Why Your LinkedIn Content Isn’t Getting You Clients with Charlotte Lloyd

The biggest thing about selling is you're the athlete of the business.

Sellers are athletes.

You have to treat your sales process like you would as an athlete.

Showing up to training, doing the hard things, getting up early, staying disciplined, knowing that you're going to fail more times first than you actually win.

The great Mark Cuban once said, business happens over years and years.

Value is measured in the total upside of a business relationship, not by how much you squeezed out in any deal.

And we couldn't agree more.

This is the Business Development Podcast based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada and broadcasting to the world.

You'll get expert business development advice, tips and experiences and you'll hear interviews with business owners, CEOs and business development reps. You'll get actionable advice on how to grow business brought to you by Capital Business Development capitalbd ca.

Let's do it.

Welcome to the Business Development Podcast.

And now your expert host, Kelly Kennedy.

Hello.

Welcome to episode 338 of the Business Development Podcast.

And today it is my absolute pleasure to bring you Charlotte Lloyd.

Charlotte is a powerhouse in the world of client acquisition.

After building a thriving six figure side business from her LinkedIn content while still in corporate, she stepped into her true calling.

Helping coaches, consultants and service based entrepreneurs grow profitable businesses without burnout.

As the founder of the Client Acquisition club, she equips her clients with proven sales systems, non sleazy outreach and content strategies that drive real results.

Charlotte's no fluff real world approach has helped business owners close high ticket deals and build sustainable revenue engines.

She doesn't just teach sales, she transforms the way entrepreneurs think about client growth.

If you've been feeling stuck, invisible or overwhelmed by the noise, Charlotte is the voice that cuts through with clarity and direction.

Her message is simple but powerful.

You don't need to hustle harder.

You need a smarter system.

With the right strategy, mindset and support, you can build a business that delivers freedom, fulfillment and the impact you were meant to make.

Charlotte, it's an honor and a pleasure to have you on the show today.

Thank you so much for the intro and it's a pleasure to be here.

Kelly, thank you very much for having me.

I have been awaiting this interview for quite some time as you, we're both, you know, pretty big on LinkedIn.

You're, you're much bigger than me but you know, we're kind of, we both leverage that space and now I can't even teach business development, I feel without teaching how to build a personal brand on LinkedIn because in my mind at this point they are linked and we're going to talk a little bit about that today.

But I just feel like you said it's such a massive advantage to leverage LinkedIn that it's like, why not?

Why not?

We have to all kind of take that leap.

And, you know, you've spent a lot of time teaching people not just how to use LinkedIn but also how to close business on LinkedIn, which I feel like they go hand in hand, but they're also something that almost every entrepreneur is struggling with is that game plan, how do we do it?

How do we utilize LinkedIn to, to grow our businesses?

And so I'm really psyched to talk to you about that today.

That is your space, that is what you coach on.

And before we do that, I would love for you maybe just to take us back to the beginning.

Who is Charlotte Lloyd?

How did you end up on this entrepreneurial path?

Yes, so that's a great question.

So I started a long time ago in B2B sales, cold calling, selling to big FMCG brands like PepsiCo, Danone, and this was back in like 2001.

The phone was normal, telesales was normal and you would send emails, but you'd just be, you wouldn't be using emails or anything online at all.

You might meet people in person, but my very first role was not meeting people in person.

I had to, obviously I had, I had a really low salary but I was incentivized with commission so I wanted to more than double that.

I was living in central London, not cheap, and I learned the basics of sales there.

Now cold calling is the like original training ground for a lot of sales reps.

Most sales reps hate it.

So being an individual computer doing that basically set me up to accept.

One thing that's really important when you're an entrepreneur is rejection.

You're going to come across rejection.

The biggest thing about selling is you're the athlete of the business.

Right.

Without you, if you're running your own business or if you're part of a bigger org, if there isn't a sales department, there's no business.

Even if people say product, like growth and marketing and all this bring business in.

But really the engine of the business is the sales team.

Yeah, sellers are athletes.

You have to treat your sales process like you would as an athlete.

Showing up to training, doing the hard things, getting up early, staying disciplined, knowing that you're going to fail more times first than you actually win.

So having that mindset, being able to eat rejection for breakfast is one of the things that You've got to learn, you've often got to learn that the hard way.

Because we mentioned before I came on separating you from the service.

When you're selling a company service it's different because the rejection isn't the same.

When you're selling your business, it's another thing, it's your baby.

So you are attached to that.

So there's an adjustment there.

Not talk about it now.

Then I moved into face to face selling.

I sold for a big brand, Financial Times for years and I sold to government.

Very difficult, very long sales cycles, lots of bureaucracy, lots of procurement.

So yeah, it I, lots of follow up, lots of ghosting.

Yeah.

Which is totally normal.

It really galvanized me for what I'm doing today.

So I've done a lot of the hard things and some of the hardest clients sold to so globally across different cultures, speaking different languages, Spanish, Portuguese.

So yes, I could say that that set me up perfectly for where I am today.

How did I get then to LinkedIn before that?

In let's go back to 2011, I decided to move to Spain and my boss at the time, Financial Times, I was based in London, I was in a senior role and I said, hey, I want to move to Madrid.

And there was no office there.

So he said to me, look, you're going to have to go commission only because I can't pay you.

I can't have you as a salaried staff.

So we don't have a company there.

I was like, okay, I'll do it.

Everybody thought I was crazy.

You're going commission only like you're not going to make any money until you actually sell.

So I thought yeah, I'm up for the challenge, why not?

I'm good at sales, I'll do it.

So I, I, I moved to Madrid, I'm in my apartment and I'm working from home because there was no office.

So way before it got trendy with COVID Yeah, it was a really weird thing.

I thought, God, how am I going to say to people that I worked in in from home?

Because nobody did.

They probably think I'm snacking when in actual fact twice as hard as anyone else was in the beginning because it was so if I didn't sell anything at the end of the month I wasn't going to make money pure and plain and simple.

