Utilizing LinkedIn as a Sales Leader with Matt Sunshine

In this episode, we’re discussing how to best utilize LinkedIn to boost your thought leadership efforts. Why is it important for sales leaders to develop their professional reputation on LinkedIn? What are some best practices and common mistakes leaders are making? What types of posts work well and how often should you post them? 

Joining me to answer those questions and so many more is Matt Sunshine, CEO at The Center for Sales Strategy. 

Matt brings up some great pieces of insight, like: 

• Why it’s important to build thought leadership on LinkedIn not to get more leads, but to simply be helpful 
• How closing the “knowing” and “doing” gap can mean winning half the battle 
• As well as tips and best practices for how to do this consistently and effectively 

Links:

Matt Sunshine:
linkedin.com/in/mattsunshine/

Dani Buckley:
linkedin.com/in/daniobuckley/

LeadG2:
leadg2.thecenterforsalesstrategy.com/

TIMESTAMPS:
(02:32) Why is it important for business and sales leaders to develop their professional reputation on LinkedIn?
(05:01) Tips for getting your LinkedIn profile in tip top shape
(07:28) Use your profile summary to talk about the problems you help solve...not you
(08:28) Growing your LinkedIn network
(10:06) Closing the "knowing and doing" gap
(11:06) Reacquaint yourself with people you may have known previously but aren't connected with on LinkedIn
(12:11) Tips for growing your thought leadership
(18:49) Common mistakes to avoid
(21:59) Thoughts on using LinkedIn for lead gen and prospecting
(23:44) Use LinkedIn for mentorship

Transcript

Dani Buckley: (00:15)
Welcome to Sell Smarter Sell Faster, a podcast dedicated to helping sales organizations grow. Each week, we discuss proven sales enablement strategies and real life examples with experts and thought leaders from across industries. I'm your host, Danny Buckley, vice President and General Manager at LeadG2, a sales performance agency.

Dani Buckley: (00:42)
In this episode, we're discussing how to best utilize LinkedIn to boost your thought leadership efforts. Why is it important for sales leaders to develop their professional reputation on LinkedIn? What are some best practices and common mistakes that leaders are making, and what types of posts work well and how often should you post them? Joining me to answer those questions and so many more is matte sunshine, c e o at the Center for Sales Strategy. Matt brings up some great pieces of insight, like why it's important to build thought leadership on LinkedIn, not to get more leads, but to simply be helpful, and how closing the knowing and doing gap can mean winning half the battle, as well as tips and best practices for how to do this consistently and effectively. All right. So excited to have you. Always a pleasure. Matt. How's it going?

Matt Sunshine: (01:31)
Excellent. I'm glad to be here. This is a fun topic.

Dani Buckley: (01:33)
It is, it is. I'm excited to talk to you about it. And you know, there's, there's a lot of people we could be talking about. You know, I joking about that a little bit of, there's so many social media experts and, and really the reason I I invited you is because it's not about like, are you an expert at social media and is this what you do day in and day out? But it's that you do it well and you get results and, um, and you do it your way and you've, you've kind of tested things and found what works for you. And, and that's what I wanna talk about today is, is what you've learned and what you can maybe pass on and people can learn from you.

Matt Sunshine: (02:03)
Sure. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I, I, I would not consider myself a social media expert at all. Um, but I do know, or I have found ways to be authentic and real and transparent and, and helpful, and that I'm happy to share. And if it, if it helps someone else along the way, then that makes me extra special. Happy.

Dani Buckley: (02:27)
Great. Yeah. Love it. Cool. Um, okay, so let's jump in. Here we go. So, first question, um, in your opinion, why is it important for business and sales leaders, um, to develop their kind of professional reputation on LinkedIn? We're really focusing on LinkedIn today. Um, and, and what does that look like? What are some of the things they need to be doing if, if this is something that's important to them?

