This week on The Digital Download, we are challenging the endless debate about the "best" way to contact a prospect. Sales and marketing teams invest countless hours and resources searching for the perfect outreach hack, but their messages are still being ignored. For this special panelist episode, I am joined by my co-hosts, Adam Gray and Tim Hughes, to discuss a fundamental truth: the method is irrelevant if the trust isn't there.

In a marketplace saturated with noise, buyers filter messages based on the sender, not the subject line. We will break down why the obsession with tactics is a distraction from the real work of building a reputation and earning the right to a conversation. It's not about what you send or how you send it; it's about who you are when you press send.

Join us as we discuss questions like:

* Why is the debate over outreach methods (email vs. social vs. calls) a complete distraction?

* What does it actually mean to "build trust" with a prospect before you ever contact them?

* How does a strong personal brand become your most effective outreach tool?

* Is there any place for cold outreach in a trust-first sales model?

* What are the first practical steps to shifting from a "method-first" to a "trust-first" strategy?

As leaders in the social selling space, we have spent years guiding organisations away from ineffective, tactic-based outreach towards modern, relationship-centric strategies. This episode will provide a clear-eyed view of why current outreach efforts are failing and how to build the foundation of trust that ensures your message is not just delivered, but actually heard.

We strive to make The Digital Download an interactive experience. Bring your questions. Bring your insights. Audience participation is keenly encouraged!

This week's Host was -

• Bertrand Godillot, Founder and Managing Partner of Odysseus & Co, a proud DLA Ignite partner

Panelists included -

• Tim Hughes, CEO & Co-founder of DLA Ignite,

• Adam Gray, Co-founder of a DLA Ignite

• Tracy Borreson, Founder and CEO of TLB Coaching & Events, a proud partner of DLA Ignite

Transcript of The Digital Download 2025-10-10

Bertrand Godillot [00:00:11]:

Good afternoon, good morning and good day, wherever you may be joining us from. Welcome to another edition of the Digital Download, the longest running weekly business Talk show on LinkedIn Live, now globally syndicated on TuneIn radio. Through IBG are the world's number one business talk news and strategy radio network. Today, we are challenging the endless debate about the best way to contact a prospect. Sales and marketing teams invest countless hours and resources searching for the perfect outreach act, but their messages are still being ignored. For this special panelist discussion, I'm joined with. I'm joined by my co hosts Tracy Paulson, Adam Gray and Tim Hughes to discuss a fundamental. The method is irrelevant if the trust isn't there.

Bertrand Godillot [00:01:11]:

But before we begin, let's go around the set and introduce everyone. While we're doing this, why don't you in the audience reach out to a friend, ping them and have them join us. We strive to make the Digital Download an interactive experience and audience participation is highly encouraged. Tristy. You want to kick us off, please?

Tracy Borreson [00:01:30]:

I would love to. So first of all, you guys hear me okay? Yes, we do, because my screen is doing like something crazy, but that's fine. I'm Tracy Morrison, founder of TLB Coaching and Events, a proud partner of dla. Right. And I am.

Tracy Borreson [00:01:47]:

I am coming to you from Canada very early here in the morning, but enjoying my morning so far. And I have no doubt that this is going to be another amazing conversation. At least I have all the things to say about it.

Bertrand Godillot [00:02:03]:

I'm sure we. I'm sure you have. Yeah, I'm sure you have, Tim.

Tim Hughes [00:02:08]:

Yes, thank you. Welcome. And my name is Tim Hughes. I'm the CEO and co founder of DLA Ignite and I'm famous for writing the book Social Techniques to Influence Buyers and Change Makers.

Bertrand Godillot [00:02:22]:

Excellent. Thank you, Tim. Adam.

Adam Gray [00:02:25]:

Hello, everybody. I'm Adam Gray. I'm Tim's business partner and co founder at the Allay Ignite. And I love having guests on, but I equally love it for different reasons when we don't have guests on and it gives us the opportunity to rant about things. And I think that so many of these topics are definitely worth a good rant because they're incredibly frustrating for us and indeed for everybody in business that's in a role which requires us to reach out to people.

Tracy Borreson [00:02:58]:

Just to confirm with if you're new, we will also rant on episodes with. Yes, please rant more on episodes without a guess.

Bertrand Godillot [00:03:08]:

Absolutely. And we have some absolutely cracking guests lined up for our next next few episodes. So, but anyway, it's an opportunity today to share a few thoughts, and I'm gonna start, as always, with a foundational question for you. Okay, so here we go. Why is the debate about outreach methods? Whether I were checking emails, social or calls are a complete distraction. Who wants to take that? Let's go for it. Oh, okay.

Tracy Borreson [00:03:47]:

So can we just, like, keep it simple and say, like, there's no one right thing? If there was, like, one magic outreach method that works for all people in all scenarios, there would only be one outreach method, and everyone would be using it successfully. Successfully. And everybody's life, I guess, theoretically, would be very easy because we wouldn't have to explore, wouldn't have to look at our brand personalities, wouldn't have to look at our competition. We wouldn't have to look at anything. There would just be one magic method that works for everyone. And I think, first of all, when we say it that way, I think most people would be like, yeah, that's not a thing. There's no one magic outreach method. Except when we are approaching the conversation like this, it's like we're looking for the one magic outreach method.

Tracy Borreson [00:04:33]:

Like, this is now what our AB testing is all about and all of those different things. So we might believe one thing logically, our behavior does something else, and then we get caught up in this weird funnel failure because we're actually chasing the wrong thing. Chasing the perfect.

Adam Gray [00:04:54]:

The key thing is that we're chasing the wrong thing. So, you know, we've got a racing car, and we're trying different setups and tires on the racing car, but. But Tim's forgotten to put an engine in it. So clearly, actually, it's not having much effect on the lap times of the vehicle. And I think that, you know, Bertrand's question about, you know, whether email or social or.

