In this episode, we’ll talk about:
- The single most important strategy to win on LinkedIn,
- How one article led Marcus Murphy to become the only “salesperson” on LinkedIn’s Advisory Board,
- How he caught the attention of Ryan Deiss where he was then hired as the Director of Monetization at Digital Marketer,
- His secrets to landing some of the biggest partnerships in business today from Grant Cardone to Salesforce, Billy Gene, and more!
- Want to know what’s keeping you from doubling your sales in the next 12 months? Take our quick QUIZ to get answers: Howtodoublesales.com
- If you’d like to have a profound breakthrough in your business, schedule your breakthrough call with a LIVE expert here: Chetholmes.com/Breakthrough
- Claim your FREE chapter 4 from the top 10 most recommended marketing and sales books of all time! Visit: Ultimatesalesmachine.com to find out how you Create 9X More Impact from every move you’re already making to win clients!
[00:00:00] Marcus Murphy: When it comes down to LinkedIn, if you want to win, you want to make sure that you’re fully optimized for the conversation. You need to make sure that you’re squarely in the intersection to have it and that anything you put out in the world to your ideal client or avatar is getting them to stop and have a conversation with you.
[00:00:47] Amanda Holmes: All right. We are officially live. Welcome everybody. I am so happy. Last minute, Marcus Murphy, who is in the midst of recording at the recording studio, took some time to help us better understand winning your biggest client using LinkedIn and then I’ve been, so I’m so happy to be able to interview on this because you know, I’ve watched you go through this journey, you know, when you were with Infusionsoft slash Keap and then jumping over to digital marketer and then getting on the advisory board for LinkedIn.
[00:01:21] I mean, all of these pieces I’ve watched you do, but now to actually give other people the opportunity to learn from you is wonderful. So on this, on this great topic, wait and the company that you’re now that you’re in the midst of –
[00:01:36] Marcus Murphy: Yeah, yeah. We literally are launching a big road show series virtual, of course. Uh, but coming up here, we have a five month road show for our new business to launch it, series of virtual events.
[00:01:48] And then we have a big in-person hybrid event in November in London. Yeah, it’s pretty crazy.
[00:01:53] Amanda Holmes: Yeah. Where can they find out about these things?
[00:01:55] Marcus Murphy: So five percent.com is going to be live in two weeks, which is really cool, which is we’ve been working our butts off for like the last seven months to get everything going.
[00:02:07] And there’s three main components. We have a university, so we have education, which we’re actually an event first company that focuses on five pillars. So if it’s going to be finance, leadership, sales, and marketing and wellness for early stage and transitional entrepreneurs. I don’t know. I have like a brain.
[00:02:22] My brain just froze for a second, but yeah, I’ve been talking about it so much to my team that I’m like, oh my gosh. But yeah, we’re finally launching then been working on it for a year now. And so it’s all ready to go.
[00:02:31] Amanda Holmes: Ah, I can’t wait. I can’t wait. Well for everyone since I know I only have you for a short period of time, please embark upon us the wisdom.
[00:02:40] How can you win your biggest clients using LinkedIn?
[00:02:44] Marcus Murphy: You know, it’s so simple and it’s so complex at the exact same time. The simplicity of it is that most people focus on the platform as a place where they can go now one, find their ideal clients. And then from there, they go about the wrong ways of trying to connect with them because every single person that I see on the platform is 1000% trying to expedite the process of being human or somehow automate that process.
And unfortunately, you just can’t automate humanity. Everybody wants to and every marketer who’s ever listening to this is like, call me on bullshit, but I’ll tell you right now that the platform is not set up for marketers to try and break it.
[00:03:23] And I’ll tell you, I’ve literally spoken all over the world at so many different levels. And everybody wants to come up to me after I get done speaking and say, I’ve got this little thing. I’ve got this trick. I know this robot. I’ve got this automation sequence. I’ve done this. I figured it out. I’ve cracked the code and good on you.
[00:03:41] Like great. If that’s what you were trying to do. Amazing. But guess what? The disingenuous nature is just it doesn’t survive on the platform and who really wins on the platform are people that understand human connection, they understand how the steps, the actual calculated steps of building valuable relationships.
[00:04:02] And it doesn’t start with, “Hi, my name is Marcus. Buy my shit” that is never going to work. It really doesn’t work in real life. So on the platform, there are real steps. There are real steps to understanding how to engage with people and believe even it’s B2B. It’s a heavy B2B platform. 80% of all B2B leads come from the platform.
[00:04:21] But what’s really interesting about it is that it’s not about B2B or B2C. It’s literally about people connecting with other people. Like that’s really like the person in that company that you’re trying to get into and sell to is a human being. So a lot of the tactics that you use when you connect with people on this platform are way less going to be like, here’s the, here’s the feature.
[00:04:41] Here’s the thing. This is what I’m selling. And it’s way more of trying to figure out who that person is, understand what their themes are, try to connect with them at a human level, and go about it in a really strategic way. So I’ll give you really practical advice. Like if anybody’s ever watching this and you’re looking to connect with really high-value people on LinkedIn, it’s a step-by-step process.
