LinkedIn Prospecting 101 With The Legendary Nathanial Bibby (Episode 86)

Nathanial Bibby 0:01

Videos are shared 20 times more than any other type of content. But it doesn't just mean that you can sit there and do a video and it's going to do well. It's got to be good. You got to like you got to know what you're doing. And it is his whole new skill set, as you know, being able to, you know, get in front of camera and hold people's attention. Get them to remember the content, what you're saying, having it edited properly, lighting, audio, all those sort of things are a skill and are important. You can't just expect to to hop in front of the camera and say "Hi, here I am on my way to a meeting" and all of a sudden your business is going to go crazy. Like you've got to have some sort of strategy and it's going to take some time for you to get good at it.

Chris Schwager 0:39

Hello video marketing professionals. Welcome to the podcast that takes the mystery out of producing videos, our guest is Nathanial Bibby, Founder and Managing Director of the leading LinkedIn marketing agency, the BB Consulting Group, where they train people on best practices to grow their business on LinkedIn. Nathanial has been called the number one LinkedIn expert in the Asia Pacific region by the Social Media Marketing Institute. He's won the best use of LinkedIn, he's helped clients close $400 million in additional sales through LinkedIn marketing strategies. And I'm sure by the end of this episode, you're not only going to know how to manage your LinkedIn profile a hell of a lot better, but use video like a pro. I'm your host, Chris Schwager, so here's our conversation with Nathanial Bibby.

Chris Schwager 1:32

This guy is everywhere. He is the number one guru that I turn to for LinkedIn advice. And I can't wait to get into today's show, because he's going to give us loads of hot tips, tricks, all that. And let's get him on the show. Hi, Nathanial, thank you so much for joining us. After 20 years producing videos, I still think that most people are just exploring this for the first time. Is it the same with LinkedIn?

Nathanial Bibby 1:57

it's definitely a lot better than it was eight years ago. I don't have to educate people on what LinkedIn is anymore. But yeah, it is very much that way. It's about educating the market, isn't it?

Chris Schwager 2:05

Yes. And LinkedIn is your thing. So you're not across any other social platform and that you really just honing in your skills and and niching into that, right?

Nathanial Bibby 2:14

Yeah, well, I'm active on all the other platforms. You know, I spent a lot of time researching all areas of digital marketing. I'm quite big on YouTube, like I've spent a lot of time on there. But in terms of the services that I offer clients, I've decided to specialize a LinkedIn, that's really where I can see the opportunity where we can deliver the best results. And before I go any further, I just want to say thanks for having me. It's great to be here.

Chris Schwager 2:37

I missed that part where you get to show some gratitude. But thank you! No, I look absolutely 100%. Our pleasure, man. Look, I've been wanting to do this for some time. And I think this marriage of LinkedIn and video really fall hand in hand. And so what better person to bring on? Absolutely the number one man himself. So let's get straight into it. Because I think so many people are kind of disheartened by social media, they think it's smoke and mirrors, publishing content, they're unsure about how frequently to do it, whether it's going to be of use to them. What to do with paid ads. I mean, there are so many variables, so many unknowns, how do you combat that

Nathanial Bibby 3:20

in terms of keeping up to date with it? Or?

Chris Schwager 3:24

Well, I guess dispelling the myth and cancelling out objections,

Nathanial Bibby 3:27

Understanding what works, you can do some research these days, like there is a lot of data and stuff from LinkedIn. But you've really got to like, test and measure things before you know what works and what works in my industry, not necessarily going to work in another industry. So it's about testing it first with my own business, and then testing it with my clients and then going okay, this is something that I could openly recommend. And at any stage during that process, LinkedIn can change things. What I told you it did work doesn't work anymore. Yes, you've got to have the ability to adapt. I think that's the most important thing. You know, I always tell people if they did my LinkedIn training afternoon, workshop two years ago, 50% of what they're doing is wrong. Because that's how fast it's, it's changing. Yes. You know, like, I've got this Monday Night Live series been going for three years now won an award for the Social Media Awards last year. And just in the last few weeks, I'm like, hang on a second, we're not getting the same amount of reach what's going on here? You know, LinkedIn is integrated with LinkedIn events, and all of a sudden, like, oh, okay, that strategy is not as effective as it used to be. And now I've got to adapt and do something that's actually going to reach my audience, rather than just keep going at it because I've been doing it for three years and I wonder what, that's what I do. You know, you've got to have the ability to adapt to stay ahead of the game.