Adam Gray [00:05:18]:

Or phone is. Is. Is the best. All of these things can work, but normally don't. And the reason they don't is that. And we often use cold as a word attached to telephone. Cold calling. The issue is not calling.

Adam Gray [00:05:37]:

The issue is cold. And so it's like when you look into your inbox and you see. Hi. Just circling back around to ask you whether or not you'd had a chance to read my. Hi. Just bouncing this back to, you know, these set scripts. Half a dozen different companies will each be. Have half a difference.

Adam Gray [00:05:55]:

Half a dozen different salespeople in half a dozen different companies sending you exactly the same message for a disparate range of products. Because these are set scripts that are deemed to be best practice or whatever. And the reality is, and you know, we joke about this, but the reality is that why would I even give you the time of reading your email if I have no idea who the hell you are?

Tracy Borreson [00:06:27]:

Well, and I think this plays into something that's really important in terms of like the order of operations.

Adam Gray [00:06:32]:

Yeah.

Tracy Borreson [00:06:33]:

Because I think when it comes to marketing out, there's a lot of out in the world about different things that are doable. And yes, these are all things that are doable, but if you are doing them in a weird order of operations, it doesn't mean they're just going to work because they're a thing to do. You have to do them in the right order. Which plays into what you were saying there, Adam, about it being cold or people not having a reason. You have not given me a reason to open your email, so why would I?

Adam Gray [00:07:06]:

Yeah, and I think that, you know, the. You talk about brand, but I don't care about your brand. And the reason I don't care about your brand is I have no idea who you are. And every. So I think it was Tim who originally put me onto this, a W Star Nker Onomics profile on Instagram where it's people that work in like a pretend agency talking about brand. And, and they said, the one that I saw most recently said the customer is central to everything we do. And they said, basically, you know, you need to write this into your mission statement because this is what everybody wants to hear. And, you know, it's what everyone wants to hear because this, what Barclays say, what HSBC say, and what British American Tobacco say and what Ford's saying, what every company says this.

Adam Gray [00:08:07]:

And the problem a is that, that it doesn't differentiate because nobody ever says we're a bit expensive, we don't always deliver on time. It's not 100 reliable. Everyone says we're customer focused and we're. We're absolutely fantastic. All these people are saying the same thing about their products. All these products, if you believed what they say would sort your problem out, whatever your problem happens to be. And because of the, the fact that everybody's using these superlatives about their product or their service, there's no differentiation. Every company claims to be the best.

Adam Gray [00:08:39]:

Everybody. Every company claims to be the best value. Every company claims to be the most reliable. So against that backdrop, I look out into the marketplace and there's a million products. They all seem to be the same. Well, why wouldn't I just pick the cheapest or the One closest or whatever other subjective measure. Well, I'm going to pick from your company, Tracy, because I really like the fact you've got a pink logo. Because actually, in the absence of anything else, why not? I like pink logos.

Adam Gray [00:09:07]:

Why would I not pick your pink company for that reason? And I think that the part of the challenge is that until we have built some sort of relationship with the person that we want to have a conversation with, there's A, no reason for them to listen to what we say, and B, no reason to believe what we say, even if they do happen to listen to it. So starting from that standpoint, like you said, it's the order of operations. You've got to decide what you got. Create someone who's listening to your. Your. Your conversation first. Because without that, there was no point in trying to have a conversation.

Tracy Borreson [00:09:43]:

I'd like, and I think too, it's.

Bertrand Godillot [00:09:48]:

First of all, we had our first punchline. The problem is not cold email or social. The problem is cold. And I'd like to understand how you can actually start building to your point, Adam, Building a relationship with someone you don't know.

Adam Gray [00:10:05]:

Well, I think the key thing there is that the issue there is don't know. So in the old days, you would go to an event or a lunch or a breakfast or a chamber of commerce or a round table type thing, and you would meet a whole bunch of people and you'd say, hi, Bertrand, I'm Adam. Tell me a little bit about what you do that's interesting. I'll tell you a little bit about what I do. And you'd go, oh, that's interesting. Well, if I ever need that or know someone that needs that, I'll be sure to recommend you. And. Or you would.

Adam Gray [00:10:37]:

We would have that initial meeting and you would think, I don't like this person, you know, either. I don't like their accent, I don't like their haircut. Clearly not an issue for me. I don't like the way they articulate things. It's still a haircut, you know, it's overcut. Maybe they, you know, that they. I don't trust them, whatever those things are. So I'm not gonna think about them in that way.

Adam Gray [00:11:02]:

I'm not going to recommend them to it. But. But you would hope that, that people would like you and they would start to open doors for you. But obviously, as we've said many times before, the problem with face to face events is that they're really, really expensive. They're expensive to arrange. They're expensive to go to. They're expensive with your time. And you know, one of the biggest problems that you have is that if you go to like a lunch, you sit there for two hours and you've got a person either side of you that you talk to and get to know and there's 200 other people at the lunch and you never get to really have any relationship with those, never get to have a conversation with those people.

Adam Gray [00:11:40]:

So nowadays the beauty of the digital, particularly specifically the social space, is that you can go out and find, I think you would use the term Tracy, find your peeps. You know, you can go, you can go and find those people that are part of your tribe, people that say, you know, I love the fact that you're into baking bread or, or travel or you know, whatever those things, Lego, you know, those things that you're into where you go, oh, even either that's a passion that I share or that's not a passion that I share, but I nonetheless find it quite interesting. And that's the basis, isn't it?

Tim Hughes [00:12:21]:

So, so if. So, yeah, but so if, if cold outreach in any case, whether it's on the phone or on the email or on social media is bad, why is the whole of the, every single person in, in the world doing it?

Tracy Borreson [00:12:39]:

Well, I think, okay, so first of all I think it's a, I think it is important to say that everything starts cold.

Tim Hughes [00:12:46]:

Yeah, it has to.

