When to Say No to a Deal and Toxic Customers

Welcome to the Oil and Gas Sales and Marketing podcast, where every week your hosts, Mark Lacour and Matt Bertrand share proven strategies and real-world tactics to help you connect with customers and close more deals. Let's do this. Hey, welcome back to the Sales and Marketing podcast.

And Matt, you know what? I was listening to us. I have this weird trait. If I listen to any podcast that I'm on, I can't be judgemental or coach, because I know it's me. For some reason, though, if I go to the gym and get on the treadmill,

I can listen to podcasts that I'm on and I can pick it apart, like it's not me, even to the point that I laugh at my own jokes, which is retarded because it's me telling the joke. I'm just glad my neighbors on the treadmill can't tell, but I realized that I keep introducing the show, but we have a voiceover in the beginning that introduces the show.

So audience apologies. I'm gonna try to quit some wasting time introducing the show, because obviously you know what show you're listening to. And today's topic is gonna be something that Matt brought up last week, and it's a damn good topic. And it's something that a lot of sales leaders never cover.

And basically, it's when to say no to a deal and how to get rid of a toxic customer. And Matt, I know you've had them. I know I've had them. And then as your company grows, dealing with that type of stuff gets more difficult.

Many times I do it right. I do as I say, not as I do. I just renewed a huge contract with a very difficult client. But it's kind of like the devil, you know? We just extended the contract. I know how they work.

I know what their expectations are. But we were being judged on multiple facets where we didn't have full control. But yeah, I think this is a great topic. And I think that customers, there are certain customers, like you even know in the sales process

that they're gonna be a real pain for your delivery team. And it might not be the best fit, and it's sometimes better to pass it up and find the right kind of deal. And I feel like that is something that so many salespeople try to figure out,

like the waiting on that. But man, if you just say no to the bad customers, you have so much more time to fulfill like good customer needs. No, you're 100% right. So let's get to that last,

because I do want to spend a little more time on there. Let's start with when to say no to a deal. And then we'll get to the part of getting rid of bad customers. For me, for here, one of the first signs that I should say no to a deal is when we're in the discovery phase

and the scope of engagement starts to creep because of the prospect. They make extra demands or they want extra features. They want revisions or they want something custom and they don't want to pay for it. And this is before you even close the deal.

And that scope creep can kill you if you're not careful. And the problem is salespeople were wired to close the deal. That's why you're in sales. And to Matt's point, earlier point, you don't often think about the delivery team that has to deal with scope creep.

And then you don't think of the finance team that has to deal with lower margins or unfortunately maybe even negative margins. Matt, I did a deal with Motel Point a long time ago that we had so much scope creep that I would have paid you to take this customer off of my hands

because I was losing so much money with them. And it's because I took a deal that I knew and my gut told me at the very beginning I should walk away from, but I didn't. I ended up losing money on this customer and I should have walked away with it

just based upon the scope creep. Mark, one of the things that I wanted to just add into the conversation is I've always tried to do this. Like it's even on like our checklist. Why are they looking like what happened with their last vendor?

I feel like even when you talk about like relationships, okay, like looking at how they dealt with other people, like how their parents relationship was. I know that that affects them relationally but not necessarily in sales, but like who are their clients?

Like I like to investigate clients. I want to see what their glass door saying, what their reviews are and also hear from them why they parted ways with their last vendor to understand is this the right situation for us? I feel like people don't ask that.

And like in addition to, well, who are you? Else are you talking to? Where is it in the deal cycle? Those are simple things that I feel like just you go straight into selling and you don't know who you're selling to or selling into.

Yeah. And you know what? This will be a side note here, but it's very important. It's the same thing that when you're applying for a sales job, you should ask, why is there a vacancy? Did somebody leave in which case you want to know that? Or is it a growth position?

Those two are telling you two very important things about the company. When I went to work for Forrester Research, which was almost 20 years ago, I found out that somebody had left and went to work for their competitor.

