How do you build trust amidst the data overwhelm?
Dan Sanchez joins the show to help us navigate the infocalypse.
Dan dives into the changing landscape of marketing on Linkedin. He says we need to shift away from pontification to trust-building.
Dan and Logan Lyles explore the recent changes on LinkedIn, and discuss audience building, content strategy, and concerns about the platform's shift towards becoming pay-to-play. They also talk about the power of relationships, networking, and the art of asking insightful questions.
Dan also shares his 30-30-30 plan—his system for gaining influence on LinkedIn.
Highlights:
00:29 LinkedIn reach is going down
03:43 LinkedIn algorithm changes
05:16 Tell; show; share
09:03 Learn from failure
10:33 Enough pontification
10:53 We need more trust, less data
13:31 Start small
14:49 Best formats on LinkedIn
16:50 Learn out loud and lead with curiosity
19:22 The 30-30-30 plan
24:58 How to activate Nearbound Evangelists
28:42 Record personal videos with loom
To see the full video version of this conversation, check out:
Nearbound Marketing on YouTube
If you enjoyed this conversation & want easily search through past episodes, check out:
LoganLyles.com
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Logan Lyles: Welcome back to Near Bound Marketing.
00:00:06
I'm your host, Logan Lyles with teamwork.com.
00:00:09
I am joined today by my good friend Dan Sanchez.
00:00:13
He is an audience growth builder.
00:00:14
You can find him@danchaz.com.
00:00:17
He is known by his friends as Dan Chaz.
00:00:20
If you're listening to this episode, you can call him Danz
00:00:22
as well.
00:00:23
Dan, welcome to the show, my friend.
00:00:25
Dan Sanchez: Dude, it's been too long since we've recorded an
00:00:27
episode together, so I'm stoked to be here.
00:00:29
Logan Lyles: Yeah, man.
00:00:30
We have been on the mic together quite a bit over the last few
00:00:33
years, but not so much lately.
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And I'm excited to have you on because you and I have been
00:00:38
jamming just kind of offline with some of the things that
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we've been seeing specific to LinkedIn as it relates to
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building an audience and continuing to get an engage, get
00:00:48
Uh, steady engagement on social and it ties into something I'm
00:00:52
gonna be presenting on here at the Near Bound Summit.
00:00:55
In about a month, we're gonna be talking about Near Bound Social
00:00:57
in the session that I'm leading, and frankly, I don't necessarily
00:01:01
have all the answers, my views, my engagement, my comments have
00:01:05
been down on LinkedIn.
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You've been seeing the same thing.
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I saw Nick Bennett from TAC Post about this same thing, just
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Earlier today.
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So let's kick it off there.
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I think we're gonna get into what can you do about it, but
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what's the situation that you and I are seeing?
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Let's set the stage there in case any of our audience is
00:01:23
really finding themselves in the same place.
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If they're trying to, um, continue their efforts on
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social, especially LinkedIn, and they're seeing a difference here
00:01:33
lately.
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Dan Sanchez: Man, I think there's a few things going on
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with LinkedIn before diving into like, what I'm doing to like,
00:01:41
get more reach on LinkedIn.
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But, man, and people have been talking about little aspects of
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them, but...
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I find that LinkedIn usually follows Facebook, and I, man, I
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got scared when they introduced the thought leadership ads,
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because you're starting to see it play out, where the personal
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reach starts to become a pay to play kind of game, and I'm
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hoping it doesn't increase.
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It's what happened with Facebook, though, even if you
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want to reach all your friends on your personal profile, well,
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you got to pay, you got to promote those ads, you got to
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boost them, right?
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And I'm like, oh, gosh, please don't let LinkedIn be a thing, I
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have to boost something in order to get, reach all my audience,
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but it does feel like that sometimes.
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And I think there's just less, less people checking out
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LinkedIn right now.
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I don't know if you've seen, like, everyone's paying
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attention to all these live events are getting sold out.
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So I think people are just out and about more.
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Like, people are finally, like, like, the pendulum always
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swings, right?
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COVID hit, it swung back, nobody was at events, and now it's
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swung all the way, swung way back, and now everybody's going
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to events all the time.
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Multi events, you
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Logan Lyles: Yeah.
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You've even got all the swifties going to N F L games now.
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Right?
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Dan Sanchez: I don't know about that.
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I don't, I guess I'm not checking out the
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Logan Lyles: Oh, the, the drama lately with Taylor Swift and
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Travis Kel of the, of the Chiefs, uh, apparently the, you
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know, the potential relationship there or our buddy James was
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talking about it, like, is there actually a relationship here or
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are they just Doing the, like the ultimate personal brand
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collab where you've got a lot of Taylor Swift fans who are now
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like watching N F L games because she's there cheering on,
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you know, who might be her boyfriend, whatever the case is.
00:03:11
So anyway, I digress.
00:03:13
But I think you make a good point there that you know, you
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and I saw a lot of growth in LinkedIn, uh, in 2020, early
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2021 and the, you know, situation in the world we have
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to factor into, hey, there were more people who were Hanging out
00:03:28
on LinkedIn there for a bit.
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People were chilling on clubhouse before kind of the
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flash in the pan was over there.
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So those things definitely impact as much as the algorithm
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changes and things like that, we gotta think about our audience's
00:03:41
behavior changing.
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Right.
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I.
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Dan Sanchez: Yep.
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So like I said, like, it's kind of LinkedIn changing the
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algorithm against us.
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Maybe it's a hypothesis, but it's not uncommon for social
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platforms to do it.
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You got the macroeconomic effects of just more people
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spending time outside and going to events, spending less time on
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digital media.
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So that's going on.
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And then I just think, like you said, user behavior is changing.
