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How to Actually Get B2B Clients From LinkedIn · The High Ground

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Most people posting on LinkedIn are getting absolutely
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nothing out of it. You can post for a year straight
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and never have a single conversation that translates
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to revenue. LinkedIn isn't a lead machine that
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you just magically turn on. It's a room full
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of people that you want to work with and it only
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works if you use it correctly. If you use LinkedIn
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for your business and you're posting, connecting
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and commenting daily but none of that is actually
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translating into revenue, then this episode is
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for you. Over 90 % of people watching this podcast
0:29
aren't actually subscribed and we release conversations
0:32
like this every single week. So make sure you
0:34
subscribe to the podcast down below. Hi guys,
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welcome back to the podcast. So how to actually
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get B2B clients from LinkedIn is what we're going
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to talk about today. Yeah, well, I think that
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obviously the first one is the fact that we need
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to say that, you know, if you're not on LinkedIn
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and you're B2B, are you even in business? I mean,
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LinkedIn is the platform for B2B businesses nowadays.
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The actual fact that, you know, normally when
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I receive any outreach from anybody, really.
1:09
cold outreach that is normally i guess it gets
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filed away in the spam um unless they've already
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connected with me so it's really important to
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to make sure that you're on linkedin um and to
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be honest it's a massive driver of revenue for
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most bb businesses that know how to do it right
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yeah well when you look at i put up a ad for
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a senior copywriter and it was on linkedin um
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You know, we've had people reach out via email,
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but I feel like emails just get lost so easily.
1:39
LinkedIn is definitely the way to go. Connect,
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have that relationship. Yeah. Now, that's the
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thing, is building the relationship first. I
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mean, surely, you know, we're supposed to, or
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in most cases, especially in B2B, you know, you
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generally buy from people that you know, like,
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and trust. You know, how can you possibly know,
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like, and trust somebody when they are sending
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you... cold outreach and expecting you to you
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know to sign up to a 100k a year contract you
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know it's just it's just not feasible and people
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just need to start start thinking a bit more
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logically and think about relationship building
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first before they start reaching out yeah and
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a lot of people treat their profiles as if they're
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writing for a job application or you know the
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headline is the job title, the about section
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is a career kind of history section in third
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person rather than speaking from experience.
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Yeah, well, I mean, historically, that's what
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LinkedIn was. LinkedIn was all about, you know,
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finding your next job and recruiters and things
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like that. But it's evolved over the years. And
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now, you know, people are using it as a platform
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for to build their own personal brands. And really,
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those are the people that stand out. Those are
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the people that get seen like us, I suppose.
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And those are the people that win the work because
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people are resonating with what they're speaking
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about, you know, especially if they're tired.
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getting the correct buyer personas and icps and
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that's how business is done nowadays you know
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yeah well they decide whether they that you can
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solve a problem for them you know if you have
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the solution then they're gonna contact you and
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they're gonna employ you you know yeah 100 100
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and i mean we've we've done it ourselves and
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that's actually people reaching out but connecting
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first so that we can understand exactly who they
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are and you know what those do their own values
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and things are yeah because we need to make sure
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and everybody anyone actually using linkedin
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to either recruit or even work with a client
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should always make you make sure there's some
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good fit there either side uh you're a good fit
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for them they're a good fit for you before you
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get into any contractual agreements you know
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second thing is posting things that nobody can
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agree with. So there is a commonality of, you
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know, consistency is key, you know, culture matters,
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don't argue type of situation on LinkedIn, I
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guess. But when you do that and you're posting
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the common things, it goes straight in one ear,
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straight out the other and people forget it.
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If you're posting controversial, you know, opinions
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and your honest opinions, people might not agree
4:21
with it. But that's going to have that conversation,
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you know, and you can give your perspective on
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that. And it shows that you're human. You're
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not just using AI. Yeah, I mean, the whole point
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of this is, you know, you need to have a point
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of view. And so does your business, you know.
