Keynote on How to Generate $500k in Sales on LinkedIn

mr. ladies welcome to the main event [Music] 12 months ago today it was a freezing cold evening bitter and I drove home from work the past few months had been really really really tough but that day was the worst day of my entire life and I walked up the steps to my house carrying myself I see steps and the door to my house opens slowly and my wife sees her husband standing in the door sobbing like a little baby and she says sweetheart come in what's wrong I was embarrassed to walk in the door she says come in what's wrong what happened I said it's time that we start that I start my own business it's time and she said to me not only are you gonna start your own business but you're going to be great and you're going to inspire millions of people along the way and here we are tonight ladies and gentlemen at the world's largest LinkedIn meetup in history big round of applause to Montreal yes yes so I had started to prepare and I got all of my things in order and I went with my resignation letter and I stepped down as president of a company I had a beautiful six-figure salary and I went from zero to heat from here zero to hero overnight and I remember as I drove home on my last day of work on the Mercier bridge this is this isn't going where you think it's gonna go and I was on the Mercier bridge and my wife was on the phone and she was nervous naturally we have kids at home babies we have a mortgage we have tuition cars you name it just like all of us here and she said to me how are we going to do it what's gonna be and I said to her I don't know how I don't know where I don't know when but I know that the one above is gonna take care of us and a ball came into my throat they said it's going to be okay I got together all of my marketing material I put together a website I actually sat down before the website sat down in the kitchen with a pen and a piece of paper and I wrote down all the ideas that I thought could be a potential good business to be in everything from selling meat to selling life insurance to do in trucking to selling airplanes I really want I still want to sell airplanes next here wealthy jets [Music] and I video production was on the menu and I had some experience with it because I had produced some videos from my father's company and although we weren't the biggest in the market it allowed us to get into gigantic companies because of positioned ourselves as a bigger company and I saw the magic of it and I said I could do this I have a good eye for it and I told my wife we are opening up a video production company and she looked at me and she said you're crazy but she supported me every step of the way I took together my marketing materials I put together a website they put together a video to launch my big day had arrived I put it on Facebook I put on Instagram and I got two things rumors and jealousy and that's all I got from Facebook and Instagram and I said where else could I get my message out I gotta get it out there I gotta got out into the world where do I get my message I remember I had this thing called LinkedIn that some people who don't speak English called Winky Dink what's with that so I took out my LinkedIn and I forgot the password this is like eleven and a half months ago I forgot the password I figured out how to get it I put in the secret question and it turns out that I went I got in and I remember I put the exact same post and I put on Facebook and Instagram I put on to LinkedIn and I clicked post and I forgot about it I woke up the next morning I had over a hundred people I had four I had like 450 people on my on my LinkedIn it wasn't anything crazy at the time I for I had a hundred people who reach out to me saying congratulations I wish you all the best Congrats in your journey we're with you we're following we're going to we're rooting for you I said wow I put on Facebook and Instagram and all I get is hate Facebook don't worry I love you guys okay don't worry about it Facebook life don't shut it off and I put it out and it just got nothing rumors nothing gossip LinkedIn the people were willing to help they wanted to be involved they wanted to be engaged you know it's the same guy that what that signs on to LinkedIn in the morning that signs on to Facebook it's the same guy but on what he has is when he's wearing his Facebook hat he wants to see cat videos and he wants to see pictures of his niece and he wants to see who knows what he's posting pictures of his of his he's renewing his vows and then on LinkedIn it's the same guy but he's wearing a different habit and the hat he's wearing his personal growth self-development career business everything that I like I Christian I really I really agree with you I suck at sports I you know whenever I try to slam the puck into the end zone it's it's not good I just like business it's where it's where I connect it's what I it's what I breathe I eat I sleep I love it I love it I love business and these people felt the same way that I felt and I connected with them instantly so I wanted more you know it says if you have two you want four on four you want eight if you want eight to one 16 and so forth I wanted more so there's this little button that some of you might know about it's called add you can add as many people as you want dear LinkedIn you have up to 30,000 people that you could add on LinkedIn so I took my lip my right finger and I put it on the mouse and I clicked four days and I added thousands and thousands and thousands of people and before I