His name is Tom. He went to work for Gardner, which is Forrester's biggest competitor. So I called him or I got it and touched him on LinkedIn. We set up a call and I want to know why he left Forrester. And the reason he left was

there wasn't a lot of room for upper management movement. Well, I didn't care about that. I cared about how much money I was going to make. So it was a good reason assured me that I was making the right decision. Okay.

So I have a similar story. When I took my first sales job, I didn't know what to ask it, right? I was just happy. Happy to have a job. Okay.

And it was in pharmaceuticals, but I had a territory like anything else. It's different widgets. And I didn't ask why the person left or what was going on. The territory was actually out of like 33 territories or something.

It was like 32. Okay, it was really bad. Nobody else would take it. That's what I found out later. Well, what ended up happening is I was just young and I was running through brick walls

or whatever that analogy is. And we actually got to like second or first, the second year or something like that, like a year and a half into it. We won like all the sales awards, everything because we were paid on margin growth

or whatever is like increase. And actually going into a bad territory that hadn't been worked in three years was awesome because no one had done anything. So the baseline of the hurdle we had to hit was so low. You think it's bad or other reps thought it was bad.

I didn't know any different, but it turned out to be a really good thing and we got paid out really well. And it goes right back to my premise that whoever has the most information wins in this case, you had the most information you won.

Let's pull it back to when to say no to a deal because I can spend an hour talking about stuff like this. All right, my next red flag about saying no to a deal is when the communication sucks, when they don't reply in a reasonable amount of time to voicemail or emails or text,

when they keep pushing meetings out, when you get crazy messages from them that's an excuse that you know is probably not real. That's all signs that you are not high on their list. You're not high on their priority list and that's a sign to walk away from a deal.

Now, in that situation to what Matt was speaking about earlier, try to find out why and don't cherry pick or don't hide it, be honest, but be gentle. Say, look, I've noticed our communications have been very subpar in the process to try to put this deal together.

Why? What's going on? And a lot of times they'll tell you the truth and it could be somebody's on vacation, it could be they're overworked, it could be something happened in this problem they're trying to fix by closing a deal with you

is not a high priority. That's a good thing for you to know because that's when you can pull your marketing team in to help nurture this prospect while you go on and do other sales. So poor communication is another red flag

to be when to say no to a deal. And then my number one thing and this happens, it used to happen a lot. It doesn't happen that much anymore. And I don't know if that's the maturity of OGGN or what are the market, but in the very first meeting

before you even get to the discovery phase they start talking about pricing and discounting. Now, let me be very clear as a salesperson you should be ultra comfortable talking with pricing and discounting. It should be something you bring up very early on

but when a prospect starts talking about pricing and discounting right up front and they're aggressively fighting your pricing without even knowing what they're getting for your pricing that tells you right now that you're either a commodity that the conversation they have with you right now

and this problem is not high value to them. And it also tells me that maybe there will be a high maintenance customer. So anytime somebody starts talking discounting very first that's another red flag to say no to the deal. Yeah, I mean, you can talk so much around the cues

around pricing. I feel like sometimes you're out of people's price range and they're trying to like make it work. And even if the deal happens the hinges are going to come off because it's not laid out right

or it's not structured right and feel like you have to ask a lot more questions if they start asking that because you want to be selling on value versus like the commodity pricing and I don't know I like to back up and punt there

to really understand if this is the right deal for both of you because again I think you'll waste a lot of time if you get into a deal or again it depends your organization but sometimes if you close a big deal

you become the account on that deal like you kind of eat what you kill and that could hurt you long term. I don't know. Hey there, it's Paige Lacour co-founder and host of All In Gas Global Network.

We want to give you something free for being a listener to one of our podcasts so simply go to YouTube, search for OGGN and comment on any video. Then I need you to send a screenshot of your comment to marketingatoggn.com

and I will personally mail you a free OGGN hard hat laptop sticker and a limited time I love big oil button so do it now before all the cool swag is gone. Let's talk a little bit about pricing and discounting. That is part of the business conversation.