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People are getting tired of seeing the same things on
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LinkedIn and what I think they're tired of because I'm
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finding myself getting tired.
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And I, I struggle to say this because I don't want to say this
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like, this is what's going on.
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This is just my personal observations.
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I haven't even polled my audience to like validate this.
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But as I talk to more people about it, a lot of, I'm getting
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a lot of nodding heads.
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I'm getting a, huh, yeah, that's right.
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Um, and I think we're just all getting a little tired of the
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pontification that's happening on LinkedIn, people saying, Hey,
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this is what you should do.
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Hey, here's five steps to this.
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And it's funny, I saw a LinkedIn post that kind of illustrated at
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best saying like, Hey, LinkedIn makes a lot more sense if you
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just tag the top of everybody's posts with note to self.
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Like, every post you're seeing from people is literally a note
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they're posting for themselves.
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Then it reads more smoothly.
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Because that's a lot of what's going on.
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Note to self, I learned that I need to do better sales and
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marketing alignment.
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Hey, it's still not happening well.
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Here's what we should do about it.
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Note to self.
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Because it's really pontification.
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People are just saying these things as they learn them, and
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then sharing them in their own voice.
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Not necessarily a bad thing, we're just getting tired of it.
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Logan Lyles: Yeah.
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And I think that ties into some of the, you know, you are gonna
00:05:21
give some advice here'cause I heard you kind of sharing, but
00:05:24
not from a, I've figured this out sort of thing.
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But it, it's very meta to talk about this.
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Uh, I think we're gonna talk about going from telling to,
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showing to sharing.
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And so we'll break down those in a second.
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But what you just said there reminded me of a great talk I
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saw.
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It was like an hour long talk from Alex Ozzy, who we're both
00:05:41
big fans of, he was doing a collaboration with Think media,
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who I know, you know, we both follow.
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They do great stuff.
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If you're trying to do video, you're trying to grow on
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YouTube.
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Great stuff there.
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And he said, you know, what'll, what he tried to do early in his
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social media strategy was instead of saying, this is what
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you should do, say this is what I've tried and this is what I've
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experienced.
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So maybe it'll work for you too.
00:06:04
And that note to self, it's a, it's a small change.
00:06:07
You could follow it very much similarly in the rest of the
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post could be saying very similar things, but it is
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received differently.
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And so he gave the example of you should eat oatmeal for
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breakfast.
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And it's like, well forget you.
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Like who are you to tell me to eat oatmeal?
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I don't like oatmeal or whatever versus.
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Hey, I ate oatmeal for breakfast for the last 30 days and here's
00:06:27
what I noticed, right?
00:06:28
It, it feels very different.
00:06:30
So, you know, to go back to what we were I mentioned earlier,
00:06:34
instead of telling, which is a lot of the pontification, here's
00:06:38
exactly what you should do, start this, stop that.
00:06:40
Those sorts of things.
00:06:42
Your first recommendation is to go to showing instead of
00:06:46
telling.
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What do you mean by show?
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Don't tell.
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And then we'll get into sharing because there are some
00:06:52
limitations with showing as well.
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I.
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Dan Sanchez: Right.
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It's the one thing I've noticed always works on LinkedIn.
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And this pretty much goes for any kind of content marketing
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out there.
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But if you have a solid case study and a how to behind it,
00:07:04
that's generally going to work well.
00:07:06
If it's like, hey, we've been doing this for so long, and we
00:07:09
got a 200 percent ROI or whatever it is, like you have
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data and numbers and a case study to back it up.
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Here's exactly how we did it.
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Here's how it worked.
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It's kind of like those are always the golden nuggets that
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everybody's hunting for and looking for Remember nick
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bennett just a year ago was like hey, I got 75 people to fill out
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our G2 reviews with all five stars or ten stars or
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Logan Lyles: freaking remember that
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Dan Sanchez: Yeah.
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Yeah.
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It was a year ago.
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It went fricking viral, right?
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Because it was so easy.
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It's like, first we just ran an email newsletter or an email
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campaign to our customers and ask'em to give us an N P F
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score.
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And everybody that gave us a seven or, or a eight, or eight
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or higher, we, we sent them, we send them another email.
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It said, Hey, we'll give you a $20 gift card or$50 gift card or
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review is on G two Bam.
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75 reviews.
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And I'm like, oh.
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But it was such a practice, one had evidence, this, we got 75 G2
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reviews, it's hard, leaving a G2 review takes like 15 20 minutes,
00:08:05
not easy to do.
00:08:06
Um, And this is, and then they gave the step by step blueprint
00:08:10
that anybody could execute.
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I was like, oh gosh.
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Even a bunch of people were like, hey man, sometimes you
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keep these, you keep these back for yourself.
00:08:18
Don't share these with everybody because now everybody's going to
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game it like you did.
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You just saved that one for yourself, but it's too late now.
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I think that was, uh, Donardi's, Donardi's comment on
00:08:27
Logan Lyles: Oh yeah.
00:08:27
Dan Sanchez: those, those kinds of posts always work well.
00:08:30
Um, if you have something truly remarkable.
00:08:32
The problem is, how often do we have something that remarkable
00:08:35
to share?
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Not that often, even if you're crushing it and always
00:08:39
experimenting.
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Because we all know the, the path to success, the path to
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getting to those awesome gold nuggets.
00:08:45
Is a pat like a, uh, a field of failure.
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You got to test and fail a lot in order to get to the fricking
00:08:52
ones that work.
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So what do you do in the meantime on social media?
00:08:56
Because you can't just be like, hey, I tried this, it failed.
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Hey, I tried this, it failed.
00:08:59
Hey, I tried this, it failed.
