Think Relationships First

Relationships are a Two-Way Street.

The worse thing you can do on LinkedIn is to sell or pitch from the start. It indicates that you have a selfish agenda & for me personally it’s a big red flag (who’s with me on this?)

Like relationships, business is also a two-way street. Always make it a win-win situation & not a one-way-highway.

This vlog is a real life example:
I first met Lachlan Millist on LinkedIn

– Lachie reached out first with a good vibes/genuine message.
– He didn’t sell to me or pitch to me.
– He was going to be in town and wanted hang.

LinkedIn is a powerful tool for relationship building.
It’s a place for opportunities.

Don’t pitch.
Don’t sell.

Think relationships first

Enjoy the vlog 🙂

Transcript

Lachlan Millist: Okay. So I’m Lachlan, I work at Salesforce, and I’ve started working with CreativeCubes for the last few months, after reaching out to Tobi.

Speaker 2:  How did you guys meet?

Tobi Skovron: Oh, there’s totally a bromance here. I’m just bummed that he wants to stay at Salesforce. But Lachy reached out on LinkedIn, totally cold.

Lachlan Millist: Someone I was working with at the time liked the video, had a look at the video, looked some content. I was like, okay, my job is normally just to meet new business and stuff like that. But then if I’m really interested, I send a message and try and do a bit of research and I sent Tobi the message of, hey, I’m in Melbourne next few days.

I was in Sydney. If he replied, I was just going to fly down no matter what. It’d be great to catch up. I love what you’re doing in terms of your old space, and how it’s going to work in the new stuff. Are you free? And this was probably 7:00 PM on a Friday. I was sitting in a camp chair in my place, because I was selling all my furniture ready to move. I remember that very clearly. Got the response straight away, and flight booked, ready to go. Conversations happened.

Tobi Skovron: So this is a thing, on LinkedIn specifically, I’ll accept people that I can trust is a quality connection, but the second someone sort of connects to go, hey, by the way I’m selling this or I’m trying to do this or, hey, I want to work with you on that. It’s really off putting. I think it goes back to one of the vlogs that I said a couple of weeks back, which was, they have an agenda reaching out. They don’t want to just be connected and sort of understand your world. They’re reaching out because they’ve got a sales objective to hit something.

Lachlan Millist: Well, that was the situation with us. I mean you’re a testament to the power of relationships. I reached out because I was just interested in the new business idea and after working with you guys, who was it I reached out to this office? They had the wallet.

Tobi Skovron: TAPSQUIRE.

Lachlan Millist: Yeah, TAPSQUIRE. So I reached out to them, but it was a point where I knew there wasn’t really anything to discuss Salesforce wise, very early days. I’m just intrigued to meet someone new who brings something new to the industry and wants to chat about it, and to open up the conversation with,

“Hey, this isn’t a Salesforce conversation. This is, your business really interests me, you and your dad. I want to know a bit more. Are you happy for a chat?”

And people are receptive to that. And I mean power of relationships. If things go well anyway, they’ll start doing it. But there’s a reason behind it.

Tobi Skovron: Totally. I’m not someone that likes to be hard sold. I’m someone that just wants to go and do their thing and if there is an opportunity, I know where to go.

So with Lachlan, for example, when he reached out and we had our first conversation, I ended up selling it internally and then sort of like, “Hey man, help me out with the sell through.” Because I saw the value. But equally, if you’re going to hit me up on LinkedIn, and then try and sell me straight out the gate, it’s like going on a date, dare I say it. And I haven’t done it for nearly 20 years.

But it’s kind of going on a date, and meeting the person for the first time. You go, “Great. Can I meet your parents?” It’s just so out of the conversation, let’s warm up to that. So I think a gentle approach is far more effective.

Lachlan Millist: Sales is satisfying a need or a want or what drives people. So if you don’t know that, I know reaching out cold is the scariest thing possible.

And I came from an industry where – so I came from consumer goods before this – I had one customer that I deal with for two years. Nothing really changes. They’re disconnected from the bottom line. So it’s a bit of just back and forth, as opposed to this where I’m speaking to someone who owns a business. It’s their life and blood.

The last thing you can do is jump in cold and say, “Hey, I represent this. We have something that is going to change your world”. For all you know, their business is doing the exact opposite of what you think they’re doing. If you don’t know that, you’re never going to get any traction.

Tobi Skovron:  No shame.

Lachlan Millist: It’s the Sydney fellows. It’s the Bondi boys.

Tobi Skovron:  But finally we are in reverse though. So you were in Melbourne originally. Moved to Bondi. I’m Bondi, originally, moved to Melbourne. And now we’re completely on opposite sides of the fence.

Lachlan Millist: What we need to do is buy a share house and we’ll just swap places every few weeks.

Tobi Skovron: That’ll work.

Lachlan Millist: Yeah.

Tobi Skovron:  Or when you’re ready to give up the full time job.

Lachlan Millist: Cubes office.

Tobi Skovron: Come join Cubes.