.
Brynne will be contacting you in the next couple of days, please take her call; I believe it will be well worth your time.
SmallBizLady: How do you leverage LinkedIn to identify stakeholders in a specific company?
Brynne Tillman: The first activity to do is to identify all the stake holders. From the all filters search:
- Add titles that you’d like to meet using Boolean search CEO OR “Vice President” OR CFO etc
- Choose current company in the filters
- Make a list of all the stakeholders and begin to socially surround them: a. engage on their content b.follow them c. Visit their profile d. sharing meaningful content with them e. Send an inMail if you have a premium account
- Eventually, after online conversations a. connect with one of the stakeholder b. build rapport and credibility through sharing value and insights c. eventually leverage your new relationship to meet the other stakeholders
Getting warm referrals is a powerful way to grow your business, and by adding a little LinkedIn to the mix, it becomes the easiest way to gain access to new prospects couldn’t be easier.
Charreah Jackson is an international speaker, coach, and Senior relationship Editor at Essence Magazine, empowering the brand’s global audience of 13 million. Charreah is also the author of Boss Bride: The Powerful Woman’s Playbook for Love & Success. Learn more at https://www.charreah.com/.
SmallBizLady: What was the inspiration for your book?
Charreah Jackson: I wrote the book I wanted to read. As a career and dating coach, I wanted insight that combined both worlds, I wanted to know how powerful women in a modern world navigated relationships and careers. So I gathered questions women had and interviewed more than 100 successful women and experts. The same day I got the contract, I left a seven year relationship with a man I thought I would marry (that was definitely not the plan I had) It made the book richer as I cycled through many emotions and also returned to the single scene. I met a great guy a few months later, which I talk about in the book.
SmallBizLady: What do you want women to know?
Charreah Jackson: In our society, women earn the majority of degrees and are increasingly bringing home the bacon – and frying it, with 40% of American households having female breadwinners. We are a generation of women with the most professional opportunities and accomplishments of any women before us – which can be just as overwhelming as it is exciting. This book is a bridge to create a love life and career that fulfills you: it’s time to Go Hard AND Go Home.
SmallBizLady: What impact does our love life have on our career?
Charreah Jackson: There is nothing passive about who we love and how we live. Who sleeps in our beds and parents our children, and how we use our passion and power are the most important decisions we make. As Sheryl points out, our dating decisions and professional dreams directly impact one another. One of the essential elements to being a Boss Bride living with passion and peace is to prioritize love. To know we deserve to be one with another. Who you spend your time with is not something to leave to fate and cannot be a footnote on your ever-growing to-do list. It has to be a part of the plan. Like doing laundry—who you do has to be a part of your master plan.
Mike Michalowicz is an author, podcaster, speaker, business columnist and television host. He is the co-founder of Profit First Professionals, a membership organization of accountants, and business coaches who teach the Profit First method. He is the author of Profit First, The Pumpkin Plan and The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur. His new book, Clockwork; Design Your Business to Run Itself, comes out next week.
SmallBizLady: What is the Queen Bee Role (QBR)?
Mike Michalowicz: The QBR is the most essential role in your business. If a business owner had to narrow down the one thing that they do that is essential to moving their business forward or brings them the most fulfillment – what would that be? As a business owner, often times we wear many hats. Perhaps they are the brand itself or the manufacturer, plus they do the accounts receivable/payable, and the marketing, and the sales, and they clean the bathrooms. The QBR homes in on the one thing that is essential to the business. Once you establish that you can figure out how to prioritize that one thing and delegate the rest.
SmallBizLady: What is the 4D Mix?
Mike Michalowicz: The 4 D’s are: 1. Doing, 2. Deciding, 3. Delegating and 4. Designing.
Although you are engaged in all four of these phases to varying degrees during the course of your business’s evolution (you spent some time Designing your business before you launched it), and while your business will always have a mix of all four Ds, our goal is to get you, the entrepreneur, Doing less and Designing more.
SmallBizLady: What is the ACDC Model?
Mike Michalowicz: The AC/DC Model is a mechanism that companies can use to find a sticking point or a bottleneck in their business. AC/DC is an acronym that stands for the four major phases every business goes through:
Attraction: Attracting clients or prospects
Conversion: Converting your prospects to clients
Deliverable: Delivering your products and services to those clients
Collections: Actually getting paid for the work you have done
The point is, rather than trying to fix everything, we would do well to identify and focus on one thing. The question then becomes, “Where does our time currently pile up the most?”
What can be done to reverse those time piles that are threatening to steer your business down the “Highway to Hell”? By applying the AC/DC Method, you can quickly discover which of these areas are your weakest link—the time piles where things slow down.
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