Chris Schwager 4:40

So that's marketing anyway right? And so why should social media be any different? I mean, that's the funny thing, right? Adapt or die, you know, your market changes. So you should too. And I guess, you know, from my experience, we found the same and every new week is something new from LinkedIn, they've done a change or an update. And it's like, alright, it's yeah, how does a micro business really, I guess, adapt to that change fast, and trust, trying to keep up with like posting?

Nathanial Bibby 5:10

I have to remind myself of this all the time. But I have been using LinkedIn for last nine years, mainly for free to market my business, and getting all these leads, like it's like, getting it pretty much for nothing. So when I'm like testing what works in the algorithm most of the time, it's just like, "How can I do it for free without paying for it?" You know, like, if I was spending money on Google ads, for example, and they were making changes, it probably just make it easier for me to target my audience. But like trying to get the algorithm to work in your favor so you expose your content to more people without paying any money, it's ruthless because it's you got to think about the customers, but you also got to the audience. But you've also got to think about the platform and how that works. I feel a bit like it's a puzzle, you've got to work out and, and I'm fortunate that this is my area of specialty. So I can justify spending four or five nights going down a rabbit hole researching the importance of dwell time on a pose, whereas any other business owner doesn't have time to do that amount of homework.

Chris Schwager 6:08

Yes, absolutely. 100%. So I look, I have no idea where to start. I've got a list list of questions here. But I feel like there's so much I want to cover. And I think the important thing is not to try and get too overwhelmed. But I guess I'm trying to look for the quick wins, I guess for our audience, how you're not new to video, you're not a stranger to doing some amazing stuff. I guess how important is I guess, video, in LinkedIn nowadays?

Nathanial Bibby 6:35

it's all about stacking the chips in your favor, I guess. And the stats say that videos are shared 20 times more than any other type of content. But it doesn't just mean that you can sit there and do a video and it's going to do well, it's got to be good, you got to like you got to know what you're doing. It is his whole new skill set, as you know, being able to, you know, get in front of camera and hold people's attention. Get them to remember the content, what you're saying, having it edited properly, lighting, audio, all those sorts of things that are a skill and are important, like you know that people tell you they're not but they definitely are. All, you know, contribute towards baking the cake. You can't just expect to to hop in front of the camera and say, "Hi, here I am on my way to a meeting" and all of a sudden your business is going to go crazy, like you've got to have some sort of strategy, and it's gonna take some time for you to get good at it.

But like if you do get good at it, you're able to build a much deeper relationship than you can through text or through images. It's an awesome skill to be able to hop in front of a camera and be able to deliver a message that people actually listen to. And you can have a great video and your greatest video in the world. But if your caption is doesn't compel people to press play, you know, I mean, the stats say, and I think these are probably conservative. But after 10 seconds of people watching a video on social media, 50% of people that have started watching have stopped on average, after a minute, it's 80%. I honestly think that these figures are generous, because I look at my Instagram, like you know how long people watch the videos and the curve just goes like this. People start watching very quickly. And so if the video is rubbish, and you don't hook people, and you don't have a way to get people engaged with storytelling and things like that, the reality is even if it says you've got 200 views, chances are a lot of them probably aren't watching a few seconds. You need subtitles on or they don't know what you're saying. So there's a lot that goes into it. But like I think it's a skill that's worth investing in and mastering for your business.

One of the challenges I've had though, since I started doing video content is like I've been generating leads for clients, building connections, sending messages, set appointments, which is great because it gives them immediate return on investment. But meanwhile, in the background with my own business, I'm creating these video contents, getting all this thought leadership credibility. All of a sudden, when I speak to potential customers, they're not speaking to three other providers. They're not as price sensitive. And so like when I experienced results like that, the question I asked myself is, well how do I package this up and offer it to my clients in a way that you know, that they see is valuable, that's affordable, because I'm like no way I can make it affordable because amount of time I'm investing in it.