And I have always been the breadwinner in the family.

That set me up perfectly.

For I'm not an entrepreneur for I'm an entrepreneur of necessity.

I don't have generational Wealth.

You know, I had a nice upbringing, middle class.

But I've made this happen myself and I'm proud of myself for doing that because it's a route that nine out of 10 people like, you're going to have a commission only.

Why would you stick to safe salary?

Yeah.

The thing is, today salaries are far less safe than they were.

That's right.

Companies are not a guarantee that you're going to have a stable job for a long time because everything's changing quite rapidly.

This segues nicely into sales whenever a crisis comes along.

So along came the.

It was a financial crisis that I sold through and selling through that it was.

Everything was like, we get contracts, people phoning up saying, hey, want to do this?

Just send me the contract, send me the invoice.

And suddenly after that, the phones were dead.

So we had to do, we had to call, we had to make more of an effort.

People have always said, oh, no, everything's under scrutiny.

We need to sign this off.

Because the financial crisis happened.

And guess what?

It's like we're really careful about how we're spending the money.

So we had to change how we sold.

We had to.

So every time a big change comes along.

So Covid came in 2020.

Yep.

And I actually switched into a salaried role for a different company, but selling a product, a service that didn't even exist.

So it was an API solution for this new company for global data.

And I was like, yeah, I'm up for that challenge.

Obviously, with COVID we couldn't travel.

And I used to be traveling twice a month doing face to face meetings, doing networking events.

Yeah.

So overnight, what do we do?

We're all on zoom.

How do we get meetings?

We're going to have to use email more.

We're gonna have to pick up the phone more.

Yeah.

Hey, there's this thing called LinkedIn, which I wasn't using at all.

I think back at the time, I had 3,000 followers in 2020.

And it was literally I would never post on there.

And people were sharing all these awful posts anyway, it wasn't anything like it is today.

So I thought, I'm gonna have to find people on here.

And it turned out a lot of my clients that I was selling to in that role weren't active on LinkedIn.

So getting their attention was hard.

So I decided, well, hang on a minute, I'm seeing a lot of other sales reps create content.

And I was a sales.

Then why don't I do this?

And maybe if I tag some of the companies and I will get their attention that way, not just with me reaching out to them.

So it started off like that.

I thought, I've got over 20 years experience, I just want to share my knowledge.

Started sharing my knowledge all of a sudden it's.

I just started to get a lot of momentum, a lot of followers, mainly from sales teams and sales reps. Say, ah, show this in a boss.

I would get on calls with ideal clients, so booking meetings with prospects, the company I worked, and they'd be like, hey, yeah, I've been seeing your content.

Who are you?

You've never engaged, never even liked.

I don't know who you are.

Um, you are seeing my content.

So the power of lurkers.

Right.

So this really made me think, wow, there's so many people that are seeing this.

But I took for granted what that actually meant and I'd actually built a brand on Instagram which was more related to the fashion industry.

And I did affiliate things and I didn't really make anything of it because I thought, well, it's not.

It just didn't work.

You know, a lot of people are afraid to post online.

A lot of people shop online.

I wasn't afraid to show up on LinkedIn because it also represented me in a different way to what I was doing in Instagram.

So hang on a minute, I've got a lot of knowledge about sales.

Sales is something that most people, even sales reps, struggle with.

Yeah.

And I started out coaching sales reps and sales teams and I still coach sales teams and consultant B2B businesses.

But I then made a pivot.

So 2023, I built my side hustle, started 2023 and I started to build clients, so get people one on one, started testing what worked, what didn't work.

And then I did a couple of team trainings, but there's one big one which took me to Dubai.

So it was in person and it was online.

And I would remember being in my role in corporate, obviously remote.

I said to my then boss, I went away four times.

So it was June, July, August, September.

I said, oh, I've got to go away, I've got to take some.

I've got to take some time off for a week each month, which seemed a bit suspicious.

Off I went and trained in person and then trained online, eventually then said, okay, I've got a hand in my.

And now I've got it.

So now I've got to make the move from side hustle to starting my own business.

Yes.

But the transition, yeah, obviously I had to win clients first before I moved into the business.

Yeah.

What did I do?

Yes, I create content first.

But because I was in corporate and because I didn't have an intention to start the business at first, it was just like, I'll create content, I'll see what happens.

It then started to spiral and it became something that helped a lot because suddenly I had a personal brand.

I didn't really know back then what the personal brand was.

No, I don't think any of us did.

Yeah.

And I think having that experience of at least dabbling with social media and Instagram before gave me the confidence and I thought, hang on a minute, I'm good at this.

I've got some knowledge here that other people will have who is sold to the president of Brazil, who's been in a room with like dignitaries in Canada, who's been.

So all of these kind of different experiences as well.

So I've got to share this on LinkedIn.

I want to share my knowledge.

I also though got into the DMs and this is the thing is that I started to reach out to the people who are engaging with my content.

So people that don't step forward but are showing some kind of intent, if they're viewing your profile, they're following you, connecting you, gauge with your content.

And this is where a lot of people that run a business fall down and that they think, oh well, if people aren't sending me leads and coming inbound, then it means they're not interested.

And that is the number one cardinal thing to, to really not believe.

Right.

So you got to shift your beliefs with this to be good at sales, this.

So now I'm running my own business and I decide that I want to pivot to consultants, coaches, people that service based business owners, solopreneurs, people that run a small business.

I have quite a wide.

I don't have a specific niche.

However, I'm niche on the problem in that I help with Legion, I help with the sales part as well as people so they can grow their business and get more clients.

And yeah, the pivot was a big thing as well because I'd so been used, so used to creating content for sales reps and for sales teams.

And there's a slight difference when you're selling and it's your own business.

And obviously coaches can.

People that run their own business, they need a different kind of sales help to what sales reps need.

Yeah.

So I made the pivot.

The client acquisition club was born which is my group coaching program.

I also coach people one on one as well.

