Mastering LinkedIn for Sales and Sponsorship

Mastering LinkedIn for Sales and Sponsorship

Brynne Tillman is the CEO of Social Sales Link and The Modern Banker.

She teaches professionals how to leverage LinkedIn to start trust-based conversation without being salesy. Brynne’s authentic approach to social selling has led her to receive a LinkedIn Top Voice in multiple categories.

She is a best-selling Author of the LinkedIn Sales Playbook and is most proud of the sales results she and her team have enabled their clients to achieve.

Get to hello faster. This program is about starting the conversation and getting your ideal buyers excited to take your call… but you have to earn the right to make that happen! In this 25-minute session, Brynne Tillman, CEO of Social Sales Link and the LinkedIn Whisperer, will take you through the journey of positioning yourself as the subject matter expert and thought leader who consistently attracts the right people. We will cover: 1. The social selling mindset that proves to your buyers that they matter to you 2. Positioning your profile to be value-centric, not just a resume or, worse yet, a pitch deck 3. Finding and engaging targeted connections that you have been ignoring 4. Leveraging your clients to get referrals 5. Exactly what to do and say to get raised hands and appointments set. More information at – https://socialsaleslink.com 

 

The Interview Transcript

Hugh Ballou:
Welcome to the Nonprofit Exchange. This is Hugh Ballou, founder and president of SynerVision Leadership Foundation. I’m a musical conductor, and we create ensemble with musical groups. So I said, how do we do that with boards, with organizations, with staff? We create synergy. So, SynerVision is how we build the synergy in our group by being very clear about our vision. Today, I have a special guest, Bren Tillman, that’s here. So, Brynne, tell people what we’re going to talk about today and a little bit about yourself and your passion for this work.

Brynne Tillman:
Well, thank you so much for having me. I have been in a business development role for many years, very similar to nonprofit executives whose responsibility is to raise money. So whether you’re raising money or you are in a sales position, it really is about leveraging your relationships. And I had been a sales trainer for many years. And then when I found LinkedIn, which is what we’re going to talk about today, I recognized there was this hidden gem. this opportunity to identify who your connections knew and the ability to search and filter them. So when I saw that, I went, my goodness, this is the most powerful tool for anyone whose role is to bring in revenue. because they can leverage their relationships to do it. And so I launched my company 11 years ago in September, and I haven’t looked back because this really became a tool that has created so many new opportunities for both the profit and the nonprofit world.

Hugh Ballou:
Lovely. We teach nonprofit leaders and clergy business principles here. Now, we’ve got to have all those principles in place, plus we’ve got all the extra compliance issues, plus we have to work with volunteers. So, our work is really very difficult. So, it’s really important for us to learn the strategies and find people around us. Now, Stay tuned, because Bren’s got a free gift for you before we quit today. But the next free gift is, so who needs you? Who do you work with? Who’s your audience?

Brynne Tillman:
Well, so the audience is really anyone that needs to either raise money, find sponsors in the nonprofit world, right? Maybe it’s even find more board members that meet certain criteria. But there are a lot of responsibilities of nonprofit directors. But the biggest one comes down to money, because nothing else happens until revenue is brought in. So it is so important today to leverage our existing network, to identify who it is that might want to support our organization, like our current supporters are. But if we go to a board member, or we go to any volunteer maybe that’s working with us, or maybe even a paid employee who’s part of our organization, and we say, who do you know that would be a great sponsor? They typically will say, I can’t think of anyone right now. LinkedIn gives us the ability to search and filter their connections and identify who they know and say, hey, you know this list of 12 people that I think would make a great sponsor. Can you make some introductions? So the people we serve are the people that have a network, but don’t really know how to tap into that network.

Hugh Ballou:
Let’s go back. Your business is sales. Now, there’s some myths about that word and that process. There’s some misconceptions, and there’s some The psychologists call it a money shadow, negative feelings. So in the church, it’s called evangelism. In nonprofits, it’s called fundraising. In business, it’s called sales. So in my mind, it’s matching what a need is with somebody who wants to support that need. So elaborate, what are some of the misconceptions and what’s the new perspective on that word in that process?

