Using LinkedIn to Grow Your Sales with Guest Vlogger, Adam Van Bavel of O'Neil Interactive

Grab those earbuds and click the video above to take you to the full playlist. The following transcript is from the abridged version of this video, not the full playlist. The information provided by Adam was so good, we decided to offer it as a full training session, broken down into 2 videos for your viewing convenience. Happy Selling!

Hey there, my name is Adam Van Bavel and I’m the Business Development Manager here at O’Neil Interactive. I want to talk to you today about how to maximize the value of LinkedIn and increase your sales. I’m on LinkedIn pretty much every day multiple times a day. A lot of people overlook the value of utilizing LinkedIn, not just from a B2B (Business to Business) standpoint, but also B2C (Business to Consumer). I want to be able to talk to you about that here today, help you stand out, add value, build relationships and ultimately just sell more. I’m going start with a quote from someone that I find incredibly impactful; a guy named Seth Godin. He says, “If you’ve never heard of it if you wouldn’t choose it; if you wouldn’t recommend it; then there is no brand; at least not for you.” Think about that in relation to not just where you work, the product that you sell, but also yourself. That’s something that I focus on – always trying to increase what I would call mindshare.

If you look at the screen up here, there are two cups of coffee. Everyone loves coffee. Maybe you don’t. Maybe you’re a tea person or maybe you just don’t like to drink hot beverages. But regardless, two cups of coffee and one is different than the other, so you’ll see social media is utilized here, and we’re going to be talking specifically about LinkedIn. But the reason why I wanted to share this is how do you differentiate yourself? LinkedIn is one form of many that you can utilize to differentiate yourself, but how do you tell that story differently? A real-life example would be from the content that I put on LinkedIn. It’s not just the content you put out, but it’s also the content that you engage with more importantly to help build those relationships. Due to that, over the past couple of years I’ve had several Home Builders – at O’Neil Interactive we do website design and development digital marketing, and we work with Home Builders – so, I’ve had several home builders reach out to me and ask about our services. That’s important because the cup of coffee on the left there – the orange one – you can see it’s kind of old and doesn’t get much activity and not much engagement. The reason why is that my competition is not taking the efforts to be seen and add as much value like I am – like O’Neil Interactive is. So using LinkedIn is a really easy way, just like this video, to be sharing valuable content whether it’s text, images, and videos, engaging with people, sharing ideas and building those relationships. So again, increase mindshare and work to be a magnet. Let people come to you.

Some other tips and hacks for your LinkedIn profile specifically. If I were to give you a bulleted list – a custom URL. I’m going to be showing examples of all these here in just a minute, but you want to make sure that your URL is customized, use diverse content, and in that the 80/20 rule. You don’t want to be just selling, selling, selling. You know the phrase, “social selling”. You want to be essentially providing value 80% of the time. For me, that’s sharing the work other builders are doing, sharing work strategic partners are doing, and being able to provide value to my network. Then every so often talking about a really exciting new product that we have or a great success story from a home builder from their website or a digital marketing initiative that we’ve done for them. Remember that 80/20 rule: text, photos, video, audio, hashtags, emojis – so diversity in that content again.

Your profile photo – that’s huge. You want to have a current photo. Current! The current photo could be a year or two old, but I don’t want to see photos from the 80s of you if that’s your LinkedIn profile – or anywhere online. It’s just not building a genuine relationship, but it’s kind of like catfishing. If you’re not familiar with what that is, you can Google it. You want to show something so that people can see you at an event and recognize you so that it’s you now and not 20 years ago. It should be professional, and you don’t need to spend a lot of money to hire a photographer. You could use a tripod and your phone and a simple clean backdrop. Take a picture of yourself and edit it, and very easily have a great photo to use. But you want something current and professional and also a solid background. It makes it a lot easier to focus on your face if you went up close and tight. Again, something that’s recognizable.

A lot of you new home salespeople watching this want to figure out how you can get value out of it. (LinkedIn page showing on screen). I don’t know Jessica, but she is from Maryland, I do know that. She used to work with a good friend of mine, and she is a new home salesperson. This is a great example. She has got the community she’s selling in, so a visual connection right out of the gate. She’s got her hashtag that she’s created #callQuig – Jessica Quigley. Call Quig, the Queen of K-Bar Ranch, so that’s awesome branding right there. She’s sharing content around the community and around the area where the community is located. If I’m a buyer, or if I’m a prospect and I happened to come to K-Bar Ranch, or find the website or Jessica has reached out to me somehow, and now I want to learn more, I’m going to go online. I’m going to do some research and find this (LinkedIn) profile. I tell you what, if it’s Jessica, and someone else who doesn’t have a fully completed LinkedIn profile, I’m impressed when I see this, whereas the other person, maybe there’s nothing to be found there. She’s standing out. She’s jumping up ahead. Now she just has to build nice homes at the right price point where I want to buy, and she’s pretty much sold a home right there.

I just want to end here with my buddy Quint (Lears). This was from a video interview about AI (Artificial Intelligence) and relationships adding value. Everything is relationships, and that doesn’t matter if it’s personal or professional. If you genuinely care about the conversations you have with those that you work with, those that you live with, those that are part of your community or your tribe, then it’s about giving back. It’s not just a one-way street. When you’re able to do that, you will find value, you will see more business come your way, and you will see more opportunities come your way. You will be more fulfilled and happier because of that mindset.

I encourage you if you’re using LinkedIn, the 80/20 rule and share valuable content. Please reach out to me if you have any additional questions, I’d love to take some time and help you if you’re willing to commit to making the most out of being on LinkedIn. Learn the platform, get creative and accelerate your career. There are some bonuses that I have for you when I share the extended version of this video about branding and how to utilize LinkedIn for your brand and about sharing video on the platform. LinkedIn has two blogs – sales and marketing – so make sure you see those resources. Additionally, in the video is a message from my friend Erica (Pyatt, Manager, Advocacy and Government https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericapyatt/). LinkedIn is also about events coming soon for pages. If you have a company page and you want to share events, you’ll soon be able to do that from LinkedIn.

I appreciate the time and opportunity. Thank you so much Kimberly for having me here today. Get out there and crush it on LinkedIn! Thanks for watching. Watch the full series (broken into 2 videos) on YouTube to learn even more!)

Adam Van Bavel, Business Development Manager at O’Neil Interactive