And now we're almost at 100 members and it's.

Yeah, so people are in there and they're learning how to use LinkedIn to get more leads and how to convert those leads into actual clients.

And also the.

Yeah, there's a content piece to it as well.

And the most important thing is prioritizing what needs to be done in the business.

Every single day I see people who, they're not getting wins, they're not getting clients because they're not usually doing the right things right.

Or companies say, hey, we're not getting any leads, so why don't we just outsource all the lead gen and see what happens.

And you might get some leads that way, but they're usually unqualified.

So the thing here is, is that yes, if you show up on LinkedIn, it makes that process easier because people know you from your content so they trust you.

So the conversations flow much better even if they're not directly inbound.

But you need to be sending DMS each day.

And I'm not even talking about volume here because a volume approach usually means you're copying and pasting.

Yeah.

You're not actually making the outreach about them, the buyer, they feel it, they sense it salesy and they check out.

Yeah, yeah.

So that happens a lot.

Usually people are not sending enough of the right type of messaging to get the response.

If you're, again, it depends on who you're targeting.

But usually businesses will need, if it's a small business, depends on if you're making 5, 10, 15, 20, 34, 50k a month.

There's a certain amount of clients that you need each month to be able to do that.

You need to be able to focus on the right inputs.

What do I need to do to close a client this week?

It's actually, when you break it down, it's very simple.

I might need to start five, 10, maybe 20 conversations a day.

But they have to be good conversations.

I'm not going to stick them through the slammer of automation and just hope that somebody responds Right.

Because we usually have to do a lot of that to get response.

And provided that we do that content, even if we don't create content for a week, we can still start conversations with our existing connections.

I think what a lot of business owners don't realize is that in the pool of existing connections they might have on LinkedIn, there's several potential buyers there that they could be messaging.

So that's another thing.

The lower hanging Fruit, I don't see people leveraging referrals.

Asking for referrals is what I mean here.

And then the warmer outreach from content, if they're not coming inbound, but if they're actually on your profile and actually engaging with your content, connecting and following, then they're showing some kind of intent.

Right.

You might not be ready to buy right now, but we need to be starting conversations and nurturing them so that when they are ready to buy, it's.

We're going to have, we're lining up that conversation to see if we can help.

Yes, yes.

And you know, I talked to so many people who are struggling to close new clients over LinkedIn.

Not just struggling to those new clients.

Let's talk about, we haven't even gotten there yet.

Let's talk about the people that are just, maybe just becoming entrepreneurs.

Like you said.

I think there's a difference in mindset shift between an entrepreneur using LinkedIn and an executive using LinkedIn.

Right.

They're, they're very different use cases for LinkedIn and I think some of them struggle with that.

How do I make that difference?

And you know, you know, your profile is an incredible example.

For anybody listening, check out Charlotte Lloyd's profile on LinkedIn.

She has meticulously crafted that profile to convert for her and it's done incredibly well, by the way.

And I just wanted to suggest that it's a very different use case, like I said, from an executive using LinkedIn to that transition to an entrepreneur.

And I'm hoping today, Charlotte, with your level of expertise, that we can't give a small masterclass for our entrepreneurs listening on the steps.

Like if you were to work with an entrepreneur and it's day one and their profile's a mess.

They're still executives.

Right.

They're still, you know, CEO at XYZ company, but they're not really sure how to transition that into their own consulting business or whatever.

Where do you start with them?

Can you maybe walk us down the path of how do we change our LinkedIn from an employee to an entrepreneur?

Yeah.

The first thing is make sure that your headline is clear.

Right.

Several different formulas for writing a headline.

My favorite one is who I help.

I help coaches and consultants.

Small service based business owners get clients on and beyond LinkedIn with sales and content strategies.

So who do you help?

How do you help them?

What's the outcome that they get?

Again, you don't have to be overly specific.

A lot of people say you must be really, really.

You do have to address who it is that you're helping.

Right.

So we need to have an idea of that.

But the simplest one, because when people make sure that it's mobile optimized.

Right.

So you've got your banner.

I want to see on your banner as well.

Either that same thing on mine.

It's exactly the same because it's a mobile.

So when people open it on a mobile device, they can see.

Ah, right.

This is really clear who I help and who I don't help.

I offer some B2B training as well.

So I put in LinkedIn, trainer, top funnel, that kind of thing.

I help businesses actually get leads.

Right.

It's that part of the sales process.

So make sure that you.

A lot of people have a lot of unnecessary wording and verbiage in there.

Headline.

The simpler the better.

If there's anything about you that might be different.

I have one of my clients who's like, she's into wildlife so she wants to put that on her headline at the end because it's memorable.

Right.

And it's also a good conversation starter.

Yeah.

You have to be very clear who you help, how you help them.

What's the outcome?

Is there a certain pain point that they want to avoid?

You might want to put I help X, do Y without pain point.

What's the pain point that you're helping them?

I help coaching.

So let's get clients on LinkedIn without stress or burnout, without hustle.

No hustle, no bro marketing or bro sales, for example.

That's another thing I could add on that.

That's the first thing, right?

The first thing, make sure you've got a good headshot.

Make sure that actually spend, you know what it is, $300 to get somebody to do your banner.

Right.

To make it look professional, more professional.

Right.

It depends on what your service is.

But I would seriously considering doing that because when I optimize my banner, so many people reached out to me just about that started a lot of conversations like, oh, where did you get that, Dawn?

And then we're into a conversation potentially.

I can help them.

Yeah.

The next thing, your about section does not need to be about you.

In the third person, she does this and that.

I'm guilty of having that like years ago.

Right.

The third person focus on address the people that you help.

What's the problem that you help them solve?

What are you helping them do?

Be very specific.

Talk about the pain points first.

Right.

Are you a service based business owner and you are facing this issue in your business?

What is it?

Spell it out.

Yeah.

Tell them how you solve it, but keep it concise.

Maybe four to five bullet points.

Share some proof of who you've helped.

That just needs to be one or two lines.

