#2: B2B Social Selling, How To Get Started by Brian Andersen

Brian: Because you might not reach a lot of people. You might not get 200 likes on every post, but you're talking about something that's very important for few people, and those are the ones who will ultimately buy from you right?

Soren: Welcome to the Messy Growth Show, where we talk to founders and marketeers of software and manufacturing companies about their path to growth and challenge the conventional beliefs of what works and what does not to help you untangle the path to your growth. Your host on this podcast is Christian Jorgensen, and I am Soren Hansen. Let's get started with today's guest on the Messy Growth Show.

Christian: Welcome to the Messy Growth Show, brian.

Brian: Thank you. Pleasure.

Christian: I'm super excited about today's subject, which will be around social selling. And I know you're the Jedi master of this in Kvadrant Consulting, where you are today. As I said before, I probably see you more, look more at you than my wife.

Brian: Sorry. I apologize for that.

Christian: See you pop up on my LinkedIn all the time, so super excited to hear more about that. You know basically, I just want to kick it off with passing it on to you know hear a bit about you know where you're from and how did you end up where you are today.

Brian: Sure I mean in terms of where I'm from I'm Danish born and raised but maybe more professionally speaking you could say I actually started out in as a programmer right So coding websites in the basement learning Photoshop PHP HTML CSS and things like that. That's actually how I kind of got started And then I just randomly joined the marketing agency called Code Co. And then I thought okay this marketing stuff was actually pretty interesting yeah so worked a bit with digital there for five or six years wrote a book actually while I was there on digital strategy as part of my thesis. And then I had a good fortune after a few years in the agency business to join a fantastic company called Jabra makes these great headsets where I was head of you could say marketing and digital for seven years. Tried a bunch of cool stuff worked with very large ad budgets also very small budgets to begin with and kind of had an amazing journey there. And then a year and a half ago, I thought okay need to do something else seven year crisis and all of that And then I thought what about going back to consulting in a smaller place and kind geeking out on some things I'm passionate about So B2B sales and marketing. That's what I do today as a partner in Kvadrant So it's very nerdy stuff in that sense And I really enjoy that privately I have three kids and they really think what I do is like incredibly boring and wish I would do something much cooler. But yeah So I hope the audience today is a bit more forgiving than my own family That's for sure.

Christian: Oh yeah Top.

Soren: My daughter still asked me so fa what is it that you're really doing.

Brian: Yeah.

Soren: She's 15 so she wouldn't understand if I had explained it properly or it was exciting worth re remembering perhaps.

Brian: We really messed this up right because a few months ago, we had a workshop with a customer and it was a full day workshop you know. And you know you typically do some exercises to kind of get people going and we brought a bunch of Lego sets and there was kind of a competition to you know which group can build the Lego set faster. It was about collaboration. It was fun. I took a picture and I sent it back and now they just think that's what I do like make Legos at work And it's just like any notion that I do anything like serious just gone So.

Soren: Yeah you shot yourself in the foot there.

Christian: Besides you know playing with Lego what yeah know gets you up in the morning.

Brian: Yeah so yeah And again besides the they're like physically get me up in the morning. I think you know what I'm actually very excited about is this base B2B sales and marketing. Like it is actually changing right? Like there's a lot of things that are shifting both as a salesperson right You go from this guy carrying around products in a suitcase getting into his Volkswagen per se and driving around Jolen to meet customers. Like that's actually how people sold things for the last a hundred years right? That's just how it was. That's changing. And then, marketing right we used to do logos and nice brochures and events. That's also changing right? And you know, depending what industry you are in, you know of course if you're in SaaS software that changed a long time ago and you're doing a bunch of other things. Then you are into like we are in a lot of industrial companies where they're earlier in that journey but are battling with a lot of other things. So I just think It's such an interesting space because things are happening and you can actually make a difference and discover I think really new things about how do we do this in a better way. So yeah I think that's exciting.

Christian: It is interesting how the whole Covid 19 situation just put all of that stuff like on full speed. Know you can no longer drive around in your car in Jolin you know you're not allowed to go out It's quarantine.

