When I saw LinkedIn offers a free session called, “The Ultimate 2022 Client Acquisition Marketing Guide,” my first thought was, “This is too good to be true, but why not sit in to see what the presenters have to say? Maybe I’ll learn something.”
The “too-good-to-be-true part” came from the claims the speakers, Cory Sanchez and Ira Rosen, made in the email promoting the videocast, which promised:
- “How to increase your networking results by 10X. You’ll get 10x more connections, 10x more appointments, and 10x more sales!
- “How to cut your current sales cycle in half and have them practically begging to work with you!
- “The ONE simple thing that gets prospects and clients to take immediate action (they’ll chase you down)!
- “7 proven principles of modern-day selling with digital media - without ever leaving your office!
- “The #1, single most effective platform for successful networking online (if you’re not on this platform…you’re dead in the water)!”
Could you jam anymore explanation points into these bullets! I thought not!! And what about ten times more sales!!!! Why not 100 times, or 1000 times!!!!!
Against better judgment, I practiced suspension of disbelief, registering, attending, and enduring the session for 30 minutes. Having grown weary of watching paint dry, I mercifully spared myself any more punishment and signed off.
Did I learn anything?
Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zero. Zilch.
Those claims I mentioned? It was clear we had crossed over to the land of preposterous, absurd, foolish hyperbole – who makes an unfounded, unsupported, utterly ridiculous assertions like these, then does nothing to prove them? Transaction-focused, “I-need-to-close-the-deal-now” salespeople, that’s who. People like Cory Sanchez and Ira Rosen, who care only about selling people, not serving them.
Most salespeople I know, the ones who populate my LinkedIn messages with ridiculous pitches, behave this way; a very few do not. One of the those very few is Mandy McEwen.
McEwen is invested in showing readers and listeners the “how” of things, as in, “This is how you build your personal brand,” or, “This is how you build an effective LinkedIn profile,” or, “This is how you present yourself in a video.” She doesn’t just tell you, she shows you.
Does McEwen want to sell to the people with whom she is connecting? Of course she does; she is, among other things, a salesperson. I suspect all of us are in the business of selling something, be it a product, a service, or both. But most go about it the wrong way, like Cory Sanchez and Ira Rosen.
These are the people you dismiss. The people you listen to? Mandy McEwen is one, because she is at heart not a salesperson, but a service person.