LinkedIn Live Success: LinkedIn Live Strategies that Drive Sales

Curt Anderson  00:00

Hey, Damon, happy, what you know, what you know I’ll get, I’m going to get emotional. You know, it’s, it’s, it’s 9/11 Yeah, 9/11 and 23 years ago. So you know a little moment to reflect. You know everybody, if you’re you know above a certain age, everybody knows exactly where you were, what was happening, what was going on on 9:11, you know, eight. You know the 8:43, I think it was the first plane hit 8:47, 9:03, the second plane. And, you know, just our hearts, prayers, you know, it’s just, it’s just, it gives you chills. It get brings tears to your eyes, makes you emotional. Just, it’s a, you know, just a devastating, devastating thing. And here we are, you know, our country came so together, yeah, that tragic moment, and, you know, and it’s, and what’s so unfortunate is you had to have such a tragedy. And you know, we won’t get it. We never talk about, you know, anything like that on a show, but you hear about so much, so much decisiveness today. But man, just, you know, that was our it was just wonderful how our country came together and just lifted each other up and loved each other. And, you know, just, just a great day to kind of hug the family, love everybody, just a little bit more. And just, you know, what are your thoughts,

Damon Pistulka  01:19

right? It changed our view of the world, yeah, it changed our view of the world. Because before that, we really hadn’t, hadn’t known terrorism on our own soil, right? And, yeah, yeah, it was crazy, right? I like, like you said, I think anybody that was above a certain age knows exactly where they were when they saw it on TV, when they heard on it, and you’re just like, what doesn’t happen here? Yeah. And now we, you know, we, we live with

Curt Anderson  01:50

it, yeah. And you know what and what, there’s a gentleman who he was, actually, he was a client of mine probably eight, nine years ago. And I, actually, I bumped into him at the gym once in a while he was in one of the towers. Wow, when it was hit, and he shares a very powerful story, and I was actually, I was going to try to get him, I bump into him at the gym once a while, I was going to try to bring him on. And just, it’s such a gripping story to be in one of the towers, yeah, you know. And maybe someday I can, I’ll drag him on. But so anyway, so let’s you know we’re here to we’re going to talk about LinkedIn live, but just again, another great shout out to our amazing, incredible country, and regardless about what you feel, man, just you know, what a better is there a better place to be than here? Come

Damon Pistulka  02:37

on, yeah, yeah. I mean the end of the day, end

Curt Anderson  02:42

of the day. So, alright. So, alright, let’s move forward LinkedIn live. Let’s talk about, you know, so we’re talking about LinkedIn live as a business development sales tool, strategy. What I’d love to dive into? Damon, so you’ve done a handful of live shows in your in your

Damon Pistulka  02:59

time, right? Then I’ve done four, four couple

Curt Anderson  03:02

here and there. So talk a little bit about like, how I want the methodology of like, who you bring on, why that particular person? What’s the subject that you’re trying to bring out? Like, you know, this takes a lot of time. It takes energy. Everything is an opportunity cost, right? Every minute that we spend doing this is something that we’re not doing somewhere else. Why do you choose to make this such a priority? Why has this been such a great business development tool

Damon Pistulka  03:28

for you? Yeah, okay, every minute is important, right? So when I look at the guests that come on to the live stream shows, I always think about, okay, am I? Is this a guest that’s going to help my soulmate customers? Am I going to learn from it? Or is this potentially a soulmate customer, or is this a someone that can be part of my referral network? And you really have to look at that. And then, as we go through the process of what we what we’re trying to share in that episode or in that show overall. How does that align with what we’re doing, you know? And so when you’re selecting guests, if I’m saying, Listen, I want this guest to be a could be a potential referral partner. I go out there and I’m looking for these kind of people. I look for people that share same values and those kind of things. And then you typically my, my process. I know this is similar to your process. Is invite them to talk, have a have a a conversation to see if coming on the show, sharing something about what they’re doing now, and usually if you can understand specifically what you’d like them to share. It’s even better. But then having that conversation and learning more about them in the conversation, to me, is really the part of it that helps me to determine, is this going to be a good guest for the show, is this not or is this someone that would be a good person to work with, or not? And those working through the. Steps is, is what I try to do with any guests, and really make sure that we understand what the outcome of that episode is going to be for them.

