Maximize LinkedIn Live for Sales Growth Opportunities

Curt Anderson  00:00

Well, hello there team in Pistulka Happy Monday to my friend. How are you?

Damon Pistulka  00:06

I’m doing great Curt. Ready to go for today?

Curt Anderson  00:09

Let’s rock and roll, man. Hey, we’ve got a really fun. Guess what? No guests, man. It’s just us. We’re like, we’re just, you’re stuck with me today. What do you think?

Damon Pistulka  00:16

We’ll we’ll be just fine.

Curt Anderson  00:18

We’ll be you’ll survive. Alright, how was your Fourth of July weekend?

Damon Pistulka  00:22

It was awesome. It was awesome. Great weather. Great people. Yeah, it was just good stuff.

Curt Anderson  00:28

Tons of be so thankful for. Yeah, right. Yeah, friends, family, good food.

Damon Pistulka  00:34

Nature. It was just like one of those where you go. I’m good with this.

Curt Anderson  00:41

Yeah. Yeah. Just it’s, it’s we’re so fortunate so blessed. We’re just we’re great. You know, all the above just celebrating, you know, so I was on I was on a boat on Fourth of July. And I actually touched you a video but just to share. Yeah, so it’s out there. So I’m on a boat for Fourth of July. And as I pull up, there’s like hundreds of boats. And they had a stage and a DJ and a woman is singing the national anthem. And there’s, you know, there’s hundreds of boats, there’s gonna be 1000s of people, right? And everybody’s just going it was I got I got chills just listening to it. People are just hooting and hollering and just what a wonderful, incredible celebration for our country and just, you know, everything that we’re just so thankful for. And just it was it was awesome. So yeah,

Damon Pistulka  01:27

yeah, we were able to go down and watch this fireworks in Seattle on Lake Union off the back of a boat the first time I’ve ever been able to do that. So it’s really it was I’ve never seen a city fireworks before. Right? You know, yeah, you’re on I realized that it was really something that was 45 minutes of just beautiful. And if anyone likes fireworks, I wouldn’t say go to Facebook or so I’m gonna look up the Seattle fireworks because they were they were very good. That’s very good.

Curt Anderson  01:55

That that is awesome. It’s matter of fact, you’re in Seattle, I had friends. They were here from Seattle and where I live, the fireworks are like right down our street. We walk around and just had wonderful fireworks and a little lake I live on and hey Gary Woods there. And Gary, happy Monday. Hope you had a spectacular, wonderful. Fourth of July. Harry’s in the house. Hairy hairy man, what an inspiration. This guy is so big hello to both you you’re out there. drop us a note. Let us know you’re there. We’re gonna dive into live streaming. We’re just gonna we’re gonna have a quick session here with Damon. Myself, Damon, let’s dive into live streaming. Let’s talk about the benefits. Okay, so title of our program today, we’re diving into sales growth opportunities. Big word that I love. You know, everybody comes up with like, the word of the year. The one word I love, love, love is possibilities. What are the possibilities? And I’ll tell you when you know, we last time we dug into like our live stream, journey, origin story, all that stuff. So you can go back and catch that one. But today, we want to talk about possibilities. What are some of the opportunities, some of the possibilities? For anybody out there that wants to start live streaming? What are your thoughts?

Damon Pistulka  03:14

Well, I think you know, it, it is the way to build relationships that is not like normal business development. And that’s one of the you know, the possibilities are you can build relationships that are deeper. And I think, in a structured manner, and I don’t want that to sound, you know, clinical, because it’s not. But that really allow you to get to know people. Right?

Curt Anderson  03:40

Right, and a really different level. And so in your dude, I have a couple of surprises for you. So this morning, I was, you know, it was just a wonderful, incredible weekend, I came in all juiced up. And so I reached out to a couple people. So I reached out to a founder of a software company this morning, invited them on the show. And then I reached out to the President and the director of a major organization and just dropped a note on LinkedIn and just said, Hey, I just really admire respect, the awesome work that you’re doing. It would be such a privilege to have you on our program. And so again, like, you know, we’re using this to reach out to awesome people. Number one, selfishly and shamelessly, like the learning opportunity that we get just from bringing the guest on are just, you know, just incredible. But also like you’re saying Craig net relationships. So the two people I reached out to today and let’s keep our fingers crossed that we get them on the show. Great value for our audience here. And you know what you’re doing if they say yeah, you’re gonna be you’re gonna be you’re fired up. But the thing is, if I just reach out like, Hey, can we get on a call? Hey, can I tell you about my services? You know, it’s just such a different it just flips the script. What are your thoughts? It really