But let's see some of those testimonials there.

You don't.

Obviously you don't have to.

Some people put them in the featured section.

I don't recommend doing that because remember, you're trying to capture people's attention.

Sure.

And they might not even get to the featured section.

They might only read your about.

Yeah, some people don't.

Most people don't read the about.

Right.

It's one of these things.

So the most important first is the headline, the banner, then the about section.

The about section has to be about them so they can clearly see themselves and how you help solve their problem or problems.

Right.

Now we've done the about section.

The featured section is the next most important thing.

What do we need in the featured section?

We need to have a. I used to have a link to have a book, a call with me, but I just found that a lot of people would waste my time.

And most people, if you say in your post, hey, go and book a call with me in the feature section, they won't do it because you're asking them to do something is too much.

Right.

They're just not going to make that effort.

So I prefer to have.

Again, you can have two to three different things.

But I have a link to my newsletter so people can capture people's emails.

So that's one of my lead magnets.

A link to a DM course that I have, how to do the DMS using my SPICE framework is there.

And then I have a link to my website.

Right.

But you probably don't even need a link to your website because if you.

It depends where you are in your business.

More experienced businesses will have a website, but businesses are starting out, don't need it.

How can you capture them with a lead magnet?

You need to capture their email address.

Good, because then you can email them and not just reach out to them on LinkedIn.

Yeah.

So that's another really important thing as well.

Too many times I see people with posts or with documents or even testimonials.

It's like, I can't.

I don't know how to reach you.

You're a business owner.

I need to know how to reach you.

I need to experience you in some way.

A lead magnet is a great way to give them a little bit of medicine for one of the many problems that you solve.

So that when they actually sign up to that, you start a conversation with them, but they also experience you on a deeper level and that they're experiencing help.

They're getting help, their problems being solved or they're experiencing you via the newsletter.

Right.

So we're nurturing those people.

So they come top of funnel.

It's like middle of funnel and then bottom of funnel.

Very simple.

Those are the main things that, that obviously then you have your posts and how you order my order.

Want to order your posts or your videos?

I prefer that people see my posts.

Yeah.

And then your experience section.

I've taken out a lot of my experiences.

You only really need three to four recent experiences.

Nobody's really interested in what you did in 2001.

They don't care what you were doing in 2005. Who are you working for?

Why isn't it on LinkedIn?

Yeah, the most important thing in the experience experience section is really what did you achieve?

Were there any results or metrics that you achieved?

So, yeah, if you're a sales rep, are you 200.

200% Of quota in 2024?

Which, which quarters were they give us some results.

Did you help drive a certain amount of revenue?

The more you can attach some of the problems you solve as well to outcomes.

Hey, it stands out.

Not just I work, this is so I worked at this company and I.

These were my, my responsibility and I did this and that.

Nobody cares.

They want to see what the outcome was, what the result was.

Charlotte, you had mentioned that there were companies that you could pay to help you create a unified brand image.

Can you name any companies that you would recommend to do that for the people listening?

Oh, I have a designer.

You mean that did my banner?

Yeah, I did the wording around it.

I see there's plenty of people that can offer these kind of services.

But yeah, I said, look, you know, once I'd.

Once I'd.

And I didn't.

When I started the business, my branding was different, my business name was different.

It's only until I started getting more and more clients that it actually.

Ah, okay.

So now it's very rarely do people start out and they know exactly who they serve.

Right.

So this is another thing is.

Yeah, if you've not got clients, the, the thing that you need to be doing is the nothing.

You don't need a website.

Yes, you've got a LinkedIn presence, but you need to be starting conversations that are going to make you money.

Yeah, you need to be selling because that's the most important thing.

Too many People end up getting a website way before they need one and they don't.

The website isn't very clear on what they do and who they help.

So yeah, until you're maybe a year into the business, I wouldn't recommend having a website.

It's have a meet, a social media presence, start getting clients in and then when you've got more, some more clients, you then are like, hey, I'm actually solving these problems now.

Okay, now it makes sense.

My branding will come next, right?

You can't brand yourself perfectly before you get clients.

Well, the thing is that you need to get the clients first.

Most of the time you need the sales skills to be able to do that.

Then comes the other things like the, the marketing.

The branding is a distraction, certainly in the beginning.

That's my opinion.

Well, it's so funny because I think about like the evolution of my business capital, business development.

And we're, we're completely different.

We're like 180 degrees in a different direction than the company we started out as.

And so I kind of like to say, like, you don't have all the answers.

Sometimes the opportunities are going to present themselves as you come along and you'll make that pivot like you did, like I did.

And you know, we started out being that, like essentially that, that support in the business development side, that consultant that you hired to help you.

And now, you know, we do coaching, we do teaching, we just started our own community.

We have the podcast, like it's a completely different animal than it was way back in 2020.

And so like I say to people now, it's like, yeah, you're better off just to get started and keep going one foot after the other.

And yes, something's going to present itself, opportunities are going to come and you might be completely different.

We've probably updated our website four or five times in the last five years.

Yeah, totally normal, totally normal.

Because as you might, you might want to niche down on something that services that you offer, you're only going to know that when you get clients in, problems change.

So there might be elements that you want to add to your service as you grow.

Like you're not going to stay doing the exact same thing.

Yeah.

Especially not in today's world with everything changing so quickly.

So you've got to be really open to that and you know, some you've got to really focus on what's going to move the needle, what's going to get me the fastest results or next level results that I need to grow and scale My business, where do I need to invest?

So too many people think they can do it alone, right?

You skilling up is one of the most important things.

A lot of people think they don't need to invest in coaching.

Coaching is a big thing when you're starting a business because you need that help from somebody who's a few steps ahead who can say, hey, you're not going to make these mistakes.

This is what you're going to do.

Because too many times people think, I'll figure it out.

And that's where the pain comes.

They don't.

They could be making way more money than what they do.

They've got the expertise and the knowledge, but it's just not, they're not getting it out there.