know it turn around that ID 7,000 people on my LinkedIn and here's the funny part a lot of people think that you shouldn't add people could just random and who wants this weird you know guy with the beard adding them and like you might and and you might think that it's weird but LinkedIn actually is very intelligent they only populate people that are associated with you so you could whoever they're suggesting you to add when you're clicking and you're just you know hitting that Add button it's people that are either connected to a friend that you're connected to in a similar industry in a similar demographic so it's already sort of generating warm people for you so start at the end with it within a couple months at 7,000 people so now that we understand the importance of LinkedIn in terms of business why I like it a billion times better over Facebook or Instagram which by the way you still have to use because gossip and rumors are also good in a certain sense and don't stop posting there you have to use LinkedIn so now that we all understand we're on the same page LinkedIn is powerful LinkedIn is where it's at you're in business you got to use LinkedIn I don't care if you're in the trucking industry I don't care if you're a hairdresser I don't care if you are a doctor a lawyer a dentist an architect a businessman a shipper it doesn't matter everybody has to be on LinkedIn that's where the magic happens oh you're not just limited to your immediate demographic we're doing business all over the world we're flying to China to do a job for a company because they found out about us and the one Americanize they're marketing I mean how incredible is that international reach we could take international dollars and bring it all the way into Montreal and finally kind of make Montreal great again the assignment so now that I've convinced you to use LinkedIn and I don't work for them and I get nothing out of it I just genuinely genuinely care believe it or not I genuinely care about the success of every person in this room it actually really matters to me for some reason or other and I think that each other success means something to each other when I see somebody win on LinkedIn I'm so happy when I don't even know the guy I'm happy so here's a few practical real steps that all of you guys could use and each one of you has with my ten on your on your on your seats where those ten lists if you follow those ten things I guarantee you you will make so much more money this year yeah and give with that money so much more charity cuz that is the intention of making money at the end of the day of course we all know creating goes like this Batman is an example of creative it takes 200 million dollars to produce a Batman film it takes three years the most expertise on planet earth and they release it once and that is creating and every company needs a certain amount of extremely professional marketing plug every company needs an extremely this needs 10% marketing that looks amazing you could go to the big guys you could go to the big banks you could go to whoever it is your big clients and impress the big people that this is who we are and this is our marketing and it's official every company needs that but each individual here's another example of creating that makes me a little nauseous I'm going to share it it's the 19 year old kid who graduates that day from University and he sees he has this new interesting video option on his phone and he take four so he's from Concordia here I know this one Concordia boys yes there's some Concordia people I saw you guys on the register yes welcome but when you graduate ok guys from Concordia on the day that you graduate please do not start giving us all business advice about telling us all over the business advice that you're going to give to the world here's what I suggest you do that's creative document your journey hi my name is hi what's your name the gentleman the gentleman hi my name is Wallace and Alexander my name is Wallace today I graduated from link F religion today I graduated from Concordia and boy oh boy am I happy I'm so excited to use my skills and my talents I don't know exactly what the job market is going to bring me but I just wanted to announce to you the world that I'm ready to work and if you have opportunities I'm young and handsome and ready to roll how much better is that you want to reach out to that kid and hug him and say hey I was there too I was 19 or 20 and I graduated too and I felt lost why don't you come meet me we could have a coffee versus the 19 year old 20 year old kid that's standing well you know the markets today are really X and Bitcoin you got invested Bitcoin see trying to create create content that's very difficult documenting the journey is what people want to see today so let's talk about documenting I'm gonna just start from the one of the very first posts that I posted I remember I posted this entire journey of starting this business from scratch I posted every single step of the way I post when we lose contracts I post when we win contracts I post when we hire people I post when we fire people I know I should have told Romeo to put down the box I know I know I know thank you to the 700 people that message be we post the highs we post the lows nobody wants to hear a story that is boring you never heard a story once in your life in a place far far away the weather was great everyone was nice and everyone lived happily ever after the end usually the story looks like this there was a man and he had a struggle and he didn't