Damon Pistulka  04:57

does, it really does because you can See what someone is passionate about. And you can ask them to come on your show and talk about that. Right? And, and because you know if that aligns with what you’re doing, if that aligns with the industry you’re in, if that aligns with how you want to help people and help organizations, it’s natural. It’s a natural outreach. Whereas if I’m, I’m contacting you, Curt, I’m going Hey, Curt, you know, you want to talk about, you know, maybe preparing your business for sale someday selling it, whatever you want to do, you know, that’s what we do. It’s like, ditch that? And go, Hey, do you want to come on manufacturing ecommerce success, because we share stuff that manufacturers need, so they can grow so they can become better businesses and have great cultures? And, and it’s a whole different conversation.

Curt Anderson  05:46

Right? We right, if you’re a solopreneur out there, you’re our buddy Gary Woods out there, you know, so many solopreneurs out there, you know, or I know, you know, you’re a big business does, you know, you could be Apple, you have to do business development. Yeah, your business development. So this morning, I’m like, Okay, well, I need to do some business development. And you know what, I’m gonna get some wonderful, amazing, incredible people on our show, because now that delivers value to folks I carry. We’ve got Raja here today. Yes. Good morning. And so you know, we’ve got, you know, Gary says Happy Monday to you. And thank you, Gary. And again, any of our friends out there, drop us a note, let us know where you’re coming from. But we’re talking about the benefits and sales growth opportunities. And again, one of our favorite word’s possibilities with live stream. So Damon, we always talk about those cold calls where you have to do business development, and is a cold call. So how do you know we can flip the script? On that cold call? Just you know, you’ve had hundreds of guests on faces of business. Hundreds of guests here on our show manufacturing ecommerce success. Talk a little bit like how are you strategically you like how are you a strategic strategically getting guests on your show?

Damon Pistulka  06:54

Well, it’s, it’s, you know, similar to what we’re doing with manufacturing ecommerce, because SAS I see people doing stuff that are really helping helping people in the way that I like to, and I reached out, I reached out, I’m reaching out to people all the time. And like you said, you reached out to people, I reached out to four people this morning, because I was like, Hey, let’s come on the show, let’s talk about this, this is what you’re doing. This is how it relates to the audience, because we can share you and give these people some great information. That is my business development. Because my business development is I want to get to know the person. And then once I get to know the person, and they can share what they’re really passionate about what they get to do, well, then we’ll see what happens after that. And it’s not like it’s a, like, quick fix or anything like that. But it is a way to build long term sustainable relationships.

Curt Anderson  07:49

I totally agree. And so now, you know, another way to look at it is new prospects. I don’t want to use the word old, right? Because we’re not old, we’re seasoned. And you know, but say, you know, contacts, customers, clients, you know, business relationships that you’ve had for many, many years. So you can use it to how do I how do I break the ice, you know, create a new relationship with somebody, number one, number two, how can I strengthen a current or existing relationship? Or maybe somebody, man, I haven’t talked to this person in two or three years, it’s a great excuse opportunity to reach out to him say, Hey, what’s going on? You have something new and exciting. But you’re on the show a couple of years ago? Or, you know, we haven’t talked in a long time. Have them come back on the show. Yeah. Thoughts about you know, having those existing current relationships? Well,

Damon Pistulka  08:37

that is, that is a great thing. Because once you’ve established these relationships, or have these relationships, they may not have been on a live stream before, but you can have them come on to your live stream. There’s no reason you can’t ask yours. You know, second cousin, that’s an artist come on, you know, it doesn’t matter. You can get whoever you want on there, your old friends, sometimes they’ve got the best stories, right? You’ve got the best. You’ve gone through some trials and tribulations with them, you solve an industry challenge with them. Maybe you did it a few years ago, bring those people on because you can rekindle and nurture those relationships for the long term by featuring those people over time again, right,

Curt Anderson  09:17

definitely. And so you know, you can look at it again, from a cold call standpoint, how do I convert a cold call into a warm conversation? This is a phenomenal way to do it. Number one, number two, it’s strengthening, encouraging current existing relationships building on those. And now let’s get into like that referral network. Okay. Yeah, you know, that’s another great way. So you know, we’re having, we have Greg Michaud coming on the program next week. We have RJ you know, it was an eCommerce expert coming on the show last week, you know, so we’re having other collaboration, folks. Let’s go dive into a little bit on you know, how about creating that referral network, and how you can utilize your livestream show to help strengthen that that referral network work?

