1 Out of 100 Sellers Does This. He Built 8x Pipeline Doing It.

Neal Goyal: It's the equivalent of being at a cocktail party, seeing a pretty girl across the room at the bar.

Neal Goyal: You walk straight up to her and the first thing out of your mouth is there are no shortcuts to building a relationship.

Neal Goyal: I live on LinkedIn and I would say that is about 50% of my day.

Neal Goyal: One out of every 100 sellers

Neal Goyal: creates regular content on LinkedIn. The other 99 don't. What's the hardest thing about what you do? Finding a way to

Neal Goyal: build a real relationship with the end brand.

Neal Goyal: I've spent my entire career in the direct to consumer ecosystem,

Neal Goyal: and one of the hardest things to do is build trust with the brands that you serve.

Neal Goyal: If you have 14,483

Neal Goyal: software companies, they're all trying to gain the attention of the same 2,000 brands on Shopify.

Neal Goyal: Building trust is really difficult.

Neal Goyal: Building relationships that stick is really difficult, and that is the hardest part of what we do.

Neal Goyal: But it's a large part of every GTM Motion that I get really excited about.

Sean Weisbrot: So you've been with Postpilot for eight months.

Sean Weisbrot: You told me you eight x their pipeline.

Sean Weisbrot: How did you do that?

Sean Weisbrot: I've spent my career focusing

Neal Goyal: on software companies in the ecommerce world, serving

Neal Goyal: all the amazing brands that we know and love.

Neal Goyal: The go to market motion and outbound motion often

Neal Goyal: looks like, oh, let me go spam all decision makers with an email.

Neal Goyal: Let me go

Neal Goyal: cold call them.

Neal Goyal: And at the end of the day, that's something that really erodes trust, and performance of that has diminished over the course of time.

Neal Goyal: So the question is how do you actually cut through the noise?

Neal Goyal: You cut through the noise by genuinely developing trust, and how I typically have done that is through LinkedIn. LinkedIn has been the single largest source for all of my career successes, I would argue, but definitely the source of pipeline, definitely the source of building trust and building relationships.

Neal Goyal: Right?

Neal Goyal: Others that use it for sales often repeat their spam like behavior that they did in other channels,

Neal Goyal: whereas I prefer to leverage LinkedIn as a a true place to build relationships, build connections, deliver value,

Neal Goyal: and then build trust in that process, thought leadership in that process, and ultimately command attention from an audience.

Neal Goyal: So we're often in the game of competing for attention rather than competing for

Neal Goyal: solution to solution.

Neal Goyal: It's like, how can you captivate, entertain,

Neal Goyal: educate, and deliver value to an audience and build trust in that fashion?

Neal Goyal: So that's how I traditionally build my DTM motions as I do that, and has been the largest success

Neal Goyal: for what's been done at Postpilot over the last eight months.

Sean Weisbrot: So do you combine content and outreach

Sean Weisbrot: called outreach, or do you allow your content to get people to reach out to you?

Sean Weisbrot: Like, how do you actually use LinkedIn to manage that?

Neal Goyal: Yeah.

Neal Goyal: Great question.

Neal Goyal: When you think about content, I think content is actually the last step in what I consider a three part flywheel.

Neal Goyal: So content, is,

Neal Goyal: very much like a billboard.

Neal Goyal: Like, hi. I have this thing that

Neal Goyal: feels important, and I want people to see it. Right?

Neal Goyal: Come to me. Look at me. Look at me. Right?

Neal Goyal: And if you think about a what it means to build a relationship,

Neal Goyal: that that's asking for something.

Neal Goyal: So the ask in a real relationship typically comes after you've given something first.

Neal Goyal: Right?

Neal Goyal: So give more than you can take.

Neal Goyal: So when you think about this, like, flywheel of LinkedIn, those who are using it most effectively,

Neal Goyal: the way I've built relationship on LinkedIn, the way I've built GTM motions using LinkedIn

Neal Goyal: really actually starts by showing up for your audience or your target ICP first, showing up where they are.

Neal Goyal: So for instance, you have a,

Neal Goyal: a CMO at a brand that you're trying to get in front of, and that CMO posts actively on LinkedIn or or or occasionally on LinkedIn. Go cheer them on. Go and,

Neal Goyal: be in their comments.

