It's time to get off the bench and into the LinkedIn game, and this week's guest is here to help.

In this episode, Darryl is joined by the one, the only, the amazing Sam McKenna, LinkedIn lighthouse and founder of #samsales Consulting. Join them as they tackle dark social 101 including why to establish personal brand independent to your company, the metrics that don't matter, how to locate and tap your shareable content deposits (even if you think you don't have any), and engaging with a target on LinkedIn (even if they don't post).

🔗 LINKS

Find Sam on LinkedIn or at the #samsales Consulting website.

Connect with Darryl on LinkedIn.

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How is everybody doing this week? Oh my goodness. Folks. I am I'm pretty excited. And I, I know I say that every week, right. I'm pretty excited. But I'm really excited this week. And the reason I'm excited is a different reason than normally. Normally I'm excited because I'm gonna talk to somebody who's really smart.

And this week, I'm not, you're gonna see that shortly. The second thing I'm excited for is I normally have an engaging conversation and this week there's gonna be a lot of trash talking. I'm positive of that. So when you understand that I am talking to you about an individual that I haven't told you about yet about a topic you don't know.

It's kind of interesting. Isn't it? Let me set the stage a little bit. Once upon a time, there was this individual who. Apparently claims to have been like a LinkedIn ambassador and had a little bit of success at LinkedIn. There's no proof of this. It's just hearsay in claims. And then she ventured off her own and she was wise enough to come up with this little catch phrase.

This is, this is the world, according to Darryl. Okay. The, the individual wanna interview may have a different point of view. Ignore that she happened across this catch phrase that was inspir. It really hurt me to say that. And, and the catch phrase was show me, you know, me and right by now. If you're in the sales world, you know who I'm talking about, and if you don't you need to follow this person imminently, like with like multitask and then you'll be overwhelmed by her content nonstop and you'll get her sequences and it's just gonna be really impressive.

Show me, you know, me with this whole content of Ashley, understanding who your buyer is and you needed to convey to them that you, you know, them, you know, them as an individual, you know them in their role, you know, them in their industry, you know, their pains, you know, their metrics, you know, their initiatives, you know, their goals, you know, their challenges, you know, their competition show me that, you know me.

And if you can connect with me on that, You will earn a response from me and I will give you that coveted 10 minutes on my calendar. So why does that matter? It matters because how she evangelized and educated us on to do on how to do that was. You know, beyond, you know, do your research personalize, make it relevant, make it contextual, all this kind of stuff.

Absolutely. But then she went the next step, which was, she said, it's not enough just to show me, you know me, because the reality is, if you show me, you know me, you've got my attention. But then I'm gonna do a little bit of due diligence on you before I respond. So that's just the first step. And when I do that due diligence, you need to not just show me, you know, me, you need to show me that you matter to me now, that's my expression.

She's gonna steal it now, but show me you matter. Right? And she talks about how to do that, which is just by engaging with compelling content and commentary and opinion. And wisdom and advice. You're part of the community. You're part of their community. You're present. You contribute. Now, if you are a marketer, there's a parallel path going on right now.

That's getting hot and heavy. Chris Walker is advocating and evangelizing the hell of this. Which I love Chris. I've been on a show, but it does selfishly completely support his own business model at refined labs. So go figure that one out. He's talking about dark social. He didn't invent the turn. It's been out there for a while, but if you don't know what that dark social is, I'll make it really easy for you.

Dark social is the idea is the keyboard there is dark. Dark meaning as a marketer, I want to attribute everything. Oh, this lead came from that email. Oh, this lead came from that list. Oh, this lead came from that webinar or this leader came from that podcast. I wanna attribute everything.

And it's so compelling that people see it and they share it. They share it and they share it. And then finally somebody reacts and says, I need to call the original author of this. And you say, how did I get this lead? And like, I saw your stuff online. I don't know where they got it from, but it's been floating out there.

Hence I can't attribute that. I can't say it was a post. I can't say it was a video. I can't say what. I don't know. That's dark social in a nutshell, it's it's content, it's referrals. It's shares that comes to you because you're present you're out there. You're posting , which of course is what social selling.