Tracy Borreson [00:12:48]:

Everything does. Right. So even I go to a family reunion and there is a family member there that this happens to me all the time. I don't know if this happens to other people where you're like, who is this person? I've been in this family for a while that all of that seeing someone's profile for the first time, getting put in a group in a lab, like all of these things are, they start out as cold. So again I think it's about how do we move from like cold into something? Right? How do we start something warm fire.

Adam Gray [00:13:25]:

Yeah, I, I think that the really important thing about that is that when you meet somebody face to face, when you meet somebody at a family event, the, the things that you were sharing and the things you were talking about are things that are non threatening. You know, if you, if you share a picture of your son Nicholas building something in Lego, then anybody that's ever played with Lego has some kind of understanding of that and they're quite happy. Unless you were a North American head of sales for Lego, there's no implicit sales pitch in you saying, check this out or built a Saturn V rocket, you know, So I look at it and I go, oh, that's amazing. How many pieces was it and how long did it take? And, and is he going to build other stuff. Stuff to go with it? And we're having a conversation which builds friendship and, and relationship and rapport and understanding without you saying yes. This is the list of the pieces that if you click this special link here, you're going to get 20 discount and all of that stuff that is so inherent in the world of sales. And you know, the, the thing that I find most kind of upsetting about it is that every company claims to want a relationship based sale and they don't. They want a sale and if you haven't got the relationship there, it's always going to be, I don't know, it seems very intrusive, doesn't it, to pounce on somebody and say, I've identified you as a likely prospect.

Adam Gray [00:14:58]:

Let me explain what I do because I don't, frankly, I don't want to hear what you do.

Tim Hughes [00:15:05]:

But in the world out there, the only way that the world goes around is by selling stuff, isn't it?

Adam Gray [00:15:11]:

Absolutely.

Tim Hughes [00:15:12]:

So we all start in a position where what we need to do is go out and we have to go out and introduce ourselves to people.

Tracy Borreson [00:15:20]:

Well, I think you make an important distinction there, Tim. We can go out and we can introduce ourselves to people or we can go out and we can sell stuff to people. And I think when we come at it from that second perspective is when we get into trouble because then we're trying to turn everybody into a sale instead of going out and introducing ourselves to people, learning enough to see if it's worth getting into a conversation about something that's business related. Marketing, I think almost everyone would put that into that category. Right. I'm sending you a social media connection or message or email that just says like, hey, did you see what I'm selling? Hey, did you see what I'm selling? Hey, did you see what I'm selling? You're like, whoa, I don't even know if you like Lego yet. It's too soon.

Adam Gray [00:16:09]:

Yeah.

Tim Hughes [00:16:10]:

So how have we got this, ourselves into this situation then, Tracy? Because I had somebody that I hadn't spoken to for a long time connecting, you know, send me a message on LinkedIn. And we, and we had a call and I said, what you, what are you up to? And, and it just flipped into a sal page.

Tracy Borreson [00:16:29]:

I mean, I think a lot of it, it comes from personal fear to be Honest with you, if you want to get deep in philosophy, philosophizing about things, is that when I am selling something, whether I'm a, a salesperson or a marketer who's representing a business, or I am a solopreneur trying to sell my own things, if I think I don't have access to sales, then I'm going to approach every connection, opportunity as a potential sale. Because I'm afraid that if it's not a sale, then I'm not going to make money today. And I think this is where, like, if, if you extrapolate how companies like Apple and things do sales, right? Like, Apple isn't in my face on the daily being like, you need to have an Apple and it's better than a Samsung because blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and you should call me today. No, they like, they're like, we're Apple. Here's what we do here, here's what we have. If you like it, like, let's talk about it. And I think this is interesting too, for me from a marketing point of view, because what I always tell people is marketing is about showing people what you have. Maybe you can do that with a storefront or you can do it with a social media profile.

Tracy Borreson [00:17:49]:

At the end of the day, this is about, if people don't know what you're selling, they can't buy it. So, yes, we have to be able to do that. But at the same time, when you think about. I always think about it like farmer's market, right? Farmer's market. Everyone has their like, booths set up and everybody's walking along and they are attracted to specific booths. I particularly like artisan things and donuts. So if you are creating something unique from an art point of view or you have any kind of donut, then I will come and look at your boots. If you are have vegetables.

Tracy Borreson [00:18:26]:

Maybe if I need groceries, I'll look at it. But like, again, like, I think these are things. We've all had that experience, right? We all know we're attracted to things. We're not attracted to things. The storefront. We don't sell anything unless people can walk by and see that. We're like, hey, here's what it is that we're doing here. But that's different than me being out, being like, come on, person, come and buy my honey because you need honey.

Tracy Borreson [00:18:51]:

And here's all the health benefits of honey. Like, this is not how you sell stuff at a farmer's market. It's also not how you sell stuff on the Internet. With email or on social media or any of those other things. And so it's about showing enough. Yes, you have to show it because you never know who could need your help as well. My most recent client was a friend of mine from Universe. Like I don't decide that that person was like, oh, now I happen to need what you're doing, so can I please get that? And I'm like, yes, you can, because you know what I'm doing.

Tracy Borreson [00:19:24]:

But I'm not. I didn't spend 20 years since university trying to convince you that you need to buy authentic marketing. This is a different thing. And so I think it's important for people to look at like, am I approaching this? Like I, every single person I connect with has to buy something and then even like extrapolate back to the entire your revenue model. Right? Like, oh, I'm a coach that sells high ticket coaching. I actually need like three clients at a time. I don't need all 100 people who saw my LinkedIn post to be a client tomorrow. And we start to look at some of those things.

Tracy Borreson [00:20:04]:

It allows us, I mean, takes a practice to get out of the fear, but then it allows us to be like, okay, well if I actually really am just looking to meaningfully connect with like maybe 10 people so that I can maybe have five conversations so I can maybe get one client, now all of a sudden I have put less pressure on myself to like turn every single contact and interaction into something that's going to be a transaction.