Neal Goyal: Be the person that says something, really positive,

Neal Goyal: roots for them, delivers value, adds a unique piece of insight, and do so in the comments.

Neal Goyal: Very few people will remember who liked their post.

Neal Goyal: Everybody will remember a thoughtful comment.

Neal Goyal: Right?

Neal Goyal: Now when you think about outbound, outbound is

Neal Goyal: you know, salespeople, I think, by default, are, like, very impatient individuals.

Neal Goyal: I'll put myself in that same bucket.

Neal Goyal: Right?

Neal Goyal: And so oftentimes, it's like, hey.

Neal Goyal: Let me let me go ask for a meeting.

Neal Goyal: Let me go ask for a DM or or ask for something in the DMs or send a connection request.

Neal Goyal: But the reality is is that when you think about connection requests when they're sent on LinkedIn,

Neal Goyal: what?

Neal Goyal: One out of five connection requests are accepted.

Neal Goyal: Four out of five are ignored or declined.

Neal Goyal: Right?

Neal Goyal: And why is that?

Neal Goyal: It's because

Neal Goyal: they don't know you.

Neal Goyal: Right?

Neal Goyal: It's like somewhat like, by by accepting a connection request on LinkedIn, they're inviting you into their world.

Neal Goyal: They're inviting saying, yes.

Neal Goyal: Look at my what I'm doing, and,

Neal Goyal: look at I'll look what you're doing, and I'm giving you free two way communication to communicate with me. It's like literally giving a stranger a phone number.

Neal Goyal: Right?

Neal Goyal: And so that's a difficult thing to do, which is why the connect rates are so low.

Neal Goyal: Whereas,

Neal Goyal: if you have already shown up for that particular person for a period of time, thirty, forty five days,

Neal Goyal: engaged for a period of time with their content, made them laugh, cheered them on,

Neal Goyal: then all of a sudden, when you've made enough, what I call, deposits,

Neal Goyal: deposits in the form of, like, things you give to someone in a relationship,

Neal Goyal: then you earn the right to say, you know what?

Neal Goyal: I'm gonna take a withdrawal and make a withdrawal now.

Neal Goyal: And that withdrawal is just sending the connect request, asking

Neal Goyal: inherently or implicitly to be a part of the world.

Neal Goyal: Right?

Neal Goyal: Not asking for a meeting, not asking for them to do anything other than hit accept.

Neal Goyal: Right?

Neal Goyal: So, typically, by doing kinda taking that philosophy, my connect accept grace, acceptance rate's around 80%,

Neal Goyal: right, which is kind of insane when you think about it. And many people will be like, hey, Neil.

Neal Goyal: It's because you have a LinkedIn audience.

Neal Goyal: Like, that's why.

Neal Goyal: Well, no. We're I'm not connected with that person.

Neal Goyal: They have no idea who I am. Right?

Neal Goyal: But they do when they see the connect request, they're like, Neil, that sounds familiar.

Neal Goyal: Oh, yeah.

Neal Goyal: He's that guy that's super caffeinated, high energy, always positive.

Neal Goyal: He's always in my comments.

Neal Goyal: I I don't remember what he said, but I do remember how he made me feel, and he's always got something nice to say.

Neal Goyal: Fine.

Neal Goyal: Accept.

Neal Goyal: Boom.

Neal Goyal: That is, like, step one complete in terms of showing up for them.

Neal Goyal: Step two, getting it accepted because they won't see your content unless they've accepted.

Neal Goyal: You're not connected with them,

Neal Goyal: so they won't see it. Right?

Neal Goyal: You might get views, but they might not be the relevant views.

Neal Goyal: Right?

Neal Goyal: You're talking about your target, brand that you wanna work with or a customer that you wanna work with.

Neal Goyal: How do you get them to see your content?

Neal Goyal: That only happens after you have a two way connection, on LinkedIn,

Neal Goyal: and the only way you get that connection is by showing up for them first.

Sean Weisbrot: It feels like a full time job.

Sean Weisbrot: It is? How do you get work done if all you're doing is is spending time on LinkedIn building relationships?

Neal Goyal: I live on LinkedIn, and I would say that is about 50% of my day.

Neal Goyal: Right?

Neal Goyal: When you think about, GTM leadership,

Neal Goyal: and and even as as someone as an individual I see, if you are looking to achieve sales success,

Neal Goyal: the the the the most important factor in all of that is pipeline.