See what I've done here. We're all bringing it back together. Social selling is all about with that all said, this is the one, the only. Thank God. The only, the amazing Samantha McKenna, how you doing Sam?

You know that third wheel, that every cool couple has that friends, whatever it might be. That's Tyler. So if you ever see him just say, oh, you are the third wheel. That's what you need to know. Right. So that's my homage to Tyler. He's feeling the love. I saw you post the other day in my friend about dark social.

Now I'm like, oh my God. the sales world is talking about dark social. I can talk about it. I'm a marketer. In fact, I may have even tried to correct you a little bit on your definition of dark social, and you were so polite and charming and your, your, your proper manners and, and, and, and etiquette shines through.

It's so freaking annoying, but you're talking about dark social. Talk to me. What does sales reps know about dark social and why does it matter? Or did I do a reasonable job? You tell me.

And the, the somebody gave a name to what I've been doing forever. Right. Which is, it's the idea, right. Of getting your content out there and there's no attribution, there's no tracking to it. Right. So that's what makes it dark social, just like you said, but it's the opportunity for us as sellers to build brands, to drive leads, to help each other drive awareness about our organization.

Right. And it's using all the platforms that are out there like slack channels, like MSP. LinkedIn like Twitter, if that's where your audience is. And I think, you know, what's interesting to me about dark social is I think about it in the same way. I don't know if you guys remember, it's been a while since this movie came out, but there was a great movie that came out called doubt and it had Phillips EOR Hoffman, and it had Meryl Streep in it and he talks about rumors, how rumors are spread.

Right. And he kind of used it as like this pillow. You cut the pillow, open the feathers, fly out and they go every. That's kind of what I think of dark social, right? The feather is our piece of content. We don't know like where it goes. We don't know who sees it. We don't know how it got shared. We don't know where it came from, but it makes our way through makes its way through people eventually gets those people to our website.

And then our marketer says, where did this, where did this lead come from? How did, how did this feather, feather get to us? And we say, we have absolutely no idea, but they're here. The most important part of this is that we start these conversations. We start posting, we start engaging, we start getting thought leadership out there.

We start educating people. So the people even know that we exist. We are out there. And then hopefully we drive them ultimately to our website, which is what we all wanna do.

I wanna share marketing is content and all you do is you share, you literally just share and add zero value to it, which by the way, pro tip does nothing for you, literally, nothing for you. All right. I might as well just got it from the marketing other website directly. I wanna talk about the power.

Which I think if you don't have time for content, I would contend there's actually quite often more impact, more power in the comments. Then there are yeah. In the actual posting and we all have time for that because we're already on the platforms, cuz we're all prospecting. We're looking for posts to say, Hey, they might be a candidate for me.

I should pitch them. So talk to me about the power of the comments that most people aren't doing.

So let's think about this. Let's say I am going after you Darryl, which I am, but let's say I was going after you as a lead, right? Like that you're you are one of my biggest fish I wanna get on your radar and I hopefully want to get you in as a lead. What I'm gonna do is I'm just going to either write you down on a piece of paper, old school method, or I'm going to use modern sales technology and put you in a list in LinkedIn sales navigator.

I'm also gonna hit the bell on your profile so that every single time you post I'm aware of it. and then I'm gonna go and keep tabs on you. So maybe once a week, twice a week, I'm gonna drop in. I'm gonna look at what you're posting and I'm gonna add a comment. Let's say you're one of those lovely people that doesn't post anything.

I'm gonna go and see what you are commenting on. So you heard Darryl say earlier that I had posted about dark social and he had commented. If you are trying to get Darryl's attention, what an easy thing to do of go to find his comment on my post. You can do that in a couple clicks on his LinkedIn profile, and then add a comment and don't just say cool thoughts, Darryl, cuz that'll really impress him.

instead, add your commentary, add what's in your head. Build your brand. Think about that too. When you're doing this kind of work, right? If you're posting content, you're just, re-sharing something for marketing. Who are you doing that work for at the end of the day, that's really only building, building the company's brand, take the time to build your own.

