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

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

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

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

Sean Weisbrot: One out of every 100 sellers

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

Sean Weisbrot: build a real relationship with the end brand.

Sean Weisbrot: I've spent my entire career in the direct to consumer ecosystem,

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

Sean Weisbrot: If you have 14,483

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

Sean Weisbrot: Building trust is really difficult.

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

Sean Weisbrot: 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

Sean Weisbrot: on software companies in the ecommerce world, serving

Sean Weisbrot: all the amazing brands that we know and love.

Sean Weisbrot: The go to market motion and outbound motion often

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

Sean Weisbrot: Let me go

Sean Weisbrot: cold call them.

Sean Weisbrot: 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.

Sean Weisbrot: So the question is how do you actually cut through the noise?

Sean Weisbrot: 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.

Sean Weisbrot: Right?

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

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

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

Sean Weisbrot: So we're often in the game of competing for attention rather than competing for

Sean Weisbrot: solution to solution.

Sean Weisbrot: It's like, how can you captivate, entertain,

Sean Weisbrot: educate, and deliver value to an audience and build trust in that fashion?

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

Sean Weisbrot: 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?

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah.

Sean Weisbrot: Great question.

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

Sean Weisbrot: So content, is,

Sean Weisbrot: very much like a billboard.

Sean Weisbrot: Like, hi. I have this thing that

Sean Weisbrot: feels important, and I want people to see it. Right?

Sean Weisbrot: Come to me. Look at me. Look at me. Right?

Sean Weisbrot: And if you think about a what it means to build a relationship,

Sean Weisbrot: that that's asking for something.

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

Sean Weisbrot: Right?

Sean Weisbrot: So give more than you can take.

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

Sean Weisbrot: the way I've built relationship on LinkedIn, the way I've built GTM motions using LinkedIn

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

Sean Weisbrot: So for instance, you have a,

Sean Weisbrot: 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,

Sean Weisbrot: be in their comments.

Sean Weisbrot: Be the person that says something, really positive,

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

Sean Weisbrot: Very few people will remember who liked their post.

Sean Weisbrot: Everybody will remember a thoughtful comment.

Sean Weisbrot: Right?

Sean Weisbrot: Now when you think about outbound, outbound is

Sean Weisbrot: you know, salespeople, I think, by default, are, like, very impatient individuals.

Sean Weisbrot: I'll put myself in that same bucket.

Sean Weisbrot: Right?

Sean Weisbrot: And so oftentimes, it's like, hey.

Sean Weisbrot: Let me let me go ask for a meeting.

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

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

Sean Weisbrot: what?

Sean Weisbrot: One out of five connection requests are accepted.

Sean Weisbrot: Four out of five are ignored or declined.

Sean Weisbrot: Right?

Sean Weisbrot: And why is that?

Sean Weisbrot: It's because

Sean Weisbrot: they don't know you.

Sean Weisbrot: Right?

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

Sean Weisbrot: They're inviting saying, yes.

Sean Weisbrot: Look at my what I'm doing, and,

Sean Weisbrot: 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.

Sean Weisbrot: Right?

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

Sean Weisbrot: Whereas,

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

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

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

Sean Weisbrot: deposits in the form of, like, things you give to someone in a relationship,

Sean Weisbrot: then you earn the right to say, you know what?

Sean Weisbrot: I'm gonna take a withdrawal and make a withdrawal now.

Sean Weisbrot: And that withdrawal is just sending the connect request, asking

Sean Weisbrot: inherently or implicitly to be a part of the world.

Sean Weisbrot: Right?

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

Sean Weisbrot: Right?

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

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

Sean Weisbrot: It's because you have a LinkedIn audience.

Sean Weisbrot: Like, that's why.

Sean Weisbrot: Well, no. We're I'm not connected with that person.

Sean Weisbrot: They have no idea who I am. Right?

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

Sean Weisbrot: Oh, yeah.

Sean Weisbrot: He's that guy that's super caffeinated, high energy, always positive.

Sean Weisbrot: He's always in my comments.

Sean Weisbrot: 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.

Sean Weisbrot: Fine.