Bertrand Godillot [00:20:33]:

Excellent. So we have a few, sorry.

Tracy Borreson [00:20:35]:

And a big story there.

Bertrand Godillot [00:20:36]:

We have a few comments from the audience and by the way, we're going to talk about that, but again, because I think what you're talking about is Apple B2C. I'm not sure that they behave the same in the B2B world, but we'll, we'll talk about that. So first of all, good morning Catherine, thanks for joining us today. We have a comment on building the relationship first from Stephen and we'll, we'll probably talk a little bit more about that. And thanks. Good afternoon Ben, by the way, and thanks for joining. Ben says, believe I said this before, but if there is one magic method, it, it resolves around if you want to be interesting, be interested. Anyone, anyone wants to make a comment about this?

Adam Gray [00:21:23]:

Yeah, that, that's absolutely nailed it. Because I, I remember somebody saying if you think back to your last first date and if the date went well, it's because the person that you went out with said, that's interesting. Tell me More about that. That's interesting. Tell me more about that. Oh, I'd like to hear more about that. Oh, that's, that's. And actually everybody wants to, to feel that they're being heard.

Adam Gray [00:21:50]:

And I, I think that part of this, in, in this interchange, particularly in the digital space, is I have to earn the right to expect you to listen to me. And the best way I can earn that right is by demonstrating I'm listening to you. You know, the old adage two is one mouth, use them in those proportions. And unfortunately, most people have, you know, six males and one ear that's partially deaf because they're not listening. You know, they're too busy shouting, thinking that what they need is a greater share of voice. What they need is to have more impacts of their message. And they don't need any of that. What they need is to have people that are genuinely listening to them.

Adam Gray [00:22:33]:

And, you know, the best way you can convince somebody that you are good at something is to show them that you're good at something. So your great ideas, you package them up and you give them out to people so that they can go, that's a really good idea. Oh, I've tried that. That works really well. Because if, if you share something with me and I try it and it works, and you share something else and I try it and it works and you share something else and I try it and it works and you say something else and I try it, it's like, well, she's pretty good because every time she tells me to do something, I do it and it works. Okay? So the only conclusion I can draw from that interaction is that your ideas are good ideas. Whereas if you tell me your ideas are good, no one's going to sell ideas by saying, buy my ideas because they don't work. So everyone says their ideas are good and that's the reality, isn't it? You know, social is a fantastic.

Adam Gray [00:23:21]:

Well, the digital as a whole, you know that the Internet is a fantastic platform for disseminating ideas, not disseminating messages, because people don't listen, people don't care. Disseminate ideas, share your best thinking with people because it shows them how good you are.

Bertrand Godillot [00:23:41]:

All right, so where is the, where is now? Is there, is there any. Because, you know. So how do you introduce yourself is one of the questions. You said, you know, you've got to introduce. Someone says you've got to introduce yourself yourself. How do you introduce your, yourself in, in an email? How, how do you do that?

Tracy Borreson [00:24:05]:

So, I mean, I think it is important in this scenario to like take a step back and say, how do I think it's best for me to introduce myself? So for me, unless I have been introduced to somebody through email, I would not introduce myself through email. I do not feel like I learn about people through email. So I personally then would not introduce myself by email. That's not to say that there aren't people out there who feel like they can learn about people through email. So maybe they would like to introduce themselves through email. But I think that that's an important separator is that how do you feel like it's best to introduce yourself? And then what channels and methods do you choose that match?

Tim Hughes [00:24:50]:

But isn't that it, whatever the method, it's, it's, it's as similar as, you know, we could walk up to somebody in the street, tap them on the shoulder and basically say, this is my product. But we would never do that because we knew know that personally we'd probably get punched. Or certainly we. There'd be two words in one of them.

Tracy Borreson [00:25:12]:

Well, and like, I think this is a good pressure. Like, so, so why.

Tim Hughes [00:25:20]:

Okay, but, but, but if you. So if, if we're going, if that happens in the street, why, if we did it over the telephone or over email or spam people over social media, do we not expect the same thing? What, why do they suddenly, if I get an email from somebody where it says, here's my list of products and services, why do they expect me to suddenly say, oh yeah, can I have two please, in blue?

Tracy Borreson [00:25:43]:

Yeah.

Adam Gray [00:25:44]:

Well, I think that, I think that the face to face interaction is a really good metaphor for this. So which is more attractive? I walk up to you and I say, hi, I'm Adam Gray, I'm an accountant and I help small and medium sized businesses produce their accounts on time. Who are you and what do you.

Bertrand Godillot [00:26:04]:

Do.

Tracy Borreson [00:26:07]:

If you're on the radio, Tim just fell asleep.

Adam Gray [00:26:10]:

So that's one way of doing it. The other way of doing it is to walk up to them and say, hi, I'm Adam Gray. Who are you and what is it that you do for a living? Now one of those will make the person back away and fall asleep in Tim's case. And one of them may make the person say, hi, I'm Tim Hughes. I do this. Oh, that's really. So one of them is encouraging people to interact with you. Now I think that the problem with email is that the first outreach via email is never going to be a hi, Tracy, why don't you Tell me what you do.

Adam Gray [00:26:49]:

Because actually that's just, that's a vacuous and pointless message to send somebody. And telephone is too, but on social, actually it isn't. So we can very closely mirror the behavior that we might have in a, in a face to face environment. And I think that's really crucial. Yes. And I think the other thing with email is that there's a relentless desire to scale things. So, you know, I walk into a crowded bar and I go, I whistle at the top of my, my lungs and I go, hi, everybody who wants a date? And not surprisingly, I don't get many takers. However, if you, if you see somebody across a bar and you walk up to them and you engage them in a conversation and you're interested in them, and then you say, I'd like to take you out for dinner, that's an entirely different outcome that you're likely to get from that.