And that's what you do by adding thoughtful comments in the comments, right? Just by adding a piece of thought leadership, your brain power tagging in someone else. You know, let's say you're going after Darryl and let's say, you know, another super prominent, I mean, Darryl's sort of prominent, super prominent CML.

Maybe you tag them in and say, Hey, other prominent CMO, you and I were just talking about this. I think you'll appreciate Darryl's point of view. Now, Darryl not only knows who you are, sees your point of view on it, but says, well, this guy runs with this other CMO. Wow. That guy's impressive. The power of that comment is amazing.

Check this out. And you know, I'm right, because you know, you do it yourself when you see something powerful. Yeah. You copy and paste. How many times in the last week have you shared a link to a LinkedIn post or a piece of content on a website, even for that matter with others? Just that just you proactive sharing. We all do it.

Who's a really controversial post yesterday about not doing discovery calls and just giving people a demo if they want a demo, which I could not disagree with more so that was even shared around so that we could weigh in right. There's power behind not only those comments, but definitely around the content that you post yourself.

That's different. That's what you have. and then you get your reps to show up to say, well, this is a discovery call, and then you're gonna piss off your buyers. So make sure semantics matter, make sure you use the right the right verbiage, but yes, discovery first for the love of God.

So we got an Amber book. Okay. My demo's probably only gonna take 20 minutes. So before we start that, I wanna make sure that I give you the best damn demo possible. That matters to you. I don't wanna waste your time. Is that okay with you? Do you agree? Yes. Right. I'm gonna ask you a few questions first and then we'll customize the demo.

I'm not gonna show you anything that you don't care about and that's perfect.

It's because I'm contemplating and I'm thinking, and I'm going, okay, Sam, you have previously told me. That I need to be busy on LinkedIn. And you've previously told me that I need to con do produce content and I need to engage. Is this just more the same, but we've got this fancy rapper called dark social, like, like isn't this just the same old, same old message.

Like, what's different about this Sam. What would you say?

You are, buyers are all in a virtual room on LinkedIn every single day. And if you're not there and if you're not contributing and if you're not under the comment. That means you're not part of the conversation you're not visible. That means your competitors are. That means that anything that happens, you know, in terms of next steps for people wanting to buy competitors to you is going to happen with your competitors.

Again, the concept of dark social is, is the lack of attribution to the activities that drive people to your site ultimately, and become leads. All of those leads that you have that say organic search on your website. I guarantee you, if you are active on LinkedIn parts that were slack channels or MSP modern sales pros, whatever it may be, part of those are coming in directly from that.

If you are a marketer that's listening and you do not have a, how did you hear about us on your contact, us forms or on any of the forms that you have on your website? You're missing the mark because I'll tell you we get a handful of Google, Google. If we get those, but the majority of the contact us forms that we get are saw your LinkedIn post, somebody suggested somebody sent, you know, your LinkedIn post to us, saw you on this webinar, then looked at your LinkedIn post, went down a rabbit hole of content came to you.

That's how they're getting to us. What's really important for us to think about as sellers and as marketers is that we're meeting our buyers where they are. Our buyers are not just sitting behind their desks, waiting patiently for us to send a riveting 38 page white paper. They're going to places where they can aggregate lots of content and learn in a quick period of time.

They're going to places where they're familiar with the format of what they, what they're looking for and why are they can find the information they're looking for. So start to get that content out there and let me maybe offer it a different point of view. for sellers. Right? What I want you to think about is this is a long game, right?

I am a, I'm the CEO of Sam sales. I've had this company for three years now. I earn over seven figures personally, as an individual. I'll tell I'll just be blatant and tell you that. And I still do all of these motions, right? All of these motions in terms of social selling, getting our brand out there, contributing content.

I still do that. So no matter if you are a BD. Or you are an SVP C you know, at an organization, this stuff really matters, and you can use your voice to amplify your brand and to bring leads in. Now, the other thing I'll say here is if you're like, that's adorable, Sam, you've got tons to say, Darryl has tons to say we don't.