Sean Weisbrot: Accept.

Sean Weisbrot: Boom.

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

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

Sean Weisbrot: You're not connected with them,

Sean Weisbrot: so they won't see it. Right?

Sean Weisbrot: You might get views, but they might not be the relevant views.

Sean Weisbrot: Right?

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

Sean Weisbrot: How do you get them to see your content?

Sean Weisbrot: That only happens after you have a two way connection, on LinkedIn,

Sean Weisbrot: 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?

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

Sean Weisbrot: Right?

Sean Weisbrot: When you think about, GTM leadership,

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

Sean Weisbrot: the the the the most important factor in all of that is pipeline.

Sean Weisbrot: Right?

Sean Weisbrot: How much pipeline do you have?

Sean Weisbrot: I personally consider myself, like, just an above average seller,

Sean Weisbrot: like, just above average.

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

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

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

Sean Weisbrot: You just

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

Sean Weisbrot: And so that's where it's like, okay.

Sean Weisbrot: If pipeline is the most

Sean Weisbrot: important contributor, and building pipeline is harder than ever.

Sean Weisbrot: Like I mentioned before, in my space, ecommerce, 14,483

Sean Weisbrot: software companies chasing the same 2,000 brands on Shopify, those poor

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

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

Sean Weisbrot: Right?

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

Sean Weisbrot: And if pipe gen is the key to to ultimately, driving revenue and performance,

Sean Weisbrot: the question is what type of pipe gen works?

Sean Weisbrot: And

Sean Weisbrot: for me, it's not email.

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

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

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

Sean Weisbrot: They click into LinkedIn because they're, like,

Sean Weisbrot: 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.

Sean Weisbrot: So why not meet them where they are?

Sean Weisbrot: Right?

Sean Weisbrot: 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?

Sean Weisbrot: So short answer, yeah.

Sean Weisbrot: It is a full time job.

Sean Weisbrot: And so when I develop these systems across sales teams,

Sean Weisbrot: that's kind of part of the mantra that I preach as well.

Sean Weisbrot: Right?

Sean Weisbrot: 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

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

Sean Weisbrot: Right?

Sean Weisbrot: So, like, oftentimes,

Sean Weisbrot: you're you're absolutely right.

Sean Weisbrot: Like, in my space, like, I know exactly who my

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

Sean Weisbrot: of them are in my ICP, which is a brand side founder

Sean Weisbrot: or marketing leader.

Sean Weisbrot: Right?

Sean Weisbrot: 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

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

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

Sean Weisbrot: gonna be valuable to an audience?

Sean Weisbrot: Is it worth scaling?

Sean Weisbrot: Is it worth diving deeper into?

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

Sean Weisbrot: Like, if you're

Sean Weisbrot: bringing in the wrong folks, then you understand, okay.

Sean Weisbrot: Is it something with my product?

Sean Weisbrot: Is it something with my messaging?

Sean Weisbrot: What's my strategy?

Sean Weisbrot: That can often,

Sean Weisbrot: inform, like, what you should be writing about.

Sean Weisbrot: 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

Sean Weisbrot: might do well.

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

Sean Weisbrot: ultimately getting those connection requests.

Sean Weisbrot: 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.

Sean Weisbrot: Right?

Sean Weisbrot: 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.

Sean Weisbrot: I mean, you said it beautifully.

Sean Weisbrot: It's like,

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

Sean Weisbrot: You have to have that two way connection.

Sean Weisbrot: You have to. Because, otherwise,

Sean Weisbrot: 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?

Sean Weisbrot: So you have to have that two way connection, but the problem is is that, like,

Sean Weisbrot: if you send a con a cold connection request to somebody and you haven't

Sean Weisbrot: 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.

Sean Weisbrot: It's the equivalent of being at a cocktail party,

Sean Weisbrot: seeing a pretty cool girl across the room at the bar.

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

Sean Weisbrot: Like, that's insulting.

Sean Weisbrot: Like, doesn't work.

Sean Weisbrot: It's,

Sean Weisbrot: it it it it's it's just the wrong approach to build any sort of relationship.

Sean Weisbrot: Right?