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There needs to be a goodie and a baddie in every
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relationship. And that's generally what people
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want if people want to pick sides. You know,
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am I on the side of the goodie or am I on the
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side of the baddie? Who is it I'm going to pick
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sides with, you know? I mean, our brand story
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is about, you know, wanting to do away with fragmentation
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and bringing cohesion to the end -to -end revenue
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system and building that commercial architecture,
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you know. And to be honest, 99 .99999 % of businesses
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have that fragmentation and a lot of them don't
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even really realise that there's a better solution
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out there. But, I mean, if you take, for instance,
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you know, I do not like WordPress at all. all
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whatsoever it was originally born out of the
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need for a blogging platform and to be honest
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that's what it still is and i'm surprised it
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still exists nowadays but that's what happens
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when things are free but you know that in itself
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if i started posting things about that you know
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people would probably disagree because the whole
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business is built on the wordpress platform you
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know uh etc etc so you need to have that you
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know that bit of controversy about you know what
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you believe in and what you value and things
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like that as well and that's what gets the the
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conversations going yeah the worst thing that
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you can ever do on linkedin and you hate it and
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i hate it is you send a connection request you
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get accepted and then you immediately pitch your
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services. There is nothing worse. Now, don't
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get me wrong. LinkedIn is a platform that you're
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supposed to connect with professionals and, you
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know, find business on pretty much. But you need
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to create that emotional connection. You need
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to have that understanding of one another and
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really create that friendship for us rather than
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just messaging saying, hey. website looks crap
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let me redo it yeah no way absolutely nothing
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no substance behind what they're actually talking
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about and you know this is a one -on -one in
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my massive petty haste and this is another reason
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i don't like cold outreach for that particular
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reason because there's no there's no relationship
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there and a lot of people that are sending these
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dms and cold outreach are making assumptions
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about your business because they don't they've
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never even met you they've never spoken to you
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i mean imagine meeting a prospective partner
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in the street and asking them to marry you right
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away doesn't happen in real life you know so
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why should it happen on linkedin yeah it shouldn't
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so if you're doing that stop doing it it's not
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bloody good well it trains people to ignore you
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right because if you're sending that pitch straight
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off the bat i tell you right now i am not not
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replying to that message if you are engaging
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in my comments and you know you're adding value
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and you know you're getting to know me and then
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you have that pitch, I'm probably more inclined
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to be like, all right, let's have a meeting and
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let's, you know, get to know each other, see
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if there's synergy. But if you pitch off straight
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off the bat, the chances of you getting ignored
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for every single message is probably 99 .9%.
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Yeah, 100%. And that is exactly the same with
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me. And that includes cold emails as well. I
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know that we work in BEB and cold outreach is
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a strategy that a lot of businesses take. I'm
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more a lover of inbound rather than outbound,
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just purely because it's much easier to actually
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build. At that particular time when you're doing
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inbound, you're actually building a market for
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yourself. You're building your brand, you're
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educating your prospects, and when the prospects
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realise that, they have that issue that you're
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talking about. you know that pain point and you've
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got that solution it makes the conversation so
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much easier and that's why people you know a
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lot of bb businesses need to be investing in
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their market and then they're advertising constantly
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if you're not advertised no one knows you're
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there yeah So what actually works on LinkedIn
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is that you need to make your profile pretty
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much a landing page. So three things that should
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do the heavy lifting is a headline that says
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who you help and what changes for the prospect.
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So what changes for your ideal customer? An about
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section written to your client rather than just
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about yourself. And proof, real outcomes and
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specifics, not just objectives. Yeah, 100%. I
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mean, people want to see, you know, what have
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you actually done? I mean, about the DMs I get
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and people, you know, they add some outrageous
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claims or even the opposite where, you know,
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when you're generating like... between 40 and
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80 leads a month for some of your clients. And
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someone comes on and says, well, we can get you
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15 leads this month. You know, you think, what
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are you actually doing then? You know, because
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we can do that ourselves. So it kind of works
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both ways. But proof and making sure your profile
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speaks to your ideal customer profile and your
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buyer personas and your prospects, who you've
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actually taken the time to build a relationship
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with is exactly what everybody needs to have
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on LinkedIn. and that includes your company page
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as well. And you need to be posting like you're
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talking to your clients. So the best content
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is always about the conversations you've had.
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Now, I had a conversation with Paul today about
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his fragmentation. He called a lot of his softwares
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and actually found out that he was going to save
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70 grand a year just by getting rid of subscriptions
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and softwares that he wasn't actually using to
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its full potential. To me, I was like... this
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is perfect this is exactly what we talk about
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this is what I preach to my clients you know
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yeah and I thought let me turn this into a LinkedIn
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post and explain why you need to be doing this
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and how much it's actually saving compared to
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if you were to invest that into a commercial
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infrastructure a brand and you know just building
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an empire the return would be tenfold Yeah, of
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course, but most businesses don't do that. I
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mean, it's like this old ad age where, you know,
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I need a website, so I'll go to a web designer.
