[E253] Relational Brand Building, with Jarrett Thomas (Part 3)

Jason: Welcome to part three of my conversation with Jarrett Thomas. He is awesome. It's an amazing conversation that we have. You're joining it halfway through, so make sure you catch parts one and two. Subscribe, of course, as always. And for Jarrett, as you're listening to this, we talk a lot about LinkedIn. We talk a lot about relationships. You can find him on LinkedIn, Jarrett Thomas. He puts a lot of great content out there. We're going to have a fantastic conversation in this third part, and I will see you at the end. Jarrett: Maybe if you're a person who can be in it every day to day, you might want to see what the UI looks like or something like that. If you're comfortable with it. But besides that, I'm not going through features. I'm not going through a long presentation. It's Hey, remember what I told you? We spoke on the phone. This is how you do it. Jason: And that's the difference between selling a car to somebody because they want it. They want the experience. They can see it. Like they drove it. They like it versus okay, let me tell you how the engine works. Let me show you what every button does on the radio. Let me show you all these things. And sometimes some buyers, they love that. Sometimes that's. Push them over the edge, but most people don't need to, right? Like I've done this where I've actually helped clients who sell mobile apps and I'll joke with them, I'll tell them they don't need to see it. Like not all of them need to see it. It's and I'll tell people this when I'm at trade shows. Have you ever used an app before on your phone? Yeah. It's like that, but it helps you do X, Y, and Z. It's oh, okay, cool. Like I got it. Like an app is an app at the end of the day. Jarrett: That's a great analogy as far as the cars, right? When the last time you were in a dealership and said, damn, that's a sick radio. Let me take that. So you can really find yourself going down the pigeon hole, rabbit hole by just. Talking too much features and you're putting the wrong emphasis on the wrong things. The main thing is, can it drive smooth? Can I get my family to where I need to go? Is it reliable? What is it on gas for my pocket? Jason: But that's also about specifically knowing what matters to that prospect, right? Does it make them feel good? Are they going to be cool with their friends? Is it going to make their parents proud of them because they bought a new car, right? Maybe they don't care about the fuel. I'll tell you, I never care about fuel efficiency when I'm buying a car. That's not why I'm buying something fun is for fuel efficiency, right? Jarrett: Please no hate emails or messages. I'm not either. I don't know. I just came to my, yeah, Jason: but some people, that's what matters, right? Some people, it is the features. You also have to know when to go into feature mode because somebody just wants to know because they're analytical. So anyway, enough about that. Let's go to the other topic before I get back to the one I'm going to forget about, which is personal branding. So you said you were going down a path with that. Yeah. Jarrett: So personal branding. So everybody listening, I started my LinkedIn page, my nine years ago, and it was back when it was just, Hey, you put up your webinar. This is my business. And it was so buttoned up who the hell it was terrible. So what I've been seeing is a shift, maybe the past two, three years where it's getting more like Facebook. When authenticity is breaking through and that's what people want to see and that's what they're receptive to. So when I came to iPullRank, my managing director, Mike King, he has close to 50, 000 followers on Twitter. So I'm like he does keynote speakings. He's very known or veered within the industry. And I'm thinking, what can I do to bring value to the company? So I'm going to go social media because I don't want to be making a hundred cold calls as an agency person. I want you coming to me. So how do I do that with content? So I was thinking of ways to break down the sales barrier and the first post I did it was actually on you guys on LinkedIn on desktop. You'll see on the right rails like editors those little topics and they come up with. I wrote a post about one of those topics. It was about retail apocalypse. I'm like, how retailers should have a better in store experience for families. I'm talking about my kids and stuff. What would I like to see? They picked it up. Got 40, 000 views. I was hooked from there. That was the most I've ever seen on any social media platform. For me to see that I can get that organically, it just, the light bulb went off. And me and my partner Lee, who was my sales partner at the time, we just started doing videos every single day. And if we weren't doing a video, I was telling you a story and the story would be nothing related to sales, but what I overcame. To break down that sales barrier. How does this guy seem cool? You know what I mean? Or how do I make you want to talk to me? This guy overcame, he persevered through six, seven different jobs before he finally found the good one. And now he's happy. Oh shit. Happy for Jared. I used to work with him. That's cool. Now I'm liking, getting likes. Think of it like a restaurant, right? You get a hundred likes, the CEO is going to walk past me. What is this long line? You know what I mean? What is this long line? Maybe I need to get a taste. And then you start a conversation, then you build those relationships. So I was doing that every single day, just creating content, telling my story. And the next thing, I've got people from Germany. I've had people from France, Europe, people from other cities and states, just like Jared, your inspiration. When actuality, I'm just a regular guy like you. It's just, I'm telling my story and it's relatable. Other salespeople can relate to it because it's what