Curt Anderson  05:10

Yeah, I love what you’re saying there. So strategically, you know, thinking about, first off, what? What is information? What is content that maybe your current customer base wants to hear? What’s information that that a problem that they’re looking to solve, that you know is not your area of expertise, but, boy, you have a good friend, a colleague, a referral partner, someone in your network or and again, somebody that you want to make as a referral partner or a potential customer to reach out to and say, Hey, Damon, you know, dude, like you are amazing. Love your content that you’re putting out on LinkedIn. Love all this information. I think my crowd, my audience, would love to hear your expertise. Makes me look a little bit better. I don’t need to be the smartest guy in the room, so bringing on that person and you know, and again, if you reach out to somebody like, you know, hey, you know, you know when somebody needs, you know, the service that I provide or the solution that I provide, you know you should be thinking of my business, my company, my service. You know that. But when I come to you and just, you know, you and I recently just read the same book by Bob Berg, yeah, he wrote a second book called Go Giver. You know, talk a little bit about how you really can be just such a fierce Go Giver with a LinkedIn live strategy. Yeah, I

Damon Pistulka  06:25

think you really, if you adopt, and I recommend going reading Bob’s book. He’s he’s got several good books that one, endless referrals, the Go Giver is great. Endless Referrals is great too. But you know, even beyond him, Zig Ziglar always said, for you know, decades ago, said that if you can help enough people get what they want, you’ll have everything you desire. And and that’s true. And I think when you look at this and you think about what you can share in a live stream, how you can help the people listening, how you’re going to help the people listening is, is really when you keep that focus and bring the right people on, share the right information that you can learn from. Your guests can learn from, and everybody can benefit from, even the person that you bring on, because obviously they they’re exposed to a different audience. And those kind of things is really how you’re giving and how you elevate yourself in the minds of the listeners and minds of the guests, in the minds of of anyone that would come in contact with that content later on, that you’re, you’re out there helping people and and you will be more top of mind by doing that,

Curt Anderson  07:34

yeah? And that’s, you know, another, I’m going to butcher this quote, you know, it’s like people. I’m not even going to try it, but it’s just people want to know how much you care, right? Yeah, how much do you care about them? And so again, you know, reaching out to that person, you’re you’re accomplishing multiple things by doing LinkedIn live, where you’re bringing on a, you know, you’re reaching out to that person and saying, Hey, I’d really like to showcase highlight what you do your expertise. And I think my audience, you know, whether I have a client base of 10 or 10,000 I think my client base would like to hear your expertise. They’re like man, really. First off, you think that much of me, you admire that, and I can have access to your audience. Thank you very much. So now you know you’re strengthening that, that relationship, then for that person that is listening to that subject matter expert. So like man Damon, you hang out with that person that you know, the House and the Fords, the Wesleyan Whitakers, you know, the, you know, these other smart folks, these people that are just super passionate about what they’re doing. So it doesn’t matter, you know, I have a lot of clients where they’re like, you know, hey, that’s great. If you’re selling services, what do you do if you sell products? Or somebody that’s selling products, they’re like, Okay, well, if I’m selling products, how do I do this for you know, if there are, I’m sorry, vice versa, you know, for services or solutions, right? And it really, it’s not about your product, it’s not about your your solution, it’s about the relationship,

Damon Pistulka  08:53

yes, yes, yes, because you’re not there to promote your, your product or services as a major focus of an episode ever. Really, you’re, you’re just, you’re just there to talk about and share good information that your audience will enjoy, right and learn from that’s what it is. And yes, you’re going to be able to mention a product or service, how it helps some in some situations, if it comes up. But really, it comes back to the know, like and trust, and people have to get to know you first before they’re going to ever do anything. And this is a way that they can do that they can learn from where you’re doing and become comfortable with who you are and what you stand for.

Curt Anderson  09:32

Right? Then let’s slide into the education piece, right? We love to preach, you know. How do you out teach the competition, you know? So the great thing is, with with a LinkedIn live, if you just come in as that fierce, educating mindset, you know, unapologetically, of you know, I don’t care if you are bending metal, cutting steel, making circuit boards, ve printing. You’re an accountant, financial planner, whatever service, whatever you know your value that you bring to. The market. How you make the world a better place by coming on to LinkedIn live and just educating, you know, I have, I have a daughter going off to college, man, and she’s, or, well, next year, and so, like, I’m, like, well, blown, you know, preparing for college. So I’m taking all these webinars, you know, of like, how does this work? How does that work? Because I’m the dumbest guy in the room. I don’t know. I don’t, I haven’t gone through, you know, I, you know, this is my first time, at my age, going through this process. So I’m just a sponge of getting information, because I, you know, I want to do this right? So think of your buyer out there, or the person that has, you know, like you provide incredible expertise for people that want to sell a business. I mean, outside of your kids, your family, like, what’s more important than your business, right? Yes. So, I mean, just share a little bit about like, you know how with faces of business, the types of guests that you bring on, the information that you want to provide. Like, what? What do you want people to take away when they watch or see faces of business?