So they can't think, I'll just carry on and figure it out.

And you know, so many 65% of businesses, well, 90 of businesses fail in the first year.

I've seen that statistical.

I'm not quite sure where it's from.

But because they don't prioritize getting clients, so they might rely on one client as well.

When you don't own that relationship, you don't own the revenue.

So you think, I'm just relying on this one client and they get complacent.

It's like, no, you've got to look for the next one and the next one.

Yeah, yeah.

That's another issue that I see.

The other issue is, like I said, people don't want to send.

People have got bad sales messages, right?

Sales have still got.

There's this stigma, unfortunately, when there's, there's pressurized sales, there's still some people doing that.

And that messaging isn't going to resonate with most people.

Most businesses very salesy messaging, you know that we've got the proof.

There's various tools that analyze outreach and types of messaging and ones that get responses versus ones that don't.

So I think a lot of times people think, well, I haven't got time, so I'll just send this message and see what happens.

I'll blast and blast and that's where they fall down.

Doesn't work like that.

And if you want to be getting high ticket clients and a good handful of high ticket clients, you really need to focus on less is more.

But you still need to be contacting new people, starting conversations and so many people.

There's a mindset issue in that I'm frightened to do this because I'm not gonna, I'm gonna get a no.

But hell, what if you Get a yes.

You know, your service would have to change somebody's life.

Yeah, you might have to send 10 messages at first and you get nine no's.

Obviously, when you have a coach who knows what they're doing, you're gonna minimize this.

But still, there are going to be some people that will say no for whatever reason.

And at the end of the day, we want to leave them with the best kind of outreach message where they're like, aha, this person is talking my language.

I like them even if I'm not ready to work with them now.

We'll be in the future.

So there's a nuance to messaging.

You know, everyone thinks if we just script it out and template it out and, you know, I've got so many different templates, but none of my conversations are exactly the same.

They follow a framework, but they're never, ever going to be worded the same.

And now we're in this online space, right?

People are.

Yes, people are partly fed up with online as well.

I think we want real connection.

We want in person connection, but we want, we want, we crave human connection even more.

Yes.

And the thing is, is that when people get online, they think that automatically means that they can say what they like and just throw it out there and see if they get a response.

And that's what, that's what causes a problem.

You mentioned earlier you have a framework, you call it.

Is it the Spice framework?

Do I got it right?

Framework in the DMs.

So, yeah, I need to trademark it.

Yes, you do.

Here's how it goes.

So I start a conversation with a person by identifying a struggle.

So the S is start with a struggle or a compliment.

And a struggle might be.

So a compliment might be.

They see, they saw your con.

They came from your content.

You say, hey, thanks for engaging with my content and my post.

And they say, hey, oh, I really loved it.

It stood out.

Okay.

What stood out to you?

What do you like about it?

What do you love about it?

So we're asking them a question and what, what and why questions at the beginning of the dm, they might hit on a struggle.

If you've been talking about that and doing your posting in the correct way.

Like, oh, you're describing my.

When you talked about that post, about, you know, like really scaling to 50k months or whatever.

I, I felt what you were saying in that post.

So problem symptom, focused content gets you inside your prospects, your buyer's head.

And they're kind of like in the DMs going.

Yeah, that stood.

Okay.

So when you say that, somebody said to me today, oh, I said, why did you connect to me?

And she said, I really like your vibe and I think I need to work on my sales.

Right.

Potential pain point, potential struggle here.

Yeah.

Now we need to dive deeper on that.

And this is the part that when the, when somebody comes this way, this is not cold.

Right.

So I'm talking about when they've come from content.

Right.

So we reach out to them and say, hey, what made you connect to me?

Or what did you like?

My post the other day, it was about X topic.

You know, what stood out to you?

Most people don't do this.

So I'm starting the conversation.

I'm not waiting for this person to just eventually DM me.

Yeah.

Because I could probably need that.

This is one thing to mention.

Most people don't like to admit that they need help no matter what that is.

Right.

It doesn't matter what the service is, but they often don't like to admit that they need help.

They might wait and see your content for a while before they.

Eventually some of them might step forward, but they're stepping forward in a way by engaging or by viewing your profile, connecting or following you.

They want more of you.

Can I pause you just for a sec, Charlotte?

Yeah.

So are you saying that you're reaching out to people ahead of the like, just because they've liked the content?

Yes.

Okay.

Because I think a lot of people aren't doing that.

Yeah, a lot of people.

So that's what I call lower hanging fruit.

That's the easiest thing to do.

So first thing in the morning, eat the frock.

Do the hardest task.

This is the hardest task for most people.

It's sending DMs, it's doing the sales things.

Identify.

Even the night before, just spend some time.

There's a tool like Condo where you can put people in and so you've got that list already.

Identify who they are, reach out to them the next day so that you know exactly.

Okay, I'm read this person like my post.

They followed me, they connected.

I'm going to send them.

Usually people don't send personalized connection requests, right?

Yeah, they send black ones because they're like, hey, whatever.

So that's another thing.

So that makes you stand out.

So I'm just talking about people that show intent right now.

I'm not even talking about call the leads.

That's hold a different thing.

So this person said, yeah, I'm struggling with selling, so I might Send.

Usually I'd send a voice note.

Right.

Sometimes it depends on when I look at the profile, I feel what their energy is.

You can feel their energy sometimes?

Yeah.

If they're like a corporate who's a C level, who's never used LinkedIn, I might not send a voice note straight away, but I'd be saying, okay.

So when you say that you are wanting to improve your selling.

Yeah, you know, it's, it's a really important thing.

See.

And I might pick out things about her profile.

See that?

So this, this girl had some really life changing experiences that got her to.

And she, she got voted the top transformational coach for 2024.

So I congratulated her on that.

Showed that I'd done a little bit of my homework and obviously was interested in the things that she was, that she'd done.

So I said.

And then eventually at the end I asked the question so I built some rapport, was like, hey, you know, I've seen you on this, you know that.

