SPEAKER_01: 1:57

If you want to be good at LinkedIn, if you do message anybody, the first thing they will do is check your profile. And if your profile isn't optimized, you got a major problem. You'd be amazed the number of LinkedIn coaches and social selling coaches that say that to me, oh, selling's beneath me. And by the way, these are all broke LinkedIn coaches and struggling social media, just so you know. I never say hi, I'm an official LinkedIn top voice. I've written three books, I'm a TEDx speaker, I got 30 years' experience. If you hire me, I'll do an amazing job because nobody cares.

Ken Hughes: 2:29

You've invested£7,000 in SEO and got zero results in six months. Today, Niraj Kapur, LinkedIn top voice and sales trainer to brands like Salesforce and Barclays, breaks down what went wrong and what it costs. If you've ever been ghosted after a big pitch or wasted budget on bad advice, this episode will help you win trust and avoid, yep, those costly mistakes. I'm Chris Norton and this is Embracing Marketing Mistakes, where senior marketers turn hard lessons into better campaigns and sharper decisions. In this episode, you'll learn everything on how to reduce ghosting, how to sell on LinkedIn without sounding too spammy, and what it takes to bounce back from proper failure. Let's get into it. Enjoy. Nirash Kapur, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00: 3:19

Pleasure to be here. Chris, Will, lovely to see you too.

Ken Hughes: 3:22

So you're Niraj, you're from the dark side. Um, sales. Do you want to tell us a little bit about um your experience in sales and how sales has changed, I suppose, over the last sort of 20 years?

SPEAKER_01: 3:36

I I got into sales the way I would say pretty much everybody gets into sales. I had nothing else going on in my life, and I just wanted to make some money. You know, I was living in London. London's an amazing city, my favourite city in the world of all the cities I've been to in the last 30 years. It's also a very expensive city. And so I left school with no qualifications. You know, I grew up in a small working class town in Northern Ireland. And to those of you listening, I have brown skin. Despite my Irish accent, I have brown skin. And unfortunately, in a small working class town in the 1980s in Northern Ireland, that was not a good thing to have. So imagine every vile name under the sun you're being called, not being called it. So I just left and thought, you know, I've had enough of this nonsense. And I went to London because in London you don't really experience racism. It's slightly more different, but it's nowhere near as bad. And most people really don't care about something. So I got into sales. I really wanted a better life. And when you're young, unfortunately, you genuinely believe that if you become rich, all your life's problems will go away. So I thought, I'll learn six figures, have a nice house in Chelsea or somewhere like that in London, have a great life, drive a fancy car, have a young hot girlfriend. You know, all the dumb things you believe as a teenager will make your life better. Um, and I got into sales, but you know, sales now is so different. 30 years ago, sales was not a well-paid job. You know, I started off in£10,000 a year, which barely covers rent in London. So I realized to be successful, I had to be good at earning commission. And that made me a good salesperson. So I became good by default because I had things in my life, bills I had to pay, and I got married very young and became a dad very young. So all of a sudden I became good at sales for my family, not because I particularly cared about it. Um, but over the years I realized to become good at sales, you have to understand people, you have to care about people, and you have to really serve people. And once you kind of understand that framework, all of a sudden you go from being slightly above average to being very good. And if you have an appetite for learning and growth, you become great. And then as a result of doing that, you then earn more money and have a better life. And that's the way I generally believe sales should be. It shouldn't be let's make the money, it should be how can I serve, how can I help, how can I make a difference to people? And when you do that, then the rewards come afterwards.

SPEAKER_02: 6:07

So and we'll we'll we'll with we're jumping ahead slightly here, but so what role does LinkedIn and digital channels now have in sales? Has has the kind of the internet social media fundamentally changed the way people sell, or do the same principles um still apply?

SPEAKER_01: 6:25

The principles are the same. The problem is most people have no idea how to sell on LinkedIn. So people will go on LinkedIn, do a few posts. And I've met so many LinkedIn coaches that do this, by the way, and social media trainers, they do three or four posts a week on LinkedIn and say, I'm just gonna wait for business to come to me. I'm not going to sell because it's against my values or selling is beneath me. You'd be amazed, number of LinkedIn coaches and social selling coaches that say that to me. Oh, selling's beneath me. And by the way, these are all broke LinkedIn coaches and struggling social media, just so you know. Um, and the fundamentals are the same. It's value first, selling second, it's relationships first on LinkedIn, and it's selling second. Even when I do posts that are very powerful that generate incoming inquiries, nobody has ever in, I would say seven years now, I've been quite well known on LinkedIn. Not one person in seven years, will or Chris, has contacted me and said, you know what, we must work with you. Please send the order form across. They don't. They just said, I really like your post, or I've been following you for a while now. I'd like to inquire a bit more about how you can help us sell more on LinkedIn, or about how you can get our sales team to perform better. And then you have a meeting, and then you listen, and then you do a proposal, and then you have a second meeting sometimes, and then you have to follow up. That is how business is done. It's it it nobody ever calls me up and says, I must hire you, please send the invoice. I'm still waiting for that to happen though, but it doesn't happen that way.