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That's going to be too, too much.
00:09:03
Logan Lyles: Yeah.
00:09:03
Dan Sanchez: And I figured, you know, like the times I've done
00:09:05
this well are the B2B growth.
00:09:09
Um.
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And I wasn't pretending to know anything.
00:09:12
I was actually doing the opposite.
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I was not pretending, but I was like, Hey, I don't know a lot
00:09:16
about this, but I want to know a lot more about this.
00:09:18
And then for B2B Growth, I would do these like 30 day deep dives
00:09:21
where I was doing like 30 interviews over 30 days, reading
00:09:24
every single book on a topic, posting about those books.
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And it was just an intense topic that I've developed into a bit
00:09:30
of a framework I call my 30 30 30 plan I might talk about
00:09:33
later.
00:09:33
But in that framework, I was essentially putting on my
00:09:38
student hat.
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And calling out, Hey, I'm going to climb this mountain.
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This is what I'm going to learn.
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Come with me.
00:09:44
And I was inviting people onto a journey to go and learn
00:09:47
something and do something new.
00:09:49
I started doing it recently.
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And guess what?
00:09:52
It started working.
00:09:53
People were also curious about the thing I wanted to learn,
00:09:55
which right now, I'm hot on lead magnets because our boy Alex
00:09:59
Hermosi was saying lead magnets are the thing.
00:10:00
I'm like, holy cow.
00:10:01
I thought I knew a lot about them, but the way he talks about
00:10:03
them, I clearly don't know enough.
00:10:05
So now I'm doing a deep dive on lead magnets and I'm finding
00:10:08
them all and doing a series of interviews on them.
00:10:11
There's not a lot of books written about it, so I'll
00:10:12
probably buy the three, four books written about and read
00:10:15
those and learn everything I can about it.
00:10:18
Document their journey along the way and then maybe at the end
00:10:21
I'll have something worth showing and then maybe in six
00:10:23
months from now after I run some campaigns based on what I
00:10:26
learned, I'll have something cool to show, I'll have a case
00:10:28
study of like this is what I did with some lead magnets.
00:10:31
So that's kind of my plan now.
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Logan Lyles: Yeah, so going from telling, which would be kind of
00:10:36
the equivalent of the pontification that we're all
00:10:39
kind of tired of, which I think we pointed out some reasons why
00:10:43
there.
00:10:43
I think one other reason worth calling out is something we've
00:10:45
been talking about on this show is that at the beginning of the
00:10:48
inbound era, at the beginning of the marketing automation era,
00:10:51
what fueled everything, data.
00:10:53
Data that we didn't have before.
00:10:55
We had people's email addresses, either through lead magnets or
00:10:58
for Through, you know, data, tools, those sorts of things.
00:11:01
Now all of a sudden we had data on what people were doing and we
00:11:04
got intent data and this and that, right?
00:11:06
Well, we've kind of reached info apocalypse where we have so much
00:11:09
data, we have so much info, and our buyers have so much info.
00:11:13
And what's really fueling things now is trust because they can
00:11:16
find out how to do anything in any number of ways.
00:11:20
They can hop on LinkedIn and there's no shortage of people
00:11:23
saying this is how you should do it.
00:11:25
What they're asking is Who can I actually trust?
00:11:28
Right.
00:11:28
Which is why the going from telling to showing I think is
00:11:32
also so powerful because it's tapping into, there's a level of
00:11:35
trust when you can say, I'm gonna name names I.
00:11:38
I'm gonna drop numbers.
00:11:40
I'm gonna tell you what we did.
00:11:41
I'm gonna tell you what we accomplished.
00:11:43
I mean, we've seen it recently.
00:11:44
People have been filling, uh, mine and boBrooks@teamwork.com,
00:11:49
our LinkedIn dms.
00:11:50
Um, as we did a case study with HubSpot, when our sales team
00:11:53
moved on to HubSpot a year ago, we were willing to do a case
00:11:56
study.
00:11:56
And guess what?
00:11:58
HubSpot has been blowing that up, has been sharing that other.
00:12:00
Everywhere people have been leaning forward.
00:12:02
'cause there were numbers to share on our sales team's
00:12:05
productivity.
00:12:06
Right.
00:12:06
The other area I see this is like what Databox has been
00:12:09
doing.
00:12:09
Pete Caputo is episode number one on this show and talked
00:12:12
about, you know, collaborating with your audience and they've
00:12:15
been really leaning hard into these benchmark groups and they
00:12:19
actually have numbers to share of here's these type of
00:12:22
companies and what they're seeing.
00:12:23
Good, bad, or indifferent, but it's actual, um, It's something
00:12:27
that they can actually show.
00:12:29
But to your point, You don't always have those things to
00:12:33
show.
00:12:33
Um, and that's where it leads into, you know, the third
00:12:36
option, which is really sharing the journey.
00:12:38
I like what you called out there, is that if you're sharing
00:12:41
the journey and you're going on that journey, then it will
00:12:44
actually lead you to more things to show and a address.
00:12:47
The problem of not having Anything in that second option.
00:12:50
So, you know, you're active on LinkedIn.
00:12:53
As, as we know from this conversation, you've got, uh, a
00:12:56
weekly podcast you do on the podcast channels and YouTube
00:13:00
called the Attention Podcast.
00:13:02
Um, and you've got a, a weekly newsletter that you do so,
00:13:06
between those three channels, what does sharing the journey
00:13:09
specifically look like?
00:13:10
What, like what are some of the tweaks to going from telling, to
00:13:14
showing to then sharing?
00:13:17
If folks are listening to this and they either have a podcast
00:13:19
or they're active on LinkedIn, or they have a newsletter, like
00:13:21
what are some of the tweaks that they can make to go to this
00:13:26
model or this path of sharing the journey in some of those
00:13:29
different channels?