Neal Goyal: Right?

Neal Goyal: How much pipeline do you have?

Neal Goyal: I personally consider myself, like, just an above average seller,

Neal Goyal: like, just above average.

Neal Goyal: But as an individual contributor back in my selling days, the reason why I always outperformed

Neal Goyal: every other rep that I sat alongside is I just had eight x a pipeline of everybody else.

Neal Goyal: And so for that in in that scenario, you don't have to be an excellent seller.

Neal Goyal: You just

Neal Goyal: by a factor of numbers, you end up performing better than everyone else.

Neal Goyal: And so that's where it's like, okay.

Neal Goyal: If pipeline is the most

Neal Goyal: important contributor, and building pipeline is harder than ever.

Neal Goyal: Like I mentioned before, in my space, ecommerce, 14,483

Neal Goyal: software companies chasing the same 2,000 brands on Shopify, those poor

Neal Goyal: email inboxes of those CMOs and VPs of marketing and whatnot, like, I can't even imagine what they look like.

Neal Goyal: And it's the reason why performance of emails channel has gone down so much, particularly for our niche.

Neal Goyal: Right?

Neal Goyal: So so the question is, like, how do you cut through that noise?

Neal Goyal: And if pipe gen is the key to to ultimately, driving revenue and performance,

Neal Goyal: the question is what type of pipe gen works?

Neal Goyal: And

Neal Goyal: for me, it's not email.

Neal Goyal: For me, it's like go to LinkedIn. That's where your audience is. That's where your ICP spends their time.

Neal Goyal: Your average customer is actually clicking into LinkedIn six to seven times per day.

Neal Goyal: They're clicking to their in email inbox because it's a giant to do list of things that they need to weave through.

Neal Goyal: They click into LinkedIn because they're, like,

Neal Goyal: bored, or they wanna kill the time, or they wanna find something else to do, or or they wanna be entertained, or they wanna see what's up in their industry, or what what's going on with their network.

Neal Goyal: So why not meet them where they are?

Neal Goyal: Right?

Neal Goyal: Like, if that's where they're spending their time, why as someone that's trying to build pipeline, why wouldn't you spend your time there as well?

Neal Goyal: So short answer, yeah.

Neal Goyal: It is a full time job.

Neal Goyal: And so when I develop these systems across sales teams,

Neal Goyal: that's kind of part of the mantra that I preach as well.

Neal Goyal: Right?

Neal Goyal: Like, show up where your prospects are, and that's that's on LinkedIn right now.

Sean Weisbrot: When I get connection requests, I just look at, are they relevant?

Sean Weisbrot: And the vast majority of them aren't.

Sean Weisbrot: Some of them give me a note.

Sean Weisbrot: Most of them don't. I look at the note.

Sean Weisbrot: Usually, the note tells me I don't wanna talk to them.

Sean Weisbrot: And and I think I'm more likely to respond if they don't have a note.

Sean Weisbrot: But, yeah, I think most people aren't relevant.

Sean Weisbrot: And I I do recognize

Sean Weisbrot: the part you were talking about with content where

Sean Weisbrot: I've been talking a lot more about the software that I've been building, SparkFox, and

Sean Weisbrot: I have been getting a lot of ghostwriters

Sean Weisbrot: and, like, agency owners that do content stuff responding you know, commenting on my content.

Sean Weisbrot: I was like, but I'm not serving you.

Sean Weisbrot: You're not the right people.

Sean Weisbrot: I'm trying to attack founders of companies or investors of companies.

Sean Weisbrot: And so, that's also because, possibly,

Sean Weisbrot: I am not going to my ICP. But then again, I'm at a stage where I'm trying to figure out who my audience is. I'm trying to identify who's gonna be the one that's most likely to buy and

Sean Weisbrot: and and want it enough to buy.

Sean Weisbrot: And so

Sean Weisbrot: I and it's different for you where it's very easy.

Sean Weisbrot: You know exactly who you're looking for.

Sean Weisbrot: You know the names of the ecommerce brands.

Sean Weisbrot: You know this and that.

Sean Weisbrot: So it's it's easier for you to figure that out.

Sean Weisbrot: But for me, it's like, well, I could add a ton of investors

Sean Weisbrot: and spend six months talk you know, trying to reach out to them, but they could be the wrong people.