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I need some ads, so I'll go to a marketing agency
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or an advertising agency. And a lot of the time,
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there's no strategy behind this. They just think
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that that's what they need because they're struggling
10:46
to drive revenue, long -term revenue. And you'll
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find as well that a lot of these companies don't
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even have an ICP defined. They don't know who
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their customers are. They think everybody's a
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customer and all this kind of stuff. So, yeah.
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Yeah. But you want to be speaking, you know,
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as if you're talking to your clients. It sounds
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like you, not just AI. It's, you know, you're
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giving social proof there because it's been tested
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on a real person. There's a lot more connectivity
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with the reader and the writer. Yeah, well, the
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thing is, it needs to be conversations. Not just
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a case of broadcasting everything that's happening
11:29
in your business. In a lot of cases, your prospects
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don't really care what's happening in your business.
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What they care about is how are you going to
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help me? Yeah. That's pretty much what it's all
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about. So when you're posting things... um you
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know apart from obviously resonating with your
11:44
icp i mean obviously you would have a strategy
11:46
around this right you would need to sit down
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and actually think about you know what are the
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pain points of my my clients or prospects and
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how am i going to reach them what's going to
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stop them scrolling yeah um on linkedin to get
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them to read what i'm actually writing um and
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this is the thing as well like when you're When
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you try to build your own personal brand, you
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need to be writing consistently. Now, when I
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started writing consistently, and I say when
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I started because I'm not doing it all the time
12:14
because I'm so busy doing other things, but I
12:16
need to get back into it. You know, I can see
12:20
myself that there's more people connecting with
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me. There's more people resonating and discussing
12:25
things and et cetera, et cetera. So it's definitely
12:28
something you need to be doing is having those
12:30
conversations, not just pumping. content out
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there that nobody resonates or engages with and
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if that is happening and you are you know you
12:39
think to yourself i've put out like 30 pieces
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of content one a day for the past 30 days nobody's
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engaging that's the market telling you that your
12:48
that your content's not actually working so you
12:51
need to go back to the grindstone look at the
12:53
strategy and re reiterate and go back to the
12:56
plan and build something that matters And the
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biggest thing is when someone comments on your
13:01
post, reply properly rather than just like an
13:05
emoji. Actually create a conversation out of
13:08
that. And then you can end up following that
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up on messages with them. Hey, I seen you commented
13:14
on my post. Thanks so much for engaging. You
13:18
know, did you find it valuable? You can start
13:21
that personal conversation there and it doesn't
13:23
need to end up in. them becoming a client straight
13:27
off the bat you know you're just creating that
13:29
relationship you're getting to know them they're
13:32
getting to know you there's that trust building
13:34
there That's right, 100%. And that's one of the
13:37
good things about LinkedIn itself is it gives
13:40
you a legitimate reason to start the conversation
13:42
when you're posting things. And when you're posting
13:47
your own stuff to your own prospects and your
13:50
own community and your own timeline and professional
13:53
network is going through the... Go through your
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timeline and actually converse. Comment on other
14:02
people's, you know, get your point of view heard,
14:04
get seen. And I think anybody that's working
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on LinkedIn will know that that's the best way
14:09
to grow your own. So turning that attention into
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clients, how do you actually do it? You need
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to know exactly who you're talking to. You need
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to thrash out your ICP, that big content of,
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you know, symptoms of a vague audience, you know.
14:27
business owners type of writing that you're doing
14:30
it's just generic everyone sees it it's just
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they just skim over and go to the next one in
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one year and out the other you need to get specific
14:38
about pain points about who you're talking to
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so it's written for them so that when they read
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it they're like holy crap I resonate with that
14:48
that's me I'm in that position you know Yeah,
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100%. Absolutely. And this is another reason,
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you know, you need to make sure that you've not
14:56
got a vague audience either. You know, I mean,
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I get DM'd and added pretty much every day and
15:01
I do... I'm not selective with who I connect
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with. I connect with everybody because some of
15:06
the stuff that might not resonate with them might
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resonate with someone else. And what I learned
15:12
back in BNI days and other networking events
15:14
was it's not the people in the room, it's their
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network that you could be reaching as well, you
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know, because they might not require your services,
15:22
but they might know someone that does. Just be...
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Try and be a bit more targeted with who you're
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connecting with, because obviously that will
15:30
have a big determination on who's actually engaging
15:34
with your content as well. The next one is, I
15:38
think this is probably the biggest one in this
15:39
document, is give the answer away. So a lot of
15:44
people fear telling people how to fix their problems
15:47
and that nobody will pay you. But it actually
15:50
works the other way around. When you tell people
15:53
what you do and how you do it, they will take
15:56
that advice. They'll maybe try to do it themselves.