00:13:32
Dan Sanchez: You know, it's funny.
00:13:32
I often like I'm talking, I'm still consulting a lot on
00:13:35
podcasting because I've known for that.
00:13:37
So usually this is regards to podcasting and people are like,
00:13:40
Oh, I can't start doing that because we're already doing this
00:13:43
type of thing on a podcast.
00:13:44
And I'm like.
00:13:45
Great.
00:13:45
Well, start doing this on top of that.
00:13:47
Keep doing that.
00:13:48
Sure.
00:13:48
Keep posting on Fridays that episode you've already been
00:13:50
doing.
00:13:51
And then just start a new episode that's probably like
00:13:53
three minutes long being like, Hey, we're going to do something
00:13:55
new and we're going to go on a deep dive onto this topic.
00:13:57
We're going to be posting about it about this many times over
00:13:59
the next month, two months, whatever it's, whatever it is.
00:14:02
And you can just introduce people to it and bam, start
00:14:04
doing it.
00:14:04
Call it a series and maybe you do it again.
00:14:06
Maybe you don't.
00:14:07
But that's the way I would do it.
00:14:09
Um, you can even inject it along the way.
00:14:11
It's like, just start doing solo episodes about your learning.
00:14:15
Uh, learnings as you're going through and trying to figure
00:14:18
something out.
00:14:19
So you can just start injecting it into what you're already
00:14:21
currently posting.
00:14:23
As extra more content and if you find that that's the content
00:14:26
that's doing better than do more of that and less of the other
00:14:29
stuff that you're currently doing.
00:14:31
So I would just start injecting it in.
00:14:33
Um, I'm not doing it with my newsletters.
00:14:35
I, the, my premise for my newsletter is mainly a react
00:14:38
channel.
00:14:39
Um, so I'm usually reacting to somebody else's stuff and it's
00:14:42
less personal.
00:14:43
So I get more personal on LinkedIn.
00:14:44
I get more personal on my podcast.
00:14:46
Um, and that's currently where I'm keeping it.
00:14:50
Logan Lyles: I love it, man.
00:14:51
And I think that there's, you know, as much as people were
00:14:55
like, oh, if I see another poll, I feel like a year ago people
00:14:58
were complaining about polls on, on LinkedIn.
00:15:00
But you know, I.
00:15:02
I, I've actually found that very kind of short posts with a quick
00:15:07
question or a poll or a great, or a great way to lean into
00:15:11
this, sharing the journey approach on LinkedIn.
00:15:14
Even though, you know, I think what people were sick of is
00:15:16
people just posting polls'cause they got more reach or, Hey,
00:15:19
what's your favorite breakfast cereal on Sunday?
00:15:21
Or that sort of stuff.
00:15:22
So, um, what do you think are some of the formats that people
00:15:26
could keep in mind for, um, this process of going from Going from
00:15:31
telling to showing to sharing, especially on LinkedIn, since
00:15:35
that's kind of where we started the conversation, what has kind
00:15:37
of prompted you and I to rethink our strategy there?
00:15:40
Dan Sanchez: Yeah.
00:15:40
Formats, you said?
00:15:43
Uh, do you mean post formats or like ways, like ways to
00:15:46
structure your post?
00:15:48
Logan Lyles: Um, either one.
00:15:49
I mean, any advice you've got for folks on, like, on, you
00:15:53
know, things where you are seeing, like what's causing you
00:15:56
to generate more comments, engagements, the head nods,
00:15:59
those sorts of things.
00:16:00
Is it just the question, is it question followed up with,
00:16:03
here's kind of what I'm thinking.
00:16:04
Is it a poll?
00:16:05
Is it 1, 2, 3 step that you can kind of follow.
00:16:09
Um, yeah.
00:16:11
Anything there man?
00:16:11
Dan Sanchez: I think all of those, all the formats work.
00:16:15
But I generally like to kick it off with like a hey and a wavy
00:16:18
hand of like, I don't know much about X and I need help trying
00:16:23
to figure this out.
00:16:24
Generally on, because LinkedIn is such a good natured platform,
00:16:27
people want to help.
00:16:28
And if you can ask a question that lots of people know the
00:16:30
answer to, those posts generally do well.
00:16:32
Like, I remember maybe three years ago or so, I was like, Hey
00:16:35
guys, I actually don't know what demand gen means.
00:16:38
I hear some people saying it's this, I hear some people saying
00:16:41
it's that.
00:16:42
What the heck is it?
00:16:44
And you know what?
00:16:45
That post...
00:16:47
So many people are like, you know, I've wondered the same
00:16:49
freaking thing.
00:16:50
So I'd say the one thing to keep in mind is to be transparent and
00:16:54
don't be afraid to not, to, to look like you don't know it all.
00:16:58
You know, you don't need to look like you know it all in order to
00:17:00
ask really good questions.
00:17:02
At the end, if you're curious and you lean into it and put a
00:17:05
student hat on, um, and just learn out loud, you will
00:17:09
probably attract more people.
00:17:10
So.
00:17:12
What type of format of what you should post and how you should
00:17:15
post it.
00:17:15
It could be a poll, it could be a post-test and a question.
00:17:17
It could be sharing a little lesson you learned along the way
00:17:19
and what you still have left to figure out.
00:17:22
Um, those things I think, will fall into place if you are
00:17:27
leaning into curiosity.
00:17:29
Genuinely, like you're trying to figure it out and you're trying
00:17:32
to learn from your, your audience that you do have.
00:17:35
If you're genuinely trying to learn, you will ask the right
00:17:38
questions.