know how to endure and his back was against the wall and he fought day after day after day after day and he won some and he lost some and then at the end you see him knocking out the guy in slow motion to slow music and you cry because you joined him in his journey and I think that's why people relate to what I'm doing so well is because we're documenting the journey I'm documenting what's going on now I know a lot of you are thinking but how could I document my boss is going to see my colleagues are gonna see my clients are gonna see they're gonna see my vulnerability they're gonna see who I really am they're not gonna want to do business with me I live my life by your principle the people who like me will like me no matter what and the people who do not like me will not like me no matter what I remember I remember I was in a sales center a few in a previous but in a previous role and I remember there was one guy there and he loves sports and all of his customers when he got on the phone with them for the first twenty minutes of every single phone call they seemed to talk about sports I said wow what a great method and then I tried to talk about sports for the first twenty minutes and have completely turned them off actually he's in this room where's Josh where are you what's up Josh ground applause - Josh whoo every time another a phone call it was Sport sport Sport sport sports when I finally stopped trying to be Josh and it became barrel not Burrell I get all the time yo Burrell we're coming Jessica you're like bro you're the best and when I finally stopped trying to beat Josh and I was just barreled and yes you guys might find this shocking I'm Jewish the secret's out and I talk about God once in a while and I thought oh my gosh my life is over and no one's gonna want to talk to me but you know what I found my own core of people and who appreciated the first 5-10 minutes of my conversation we talk about things and how's your family thank God and what's going on thank God and and and those became my customers and because I was who I was I was able to develop my tribe my people the people who like you for who you are you can spend your life trying to be everything to everybody which will never be and you'll end up being nothing to nobody or you could spend your life being yourself online and people will gravitate you to you in the thousands tens of thousands i stopped adding at 17,000 i now have twenty thousand people on my on my LinkedIn and all the time and trust me you guys know my poster anything from front front from pc like i thought when i put my last trump post up but that was over i thought they're gonna shut off my linkedin post but like i got 170 people that reach out to me saying you know what i really appreciate that you're open about that because i can't be and i really like you and in my mind I'm like let's do some business you know business is not done between X company and Y company it's done between Beryl and Steven Mohammed and Joseph Stephanie and Ellie that's how it's done between and people online want to see that you're real so now that we understand how to get likes so practically speaking you get the engagement how do you do it by being yourself number one second is document your journey you want to see a perfect example of documenting I don't have my phone but can everybody does anybody have a phone in this room does everybody have a phone here - as a phone right now take out your phone okay I want you to take the person next to you even if you never met them before and they smell like Bo I want you to take a picture with them right now yes and then I'm gonna tell you what to do with it one three two and a half and one when you guys go home tonight I want you to post that picture on Facebook two more minutes that we're doing Q&A I want you to take that picture and I want you to go home and I want you to write I'm just gonna give you the first sentence and you fill in the blank I had the best night ever at the Montreal LinkedIn event Beryl's tuxedo was spectacular and what I took away was X whatever it is you took away and what did you just do you simply documented your journey you didn't create you didn't give advice to anybody you didn't hire you didn't hire you know a 50 million dollar marketing campaign you got your name out there you're showing that you're engaged you're showing that you're at the coolest LinkedIn event possibly ever in history and you're posting your name is out there you're getting out there great so you have to use all mediums all mediums photo video maybe one day mr. Weiner will give him my video it's a it's a it's a conspiracy Blunden where are you on one video on the only am I the only guy in this room without video it's ridiculous it's a conspiracy oh it stresses me I'm thinking about it you have to use all three mediums to post now great I have likes comments and posts and shares what do I do with them a lot of people message me how do I get more likes that's a long question the question is how do I turn those lights at the dollars we generated on LinkedIn with God's help $500,000 in sales in our first year on LinkedIn alone is there an applause sign that is great I need a I need a shirt that says I'm much cooler on LinkedIn yeah so great we have the likes we have the comments we have the share as I posted when I'm with my daughter eating a caramel apple on Sunday I posted when I go to my friend's office and we talk about business we talk about maybe a contract I post a picture with him in front of his logo on the door I posted it