Brynne Tillman:
Well, I kind of want to throw out a thought. And I’ll come from the nonprofit perspective. If we have a service, or what it is that we’re doing, if it is a church, or if it is a Red Cross, or whatever it might be, the service, including the parish, is there because it’s filling a need. It is filling something that brings value to your parishioners or to the families in need that you’re helping or whomever that is. We have an obligation to help as many of those people as possible in the best way possible. And that takes money. So we are doing a disservice to our parishioners, to our nonprofit recipients, if we don’t raise as much money as we possibly can. So I want to keep that in mind. Most folks in the nonprofit world will think, oh, I don’t like to ask for money. But if you don’t, this is the first mindset, then there’s a second half of this. If you don’t, you can’t serve as many people. And if your mission is to serve as many people, then you need to ask for money. Now, every month I have a charity that for the last five years, it automatically comes out of my account every single month. It’s not a ton of money, but it’s a children’s charity. And I get a little message every month that says, thank you so much. This is what your money buys us. I am personally fulfilled and thrilled that I could help. Now, if they never asked me for my monthly investment, they’d be out my money or the next person’s money. I know that, I mean, it’s a dinner out for me. It’s feeding a village for them, right? I get satisfaction from that. So we are doing a disservice if we don’t let people know how they can help other people.

Hugh Ballou:
That is such a paradigm shift. We think it’s a negative asking people for money, but my wife and I are at a stage in our life where we do the same thing. We have ongoing donations to numbers of charities. And it’s the same as you. We feel good about helping other people. So we forget that there’s a joy in giving for people who want to support what we do.

Brynne Tillman:
Absolutely. And I would even say, from a business perspective, it’s malpractice. If you are running an organization and you’re not out there asking folks to contribute any way they can.

Hugh Ballou:
Let me unpack something you said earlier, just to make sure people got it and it didn’t just pass by unnoticed. You talked about relationships. Now, I know being in the leadership business, the foundation of leadership is relationship. The foundation for communications is relationship. The foundation for generating revenue, whether it’s a donation or sale, is relationship. So talk a little more about relationship and why it’s important and how does this process spring from the relationship. It’s not just, hey, I’m Joe, I’m asking for money. There’s a relationship piece of this.