Tim Hughes [00:27:38]:

So, so, Adam, if you walk into a bar and say, hey, everybody who wants a date, you bunch of idiots, isn't that hyper personalized? That.

Adam Gray [00:27:48]:

That is hyper personalized or. And in fact, I can be better, I can be better than that. I can say, okay, which of you blondes wants a date? Which of you brunettes wants a date? Which, if you redheads wants it. And actually the fact is that, that we laugh about it because that's like hideously unattractive and we can't imagine that that would ever be a successful way to get a date. And then.

Tim Hughes [00:28:08]:

But it is hyper personalized marketing.

Adam Gray [00:28:10]:

Yeah. And yet we go on to, so anybody who's under 50, but over 40, and it's like, yeah, it's like so unattractive way to behave. And yet we go into the digital marketing world and we go, this is, this is what the world needs. And it isn't. It never has been. And it never, it never, never is.

Tracy Borreson [00:28:32]:

Adam, don't forget to, to ask them about their household income. I would only like to work with people who have a household income.

Adam Gray [00:28:40]:

Yeah, exactly.

Tim Hughes [00:28:42]:

Yeah, I only want to date people with a household income.

Tracy Borreson [00:28:45]:

So, so if we, I, I'll lay these. Okay. Okay.

Bertrand Godillot [00:28:53]:

As you said, Adam, and all of you, you know, this doesn't work. So how, if you, if you want to, if you were looking at a change, so changing your behavior, because looking at, looking at it from the, from the way you, you look at it, it's obvious that it needs to change. So, you know, how would you proceed? What would be the practical steps to move away from, from the current practice?

Adam Gray [00:29:25]:

I Think that we know that in the old days we used to behave a particular way. We would go to events, we would meet people, we would be introduced to people, we would listen to people and then we would develop a conversation on that. And I think that the irony of this is that the Internet and specifically social gives us such a massive opportunity to do this at scale. And yet the very thing that we can scale, we choose not to. What we choose to scale is saying, well, I've got a global audience of 6 billion people and what I'm looking for is this hyper targeted Persona. Because my offer to this Persona will be really interesting because we believe that if the last person that bought our product or Service was a 37 year old blonde with a household income of more than $100,000 a year who lived in whatever city, okay, so I'm looking for people who mirror that person because that person was happy. But actually what we're forgetting is that people buy people. You know, why am I going to believe what you say? Because I like you.

Adam Gray [00:30:37]:

Why am I going to listen to what you say? Because I like you and I trust you. You know, these are the fundamental tenets of any complex business interaction with people. And I think that what we're doing is we're looking to scale the wrong things in the name of efficiency. We're looking to say, well, I've got a global audience of 100 million people now, that's fantastic because I'm only looking for 5% of them to be buyers. Well, actually we're putting the shoe on the wrong foot. We should be looking at the situation and saying, how can I forge a relationship with people who are likely to buy my product? And how do I know that I'm going to be able to give my product a fair hearing in front of those people? Sending them a brochure isn't going to work because if you give someone a brochure, they've got all they believe, they have all of the information they need to make a decision because they've collected 20 brochures from 20 companies and they end up buying the brochure from the company with the pink logo or whatever. So actually I need to try to control the sale. And the only way I can do that is by talking to you.

Adam Gray [00:31:34]:

And the only way I can talk to you is by building some sort of rapport. And the only way I can build some sort of rapport is by talking to you as a person, not as a person Persona. And I think that, that, that when companies crack this, you know, Tim and I had dinner the other day, as did you, Tracy, interestingly, we had dinner.

Tim Hughes [00:31:54]:

It's great to see you, Tracy, by the way.

Adam Gray [00:31:55]:

Yeah, it was, it was lovely.

Tracy Borreson [00:31:57]:

It was really great to see you all too.

Adam Gray [00:31:59]:

Yeah, we had dinner with, with somebody who shall remain nameless, but he has got five times as much pipeline as anybody else in his team. And in a large enterprise, he has more first meetings with ICP customers than anybody else in all of emea. And he's done this by exactly doing what we're talking about here, by treating digital as if it were a coffee shop where he can go and chat to people and see where those conversations go. And what he knows is that if this person that's an ideal target for him is not in market today, it actually doesn't matter because he'll be in market next week. And all he needs to do is to keep that person engaged and interested in him until such point as that person is ready to buy. So not only has he cured his pipeline problems today, he's cured his pipeline problems way, way into the future.

Tracy Borreson [00:33:06]:

Well, and I think this is, it's interesting because when you look at use cases like that, there is a, I call it, way of being that goes with that person. Right? That person has a deep belief in the value of community and connection and all those different things. Their sales process mirrors that. When we talk about the trap that people fall into with the scaling is that it is actually and society has made it, technology has made it much easier to scale something that doesn't work than to change your own behavior. Right? So now all of a sudden it seems simple to just like, oh, like I'm doing all, I'm doing this right now. It's not getting enough results. If I do it more, I will get the results that I want. And there's also marketing technology stacks and everything that are promoting this as the solution.

Tracy Borreson [00:34:05]:

So that is contributing to the problem, but it's not helping the problem. And so people invest in CRM systems and automations and all these things to scale the volume because they think that the problem is that I'm not reaching enough people. They don't think that the problem is that my behavior is broken. And therefore it's difficult for any human to go through behavior change. It is, it's more difficult than just buying a tech stack that will do things for you faster. But when we actually, one of the things I love to look at is for a lot of people who are going out and doing these automated volume activities, those activities don't actually match their natural way of being. And if you're a person like our joint friend who is very into community and wants to build those relationships, and you have this stack over here that is just automating stuff to the point where you don't touch anybody, like that actually doesn't align with you at all either. So while the market might be selling you that, it's also important to step back and be like, is that what I would do or would I? Like, I love the micro influencer strategy, right? So like, I want to have a relationship with one person, and I'm going to have that one person be like, you got to meet Tracy.