So now when we do content creation, I'll interview a client for 45 minutes and it could be either zoom or in person. We've got a few tricks that we do to make the editing look good, branded intro subtitles, all of the things that I've just learned through trial and error. And so at the end of it out of a 45 minute interview we can create 20 short two to three minute videos or with a you know headline creating curiosity cutting out all their uhms and ahs, ask the questions that create the answers which will be engaging piece of content. So prospects who may have tried posting a few times got like, you know, seven likes or something, no comments, all of a sudden is getting like, you know, a few 1000 views on their content just because it's presented in the right way and So that's one way that we're able to deliver it without client actually having the skills because they just talking to me and forgetting the cameras there. And I'm, it's my job to draw the content out of them. But if they sat in front of the camera and just looked at it right down the lens and started talking about their business, I'm willing to bet that nine times out of 10, no one would watch it, yeah, just be in their own head. And I --

Chris Schwager 9:59

I find that there's so much vapor. And I don't know if that's the appropriate word, but to LinkedIn that often disheartens people or at least myself when publishing content and realize you only got 100 views or something like that. And you kind of mope around going well, I didn't get my endorphin hit, or my wasn't my dopamine hit. And it's not until you meet someone face to face. And you realize that they've made a decision on meeting you again, or whatever, based on a video that they saw on LinkedIn, and you go, right, this is swaying opinion, this is doing the job that I can't get from stats, I can't see it in the views, I can't see it in the shares alike or anything like that. I get it, because they chose me because of the outreach that we did 18 months ago, or, you know, what they saw a little whiff of a bloody fleeting moment of a post was enough of those contributed to their decision whether to choose us.

Nathanial Bibby 10:55

What you're talking about is really important. Because a lot of people get distracted with the vanity metrics, it can end up making you move in the wrong direction, because like, if you're basing your success on how people react, you're not focusing on the process. And what you're talking about is like I've noticed early on as well. And now I have a system for like going out and finding information, but how people react that those sales opportunities that come forward, and things like that are actual tangible business metrics. Like you saw people, they've got 700,000 followers get 500 likes every post and calling people up, asking if they know anyone that's hiring at the moment, every few months. Yeah, yeah.

Chris Schwager 11:30

Yeah. So I mean, it's been amazing. I mean, just I guess, for my audience to understand how we're using it I mean, the publishing is one thing, the publishing is like, okay be present, be out there, make sure that you are being seen and thought of if you like, but that's not really where the lead gen has come from us. Lead gens come from the outreach that we do. And we might have done, send someone an email 18 months ago, they've inquired with us, we asked them how they found us, they say, "Oh, well just search for you on Google." And then we put them in the database and realize that we reached out to them a day months ago. So you know, the catalyst, as we said, was the fact that action creates action, you know, that we, by us not doing that in the first place, perhaps we wouldn't have got them picking up the phone and contacting us. So in your experience, I guess what is that? Do you have any kind of conversion content around, okay, people that just go out and publish all day, every day, versus those that are actually quite active in the inmail space, where they're kind of more behind the scenes, trying to nurture that way?

Nathanial Bibby 12:35

I think the whole name of the game is to create conversations. More conversations you have? More relationships you build. More relationships built, longer whether with the right people, they should turn into business. And so the way you should be thinking is I how do I have more conversations, right? If you are messaging people on LinkedIn, and doing the outreach, so you've made a start. And what you'll find is if you start posting more regularly, first of all, you'll have more conversations. Second of all, those conversations will be a lot smoother, people will react a lot different, it'll be a lot easier. And these days, with people like on the average person's on seven social media sites, and it's way easy to hop on Google and search someone's name and go back to Facebook or Instagram or wherever you saw them last. And you know, they probably listen to podcasts on their way to work. They're spending an hour of their time looking at a mobile device and they're doing all those different things. How much of that hour do you want to spend in front of them? And so I think you have an omni channel approach where you are marketing on all channels, wherever they want to consume you they can. Very important that they can find you on Google if they're searching for your name. But the chances are, they probably originally heard about you on Instagram, or LinkedIn. You can imagine how the whole thing breaks. If they see something on LinkedIn, search your name, can't find a website, you know --

Chris Schwager 13:48

Yes, to maximize your reach, increase the numbers of potential touch points, be there have everything up to standard, so that whatever platform they land on, they're going to get some consistency.