Brynne Tillman:
So if I could step back for one second and just talk about the four elements, the relationships are the last two. But the first one is making sure that your profile is positioned well. And I’m going to throw this out. And this isn’t going to be right for everyone. But if you come at it from your job, as the non-profit director is to match sponsorships and donors with a mission that matches their heart and soul. That’s your job, right? And so on LinkedIn, we have to make sure that we are positioning ourselves in a way that speaks to the people that we want to engage, right? And so you can absolutely talk about all the great things that you do, but you need to lead with matching people who care with the right people who need it. And we’ve got to start with that message, because that’s how you are going to attract the right people for your organization. Number one. Number two, you need lots of content. They need to see all the good. Little things like every event, every meaningful thing, right? Every time you spend some of that money or invest some of that money in the community, it needs to be everywhere on social. People need to see the good, that their money is bringing to the community. And ask permission from these donors and these sponsorships. Can I give you a shout out every time we spend a dollar of your money? Can I talk about you on social? Of course, most of them, especially the sponsorships, sometimes they’re doing it twofold. One, they want to help, but also they want the brand, right? They want to be connected to your brand. So the more you can shout out who’s helping you and how what they are doing is helping, is going to build stronger, deeper relationships with the people that are already investing in your organization in one way or another. They will see publicly the benefit. I mean, every month I get, this bought this many bags of rice, it’s feeding this many families with your money. I love knowing that. Now, you do that publicly with your sponsors, they think they spend $10,000 for X, but they’re getting $50,000 worth of exposure. And so that’s really important and it makes them feel good. And it’s good for retention of employees and attraction of employees, it does a lot. So that’s not that your content needs to constantly share that. Now, number three, we need to take inventory of our existing connections. So I’m gonna say, we’ll just go with a leader of a church. You need to connect on LinkedIn with all of your parishioners that are on LinkedIn. And you might say, well, why do I want to do this? Well, they are committed and care about your chapel. They care about your services. They care about what you do. And they want to help grow and support your church. So when you connect with them on LinkedIn and you say, hey, I notice you’re connected to this CEO, he’s like, oh my gosh, he’s my neighbor down the street. Well, I’d love to invite him out to a service and see if this is something that would align with his values at his company. And all of a sudden, when you’ve connected with all of your parishioners that are on LinkedIn and you can filter and search, you are now leveraging your network, your donor network, whether they’re parishioners or your donors that are sending you a hundred bucks a month or whatever that might be. to get to the next level, who do they know that might sponsor an event, that might sponsor a table at a, you know, whatever, whatever it might be, whatever it is that you are reaching out, instead of cold outreach, let’s let the people that already love us make those introductions for us. It’ll make all the difference in the world. And that’s actually leveraging your network. The fourth one really now is about how do we put a process around the more people we have, the more referrals we have. But we have to be careful. Don’t ask for money too soon. You have to prove your value. You have to get them excited about your cause. They have to understand that if they invested money here, who’s getting helped? How are they getting helped? They’ve got to get buy-in. So we go from, oh my gosh, I don’t want to talk about money, to then I talk about money too soon. And there’s a fine line between bringing them into our community and letting them experience us, And then talking about how all levels have made a difference. And ask them, does this resonate with you and your core beliefs? Is this something I can help tell you a little bit more about how other people have sponsored us and what that’s done for the community? And ask permission to talk about how they can be a sponsor because when they say, oh yeah, share that with me, they will listen. If you just go into your pitch before you get permission, they’re going to think it was a bait and switch. But if you can say to them on LinkedIn or in person, you know, I really love how excited you were around X, Y, and Z. I mean, it seems like we are so aligned in the way we think around this. And I love this mission that we’re in. Can I share with you some of the ways that we’ve had local businesses participate in what we’re doing? And then they go, oh yeah, sure. And all of a sudden, you’re on the same team, you’re on the same side, and you’ve asked permission. So they don’t feel like it was a bait and switch because they had the opportunity to say no, which they never do. But when they say yes, they are welcoming in all of that information. So I hope that’s helpful.

Hugh Ballou:
That is extremely helpful. So for people that are listening and they’re panicking, they couldn’t write it down, no worry, there’ll be a full transcript. When you go to thenonprofitexchange.org, you’ll find a full transcript and those four points will be there and you’ll be able to print those out for your own use. So that was priceless. So there’s a process of asking questions and listening and discovering what people’s interests are. Duh.

Brynne Tillman:
And does this align with your core values? And I’ll tell you, when they’re in that moment and they say, yes, they’ve solidified that. Like if you just assume they’re gonna forget how they felt, because it is all about how they feel. But if you say, does this align with your core values? And they say, yes, they have confirmed it out loud. And then when you come back to the conversation, it was wonderful meeting you and having you experience our services. And I’m so thrilled after our conversation, how aligned you thought we were.

Hugh Ballou:
Absolutely. And schedule a backup conversation. Let’s get back and touch base. So that is a wonderful process of learning about the person, having a conversation about their values, and it may not be a fit for them.

Brynne Tillman:
Today.

Hugh Ballou:
So you’re talking about the impact of our work. Money has ears. It listens for that. So the impact, and we’re not very good at that. The other piece of this, Bren, is you said a whole lot of stuff in a very concise amount of time. We need to learn how to do that. We go on and on and on, and people like, check out. So what’s the most important thing? How can we deliver it? And then if they want to know more, then we can say more, but getting the message across and understanding what they’re interested in. So we’ve talked about LinkedIn and we talked about sponsorships. Let me clarify those two. I want to define what you mean by what a sponsorship is, because we have lots of misconceptions. And then from that, go to why LinkedIn instead of Facebook or something else.