Tracy Borreson [00:35:26]:

And now in my network, I have like a handful of these people and I can fill my entire calendar without even trying because those people are like, oh my God, I'm talking to that person. They need to talk to Tracy. And I remember having this conversation with some friends once and there was like three of them at an event that I was not at, and they were all talking to each other and being like, do you know Tracy? And I'm like, that, that. That's the micro influencer model, right? I build enough of a relationship with one person so they want to talk to me about other people. They want to share my case study, they want to share my LinkedIn show. They want to, they want to do that because I put in the effort of building that relationship.

Adam Gray [00:36:09]:

That's a very human thing. And I think that that is the kind of part of the issue, isn't it, what people, what people are looking for is they're looking for some electronic device that they can just turn it up. So I'll get, I get more leads coming in and more leads coming in. So. So some years ago, through one of our partner resellers, we, we ended up working for a company that was kind of right in the middle of this Martech cloud. And they had a tool that would enable you to hyper identify people that matched your ideal criteria. And the narrative was, this is what we do. We're the only people that do it in this space.

Adam Gray [00:36:56]:

And what this gives you is a massive uplift in the yield from the, you know, in terms of the leads you can generate from, from the marketing activities that you're doing, which everyone goes, oh, yeah, that's what I need. So they were talking to us because they didn't have any pipeline because they had no leads. And it's like, okay, I mean, talk about eating your own dog food.

Tim Hughes [00:37:18]:

They switched off, they switched off their machine because it didn't work.

Adam Gray [00:37:22]:

Yeah, they didn't.

Tim Hughes [00:37:23]:

They actually didn't use it in themselves.

Adam Gray [00:37:25]:

But they had a really good story, didn't they? They had a really good story about.

Tim Hughes [00:37:28]:

How this, the head of marketing went home and cried every night.

Adam Gray [00:37:31]:

Yeah.

Tracy Borreson [00:37:35]:

But I think this is also the thing, right?

Adam Gray [00:37:37]:

Like.

Tracy Borreson [00:37:39]:

When we realize that we're solving the quote unquote problem, that's not actually the problem. Even this, the whole concept of hyper targeting, we've touched on it a couple of times. So I want to. Just want to say something here, is that almost always it is focused on demographic information, it is focused on your gender, it is focused on your age, it's focused on your household income, it is focused on your location. All of these things are demographic graphic pieces of information. Most people buy because of something that's going on in their head that they have not revealed to the world anywhere in a data collection methodology. Which means I can't actually target. I always use my so I sell authentic marketing advisory.

Tracy Borreson [00:38:26]:

Most people are like, what is that? And I'm like, yeah, let me tell you. But the point is, there's nobody on Google searching for authentic marketing advisory. And I don't choose it because people are searching for it. I choose it because this is what I do. And to me, that is doing what you would do in marketing. And there's whole depths of layers, all that. But like, I can't convince somebody to want authenticity. I can't.

Tracy Borreson [00:38:52]:

But there are also people walking around in the world who are like, I am not being very authentic. How could I be more authentic? And I'm like, oh, hey, that's what I do over here. I sell the authenticity shoes. Right? You want to try on authenticity shoes? This is the place where we do that. But it's not. I can't learn that information on your profile. Like, maybe I get lucky every once in a while and someone hashtags authenticity. Right? But like, at the end of the day, I don't know what that means to you.

Tracy Borreson [00:39:26]:

I came up with my own definition for what it means. So it can be igniter of a conversation, but it is not the thing that decides whether or not you are actually.

Adam Gray [00:39:36]:

No, but the issue is. The issue is that people that know they need to be authentic are people that have a fundamental belief that they're a decent person. Because if you, if you're evil, if you're evil or you think you're evil, you're not gonna. You're not gonna think authenticity is your route to success. Now, one of the Things that I find really interesting is that when we're kids we all think, oh, you know, I'm not a very nice person. And you know, the people that are friends with me are only friends with me because they don't really know how not a nice person I am. And as we get older, we come become much more confident. In most instances we become much more confident about who we, we are.

Adam Gray [00:40:17]:

I go, well, this is who I am. You either like it or you don't and that's your choice. I can't, I can't influence that. But to take that and then one of the challenges that we've seen over the years has been to take that kind of self belief in a one to one environment. Okay, you don't like me. You do like me, that's great. But, but to take that and scale that into a global audience, people are really scared about that because they think the people that like them are just going to be an anomaly. So the idea of people being authentic is really, we've got loads of time.

Adam Gray [00:40:47]:

It is like really difficult for people who, people to grasp and, and, and, and believe. And that's why people don't look for that as a solution because they don't think that's where the gold lies. You know, there's gold in them, their hills, which there are people that are authentic, other people that are more successful and build huge audiences and people that love them. But people that are not being authentic don't think that that's what, what success is. They think, well, I need another, another set of letters after my name or another, whatever.

Tim Hughes [00:41:15]:

Can we, can we pick up?

Bertrand Godillot [00:41:17]:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, but, and, and to, and, and before we pick Ben's question, I, I just wanted to come back to what Tracy said about you know, that that was a cracking punchline by the way, about technology makes it easier to scale something that doesn't work but doesn't have change behaviors. Right. So there is a change in behavior that might be requested. And Ben is asking that question. Mems spread like mind viruses fast and seeking can that viral mechanism be paired with trust building or do they fundamentally contradict each other?

Tim Hughes [00:41:57]:

So the thing about memes is that there's nothing wrong with memes. And, and, and in fact Tom Miner basically picks this up on his, in, in his recent book on being social first and he talks about organizations and there are individuals that have built a platform based on memes. So for example, you know, it will be a photo of this is my face when my sales manager ask. It's the beginning of the quarter and the sales manager asks me for my forecast and, and, and, and, and I know an individual that's, that's built a million followers based on that. But the, the difficulty is in, with any organization or in any individual is how do you translate that into something serious, like a piece of business?

Adam Gray [00:42:49]:

Yeah, it's not, it's not credibility, is it?