Damon Pistulka  10:00

Well, I think there’s a great opportunity there with your with your soulmate, one hundreds, like we talked about a lot, those are the people that are working in your industry that have one to many relationships. So like, see, for me, I do fractional CFOs, fractional CEOs could be marketers that are working in the kind of companies that I’m doing with doing that I’ve worked with. And it’s really a nice to be able to have them on the show to talk about what they’re helping people with. And they have a lot of clients in their business that I don’t necessarily know. And that’s where those referral opportunities can can be developed over time by the relationships you build, and then just helping them be successful. So you can be successful. Yeah,

Curt Anderson  10:47

definitely. So you know, there’s two, that’s a two pronged attack right there. Because you can have a customer come on, and you know, or a client or what have you, and you can walk through a case study, you know, hey, here’s a challenge that customer had, here’s how we work together. And here’s what came out on the other side. Shamelessly, it’s a wonderful opportunity to get a testimonial, right? Yeah. Great way, you know, showcasing your expertise. And it ties in with a line that we use, you know, hopefully we use every episode, how do you out teach the competition? Right? Yes. How do you teach the competition, and by using the live stream show, to just be that fierce educator, hey, this is how you do something is, you know, you know, there’s a million things that I did, you know, in my neighborhood, if I’m ever caught seen with a tool of any type, like, even a hammer, like our neighbors are instructed to call 911, like, you know, occurred has a tool. So there’s a lot of things that I just don’t know, you know, so I have to you know, like, it’s if you’re great with tools, I could watch your show, then maybe people would call 911 If I have a tool in my hand, right? Yeah. Well,

Damon Pistulka  11:51

you know, as as interesting as it may seem, but one of the the first people that really did a lot of LinkedIn live streaming was a plumber. And he is he still does to this day, it and I forget his name, but I used to, I used to study his videos. In the beginning, I was like, What is he doing? Right? Just talking about plumbing? How easily and drain he put a disposal in? Yeah, he knew this. Yeah, questions, ask your plumber when it comes out. I mean, it’s just that you can, it doesn’t really matter what you do, right. But you can create this great content and build these relationships and build a community around you. I mean, we are so fortunate in the shows, because we are building this community of people that are helping businesses grow and be better and, and that and then when it comes time that we can refer people to the people we’ve had on the show, or they can refer people to us, or we can just help people with the information they find and what they hear what they need on the shows, it’s all good for us. And we build this community of people that we’re always talking, we’re always figuring out what’s going on and what’s changing.

Curt Anderson  12:58

Right. It’s that echo system, like staying in our lane, you know, talking with, you know, primarily b2b Folks, you know, again, so any friends out there that are listening to this, like, okay, you know, I hear what you’re saying, and how would, how would How would live stream be applicable to me, you know, use the plumber is a fantastic example, you know, anybody that’s in the service sector on Main Street, you know, you know, whenever I’m talking to them, I’m like, if I was you, I’d be going all in on LinkedIn. Why? Because number one, it’s the highest level income of any social media platform is LinkedIn. Right? I believe that’s fact, number one. Number two, there’s 700 million people on LinkedIn. And every one of them is a consumer in some capacity, right? And so and it’s not as noisy as the other platforms. So yeah, well, going live would be a fantastic option here. Hey, we’ve got Harry’s dropped a question here, because you’re alive. Have you ever had to show God’s grace? And if so, how did you handle it? Hey, many times, and you crush. I hope I’m saying that correctly. Good morning to you, my friend. And how did we handle that? And Gary would says, Hey, Greg, that’s a great question. Right. Damon, what do you say about any, you know, I’ve made I haven’t made every mistake, because I know I have tons ahead of me. I don’t even know. But what are some of your thoughts?