[00:05:01] Number one. Identifying who they are. Number two is not going directly to them. Do not send them a request and use the 300 characters in the personalization to sell your product or service. What you need to do is you need to go do your research, get on the page. This is the, this is the human part and the non-automated part.
[00:05:20] You can always find people automated. You can automate the process of finding the client or avatar, you cannot automate the process of going deep on their profile, looking at what they’ve been sharing, finding out what they’re interested in, what groups that they’re a part of. That’s a really difficult thing to automate on the platform, but LinkedIn has done that intentionally.
[00:05:38] And so when you can find the really high-impact big clients, then you should be taking the time to slow down and really read what they’re sharing. Find out where they’ve worked, understand the commonalities, what their themes are. And then when you see, I’ll tell you a hack to in a second. I think everybody wants that.
[00:05:54] Uh, but the, the part is, is like you want to insert yourself into the conversation or you want to insert yourself in the intersection of opportunities for conversation and what, what tools you have on the platform are one, your profile, like your profile is the first tool to start a conversation just is, it’s not just to be pretty.
[00:06:10] It’s not just to have a great profile. It’s not our photo. It’s, it’s there to allow you to use the real estate of content. The, the headline, the summary section, which is 2000 characters to write stories that people can insert themselves into like the test of truly great content, which is even starting with your profile is how many conversations does it start?
[00:06:34] And I think that if it’s not starting conversations on the platform, then it’s just a part of the noise. It’s just cacophony. And guess what? We have enough of that. We have enough of that in our world and what people get so pissed off Amanda with the platform is that everybody here is kind of exhausted because if you look in your inbox, it’s just people trying to sell you everything and spam the crap out of you.
[00:06:53] Right. So everyone is, but everybody’s turned off about it, but here’s the thing. What is actually, what’s actually pissing you off is your biggest opportunity. It’s the biggest thing that you can take advantage of now. Make your profile sing, make it conversational. Look for opportunities to start conversations when someone is scrolling through your profile or comes across your profile, or you reach out or you like their post or you comment on something that they do, and then they click on your profile and they see your headline, which says I help X go faster or I’m passionately seeking opportunities to help people do X.
[00:07:28] Like that is a very specific statement, but the right person will see that statement and be excited to raise their hand and want to have a conversation, or they might identify with it, which is an opportunity. They don’t necessarily know what to do with “I’m the director, senior CEO of blank.” It’s like that doesn’t necessarily bring them into a conversation.
[00:07:45] So we’re constantly looking for ways to use the real estate at our disposal, within our profiles to start conversations. And then the big one. The really big, unbelievable thing that people have to do outside of optimizing their profile for conversations is to truly engage in the content to join the conversation.
[00:08:03] Content is wild on LinkedIn, 9 billion content impressions in the week in the weekly feed, like I’m talking 9 billion circulated content impressions every single week. And the killer for me, the one that people don’t understand out of 800 million users on the platform that that content is being distributed by 3% Amanda 3%, 3% of all people, which is like, it’s even lower than that. A little bit in the last meeting that we had, but that’s who’s powering all of that content. So when you think about it, the big thing that anybody could do right now on the platform, if they want to win is to create really great content that starts the right conversations.
[00:08:40] And if they understand their who they’re going after, and what’s important to them, and they write that narrative, which is going to be the moment that somebody stops in their tracks and they go “Oh” And then they, then you write to them so that they go, oh, that’s me. They win. And, and I’m telling you, that’s the why you can’t write to a company.
[00:08:57] You have to write to a person, you have to create content and you have to position your profile so that human beings can stop in their tracks. Companies don’t stop in their tracks. People do. And when they do, you have a split second to say the right thing so that they can identify that you’re the person that has a solution to their problem or you gave them a solution to a problem they didn’t even know they had. Or you’re helping them be the Sherpa or you’re helping them be the transformational vehicle that’s getting them from point A to point B the before and the after. Right. So I think that when it comes down to LinkedIn, if you want to win, you want to make sure that you’re fully optimized for the conversation.
[00:09:32] You need to make sure that you’re squarely in the intersection to habit and that anything you put out in the world to your ideal client or avatar is getting them to stop and have a conversation with you because one of the biggest missed things on the platform is that everyone complains about the lack of responses.
[00:09:48] I don’t. I have plenty of great conversations because I put out the right things in the world. And then I, I absolutely have the conversations because the conversations come to me.
[00:09:59] Amanda Holmes: Can you talk about that one? Give that one example.
[00:10:02] Marcus Murphy: I literally talked for like seven minutes straight.
[00:10:04] Amanda Holmes: Perfect. It’s amazing.
[00:10:05] No, it value drop mic drop it’s everywhere. But can you tell the story of how you wrote that one post that got the attention? I love that.
[00:10:13] Marcus Murphy: So I was just like everybody else here trying to figure out the platform. This was in 2015 and I was on an airplane or I was about to get on an airplane. And, um, I was a salesperson, just like everybody else.