Brian: Hundred percent. Yeah. And I really think it was happening anyway but it just moved it forward right? Then I think for me, the most exciting thing there is yes that happened and people's first intuition is to do whatever they did offline and just do the same thing online. And in many cases that meant webinars right? So now we just do a ton of webinars right or even insane things like virtual all-day events right? Where now we're doing an eight day an eight hour virtual event and we are like little avatars walking around and this incredibly pixelated space and it's just bad. So I also think like that idea of you know the things you do first when you're forced online, they're just kind of a stepping stone right to something more digitally native right? And I and again I think I just think that journey is fun and interesting.

Soren: Months.

Christian: Brian you know you've been on the agency side. You've been on the client side we should call that. And what has like been your biggest learnings you know business wise or oh no doesn't actually need to be business-wise also just be life?

Brian: Yeah life advice. Yeah that's a good question. Like I think in relation to maybe more professional learning right? I think I always enjoy this kind of, I've enjoyed switching back and forth right between consulting and let's say the industry and for two reasons right? One is it helps you empathize right? And I feel like that's probably been one of my biggest learnings is that you know you start on the agency world right And especially where I came from, you know people said to each other things like oh the client is stupid right? They would say that all the time right? Not throwing anyone under the bus here but I'm just saying that would be a thing people said to each other, and people thought they were the smartest people in the world right? And then you have and I also thought you know I was in that world right? And then I thought when I was switching I these people are all terrible. What are they doing? And then you actually go there and then you realize okay there's a lot of smart people here. Things sometimes happen that don't make sense, but they happen for a reason right? They happen because things happen in large corporations due to politics, due to organizational fatigue. Due to many different things where okay from an outside perspective that doesn't make sense, but as an insider, you get why it happens. And by the way, these people that from the outside maybe look a little bit wonky, they're actually great right? So we put them to use in the right way, if we give them a little bit of direction, we can have a lot of great things happen. So I think that fundamental notion of empathy I think is something that lacks sometimes in this kind of a collaboration. And then I think for me, it carries over today to what we do with sales and marketing right where everyone's been saying for years and years sales and marketing need to collaborate more right? And we also we always preach that starts with empathy like again like a good marriage, you know we gotta have the same vision you know where are we going, why are we going this direction and so on. And then we gotta realize we're different like you are different from me. I can do these things. You can do these things. And the only way you get there is through empathy right? So kind of understanding you know what makes you great? When are you great? When am I great? And kind of how do we do that together? So, one of kind of my biggest learnings is again in the role I am now, I have to sell right? I'm you know I'm not a full-time salesperson, but I have to sell something. That kind of gives you a lot of empathy for what's it like to be a salesperson okay? That means I understand why nobody updates the CRM right? Because it sucks. Like I don't wanna update CRM either. So but like you kind of developed that the skill from walking in someone's shoes right? So I think that's been a big takeaway from me I think.

Christian: Good points. I think as when you work as a consultant you only see such a tiny piece of the company, and.

Brian: Exactly.

Christian: You are only optimizing you like sub optimizing towards achieving some tiny goal need to like look at the whole ship where that is going often missed that as a consultant.

Soren: You also tend to, because of lack of industry experience of having been In the industry, you tend to somewhat think that it applies across all industries. There are actually huge differences between industries just because of the type of people that are employed there and who the type of customers are, so it has huge value like you Brian, where you've been on both sides of the fence, because you get some comprehension of.

Brian: I think also when you, it's funny when there's this company I forget my image who they survey like buyers of consultancies and you know. Their biggest pain is always that my advisor doesn't understand me. Like they don't understand my business. They don't understand my industry right? And I think we see that all the time right where somebody is doing so I don't know buying programmatic display banners or whatever the hell right In a in an industry in a target segment where it makes no sense right? But they've just always done it, so now I'm gonna do it again. And I think just that fundamental piece I think we have so far to go as an industry of advisors but I think especially in marketing of really understanding the customer, the industry, the dynamics right? Like and I got this all the time in Japan where somebody came and thought we were an e-commerce business. We do a little bit of search keywords on what are you talking about like we sell headsets to we're b2b we sell them through a distributor. Do you know what a distributor? No we do. Okay great and sells them to a reseller. And then there's Microsoft and the system integrated. And like understanding that value chain, like people would get that wrong all the time. And I feel like that's such an important part good advisor.

