Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Opinions expressed in this episode are personal. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this streaming platform.
[00:00:09] Speaker B: Good day, everyone, and welcome to another edition of let's be diverse. I am your host, Andrew Stout. This episode is dedicated to all my loved ones who supported me through this journey. Today, we have a fun topic, something that I think is super interesting, and it's called social selling. And my guest today is Celeste Burke Knisley. Welcome to the show, Celeste. I know we've been kind of talking back and forth, and it's such a. I'm so stoked to have you on today. Thank you so much for coming on.
[00:00:41] Speaker A: Thank you so much for having me. And, you know, a fun fact I think it's important to tell your guests is we met online through a social, I don't want to say social selling, but social awareness through, through LinkedIn. So I think that's important to note to your listeners about how our first conversation started and how we ended up here today. But I'm excited to be here and share with your listeners.
[00:01:09] Speaker B: I love that, and I totally agree with you.
One of my core values is rapport building. So I feel like this is going to be a huge segue or that's going to be a part of our conversation. And absolutely, I am huge on building rapport, collaborating, having conversations with people. I think it's super important, and I wish not a lot of people do it. And I figured I'm going to be the one that's going to do it as much as I can. And it's been a benefit to me since I've been, since I started this podcast, buddy, over a year ago, and it's helped grow it. So I'm super, super pumped about it. I want to know, how are things with you? What's going on? What's the news? Give us the deep, Celeste. What's going on with you?
[00:01:56] Speaker A: So it's an interesting time.
I spend a great deal of my time in a prospecting, as you said, rapport building social selling space where I'm building my personal brand, an awareness of services and products, but also navigating the waters of an entrepreneur in order to meet buyers, meet individuals, where they are today.
So a massive shift is happening in the sales space, and I used to be that person. A little funny antidote here. I remember before I had my first sales job at age 27, I used to think salespeople were awful. I never wanted to be in sales.
Nobody went into that profession. Salespeople were icky, was the stigma around selling, and it wasn't until I got my first sales job without having any experience, I was actually managing people and being responsible for a team of people without any experience. And I realized this selling moniker touches all, everybody within an organization and we niche it down to just the sales organization. But really, as you mentioned, it is an extension of every, everybody is having conversations, two way conversations. Whether you're in accounting and you're managing accounts, whether you're in operations and you're working with your staff, everybody is building their credibility and spreading awareness and hopefully encouraging and shaping the future of others. And in that really rolls into wherever my belief is everybody sells. So I'm in this place of when you say what's going on now, building awareness around how important it is that everybody within an organization has a understanding of how they tie into the, let's say, the revenue wheel of an organization that typically at the end of the day we're there to serve a mission and purpose, but we're also there to pay our bills and pay our team and build a culture. But everybody has to be in alignment with that. And that's really where social selling, social awareness, social branding can come into play across the organization. So that's what I've been focusing on, building my own pipeline through outbound prospecting and out there changing the way the world sells, one team member at a time.
[00:04:28] Speaker B: It's interesting that you say that because I've had so many conversations lately and a lot of people are like, oh, well, I do this, but, you know, that's not my job, or I don't do that, or, you know, that's not what I have to worry about and I get what people are trying to say. In some cases, yes, you know, maybe you don't have the expertise in a certain area so you don't want to delve into that. However, you know, if you're working, especially an organization, it's, it's your, everybody is all part of how do you, how everything runs, whether it's smooth or whether it staggers, everybody's responsible for it. It's just a matter of what you do and, you know, and whether you help out or not, way of seeing how the company runs and how successful it truly is.
[00:05:19] Speaker A: Yeah, and, and it's important. So a little bit of backstory. I was in the corporate environment for a little over 20 years post college, and then due to a Covid riff, I had a choice to make. Continue down the corporate path or go out on my own as an entrepreneur. And things that I saw over those 20 years are. Was individuals and myself at some times having this, like, not in alignment of where the company was going. Right. Not everybody had a seat on the bus. Some people were, like, wanting to get off the bus. And when you start to peel back those layers, this is where leadership has to take a hard look, and it is really difficult to look at yourself. I've had to do it a couple times in leadership and say, this is me. This is a me problem. It's not always them. Like, it's my lack of leadership. I truly don't know. My values no longer align with the values of this company and the direction that it's going, and it's time for me to get off the bus or I have to change. And so often within an organization, because of cultural shifts, because of leadership changes, people become disenfranchised with the way that the team is running and therefore start to not be in alignment. Right. We hear, this isn't my job. That's not the way that things are done. Oh, I can't do that. I'm unwilling to take on more work. And instead of continuing to go down that path and not seeing results, I think we as leaders have to take it upon ourselves to say what's in the best interest of this individual. Is there something I need to do to change how I can bring them into this organization so they align, or is it time for them or myself to make a change? So I agree.