Sean Weisbrot: I could spend six months talking to founders.

Sean Weisbrot: They could be the wrong people.

Sean Weisbrot: You know?

Sean Weisbrot: Maybe agencies are the right people.

Sean Weisbrot: I don't even know.

Sean Weisbrot: So I I'm building for a problem that I have that I'm sure other people have and are interested in, But,

Sean Weisbrot: simultaneously trying to figure out who will be the buyer,

Sean Weisbrot: and I don't know.

Sean Weisbrot: Maybe that's a bad idea.

Sean Weisbrot: But

Neal Goyal: Well, actually, I I I think LinkedIn is an incredible feedback loop for for that too.

Neal Goyal: Right?

Neal Goyal: So, like, oftentimes,

Neal Goyal: you're you're absolutely right.

Neal Goyal: Like, in my space, like, I know exactly who my

Neal Goyal: my ICP is. I know exactly who my customer is. If I look at all of my LinkedIn connections, about 90%

Neal Goyal: of them are in my ICP, which is a brand side founder

Neal Goyal: or marketing leader.

Neal Goyal: Right?

Neal Goyal: So I'm speaking directly to the audience I'm I'm looking to sell to. That's but that's when it's a defined ICP. Whereas

Neal Goyal: though I mean, we have so many startups that are popping up. It's easier than ever to launch an an a new solution.

Neal Goyal: And and as a result, the first thing you're thinking about is, like, well, is this solution

Neal Goyal: gonna be valuable to an audience?

Neal Goyal: Is it worth scaling?

Neal Goyal: Is it worth diving deeper into?

Neal Goyal: And in that process, you're trying to understand who the audience is. LinkedIn is that feedback loop.

Neal Goyal: Like, if you're

Neal Goyal: bringing in the wrong folks, then you understand, okay.

Neal Goyal: Is it something with my product?

Neal Goyal: Is it something with my messaging?

Neal Goyal: What's my strategy?

Neal Goyal: That can often,

Neal Goyal: inform, like, what you should be writing about.

Neal Goyal: But then the other part is is that going and finding that audience, using a tool like LinkedIn sales nav or or other tools to give you some kind of sense of who is that target ICP that you're going after that you think

Neal Goyal: might do well.

Neal Goyal: Make sure you put in the effort chasing after them in terms of, like, making deposits,

Neal Goyal: ultimately getting those connection requests.

Neal Goyal: So they see your content and fall into that flywheel, and then you have a quick feedback on whether or not it's resonating with that target audience.

Neal Goyal: Right?

Neal Goyal: But, again, it's a trial and test, and I think LinkedIn is a great feedback loop for all of that.

Sean Weisbrot: I think a lot of people are not doing

Sean Weisbrot: what you do. I think a lot of people

Sean Weisbrot: are and and I've been in rooms where people are talking about this, talking about strategy, where they will maximize the number of connection requests

Sean Weisbrot: every day for as long as they can

Sean Weisbrot: and send cold DMs to every single one of those people, but they probably don't have a content engine or they don't have a presence that really

Sean Weisbrot: is something people are willing to respond to, and so they get really low response rates.

Sean Weisbrot: Where I'm

Sean Weisbrot: I have been focused on trying to create content, and Smart Fox is making a lot of that content for me. That's a question I wanted to ask you about as well.

Sean Weisbrot: It's helping me to make a lot of content,

Sean Weisbrot: but I'm not going and connecting with people.

Sean Weisbrot: I'm not sending connection requests.

Sean Weisbrot: I'm I'm actually getting thirty, forty, 50 people a week following me.

Sean Weisbrot: My hope is the people following me are the right people, but I'm not,

Sean Weisbrot: the vast majority of them are not connecting.

Sean Weisbrot: They're not requesting to connect with me, and I'm not requesting to connect with them.

Sean Weisbrot: So I think that's possibly where I'm falling short, personally.

Sean Weisbrot: I think a lot of other people make big bigger mistakes than that.

Neal Goyal: I mean, you said it beautifully.

Neal Goyal: It's like,

Neal Goyal: how do you get the right people or you're the ones you're going after to see your content?

Neal Goyal: You have to have that two way connection.

Neal Goyal: You have to. Because, otherwise,

Neal Goyal: yes, you'll there'll be plenty of people you're not connected with that'll see your content, but are they your ICP? No. Whereas if you send a connection request, you believe or at least have a thesis that they're in your ICP. Right?