Matt Sunshine: (02:47)
Yeah. Um, great way to start the conversation. So let me say this, that no matter what you do or don't do is your reputation . Yeah. Right? I mean, not ever posting anything on LinkedIn, not commenting, not liking, not sharing, not not doing any of that is your reputation. Oh, you're that person that doesn't do that. You know, it's if in your job, if in your job being a thought leader is important, then you need to be a thought leader. Right? And that means that you need to share your opinions. You need to, um, you need to disagree when it's appropriate to disagree. You need to agree when it's, you need to add weight when you can. Um, I think it's really important as a professional, if, if your job is to be a thought leader and that you need to take that part of your job really seriously and, and do it not to get leads, that's the wrong reason to do this. Not to get leads, but to be helpful, um, and to, and to truly be that thought leader. So I think, I think it's super important because some roles and have that responsibility, but I also think that you're kidding yourself that you say, oh, I'm just not gonna participate. I'm not gonna do that. Because the moment you do that, that is your brand. Yeah. You've just created a brand for yourself. And so remember that.

Dani Buckley: (04:30)
Yeah. And I, I, you've said it, you just said it now, and I know you've said it many times before. I love that you always bring it back to, it's about being helpful. That's what being a thought leader really should be, . So I appreciate that. Um, so, you know, my, it's my belief that it kind of all starts with your profile, right? So you gotta get that right first. Um, so I'm curious if you have any tips or kind of best practices to share, just, just kind of to start with that foundation on writing, optimizing, just making a profile on LinkedIn that that's gonna be help you be seen as a thought leader, gonna help you connect with people. What do you, what do you think?

Matt Sunshine: (05:01)
Yeah. You know, I think the profile's important because sooner or later people you don't know are gonna check you out, right? Mm-hmm. , and, and that's, that is their first impression of you, right? I think that the way people use LinkedIn is they see what you comment on, or they see something that you've done, or maybe they heard you speak somewhere, or your name bubbled up from someone, so they check you out. And what does check you out mean? Yeah. So check you out means, I'm gonna look at your summary. I'm gonna look at where you've worked. I'm gonna look at what, what mutual connections we have. And then I might scroll down and see, uh, do you have any recommendations maybe? Yeah. But my first impression, my first impression is gonna be what's that profile summary say? Oh, in the picture? Yeah, the picture.

Matt Sunshine: (05:55)
Maybe more than what, maybe even more than, than what the summary says. It's gonna be that picture. It's like, oh, that person looks like I want to hang out with them, I want to follow them, whatever. So my best, um, you know, I, I have lots of thoughts and opinions that I gladly share with everyone that will allow me to, whether it's in a blog or video or on social media. But one thing that I find really, really hard to do is write a summary about myself. Yeah. It is truly the hardest thing in the world. So what I would do, and what I did do, um, is I put all, I made a list of all the things that I would want to include in my summary about me, all the things that I thought, you know what, if someone was checking me out, these are the things I would want them to know about me.

Matt Sunshine: (06:45)
And then I went to someone who I know, like, and trust and I said, Hey, can you write my summary for me? Cause I'm having a really hard time writing it about myself. Um, that works. I also know someone who recently, and I thought their profile looked absolutely amazing. She put it in ChatGPT. Yeah. She said, write me a LinkedIn summary based on these attributes that I think I have. It really did a good job. Yes, she had to edit, but it was a great start. So again, it, I think the benefit of that is having a third party write about yourself. I'm not good at writing about myself.

Dani Buckley: (07:27)
Yeah. No, I love that. And I'll add one thing, um, that I always think is nice and helpful is to also think about in that summary, that like, something that talks about how you help people, how your business helps people, how you help people, right? I think, um, sometimes we write a lot about, or I see some folks, it's all about like, this is why I'm great and this is what I do, but it's like making sure the language is actually speaking to what makes you helpful. What problems do you help solve. Yeah. I think that's nice.

Matt Sunshine: (07:53)
Yeah. I think that's, that's exactly right. So when, when, and I, that's a good clarification. When I say I list the attributes, I would want somebody to see, that doesn't mean like, Matt does this and Matt's accomplished this, and Matt's a, I mean, you can scroll down and see my resume if you want to know all those things or see other experiences. What I am talking about specifically is problems that we solve, how I'm helpful. I, again, I'm not good at writing about myself. Yeah. But others are

Dani Buckley: (08:24)
Great. Love it. Okay. So let's talk about, um, actually growing your LinkedIn network. Because if you are publishing a bunch of great stuff, but you're not connected in anybody, it doesn't really matter. So, um, what are some habits or practices that you have to kind of keep growing that LinkedIn network that, um, you know, things that maybe you do all the time just to, to, to keep making sure it's alive and well and healthy ?