Soren: I think even as marketing, if you now you're mentioning sales and marketing, and if you don't in marketing understand what happens after a lead becomes an opportunity, then what are you doing?

Brian: -.

Soren: Because sales cycles can be extremely long. They can be short all, depending on the product and the target segment. And long sales cycles that we as we know becomes increasingly more complex. And long sales cycles with high value items employs a whole different kind of people in sales and in purchasing because it's high ticket items. So I love your view on sales and marketing as a totality and as an integrated discipline. So, Brian when did you get started with social media? I mean, you've had a Facebook account for a while I imagine, but at what.

Brian: Don't go there by the way. It's not very pretty.

Christian: Cat video sauna spray.

Soren: When did you start using it for business purposes?

Brian: Yeah so I think it was actually some kind of midway through being in Jabra. I think it, like I've always been a fairly opinionated guy, to be honest right? I like arguing. I like just taking the devil's advocate opposite view whatever. I can't recommend that. Yeah just like being contrarian right which like it's super unhealthy for your marriage. But it's I find it intellectually stimulating right? So I've always done that right, and then I just started doing it at some point on LinkedIn while I was in Jabra, and I just kind of immediately hit on a few topics where I was being maybe just a little bit controversial, nothing crazy, and just got a lot of response on. And that kind of kicked off something with me because I love to write. I enjoy it. Like if I could do only that would be great. And I like discussing and being controversial and thinking and trying to think through new things by discussing them. So, it just kind of came fairly natural, and I just got really good response, and then I just kept going. And then I think, being in inside big company, like Jabra, I think I self censored a lot right because like I there was obviously a lot of things that I couldn't get into because they were kind of like of course I would be inspired of what I saw, but since I was only in Jabra, it was kind of obvious that everything I saw was about Jabra right? So it would be there were a lot of things I didn't share, obviously. And so I think it really took off for me when I a consultant again because I think I had I just had like pages and pages of stuff I wanted to say and share and things I thought about which of course are a lot easier when you don't have to think about corporate politics or whatever right? So but I think it actually started there.

Soren: Now you need to consider prospects that are you terms of what you're writing or.

Brian: Yeah and to be honest.

Soren: Never.

Brian: Yeah, exactly right. But to be honest, I'm actually not like I could probably be a lot more clean. Like I go weird places that like if I made like a really tight strategy about I wanna talk about these things to this audience, I think I would write different things. But I'm also just kind of interested in a lot of things, so I probably could be a lot more focused thinking about prospects but I actually don't. Like I actually just get into what I find interesting to be honest.

Christian: I've met like two types of people when it comes to like you know publishing on social media. And one is like you know they're generally not really just interested in publishing anything, and the other ones are like of course okay three people maybe the ones like you just going nuts just you know put putting out videos about everything. And then the other ones intimidated by the environment they're in publish anything.

Brian: Yep.

Christian: It's like ooh what would my boss save this if I said? This you I've just seen yeah A lot of people put a their candle under what's it call?

Brian: We maybe just a little bit of advertisement cause this is actually something we also help some companies also knowledge-based companies do like find you know twen 10 or 20 people who have opinions but have kept them under reps and helping them kind of publish stuff right because it's I realized that I'm lucky because I have a bunch of the things that are kind of required to do with yourself because I also enjoy writing and also enjoy making content right? But a lot of people need a little bit of help right because you'll have otherwise you'll have to rely on kind of the half a percentage of people who just kind of do it because they enjoy it versus the let's say the one to 5% who have all the place all the things needed except for that kind of last step of actually doing it can getting help moving it across the finish line right?

Christian: If you have a client, and they have like these 10 20 people and you want them to start posting on LinkedIn, for example, to create some kind of revenue stream coming. You know? Where do you start that process?