Damon Pistulka  14:23

Well, I think okay, first of all, you get down to the technical stuff that happens right? Internet dies all the time on people. It just happens, right? That’s gonna happen. How many times a day that happened to us where the guest just freezes drops off. Yeah. And sometimes they come back or sometimes they don’t, you know, yeah. So that’s one that you just gotta you just keep talking through it. But you know, and then there can be some things where we’ve had it before. It’s been a long time. Now we’ve had several guests on the on on different shows where they got heated, right, they got heated, okay. And you go and you go, okay, De ID, that’s something you really need to prepare yourself for. Because you have to be able to control that conversation. It’s not hard, it’s just one of those things that you need to do. Because you can, you can, you can bring the sanity back into the conversation. We are fortunate, our guests, we don’t really have that kind of people in there knock on wood. Yeah. But I’m confident though, Harry, that if it did happen, I’ve got the kill button on their on their mic, I can do I can do a whole lot of things if you really need to. And, you know, it’s just being polite. And I think though, when you talk about things, and we think about like, tempers, flaring and stuff like that,

15:47

as a host, your, your, what you’re exuding

Damon Pistulka  15:53

is what your guests will come out with, and I think you do a great job of this, Curt, the just massive positivity and humility and calm, it helps us really allow the people to discuss even tough things. Yeah.

Curt Anderson  16:10

Yeah. And I will say, I avoid as my wife, I avoid conflict at all costs, you know, so that that’s, you know, so it’s not something that you know, for this particular show, I tell you, if we did get controversial, or, you know, temperamental or whatever, like maybe like we’d actually have right like, you know, that’s because that’s the conflict is where your readings right, but, you know, we’re, you know, we welcome and we’re embracing the the positivity, as you said, the Kumbaya, we’re just purely, we’re here doing this a really showcase, and doing it with just pure, genuine intentions of showcasing the guest. Yes, there are super powers and what they’re awesome at. And so, you know, and here’s one thing that I I don’t do, and I don’t know if I should, is, I don’t I, we typically the the guests typically doesn’t know what the questions are going to be when they come to us. And so, you know, I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. But you know, we’ve had hundreds of guests and maybe out of hundreds, you know, a handful of times a small percentage, we’ve had some dialogue back and forth, or, you know, hey, how about these questions? Or how does this lining of questions go? But, um, let’s see, I can tell Curt has some experience hit the kill button. I like that. So, you know, that’s not a good comment, Damon have a template, you both do that. So, you know, it’s a very fantastic question. And like I said, I think we’ve been just so fortunate and so blessed with with amazing, incredible, wonderful guests that, but like you’re saying, Daymond, the technology can go sideways. I’ve been on site. When I go live on site, I think I break when I think I’ve made every mistake possible. I find a new one. I was on site in Chicago. Last two, Thursday’s ago, and found a whole new were stream yard was actually streaming to LinkedIn. So here we are, we’re all geared. We’re gonna go and then stream yard says overnight going to LinkedIn today, you know, or whatever. Yeah. So you know, it just happens, you roll with the punches, and you know, do the best that you can, right. Yeah,

Damon Pistulka  18:15

that’s, I mean, all that kind of stuff is gonna happen. And you just got, like you said, you have to have a good attitude about it. Because we’re not here to be perfect. We’re here to be better, and just keep doing as good as we can. And if technology doesn’t want to cooperate, it’s like the way it is. You still got to have fun. Yeah,

Curt Anderson  18:31

yeah. And again, I think like our genuine intention, is to bring in amazing people who selfishly, we’re just super excited to learn from and it’s been having these guests, has truly been life altering for me, you know, we can name names, and we’d be here too long to say this person changed me this person, the you know, right.

Damon Pistulka  18:56

Yeah. And it’s not the the famous people. That’s the thing is that there are just people walking around us every day that are so extraordinary that we don’t even know we just pass them by in the grocery store. And if you knew their story, you’d be like, Oh, my goodness. Yeah. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. Yeah. What they’ve done, what they’ve gone through the the discoveries. It’s just, there’s just so much to that. Yeah.