Neal Goyal: So you have to have that two way connection, but the problem is is that, like,

Neal Goyal: if you send a con a cold connection request to somebody and you haven't

Neal Goyal: just, like, doing it out of the blue, like, kinda you mentioned, you know, a few folks that are just, like, you know, spamming connect requests maxing out per day.

Neal Goyal: It's the equivalent of being at a cocktail party,

Neal Goyal: seeing a pretty cool girl across the room at the bar.

Neal Goyal: You walk straight up to her, and the first thing out of your mouth is, can I have your phone number?

Neal Goyal: Like, that's insulting.

Neal Goyal: Like, doesn't work.

Neal Goyal: It's,

Neal Goyal: it it it it's it's just the wrong approach to build any sort of relationship.

Neal Goyal: Right?

Neal Goyal: That is what a cold connection request is. You're asking to be a part of their world out of the gate, and they know nothing about you.

Neal Goyal: So what if you were to show up for them first for a period of time?

Neal Goyal: It takes a thirty, forty five day runway.

Neal Goyal: Like, it's not a

Neal Goyal: quick fix.

Neal Goyal: It does require a long game approach, and actually requires the desire to build a real relationship.

Neal Goyal: Right?

Neal Goyal: Like, that's that's the first and foremost.

Neal Goyal: I think we often have a tendency

Neal Goyal: to completely forget all proper social etiquette and behavior

Neal Goyal: when we're on any type of virtual or online environment.

Neal Goyal: Whereas would you behave this way

Neal Goyal: and and send out a bunch of connect requests to a bunch of people live in in a cocktail room and go ask for 10 phone numbers all in one fell swoop?

Neal Goyal: No. It seems so bizarre to go do that.

Neal Goyal: But why do we behave that other

Sean Weisbrot: fair enough.

Sean Weisbrot: Like, what are you at a cocktail party for?

Sean Weisbrot: You're trying to meet people.

Neal Goyal: Yeah.

Neal Goyal: But, I mean, at at at the end of the day, there's a way of doing that.

Neal Goyal: Right?

Neal Goyal: Like, the way of doing that where it's gonna have more success.

Neal Goyal: Right?

Neal Goyal: You're unlikely to be successful

Neal Goyal: if you do that bam, bam, bam, 10 in a row.

Neal Goyal: You might get one one out of 10. Right?

Neal Goyal: But that's not the game we're playing here.

Neal Goyal: If we're trying to build real relationships with all our of I all of our ICP, how do I get 80% of people to accept my connection request?

Neal Goyal: That requires showing up for them first.

Neal Goyal: Doing something that adds value to them, makes them feel good,

Neal Goyal: cheers them on, that requires showing up for them.

Neal Goyal: And that requires the long game approach, something that most people actually deprioritize or forget in that whole outbound process.

Sean Weisbrot: So I don't normally talk about this, but I will.

Sean Weisbrot: So I asked my wife out after meeting her for, like, a minute,

Sean Weisbrot: and she she said yes because she didn't realize that it was a date.

Sean Weisbrot: So she so she's Vietnamese.

Sean Weisbrot: I met her in Vietnam.

Sean Weisbrot: I arrived there my first day.

Sean Weisbrot: She was managing the Airbnb that I was staying in,

Sean Weisbrot: and she showed up to hand me the key and make sure that there was no issues with the room, with the

Sean Weisbrot: apartment.

Sean Weisbrot: And it was around dinner time.

Sean Weisbrot: I didn't know anybody.

Sean Weisbrot: I had never been to the country.

Sean Weisbrot: And I was like, hey.

Sean Weisbrot: Are you doing anything for dinner?

Sean Weisbrot: And she's like, no. I go, great.

Sean Weisbrot: I'm taking you for dinner.

Sean Weisbrot: She's like, okay.

Sean Weisbrot: Then we went out for dinner.

Sean Weisbrot: She she thought nothing of it. And,

Sean Weisbrot: you know, like, a week later, we were dating.

Neal Goyal: Well, see, not not everyone is as lucky as you are.

Neal Goyal: I mean, like, that that sounds like, sounds like you got some k, man.

Sean Weisbrot: Well, being white in an Asian country helps.