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Don't get me wrong. They might try. They'll realise
16:03
how much work it actually is and then they'll
16:05
pay you to do it. I mean, I've got a prime example
16:07
of this. I mean, when I first started in business,
16:09
I was running a car detailing business in Edinburgh,
16:13
12 staff. and at that time I was starting to
16:16
learn how to program code which was PHP and HTML
16:22
and CSS at the time and what I actually had what
16:25
I found was when I was said I was I was developing
16:31
Zenkart an e -commerce system way back in the
16:34
day I mean this has gone back like 24 years and
16:37
what happened is when I was learning I was implementing
16:40
things I was coming up with you know I wonder
16:43
what would happen if I got it to do this and
16:47
I wrote code to do that and what happened is
16:49
I got to the point where I was actually showing
16:52
people on forums take this code copy the code
16:55
drop it in here add it to this between the two
16:58
lines on this particular page big massive um
17:01
documentation on a post on how to do it with
17:06
a downloadable zip file for them to do it themselves
17:09
but what i found was people were still paying
17:12
me to do it so what was happening is i was getting
17:15
paid 50 50 pounds it was back in the uk to drag
17:20
and drop the the modified files um into their
17:23
own instance via ftp it took me literally five
17:27
seconds and i was getting a review so i ended
17:30
up with hundreds of reviews and a a hell of a
17:34
lot of money and even though i was giving away
17:37
the information on how to actually do things
17:39
so uh normally when people are scared of telling
17:44
people how to fix things themselves um you know
17:47
i may actually show that they maybe lack confidence
17:49
in their own abilities and things but what i
17:52
would suggest you do is be confident you know
17:55
understand that most people out there don't know
17:59
what you already know in terms of what you what
18:02
you do and how you do it and so show people tell
18:05
people how you do it you know because people
18:07
are busy doing their own thing plus you'll find
18:09
that 99 .9 % of people are lazy so they'll not
18:13
want to do it anyway and that's just the way
18:15
life is and that's why services exist the next
18:18
thing is make the next step obvious now a lot
18:21
of people post consistently and they never say
18:25
you know what to do if they want help they don't
18:28
add a CTA at the end and I've seen a few posts
18:31
on LinkedIn that's a bit controversial of you
18:34
shouldn't add a CTA because it's you know old
18:37
school not every post has to go to something
18:41
and while I do agree not every post has to relate
18:43
to something you still need to add that CTA you
18:46
know if you're doing an educational post hey
18:49
about websites hey if you want some help with
18:54
this send me a message and i can help or hey
18:57
if you want to learn how to do what i do here's
19:00
my course you know people are gonna click through
19:03
and the ones that don't probably aren't your
19:05
clients so it doesn't matter Yeah, well, I think
19:08
the point of that is to make it more conversational
19:11
rather than an opportunity to try and sell. Because
19:14
people hate being sold to, especially on LinkedIn.
19:17
I mean, you don't go to LinkedIn to buy a course.
19:19
But what you do do is you go there to engage
19:22
with other like -minded people and people that
19:24
you follow to learn from them. And if you've
19:26
been following someone and you've connected with
19:29
them and you're engaging with them and they say,
19:31
look, I've got a course that can help you do
19:33
X, Y and Z, the chances are they're going to
19:35
take it anyway. So it's always good. to make
19:37
sure you add that next step in there. That's
19:38
why there's been a lot of people claiming to
19:41
be, have made millions on LinkedIn because that's
19:44
how they do it. You know, they build a following
19:45
first and it's all about making sure that they're
19:48
building that relationship first before they
19:50
go in for the sale, if you like. But again, when
19:52
you do go in for the sale, you make sure that
19:54
it's more conversational and that it's being
19:57
helpful. So what do you want to avoid on LinkedIn
20:00
is automating your connection requests. Some
20:03
of the tools promise numbers at a large scale.
20:07
And if you're sending a generic message to heaps
20:10
of people, you're just going to get marked as
20:13
spam, which you don't want. It's a risk to your
20:15
account. It's only, you know, Derek's a bit different
20:20
to me. I only connect with people I really know
20:22
or, you know, people I want in my network type
20:26
of thing. Whereas Derek will, you know, connect
20:29
with anyone. But, you know, I don't know. What
20:35
do you think? Because I think there needs to
20:36
be a bit of method to the madness when it comes
20:39
to LinkedIn. Well, I don't think you should be
20:41
opening your connection requests. I mean, I know
20:43
there's a lot of browser -based systems out there
20:47
that allow that to happen. To me, that's spamming
20:50
people. You know, if you're actually going and
20:53
physically going to connect with someone... in
20:56
my personal opinion, there needs to be a reason.