And that's, you know, amazing.

When you say that you want to improve your selling, what have you tried already?

Right.

So we're asking what they've done already.

We want to see and test.

Is this a problem that they've prioritized?

Is it something that they really want to do?

Sorry, that they really want to do or is it just that?

Have they done anything at all?

And they might come back and say, well, I have or I haven't.

So you get a little bit more context.

It's like, oh, I've been sending DMs or I've been doing this.

Okay, great.

So.

And they might hit more, a little bit, a bit more on the pain.

So how's that been going for you with the DMs, what have you found?

Oh, so we're going deeper into pain now.

They might say I'm not getting responses or I feel that I could be getting more business and I'm just not getting enough the business that I deserve.

Great.

Why do you feel that this is an issue?

Sometimes they might tell you why.

So you don't need to ask why so what?

Why Question.

So we've now gone on to the first part of the spice.

Identify a struggle or a compliment.

Start the conversation.

The P is the pain.

We want to be able to extract some kind of pain or problem that they might be having that we might be able to help them with the I, I.

So we asked them what and why questions.

At this point we've stayed on the topic really important Here is that either people pivot to being too business, like too soon.

I'm going to give you an example of that in a minute.

Or they literally just go off on a tangent and ask all loads of unrelated questions.

Oh, what are you most excited about in your.

Yeah, it's like if somebody's telling you that they want to improve their sales or the thing that you specialize in, you're not going to then keep asking other questions or they ask them too many questions and get friend zoned.

And part that people struggle with the Most is there's two things in the DMs.

It's this part of shifting to business related question.

But we've got to earn the right to ask that.

And the other part is closing for the meeting.

Right.

So an example of somebody who connected to me sent me a blank connection request.

Didn't say a thing.

Didn't say anything.

As soon as I accepted, I got a message.

Thanks for accepting.

Charlotte, how's your video performing?

They're a video strategist.

Right.

What do I think you're trying to sell me?

Boom.

There's nothing wrong with that question, but the context in which it was used is completely wrong.

Yeah.

So right now we've got.

Hang on a minute.

You're sending.

You wanted to connect to me, but you haven't even picked out anything from my profile.

That could be.

You could have built a little bit of rapport with me first.

Yeah.

Before you shift to business.

So that.

So that's one thing.

So.

And I find it kind of funny because, you know, you're talking specifically about high level coaches and I feel like on a certain level, high level coaches, we're able to spot the crap a lot sooner.

So you're kind of talking about maybe even a harder demographic of people to build connection with because I think we're a little bit skeptical.

Yeah, exactly.

I'm definitely scared.

I'm.

I'm like kind of woo.

When I get a dm, it's like, is this going to be, you know, if I think about all the good DMs I've received in the last six months, it's two.

That's all I've got of people selling me their services but doing it in the right way.

It's two.

That's it.

That's incredible.

So, yeah, the next thing of the spies identify any blockers.

So what's been preventing them from kind of.

So what's, you know, out of interest, what's been preventing you from solving this problem on your own?

We want to test if they've actually done anything.

If they work with a coach, for example, if they have they outsourced their lead gen services or some whatever it is that you're specializing in, have they actually sought help for the next thing spice.

So we're on C. Confirm the ideal state.

Where do they want to get to?

Sometimes you can miss this step because if they're giving you a lot of information and context, you might want to pivot to a call asking them for a meeting sooner.

I qualify in the DMs and the way that I ask for the meeting is a way of hinting that, you know, we're going to get on a call and explore what it looks like if we work together.

So it's very clear.

It's not like we're not having a coffee chat.

The C is confirm the ideal state.

So if you didn't have this problem, what would success look like?

What's good for you?

You know, if we could.

It can get you selling more.

Is it, Is it.

Where do you want to get to with scaling?

Is it.

Is it 20k a month or third?

Is it more than that?

So get the.

Again, you can also do this on the call, but you can also do it in the DMs as well, depending on how much context they've given you beforehand.

The final thing is E, engage them for a meeting.

Hey, I'm happy to share some insights with you or recommendations on the problem and the solution.

Yeah.

Why don't we do this?

It'd be good to connect with you properly.

Let's hop on a call and explore what it would look like if we work together.

Different ways to ask this.

Why don't we hop on a call and we get to meet and I'll share with you some insights into what I've been doing with all the other business owners like you.

Yeah, right.

Yeah.

Then at that point, when you've had that good conversation, you then want to send them some questions to answer on the calendar.

Invite to get a little bit deeper into the pain where they want to get to.

So when you start that call, you already have a lot of information and you're asking just a few more questions, learn more about them, how the business might be performing and explore if we're fit to work together.

So starting off that way, but you've gone through a DM there.

It's not this wham, bam, thank you ma' am approach.

Yes, it's okay.

Now I've got some.

I'm getting on a Call with somebody that actually needs my help versus somebody that doesn't need my help.

Okay.

Wow.

I can tell you right now this is the first time we've ever had somebody go this in depth in over 300 and some episodes on how to do this messaging.

So thank you for that.

I can already hear, you know, some of the listeners wondering here, is this specifically just for, just for speaking with like, like coaches or selling coaching services or does this work across all areas of B2B business?

Yeah, so good question again.

Yes, it works across all areas of business.

If the person, if, if the person you're reaching out to isn't so active on LinkedIn, then I would potent.

And if you're reaching out to a colder lead where there's less intent, then I would be sending different type of messaging.

So I'd be getting perhaps a bit to the point sooner with them, maybe one or two messages before I segue into something like odd message here.

But typically what I'm seeing with C levels like you is that they're, let's say they're VP of sales there.

What are they typically struggling with?

So if we can't find anything that we, you know, any kind of commonality and you know that they really don't have a, there's not much information on them.

And today we can find a lot anyway with chat GPT.

So I would first ref, before I even get to that point, I would be referencing some kind of trigger, looking for a trigger in their business.

What's been happening?

Are they expanding?

Are they.