Brian: If a hundred percent it starts with picking the right people, right, people who know something about something and are opinionated enough about it to formulate thoughts around it right? And I think, at least the way we approach it is that you get into some kind of ideation phase where you just write hit where you just get into like if we were talking about it could be yeah B2B sales right, we would write things like oh the average salesman is dying right because he's being taken over by high-end consulting and low-end e-commerce. Oh okay. That's interesting. Next topic, sales management is under pressure because there's more sales than there managers. Okay, the end. New topic. Hammer out 50 of those headlines right? That for me that would be the first step, And you can do a lot of those in not a long time if you have the right people right? And of course, then it needs to go from idea to content right? And of course, that's if you're not if you don't do that every day, then we at least try to help you with a bit more structured process because there are kind of standard lenses you can put on things like you know what we see when people do X or you know how I would typically approach or three thing and not to kind of get into lists or whatever right? But three things you can do to overcome right? Some of these things or what I saw at a client that worked earlier was whatever right Or what most people get wrong about. You know, one of these like many lenses you can put on an interesting topic and then co-create the content right? And I think in this regard, you cannot be too high-flying academic right? It's just about getting stuff done in front of a camera or writing or whatever and accepting that it this is not perfect right? This is not on-air that goes on tv. If you say something slightly stupid or you pick a few wrong words, lit literally no one cares right? Maybe, your marketing department will say but the green color here. Forget about it right? Publish, and I think that part that coaching part of helping people get from okay now I have some content that's good but maybe. No. Let's get it out there. Let's get to the next piece and keep learning.

Soren: Is this us trying to get an entrepreneurial mindset into corporate by saying if you're not ashamed by what you put out first you've waited too long?

Brian: I think it's part of it that when if we think about the stuff we put out, we have there is a sometimes a risk of applying the highest quality standard to everything. And that's because, if you do a two minute film that goes on every channel and that you're gonna pay a million to promote, you need a high production value right because otherwise you're fooling yourself. Or you make a book or a very high-end piece of concept with hundreds of people, yes, you need that level and then you need to realize what are those other levels of production. And for us, when you make a LinkedIn post, it's okay to 90% of the time be on iPhone level camera something you wrote in 15 minutes right because you again if we have the right people, let's say you are selling a I don't know SAP software right, like I'm sure if we get the right people, they will know more about SAP, how to implement it, what you typically get wrong, the best people to use for it and so on that I will never own a lifetime. So they are extremely fast from idea to saying something. It's more about helping them move that journey and as you say, being a little bit more entrepreneurial about how do I how do.

Soren: Plus, in my experience for industrial manufacturing customers and in IT security et cetera, it's the people you are reaching do not necessarily care about all the bling and the perfect video quality. They're there for the content. And obviously, they know if this person is knowledgeable and enlightening me with by sharing his content. It doesn't fall flat on its face because the coloring or the light wasn't right or the video quality wasn't right. It's completely different game because you're In a business context on expertise.

Brian: Yeah. And I would are we often kind of compare it to think about when that same salesperson goes out to a normal meeting, like we don't think about the production quality there like you arrive in your car you go to reception you say hi you want a cup of coffee yeah I want a cup of coffee. You know we share a screen. Stuff isn't working. The screen goes whatever just turn the screen around Click on the slides. No it's just funny. Like that's just life right? Like that you don't engage with normal people in this kind of polished manner right? And me that's the same on social right. Just be a human.

Christian: Very good point. I mean, I've seen you know some of the objections coming in or you know it's not objections maybe but pushback from typically in a founder led companies. Have passed maybe a hundred 200 employees, then the founders become very aware or focused on how their company's being perceived in the market. Tend to have the biggest opinions about how should those videos be. And if it's not good enough quality, they will you know go and knock that person in the head and say like why did you put out that stuff? Have you dealt with some kind of like those?

Brian: Yeah, a percent. There's both in what I used to do previously, but also here you know sometimes you see bad stuff right? Like let's be honest. People are like and I do bad stuff as well like the time I guess. And you just have to weigh that every time you go in and you critique someone doing that, you are risking them just stopping right? So you really have to weigh do I need to get into this right? And of course if it's blatant enough like people saying like wrong things right or showing something that's directly wrong, okay you've gotta be there. But I would also say like just be really careful about destroying like the motivation to do something here right? Because it's so fickle right? People struggle to get started so much, you don't want to you don't want to over control or manage it. And again, if you accept that, again it's personal salt leadership it's people building their personal brand and using that to elevate wherever they work. We also have to seed a lot of control to them, and that's perfectly fine. And again, think about what we give in terms of trust to a normal employee Like to a normal salesperson. Yeah, you can go out and you can close that 10 million deal. I don't need to be there. You can even make your own slides and like control the whole sales process, but I won't let you post on LinkedIn. Like it just makes no sense like the amount of trust we give people in some situations and then not in others right? And then of course, the final thing is like if you're that they say something wrong, are they even the right people in the first place? Like maybe that's just something to reflect on in general.