Brynne Tillman:
Well, so I think the difference between sponsorship and fundraising is fundraising is I’m really thrilled to give you some money. And, you know, if I get a little shout out on a website, I’m in a list of, you know, $500 or less donors and my name’s there, I’m all thrilled, right? That’s what I’m looking for. Sponsorship is really about, an ROI, a return on investment for the business. So when a business sponsors, their intention is not only to do good, maybe a big piece of it, but it’s about the community knowing that we are involved and that I will attract more patients if I’m a hospital. I will attract more customers if I’m a car wash, right? That they’re going to say, hey, we’re going to go there because we are sponsors of a nonprofit that we want to engage the community, that nonprofit community, in driving revenue and driving business and driving traffic. So sponsorships, they have an ulterior motive to just someone who’s very happy to donate some money. That’s the way I see it. I may not be 100%, but yeah, go ahead.

Hugh Ballou:
You’re spot on. You’re spot on. We sometimes people, we do a fundraiser and we have tables and people sponsor a table. It’s really a donation. So, you know, you invite friends, you pay for the table. We use that loosely. But a sponsorship is a whole different pocket of money. The philanthropy donation money is one budget line item. Marketing is another line item. And so the company, so talk a little bit about brand. They’ve got a brand. They’re going to associate with your brand. So we want to make sure they understand what our brand is and why it’s valuable. So we got to be really clear that here’s our brand and here’s what people know about us. So they’re going to be careful. They don’t want negative brand association.

Brynne Tillman:
Absolutely, and you know, a lot of this is our community. These are the people that we touch every single week, whether it’s through our newsletter, through our events, whatever that is. Is this a community you, potential sponsor, want to be in front of? Because we have an incredibly deep, loyal community, and if your name is beside our name, this is a community that will start to become patrons. out of loyalty.

Hugh Ballou:
It’s good for business.

Brynne Tillman:
Well, that’s it, right?

Hugh Ballou:
Philanthropy is not only about money. It’s the love of humankind. And so there’s a lot of value represented.

Brynne Tillman:
Sponsorship is not only the love for humankind.

Hugh Ballou:
Yeah, but there are sponsors that are philanthropic sponsors that want to do good with their marketing money. So that’s a bonus for those.

Brynne Tillman:
Most want an ROI.

Hugh Ballou:
Well, that’s a given. If you can put this other on top of it. So in sales, I learned I had a sales career. with a retail store. That did pretty good, mind you. I learned early on that an objection, we’ll talk just a minute about objections. We can spend a whole session on that. But an objection is a request for information. It’s our job to reframe it. Oh, I’m glad you asked that. So we get all uptight about objections. And so what are some typical objections and how do we respond to those?

Brynne Tillman:
Well, let’s just start with an objection is a buying signal.

Hugh Ballou:
Oh.