He full it. What who said that we know that, right. But if you're like, I don't know what to say. Let me give you a great example. So at Sam sales, we recently hired a new, our first VP of sales. In fact, Sarah, Sarah comes from CI and Sarah has been a leader for quite a few years. Never really paid attention to LinkedIn.

Right. She thought what a lot of other sales people think is that it's just a platform to be able to go out there and throw your resume up. And that's. But as she and I talk and she gives me perspective on something or a tip that we should do for a sale that we're trying to make or something that she thinks about leadership, I'm annoying her to death because every time she says something, I say, that's a post.

Think about what you talk to your clients all day about what do you, what do you teach them in your discovery calls? So do you teach them in your demos when they say, why you, what should we be doing with you? What are we missing the mark on? What are we doing wrong? You know, in terms of our process with X, Y, Z, what do you guys answer them?

That is your content. Start a conversation, teach something, and you will see that your content will get shared. You'll loop back from somebody. Somebody will come back to you to say, oh my gosh, you just popped up in one of our slack channels. I thought you should know that's that start social. It's just starting the conversation first.

I'm gonna focus where I can focus on you're getting distracted by what we marketers would refer to as vanity metrics. So when you say it doesn't work, that's because you're looking at and saying, well, I didn't enough. Likes. I didn't get enough comments. I didn't get enough shares. Okay. That's bullshit.

And, and I mean, bullshit in the sense of you're looking at the wrong stuff. Trust me. I like likes and shares. It annoys the hell to me. When I see Sam's lane content get 150 comments because I know I'm just so much better than she is. just let it settle in. Watch her laugh. However, the reality is is that 90 to 95% of people on LinkedIn are lurkers.

Yeah, exactly. Right. You do not need to like or comment or share to copy and paste. Check this post out that Sam wrote, did they like it? Probably not. Did they comment on it? Probably not. Did they share it? Yes, probably. Right. Probably right.

And keep track of how we connected. So if you send me a blank connection request, but you're in my ICP, you're somebody that reports to someone you are somebody that we'd like to sell to and will always respond and say, thank you so much for connecting. Thank you so much for saying hello, lovely to be connected.

You will always get that one. I love that because somebody usually writes back. They tell me why they connected. And more often than not, it's someone that's like, I've been following you for years. And I thought I would finally connect. And I'm like, who the hell are you? Because they don't engage. They don't comment.

Right. But look at the views, forget the likes and the engagement, right? Like that's important that helps increase your views. Right. You'll build that over time. But look at the view. I'm gonna tell you really quick for you sellers that are looking for a super cool tip. A couple days ago, I yesterday in fact, I posted about my very first job at Disney being a typhoon lagoon.

I was a lifeguard when I was 16, it was so much. And I learned about the concept of the question behind the question as sellers. It has not even been just barely been 24 hours since I posted that a 48,000 views of that post. Now I also have 40,000 plus followers and that has taken a load of time to be able to build that.

But. Think about that 40,000 plus people saw that post yesterday saw my name, saw my advice. Maybe didn't even read what I wrote, but saw my name and saw founder at Sam sales. When you come up with that repetition, right? Eventually you start to build a brand. Eventually people click on your profile.

Eventually they follow you cuz you say some smart. This is the long game, right? And this is how you get your name thrown around about somebody who really understands your space, your platform selling. This is how you get recruited away because somebody's sharing your thought leadership. There's so many benefits to being out there on these platforms and to either driving revenue and interest your website.

Throw through all the, all this, like what's, what's really called the dark funnel and also to just building your own brand for the future.

So I'll give you his simple example. I mean you, Justin Welsh always talks about the hub and the spoke of content, which is he, he has an event of it. Yeah. But it's a great metaphor. I think of a bicycle wheel, you know, the hub versus your spokes and the hub is the core content. So this podcast right now, this will be a.