Nathanial Bibby 14:02

Yeah, I've a member of a networking group. I went this morning, I was just started in the last few months.

Chris Schwager 14:07

It's not BNI by chance, is it?

Nathanial Bibby 14:09

No it's not. I've been in and out of BNI six, seven years oago, it's a company called BX. But um, yeah, you know, like your conversations at scale where you're speaking to the whole room, you know, and then you might give an individual a business card and you might have a one-on-one meeting with that individual. And I just think of LinkedIn as one big networking party. So the content is you're speaking to the whole room. You know, connecting with somebody has given them your business cards, sending them a message and having a conversation privately, is like having a one one-on-one meeting with them. But it doesn't stop there, then you pull the conversation offline. And that's just the next step. You know, whether it's a zoom call or face to face, I think it's very important. Soon as the conversation moves into talking about solving their problem, you know, specifics about what you do. So you say, oh, you know, great, great question, what's your phone number? Or, you know, let's hop on a call. So you can control the process. But the point of LinkedIn is, you can have those conversations at scale. It's not a room of 15 people having breakfast, it's potentially 720 odd million professionals. It is huge.

Chris Schwager 15:10

We'll be back in a short moment with Nathanial Bibby. Video is everything. And because the world is now demanding that you appear on camera, it's time to get the skills of a professional presenter. Go to ridgefilms.com.au/diy. Because Do It Yourself videos should be easy, and they should work. The DIY video program helps you personalise sales, produce video emails, record videos regularly without tech hassles. Look and sound amazing just like Nathaniel Bibby, and improve your professional image in every video meeting. You have got a ridgefilms.com.au/diy.

Chris Schwager 15:50

This morning, I heard the interview that you did with Grant Cardones. Great interview by the way, I think it's --

-Thank you

-Awesome opportunity that you got in front of him. And I actually liked the content that was presented. One of the things that came up was monetization. Grant was all over that if you're not monetizing, how you're measuring. And I guess that brings me to my point, because we've just started with LinkedIn advertising got a bit of a beat up on it. We were convinced we're doomed when it comes to advertising, tried to Google advertising, trying LinkedIn advertising, with very little success from that. And I guess I want your thoughts on, is it working?

Nathanial Bibby 16:27

So we run LinkedIn advertising campaigns for certain businesses, that targeting works extremely well for and it's just basically using lead gen forms, getting them to download something. So we're getting all their data, you know, the way that Facebook's works, and you can set up like funnels and get people that have a problem and remarket to people that watch so much percentage of the videos, all that stuff LinkedIn has yet to have all that stuff. So like, Yeah, from my perspective, like I, I'm waiting for the point where I can amplify what I'm doing in my own business with LinkedIn ads. And we're not there yet. Like, I mean, I could have market an e-book and get a bunch of names and put them in my database. But I'm not really -- that's not my business model. Like if you're marketing a product, and you'd need volume, like, you know, people to remarket to, and stuff like that. But what I'd rather do is, is educate the market, so that people that are watching the videos, and you know, realize that they have a problem and a need, and then and then reaching out to me, that's what I'd like to see be able to happen on LinkedIn. But it stopped like that. And I just think that if I was the CEO of LinkedIn, I mean, the first thing I would do, if less someone told me I was crazy, is I would say, okay, personal profiles can sponsor their content, they can amplify it. When you get a good piece of content, you post it, you can even boost it on LinkedIn. How great would that be? You don't have to do it for a company page.

Chris Schwager 17:41

So are we talking about limitations again, because LinkedIn has its fair share, I mean, I just over the years lots of it.