20:58
You know, if I'm reading a post on LinkedIn and
21:01
I like what I've read, then I'll connect with
21:03
them. I don't just blindly connect with people.
21:07
When people come through and connect with me,
21:10
I generally do still accept a request because
21:12
I like what I do. They've maybe read something
21:15
and that is the case in a lot of cases where
21:18
they've read something in my post and, you know,
21:21
they resonated with that. So that's why I connect
21:23
with them. But yeah, I don't think it should
21:25
be... in any connection requests. Sure, you can
21:29
send, you know, I think you get about 200 or
21:32
something in a month if you're a premium member
21:34
or 100. And by all means, you know, find people
21:39
in your prospective industry or your target industry
21:44
and people that work in that industry and your
21:46
target ICP and connect with them and try and
21:49
help them. But don't do it, you know, in an automated
21:52
way on a kind of... spring pre kind of strategy
21:57
that's just not the way to do things yeah another
22:01
thing you don't want to do is be chasing vanity
22:02
metrics it's so easy to look at impressions and
22:06
likes and feel like there's so much progress
22:08
there but impressions and likes don't correlate
22:11
to revenue you know 200 views reaching four of
22:15
your exact fit buyers compared to 20 000 people
22:19
who would never contact you is that 200 views
22:23
is so much more powerful than the 20 000. that's
22:27
right and one of the other things is actually
22:30
when the when they're posting things is actually
22:33
stopping before they actually see any return
22:36
on the content that they're posting because they
22:39
think it's not working. But, you know, we've
22:41
been doing this for over two years now, you know,
22:43
and sometimes you think, well, are there people
22:46
actually seeing this? Are people resonating with
22:49
this? And then one day you wake up and you've
22:52
got a DM for somebody asking for a, you know,
22:55
a meeting because they've read your post that
22:59
you posted 10 months ago, you know. So you need
23:02
to be in this for the long term, just like you
23:05
are in business. It's about building that relationship.
23:08
And you don't build that relationship over one
23:10
or two posts. You need to be doing it over years
23:12
of posting. And this isn't just about posting.
23:15
This is about SEO. It's about building a personal
23:19
brand. It's about a revenue system. It's about
23:22
growing your business. Everything. You need to
23:24
just continuously keep going, even if you're
23:26
not instantly reaping rewards. well it's like
23:30
going to the gym Chloe I mean when you go to
23:32
the gym in January you've got every man and their
23:35
dog signing up to the gym because you know they
23:37
think they're going to get fit and huge and lose
23:39
fat and all the rest of that to go for six weeks
23:42
that I'll tell you at the beginning even if you
23:45
take time off as a seasoned pro if you like and
23:49
you go back it's hard to get back into it so
23:51
you can imagine that in February 99 .9 % of those
23:57
people signed up in January drop off and are
23:59
stuck in an annual contract to pay because they
24:04
give up far too early. And it's the people that
24:07
give up far too early that lose out on what could
24:09
have been. You need to take a long -term approach
24:12
on anything that's worth doing. Well, most people
24:15
fail at LinkedIn because they stop doing it before
24:18
it starts working. Because they're not seeing
24:20
that instant. Nobody's commenting on my posts.
24:23
So I'm not going to post anymore. Just keep posting,
24:26
you know. Be controversial, you know. Put your
24:29
thoughts out there. Well, that's all we have
24:31
for today. LinkedIn isn't a lead machine. It's
24:36
the room that your buyers are already standing
24:37
in. And, you know, being useful in it consistently.
24:41
It's the whole strategy. If you're not sure where
24:43
to start or you're posting sporadically and,
24:47
you know. you're not able to turn that attention
24:50
into clients, give us a call, give us a contact
24:53
at aborderia .io forward slash contact. That's
24:58
aborderia .io forward slash contact. And we can
25:01
show you your gaps and we can do an audit of
25:04
your business and show you why a revenue system
25:06
is what you need. If you found this valuable,
25:10
make sure you subscribe to the podcast because
25:12
we release conversations like this every single
25:14
week. Beautiful. Awesome. Thanks guys. Bye -bye.