I like to have it very early on but not the first call unless they bring it up. Let's talk a little bit about that. When a customer asks you for a discount basically have three choices. Yes, no or a third alternative.

If you say yes to a discount that easily well then they're going to know that your pricing is padded and they can ask for discounts all the time. To me that's a time waster. I don't want to do that.

So here at OGGN our pricing on purpose is on our website so that you know what we charge and we don't discount without a trade-off of some sort. Just saying yes to a discount automatically sets up the conversation I think in the wrong way for the sales professional.

If you say no that also sets you up for failure because now you're saying I don't want to work with you. So in our case when somebody asks for a discount the first thing I'll ask. Now it's very dependent on the situation. If we've already been through everything

and they know what they're getting for their sponsorship dollars they know everything the list that we give them. And then they ask for a discount. First thing I'll say is what do you want me to take out of here. Happy to give you a discount

that's showing I'm willing to work with you. At the same time I'm like Apple or I try to be like Apple at OGGN. I go to Apple right now and try to negotiate on a new iPhone. They're going to laugh at you

because their business practice is such that you have 300 people behind you willing to pay the full price. They're not going to discount. And here at OGGN we don't discount unless we remove something of that value

and we let the customer do that. This allows the customer to help customize their buying process and their budget to meet them at the same time. I'm not giving away the farm. Now the other thing we do with discounting is term.

So we're a small business, cash flow is king. So if you want to discount the other lever I can pull is you have to commit. The way OGGN works if you sponsor a podcast with us there's no commitment.

You have a 30 day out for any reason in your contract and we're going to get to that later. The reason that's there. If you want to discount and you don't want to remove anything that we offer then you need to commit to a longer term

and that guarantees cash flow. So that's my whole thought about having that discount conversation with buyers. I don't want to spend too much time there but it is important for salespeople to be totally comfortable having that conversation.

I'll just add you got to think about asking them and understanding what's valuable to them. I love what you said there about kind of what do you want to remove? What do you need? I like to go the other way

and actually say what else could we throw in to sweeten the deal? Yeah, or that. Keep the pricing kind of fixed at where it's at because I have numbers, how we do things at EWR

and modal point as we're kind of building that out it fits into certain buckets. So I know what my hard costs are. If I start pulling stuff out then you got a finagle on the back end. It's more about okay,

what's important to you? Maybe we got to pivot a little bit this way or that way but I like to throw stuff in that are value adds that might be something that's more intangible to us but to them that's a huge deal. Yeah.

All right, the last thing about when to say no to deal from me and people that work for large corporations apologies ahead of time. Your sales manager probably is not going to buy into this but I've been doing this for a long time. So my last red flag is my gut feeling.

When I have that conversation with the prospect and they're trying to micromanage the sales process of the delivery process. If they want constant check-ins if they're trying to dictate who should work with who and how or how we should deliver stuff.

If basically they're trying to control our business that right there triggers my gut to go you know what? This is going to be a expensive client to maintain. They're not ever going to be happy because at the bottom line I want happy clients. I just trust my gut.

Now I do realize that if you work for a sales organization and you go to your sales manager and say I want to walk away from this deal because my gut instinct that's probably not going to fly and I'm sorry because if you do this for a long time that gut instinct is usually right.