SPEAKER_02: 7:53

Maybe, maybe they will after this podcast. Who knows?

SPEAKER_01: 7:56

Yeah, that'd be nice actually, with it.

Ken Hughes: 7:58

I want you to talk about ghosting because you've talked a lot about that. And because we I mean, working in any any agency, marketing agency, we're PR and social, um, ghosting is a is a thing. So ghosting is so frustrating as an agency owner. I can tell you that right now. It's what it's one of the only things that really does piss me off about being an agency owner. Like we'll we'll work hard, a client will give us a brief, we'll we'll we'll be careful to to honour the brief, we'll be checking the brief. Does it fit what we're about? Can we help it basically? Not just can we make money because we've only got a finite amount of time. So we'll review a brief, we'll qualify it, we'll then contact that person, then we'll have a telephone call, um, we'll do a uh what we call a discovery call, and we'll go through the brief with the client and make sure that the brief is the brief, because often the brief is not the brief, it's the brief behind the brief. And then you you'll know what I'm talking about. And then um they'll you'll agree it all, you'll be great, off you go, and then you know, Will or I will lead a team, and there'll be four of us maybe that will work on a brief for two minimum two weeks usually, and then we'll get the brief designed by our in-house designer, and then we'll have to go out and present the brief. Now, some in 2026 the the briefs are like um it's uh 90% of them are um uh teams, aren't they, in Zoom and stuff like that. But some of them are um face-to-face, they're coming back as well. Now, there is nothing the amount the reason why I laid all that out, because I think people don't some people don't understand, even working in marketing and or sales, the amount of work that you've put into that pitch, you've then got three, four people that have gone out, presented, maybe they've been out of the office all day. It's one of the reasons why pitching over videos is look can be a little bit better. But the amount of work, the point is a lot of work goes into that to then send that and then cue crickets, and you you know, you chase up, hi. Um can we help? Do you need anything else? There might be some other things that we'll send over. Crickets. Uh honestly, what's your experience of ghosting on what do you what do you do? Because I know you're quite can you're quite persistent, is that fair?

SPEAKER_00: 10:13

Yeah, persistence is a polite word, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 10:15

But look, most people I know get ghosted heavily. And here's the thing now and again I get ghosted too. Not as much as most people, but I still get ghosted, which frustrates me. But the reason I reduce the amount of ghosting is very simple. I know what other people do, and I do things a bit differently. So I'll give you a good example. Most people will say, okay, it'll do exactly what you've said, go through the process, qualify, ask the questions, send a proposal across and say, I'll follow up. And you're gonna get ghosted if that happens. There's a good chance you get ghosted. And what you can do to reduce the ghosting is do a number of things. So the first thing I will say is who else is involved in the decision-making process? Because from my experience, I'll deal with companies of your size, there's often three people involved. Or it's a bigger corporation, nine or twelve people involved in the decision-making process. Who else do we have to influence? Not are you the decision maker, which is a very amateur question to ask, and the person always says yes, so you don't annoy their boss, but who else is involved in the decision maker? That's the first important thing to do. The second thing is when you book a follow-up meeting, agree to it on the call there and then, and send it while you're on the call there and then and make sure they receive it. That way there's no misunderstanding about it. Uh, the third thing I will do is I will then take a print of the proposal. I will then send it in the post to that person with an eight-page brochure. Now, my eight-page brochures are on very high quality paper, looks incredibly professional. It's full of sales tips in the front, LinkedIn tips in the back, and in the middle, it's all social proof of me and the testimonials from solopreneurs, SMEs, and corporates. So it looks amazing. And the fact is, people rarely get things in the post. So I almost have like that triple hit, so to speak. So that massively reduces the chances of being ghosted. Now, there are times even when you do that, somebody will not turn up for the meeting. Even when you've sent the reminder 24 hours in advance and they've agreed to it, sometimes they don't turn up. And what is important when that happens is to be empathetic and understanding and not blame the client because unfortunately, if you do that, your tone can come across the wrong way. Maybe we don't mean it to. So I'll often say, look, you weren't available for the meeting, which you agreed to. I hope everything is okay internally. I understand being a CEO or being a business owner, so many things are happening to business regarding staff, regarding issues, regarding processes. I hope everything is okay. And that's it. Not we must rebook the meeting now, or why didn't you turn up? I hope everything is okay. And you'd be amazed number of people who follow up because I look at messages all the time, and there's a complete lack of empathy.

SPEAKER_02: 13:07

Right. You mentioned um social proof and testimonials there, and I've seen on on LinkedIn you've written about these quite a lot. Is that is that just to kind of that's that's a must-have, isn't it? You know, sharing kind of um sharing testimonials. Is that a really powerful thing to to it is?