Matt Sunshine: (08:47)
Yeah. So I think in order to grow, it's kind of like, um, when I talk to people about how to get referrals, I always say, you have to give referrals to get referrals. Yeah. Right? Yeah. So I think in order to get people to follow you and to l you know, connect with you, you have to connect with them. So I'm pretty intentional, right? I think about who I want to connect with. I think about who I'm finding on LinkedIn that I kind of follow and I read what they write, or I comment on their thing and you know, how to connect with this person. I'm liking a lot of the stuff that they're writing about. And, and I, and I let myself explore that way. And when I connect with them, I do more than just hit connect. I write something like, Hey, I read that article that you posted, or I notice that you and I have the same interest in this.

Matt Sunshine: (09:36)
It'd be great to connect with you. And my style, because I'm not trying to sell anything, is when I do connect with someone, I do not follow up with a message that says, Hey, thanks for connecting with me. Can we get together and have a meeting? Yeah. Because all you did is connect with me. You didn't say you wanted to have a meeting. So that's me being outgoing. I also, um, I also comment on a lot of people's, uh, LinkedIn stuff. I, I comment and I share and I repost and I give credit. And I think all those things are probably the things, um, that most people know to do. I think the difference is I've kind of closed the knowing, doing gap for myself, and I'll omit for the longest time, I, um, I've watched people get successful using LinkedIn. Yeah. And it's only recently in the last year or so that I've decided that I'm gonna close the knowing, doing gap for myself and stop knowing what to do and start doing what I need to do.

Dani Buckley: (10:35)
Yeah. Yeah. Great. I love that. And, um, for those that like really like, like a specific thing to like do this more, I have one little thing that I do, and I, I'm, I don't know if you do this too, but I really have gotten into a habit over the years of af anytime I meet with someone new, a call, a meeting, anything that I actually met someone, I just am in the habit of go connect with them. Like, be in that practice, especially for those that are outselling. Like if you talk to a prospect, if you've met a new client, or just be in that habit every week or every day, connecting with the people that you are actually meeting in real life.

Matt Sunshine: (11:06)
Yeah. So, uh, a few years back, I, a guy reached out to me on LinkedIn and I asked him, I said, and he like reached out with a message and I asked him why he was doing that. And he said, well, here's what I do once a month. I look at, he went to the same college as I went to, and he said, once a month, I look at people that went to the same university that I went to that have the same interests that I have to, and I reach out to them for no other reason than to network and connect. I love that. And I'm still friends with him today. Yeah. Um, and I try to do that same thing kind of intentionally. I, I go on there and, you know, LinkedIn has a pretty good algorithm of who you might know. And I go, I look at my university, I look at my fraternity, I look at people I used to work with. I, I look at people that work at clients. I'm like, oh, I wonder if I'm connected to so-and-so. And then sure enough, you always find people that, oh, you know what, I'm not connected to them, but I know who they are. They know who I am. I should be connected. Just expands your network.

Dani Buckley: (12:09)
Yeah. Great. I love that. Awesome. Uh, okay, so let's get to the, let's get to this, the, the real meat here, right? Uh, actually publishing and sharing thoughts and ideas and tips and things on, on LinkedIn. So let's start with, can you just share some examples of the kinds of posts that you, um, publish that you think work really well and get the most engagement? Um, and then maybe also on top of that, if you can add, like, how often are you publishing? Do you think that matters? Kind of give us your rundown, what's

Matt Sunshine: (12:35)
Working? Yeah, sure. So I don't, I don't post as much as a lot of other people do. Um, I, I mean, so I share a lot daily. So I share a lot daily. And what that typically means is I will share a blog post that my company, uh, or any of the companies that I follow closely, I'll share something that they have written on, on the blog and, and I'll do a call out in the beginning of it. That's, that's one style. Yeah. I, that gets limited, um, uh, engagement. Um, it just, it gets a little bit, but, but nothing to, nothing to write home about as they would say. Yeah. Um, what typically then, I'd say two to three times a week, I try to post something that is not connected to a blog article. It does not have a link to a landing page.