I mean how your sales process is is how your delivery process is most likely to be and so it's a great insight. So whatever that experience is however you're dealing with that person however they respond to you

the turnaround times all that gives a lot of insight to know what it's going to look like. Yeah and then finally for say no to a deal frickin RFPs if out of nowhere so we had this happen to us

with the major off-field service company in 2024 so two years ago if out of nowhere I mean literally out of nowhere a company reaches out to you and they want you to respond to an RFP

learn what's going on. Usually let me tell you what happens a large company of special off-field they tend to have requirements for buying that comes from supply chain and so when they have something expensive

they have to put it out to bids so they can get competitive bids to help lower the price and usually there's a minimum number of companies that need a bid on that. Usually it's three to five companies

and if there's only a couple of companies that could do the work that prospect company reaches out to you out of nowhere because they just need somebody else to bid and I'm telling you now

if you're coming into an RFP process just because they need another bidder you're not going to win it and you're going to waste time and resources and I know I'm going to have sales manager scream to the top of their lungs

but what if we do win it? What if is a hope? Hope is not a sales strategy right? We walk away from all RFPs what we do is so niche there's only a couple of companies

that could do what we do and if somebody wants to undercut us on price they can have the low margin business I don't want it so we don't respond to RFPs that simple

now realize your business may be different and if you're including RFP early on and you're getting feedback from the buy-in team and the procurement team then it is probably something you should explore

but if they come out of nowhere and they need an RFP response in five or seven business days you're probably cannon fodder and you're probably wasting your resources. I mean I would say that that maps

if you have like your target list your target 200 whatever you're going after if that client or whatever they're asking for is really outside of the scope

of what you really do it goes back to me to say okay is this even a client we want? Like a lot of people are saying oh everybody's our client every field like we could service this area

and this area and you got to specialize you got to know what you're really good at you got to know what your customers are and if that person that's coming out with after you with the RFP

doesn't fall in line with that then yeah we don't export but we will try to dig in to figure out what their needs are and also Mark we've talked about this in past podcast

even that RFP you might not get that it might get you in the door to then deliver something that's a better fit because yes that deal is probably already been assigned and they just got to kind of follow the red tape to get through all the steps

but there might be something else if you understand what's going on so I would treat RFP out of the blue as a discovery process for a later deal you're right and if I didn't run OGG in the way I run it

if I was selling parts and pieces all filled I would definitely look as an RFP as a marketing exercise I wouldn't and everybody today didn't get a lot of sleep last night

I'm drinking a bunch of creatine here to try to make my brain work a little bit better so apologies and Mark I made this for you

I'm here talking about I will have to do something with this video so y'all can see the mini offshore platform Matt 3D print y'all didn't hear our previous conversation actually you're lucky

you don't hear a lot of our previous conversation all right let's get to the bigger part how to get rid of toxic customers I like to call this the off-boarding process everybody has an on-boarding process

you should have an off-boarding process and honestly this is you firing the customer and you got to figure out how you want to fire the customers like sometimes you got to figure out

how you need to want to fire employee so here's one that's kind of stealthy and this backfire to be one time price hike double your rates if you don't like working with this customer

and you don't want to have a conversation about your pain in the ass go really high on your rates Matt I did that one time I literally went up 50% and they fucking renewed

and it's like shit even though I'm making more money I still have to deal with this customer and it was not a fun process I did not expect them to say yes to a 50% increase

but that was a one-off time every other time I've went up that dramatically not even that dramatically 25 or 30% the customer finds a way to not renew

and then we're both happy and nobody had to have hard conversations for me it's just pausing like hey from a bandwidth

or whatever it is let's pause for a month or so and pick it back up and kind of revisit this and I think that that's the like

smoothest way I've seen to exit a contract so that was me the next one to bring up is what I call a clean break exactly what you said

you finish your current contractual obligations you document everything that you finished everything you gave them all the deliverals and then just very politely declined to work

with them in the future you've done what they delivered and you could just walk away from that now here's another one that's kind of crappy

but in Mark LaCour's ethics it's totally fine refer it out to your competitor you just like the least just like the most I've done this before

we had a client last year sponsored a podcast I'm sorry not last year 2024 that was the biggest pain but to work with