Is there any ever hit a certain milestone selling bigger B2B?

You want to be finding this stuff out, you want to be mentioning it when you connect to them and notice this saw this is happening in the business, typically what happens is problem A or problem B.

It was either of this on your radar or is something or you're focusing on something else.

So what we've done there, I've just asked a question around a problem before.

We've actually gone in and said, hey, we've got a solution for it.

We want to know is it something that they're facing typically what.

So we're maintaining our authority here in that we know what's happening in the industry.

We've done some research on the business and we're being a bit up.

We're being upfront with them and saying this is.

This is typically what I'm seeing is it is.

And we're making it easy for them to respond.

Right.

Because if they're not really on LinkedIn we want to give them, want to make it as easy as possible then say, oh, we're seeing this or we're seeing that again.

But before you do that, I would try to find something else personal about them.

Is there anything on the profile or anything commonality, you know, are they in Seattle, for example?

Have you been there?

Is there something there that stood out to you?

If you see that they're living there.

So anything if you know, if that message can be copied and sent to a bunch of other people, then why would this person reply?

Is the question has it earned the right to a response?

Then if I still don't get a response from them, I might say something at the end like odd message here.

But what I this here's some more insights that I'm seeing with businesses like yours, with corporates like yours.

Are you open to sharing Are you open to sharing some notes on how I'm solving this for Are you open to comparing notes on how I'm solving this for other corporates like you?

Right, so it's a very soft ask for a meeting.

Yeah.

Potentially we might want to share some.

They're like, okay, so, so we're inviting them first before we actually ask them.

We're not saying, hey, you know, the really direct jugular approaches, we've helped businesses grow by 20% in the last quarter using X technique, you know and this is.

Might be very direct.

Do you want to see how.

Right.

It's a little bit, it's a bit more of a harder sell.

Right.

So I'm a softer approach there.

My system like odd message because it's.

I'm kind of saying, hey, this is a bit weird but I thought I'd just ask you anyway.

Yeah, I find that people that are less active on it.

Some people like, like that director post right up front.

Most people don't but if they're not active and they're busy exec it's.

It makes sense perhaps to get to the point sooner.

It's really curious because I think about the way that I approach DMs.

I approach them very differently than.

Than a formal email.

Right.

So when I'm doing business development and I'm trying to get companies to that meeting stage, I tend to do a more formal, direct email.

I just straight up ask for what I want, which is the meeting.

Right.

And I kind of see Maybe with the LinkedIn strategy, the warmer, softer approach because it's not quite as formal.

It's not quite the same way that people want to be connected to.

I Think people expect to be a direct through email, like what do you want?

Tell me what you want.

Get to the point, get to it quick.

Right.

Whereas like through LinkedIn you're showing us that ultimately a softer strategy, taking the time, that direct approach is just going to get kicked out the door on LinkedIn, whereas on email it's great.

So I think maybe that's where we're struggling is that people are using those skills that they've created that they've learned from email and trying to make them happen on LinkedIn and it's just not happening.

And you know, I'm the same way.

I get that, I get that direct hit on LinkedIn, I'm just like, nope, out the door.

So I love the fact that how.

Is that person going to feel when they read that message?

Yeah.

Saying yeah, I specifically sharing a lead magnet.

You know, it could be you've got an event, you can, you still don't send the direct message first.

You might want to connect with them on something first before you send that.

So you invite.

You never send the link automatically to them either.

We want to first see is this something of interest you've got to invite.

But if you nurture the conversation, right, we're talking like if you haven't booked the meeting within a few days then you, you know, you move on to the next one.

That's the thing.

But you will if you want to take the time and really build the relationship.

A lot of my businesses, it's built on relationships.

It's helping people solve a problem.

But it's that human to human contact that they need with that, you know, they need help with their sales, they need access to me.

Yeah.

It's not like they, they work with me and then they get forgotten.

There's lots of learning, but it's the long term relationships that people don't prioritize.

And that's the thing is that when you're approaching people in the DMs, when you're selling a high ticket offer, you have to put them at the heart of it, them what they need to achieve, how you can help them get there, but also being interested in them.

If you were in person networking event, you're gonna come up and say, hey, do you want to get my.

I help people make 30k a month using technique.

Do you want it?

It's like you're gonna be.

Yeah, exactly.

A lot of that.

Oh my goodness.

Yeah, I'm still waiting to find that person.

But that would be hilarious.

That it just wouldn't happen.

In real life?

No, it wouldn't happen.

No.

Why would you treat people online any differently?

That's, oh my goodness.

That's.

I've, you just like, I've never heard it put that way before, but that is super, super powerful.

Charlotte.

Running an online business, you can do so much with it.

I mean, you can reach, you know, I'm a, I agree with Daniel Priestley on a lot of things.

And he's saying, you know, we've got access to 8 billion people.

Well, there's 8 billion people in the world.

About 6 billion have access to high speed Internet.

It's limitless who you can reach on social media.

Like, it absolutely is limitless.

There's so much that you can do.

Before we couldn't do this, we couldn't sell to people in different regions.

We'd have to go there, meet them or there'd be some kind of in person element which is, it still is with a lot of things, but you are now able to literally start any business that you want.

There's almost too much opportunity.

But it's knowing, okay, what's the opportunity that's right for me.

How am I going to leverage on.

A lot of people are uncomfortable online.

Like they haven't quite remember when online dating came, everyone was like, because I, I, I remember it, I did some of it, not very much because I met my husband before, but I met him on Facebook.

But I would say, did you meet him online?

Everyone would say to me, did you meet them online?

At the time it was like, oh my God, you met online?

Yeah.

Oh, that's horrible.

That was the reaction back in like 2001, 2000.

It was no bumble or whatever.

And people be like, yeah, I met on this site.

And they were just really embarrassed to admit it.

And if we look back now and think, God, like you really are, you've got, and there's problems when you have so much choice as well.

I think this is where people kind of get into the trap of, oh, it's like a Pandora's box and the paradox of choice.