Tim Hughes [00:42:51]:

Yeah, yeah. Yes. So, so you can, so, so there are, there are lots of examples of people that have built followings based on memes and, you know, jokey videos. But how do you then actually say we're now going to sell a piece of training or a jumper or whatever? And that's the difficulty. And the road is littered with people that have decided to try and do something funny and then turn around and say, I now want you to buy something that's serious.

Tracy Borreson [00:43:27]:

Well, and I think question is, I.

Bertrand Godillot [00:43:31]:

Think that's really the question. Back to changing mindsets. Is there a way to use this type of stuff to change mindset and still be the relationship?

Adam Gray [00:43:42]:

What we've learned is that people jump to conclusions, they see a little bit and they, they assume a lot. And it takes an awfully long time to change the conclusions that people have jumped to about you. So, you know, we think about, I don't know, Donald Trump and, you know, you're fired from the Apprentice or whatever, you know, which he hasn't done for however many years since he's, he's done the show and he stood, that's still something that he's tarred with. And so often, you know, people get this thing entrenched in their mind. So if you are the guy that does memes, that's great. And you know, you get loads of interaction on those memes, but that's probably means that you're not the guy to come and install a 50 million pound ERP system in my business. Now, there will be, of course, there will be occasions when that's the door opener and people are able to convert that into business. But fundamentally, you know, when I look at you, do I see somebody who's credible and expert, or do I see someone that's a good laugh? And a good laugh is nice for a few drinks in a bar.

Adam Gray [00:44:53]:

A good laugh is not nice for me to risk my entire career on in commissioning a massive project.

Tracy Borreson [00:45:01]:

I think too, for me, like, it comes down to the fact that memes are consumed, consumed as entertainment and so, and they are not consumed as trust building. And so that's just, it's, it's two different things. And so if you've built some, you've built your brand identity on entertainment, then people are going to consume your brand as entertainment. They're not going to consume it as.

Tim Hughes [00:45:27]:

It'S just the same as going to the cinema. What I do is like, I go to the cinema, I consume the content, I, I walk away. That, not that. That doesn't mean I'm going to buy anything. And it's certainly not community, right? Because what community is is the fact that people, quite often we have on, on this program, people actually talking to each other in the chat. That's what, that's what community is. And we know that people, we've had people. And please do this.

Tim Hughes [00:45:56]:

If you're, if you're in the chat and you're talking, please connect to the people that are also leaving comments because this, the community is the way that, that the community takes place outside of this show.

Bertrand Godillot [00:46:10]:

We said earlier, I think you said, Adam, that you know, you might be developing a relationship with someone who's not in market right now, but maybe next week or next, next month. But then the question, I guess is how do you make sure you don't lose that connection so that whenever they are on market, they are in market, they still think about you?

Adam Gray [00:46:34]:

Well, I think that this is true of most people out there. You know, you've got, let's assume you've got a thousand connections and you know who 100 of them are and 900. You've no idea who these people are or why you connected or when you connected. But the people that you do know to are the people that are engaging toward you and then you are engaging towards them. And part of that is that if they comment on your stuff, you start to see their stuff. That's the algorithm working. And part of that is because if they comment on your stuff, you see their face and then you notice their stuff, which is your mind working. But either way, the closer you move to these people and the more you invest in keeping these people, keeping you in their line of sight and then in yours means that you're likely to be preeminent at the point that they are ready to buy.

Adam Gray [00:47:24]:

Now, whether, whether they reach out to you, I'm ready to spend a million dollars now, probably not, but they might reach out to you and stay say, I'm starting to do a little bit of research in this area. Can you help me? Can you give me some advice or can we have a conversation, please, an informal chat about this? But all of that comes from a you positioning yourself as an expert and not an entertainer. Further to your comment, Benedict, but also that you are seen as somebody that is approachable and friendly because if, if, if you have set yourself up as being, you know, a really tough closer, people are unlikely to walk up to you because they fear what will happen. Whereas if you're seen as a really friendly person, always smiling and happy to help people, they're much more likely to walk up to you. And I guess further to your initial comment, Tracy, you know this is about setting your stall out as you want to be perceived. If you want to look like you're fun and a bit of a joker, then set it out that way. If you want to look like you're an expert, but an expert that people can engage with and have a conversation with, set it out that way. And so often I think, you know, we, we misinterpret being, being dull for being professional.

Adam Gray [00:48:44]:

And you know, there's a bit of crossover in this Venn diagram. You're allowed to smile and laugh and have fun, but also you've got to have something heavyweight to back it up with that demonstrates you do know about your specialist subject, you do know what you're talking about.

Tracy Borreson [00:49:01]:

I think when additional thing I would add there too is that the. I think this is where marketing can be most successful at living is giving people a place that they can stay in your orbit. So whether that is a newsletter, a live show, a podcast, or like something that can allow people to maintain that experience of you. So just like Adam said with your stall, right? Like do you feel like you can maintain your stall experience on email? Great. Use email. Personally, I don't, because I don't feel like I can. I like it, I don't like it. And so that's that, that's where when we're talking about also outreach, which can kind of like bridge between sales and marketing, like marketing are the things that you will give to your audience for free.

Tracy Borreson [00:49:54]:

People don't have to pay to consume them. And so what can you give to the world for free? You could give them a flyer, you could give them a brochure, or you could give them something that actually creates a brand experience of yours which is going to keep them in the orbit much more effectively than if we're. I can't as one person keep all of the people I've ever met in my orbit by having one on one conversations with them. You can't do that. It's not scalable, it's not desirable for either party. So like, what can I do that can allow them, allow us to stay in conversation, keep that door open. That is easy for me and scalable. And one last thing I would say on that too is that there's people we want in our orbits and there's people that we don't there.