Nathanial Bibby 17:49

Its limitations and opportunity they go hand in hand. LinkedIn has always been a little bit behind Facebook and Instagram, which is great. Like, I'd love to be, you know, running LinkedIn, as opposed to the other ones, because you get to see what works on these b2c social media sites. And so when I see LinkedIn, you know, has a limitation. I just think, okay, great. Let's get ready for when they fix that, because that, you know, they've got all the it's like LinkedIn live, as soon as it came out, I knew exactly what strategy I was going to run. I knew that, you know, because seeing what happened on Facebook. So I think I'm just waiting for that, that moment where the ad platform, like gets a bit better so that I can use it in my business. And I'm sure there'll be the biggest part of my agency, when that happens. But at the moment, like it's a very niche type of business that we would do that for.

Chris Schwager 18:36

There is very little trust. And I say this purely from our perspective, on the whole social advertising idea. It just seems like just had to lower budget. Or this just an intangible, kind of mythical magical fairy dust of a number that needs to be put on advertising. It seems like every thing that we advertise with, it's like, oh, no, that's going to be too little. You should double that. You should double that you should double that. And it's like, what is the number? We're kind of pressure testing LinkedIn at the moment. We're about month three in our advertising, and we're following all the recommendations. We are meeting with one of their specialists through ads, and still no conversion for us.

Nathanial Bibby 19:26

Yeah, I mean, what I would do if you're spending money on ads, I would get your LinkedIn contacts out into a CSV file. And I would also, every month post a lead magnet on LinkedIn where people have to comment below to get it. Yep. Right. And then you send them the link to the landing page. And then I would be getting the data from the landing page and the data from your LinkedIn connections, using them as a custom audience on Facebook ads, and marketing with them with educational content on Facebook and Instagram, and then convert like, so I actually use Facebook ads, but it's to my LinkedIn contacts. It's so cheap is very small target audience. But like going back to what I was saying before, being able to follow them around different platforms works incredibly well. My money goes a lot further doing that. Yes. So people go people go on that you're saying Facebook ads is better than LinkedIn is? It's not because like, it's only if you use it that way. Like if you just go spend money on Facebook ads, as you know, like, it's all comes down to strategy. So if you do follow that strategy, like it's the best return on investment, as I've seen in donkey's years, yeah, I mean --

Chris Schwager 20:29

Top five lead generation tools for us has been LinkedIn and Inmail like that, that's circulation has just been going on and on and on for well, over two years now. And

Nathanial Bibby 20:39

So emails work okay?

- It's been gradual.

- paid sponsor, the sponsored emails?

- No, just just organic.

- private messages?

- Yeah. In Yes.

Chris Schwager 21:47

And that's, that's been really great. And I think it's so funny as well how that works, you know, you might hit somebody up with like, three consecutive inmail messages over a period of time. And, you know, it's just crickets and then one day out of the blue, there they are. That they want to -- as it's almost like, you know, they're not willing to reply until the timing's right, you know. They know your email, that's fine. But you know, until we've got budget until we've got the resources to do this, there's not even worth replying to, but then they do they drop. And it's like, there they are, and the history in that inmail messaging service

Nathanial Bibby 21:22

All that time.

Chris Schwager 21:23

is great. You know, it's like, it comes down to making sure that the credibility of the messaging in that inmail is there forever. It's the history is kind of there. So if you look like a dick, when you first kind of reached out to them, you know, that kind of spammy history, there were always, you know, finessing that but yeah, by far, it's still exciting for us, growing our business through this medium.

Chris Schwager 21:48

Well, unfortunately, we've reached the end of part one in this two part series Video Made Simple with Nathanial Bibby. But here's a teaser for next week's episode.

Nathanial Bibby 21:55

People need to know what you do, like, you know, if your headline and your company name and your profile photos are that good, that people are curious enough to click on your name and read your profile to find out why you do that. That's cool. But other than that, I would keep it very professional. Like the things are changing on LinkedIn, because there's so many people that are you know, salespeople, and they're now spending all their time working out how to prospect. I think you want to make sure that first things first, if you are on there to get customers, make sure it doesn't look like a salesperson.

Chris Schwager 22:23

That's all for this episode of Video Made Simple podcast if you want to start on becoming a video marketing professional, just like Nathanial, just go to ridgefilms.com.au/learn for only $47. Get instant access to our online course plus live coaching sessions with me every month. Let us help you take the mystery out of producing videos. You go to ridgefilms.com.au/learn and see you next week.