Like I said, I was in that place myself within a few organizations, but also had to have some hard conversations. I remember taking one staff member outside and saying, like, is it time for you to look for another job? Like, I do not feel that your behavior is in alignment with, like, you wanting to be here. And that is, that's a culture shift of poor leadership and also ego and also individuals, like, just complaining about the work that they do versus saying, this doesn't fit within myself. And that's okay. I'm going to go find something else.
[00:07:57] Speaker B: I love your. I love your words there. My value is no longer aligned. I just love that. And I. And I kind of use that as well as my mantra. So when somebody asks me something or when they asked me to work with somebody, work with them, I, you know, ask myself, do I, do my values align with that? And if it doesn't, then I'm probably not gonna do it. And then we have to use that word. No. And why people are afraid to use it, but I use it when. When I need, but I just love that. And we're gonna get a little bit more deep into. Into you. But before we get into that, I always have a fun, thought provoking question for my guests to get things going. Are you ready for yours today, Celeste?
[00:08:41] Speaker A: I'm ready. I'm in the. In the hot seat. So.
[00:08:46] Speaker B: So my question is, how would you use your extra time if you had 25 hours in a day time?
[00:08:56] Speaker A: So if I had a little bit extra time during the day, I would use it for some type of self development that always seems to be what gets pushed to the back burner. I have a whole stack of books sitting at my desk or at my nightstand, and I continue to buy more books and keep adding to the stack. Yet I'll read a few pages here and there. So if I had some extra time, I would dive into a passion of mine, which is really expanding my learning and doing that for me. I'm not an audible learner. I have to read it to really try to understand it and comprehend it first. So that's how I would get back to reading. I used to read a book a week, then when I became a mom. It's like two books a year.
[00:09:48] Speaker B: Or you're reading the kid. No, you're reading the kids books.
[00:09:50] Speaker A: Yes, I still. I still read quite a bit, but it's a different.
[00:09:56] Speaker B: It's a different type of reading. Yeah. It's like a ten minute read compared to something that might take you a few. You could. You could do it for a few hours if needed. I totally get that, and I love what you said there. Self development. I agree, too. We always have.
So I'm a firm believer that when you are a leader, you always continuously learn. And I feel that the second that you say to yourself that you, you know it all or you've learned everything, that's when you get yourself stuck and when you get yourself in trouble. So I. I will totally, and I promise myself I will never say that. So I'm always reading articles, listening to other podcasts, read it, you know, listening to lives, taking training whenever I can, because you can always, and you can always take something out of whatever you do. So whenever there's an opportunity for it, I will. I will take it. I've listened to a lot of your lives, and I've watched a lot of your videos, and I always take something from every. Everything that anybody does. Absolutely. Super important.
[00:11:08] Speaker A: I'm the same way. And it's interesting to me. I talk to a lot of individuals. I do one on one coaching as well as team coaching development. I mean, a whole slew of things. And I would say nine out of ten individuals always come back with some type of budgetary constraint. And the human in me wants to say, all right, let's go ahead and take a look. Like you told me, these are the goals that you have. This is the direction that you want to go. Like, help me understand how an investment, let's say, is $3,000 for three months of intensive one on one coaching on the low end of the price point. But help me understand, let me dive into your finances and see how you're spending your money. Now, I don't go there, but I know having my first job out of college, where I made $10.25 an hour, I learned about budgeting and putting money away and saving and continuously using money for self development and professional development. And it saddens me how we are in this place where people will put that on the back burner in order to have quick dopamine hits from a Starbucks, from going out and drinking on the weekend, from eating out five times a week. And when you add that all up is actually more than if you invested in yourself. So it is a change. And it saddens me when that is what people choose to do versus investing in themselves, because there's massive growth opportunities when you do feed into the bank of yourself, when you're putting in those deposits that you're able to withdraw later in life, for career opportunities, for board members, for volunteer seats to be tapped as a leader or a thought leader within your company to work on a project. But I've spent a lot of money on coaching, even when, not when I didn't have it. But let's say I got a client, I would turn around and spend that money to invest.
Even this past year, going outbound and writing copy isn't a strong suit of mine. And I could beat my head against the wall or research lavender, everybody who's talking about outbound. Or I could hire someone to coach me on it. So I hired will hkin to coach me on it and we walked through it. But that was an investment that I made in myself in order to be able to strengthen that area of opportunity. And I wish more people understood how important it was to do that for themselves and that credibility and also that confidence that it builds within yourself.
[00:14:01] Speaker B: Yeah, super, super important. And like I said, people kind of put it in the back burner and, yeah, I don't. So, I mean, it's to each their own if that's what they want to do. And it's unfortunate, but yeah, I try not to. And if, you know, whenever I have a free moment, I will definitely take on some sort of training and stuff. I just purchased a training from somebody that I know, and it's a five day training that I'm doing right now. And it's, you know, and it's a different thing. It's different types of training, and I thought it was important to do so. So I did it. So. And it.