00:17:38
You will post the right polls, you will.
00:17:42
things as you share the journey along the way.
00:17:44
Logan Lyles: Yeah, exactly.
00:17:45
And I think the, the, the mindset shift there is, okay, I,
00:17:50
I think I need to talk about this thing for, for my audience,
00:17:53
so I'm gonna go try and find out the answers.
00:17:55
I'm gonna go learn, but I'm not gonna document any of that.
00:17:58
I'm not gonna record it.
00:17:59
Right.
00:18:00
I'm, I'm just going to Try and have these conversations
00:18:03
offline, which you're having, right?
00:18:05
This podcast episode is an example of that.
00:18:07
You and I have been texting and talking, and I'm like, well,
00:18:11
hey, we should actually record this and share the journey of
00:18:14
what we're, what we're talking about.
00:18:15
And so have, you know, keep that in mind.
00:18:18
What conversations are you having with your peers, with
00:18:21
your customers?
00:18:22
What questions are you trying to answer and turn that into
00:18:25
content.
00:18:26
Um, You know, you touched on the 30 30 30 plan, uh, that you've,
00:18:30
uh, referenced before and you talked about your time where we
00:18:34
were both a host on a daily podcast, uh, from Sweet Fish B
00:18:38
two B growth, and you executed that, that plan.
00:18:41
For folks who aren't familiar with that, give us kind of the,
00:18:44
the quick one minute rundown of what the 30 30.
00:18:47
30, excuse me.
00:18:48
What the 30, 30, 30 plan is, um, how it ties into this and maybe
00:18:54
how you would do it differently now based on, like you said,
00:18:57
things change, things evolve.
00:18:59
You might do it differently than when you were doing those deep
00:19:01
dives, you know, a year or two ago.
00:19:05
Dan Sanchez: I don't know if I changed too much.
00:19:06
The 30 30, the number is just a nice, easy recommendation, but
00:19:10
the number's obviously changed.
00:19:11
But let me tell you what it is.
00:19:12
I developed it as a pathway for thought leadership.
00:19:14
If you're already a professional in this space, maybe you're,
00:19:18
you're a professional account based marketing manager right
00:19:22
now.
00:19:22
That's what you do for your job, and you want to be known for
00:19:24
ABM.
00:19:25
Well, I would recommend the 30 30 30 plan.
00:19:27
If you want to go from just being a professional, like
00:19:29
you're already doing it, to being...
00:19:31
a thought leader in this space, um, and actually leading the
00:19:34
thinking of people on this topic.
00:19:37
The 30 30 30 plan is my ultimate recommendation.
00:19:40
This is, and this is the, the plan.
00:19:43
Read all the books on that topic.
00:19:45
30 books.
00:19:46
It's actually, ABM probably only has 6 or, like, 15 or 17 books.
00:19:50
So, if it's more than 30 books, then you need to niche down
00:19:53
farther.
00:19:54
Maybe do, like, ABM according to sales or something like that.
00:19:58
Like, niche down farther until it's below 30 at least.
00:20:00
It can be less.
00:20:02
Um, so read all the books on the topic.
00:20:04
That way, you kind of explored everything there is to know, or
00:20:07
at least published on a topic.
00:20:09
All the most important things.
00:20:11
And honestly, that sounds really intimidating to read 30 books.
00:20:14
Especially if you don't read more than like one or two books
00:20:16
a year.
00:20:17
I promise, reading, reading 15 or 20 books on a topic feels
00:20:20
more like reading four or five books.
00:20:22
Because those books, especially if they're on the same topic,
00:20:25
all repeat themselves.
00:20:27
Because they have to cover the same contextual information,
00:20:29
usually have the same ish frameworks.
00:20:32
So once you've read two, now you're just looking for new
00:20:34
data.
00:20:35
New pages you haven't, of information you haven't read
00:20:37
for.
00:20:37
It goes fast.
00:20:38
It goes way faster.
00:20:38
You're pretty much skimming for the new information each book
00:20:41
has, and each one has less and less.
00:20:43
As you get through them, um, so that's first step one, 30 bucks.
00:20:48
Step two is 30 interviews because not everything's
00:20:51
published in books.
00:20:52
Go to the ones who, who are the experts, who are the thought
00:20:55
leaders in this space and start a free podcast and go interview
00:20:59
them, not only.
00:21:00
Do you create good content and you're getting associated with
00:21:03
these people, but you're building relationships with them
00:21:06
and you're learning from them.
00:21:08
If you've read all the books or your part, most of the way
00:21:10
through reading those books, your questions are going to be
00:21:13
more informed.
00:21:14
You can start going deeper because you're like, well,
00:21:16
Everybody's talking about this, but nobody actually defines it.
00:21:19
How do you define it?
00:21:20
And then you can actually go in way deeper because now you're
00:21:22
talking to the experts and diving in past the basic
00:21:25
questions.
00:21:26
They'll start to assume you're an expert just because of the
00:21:28
level of questions you're asking based on all the books you've
00:21:30
read.
00:21:30
Um, if you don't believe me, try it.
00:21:33
Like I've done this multiple times now, even on ABM and
00:21:36
people just assume I know a lot just because I read all the
00:21:38
books while I'm still learning.
00:21:39
Um, I always keep that hat on like, I'm just a student.
00:21:42
Um, but people just through a, you get associated with these
00:21:45
experts, you build relationships with them.
00:21:46
It starts to play into your near bound marketing stuff later as
00:21:49
you build relationships with all these people.
00:21:51
Um, and then lastly, write 30 blog posts about the topic,
00:21:55
specifically for SEO, because SEO, if you do the keyword
00:21:58
research, are the most asked questions related to a specific
00:22:01
topic.