Tracy Borreson [00:50:48]:

You'll meet people and you'll be like, okay, I've met 150 people and I have to keep all these 150 people kind of back to that fear mindset. And no, if you've met 150 people, not all of those 150 people are people who are going to be beneficial to be in your brand community. So I think it's also important to practice that, practice accepting that, that not everyone we meet is who's supposed to be with us on this brand.

Tim Hughes [00:51:18]:

Adam and I went to a conference yesterday. We went to the Snowflake conference. Other AI databases are available. And it was really interesting because we, as we went around the conference, we realized that every single person that was exhibiting was saying exactly the same.

Bertrand Godillot [00:51:39]:

So.

Tim Hughes [00:51:40]:

So the only way that people could actually get people to come on their stand was be to have something entertaining like a basketball game or a scale electric or something like that. And so you kind of wandered around and it was a bit like a carousel with all these things sort of like running. And you knew that as soon as you stepped on, there would be some salesperson with a sweaty hand that would be wanting to talk to you and scan your badge. Anyway, Adam and I went to one of the sessions and, and it was about AI in retail and cpg. And the two presenters there had their screen up, nice smiley faces and they then had QR codes. And they said to us before they started the presentation, whatever we say today, we would really like to carry the conversation on with you after this. Please scan the Q QR codes and connect to us on LinkedIn. Now we need to.

Tim Hughes [00:52:42]:

There's a, there's a debate about whether their LinkedIn profiles would be any use because that our assumption would be if they're an expert at the conference, that there would be an expert and show that on. On LinkedIn. But the fact of the matter is that they made a jump and the jump was here we were in a highly branded environment that probably cost multiple millions of pounds or dollars. And what they did is that they made the jump and said, hey, actually we'd like to have a relationship with you. Would you like to talk to us? And there was a number of people that put up phones and, and, and actually did that. And they probably got more from that than from.

Adam Gray [00:53:25]:

From.

Tim Hughes [00:53:25]:

From the bad scanning.

Bertrand Godillot [00:53:28]:

Which drives.

Adam Gray [00:53:29]:

Sorry.

Bertrand Godillot [00:53:31]:

No, no, no, no, no, go ahead.

Adam Gray [00:53:32]:

But I was.

Bertrand Godillot [00:53:32]:

I was just thinking that's. That was interesting to actually capture the audience and engage into.

Tim Hughes [00:53:40]:

Yeah, yeah. And we moved. We moved from. I mean, Adam said it before that there's a tipping point in the buying process where we move from consuming brand because that's generally what we see. And I'm talking about business to business. And we move. And we move from brand and we move to consuming a personal content, because what we do, you know, if I'm going to buy from Snowflake, I don't know anybody at Snowflake. Well, I actually found that I did because somebody bumped into me and said, hey, Tim, I've not seen you for ages.

Tim Hughes [00:54:10]:

And. But normally you go, I want to buy something from SAP. I don't know anybody from SAP. What do I do? And then you find somebody and then you latch onto that person. Then they. You build a relationship. And there's that tipping point. Nobody else is talking about this out in the marketplace, by the way, of where we move from.

Tim Hughes [00:54:28]:

We move from brand content to personal content. And those people have picked up on that. And. And it was really interesting to watch.

Adam Gray [00:54:38]:

Wasn't. Was. It was fascinating. Yeah. And. And I think that, that also they were very aware that the. The kind of. The corporate outreach.

Adam Gray [00:54:47]:

And the guy said, people don't. Sorry for anyone in advertising. People don't engage with any adverts anymore. He said, TV advertising is dead. We will avoid that as much as we possibly can. Now it's all about influencers. Now it's all about people that influence. And I think that.

Adam Gray [00:55:04]:

I think he was talking specifically at this point about, like, the Kim Kardashians of this world. You know, I'm seeing a new pair of training shoes on her, and I want to buy a pair of those shoes. But I think it's equally true for what you said, Tracy, about being a micro influencer. You know, where I know you, because Tim raves about you, and therefore I'm likely to trust what it is that you say. And actually, this is the opportunity for us all, isn't it, to go out there and create those fans around us who go and knock on doors on our behalf and say to people, I know just the person that you need to speak to about that. And that's where the true power is. Because at the end of the day, you know, if. If I only knew you, Tracy, through Tim, it was like it would be like, well, I don't know anyone that does marketing, really, except I know Tracy a little bit more than anyone else because I know her through.

Adam Gray [00:55:56]:

Through Tim, and actually, that's enough. You know, you only got to be a little bit ahead of the finish line. I want you to win the race.

Bertrand Godillot [00:56:04]:

Well, Tim, thank you so much, because this is. This is now the time. Right, to say what? Guess what? Guess what? We now have a newsletter, and so you. You should not miss an episode with that. Get the. The show highlights and the beyond the show insight.

Tim Hughes [00:56:25]:

Get your phone out and ring everybody who's watching this. Get your phone out.

Bertrand Godillot [00:56:29]:

Yes, exactly.

Tim Hughes [00:56:31]:

Scan the QR code.

Tracy Borreson [00:56:34]:

And then not only can you get the newsletter, but you can connect with the people on the show and get in the comments.

Tim Hughes [00:56:41]:

We don't. We don't do anything where we say, buy my product because we're great, or. Or anything like that. It's all. It's.

Adam Gray [00:56:47]:

It's.

Tim Hughes [00:56:47]:

It's. It's information. You'll learn stuff.

Bertrand Godillot [00:56:51]:

Excellent. Well, thank you, everyone. Have a great weekend and see you next time.

Tim Hughes [00:56:57]:

Thanks, Bertram, for organizing this.

Tim Hughes [00:56:59]:

Thank you.

Adam Gray [00:57:00]:

Bye.

Bertrand Godillot [00:57:00]:

Bye.

Tracy Borreson [00:57:01]:

Thanks, Bertrand.#TrustInSales #PersonalBranding #SalesStrategy #ModernSelling #SocialSelling #DigitalSelling #SocialEnablement #LinkedInLive #Podcast