Matt Sunshine: (13:42)
It does not have a call to action. It does not do any of those things that would be considered inbound marketing at all intentionally. Right. I, I don't, I'm not looking for people. I'm not looking for it to generate a lead. There's no anything with it. And it's just my opinion. And it's usually based on an experience I just had. Whether it was a client that asked me a question or a presentation that I just saw, or an article that I just read that I think is worthy of knowing. Like, for example, I saw someone posted, or I saw somewhere, someone had this thing that said one day or day one, and I loved it. Hmm. I like thought that's so right. Do you, are you the type of person that's like one day or are you the type person that's like, you know what, today's day one.

Matt Sunshine: (14:39)
And so I reposted it and I didn't even say anything. All I did is I posted it that got a ton of impressions or someti or the other day, I, I posted something that said, stop selling, um, uh, start, uh, focus on what you solve, not what you sell. Right. And that was inspired because I had just, I had just sat in, someone had just presented something to me and all they did, it was a 30 minute presentation, and 20 minutes of that 30 minutes was them rambling on about their product and their product and their product. And I found myself wondering, what problems does this really solve for me? So I just, I, I, I, LinkedIn, I, I went on LinkedIn and I said, focus on what you solve, not what you sell. That got a ton of engagement. But then sometimes I take a little bit of a long form approach to, to what I post, and I really lay it all out there and I really give my thoughts and opinions.

Matt Sunshine: (15:44)
Um, and not all of them are things that people will necessarily agree with. But I'm pretty passionate about it. And I know that it's consistent with the way that I view sales. The other thing is, I only post on things about sales or business or marketing or, uh, or business development or revenue generation. I stay in my lane and, and I don't try to go and, and when other people are doing other things and talking about whatever, I stay away from those things. I'm not interested. That's not my, it's not, it's not where I'm a thought leader. I don't wanna play in that, in that space. Yeah.

Dani Buckley: (16:21)
Yeah. Great. Love it. Lots of good, good info there. Um, kind of an extra question I just am having right now. What are your thoughts on using video and creating videos?

Matt Sunshine: (16:31)
I love it. Um, I, I think to the extent that you can do it, you should, the more, the better. Um, I think people will stop and watch video, um, more than they will the written word. I do know there's, uh, there's a technique right now. Um, uh, Ian, you know, video is, is catching on, but we're gonna ruin that too, right? Yeah. I mean, it's gonna get to the point where everyone's posting video and then it won't work. Like right now, one of the things that's helping with engagement in a big way is actually when you write, right? And you write that first sentence and then you, you hit enter two or three times so that there's a space so that when someone reads it, they gotta click the more button and then when they click, the more it's really long. Right. And that seems to be in favor right now.

Matt Sunshine: (17:20)
I've done a little bit of that. When I do, it gets a lot of engagement, makes a lot of impressions. Um, video is the same way. There's that sweet spot of how long will people tolerate it, right? And, and two minutes, three minutes, one minute. I mean, I saw a video today before this, cuz I went on, I went on LinkedIn or before this, uh, before we, uh, recorded this. Cause I wanted to look at some of the people that I really respect and I follow. I wanna see if stylistically there was anything that I was noticing that maybe subconsciously I've never really, um, articulated is I wanted to grab that. And one of the things, uh, someone, I watched a video of someone and it was awful mm-hmm.  and, and I noticed it didn't have very many impressions. And I will tell you it was because everything about the video is about how great he was Yeah. And how great he is. And I was like, again, what's in it for me? You're like, all he was trying to do is get me to subscribe to his publication. Not interested. Yeah. Help me video's. Great. I think people should use it as long as they can have good sound and good lighting and good everything or don't use it.