00:22:03
What is account based marketing?
00:22:04
Account based marketing tactics?
00:22:06
Account based marketing strategies?
00:22:07
Account based marketing teams?
00:22:09
How do you structure an account based marketing campaign?
00:22:11
These are all the most basic questions that are being asked
00:22:13
on Google.
00:22:14
If you try to write a blog post that ranks number one on Google,
00:22:17
you'll have mastered, because you're teaching it now, the most
00:22:21
fundamental things when it comes to the topic.
00:22:24
And of course, it doesn't have to be 30, it doesn't have to be
00:22:26
30 interviews.
00:22:26
I'm just, I just threw out a number, a rough number, to kind
00:22:28
of like shoot for a round here.
00:22:30
Could be a hundred interviews and...
00:22:31
15 books and 20 blog posts, but, you know, mix and match
00:22:36
yourself.
00:22:37
Um, but if you go through this plan, chances are, and you're
00:22:40
documenting it along the way, like on a place like LinkedIn,
00:22:43
you're kind of like, Hey, I read this book.
00:22:45
This is what I learned.
00:22:45
Hey, I interviewed this person.
00:22:46
This is what I learned.
00:22:47
Hey, I just published this blog post of my best findings.
00:22:51
You're going to be known for that thing, and you're going to
00:22:53
be a thought leader, even if it's just, you know, a
00:22:55
lowercase, you know, lowercase thought leader, and you're just
00:22:59
influencing a few people, you're going to be influencing people
00:23:02
by the end of that.
00:23:03
So that's the 30 30 30 plan.
00:23:05
Logan Lyles: I love that man, and I want to come back to
00:23:07
something you mentioned there and how it ties into your near
00:23:10
bound marketing and activating those external evangelists that
00:23:13
you can start marketing with instead of just trying to market
00:23:17
to your audience a big theme of the show.
00:23:19
But I just wanna chime in there and say, you know, in 2018, I
00:23:24
went from historically being Planted on the sales side to
00:23:28
then sell selling for a B two B podcast agency at Sweet Fish and
00:23:33
selling to marketers.
00:23:34
And I started being referred to as a marketer because I was
00:23:37
hosting a daily show, B two B growth we've talked about here,
00:23:40
where I was interviewing VPs of marketing CMOs, directors of
00:23:43
demand gen, and just by association.
00:23:46
I wasn't necessarily trying to reach a huge audience.
00:23:49
The, the audience of that show was already established, so I
00:23:52
didn't really care about, you know, what's gonna be the, the
00:23:56
right episode and we gotta plan this out and we gotta, no, I was
00:23:59
just showing up as a student and guess what?
00:24:01
It allowed me to interview people who knew more than me.
00:24:05
I learned, I started being associated there and it actually
00:24:07
did help with growing the audience more so than kind of
00:24:10
our, our typical editorial calendar approach.
00:24:13
So I think that there's something to that from my own
00:24:15
experience there as well.
00:24:16
And obviously your and mine overlaps there a good bit.
00:24:20
I.
00:24:20
Talk to me a little bit more about how that 30, 30, 30 plan
00:24:24
and this process of going from telling than everybody's doing,
00:24:28
to showing to sharing the journey, which helps you show
00:24:32
some more like in that share and show.
00:24:35
Where does I.
00:24:36
Where do you think folks are maybe missing the boat, where
00:24:39
there's an opportunity to activate what we've been talking
00:24:42
about on the show, those near bound evangelists, those folks
00:24:45
that are already have more trust and influence with the folks
00:24:49
that you're trying to reach.
00:24:50
What are some of the tactical things you think about there as
00:24:53
it relates to this shift in your social strategy and your
00:24:56
audience growth strategy?
00:24:59
Dan Sanchez: There's kind of multiple things going on with it
00:25:01
as you interview them, as you start to learn from them.
00:25:04
One, again, we already hit on, like, you're building
00:25:06
relationships with them.
00:25:07
If they like you, the chance that they're going to help you
00:25:09
when you need help with something, even if it's small,
00:25:12
like commenting on your post to get some more reach.
00:25:14
Is higher, right?
00:25:16
Like if I reached out to somebody that I just interviewed
00:25:18
yesterday and be like, hey Can you give this post some love
00:25:20
they're gonna say yes I mean, I've got I literally just got a
00:25:23
post like that from somebody.
00:25:24
I didn't know be like, hey It's kind of a random request, but
00:25:27
can you comment on this?
00:25:27
I was like Don't know you have no I'm not even gonna read the
00:25:31
post could be a good post.
00:25:32
Don't care But if you have a relationship You can, you can,
00:25:37
it's a give and take kind of a thing.
00:25:38
Um, you start to be, as, as you become, as you spend more time
00:25:42
with them, and your face shows up next to their face as you
00:25:45
post, because you just interviewed them, right?
00:25:47
You start to be more associated with them, especially if you're
00:25:50
doing it with them and all their buddies and everybody else in
00:25:52
the space.
00:25:53
You start to elevate your own brand, your podcast brand, or
00:25:57
your media brand, or your personal brand, within the space
00:26:00
starts to become recognized.
00:26:02
Um, And ultimately, you start to get in front of their, their
00:26:07
audience because as you interact more with their content and
00:26:10
they're interacting more with your content, especially on a
00:26:12
place like LinkedIn, well, that just means their audience as
00:26:15
they interact with your content is now seeing your stuff and
00:26:19
their comment on your post.
00:26:22
It's almost like an endorsement.
00:26:23
Anytime you comment on a post, like if you have a post that you
00:26:26
hate and you hate the message of, don't comment on it.