Sean Weisbrot: 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.

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

Sean Weisbrot: It takes a thirty, forty five day runway.

Sean Weisbrot: Like, it's not a

Sean Weisbrot: quick fix.

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

Sean Weisbrot: Right?

Sean Weisbrot: Like, that's that's the first and foremost.

Sean Weisbrot: I think we often have a tendency

Sean Weisbrot: to completely forget all proper social etiquette and behavior

Sean Weisbrot: when we're on any type of virtual or online environment.

Sean Weisbrot: Whereas would you behave this way

Sean Weisbrot: 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?

Sean Weisbrot: No. It seems so bizarre to go do that.

Sean Weisbrot: 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.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah.

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

Sean Weisbrot: Right?

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

Sean Weisbrot: Right?

Sean Weisbrot: You're unlikely to be successful

Sean Weisbrot: if you do that bam, bam, bam, 10 in a row.

Sean Weisbrot: You might get one one out of 10. Right?

Sean Weisbrot: But that's not the game we're playing here.

Sean Weisbrot: 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?

Sean Weisbrot: That requires showing up for them first.

Sean Weisbrot: Doing something that adds value to them, makes them feel good,

Sean Weisbrot: cheers them on, that requires showing up for them.

Sean Weisbrot: 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.

Sean Weisbrot: Well, see, not not everyone is as lucky as you are.

Sean Weisbrot: 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.

Sean Weisbrot: 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? I personally do not.

Sean Weisbrot: Right?

Sean Weisbrot: I personally do not.

Sean Weisbrot: When,

Sean Weisbrot: yes.

Sean Weisbrot: AI I think the only place where AI is an assist is in creating the content.

Sean Weisbrot: Right?

Sean Weisbrot: Creating the content itself.

Sean Weisbrot: Not necessarily ideating the content.

Sean Weisbrot: I think, ultimately, for me,

Sean Weisbrot: it's my own ideas.

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

Sean Weisbrot: Right?

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

Sean Weisbrot: 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

Sean Weisbrot: there are no shortcuts to building a relationship.

Sean Weisbrot: There are no shortcuts to building trust.

Sean Weisbrot: There are no shortcuts to showing up for someone

Sean Weisbrot: more than they show up for you.

Sean Weisbrot: 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.

Sean Weisbrot: You can't AI any of those out.

Sean Weisbrot: And so when you think about the time that I spend on LinkedIn,

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

Sean Weisbrot: Or I I I wouldn't say this.

Sean Weisbrot: It's not the AI cannot do. I will not allow

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

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

Sean Weisbrot: at a cocktail party or in a in a in a, you know, physical, social environment.

Sean Weisbrot: Right?

Sean Weisbrot: I behave the same way there.

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

Sean Weisbrot: Now that said, AI can make things more efficient, for sure.

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

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

Sean Weisbrot: the concept of AI commenting, oh my gosh.

Sean Weisbrot: No. Please no. Never.

Sean Weisbrot: Like, it's the bane of my existence.

Sean Weisbrot: AI DMs,

Sean Weisbrot: never in a million years would I ever engage in such.

Sean Weisbrot: 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.

Sean Weisbrot: Right?

Sean Weisbrot: You can't automate that.

Sean Weisbrot: 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?

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah.

Sean Weisbrot: I mean, AI commenting and AI supported posts are, I think, two

Sean Weisbrot: on two different ends of the spectrum.

Sean Weisbrot: Right?

Sean Weisbrot: Like,

Sean Weisbrot: if you think about the purpose of content,

Sean Weisbrot: of the comment, I want to deliver value to somebody else.

Sean Weisbrot: I'm showing up for somebody else,

Sean Weisbrot: and I want to add my POV on somebody else's content.

Sean Weisbrot: Those are all things that

Sean Weisbrot: do require that physical desire or or internal desire to deliver that value or that touchpoint.

Sean Weisbrot: Whereas the content itself, to me, like,

Sean Weisbrot: 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

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

Sean Weisbrot: 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.

Sean Weisbrot: 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?

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

Sean Weisbrot: behind this approach too.

Sean Weisbrot: Right?