Sorry.

But yeah, you can do so much with an online business that you can't because you're in person, you're limited, you've got more limitations.

But people are still not as comfortable with the online world as they are with the in person.

And this was, you know, one of the industries I was selling to was government.

And they just did not like the whole marketing and lead gen and sales online at all.

It was educating them on how to do it.

They'd much rather go to networking events in a nice country and meet people face to face because they just found it easier.

But really, when you think about that, you've got to deploy yourself to those places.

I know, because I did it.

And you would spend a whole a week or more meeting lots of people.

And really, you can now do.

Your bandwidth was limited.

You're super inefficient.

Yeah.

So if your business isn't online, you need to think about getting it online.

And even if you don't build a presence on LinkedIn, you haven't got a big presence.

There's still so much that you can do just by reaching out to people and, you know, be that sending them your lead magnet, but doing it in an elegant way.

Starting conversations with them, to book meetings with them, building a newsletter, using that to market your services.

These are all things that, you know, you've got so much at your fingertips and you can outsource it as well when your business gets big.

So that's the thing, is that there's.

There's no limits.

I love it.

I love it.

I know one of the questions that might be coming up right now is, okay, so we're doing this.

We're spending the time, we're getting really personal, not just going straight for the jugular on the, on the cold call.

How many of these people should we be managing at a time?

And.

And how do you manage this?

Because I know that, for instance, LinkedIn messages can get super unruly.

What's the best way to track your efforts week over week?

There's a really good tool here who.

They're not sponsoring this podcast, but they are called Condo, like Marie Condo.

So you basically clean out all the crap in your closet.

Mar.

Mar.

Tricondo.com is a tool which is safe to use with LinkedIn.

It works off LinkedIn, so it's like a little app.

You use it on your desktop and you then have conversations it.

So you can basically tag people.

Did they view my profile?

Did they follow me connect?

Did they download my lead magnet, for example?

Are they.

Am I booking?

Did I book a meeting?

Are they dad, where are.

So you can put on whatever.

Do I need to follow up with them?

You have a timer.

So let's say I send a message to you, Kelly, today, and you've just connected with me and I'm asking you, you know, sending a message a little bit about you and what made you connect to me, for example, what moved to my corner of LinkedIn to several other ways of asking it as well.

And then I'm going to be putting a timer.

So if you don't respond to me in two days, I'm then going to put that timer to respond to you in 48 hours.

And the inbox will remind me.

So I will have a little inbox which is with a timer on it, and I will click on that and I will see all the people I need to respond to in two days, in three days, in four days.

But I set the timer.

I see.

Once you start to use it, it's incredible because.

Yeah, yeah, because.

Because if you're trying to do this just on your own, you're not going to do it.

Like you need tools to help you.

Exactly.

Yeah, exactly.

I love it.

I love it.

You know, this has been incredible.

This has been incredible.

Charlotte, thank you so much for your time and your insights.

And I would really, really love to dive into the client acquisition club.

You know, take us into it.

We.

We've kind of touched on what you do, but, like, let's dive deep.

Who is the client acquisition club for?

Okay, so the client acquisition club is for you if you are perhaps at the start of your business journey and more, and also very more experience to advance.

So the way that it works is it's a learning platform, it's an evergreen platform, and there's several elements to it.

In it, I coach on a weekly group coaching that's every Wednesday.

And people come in, they might be at different stages in their journey.

They might need help building their offer, finalizing their offer, refining it.

They've got a few clients and they want to get some more already, but they know that they can do better.

They want to scale or they want to launch a group program themselves, or they're.

They're selling B2B.

So they might be losing business to the status quo.

They're not involving the right decision makers.

They're not saying the right things on the calls.

You know, there's more scrutiny now with budget, so it's knowing how to approach those conversations in the right way as well.

So what they're doing when they're on the call and they're.

And how to build their authority.

So it involves also using LinkedIn.

Okay, building LinkedIn.

So I help with content, I help with outreach and lead gen.

So it's sales, content, lead gen, those are the three things that you need.

Lead gen and selling, of course, the most important ones.

And when people join, it's like they.

They work the way through.

There's a course in there, they can do that.

It's really short because I know people don't have time and that helps to prepare them for what they need to do, both on LinkedIn but also how am I going to get clients in the fastest way possible?

Okay, I need to go through these certain steps.

So I guide them to what they need to do and then give them that ongoing support and accountability, which is the part that they need, that often need the most, is, okay, I know I've got to do this, but I've got to keep doing this, keep showing up.

And the great thing about it is, is that I'm using these techniques all the time myself.

So everything that I teach is what I've already done and tried and tested and they get feedback.

We workshop what they do.

I also show them what I'm doing as well, like with real life examples.

So they get to, yes, build their LinkedIn, build a brand, build a presence.

But it's the main, the focus is on where's my next client coming from, how am I going to scale if I've got this client?

And I was, I was, I was browsing your website earlier as well.

It's absolutely beautiful.

By the way, if anyone else is looking for a template on how to build a beautiful website, Charlotte's got that too.

So tell my designer.

But your reviews are incredible and I just wanted to shout that out.

I was looking at some of the wins from your clients and they are huge.

They are big.

This is, this is incredible.

And yeah, if you guys are looking for some lead gen support, some sales support, Charlotte is your person.

That is the client acquisition club.

Charlotte, it's been an absolute pleasure having you on with us today.

Thank you so much for having me, Kelly and I look forward to speaking with you again soon.

Likewise.

Until next time, you've been listening to the business development podcast and we will catch you on the flip side.

This has been the Business Development Podcast with Kelly Kennedy.

Kelly has 15 years in sales and business development experience within the Alberta oil and gas industry and founded his own business development firm in 2020 20.

His passion and his specialization is in customer relationship generation and business development.

The show is brought to you by Capital Business Development, your business development specialists.

For more, we invite you to the website at www.capitalbd.ca.

See you next time on the business Development podcast.

Sam.