Christian: Very good point.

Soren: Just to summarize a little bit your halfway, you got started by just having an opinion in the nature of being at ease with being a little controversial actually seeking it we could say.

Brian: Yeah.

Soren: Me.

Brian: Can say that.

Soren: And then of course, as I started my first broadcast, I had this struggle of hitting the record button because listening to my own voice was just unbearable. So to me, it sounded wrong, but of course, not to the rest of the world. So do get started and start right now where you are at with what you have.

Brian: I think I would compare to when I started doing websites right? So we are back in the basement. I'm 15 years old. The great part about it is that you typically have a website for yourself right? Like everyone had that right? And then you make a company. You redesign that company page like every second week or whatever right? And it's they're all bad. Like they're all embarrassing bad designs and but it's kind of okay because nobody really sees it anyway. But you're just putting in the reps right? You're getting better and better at every design, and then at some point, you have something you are proud of and that you might not need to redesign next week. And I think it's a little bit the same. You make your first stuff. It's terrible. It doesn't matter. Nobody sees it anyway right? So and I think and if they do, it's forgotten right? 20 minutes later people have passed and so on. At most, you'll have put a very small drip in their mind that you exist and that you maybe wrote something halfway interesting right? And I think just that idea of yeah you don't look impressive the first time you go to the gym either, but that's kind of the whole point like what you but you gotta put in the reps to get good and accept a little bit of suckiness in the beginning but also just be calm with the fact that and again this kind of goes for a lot of human interactions. Nobody cares about you. Like people have all these other things they're doing with their life. Nobody cares. So if you do it a little bit, it's fine. People don't care right? And again, the caveat here is it is of course if you're a CEO of a listed company, do think about what you post on social media right. But most of us are not. Let's be honest.

Soren: What I took home from what you said is that it's more in the beginning, it's more a matter of what you were interested in, what you opinion on that you can use before you start getting too structured and it starts hampering you, just about what enjoy talking about.

Brian: Exactly, and I think it's something we also internally also with customers but likely internally also discussed a lot that should we control more like should we have a editorial calendar where we bundle topics and kind of talk about the same things for a few months, and we just kind of looked at each other and said like that's not how I work. Like I can't do that. Like that would kill my production. It will kill my creativity okay in this particular medium right? So again, I think if you're doing paid social media totally different thing. Do things same thing many months whatever. But here, when it's opinion based and thought leadership based, totally right. You gotta have that connection between what's interesting for you and what's interesting for the audience. And the only way to start is what's interesting for you because it's kind of the only thing can control right, so totally agree. I would not control it too much personally right because you know just end up kinda.

Soren: I mean, as a company, if we're talking about a company and not depending of a size that has a particularity of how they want their brand to be, you could maybe set up some outer parameters in terms of what we would like to see and what we don't like to see and operate inside of this and then go crazy.

Brian: I think that is the one rule we also have at our company that you know we have a you can be funny if you like. You can be controversial. You can be silly, doesn't matter. But if you're using corporate logos, images, and so on, then of course need to be serious right? Like we are a fairly serious brand and that's and we talk to kind of a let's say a very mature audience in terms of CEOs, CMOs, and salespeople and so on. So there is something about the corporate brand when you involve that, then I think you do need guidelines. But when we're talking about your personal brand, then it's fine that you are yourself, right, because again, people follow people. People buy from people. But we don't want cartoon characters and so on top of the logo or like weird things like that doesn't make any sense. So I would say again that there is something about keeping your corporate brand safe cause we don't wanna mess that part up. But again, in the personal space, you should have more freedom, yeah, because you are personal. People buy from people right?

Soren: Now, you said that you don't necessarily target audiences or your dream customers. You engage in conversation and you share your message. But, has that changed? Is it still like this or have you become found a way or become aware of how you reach a certain audience?