Brynne Tillman:
If they were not interested, they would not take the time to object. So we need to reframe an objection in our mind is if I can overcome this, they’re a taker, they’re a buyer, they’re an investor, they’re a potential sponsor. They have opened the door to help me close this opportunity. Because if they weren’t interested, They wouldn’t object, they would just say, this isn’t for me. They’re not gonna waste their time. But they’re objecting because there’s a high level of interest if I can get past this one thing. So it’s our obligation to understand why that one thing matters to them. So we can say, oh, great question, let me tell you, how we overcome that, whatever our stock answer is. And that may not satisfy them. So we need to say, that is a really good question. May I ask, why is that a concern for you? Or how does that affect your decision? or right and and you can also say when you’re just you know i really want to handle this and we’re going to talk through this it’s going to be a little bit longer than a couple minutes so let me ask you if we can get to the other side of this do you believe that this is an opportunity that you want to be part of So don’t even take all your time trying to figure out that objection until you know for sure that’s the only one. Because they may say, well, also this. So collect all of the objections before you start working on overcoming them. Don’t overcome unless you’re pretty clear that it’s just the one. So sometimes, and then, great, so I’m writing this down. So this is definitely an issue and I hear you on this. What else would hold you back from sponsoring this next event? They may say, well, our funds are, we’ve gone through our marketing budget and I’d have to find it somewhere else. You can learn everything. before you answer the one objection. And it’s really important that you do that because sometimes that first objection is a shallow objection. So let’s get them all and we may be able to overcome it, all of them with the commitment. If we overcome these, are we going to move forward? Okay, great. Now let’s tackle them. We have a commitment at the end of this. And if we overcome these, if we get some satisfactory answers here, we have a commitment. Great. Okay. Let’s go through them. And then you go, so how, if we, you know, as long as this is an issue and I’m trying to think of an objection that might come up. Okay. We’ve donated to another church and I’m afraid that they’re going to feel like we’re being disloyal. How about that? There’s an objection. So that great objection. So why do you believe they would feel that way? Well, you know, I don’t know for sure, but I feel like, you know, they would feel like, you know, we’ve been donating to them and they think that we’re taking their money even though we’re not. So would it make sense for us to have a conversation with the head of that church and see if maybe this is something maybe we could end up collaborating and doing events together and maybe high tide rises all boats.

Hugh Ballou:
It’s a process to think through this because, you know, we get sleepless nights, we get sweaty palms or we’re nervous. And so it’s hard to think when you got that anxiety. So what you’ve helped me with is a process to go through. And Ren, you’re good at this. You practiced it. So we need to do it more than once. So we need to get better at it.

Brynne Tillman:
I mean, I love this stuff and I’m going to go back to where we started. If you do not help. people contribute to a cause that’s meaningful to them and that helps them contribute to the people that are recipients. It’s malpractice. This is your higher calling. It’s your responsibility to help as many people as possible on both ends. The people that are excited to help and the people that need that help. And the more conversations we have, the more people are benefited from what we do.

Hugh Ballou:
This time has flown by. I promised people at the beginning that you had a free gift for them. So people listening, we will give you the link. It’s going to be in the portal for the podcast. But what is your website link, Bren?

Brynne Tillman:
It’s socialsaleslink.com slash library.

Hugh Ballou:
OK, and then this reverts to another one. So the library one.

Brynne Tillman:
It’s a redirect.

Hugh Ballou:
Sure. So what do they find when they get here?

Brynne Tillman:
Yeah, so this is a completely free forever library. It’s got all our resources. In fact, I will probably link this podcast back into the library. So what we do is we curate everything we put out publicly, our videos, our e-books, our checklists, and we put it all in the free library. And it’s there for you to leverage. There is also a community. So if you have questions, you get to ask. And here’s the best part. Once a month, you’re invited to a coaching call. It’s one hour, third Thursday of every month from one to two o’clock Eastern, where you can come in and ask your question and share your screen. We can help you with your templates, your outreach, your campaigns. It’s free, free, free, free, because that’s my mission, is to help as many people as possible leverage LinkedIn to for business development, for bringing in revenue, for reaching more people. And then if you choose to work with me, great, but if not, free.

Hugh Ballou:
Now, that is awesome. I’m going to sign up now. So, that link will be in your podcast if you’re listening to it as an audio podcast. If you go to thenonprofitexchange.org, it’ll be in this window for this, this page for this podcast and this interview. And the transcript with all this useful stuff. So Bryn, you’ve given us a lot of stuff. What do you want to leave us with, a tip or a challenge or a thought?

Brynne Tillman:
Well, I think it’s start to take LinkedIn more serious. It is so important because this is the hub of our relationships. And if we are going to leverage who already loves us to get to that next level, LinkedIn is the key tool to do that.

Hugh Ballou:
Brynne Tillman, you’ve been a great resource for the nonprofit exchange. Thank you so much for being our guest today.

Brynne Tillman:
Thank you, Hugh.