[00:14:39] Speaker A: And it ebbs and flows, you know, I want to be cognizant of that for your listeners. Like, I get it. I was very career driven. I got married later in life. I was almost 38 years old. I had a long career, from 21 to 38 of work, work, work.
I didn't understand the moms that I had hired that were on my team. It was always work first.
Well, I had a child. I was almost 40 years old. She's now five.
And things shifted for me. Like we said, I wasn't reading as much as I because I was in survival mode. And so be. Give yourself grace wherever you are in your leadership journey or what, whatever place you have within an organization or outside of an organization, like, it ebbs and flows as life. Sometimes we are in survival mode, you know, sickness of a family, death, changes in our job, responsibility, our commute. But if you go a long time without making those deposits within yourself, often we feel like we're just treading water. And that's not a great feeling.
[00:15:50] Speaker B: I love it. So I know we did a little bit of a sneak preview of you and your story, but I want to kind of delve into a little bit deeper here. So why don't we get things going here and start off with you telling us a little bit about you, your story, and I? We want to know your why.
[00:16:09] Speaker A: Sure. So I have, gosh, 2023 years of corporate experience, let's say work experience post college, which is crazy to think, time goes by so fast. I started in the nonprofit arena in event and meeting management and got a master's in tourism.
Got my first director of sales job at age 27. I went through seven interviews. This is for everybody out there who has doubt. I had never managed anybody. I'd never worked in the industry.
I didn't know one single thing about it. And I managed to get a job where I was overseeing five people and about $10 million in revenue. I had to google everything and find a couple of mentors who would help me.
But that just goes to show, like, you don't have to have the experience. You have to have the grit and the will and the desire. So I spent, gosh, from 2007, probably 13 years in hospitality sales, working my way up to a regional director of sales and marketing. I had responsibility for 19 hotels, roughly 47 salespeople from coast to coast. I traveled. I had a child during that time and really had felt like at the time overseeing a portfolio of $105 million in revenue. I was kind of at that place of taking the next step, whether I was a vice president. Something and Covid happened. And it was that defining moment where I decided, do I have bet on myself? I think that's what my t shirt says right now. Bet on yourself. Just randomly. I said that my t shirt says the same thing and go out and become an entrepreneur. Because I'd been in sales and marketing, I did a lot of training and recruiting. And so I felt like I understood the misses that individuals had from a training perspective or a lack of using tools that were relevant and timely. And thus my coaching and training business started four years ago. The first couple of years were really rocky. And then a year ago, I became one of four women certified in the gap selling methodology.
And so I split my time working with corporate teams. From a sales training perspective, teams that are experiencing a decline in win rates, a decline in sales, low or no pipeline generation. Our methodology comes and takes a problem. First look at what your team is doing, and it's based on research on how buyers buy. And then I also work with teams on what we're going to talk about today, social selling, brand awareness and prospecting.
So that's where I am four years in as an entrepreneur.
[00:19:13] Speaker B: I love your story. So two things that resonated with me, and it's funny, that stuff that I talk about a lot. The first thing is that you were a director, you found a job at 27 years old, and the first things that you did is you googled what to do. And I love that. And the reason why I love that is because a lot of people who take a manager, leadership or director role, they're moving up in a company and a lot of people will, they'll say the company will come to them and say, listen, we want to put you in this management role, this director role, this leadership role, vice president role, and a lot of them, like you said, have never been in those positions. But what a lot of people are doing now is they're taking the job. And the lot of people, and yes, I love money as much. We talked about money. You said it before, we love money. Everybody loves money. But what I love is that you said that you googled how to be. How to be a director. And I love that, Celeste, because not a lot of people do that. They take that. They take the paid. They take the pay bump, they do the job, and then they realize, oh, crap, now I got to lead people. I don't know how to do this, but I'm going to do it. I'm going to half.
You know, I'm going to say we're going to. I'm going to half ass it as best as I can, but you don't know how to do it, and you don't want to take the necessary steps to improve. So I love that you did that. The other thing that you said is that it was rocky for you. So I want to send a message to all those leaders, whether you are a leader, whether you're a beginner leader. It's not always sunshine and rainbows. There's gonna be good days and there's gonna be bad days. It's not always gonna be great. But what you do to make the day, the next day and the days after better. The onus is on you to decide how you want to do it.
[00:21:20] Speaker A: Yes. And speaking of rockiness, we're getting a little interloper here. This is real life. My friends, my fellow leaders, it's. My husband is racing today.
Yes, my husband is racing today. My mother's visiting, so my little one is asking where she is. But, yeah, you know, it's.