every sales job, I think is a 75 percent turn in sales positions. So we've all been through it. We go through here, you like it here, and then something happens. You have a bad quarter, then you're gone, and this and that, and you play the game. And I was like, I was just tired of the game. Branding. That's the best thing you could do. And if it wasn't for that personal branding efforts I was doing in November, there's no way I would have been able to survive through the pandemic, because I'd have been scrambling. I'd have been scrambling to have those relationships. Now it's like we were saying earlier, now I know my prospects, and I'm telling them like, Hey. It's a tough quarter, man. Can you throw me a bump, Jared? I will do it, Jared. Let's set up something for Tuesday. I just got to make sure I get my boss or this one and cool. And I tell him beforehand, if it's going to mess up our relationship, don't do it. But they know our work is real high quality. So it's never a problem, but be able to tell your prospects. Yeah. I really need one for this quarter, man. It's a great thing and a great position to be in. Jason: And one of the lessons I'm thinking of from when you're talking about the posts and the constant videos and sharing the stories and giving out that info is a lot of times I see with salespeople and just people in general. is they want to keep their cards close to their chest, right? They want to keep the info. They feel like they're the gatekeeper to the knowledge, the value. If you figure out that you can do it on your own, or you figure out some kind of glimmer of knowledge, then you won't need them, right? Even if you're selling SaaS. It doesn't matter. I see people just like Don't want to share the secrets right under the hood or all the value or the ways that people are doing it. And I think that's important no matter what, right? Even if it's not a personal branding thing on social media, let's say you're just on the phone, you're selling, you're in a cubicle or you're working at home and you're just selling and that's what you're doing is making those calls. The more you can come from a place of abundance and trusting that there's enough out there in the world, right? Seven plus billion people on the planet. How many do you need to be a successful salesperson this year, right? To buy from you and the more you can just give, right? If you can make every conversation you have with a prospect about giving them more value. Then you're going to want to take from them, right? Like recently had a conversation with somebody and what he said was leave every relationship better than you found it, right? And so how do you give, right? And so that guy's Travis Chapel, like that's his big thing is how do you give people when you do that kind of like your prospect, your kind of content on social media, it's like just give. Like people will be attracted to it and it will always work out. One thing I've seen is that sales people worry about only being able to win if they use manipulation tricks, tactics, and hard closes. So they end up struggling to close deals, make their quota. Or earn the kind of money that they want to make. If this sounds like your current situation, or maybe you want to make more money in sales without feeling like you're selling, then my upcoming book called Selling with Authentic Persuasion will help. In it, I'm going to take you on a journey to transform from order taker to quota breaker. If you're ready to become an authentic persuader, Crush your goals and create success in your sales career. Then go to Jason cutter. com again. That's Jason cutter. com and pre order the book today. Jarrett: One line that stuck out to me when I first started creating content on LinkedIn is teach them how to fish and they'll learn yourself fishing. And that's what it is. So why hold your cards to the chest? Even if you are the guy in the cubicle, what was that experience with the person who hung up on you? Because you know what, it's going to be a lot of sales folks who just hung up on, who just experienced that same thing, but take it away. What did you learn from it? Put that on a post. Then it's going to be people who resonate with that. So it's always a story, there's always a lesson in every single thing you do, but if you hold that close to the chest and you don't let other people know, how are they going to get to know you? And then you don't want to be just the guy who sends the cold email. I don't want to be that guy. Used to be that guy. Does it work? Absolutely. But that's how you get to the relationships and the empathy and having those real genuine connections. You know what I mean? Jason: Authenticity, everything. For sure. And I think what's really fascinating with that is when you focus on it. And just giving more than you're taking or asking for in the conversation as a salesperson in general that goes in alignment with what I tell people all the time and train salespeople to do is just do the opposite of what most all the other sellers are doing. The sellers are giving the features, they're sending the cold emails, they're doing the cold calls, right? There's a lot of people out there in the community, especially on LinkedIn. What did you learn from your million cold calls? And it's that's one way to do it. That's one way to live. Even if you're doing cold calls on those calls, how can you be completely different? What can you do that when you're talking to that prospect, they're blown away because Wait a second, this person, this woman, this man, they sound completely different. They're treating me completely different. And now I'm interested, right? Giving so much value. Hey, even if we don't work together, here's the three things you should do for your business. Or here's what I'm seeing from the last call I had. That might help you. Good luck with that. Let me know. Just shock them. Jarrett: So