And then what we can do is we can turn this into an Instagram story. We can turn this into a little LinkedIn post. We can turn this into a blog post. We can go on. Those are all the spokes and it requires no additional effort. And I can literally just cut and paste a lot of this content soundbites, provocative statements, and then point them back to the podcast.

It's as simple as that hub and spoke. And if you do that enough, you build a reputation and you get a following. Exactly what Sam said has been following you for years. So why does that matter? Well, this is where it scales and I, you know, and I have this challenge. I, I try to teach my own reps. This. And the pushback I get all the time is, well, I don't have your network journal.

Or if you're Sam, I don't have 40,000 followers. Of course you get those reactions. So I used an example where I needed to get more guests for the show. And I targeted 13 guests at just the next 13 guests. And I went on LinkedIn. I sent eight requests on LinkedIn. I sent five requests on Twitter of those 13 three.

I was never, no was not connected with four. I'd never talked to in my life. So more than half there had been no previous conversations within an hour of sending those 13 requests. I had all 13 accepted. Now that's an unusually high, I think it's cuz of my spiky hair, but that's in the aside. My point being,

And you're in a community you're in a common community. And then when you scale that and you can you do it yourself or you can hire a VA it's up to you. But when you scale that, then your reach grows and then your, and then all of a sudden you're like, Hey Sam, you get seven figures a year. I get eight figures a year. And that's what happens.

Right. But we'll get a little bit better every single day. Same thing with LinkedIn. Right. I remember years ago, the first time that I got a hundred likes on my post. And I was like, well, I have made it right, but I've started somewhere. Right. I remember the first time I got 10 likes on a post. So you've just gotta start somewhere and I'll tell you, like, one of the, the lines of business we have at Sam sales is we do executive branding for you.

Guested executives on LinkedIn, we spruce up their profile, we write their content for them. We help them grow their network. The easiest thing you can do in fact, well, exactly what we're doing with Sarah on our team. She's post a piece of content. She got almost a hundred likes on her first post with us, which was wild, but a bunch of those were second degree connections.

So what does she do? She reaches out to the second degree. She says, thank you so much for engaging with my content. I'd love to stay in touch. And now she's grown her content with people who have grown her network with people who already engaged with her, who are more likely to engage with her next time.

And then you just rinse and repeat and it grows from there. Furthermore. Once you get a certain number of a, of an audience change your page to follow. You don't need to connect with everybody. Right? I learned that lesson a little bit too, too late. I think around 10,000 followers, I was like, oh crap. have to change this, but change it to be a follow page.

You can change that in your settings very easily. It used to be only if you had certain amount of followers and it's different. Now, let people follow you, let people lurk, take a look at your followers, right? It's also a little bit less intimidating to follow someone. Then to connect with them. So if you change that after you've built kind of a brand for yourself, you'll start to see some heavy hitters.

We have some really important titles at really big companies who follow us and we're like, Ooh, right. And who follow me, who then follow our company. Those are great insights to use. If you have sales navigator, you can also use that to your advantage, reach out to them. You follow us. Why wanna spend some money with.

Little more tactfully said, that's what I use with Dar though it works.

And that speaks volumes. Listen, folks wrote a time. She's actually gotta go to a meeting. She's squeezing us in, this is Sam McKenna. If you don't know, if you do know her, I'm assuming you follow her already. She's the founder. At Sam Sales, you can find her at samsalesconsulting.com. She's a LinkedIn expert.

She's an early stage advisor. She's a sales trainer, a sales messaging expert, a sales kickoff, keynote speaker. She has broken too many sales records to talk about an angel investor. And as you can tell, she's an overly enthusiastic creator. I love her. She's fantastic. Show me, you know, me, follow her, follow her content.

Reach out to Sarah. And tell her that she joined a great company, but in the meantime, what you should be doing is she should be all hammering Sam and saying, Sam, you need to promote to all 40,000 followers. The amazing episode of the inside inside sales show featuring the one, the only Sam McKenna. Did you have fun? I had fun. We'll do it again next week. Take care. Bye bye. Bye.

This episode was digitally transcribed.