I intentionally referred them to one of our few competitors who picked up the business and it's just a funny story and I got the pain

off my back and my competitor got a new customer which was good now sometimes you can refer them out

it doesn't have to be to your least favorite competitor sometimes you actually can refer them out to a company

can help them better than you either way referring them out is a good way to get rid of a toxic customer there's no hard conversation

you have to have nobody gets their feelings hurt and somebody's could be happy to got a new customer for a little while at least

yeah a lot of these conversations like just helping a customer better doesn't have to necessarily be toxic

or bringing in a partner I like doing that but yeah getting rid of a toxic customer I think that identifying that it's a toxic customer

is maybe we should talk about that for a second mark I know it's like improv but when we're talking about

a customer that they take up in a meeting more time than they should consistently

it starts to send off red flags like I think people might even not know that they have toxic customers because they're so

in the business that they might not be thinking through that and I mean again I don't know how sales

if they're interacting with the delivery team or how the organization set up but like

when sales has to get pulled back in to the delivery process because of the relationship or whatever

like there should be KPIs that you look around and say ah

this customer might be one that we need to offboard yeah let's talk about that

real quick because you're right maybe not everybody knows what a toxic customer is

for us it's a couple of things if my accounting team has to chase you down for payments you're not a good fit

for us we deliver contractually what you pay us to do on time usually

before it's actually do we do without you do anything and if you can't pay me then you're not a good fit

for us the other thing is if you're a big company OGGN is significant in revenue

I think couple million dollars a year but some of our sponsors are multi-billion dollar

year companies I don't need to finance a multi-billion dollar year company same way of payment terms we used to

when we were younger took any payment terms that the client offered us we just needed the money and that's not smart people

when you have net 90 net 120 which some big companies try to push you may be profitable

on paper but you have no money in the bank we'll do nets we ask for payment upon receipt

we'll do net 30 for most of our sponsors and we will do net 60 if they make some type

of commitment short-term commitment we won't even do net 60 and if you don't want to pay me a net 30

or on-demand I don't want you as a client I don't need to finance your multi-billion dollar year company

if you eat up a lot of my people's time with the same thing over and over again you're a toxic customer so basically

if you're paying an ass to work with I don't want you and that's how you identify

a toxic customer if people roll their eyes we had a customer like I said 2024

that the entire team would roll their eyes when I mentioned their name that's a good sign if you're leading

a company that you might have a toxic customer these are things to look out for people don't

they just try to solve this you try to solve this it's like maybe

let that client go get another client go and it makes your business healthier

I don't think that people appreciate that of getting rid of the wrong customers

makes your business actually healthier because it leaves more time for the right kind of customers

and the right kind of like outreach and sales and business development efforts

I don't know No, you're right I said my notes to talk about that but I want to talk about this one last thing

I mentioned earlier about contracts and we have a 30 day out in our contract

for both sides that's very important in our contracts both me and you have the ability

to cancel the contract at any time with an email 30 day email notification to the other party now my clients

look at that as a way to renegade miss hey if we're not

getting good results work with OGGN we're not locked into six month

or one year two year term we get out almost any time however it also allows me

to get out the contract if my clients are pain in the butt if they're toxic I can send them

an email in 30 days I'm out of the contract with them and Matt I've done it

three times and all three times this is how the conversation goes I triggered at 30 day out

somebody and usually procurement doesn't understand why they're getting an email

saying I'm canceling the contract with them because they're not used to it they go find the contract

they read the language and they realize that I'm firing them and then they pass that information on to

senior manager maybe not the CEO but maybe the VP or something a call gets set up and this client

of ours wants to know why we're triggering is 30 out basically why we're firing them

and I always bring up the conversation the same way I always say do you have a customer that is a pain

in your ass and they all say yes and I go you're that customer to me and there's always

a moment of silence and then they hear a breath and a lot of times they go I'm sorry

because they get it immediately and a lot of times the person you're talking to isn't involved

and it's not their fault they're just the person to have this conversation with you and that goes back to corporate

culture how does your procurement and your supply chain and your employees treat a vendor the vendor

