Episode 3 - Permission Slap

Context: An antidote to a pitch slap? Use 1-1 buyer and/or 1-many business research with a super soft permission-based offer in a LinkedIn connection request. Bit like a cold-call opener.

Effort: Low

Where to look: Quarterly Earnings, C-level Words, Podcasts, Social Posts, Youtube, Blog, Shared Connections, Sales Nav Searches.

Examples:

Suppose you're an SDR at LiveRamp (Data Enablement Platform) selling to Amisha Ghandi, SVP Marketing @ Tipalti (Payables Tech). For Amisha, you'll find dozens of pieces of data for 1-1 personalization on Google, Youtube, and LinkedIn. If you don't use it you deserve to be ignored.

Recent interview with Brand Innovators talking about cookies, authentication, and consent of advertising:

Paraphrasing her words:

"How do we reach people in our audience, communicate, get them to come back? One is authenticated targeting... Consent is going to have to become more democratized"

"Amisha, caught you on Brand Innovators last week. Mind if I share a painless <1min vid on how Danone does authenticated consent and targeting with us?

No cookies. No Mob IDs. 40% more $ efficient."

That took 3 minutes. No excuses.

In the wild:

Sean Egan, Senior Director, Growth @ Oscar Health (Health Insurance). Sean liked this.

Erin Oles, VP Brand Experiences and Events Marketing @ Salesforce (never heard of em). Erin shared her 5 tips for Event Marketing. Years ago we worked with a colleague of hers.

Dave Raggio, VP Acquisition Marketing - QuickBooks @ Intuit (Fortune 50 Financial Software). Intuit's quarterly earnings calls are packed full of business (1-many) personalization gold. Sasan Goodzari (CEO) is kind enough to tell the world about Intuit's "Big Bets".

Dave's focus is Quickbooks. His target audience is small to medium-sized businesses. I bet that he cared about "Disrupt the small business mid-market". Helps that Credit Karma (owned by Intuit) is a customer already.

Daniel Cmejla, Senior Director, Community, Customer Marketing, Events, PR, Social @ Chili Piper (Scheduling and Routing software). Daniel posted this.

I could keep going... it works.

Tips:

• NEVER ask for a meeting in your connection request. Seek curiosity only.
• Permission language (ok if I share...) must be low friction and low commitment. You're inviting your buyer to satisfy their curiosity about something they care about if they get a spare minute or two.
• Sprinkle in relevant social proof (Robert Caldini). We're hard-wired to look to our peers for answers.
• If accepted don't pounce. I get it - you're desperate for a meeting (me too). Consider waiting a few days while you interact with their posts.
• Fish in a lake instead of an ocean. Use intent data to maximize chances. G2, Bombora, ZoomInfo, website visits - dozens of sources available.
• Fish in a pond instead of a lake. Use firmographic filters via Sales Nav to narrow down on ICP buyers. Apply "following your company" and "posted on Linkedin in 30 days" spotlight filters. Logic suggests that if you post, you're more likely to accept connection requests.
• Fish in a tank instead of a pond. Use buyer triggers to maximize your chances. I like this from Thibaut Souyris (CEO & Founder @ SalesLabs). His course is also fantastic. In short use, likes/comments from ICP buyers on industry thought leaders' posts.
• Struggling to find triggers? Use Sparktoro to find the websites, social accounts, hashtags + more that influence your audience.
• Repurpose your connection request for a personal cold-call opener. Save it in Salesloft etc so you can easily reuse it:

"Amisha, it's Joey with LiveRamp. Caught you on Brand Innovators last week. I had a quick question about what you said about authenticated targeting. Doyagotasec?"

• Consistency wins. 10 permission slaps per day (20 minutes). ~40% will accept if you get personalization right. ~50% will respond to your follow-up. ~10% may be ready to speak. Worse case you are growing your network.
• Don't burn the bridge. It's safe to assume that if a buyer accepts your connection request. They're inviting you to fulfill the offer (<2min painless video for example). It does not invite you to bump your buyer into submission. Hit follow. Be patient. Live to fight another day.

Don't hold back. I've got skin tougher than a hobbit's foot...

See you next Tuesday for episode 4 - Comparative Adjectives