I made a lot of mistakes, and I'm okay to say that as my first leadership role at 27, the mistakes that I made that may resonate with others.
I was very friendly with my team because I felt. And now I know there is research that backs this. I thought they would respect me if they liked me. And I am now realizing that respect comes from credibility and the value that you bring. It is not based on likability. And oftentimes, people that we may not, like, push us, and that's why we think, like, oh, I don't necessarily like them, but I respect the heck out of them because they bring up something within us that is an area of opportunity. So, a big mistake that took me ten years is hiring people I liked and then realizing I've now hired all of me and I don't have a diverse, like your podcast, a diverse enough team.
And that shift, I started hiring people who had strengths where I was weak. And that took me getting past my ego and being able to say, like, hey, I'm really weak in this area because I'm an introvert. By nature, let me hire a really extroverted person for my team to help balance me out and being okay if they outshined me in that area a couple of times, again, too chummy with my employees. And then it became very hard from a disciplinary action. So, yeah, I think it's about eating some of that humble pie and realizing, I don't know it all.
I used to sit and Google, like, what are all these acronyms? I have no clue. And then finding mentors who were multiple steps ahead of me on the path that I can learn from and really absorb that information to help me grow.
[00:23:31] Speaker B: I love that. Yeah. And like you said, there's. There's a difference between like and. There's a difference between respect and you. You don't want to be the one that's liked. You want to be the one that's respected. So that the respected liking doesn't motivate. Respect motivates. Total is a way that I look at it. So. So, celeste, what I want to know is, what is the social selling process?
[00:23:59] Speaker A: So, I wouldn't necessarily say that, you know, social selling, that it has a clearly defined process. I actually saw today Darren McKee on LinkedIn posted about a chief social selling officer or some type of brand will be the next iteration in the C suite or the next role that companies hire. And what we are really seeing is. And the pandemic definitely acerbated this and pushed us forward.
Gartner research indicates that by 2025, 80% of all sales conversations will happen on a digital channel. Now, again, when we go back to what I said earlier, sales conversations, I'm talking about interactions between individuals in the b two B or b two C space. So even if you're in accounting, even if you're in an operational role, even if you're in HR, the way that people access information and have two way conversations is not always via phone, via our website, via in person. It is now changed to a digital channel. And I think some of that comes from, we are such a. Like, we want quick dopamine hits, and we have very little patients, and we want instant information. Access to information and the Internet has sped that up. So how we have two way conversations with someone, we have to find them on a channel where they are and meet them there. For the up and coming generation, this is what they do every single day. Snapchat. They're sharing information. They tell it through stories and memes.
For those of us, I'm Gen Xendez and baby boomers. It's a little awkward for us to say, like, wait a second, I've just now come around to where I will text someone from work or who I'm in a sales cycle with or a hiring cycle with, and now you want me to post on social media for the whole entire world to see. So it's this, when we get back to, like, what is social selling really at the base of it? It is having some type of online presence and meeting people where they are on a digital channel and using that as a medium for most of your communication, visibility and brand awareness.
[00:26:19] Speaker B: So are you finding that, so you're talking that it's, you're talking that it's. People are kind of getting into different stages of it. Are you finding that, like, has it changed? Or is it changing? Or is it like, how do you, how do you see it going?
[00:26:37] Speaker A: It's definitely changing. So there's still, still this very guarded old school mentality of if my employees or my company is online, spending time online on social channels, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, they're doing that for personal and, or they're going to be poached because someone is going to see them posting content, talking about thought leadership, sharing, and they're going to become very attractive for another company to pick up. And so companies tend to guard that of, we'll monitor your social media, we'll tell you what to put out there. In all of the studies, and there's many statistics around that posts perform really poorly when it is just regurgitated from a company, it's usually not resonating. So marketing, messaging that is, you know, company facing, that is for board members or like heavy in statistics, like boring business talk, doesn't resonate with most humans. Like, we lose our human a lot of times when it comes from company posts. So it is a mindset shift. And there are some companies out there, I think dream data has a case study about how they took five or six individuals and they said, we are going to come up with a social selling strategy and we are going to monitor it, I think for 90 days. And they actually posted statistics about those individuals who were focused on building their brand, talking about what was going on, what was happening with customers, questions that they were asked, and how much website traffic and how much their company increased as a result of this social selling initiative. And so I think I, in the next three to five years, as we start to see more and more baby boomers exit the C suite and more Gen X come up, this is what we know. And we want to see a CEO of a company, the C suite of a company leaders posting about the culture, about lessons learned, about a day in the life of. Because we aspire to have that knowledge. And it also gives us as a job seeker, it also gives you insights into what the company culture is like, who you're going to be working with. And I use a slide in whenever I'm working with individuals. It's basically, imagine this. I know people aren't looking at this on video, but imagine your spouse or your partner says, hey, I know this great restaurant. Like, it has great reviews. Everybody's going there. I want to take you there. And you're like, great, I'd love to. You roll up to it and you park in front of it and it is a beat up, rundown, like storefront.