I now post what I've hired someone I post when I fired someone I'm getting the post out there I mean us we we're now we posted when we're at the MTL LinkedIn event and it was great and now I have 16 likes what do I do with them how do I turn that into business you ready for it you go through the likes comments and shares and you see if those people are potential clients for your product or service and if you see that it's a big company and I suggest you do business with big companies because big companies have big money and if we're gonna do it we're gonna do a big yes we only deal with fair wealthy companies because wealthy companies have wealth you want to catch big fish you got to go to the deepest darkest part of the ocean if you go in the pond you're gonna catch minnows if you're going to the deep dark ocean you're gonna catch whales and that's what we want so you go through you're qualified under those 16 people 72 people 96 people you had a blockbuster post he had 180 likes who liked it you'd be shocked you'd be shocked at who liked it I just want to make a mention who is in this room right now Bombardier sll Canada doctor pocket TD Bank RS BC Bank National Bank you guys know who you are thank you for coming I love you guys there's a lot more on here these people are people that work and really become Fiza you could do business with you can interact with that you could win with so you message them and say hey by the way I also I'd like to talk to either the president the CEO the marketing manager but if it's not by the way if it's the lowest person on the totem pole in that business the lowest person on the totem pole in the sales department of Bombardier Bombardier wherever you are come talk to me after has a better chance of getting the ear of the CEO than a random weird on LinkedIn he just does or she just does she's connected she's in the business you reach out to say hi thank you so much for liking or commenting on my post so sweet of you you look up who they are and what they do I noticed you're doing a really good job answering the phones if I'm bar da keep up the great work and that's it and then you follow that person and you like and comment on what are their whatever they're doing and then at some point in the future after two three four touches you message them hey I think it's about time we hopped on a quick call let me know when you have three minutes this week why do I say three minutes I always do because people don't want to hop on the phone with some weirdo from LinkedIn and be stuck for an hour because they're too polite to hang up the phone so you qualify you just say I need three minutes or less of your time and you make the phone call and then from that phone call you make a meeting in person and from that meeting a person you bring a contract and you sign a damn contract with them and you don't let them leave until you get their signature on that piece of paper but you see but and that's really how I built my business literally out of thin air but what happens after a while ladies and gentlemen is really cool is people start to reach out to you that's the really cool part people start to message you and say hey I love what you're doing you're doing great and you look up his name and you see that he's like the president of the biggest construction company in the city of Montreal which is really cool or you have these gigantic companies that people are taking interest in what you're doing and you're building a network of almost a thousand people in a room that come to hang out with you for a night it's so powerful but you have to be vulnerable you have to be vulnerable you have to show weakness you have to show real you have to show you have to be real people don't want to be friends with robots last thing forget the Q&A I like to start to tell a story of a it's a parable it's not actually a story that happened it's a parable there was once a man and this man had everything he had a beautiful family he had a beautiful job he had a beautiful wife a beautiful house everything that you could ask for this man had and at 40 years old his entire life began to fall apart right in front of his eyes he lost his job he became terminally ill his house burned down with all of his children inside of it we should never know of such a thing and he lost everything one step by one step he got his health back he remarried he found the love of his life and had children with her and built another beautiful home and found another beautiful career and he put his whole life back together and he passed away at the ripe old age of 90 years old at the end of his life he goes up to heaven and he's sitting with the big man and he's reviewing his life one step at a time hour by hour minute by minute and he sees up until forty years old there's two sets of footsteps in the sand his and God's but at 40 years old when everything began to fall apart he sees that there's only one set of footsteps in the sand God's disappeared and he looked up and he said how could you doing this to me my whole life you are with me side by side and in the hardest time of my life this is when you leave me how could you do this to me and God said back to him you're right you only see one set of footsteps in the sand but the set of footsteps that you see your mind and you don't see yours because I was carrying you the entire time whatever we go through in our lives ladies and gentlemen you should know that you're not alone I lost everything and rebuilt everything from scratch with his help there's always hope always