Dani Buckley: (18:36)
Yeah. Great. Love it. So speaking of that, kinda going in that direction, mistakes, what are some other common mistakes, um, that people make when it comes to posting on LinkedIn? What do you see? What do you think people should avoid?

Matt Sunshine: (18:49)
Yeah, so I think the biggest mistake is they do not participate. Right? Yep. They don't participate now. Oh yeah. I think it's so important. It's so important. Then you go on their thing and the last time they had any activity was two weeks ago, you, you disappear. I mean, yeah, you do. You disappear. If you're not there, you disappear. So that's one. I think another mistake is they make it all about themselves. Um, and, and I get it. I get why because in in people's mind what they're s what they're thinking is, well, I'm gonna use this for lead generation, or I'm gonna use this to help me pull prospects through the funnel. Which by the way, you should, you should use it for lead generation and you should use it to pull prospects through the funnel. But if that's your intent Yeah, it doesn't work.

Matt Sunshine: (19:41)
And so they make that mistake of, well, I can't post anything cuz I need to have a landing page built. Or I don't have a piece of premium content that I can ask someone to download or I don't have a call to action. I, I think the biggest mistake then is that they're not being authentic. They're not being real. And so I often hear people say, oh, do you see that? They'll send me a LinkedIn, they'll send me what someone posted, and they'll go, this is really awesome. I thought you would like it. And I usually respond back and say, Hey, I noticed you didn't comment on it. Why not? And they'll go, well, what, what would I have said? And I said, I don't know the same thing you wrote to me that you think it's awesome and that you should call out the specific thing that you really liked about it. Like, this is awesome. I really liked the way you did this. And I think that we miss all those opportunities. So the biggest mistake, again, to, to put an exclamation point on it, is people do not participate. And I give some tho those are some examples of them not. Yeah. I'll tell. The other big mistake is that when, how do I say this the right way?

Matt Sunshine: (20:54)
Some people can be jerks. Hmm mm-hmm. , some people can be, uh, controversial. Some people can not like someone's point and they don't know how to express themselves in an adult manner. I would say that they express themselves in a soph moic

Dani Buckley: (21:19)
Way. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yeah. Absolutely. Got it. And, and I think there's like that fine line of like, you can be real, it doesn't have to be like stuffy, but there's still like a level of professionalism and, and some people don't really understand that line .

Matt Sunshine: (21:32)
Yeah. No. And, and, and, you know, I don't know how to explain it to someone, but I sure know it when I see it.

Dani Buckley: (21:38)
Totally. Yep. Yep, yep. Um, okay. Great. Good stuff. So, you know, everyone do, not everyone, but, but many folks do look at LinkedIn is like, how can I get leads? How can I prospect better? And and certainly we speak to the fact that like, being a thought leader is going to contribute to all of that. Um, but it's maybe not as direct of a line as some people would like. So I'm curious kind of what, what are your thoughts on like legion and prospecting related to LinkedIn?

Matt Sunshine: (22:03)
Yeah, I I, I definitely think it leads to, it leads to leads. Um, I, I bet you I get three or four leads a month, three or four people reaching out to me a month that will say something like, Hey Matt, I saw that article or I saw that post that you did. Can you and I jump on a call? Yeah. A lot of times, like I'm, I'm talking to somebody right now, like we're in, he's a prospect right now. I had, I met him over a year ago. It, you know, we had a bunch of conversations over a one week period of time. It went nowhere. I didn't follow up with him. There was really nothing to follow up with. He didn't follow up with me. But he's been fi he's in my LinkedIn algorithm. I'm in his LinkedIn algorithm. And so he sees all this stuff and he reached out last week and said, Hey, I know it's been a while since we last talked, but can you and I get on a call?

Matt Sunshine: (23:07)
I wanna pick up that conversation. I think I'm ready now. And Danny, that happens all the time. Yeah. So I can't trace it like, oh, it was, I said this. Yes. Yeah. And that generated, it's the body of work. Yeah. Right. It's, it's the, and I think when you're, when you're doing it with the intent of lead generation, I think that you try to be, um, you try to calculate it when you truly are doing it because you just wanna be helpful. I mean, I, you've heard me say this a million times. Lots of people that that know me have heard me say this. But I, I didn't, I, I had a lot of good mentors along the way. I really did. I had a lot of people in my life that cared enough about me to give me a little bit of a chance or to include me in conversations before I was ready to be included in those conversations.