And you're thinking to yourself, am I going to, like, does this past food safety inspection? Is this a legit restaurant? Like, what's going on? Because that initial, the initial story we tell ourselves by looking at that storefront is, this is very sketchy and I need to run. It's the same thing with social online presence. If your team isn't posting valuable insights, content. A day in the life of, like, poking fun, of shedding light on, and someone rolls up and sees everybody across the company, like, is stale and doesn't have any information out there. The story I tell myself is, this is not a company I want to work for. Even though that is. That could not be. Could be really far from the truth. But that's where it comes into play, is about building brand awareness just in a new space. My mom's here. She's 77. And I was telling her about Instagram, and I have a client, a potential client right now who's growing their business. And I mean, millions of dollars and these influencers that they work with posting about their product.
And I told my mom, don't you remember when we watched tv and you would see the ads over and over and over again? Like, this is just the new way.
It's the same thing. It's not good, it's not bad. It's just the new way.
[00:30:55] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, I love it when you said that because you're thinking of, like, old school commercials. And I can think back of commercial. I'm gonna probably date myself, but I'm gonna think of old school commercials of stuff. I mean, like the Wendy's, you know, where's the beef? Like, I, you know, I, you know, it was a memorable commercial. And you could. I could still remember them and I could still remember the taglines on it. So, um. But one thing that I love that you said is that I had a conversation. This reminds me of a conversation I had with somebody the other day, and they were talking about podcasting, and they were saying, you know, you know, do you think that podcasting is, you know, it's stale. And I said to myself, actually, podcasting is growing. I said, in 20. I think it's in 2024, 2023. It's like, over, like 500 something million people. They're podcasting, and it. They're saying it's gonna grow and skyrocket in the next five years. And I said to them, I said, if you're gonna podcast, you don't want to be talking. Like you said about your. You know, how much I made. You know, that. You know, that type of stuff.
[00:32:03] Speaker A: That's boring.
[00:32:04] Speaker B: You want to storytell. People want to hear stories. They want to hear about you, what your values are, what you believe in. I mentioned my core gut value is rapport building, and people want to hear about that stuff. They don't want to hear that you made $5 million in the last five years. They don't want to. That doesn't matter to them. They want to hear the. The vulnerable stories that are going to connect them to that business, and then they're more likely to work with you or buy with you because they have that connection. So that is interesting.
[00:32:43] Speaker A: You said that often where we find a disconnect is when someone is so much further down the path that you can't even realize it. You know, if someone said to me, oh, this is how I make $5 million, and they're constantly talking about that. That is so out of my wheelhouse. It's not even, like, a next goal for me. Now, if I talked with someone about the day to day struggles of, you're alone as an entrepreneur, every single day, you have to, like, talk yourself up and to do it and to do the repetitive tasks of outreach, like, yeah, I want to hear those stories. Not, this is me in my private jet. Like, I'm not there. I probably never will be, nor do I want to be. So I agree. It's about, like, the stories from the trenches that really help you feel like, okay, I'm not alone.
And this is how somebody else got through it. And it's such an amazing environment that we're in where we have so much access to people and information and shared stories even ten years ago, that that wasn't the case.
[00:33:51] Speaker B: Yes, I totally agree with you. So, now that we've talked about what social selling is. How does one start social selling?
[00:34:00] Speaker A: People may not like this. Like, you just start. So I always say, like, before you, before you start. And I want to take the like word selling out because it, it implies that we are trying to sell a product or service to someone, like a social awareness or social branding campaign for yourself. Personally, I was on a call yesterday and instead of trying to convince them as to why they should stop talking about their products, I asked them to put themselves in a buyer, put their buyer's hat on, and to go to their inbox, the spam inbox. So this is where I would start if I was a social seller. Go to your spam inbox.
So you want to start looking at what resonates with you and what repels you. That is a great place to start because most people say, I have nothing to talk about. So I want you to go to your spam inbox and I want you to see what are the type of messages that people are sending. Do you feel icky when they are sending and they are talking about their product? This is how they help this company.
Look at them. Look at me. Look at me. This is a win. These are the companies we helped win. It is like we are not human.