Damon Pistulka  10:59

Well, I want them to be able to learn something, and you know, as in, specifically, learn enough to be dangerous in the subject we’re talking about, not that you’re going to like go through if you want to learn something in detail, you have to do seminars, you have to go and do some additional training kind of thing. But, but it’s the kind of thing that we have so many business owners out there that don’t have a heck of a lot of time, but they have to make all these different decisions. And if you don’t even know what questions to ask when someone comes at you to go, what should we do about this for taxes or marketing or finance or growth or whatever the heck you’re working on? If they can just understand what are two or three questions I should ask from it, around it to so I can make a better decision, right? I feel comfortable about that’s really all you’re going to get done in that amount of time. And hopefully we can do that once in a while, and and bring on the experts that have the that can explain it well enough. So you go, Oh, I’ve got three questions now I can ask somebody, if they talk about they someone comes to me in my business and says, Hey, you should do a new website because of this. Go, okay, why would tell me that these are the three questions I have around it, and then you go, okay, I can make a better decision whether or not I need to do that or do we need to do this financially? Do we need to do this from a you know, organizationally, they’re, they’re just a lot of things you can learn by just getting enough to be dangerous. And, dude,

Curt Anderson  12:29

I feel like you’re just sitting right on the head, right? How to help people make a better decision? Yeah. And when you think about the product, the service, the solution that you provide to the market, okay? That person does, you know, we a lot of times we take things for granted, right? We do. You know, you know, whatever we do, you know, whatever you do we do. You know, it’s like, it’s making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, right? Does somebody need to teach you or explain to you how to make a peanut butter jelly sandwich? You just do it. But if you had explained it to somebody who, you know, just came from another planet. Never seen it before, right? It’s like, Okay, step by step, selling your business. I can tell firsthand. You know it is, I don’t know if there’s anything more emotional. I probably you know it is such an emotional event. And as an entrepreneur, you know you’re pouring your heart and soul, and when you can create an entity that somebody else wants to buy, you know. So I don’t want to go in a rabbit hole there, but when you a Damon Pistulka can provide the information, tax consequence, what should I sell it for? Who should I sell it to? What does it look like? What’s the transition when I sell it? What does my life look like after, you know? And if I could, you know, the famous saying, you know, if you’re on a path, talk to people in a way, coming back right? If I can talk to other experts to walk me through this, to prevent those catastrophic, you know, it’s not going to be perfect, but those mistakes, you know. So I just, I love what you’re saying there about helping people make a better by a better decision, yeah,

Damon Pistulka  14:00

and it’s really then. It’s because if we as live streamers use LinkedIn live to share that information to help people make better decisions, they will then see how we relate to and how we help people make informed decisions, rather than, you know how we’re selling our product or services. Because at the end of the day, with LinkedIn live or another, and live streaming in general is I think you can drastically change the way you sell, because I am helping people getting to know like and trust us. Me what we’re doing, how we do it, right, much farther than anyone else that’s going to, to not be helping people make better decisions,

Curt Anderson  14:43

right? You know you’re, we’ll start winding down. You’re going to, you’ll love this example. So I have a client, you know this client very well, my ground strap guy, right? Yeah. And so he they, finally they decided they’re not doing lives, but they’re going in that direction, right? Yeah. And they’re actually thinking about. It. So the gentleman that’s shooting, so now they’re now like, all in on videos, just shooting. They’re just going to go all in. That’s their that’s their direction. The gentleman that’s shooting the videos, you know, started out at the small custom manufacturer on the floor, been there for 15 years. Started on the floor. He is now, you know, climbed up, the lad, you know, very small family business, yeah, he’s climbed up, and now he’s shooting the videos. The you can just see the pride that this guy has. He was like, you know, I started on the floor, and now I’m like, he now he’s become, like, the face of the business. And he looks at me, he goes, You know what? He goes, I want to start live streaming. And the reason I want to live stream is he’s a huge sports collector, huge, right? And, you know, the baseball cards of this that. So he goes, he goes to shows, national shows, or whatever. Wow. He’s like, when I go to the shows, there’s guys that I watch on live stream every day, every day I watch these, it goes, and I feel like I know them. I go to the show, and I walk up to them, I’m like, you know, I don’t mean to sound creepy, but I feel like I know you because I’ve been watching you live streaming. And so now he wants to start doing that himself. He goes, I know these guys. I like these guys. I trust these guys because I watch their lives every day. He goes, that’s what we’re going to start doing. And they saw what, you know, can you think of anything more, more, you know, boring than ground straps? And that’s what they’re going to start doing,