[00:10:25] I was a salesperson trying to connect with people and nobody’s getting back to me, nobody’s picking up my phone calls, you know, like I was, I was using all the methods. I was using all the scripts. I did everything, you know, I read your dad’s book. Like I did all this stuff. Right. And I remember sitting around kind of going like, man, I’m just, I don’t know if I can do this for a long-term because I just feel like I’m badgering the witness in so many different ways. And I just said, man, I hate salespeople and it’s crazy. I was a salesperson. Right. And so I’m on an airplane or I’m about to leave and go into San Francisco. And I remember sitting on the tarmac and um, when we’re in there, I’m like watching these two guys.
[00:11:00] I actually don’t know. I think we were stalled or something, but I have like a Jack and Coke. For whatever reason. And it was great. It was a really terrible Jack and Coke is awesome. And I’m listening to these two guys in front of me have a conversation. Guy in the middle seat is looking to the person on the left in the window and says to the person in the window.
[00:11:15] And this is terrible before we’re about to take a four hour flight. Amanda, the guy in the middle looks the guy at the window and says, “What happens if the plane goes down?” And when that, when that question happened, one, you got my attention, but you’re also a piece of shit. I’m so upset right now.
[00:11:30] And the guy window looks like he wants to die. And the person in the middle very quickly to became exactly what we all think is an insurance salesman. Right. So four hours, four hours. This guy literally is sitting here trying to fearfully engage in a sales conversation with someone who doesn’t want to and they’re just flying through the air.
[00:11:49] And that’s when I wrote the article that, um, cold calling is dead and Jeff Wiener is my hero and that was the first article I’ve ever put on LinkedIn. That was like the one that, that I was like, oh man, I’m just going to write this thing. And Amanda, I wrote it fairly intoxicated. Okay, on this flight very upset by this person.
[00:12:06] And I just, and it wasn’t about cold calling or the phone being dead. It’s the people that were attached to it. And so I wrote this whole thing and this funny, like whatever, and I tagged Jeff in it. And I remember I got to the, got to the, uh, the hotel and I just went to bed that night. And I got up the next morning and there were 45,000 views on it.
[00:12:24] And it had been shared 800 times. And I was like, what is going on? And people are texting me and my friends are saying, Hey, I got this article sent to me. And they were in South Africa and Australia and all these places and people loved it and they hate it. Like there were people just like, this is amazing, like what a great thing.
[00:12:38] And then some people were like, there’s no traffic on the extra mile, like super unhelpful things. And somebody’s like, this is nonsense. And like, Hey, I see likes from 2,888 people who don’t like to cold call. And it was very, people were very opinionated. And then Jeff Wiener wrote on it. And Jeff at the time now has, yeah, since like obviously left being the CEO of LinkedIn after the Microsoft acquisition, but yeah, at the time, like he read it, he wrote on it, his team saw it and they brought me out to San Francisco.
[00:13:05] They brought me out there cause they wanted me to be on some panel and I’m just like some salesguy. I get on the panel. I go back, they bring me back multiple times. They invite me to be on the advisory board. Then they invite me to be an author on LinkedIn learning to their more than 22 million. Um, all because I’m just sitting there and it blows my mind.
[00:13:21] All these VPs have ever, I’m just a salesperson, nothing. And I’m just sitting there going like, you know what? The trick is, you have to be a human being and people are like, what do you mean? What are you talking? How are you having these results? And I’m just like, yeah, you know, I write to other humans and I personalize it and I don’t use any automation and I really go after it and it’s more work, but all my writing is getting picked up by so many people and shared by so many different VPs of sales and the people that I’m trying to sell to that a lot of them are actually messaging me, asking me questions about what I’m doing and all these different things.
[00:13:53] And I can clearly articulate my solution to them now. And they’re beating down my door to talk about. And I said that’s different. Right? And so that became it. And then, you know, to LinkedIn learning courses later in a bunch of keynotes and courses and all kinds of stuff, and my last course ever on LinkedIn learning or LinkedIn, which I’m, which I’m filming tonight, um, this is this, this one piece of content like completely changed my life.
[00:14:16] Ryan Deiss read it. That’s the first time I ever got on his radar.
[00:14:22] Amanda Holmes: Really? You wrote it when you were at Keap?
[00:14:24] Marcus Murphy: Yeah. So I wrote it when I was on Infusionsoft and that’s when it got all the notoriety and it started blowing up and then Ryan found out that that’s who I was. And then we started to like become friends and like all of that stuff.
[00:14:35] And people just sit there and it’s, it blows my mind. I wrote a freaking article half-drunk on an airplane. And I put it on this platform. So don’t tell me that content isn’t powerful. Don’t tell me that content isn’t the thing that, that is, is absolutely the most powerful piece of this, of this, of this platform and the fact that people want to get the highest they want the best clients and the biggest clients.
[00:14:55] Cool. Get in front of them and be valuable and write stuff that starts conversations. Done. That’s it. That’s my best piece of advice to you. If you want to get in front of high-value segments of people. Help break through the noise, right. Write stuff that matters. Be effective and relevant and make sure that your content is positioned in a way that starts a conversation.
[00:15:16] Amanda Holmes: We had to pause cause it was just so bloody brilliant.
Thank you, Marcus Murphy.
This was absolutely wonderful.
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