Sean Weisbrot: And she told me recently that when she was younger, she did dream of having a a half white baby.

Sean Weisbrot: So that also helps that I picked the right one.

Sean Weisbrot: K. But she's also very, very sweet.

Sean Weisbrot: We get along very well.

Neal Goyal: Things fell in your favor there.

Sean Weisbrot: Yes. For sure.

Sean Weisbrot: So AI.

Sean Weisbrot: Are you using AI for connecting or writing content or no?

Neal Goyal: I personally do not.

Neal Goyal: Right?

Neal Goyal: I personally do not.

Neal Goyal: When,

Neal Goyal: yes.

Neal Goyal: AI I think the only place where AI is an assist is in creating the content.

Neal Goyal: Right?

Neal Goyal: Creating the content itself.

Neal Goyal: Not necessarily ideating the content.

Neal Goyal: I think, ultimately, for me,

Neal Goyal: it's my own ideas.

Neal Goyal: It's my own copy, and I use AI to refine it and make it sound just a little bit better.

Neal Goyal: Right?

Neal Goyal: So that's the limitation of what I use in AI. But when it comes to, like, actually

Neal Goyal: I think that's where I completely take a polar opposite approach to almost everyone that's building some kind of AI outreach tool, right, for for the purpose of outreach, is

Neal Goyal: there are no shortcuts to building a relationship.

Neal Goyal: There are no shortcuts to building trust.

Neal Goyal: There are no shortcuts to showing up for someone

Neal Goyal: more than they show up for you.

Neal Goyal: Those are all things that just require a genuine desire to serve, a genuine desire to show up, and a a genuine desire to build a real relationship.

Neal Goyal: You can't AI any of those out.

Neal Goyal: And so when you think about the time that I spend on LinkedIn,

Neal Goyal: it's with all of that in mind, and those are things that AI cannot do.

Neal Goyal: Or I I I wouldn't say this.

Neal Goyal: It's not the AI cannot do. I will not allow

Neal Goyal: AI to do for me. Because for me, if I genuinely want to build a a relationship with person

Neal Goyal: a, b, and c, well, that requires me doing the things that I would do

Neal Goyal: at a cocktail party or in a in a in a, you know, physical, social environment.

Neal Goyal: Right?

Neal Goyal: I behave the same way there.

Neal Goyal: And and that's something that AI, I don't think, is ever gonna replace.

Neal Goyal: Now that said, AI can make things more efficient, for sure.

Neal Goyal: AI can help me with things like analytics and helping me understand what's resonating and what's not.

Neal Goyal: So on the data side, AI can help with refining copy, but the concept of actually building relationship,

Neal Goyal: the concept of AI commenting, oh my gosh.

Neal Goyal: No. Please no. Never.

Neal Goyal: Like, it's the bane of my existence.

Neal Goyal: AI DMs,

Neal Goyal: never in a million years would I ever engage in such.

Neal Goyal: It's just not my thing, simply because when I reach out to somebody, I'm reaching out to them with the desire to genuinely shake their hand, and you can't automate that.

Neal Goyal: Right?

Neal Goyal: You can't automate that.

Neal Goyal: It has to come from a genuine place.

Sean Weisbrot: AI comments piss me off so much.

Sean Weisbrot: It's so obvious that they've written

Sean Weisbrot: a comment for someone even if the comment is, like, two sentences.

Sean Weisbrot: And it's it's so frustrating because it's so obvious.

Sean Weisbrot: Like, how lazy are you that you can't even write a comment?

Sean Weisbrot: Now to be fair, I'm building a tool that generates ideas and generates content, but I'm my goal is to keep it as human as possible.

Sean Weisbrot: But,

Sean Weisbrot: like, even I think AI comments are awful.

Sean Weisbrot: And sometimes I see the comments, and I and, like, sometimes I see people use AI comments on my content,

Sean Weisbrot: and I wanna give them hell for it. But then I think about how the AI wrote my post,

Sean Weisbrot: and, like, I can't give them too much of a hard time

Sean Weisbrot: because the AI wrote my content.

Sean Weisbrot: It's like, how dare you use an AI to comment

Sean Weisbrot: when I've just used an AI to generate the post?

Sean Weisbrot: But, like,

Sean Weisbrot: even I write my own comments.

Sean Weisbrot: Like, come on, guys.