is not there for you to walk upon and to get every little penny out of that's not

how you do business not how you want to be treated it's not how I want to be treated so that's

when I have that you're that customer that is a pain in ass conversation

and I trigger my 30 day out and I'll walk away from it and Matt

you are 100% right so a couple of things am I getting rid of a customer it's a pain

in the butt yeah why am I doing that I'm protecting my team I have a whole

team of people have to deal with that client and a toxic client values

what they want more than they value my team and I don't want to work with you

right if you can't see the value and work with us I don't

want to work with you I would add to that definition like unprofessionalism

and I know out in the little patch it gets pretty heated and stuff

like that but if you're working with two different cultures or if

men and women are interacting okay like it doesn't matter

which way but I'll just tell you like if people

come back to me and say that they've been yelled at by a client

or they've been cussed at by a client that's why we record all our conversations okay

we're showing a lot here but I have two different devices that

record out in the field and that's kind of part of how do we do it

for HR even internally we just record all the conversations but I've had

on multiple occasions over the years there's been a handful of clients that get

really angry and they yell even when it's not our fault maybe they're having bad day I don't know

but like when they're yelling at my team members

that affects them emotionally where they can't even be productive for the rest of that day and

a lot of our team really cares about these clients and I know people are just like

getting a release of energy and that's like how they do it but it's just not

professionals I don't know for me at least how we work and we work a little different

we get paid up front we do quarterly retainers after the first retainer

so we do have a little bit of that kind of runway I would love to get longer engagements and that only happens when we develop

the relationship more after kind of that trial period but yeah if a client

is just really outside the band with a professionalism with my team one is like

have it documented but then two is like I don't really put up with that like to protect

my people and it's just not cool things

I've seen or like where people have crossed the line on stuff

which has happened it's always better just to act professional and then you don't have to worry about it

I agree there's a difference between being angry and upset

and maintaining professional yeah log and not and I'm the same way

I will protect my team and then let's be real here I've had some attractive women work

for me as salespeople and I've had men potential buyers treat them in a way that was very

very very sexual and I will not stand for that at all you think it's bad enough

you have a female salesperson telling you to wait to the farmer marine CEO of the company

comes gets in your face because you violate the trust of one of my people not only am I not working at you

working with you it may go get worse for you from there so yeah

if you're not professional that is absolutely a toxic trait for a customer and I hate that stuff

we can all be professional we all get upset but you can be upset and still be professional that is the thing that I have found

on both sides that there's kind of this corporate standard of professionalism as long as you stay

inside that bandwidth you're usually good on both sides people interact with you it's when

you don't deliver or something gets missed or someone said something that falls

outside that band that's when people start to get really bent out of shape of like

hey we can't work with them or delays in payment right or

there's certain things that again if you fall inside that professional bandwidth you're usually

in good shape and so there are clients startups or different clients

that have been operating the same way for 50 years that fall outside of what

what is generally acceptable and I think that's where you get into trouble yeah and then one thing

Matt has mentioned several times and I want to come back and I want to in the show here because he's absolutely right

if you get rid of just the bottom 5 or 10% of your toxic clients

it frees up so much time for you to close your next 25 to 50% of the good clients so don't think about them

as losing revenue or losing a client thinking about as getting rid of clients that are not a good fit

for you and your team and your company and it frees up time for you to get a whole much more clients which are a great fit

and we'll be happy to work with you that revenue tie-in is absolutely there getting rid of

your worst clients actually leads to better and happier and easier revenue and I want to

also add to this conversation sometimes you really need to look in the mirror and understand

are you creating a bad behavior? Are you training clients to not communicate with you or not respond

or in your onboarding process have you clearly laid out everything and sometimes you have to look

in the mirror and go I created a monster because I didn't map out everything from the onboarding process

the escalation process the payment process maybe you weren't clear enough because you've done this so many times

they're doing it for the first time or okay like we didn't even talk about this

I think there's so much more here but like what's the appropriate form of communication