00:26:30
Um, because it's literally, it's almost like an endorsement, even
00:26:33
if you're saying, I hate this, you know, because you're,
00:26:36
you're, it's going to go out to all your fans and then they're
00:26:38
going to see your face attached to it, even if they don't read
00:26:40
it.
00:26:41
So that's kind of what's happening though, in a good way.
00:26:44
If you're building relationships with all these people is
00:26:47
organically on LinkedIn, the way it works is you're getting your
00:26:50
post.
00:26:50
You're going to start getting in front of all their, their
00:26:52
followers, unless they're like.
00:26:54
He's so famous on LinkedIn, like Justin Welch, that it doesn't
00:26:57
matter how many times you interact with his posts.
00:26:59
He's got hundreds of people interacting with every single
00:27:01
post, it doesn't matter.
00:27:02
But for the most part, if you go on after like micro influencers
00:27:09
or even some macro influencers, this is still going to work out
00:27:11
relatively well.
00:27:12
Logan Lyles: Mm-hmm.
00:27:12
Yeah, I mean, we've talked about Alex, her Mosey, who has a huge
00:27:16
audience.
00:27:16
One thing he doesn't do on LinkedIn is ever respond to
00:27:19
comments.
00:27:20
So you can go in there if, if, let's say, you know, his
00:27:23
audience overlaps with yours and go and answer some of the
00:27:26
questions that are happening in the, in the comments.
00:27:29
I'm a big fan of getting active in, in the comments and thinking
00:27:32
about those people that you're interviewing, those influencers
00:27:36
and evangelists.
00:27:36
That you're activating, that you're learning from as you go,
00:27:39
uh, as you make this shift in your social strategy to grow an
00:27:42
audience by sharing the journey, not just showing and telling.
00:27:45
Um, and definitely not just telling, but I've had people
00:27:48
recommend this book to me.
00:27:49
I'll, I'll give it a shout out.
00:27:51
It's called Super Connector.
00:27:52
Stop Networking and Start Building Business Relationships.
00:27:55
That matter.
00:27:55
I actually haven't read this book, but I've heard people
00:27:58
mention it when they talk about, like my commenting strategy on
00:28:01
LinkedIn, because I will tag a lot of people in comments on
00:28:05
other people's posts throughout the day, and not in a mass
00:28:08
spammy sort of, uh, tagging way, but like if I think you can add
00:28:12
value to this, if I.
00:28:14
I think someone else can, can jump in or would have 2 cents to
00:28:18
share.
00:28:19
I'm doing that.
00:28:20
The other thing, I think this is super in the weeds, but I think
00:28:23
this plays into this strategy, something that you've done and
00:28:26
other people like Tim Davidson who's been on the show have
00:28:28
called this out.
00:28:29
You actually record loom videos and drop those not in posts, but
00:28:33
in comments sometimes.
00:28:35
Like give us an example of, of that, um, and where that's
00:28:39
worked well.
00:28:39
'cause I think some other marketers could actually learn
00:28:41
from that.
00:28:42
Dan Sanchez: I wish more people would do this but for some
00:28:44
reason Tim Davidson is really the only one who's like actively
00:28:47
pioneered this as a thing, that he does, he does it regularly
00:28:50
now, um, and it works well for both of us.
00:28:53
Um, it's so easy to record Loom videos that I don't understand
00:28:56
why more people don't do it.
00:28:57
I, I use it for everything.
00:28:59
It started with just the typical like oh I'm saving meeting time
00:29:01
and just sending people back answers because an email
00:29:04
response isn't going to suffice, I'm going to show them rather
00:29:06
than just tell them in an email.
00:29:09
But I found that it also worked remarkably well for LinkedIn.
00:29:13
And every time someone had a question that it just took me
00:29:15
too long to type and I'm honestly like I'm decent at
00:29:18
writing like short form content, but some explanations of just
00:29:20
like, ah, I'm just gonna record a video.
00:29:22
It takes less time.
00:29:24
The funny part was is I did it to save time, but it blew
00:29:27
people's minds.
00:29:28
People would be like, oh my gosh thank you so much for a video.
00:29:31
Now here, it's a little bit different.
00:29:33
Because I have a video studio.
00:29:35
If you're not, if you're listening to this and not
00:29:37
watching this, you, you can tell when you see my video, like, oh,
00:29:40
Dan spent some time building a freaking studio in his office.
00:29:42
Got it.
00:29:43
That helps.
00:29:44
And I've also spent a lot of time talking on video, so I can,
00:29:47
I guess, speak more smoothly.
00:29:48
But even, if you have good answers, And just record it in
00:29:52
your bedroom because that's where you're doing, doing your
00:29:55
remote work.
00:29:56
Loom just hits harder because you can give a personal response
00:29:59
even if it's only for an audience of one and sometimes
00:30:01
people like it so much they start tagging all their friends
00:30:04
and then multiple people watch your Loom video.
00:30:06
But it's my favorite way to take passive followers and turn them
00:30:11
into friends.
00:30:13
You could call them engaged fans, but I'd rather just call
00:30:16
them friends because I think that's just more appropriate for
00:30:18
LinkedIn.
00:30:19
People go from, oh, I've heard of you, to, oh, I know Dan
00:30:22
Sanchez because they've watched me and usually multiple times
00:30:27
because I'm doing this all the time in DMs and comments.
00:30:29
By the time we actually meet in Zoom, they're like, oh, yeah,
00:30:32
I've been watching your videos for a long time.
00:30:34
One on one.
00:30:36
Logan Lyles: Yeah, absolutely.
00:30:37
And I think I've talked about this before.