Sean Weisbrot: How hard is that?

Neal Goyal: Yeah.

Neal Goyal: I mean, AI commenting and AI supported posts are, I think, two

Neal Goyal: on two different ends of the spectrum.

Neal Goyal: Right?

Neal Goyal: Like,

Neal Goyal: if you think about the purpose of content,

Neal Goyal: of the comment, I want to deliver value to somebody else.

Neal Goyal: I'm showing up for somebody else,

Neal Goyal: and I want to add my POV on somebody else's content.

Neal Goyal: Those are all things that

Neal Goyal: do require that physical desire or or internal desire to deliver that value or that touchpoint.

Neal Goyal: Whereas the content itself, to me, like,

Neal Goyal: as long as the content is authentic, comes from your POV, and you're using AI to further fuel, a, what's performing well, understand

Neal Goyal: acting based on data, acting based on performance, what's resonating with your ICP, and then on top of that,

Neal Goyal: refining what is already your unique POV on the world or subject matter, then, yeah, it's absolutely warranted, and it's absolutely a good thing to do. I think the the commenting thing is the one where you're reaching out into somebody else's turf.

Neal Goyal: You're the one who's looking to build a relationship, and that's something that, in my view, shouldn't be automated or AI.

Sean Weisbrot: So 50% of your day is LinkedIn. What's the other 50% of your day?

Neal Goyal: Well, I think the remaining 50, percent is is devoted to, helping the the team understand the philosophy

Neal Goyal: behind this approach too.

Neal Goyal: Right?

Neal Goyal: So one is, like, actually putting the pipeline engine in motion.

Neal Goyal: The other part is this type of approach is not innate.

Neal Goyal: It's not natural for most, and and requires, like, reinforcement.

Neal Goyal: It also requires,

Neal Goyal: helping anyone that deploys a strategy to kind of get oftentimes out of their own way.

Neal Goyal: Like, posting on LinkedIn is scary.

Neal Goyal: It actually genuinely is. Like, for those that don't do it frequently, it's scary.

Neal Goyal: It's it's a form of public speaking.

Neal Goyal: And,

Neal Goyal: everyone's got their own kind of predispositions on what it means to to do public speaking.

Neal Goyal: One's like, I couldn't even bear the thought of it. Others are like, it's it's cringe.

Neal Goyal: Other others believe I don't even know what where to start.

Neal Goyal: Others have this imposter syndrome.

Neal Goyal: Am I gonna get called out for

Neal Goyal: not being an expert on something that I'm speaking about?

Neal Goyal: Like, am am I credible enough to speak on this?

Neal Goyal: Like, all of these thoughts enter someone's mind when it comes to creating content, being active on LinkedIn. And so, oftentimes,

Neal Goyal: a lot of the time that's devoted to this type of pipe gen

Neal Goyal: is also devoted to helping everyone through those.

Neal Goyal: I think the ultimately, it's like, do you wanna be successful in in sales?

Neal Goyal: Do you wanna be successful in driving revenue for the company you work for?

Neal Goyal: If the answer is yes, let's follow these.

Neal Goyal: I can help anybody through imposter syndrome.

Neal Goyal: I can help anybody through fear.

Neal Goyal: I can help anybody through, through,

Neal Goyal: you know, I don't know where to start or processing something.

Neal Goyal: The only one part that I cannot help

Neal Goyal: is when someone says, ew. This is too cringe.

Neal Goyal: I can't do it.

Neal Goyal: Right?

Neal Goyal: And that's where this whole kind of process falls on its head.

Neal Goyal: It's like, okay.

Neal Goyal: Do you want to be in sales then?

Neal Goyal: Because

Neal Goyal: if you had the opportunity to stand on stage in in a theater with the seats filled

Neal Goyal: of 200 members of your ICP, and you had the opportunity to talk about what you're selling, offering, you know,

Neal Goyal: to your audience, and you had the opportunity to stand on stage for thirty minutes, would you want that opportunity?

Neal Goyal: And if that answer is no,

Neal Goyal: then I don't know why you're in sales, or in a revenue driving position.

Neal Goyal: And if the answer is yes,

Neal Goyal: of of course you would, which most salespeople would say is, of course, I would love that opportunity.

Neal Goyal: Then why is it that

Neal Goyal: none of you go on to LinkedIn and create content?