Damon Pistulka  16:21

and it and really, that’s a great example, because it doesn’t matter what your product or service is. Doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. But you have a bunch of potential customers out there, existing customers out there, fans out there, right? If you are live streaming. It will help you. It will help you, and it will help them. That’s the thing. It will help them.

Curt Anderson  16:47

Yeah, absolutely. So hey, our dear friend, Trish is here today. Trish, Happy Wednesday, too. Uh. Trish says, I love this, educating, informed decision makers, service and no like trust, speaking of no like trust, man, if you know, how do you know like or trust? Trish Stewart, more than ever. So Trish, Happy Wednesday to you. Thank you for joining us. So man, what a dear friend. She just connected me with somebody last week. You know you talk about, and she’s been a dear friend on the show multiple times. And so Trish, send you positive vibes today. So Damon, let’s start winding down. So again, we’re talking LinkedIn live. Why? You know, it’s really no longer a nice to have. Is a must to have any What are your What are your thoughts? You know,

Damon Pistulka  17:30

I think the biggest apprehension that people have is, you know, I don’t, I don’t know if I want to be on camera. It’s going to be technically, hard, all that kind of stuff. And really, I mean, if you have friends in real life, if you have people that you hang out, and, you know, in the physical world, you

Curt Anderson  17:52

wait, wait, do you have to have friends that you say, like, because I can’t have a lot. I said, if,

Damon Pistulka  18:00

but it, you know, it’s no different. It’s no different than your your hanging out at your local, you know, community event, talking with people, right? That’s what it is. And it’s not any harder than that from a technical standpoint, really, because we’ve shown that in our live streaming course, free live streaming course, they can look at that, and they could see. Listen, here are the steps to do it. And once you look at it, you go, yeah, there’s some steps. There’s some things I have to do, but it’s no harder than, you know, a lot of other things we do right now. And it’s, it’s not difficult,

Curt Anderson  18:33

it’s not difficult. And so I we could go on and on, I’m sorry to keep it so our dear friend Joseph used to be at impact, Washington. You remember Joseph? He just started his own business. He has a consulting business. Talked with him the other day. It’s taken off. Just what a great guide, man of integrity. I just wish him massive success. You know how his business took off through BNI? And so if you’re not familiar with BNI, great networking organization. It’s National. You and I actually we went to a BNI meeting in Alaska. Remember that a year ago, last year, we went to a B and I meeting in Anchorage, Alaska. It was just so rewarding. My goodness, there was like 30, over 30 people in the room, and they are just fierce networkers, just helping each other. And Joseph shared like his business has taken off immediately, within months, thanks to BNI. And this is an opportunity here where you can create your own little if you’re not familiar with it, Google BNI, you know, I’m sure your community, you could have the smallest community. You’re gonna have a BNI group, and it’s just a great little it’s a networking community. You can create the same thing here on LinkedIn, live. Alright. Trish, says, Okay, you guys are inspiring me to try, try this. Can you drop the link? Can you drop the link? So, Trish, I’ll email that over to you. Yeah. Why don’t we wind down parting thoughts, words of wisdom that you want to share? You know,

Damon Pistulka  19:54

I think the the the people that are not using link. In or live streaming for their building relationships, business development, whatever you want to call it, are missing out on a great opportunity to help a lot of people and grow your sales. Just honestly, that’s what it is. Just

Curt Anderson  20:16

grow Hey and so Trish says, Thanks, and then Hey, before we close so man, Diane, buyer, Damon, wait. We have a call with Diane coming up. Diane, appreciate you. Thank you more than you can imagine. Just we have wonderful folks here, Trish and Diane, send you guys tons of just respect, admiration, love. So thank you guys both. Damon, let’s close out today, on this wonderful day, you know, just be a little more patriotic today. Send a little bit more you know, hug your loved ones a little tighter, and so guys, we will see you back here soon. God bless you. See ya. Have a great day, everyone. You.