Curt Anderson  19:24

And I think, you know, obviously, we’re super super bullish. I think everybody, you know, I’m being you know, obviously, I’m a little biased. I think everybody should consider some type of platform like this. But you know, what, people what is one of the greatest human traits is people along for recognition. Yeah. And sort of thing is for most entrepreneurs, it is it’s lonely. It’s challenging. It’s It’s stressful, your nose to the grindstone. Whether you’re an entrepreneur trying to make a living, you have five employees and you feel responsible for those five you have 100 employees. and you feel responsible for all 100 Whatever you’re wherever, you know, wherever you’re at, with the live show opportunity does is that we bring on the guests. And it gives them a moment to shine and just to share their experiences share their expertise. We had a gentleman John was on a few weeks ago, and he shared how his business completely tanked or in 2008, in no fault of his own, and, you know, kind of talked about things going sideways and saw his whole business went south, he had some personal things that went bad. He had a couple family members that passed away. He and his wife looked at each other and said, Hey, what are we doing here? Why don’t we get a fresh slate? And why don’t we move to Portugal? You know, like, I didn’t know that about him. I had no idea that story about him. I’m like, I go, Are you in Portugal? He goes, I go, Yeah, I go, man, how’d that happen? And he lets this knew that story. And he had an opportunity to share that here. So that’s, that’s what I think is, is just, it’s just so exciting. It’s just such a gap.

Damon Pistulka  21:03

And you know, you think about this for the relationships that builds and the sales growth opportunities that it creates for your business is, and that’s great. You’re creating these sales growth opportunities, because ultimately, we do have to drive business. But I think you just you said here and you think about cold calling, emailing, blogging, and you go, okay, yeah, those are effective in their own way as business development tools. But what feels better to me?

Curt Anderson  21:37

Yeah, that you’re headed to drop the mic. Damon, you’re

Damon Pistulka  21:42

I mean, because this is this is, this is really it, right? I absolutely freakin hate cold calling the point that I would rather honestly give me a nail gun, I’ll shoot it through whatever hand you want it to go through, because it will be better. And then then you go, now it’s so much easier. It’s like I said, I reached out to four people this morning. And it’s like, Hey, this is what out. Let’s get on to blah, blah, blah. You know, in our process that we’ve got, we’ve developed this process over hundreds of shows and hundreds of guests, 1000s of guests being invited, you know, it. It’s really not even like business development. It’s like we’re just making friends. Yeah. Yep.

Curt Anderson  22:22

Totally, totally agree. Totally agree. So I will start winding down Daymond. as we wind down, we’ve got a great guest on Friday coming up, we’re going to be dive deep dive on sales strategies for businesses with punch manufacturers. I think we have a special co host that’s going to join on Friday. We’ll we’ll keep you posted there any parting thoughts, words of wisdom that you want to share with folks as we wind down today? No,

Damon Pistulka  22:47

I really, yes. Yes. I said no, first, excuse me. And that’s the wonderful thing about life is I think, really, you consider live streaming as we all used to have to have websites, right. And now the websites have to be so advanced. And now we go, okay, we were email marketing. And we were buying Google ads. And now we got to create content, we got to do all this other stuff. And I’m like, Listen, if I’m in a business that I want to get 1020 customers a year because I work with big accounts or something like that. Why not do it with live streaming, reaching out to these people in these organizations that are interesting that you can learn from that, hey, maybe we could do some business someday together. But I want to talk about you because you’re doing something cool in the industry. That’s what I think if I’m in a business like that, it is a live stream here is a dream.

Curt Anderson  23:48

Blue Ocean man, if you are looking to separate yourself from the competition, and I love what you just said, you know, live stream today is what websites were 2025 30 years ago. We’re all Gee, I need to get a website. What’s this new, you know, internet of fad? It’s not gonna last right thing. Yeah. Well, that’s what live stream is today. If you want to just truly separate yourself, build a robust content machine and just have incredible, wonderful business relationships. This is really the place to do it. So I think Damon, this was a fun little session, man. So I know we have a hard stop. We’re going to wind down and wrap up. So Damon, thank you for joining us today. Thank you for everybody out there. Thanks for all the comments in the chat box. We appreciate it. We are going to be back on Friday, same time. 1232. Eastern, nine to Pacific and we’re going to have we just we have a phenomenal lineup of guests this month for July so great. July is heating up and we will see you guys soon. Thank you. God bless. Have a great rest of your week and we’ll see you Friday.

Damon Pistulka  24:54

Thanks everybody.