So that is a great place to basically say, like, this is kind of icky how people are reaching out to me. And then usually it's the data dump. Hey, talk. Write down 20 things that you are passionate about that happen in your day to day life that you could talk about forever. And when we start to take that inventory of content, so to speak, we start to see that we have some pillars. Like for me, I'm corporate now turned entrepreneur. I also do a lot of prospecting. I'm also a woman in sales. So these start to become these buckets that I can talk about. And again, when we think of people that we follow on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, on podcasts, they typically are talking about two to three topics. They're not talking about cryptocurrency one day and now farming over here and like their pool and now this day, like about herding cats like that, that usually doesn't resonate because I'm not all of those things. I need to attach myself to one. So starting to create some content pillars or content buckets of these are the things I feel comfortable talking about and sharing. And my past self, we're typically talking to our past self would resonate with these, or these would be tips or tricks or traits that somebody who was ten years before me, I wish I knew. So that's where I would start, is looking at what makes you go ick and then what are your content pillars or buckets, things that you're passionate about talking about. And I will add the caveat.
Having a social branding, social awareness, social selling as part of your day to day is great for people like me. People are like, I don't think you're an introvert, but I really am. When I talk with people one on one, I'm very energized. But as an introvert, it is a playground. The online space is now a playground. You don't necessarily have to interact with people face to face. You can do it through written form, you can do it through polls.
You can express yourself without having to be like traditionally outward or an extrovert.
[00:37:31] Speaker B: I love you talking about spam and check your spam inbox. I just love that. I think that's such a great idea.
But my thought process is, do you think that people find social selling hard? That was just a simple thing that you said to try and do. Most people find it hard.
[00:37:51] Speaker A: I think people find it hard because there is no clear path.
So typically when I work with teams of, hey, how do we build your brand on LinkedIn? Where do we start? Well, you have to have a fully fleshed out LinkedIn profile, has to talk about how you help people.
But let's make a first post.
And people are very scared because they think, oh, everybody's going to see it. All these eyes are going to be on me. And let me tell you, they are not. They are not going to be on you. You're going to get maybe two to 3% of your community, your total followers are going to see it. So it's okay to suck at first. Most of my posts bomb. But you know what? I keep going because I don't attach myself to any outcome. I attach it to. Am I sharing something that could help somebody else? That could spark a conversation that is a lesson learned that somebody else could pick up on. So we have to get away from that fear of everybody's going to judge me. And this is what's so great about building your own brand or social selling. You get to decide. So you don't have to talk about depression or your divorce or your weight loss journey if you don't want to. You can talk about things that you have a comfort level with but detach from that outcome. It may take you 90 days before you get someone to comment, and that's okay because that one comment could be someone at a company who opens up a new door or a new partnership for you. So it is getting over the fear and just hitting post, hitting comment, liking, sending someone a direct message unless you're pitching them with, come buy my product. As you know, Andrew, people are pretty open to responding back and sharing or offering a referral or putting you in touch with somebody else.
[00:39:41] Speaker B: Yep. I totally agree with you 100% on that.
It makes me. Makes me think. I think we're all both on the same wavelength here, because. On this thought, because when I first started my. Did my first podcast episode, I was risk researching, and I was starting out, and I was ready to go. And a close friend of mine, a very dear friend of mine of. Of years, we're gonna say 25, 30 years, asked me, hey, you know, how's everything going? How's the podcast going? And I said, oh, it's going. Going good. I have everything ready to go. And then they said to me, have you put any episodes out yet? And I said, no. I said, I'm just kind of doing some test runs, practicing. And they said, well, why are you practicing? I said, well, I want to make sure that I'm, you know, that I am comfortable with it, that I'm, you know, I want to be comfortable with what I'm doing. And they literally said to me, they said, andrew, I love you to death, but cut the crap. Yeah, get online, get a guest, tape it, and download it. She said, you're.
What you're doing is nonsense. And so cut it out. Says, I want to hear that you did an episode.
[00:40:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:40:55] Speaker B: So I did it. I taped my first one, and the first before, 20 minutes before Celeste, I was like you said, most of your clients. I was nothing. Nervous as heck. I was like, oh, my God. This is real. This is something I'm taping something that I'm gonna put out in the world. This is. This is scary.
I taped it, and then I sat looking at my computer for 20 minutes saying, oh, my God, now I gotta post this.
And I sat there looking at the computer, and I said, oh, I gotta do it. Let's do it. And then I posted it. And then, of course, I was like, oh, my God. I just posted it. It's out there. I can't do anything about it now. What am I gonna do? How is it gonna be received? So, yeah, I went through three stages of nervousness in that. In that first episode, and I got over it, like, very, very fast. I. It was very quick. And now I just do them, like, the. The second one, the third one. Each one has gotten easier, and I learn each time from each one. So I love that you give that message to your clients because it is important.
[00:42:08] Speaker A: Something that I learned. The first course that I took by Natalie Robinson was about having 30, taking 30 seconds of insane courage. So I do that a lot.