00:30:39
I don't know exactly the mechanism behind the scenes, but
00:30:42
I don't think it's a surprise to anyone as you are LinkedIn, more
00:30:46
than any platform I've ever seen, I've heard Alex Sheridan
00:30:50
talk about this.
00:30:51
It's like a, an ongoing in-person conference that's just
00:30:54
going 24 7 and it is built more like a Like networking at a
00:31:00
conference than it is kind of a, a stage and then an audience
00:31:03
like some other social media platforms because if you're
00:31:07
DMing with someone, It is much more likely that your post is
00:31:11
gonna show up in their feed.
00:31:12
And to your point, if you're already building relationship in
00:31:15
the dms, they see your post, they're probably gonna support
00:31:17
it just organically, even if you don't ask them.
00:31:19
But you do have more capability to ask them because of that
00:31:22
trust and the relationship established.
00:31:23
To your point earlier, if you've been on a call with them, if
00:31:26
you're exchanging emails with them,'cause most of us use the
00:31:29
signup with Google to tie our um, you know, Gmail, even if
00:31:33
it's a Business G Suite account to our LinkedIn.
00:31:36
I have seen it where I just hop off a call with someone.
00:31:39
Uh, we've not been in LinkedIn, dms, we're just emailing, or
00:31:42
we've, they've been on my Google calendar.
00:31:44
They show up in my feed or they show up as liking my next post.
00:31:49
I don't think that that's happenstance.
00:31:50
I think that there's the, the connection there without getting
00:31:53
too deep into the technical 'cause I.
00:31:55
I don't know, but it has happened enough to where it
00:31:58
really seems to make sense to me.
00:32:00
Um, so I, I would just say the more that you lean into the
00:32:04
relationship building, the more that the audience growth is
00:32:07
actually still going to to happen.
00:32:09
And if it's video, then it just accelerates that trust, that
00:32:12
familiarity so much more.
00:32:14
So I'm rambling for a bit.
00:32:16
Any thoughts on that?
00:32:18
Dan Sanchez: I'm like, oh man, that's a stretch.
00:32:20
I mean, the companies are all listening and doing stuff like
00:32:22
that, but I'm like, I don't think Google's passing data to
00:32:25
Microsoft for LinkedIn, but something's happening.
00:32:28
I don't know.
00:32:29
Logan Lyles: It is having so, so much to me, man.
00:32:31
Uh, not to sound super conspiratorial, there's
00:32:34
conspiracy theories, uh, enough out there today without us
00:32:37
adding to'em on the Near Bound Marketing podcast.
00:32:40
But hey, the point is, if you want people to engage, you need
00:32:43
to engage.
00:32:44
You need to start those conversations.
00:32:46
You need to be in the dms, and you need to be in the comments
00:32:49
and video's.
00:32:49
A great way to make your comments turn an audience of one
00:32:52
into an audience of more, right?
00:32:55
Dan Sanchez: Yep, I mean, so much of audience growth in the
00:32:58
very beginning is like, this is the wrong metaphor I'm going to
00:33:01
use anyways, hand to hand combat, you know, um, of course
00:33:04
you're not, you're not punching them, you're loving them, you
00:33:06
know, you're, you're trying to help them and give them a hand,
00:33:09
but it's very much a one to one thing.
00:33:11
Once you've gone one to one, you can go one to few and then
00:33:14
eventually graduate to one to, one to many, but even then, you
00:33:19
try never to get away from the one to one in helping people.
00:33:22
The bet one one of the best ways to do that is just through
00:33:24
sending people loom videos because you can you can build
00:33:27
more relationship that way
00:33:30
Logan Lyles: Yeah, and I like the, you mentioned this, I think
00:33:32
on your Attention podcast with the other Nick Bennett that we
00:33:35
know at Harness and hone, not Nick Bennett at tac, but you
00:33:39
were saying your network is kind of like your, your pre audience.
00:33:42
I.
00:33:42
In a way, right?
00:33:43
Yeah.
00:33:43
As you grow your network, they're gonna be the, the folks
00:33:45
that can kind of be that kindling to light the fire of an
00:33:49
audience that, that grows more rapidly and it becomes more
00:33:52
exponential.
00:33:53
Well, man, I think we could, we could record for another hour
00:33:56
and a half and it would still be great, but I think there is a
00:33:58
good spot to, uh, to round it out.
00:34:01
So, going from Telling to, showing to sharing might not be,
00:34:06
might not work for you, but at least it's something that Dan
00:34:09
and I are experimenting with.
00:34:11
Dan's done a good job of showing some examples of where that has
00:34:14
worked for him.
00:34:15
So if people want to stay connected with you, Dan, what's
00:34:18
the best way for them to, uh, stay engaged with you, follow
00:34:21
your content, and see what you're sharing on the journey as
00:34:24
you, you know, uh, continue on this path to, to kind of shift
00:34:29
your approach to your own audience growth.
00:34:32
Dan Sanchez: I mean LinkedIn.
00:34:33
com is probably the best way so linkedin.
00:34:35
com slash in slash digital marketing Dan back when
00:34:38
everybody was calling themselves digital marketers And now it's
00:34:41
permanently that
00:34:43
Logan Lyles: Easy enough, man.
00:34:44
Well, we'll put it there.
00:34:45
You can find him@danchaz.com.
00:34:47
Uh, look him up.
00:34:48
Uh, his newsletter is fantastic.
00:34:51
Highly recommend, uh, subscribing to that if you
00:34:53
enjoyed this conversation.
00:34:55
Dan, this was fantastic, man.
00:34:56
Hopefully we made some new friends sharing the journey
00:34:58
today.
00:34:59
I.
00:35:00
Thank you for being my friend and joining me on the show
00:35:02
today, man.
00:35:03
Dan Sanchez: Absolutely
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