Neal Goyal: Why is it that one out of every 100 sellers

Neal Goyal: creates regular content on LinkedIn? The other 99 don't.

Neal Goyal: Like, that's a wild stat, and so it's just a function of stepping your foot on that stage.

Neal Goyal: So,

Neal Goyal: what do you do with the rest of the time?

Neal Goyal: Oftentimes, it's it's one is actually

Neal Goyal: doing the pipe gen, building relationships.

Neal Goyal: I very much as much as I'm a

Neal Goyal: leader of a team, I operate like an IC myself.

Neal Goyal: I lead by example.

Neal Goyal: I build pipeline alongside my team.

Neal Goyal: That's just part of my mantra.

Neal Goyal: Farthest thing from a dashboard leader,

Neal Goyal: but the the remainder is, like, helping everyone understand that.

Neal Goyal: And once once a seller gets out of their shell and is able to create that content, with with regularity and then more importantly,

Neal Goyal: build the flywheel that allows that content to be seen by the right folks, and then they see the the pipeline impact, then then all of a sudden,

Neal Goyal: like, life changes for them.

Neal Goyal: And all of a sudden, you have reps that are just absolutely murdering their number and their targets

Neal Goyal: simply because they just have so much more pipeline than everybody else.

Neal Goyal: And I think the the the part that I love most that gets me most excited about it is in that process

Neal Goyal: of doing this, you actually are building your personal brand in the process without talking about your personal brand.

Neal Goyal: Right?

Neal Goyal: And your personal brand is the the the most portable thing,

Neal Goyal: that it it it's truly portable in the sense that

Neal Goyal: it follows you.

Neal Goyal: Your audience will follow you.

Neal Goyal: The ability to captivate attention of your target ICP will follow you, and everyone's watching you do this.

Neal Goyal: Right?

Neal Goyal: So you end up becoming a very attractive candidate to other companies.

Neal Goyal: You end up, drawing more individual in your into your orbit that that are gonna provide some kind of unique opportunity in in some way, and and all kind of things kinda fall into place very,

Neal Goyal: easily for future steps of your career just by virtue of building this audience.

Neal Goyal: So it helps you crush in your day job, but then also build an audience which will help you long run.

Sean Weisbrot: What's the most important thing you've learned so far in your career?

Neal Goyal: Stepping outside of a comfort zone and accepting jobs that you are not quite ready

Neal Goyal: to take on. I think, we oftentimes were in this particularly in the software world,

Neal Goyal: there's a lot of fear in the software world right now.

Neal Goyal: Right?

Neal Goyal: There's a lot of fear of what AI is going to do to displace, the workplace and reduce head counts.

Neal Goyal: There's equally fear on what AI will do to make many software companies obsolete.

Neal Goyal: And with all of that fear, I think the individuals at a company often have, have a lot of fear in, in taking making bold bets and and and taking risks.

Neal Goyal: And in my view, something that's served me well, particularly over, like, the last, like, seven, eight years,

Neal Goyal: is go after a job and a role and a function

Neal Goyal: that you believe you can do. You've demonstrated the steps prior to your career that you think you can do it and make that bet and bet on yourself despite it being probably the highest risk environment that we're in for the space right now.

Neal Goyal: And I think those who take those bets will ultimately,

Neal Goyal: see a whole lot of reward from it. And then combine that with the fact that

Neal Goyal: what I've learned is the the concept of building a personal brand on LinkedIn

Neal Goyal: is something that has completely changed the shape of my career,

Neal Goyal: like, completely changed the trajectory in every sense of the word.

Neal Goyal: Just seven, eight years ago,

Neal Goyal: I was a guy that was genuinely struggling with, like, getting I felt like I was getting started all over again, and

Neal Goyal: LinkedIn completely changed the track record for me. And now it I feel like I can get into any door that I want to. I can open any conversation that I want to. I can,

Neal Goyal: whether it's with an ICP or a prospective employer or a prospective partner or a relationship,

Neal Goyal: it becomes extremely easy if you devoted the time to building that audience on LinkedIn. It follows you, and it pays you in ways that you can't possibly quantify or predict.

Neal Goyal: But, ultimately, like, that's been a huge

Neal Goyal: learning curve for me. And by continuing to invest in it, it's just paid off, and I'm so thankful for it.

Sean Weisbrot: Thanks for watching.

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