Hey, it's not perfect. I don't know what this is doing, but it's done. It's out there, and I'm moving on. And I learned from it. And same with you, I've taken a little bit of a hiatus from my podcast because I was having trouble. Everybody seemed to be flaking, and I didn't know which direction I wanted to go in, but I didn't know about podcasting. And then a mentor, a past business associate of mine, sent me some instructions, and then I did it. And each time it's gotten easier, and I've learned from it, and I've met people. So fear tends to hold people back because they want a clearly defined process or press this button and do this. But the growth happens when you press send, when you press play, when you put yourself out there, it's just about finding topics and things that resonate with you so you can start to share your expertise, but also learn and lean in from others as well.
[00:43:20] Speaker B: Well, what do you think the future looks like for social selling?
[00:43:26] Speaker A: So I do know as of a couple of years ago, 50% of website traffic to a company's website was being driven by LinkedIn. So almost two summers ago, LinkedIn allowed you to add a clickable link to your profile to where somebody could actually click and go to your company's website. So for anybody who's in hiring, I mean, basically anybody you want to be driving traffic to clickable downloads, to a form fill to gather more information. This is what people do. Buyers. And when I'm talking about buyers, I'm also talking about job seekers are spending a lot of time doing upfront research and creating their own stories before they ever contact you. So I believe that the future is moving into more online platforms, communities. People want to feel connected. The pandemic really put the kibosh on workplace, community having that sense of belonging. And so online communities are where it is. So I think newsletters, both personal and professional people, I sign up for newsletters all the time from just individual creators who have something to say. I want to hear what, what they're talking about. So, online forums, communities, more and more newsletters from individuals, not the company junk. Nobody cares about your earnings and all that they want to hear like stories from the trenches and doubling down on video. So video content, as we know from LinkedIn, sometime this year, they're going to roll out a video feed that's going to be very similar to TikTok or Instagram, where people can scroll. And if you are not on video, do it, even if, even if you take the 30 seconds of insane courage. So I believe that is the direction that we're going. More and more conversations will take place on an online platform. If companies do not have a brand, you will probably start to see statistics of missed revenue opportunities from not having a social selling campaign. And then I also think probably in the next three to five years, this chief social selling officer or some type of social selling director role will be sourced. And those individuals who have spent the time building a brand, building a community, even if it's fast, hundred people, 10 00, 10,000 will start to be looked at for those roles because they are driving viewers to branding. So it's just a, it's just a new way of branding, social awareness.
But starting is the key.
[00:46:22] Speaker B: Oh, for sure.
I started doing videos myself again, nervous as heck to do it. And I did it the first one. And, you know, we talk about, we talk about people like commenting and stuff like that. The first video I ever did, the comments and reactions from it was, were unbelievable. Like, I couldn't, I could not imagine how good that first one was. Like, it was so amazing. And I don't know if it was because people were, it was new community, people were cheering, you know, I don't know if, you know, it could be like, people were cheering me on, people were happy for me, people I don't knew that. I was nervous about it, all the things, but it was like, the reaction from, it was like, I was like, oh my, I couldn't believe the comments and stuff that were coming in. I was like, oh, wow, like, this is, this is unbelievable. Like, I would have, never would have imagined the reaction that I would have got from it. So I've do them and I'm gonna do them absolutely even more as plans to do way more because they're there. I agree with you, they're super important and people want to hear about what we have to say.
[00:47:41] Speaker A: And it's a pattern. It's a pattern interrupt. So typically when you follow someone's content and they put something out that's different, it makes you stop and take a listen. And for everybody else out there who is like, how do I start? You know, I gave you some pointers on things that you could look at to start looking at the types of content. I also spent a lot of time looking at other creators and individuals who are posting, what information are they putting out there, what is relevant, what is useful, what can help me in my journey as I move forward, but also, how do I speak to my former self? And when we share, it resonates with somebody. When we don't share, nobody knows we exist. I would say there's all these mediums, there's video, there's voice notes, there's text, there's polls, there's infographics, there's memes. Play around with all of it, even if it doesn't resonate. The number one piece of advice I could give you is detach from the outcome. That's something that I've leaned into this past year. I'm also. I'm almost so detached that I have like no feeling I'll post something I barely look at if it flops, like whatever, I move on if I don't sign a contract. Like I'm so detached from the outcome, which allows me to just keep going, to keep getting better. I look at other creators. This past year I started using cap cut for some of my videos, and I'm not a video editor, but you know, it's pretty easy. So it is easy. It has gotten so much easier with AI this past year. There's literally zero excuse. The excuses come from the stories that we tell ourselves. I'm not good enough. I have nothing to share. No one's going to listen to me. And I guarantee you when you start finding your people, people do come out and cheer for you and they are excited to learn from you, just as you are to learn from them.
[00:49:34] Speaker B: What is your favorite story from your career?