Brian: Of course, most of what I do has to be within the realm of P2P sales and magazine which I think happens totally on its own because it's like all I do and all I think about, so it like it totally it does it by itself I would say. And again, of course, you can also kind of build a presence talking about other things like diversity and inclusion or how we get a healthy work-life balance or some of these kind broader topics. But again, that's where you have to find your own niche in terms of where are you on that scale of things that everyone cares about like yeah work-life balance or do I work from home or at the office. Things like that will get a lot of likes and a lot of reach if you write clever things. And then on the other spectrum, very geeky things about how can I implement SAP in the manner. Will get you a lot less likes. Maybe it will make you more dollars in the end, but it is a totally different thing and you write in a different way and you write to a different audience. And I think that spectrum I think you have to think about as a content producer and writer like where do I put myself? And again, it's not like you can never say something about society at large or whatever but at least place yourself a little bit on that spectrum. I have personally a lot of respect and care for people who play at the heavy end right who don't mind getting into extremely geeky nerdy stuff because I think you called it social selling like if you wanna sell something, I actually think that end of the spectrum works much better right because you might not reach a lot of people you might not get 200 likes on every post, but you're talking about something that's very important for few people, and those are the ones who will ultimately buy from you right?

Christian: True.

Soren: Are you.

Christian: Know that was actually another thing popping up in my head because I'm like by nature allergic to KPIs or metrics that are you know we got X likes or whatever impressions. So, I know in your business, you went down the rabbit hole and you actually digged into like what how this was helping you like with the business.

Brian: Yeah, and I think definitely, I think the title of this show is great, Messy Growth, right? And I think nowhere is it more messy than this because again, in our own company, you know, we wrote books. I wrote written a few books. We post a lot of things. We did a bunch of content. And when does it pay off? I don't know like at some point? But what we see now of course is that the work we've done over the last three years is paying off. And I think when we just do and again you can do there's a lot of talk about kind of marketing attribution these days and yeah manual versus whatever. We are such a small company that we can manually look at every. So, that's the easy part at every customer. And, we know for sure that every one of the deals we get in are directly oh sorry indirectly influenced by content. We can see that they've downloaded stuff. We can see that we've talked to them on social. And then we have a subset of our customers that are 100% attributed to what we do on social. And we and that's not an that's not an insignificant amount. Like it's not every customer. It's probably just shy of half. But we can see that a very large portion of them are directly attributed to what we do there. And typically, of course, it's a combination of like a few years ago, we had someone come in who maybe knew someone in the company from years ago. And then he had a very concrete problem, and he saw one of my colleagues post something extremely nerdy like very nerdy about a topic. But that was exactly what he was looking for. And then, short sales process boom customer, great relationship, and so. So we can see, when we try to analyze it that it influences directly produces a lot of pipeline and revenue. Are we gonna measure it every month and look at the? Not at all. Right? But I think that's the difficult part of it right?

Soren: If we post a lot of stuff but nobody sees it, how do we become aware of whether our content is spreading? I mean, is it likes? Is it comments? How do we get a feel for whether we expand the message that we have? Because I mean, if nobody sees, we should doing something different.

Brian: Hundred percent right? And I think, it's a little bit like when somebody's reviewing email marketing campaigns? Is open rate interesting? Literally no one cares about open Radar. But it is kind of interesting for that person writing the next headline, right, because they have to look at that data over time to learn what works and what doesn't. And I feel like engagement metrics are kind of the same like they should influence kind of what you do but with respect to that spectrum right? Because if I only wanted more likes, I would write about Mark Zuckerberg. I would write about the Elon Musk. I would write about the parental leave or things like this that are broadly interesting. So again, they are important but are they important to your business? Again, that's where you have blend it with that spectrum. Like if I can make nerdy posts about deeply intricate stuff that also get reached, that's where I want to be right? And so in that sense, engagement are important right?

Soren: It's not the amount of likes and in comments. It's whether you get likes and comments from the people you want to engage with.

Brian: Exactly And that you are you get it When you're saying something relevant to your business right Like it has connection to what you want to do and I think it's fine every once in a while to do like a general interest thing but again you want to get reach on the right people with the right message right And I think you have to at least think a little bit about engagement metrics there right Again nobody wants to Gold on how many likes they get nobody wants to be measured on comments or reach in general Like again it should not never be a goal And I think but is it a is it data point you can look at Yes And I think that's the key difference Like is it just data points or is gold And never put a goal on a like than the than you.