true. That was my approach when I was co calling when I first started, right? Like, how do I make an impression on this person, right? They're going to get a hundred co calls a day. How do I be that one guy that they remember? And that goes back to the skill of reading the other person on the other line, right? Knowing when to say a joke, when not to say a joke, when to be serious and when to provide value and when not to. Have a conversation about life. If the dude sounded like he startled or razzled or something like that, I'm like, hey, what's going on? Is it a good time it was going? And the next thing you know, you don't even know. You're in a three, four minute conversation. He's talking about his kids and stuff like that. Now you got a meeting next Tuesday because you sat there and listened at the right time. You don't always necessarily have to just sell product. Sometimes it's good to be a person Jason: and you said it earlier, which I think is important. I don't think I said it in my head. I don't think I said it out loud. So if I did, it's going to be weird, but Daryl Prail from vanilla soft. I heard him say this last year for the first time. I heard somebody say it and it was him because it's not B to B. It's not B to C. It's H to H, right? It's human to human. The more you just focus on. The other person being a human, they put their pants on ish the same way you did today or their pajamas or whatever, working from home or maybe nothing. I don't know. But whatever, you just remember they're a human, you're a human, just have a conversation. Jarrett: That's it. That's gold right there, man. Yeah, man. I forgot I was gonna ask you another question, man. I think we were talking about the cold calling. It was another topic. I think I lost it. Jason: All right. You think about that. So the one thing I wanted to ask you about LinkedIn is there's a lot of, I won't say the word guru because there's just a lot of people out there who are like post on all social media, hit all social media. Be present everywhere and anywhere. And you have made the specific laser target focus of LinkedIn, right? Versus Facebook, Twitter, making TikTok videos and doing all this stuff. So some people that are being told to go really wide, people like yourself, even myself, like sometimes I dabble on Facebook and I'm just like. Either I don't care or I get overwhelmed or I just don't want to get pulled into all the personal stuff that happens when I'm scrolling through Facebook. Why did you make that decision and or like, where do you see people who should be focused that aren't or where they should diversify? Jarrett: No, that's a great question for me. Personally, I went on LinkedIn because I know it's so completely removed from my personal life. So that's the word for me and I know my target audience is all on LinkedIn. They're all on Twitter, they're all on these other platforms, but I know for a fact that they're going to be on LinkedIn at some point. So I said I'm going to own it because it was completely Remove from my personal life on Facebook. I do music on side, so I don't want to be the guy selling the SEO. Then I'm selling my rap song and then it's difficult to know your audience, but I definitely recommend people depending on whatever your product is, do diversify your channels. But the main thing is knowing your audience and knowing what works on that channel, right? Test and test, right? People don't want to be spoken to the way. Certain posts are going to perform on Twitter better than they're going to do on LinkedIn. Some LinkedIn posts are going to perform better than an Instagram post. When you're on Instagram, you got to make sure you have a good photo. Know what your audience expects of you. And then really just drill down. So if you're a guy who's a gamer, if you're a, any business you are, you should be diversifying. But for me personally, with SEO content strategy, all the brands I need to speak to are on this specific channel. So if I own that, then I could branch out when I have those relationships. I could create a Twitter and just migrate that over. Jason: And I think it's important too is that if you're not getting results and you're trying to play these five different social medias, for example, are you getting anywhere? And is it just a matter of time, right? Because it's not instant. It's not overnight, right? It all takes time no matter what to build that tribe, to build the following, to build relationships and impact. So it's just that it takes time or you're too spread out. It's not going to work for you. Despite Gary Vee saying post 64 pieces of content per hour or whatever it is, like Jarrett: To spread out, like between conversations like this, being on other people's podcasts, doing co content with other creators, and I got my own podcast and then I'm still doing a nine to five and then I'm still a full time. Parent of two. So it's like juggling all of those things. It's hard, especially if you want to make quality content, right? It's hard to make quality content. You want a real quality video for YouTube. It's going to take you about five, six, seven, eight hours to edit, get your script going and all those things. It takes time. So if you have somebody who doesn't have these types of responsibilities that I have, or my pie chart is so full and you can do it, go for it. But you're going to know one is going to outperform the other, right? You're going to eventually hone in on one channel. Whichever one is grabbing the revenue is where you focus. Jason: That's it for part three. Go to cutterconsultinggroup. com slash podcast if you want to find the show notes. They're pretty simple for the show. It's all about relationships, but I will have some notes and different things from him. You can also find him on LinkedIn. As always, keep in mind everything in life is sales and people remember the experience you gave them.