again there could be other issues when you get into like personal text messages and stuff like that

you got to clearly define what's appropriate right because to your point

we've had some text messages late at night to females sales reps

phones and not appropriate and again but if they accept

those things consistently it becomes standard right or just like

that scope creep or that communication creep I don't know how to phrase this where you need to be able

to answer the phone at 3am to get them out of the ditch to like this is not

that important that I need to communicate to you and respond to you all the time I don't know

the good thing is I don't think we have any HR people listen to this show we're going down the HR rabbit hole here

but let's just be real predominantly almost the majority of time it's men that cross that line you don't see women

prospects cross that line with their male sales reps or if it does happen it's so rare

so come on guys quit doing stupid shit that women can make fun of us about but Matt in your gut you know

if you're a salesperson if you're a female salesperson and you know when a prospect sends you an

appropriate message text or an inappropriate one and guys don't ever be that person that sends an appropriate one

that's just wrong it's memorialized in the digital cyberspace forever okay and then Matt

let's also be real lady salespeople I know some of y'all encourage that type behavior to help drive your sales and now that's your call

I'm not to judge you whether it's good or bad but if you'd use that as part of your sales toolkit I don't want to hear

about how it goes too far because you let it go there to close a deal and I think we probably should stop there before we get

any more trouble I do have a LinkedIn tip of the week we have a guest coming up who is head of a marketing for one of our other sponsors for a company called Navis

and she's an amazing marketing professional she's super smart she sits in Germany and what's interesting

this is the first time she's ever marketed to oil and gas so we're going to bring her on as a guest to hear

from her side what was different what was unique what was her challenges in all that but she's also

in Europe on the LinkedIn advisory board and so she gave me this tip and you might have mentioned this you probably noticed I didn't know this

but this is really cool if your company that you work for if a prospect follows your company's page on LinkedIn

and then you use an in-mail that built-in email communication it was built inside at LinkedIn

the prospect that you're reaching out to you think follow your company's LinkedIn page is 270%

more likely to answer your in-mail in-mails I always thought was a waste of time because the only time

I get them somebody trying to sell me shit 99% of the time and they don't even know who I am

they just had this automated copy and paste or whatever but she told me

is strategy and it's really cool so the benefit of getting more people to follow your LinkedIn

company page is not them following your LinkedIn company page it's that so if you're in sales

and you reach out to them and they're following your company's LinkedIn page they're 270% more likely to answer

your in-mail now if you use that don't be the bad salesperson try to pitch them

something right away because like me they'll just delete it and ignore it however

if you engage with them you've now been given a tool by LinkedIn to start a conversation

with the prospect in a platform that they trust and how beautiful is that? It's funny

I always go straight to like the marketing of like what that means and it's like okay

if someone's familiar with your brand their X times more likely to engage with you and these algorithms

lean into that so it probably surfaces that higher in their inbox but it's part of a broader

strategy to get them familiar with your brand to get to that 20 something plus

touch points and that's why you need social media marketing that social media marketing is so powerful

because people get familiar with your brand and they're more likely to engage with it if they know who you are

because it's not just cold you can also have cold outreach as the way in and then you build

kind of these touch points and we've talked about it before for the next 30 days someone's going to see

your post if you're posting consistently I see it all the time like I go on the LinkedIn I just connected with the number of people

they have like where they went to school their job 15 years like there's nothing there

they haven't posted anything and they may be good they may be absolutely good but I feel like everybody kind of is looking for something

whether it be a vendor or a new sales deal or they're have a job for a reason like they're trying to do something

and you're not sending any kind of signals about that you're not building anything that's going to compound for you

over time I just feel like so many people waste the tools that are available today because they're operating

like it's 20 years ago dude what a great place to end it let's shut it down there I don't want to say anything else

that was huge remember make a difference and not a sale thanks for listening to OGGM the world's largest

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