Soren: How well do we need to know the algorithm on LinkedIn.

Brian: I think it's a good question I think there's a lot of people who know more about the LinkedIn algorithm than I do to be totally honest Right So and I'm not totally sure all the time whether they know Right because there's a lot you can also meet a lot of no but you can also meet a lot of like SEO people right Who say yeah I know everything to you though Like do you really so let me that's one caveat right Like I've also talked a lot of people At LinkedIn Who have literally no idea how it works right So that would be my first right Just be careful But I it seems like and again I don't know enough about it but it seems like there are things you can do right there You know we know as you say engagement bridge more engagement right So if people click read more yes Review show to more people Of course likes and comments mean there will be showed to more people and so on and the first hours are important and all of these things And maybe there is something about priming before posting with like you comment on a few other people's posts I dunno I would say try to find smarter people than me on the LinkedIn algorithm but I don't think too much about it to be honest I do think a little bit about posting times like Post at a point where people use the platform so you'll get responses in the first hour I do think that's probably important like don't post in the middle of the night but Otherwise I don't think it's too important.

Christian: True. When we're talking posting time you know I try to put myself in the shoes of my ideal customer and think you know where are they right now okay. Know they're probably on a train going from the suburbs into the city so post would typically go out around eight o'clock in the morning because I know that they meet them to the office around nine. That's you know for me huge difference.

Brian: First think about making good content that's relevant for the right people da Okay Then at some point you probably wanna think about when do I post this Like I get it right And then maybe when you are like a super hardcore expert at some point maybe you can get an extra 5% by priming the algorithm So like I have no idea There's some again there's people at a much higher level with that than I am But I would say by far most people are at a different stage right They're at a different stage where they have to think Just doing something and making it relevant to the right people And I would say start there Right And again it's totally the same as with paid ads right Like yeah but what if I yeah these little LinkedIn tricks so on hang on right Start with strong targeting a good cta a great ad and a great buyer's journey to a page or you know whatever Standard things Just get that right and then we can think about hacks and tricks and so on later Right. Yeah And again I really love the title of this show Messy Growth Show right Because it is really all about messy growth It is about doing a bunch of things that are right because we know them to be right and accepting that could be 12 months before you see any return on this But you know it's the right thing to do Right And I think that is where you know I think a lot of people in marketing have gone including myself have gone through some sort of learning journey over the last 10 years of kind of accepting a bunch of things you can't measure and I think this for sure is one of them and it's an air it's a thing you could you can kill instantly by wanting to see metrics in the first right then the initiative is literally did Right on the other hand it's some of one of the things that can give you the most positive return It is exactly like building any brand right It takes time it's hard work And then once it's in orbit it's a moneymaker right And it doesn't need that much to stay in orbit but it takes a lot of energy to get off the ground.

Soren: Brian I think you have read Schwarzenegger's book too You mentioned sets and reps A lot of times maybe this just comes from the gym but I do enjoy that perspective because that's what it is It sets some reps when we start out It's just basic training and so get going Make sure you pick a topic that's you are energized about You might even in your story be a little bit controversial about or super geeky something you enjoyed has to be fun.

Christian: Where can people find you know if they wanna see all your.

Brian: Oh, yeah. Yeah, just, on LinkedIn. Probably the best, part. Just, search Brian Anderson. Uhand. I think I'll pop up at some point. I don't even know my URL or anything like that. You can see I'm a, I'm a total newbie in many places. And, yeah, check out some of the other people at, quant as, from Kota, DK always. Always a pleasure to talk with, smart people about interesting stuff.

Christian: Amazing. Thank you, Brian.

Brian: Thank you.

Christian: Have a great day. Good. See.

Soren: Thank you for joining us on today's episode of The Messy Growth Show Check out the upcoming guests on messy growth show.com. And you can subscribe on Spotify, apple Podcast, Google Podcast, and YouTube, And if you do have any comments, feedbacks, or suggestions of topics that are particular importance to you as owner, marketer in the software or manufacturing industry, please do reach out to us on Messy growth show.com. We'll see you on the next episode of The Messy Growth.