Matt Sunshine: (24:08)
All those people, to me were extremely helpful. They gave me an opportunity to continue to grow and develop. So why don't I do the same? Why don't I Yeah. Give people an opportunity to grow and develop and share some of the things. I know if you're really being authentic and you, and then you got a lot to say, then people like that. And at some point they're gonna reach out to you. So I wish I could say it was this thing, but I think what it really is, it's an ongoing body of work of being helpful and being, being authentic about it.

Dani Buckley: (24:38)
Yeah. Love it. And, and the truth is, to those listening, it, it happens quite often. We have, we have had many customers, clients come on that came directly through some LinkedIn connection and, um, in the way that Matt just described or similar ways and through different people in our organization, and it takes a village. I think the reason we see success on LinkedIn is because we do have lots of people at the Center for Sales Strategy at LeadG2 that are active and, and using, so, uh, using LinkedIn. So it, it, it helps when you've got lots of people too. Um, okay. We're gonna, we're gonna wrap things up, even though of course you and I could sit and chat all the time. Um, , what other best practices do you have? What, what else do you wanna be sure that, um, you pass along to our listeners today? Anything you wanna add?

Matt Sunshine: (25:18)
Yeah, so I, I'll say this and, and, and I do this. Um, and, and I didn't invent it. I saw other people doing it. I noticed that some people that I follow on LinkedIn that I have a lot of respect for that. I think that they're some of the real thought leaders in, in the space where I am. I noticed that after they would, um, publish whether it was a link to their, uh, blog that they wrote and, and some sort of, uh, you know, carve out out of it or just a post that they put, then they would, they would comment on it themselves. Mm-hmm. . And in that comment they would say things like, Hey, at Matt Sunshine at Danny Buckley. Yeah. At so-and-so, do you have any thoughts on this? Right. Yeah. And the first time it happened, and, and so it pops up in, in, in my notifications, hey.

Matt Sunshine: (26:11)
And I was like, oh, that's kind of cool. They want to know my opinion. And so I commented and I noticed that these, these posts were getting lots of, lots of comments. And so I've done that a few times. Where're I'll, I'll give, I'll comment in in a, in a post and I'll say, Hey, so and so, do you have any thoughts or opinion? Would love to hear your response to what I'm saying above. I think, again, as long as you're being authentic and you're trying to start a real conversation, that works great. And it's a great way because there's every chance that they don't see it in the algorithm, they just miss it. But sometimes you really do want someone's opinion on this. Um, you know, the, the guy that, uh, was a former owner here at c s css prior to me, Jim Hopes, I recently posted something about talent focus management, a workshop that c s s brought back and, uh, brought back in the sense that it hasn't been live since before covid. And, um, I posted something about it, TF N's back, I posted a picture and I said, and then I, and in the comments I said at Jim Hopes, and then Jim commented, which then sparked some other people to comment that followed Jim. And so I think that's a, that's a tactic that currently works that people ought to use. And again, I don't know how long that tactic works. Yeah. It, I like it. Cause it's authentic and it's sincere. Yeah.

Dani Buckley: (27:40)
I love it. It it's, it's like, it's, it's nurturing a conversation is what I feel like. Yes. And I love it. Yeah. Great. Well, this was really good stuff, Matt. Thank you for joining on this topic. Um, and always a pleasure. And I, I know that you are, um, always available and open for people to contact you. We've got Matt's contact information in the show notes if you but

Matt Sunshine: (27:59)
Connect with me on LinkedIn, connect

Dani Buckley: (28:01)
With them on LinkedIn. Exactly. Me too. Um, and yeah, we look forward to seeing everybody on the next episode of Sell Smarter, sell Faster. And until then, happy selling. Thanks for joining us on Sell Smarter, sell Faster. If you like what you've heard, click that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. Be sure to visit our website, sell Smarter sell faster.com where you can find even more helpful sales enablement resources.