Sean Weisbrot: So one is, like, actually putting the pipeline engine in motion.

Sean Weisbrot: The other part is this type of approach is not innate.

Sean Weisbrot: It's not natural for most, and and requires, like, reinforcement.

Sean Weisbrot: It also requires,

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

Sean Weisbrot: Like, posting on LinkedIn is scary.

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

Sean Weisbrot: It's it's a form of public speaking.

Sean Weisbrot: And,

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

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

Sean Weisbrot: Other others believe I don't even know what where to start.

Sean Weisbrot: Others have this imposter syndrome.

Sean Weisbrot: Am I gonna get called out for

Sean Weisbrot: not being an expert on something that I'm speaking about?

Sean Weisbrot: Like, am am I credible enough to speak on this?

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

Sean Weisbrot: a lot of the time that's devoted to this type of pipe gen

Sean Weisbrot: is also devoted to helping everyone through those.

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

Sean Weisbrot: Do you wanna be successful in driving revenue for the company you work for?

Sean Weisbrot: If the answer is yes, let's follow these.

Sean Weisbrot: I can help anybody through imposter syndrome.

Sean Weisbrot: I can help anybody through fear.

Sean Weisbrot: I can help anybody through, through,

Sean Weisbrot: you know, I don't know where to start or processing something.

Sean Weisbrot: The only one part that I cannot help

Sean Weisbrot: is when someone says, ew. This is too cringe.

Sean Weisbrot: I can't do it.

Sean Weisbrot: Right?

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

Sean Weisbrot: It's like, okay.

Sean Weisbrot: Do you want to be in sales then?

Sean Weisbrot: Because

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

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

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

Sean Weisbrot: And if that answer is no,

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

Sean Weisbrot: And if the answer is yes,

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

Sean Weisbrot: Then why is it that

Sean Weisbrot: none of you go on to LinkedIn and create content?

Sean Weisbrot: Why is it that one out of every 100 sellers

Sean Weisbrot: creates regular content on LinkedIn? The other 99 don't.

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

Sean Weisbrot: So,

Sean Weisbrot: what do you do with the rest of the time?

Sean Weisbrot: Oftentimes, it's it's one is actually

Sean Weisbrot: doing the pipe gen, building relationships.

Sean Weisbrot: I very much as much as I'm a

Sean Weisbrot: leader of a team, I operate like an IC myself.

Sean Weisbrot: I lead by example.

Sean Weisbrot: I build pipeline alongside my team.

Sean Weisbrot: That's just part of my mantra.

Sean Weisbrot: Farthest thing from a dashboard leader,

Sean Weisbrot: but the the remainder is, like, helping everyone understand that.

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

Sean Weisbrot: 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,

Sean Weisbrot: like, life changes for them.

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

Sean Weisbrot: simply because they just have so much more pipeline than everybody else.

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

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

Sean Weisbrot: Right?

Sean Weisbrot: And your personal brand is the the the most portable thing,

Sean Weisbrot: that it it it's truly portable in the sense that

Sean Weisbrot: it follows you.

Sean Weisbrot: Your audience will follow you.

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

Sean Weisbrot: Right?

Sean Weisbrot: So you end up becoming a very attractive candidate to other companies.

Sean Weisbrot: 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,

Sean Weisbrot: easily for future steps of your career just by virtue of building this audience.

Sean Weisbrot: 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?

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

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

Sean Weisbrot: there's a lot of fear in the software world right now.

Sean Weisbrot: Right?

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

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

Sean Weisbrot: 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.

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

Sean Weisbrot: is go after a job and a role and a function

Sean Weisbrot: 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.

Sean Weisbrot: And I think those who take those bets will ultimately,

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

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

Sean Weisbrot: is something that has completely changed the shape of my career,

Sean Weisbrot: like, completely changed the trajectory in every sense of the word.

Sean Weisbrot: Just seven, eight years ago,

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

Sean Weisbrot: 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,

Sean Weisbrot: whether it's with an ICP or a prospective employer or a prospective partner or a relationship,

Sean Weisbrot: 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.

Sean Weisbrot: But, ultimately, like, that's been a huge

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

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