[00:49:40] Speaker A: It's kind of an odd story, but one that really sticks out and is memorable is I had an hourly employee who has gone on to become a mom. I've helped her in her career, but I remember hiring her, basically her second job out of college. So I think she was 23 at the time.
Watched her grow within the company, but early on she was in a very, you know, low paying role, first job coordinator, hourly role, and my team had made bonus.
We were paid bonus, I think three times a year. And I realized as the director, this hourly employee was not bonus eligible.
But I also knew that she really struggled with having income to buy clothing to wear to work.
So I took her along with one of the other, a manager who was on my team, and we both decided we were going to use some of her, our bonus to, like, buy her a wardrobe.
So we met her at a store on, like, a Saturday and basically took her on a shopping spree. And it was such a moment of, like, the money really didn't matter to me. I was doing something that set the foundation of this person was valued. I mean, typically in an organization, like the coordinator roles, they know so much, they do so much. They keep everybody in line. They're usually like the keepers of everything. And I wanted her to feel and to know how important she was. And that sticks out to me because, gosh, I mean, she's, like I said, she's gone on and she's an account manager now and married and has a child, but it just stuck out to me as how important taking care of our team members is and also realizing when we don't do things, monetary or not. It can be verbal, it can be praise, it can be special, you know, random acts of kindness. How it goes back to what we talked about in the beginning. It just really disassociates them from feeling like they're part of that organization. So that has stood out with me. Gosh, it's. I mean, that's been 1012 years ago as just a really feel good story.
Yeah. So, so I would say. I would say that one.
[00:52:22] Speaker B: I would say that that's probably. I can understand that. How good of a story and how important a story that was to you. I talk about being seen, heard, valued, and understood. And you did that for her.
[00:52:35] Speaker A: I.
[00:52:35] Speaker B: And she's going to be talking about that for the rest of her life. Yeah, I'm sure of it. I talk about community, and I talk about building a brand and building a brand and building a community is two people in a. Two people talking about somebody, and that person is not in a room. And I can probably tell you, I don't know her through jump, but I could probably tell you. I could probably. I can honestly say that she has talked about you and that story several times, and you were not in a room, and you probably don't even know about it. Yeah, and that, and that. And that's. That's. That's. I love those stories. That's just beautiful, vulnerable. I just love that.
[00:53:22] Speaker A: Yeah, it was awesome. And to be able to do that for somebody without them feeling indebted to anything that has stood out for me is just how far a little bit of generosity and being human can go.
[00:53:39] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. Any final thoughts today?
[00:53:44] Speaker A: You know, I would just say we. We touched on a lot today. Culture, how important it is to do things that are scary and put yourself out there and start talking on social channels and building social awareness that leads to social selling, which teams can use, even hr recruiting. It spans a total organization, CEO's who are out there sharing about building in public and what is happening with their company culture. So I hope listeners realize you too can be. You too can be part of the change. You too can have a voice. Your voice matters. It doesn't matter. Your role, your length of time in the seat. I learn a lot from individuals who are just starting out because they use a lot of tools that I've never heard of before, just as I learn from individuals who have had 30, 40, 50 years of experience. So set the fear aside and put yourself out there. Find your community and start amplifying your voice. Because if you don't, somebody else, somebody else is chomping on your heels to do that.
[00:54:57] Speaker B: I want to take the time to thank you for coming on today. I love all your stories.
What you just said is super important to me. I was told by somebody a while back that, and it's something that I say to myself as a mantra, is that we can do scary things and we, when we realize we can do those scary things, then we can move mountains. So I want to tell you that we talked about connection and our stories connect us. And I want to tell you that when we first met, the reason why I connected with you is because you, your stories connected with me and it helped in it. It made me build the rapport building that I'm doing. So I wanted to let you know that I probably never told you that before.
Your connection was very important to me. I remember the first conversation like it was yesterday. And you do some great things in the world, and I appreciate you for all you do, and I appreciate your time and likewise.
[00:56:15] Speaker A: And I try to keep it real, like, there's light and levity. I make fun of myself. Like all of this is hard.
And I used to beat myself, and I still do beat myself up. We're in this place of, if we're not perfect, then it didn't matter. No, it's the journey. I laugh and I talk about the things that are hard and difficult and stories and how not to lose our human. And I do appreciate, you know, you reaching out and that connection happened on a social channel right from a piece of content and us having shared connections. So get over the fear is the message we want to leave with here and put yourself out there. It could change your life and you will learn a lot during that process.
[00:57:01] Speaker B: On behalf of myself and my guest Celeste, I would like to thank you all for listening today. And until next time, be safe and remember that if we all work together, we can accomplish anything.
[00:57:17] Speaker A: You have been listening to. Let's be diverse with Andrew Stout. To stay up to date with future content, hit subscribe.