SPEAKER_01: 13:24

I share testimonials once a month, sometimes twice, but at least once a month. Um, and then once a month, when I work with somebody, I will get them to share a post talking about me, which is more powerful. When somebody else talks about you, it's always more powerful than you. Um, but I do this because there's so many lies are being told on social media, and more and more lies are being told on LinkedIn by sales trainers and by LinkedIn coaches and by social media trainers who go around saying, I'm making six figures a year, I'm completely sold out, I have a three-month waiting list. All these lies people tell. And I speak to these people all the time. And I say, I spoke to you last month, you're broke, and now I've got a three-month waiting list. What happened? Oh no, no, I have to say that to sound impressive. And so many people claim to make six figures or have a three-month waiting list just to sound impressive to other people. And I can often see right through that. I know people who go around saying, on LinkedIn publicly, they have a team of eight working for them. And I know for a fact it's only them, but they feel they need to say that to be impressive to others. So, you know, people will eventually find out. They really will. That's why I always say never lie. Okay, just don't do it. Have a very simple eye, it will never go wrong. So I always share testimonials because it's social proof. I have pictures of me training people, ideally face to face, if not over Zoom, so you can see when I say I'm working with this company, here is me working with the company. You know, that is social proof, and people see that every single month, quite often twice a month. It's social proof that people are working with me and hiring me.

SPEAKER_02: 14:57

You've sorry, go on, Chris.

Ken Hughes: 14:59

You you you've called out the boiler room culture before, haven't you? Boiler room culture, is that fair? Um like measuring call volume. So you think that people measure too they're too obsessed with measuring sort of the KPIs? Like what's what do you think that we should measure? What should the modern day marketing and sales director measure, do you think, in 2026?

SPEAKER_01: 15:20

Yeah, this is quite controversial because maybe seven years ago I did believe in 40 calls a day and you know 90 minutes to the phone, because that's how I was taught for almost a decade. So that used to be very effective. Now I prefer to go by quality. I'd rather you had five quality conversations a day than made 40 or 50 phone calls. Um, I would rather you move the process along slightly in your pipeline. To me, that's more successful than doing, let's say, spamming 2,000 people. For me, at the end of the day, not being in a state of overwhelm and depression, which so many of Gen Z are nowadays. You know, I I work a lot of tech companies, and Gen Z are a mess. I'm sorry, but they just can't cope because they're coming to work. They often haven't been trained properly. They wake up in the morning, look at their phones, come straight to work, looking at their phones, having breaks, looking at their phones, staring at their laptops at work, having Zoom meetings or team meetings back to back. As soon as lunchtime hits, they're on their phones, they're staring at their phones, looking at the social media, you know, and their brains are fried by the time five o'clock comes. And then they go home, they're looking at their phone in public transport, they get home and they're watching YouTube on their TV while looking at social media apps in the evening, and their brains are fried. And bear in mind also, I have a daughter and two stepdaughters aged between 21 and 27. So I have these conversations with them all the time, too. And overwhelm is a massive problem. And for you to get through the day in sales and not have mental health challenges or overwhelm or a feeling of depression or not having any kind of worthiness, that's a big challenge. So to get through the day and actually be well yourself and to be in a good place yourself, more managers need to measure that. The problem is they don't see that as profitable, but once you get that right, it's hugely profitable to the business. And it also makes you a great leader. But not all leaders really get the psychological element that's really happening right now. I I see it all the time as a coach, but most leaders don't see this, or they see it, they ignore it.

SPEAKER_02: 18:42

Um, that sort of links in with something else I saw you're writing about, which is um, and and in a moment I want to dive into some real practical advice around how we how we can sell better on LinkedIn. But before we do that, you talk a lot about um dealing with failure and rejection. Um, you know, and I think that's really, really important, isn't it? And you you quoted Churchill who said success um is going from one failure to another um without loss of enthusiasm. I'm not sure if I entirely agree with that, but um it the sentiment is right, isn't it? So, you know, in sales, you're gonna get a lot of rejection, aren't you? Um how how do you cope with that? Have you got kind of strategies to turn a negative into a positive in that respect?

SPEAKER_01: 19:23

I do. I used to struggle with this, which is why I talk about it a lot. And when you spend months working with a prospect, and the prospect rejects you, or even worse, ghosts you, or chooses a competitor who's cheaper, it's really frustrating. And I'm I'm being polite because I'm on the podcast. You can try it, don't worry.

Ken Hughes: 19:45

You can try, don't worry.

SPEAKER_01: 19:46

Yeah, it it it it's disheartening. And it was only I read this quote six months ago, and I say it all the time. That's not my quote, but I say it all the time. Never let rejection lead to self-rejection. Because you have no control over the outcome, but you do have control over the inputs and your understanding of those inputs. So when I get rejected now, the first thing I say is, okay, don't let rejection lead to self-rejection. And second of all, what could I have done better? Not all liars are buyers or clients are assholes. No, no, no. What could I have done better? And sometimes I'll find I rushed that process a bit. Or you know what? I just think I went in too quickly with the offer that time. And you'll often learn more about yourself. That's why it's very important. Always try to learn something if a situation hasn't gone your way. That makes the process of sales more bearable as well. Um, so detaching from the outcome, which is a great stoicism thing, uh, but also asking yourself, what could I have done better? And I guess the third thing will be is make sure you don't make the same mistake again. It's okay to make mistakes to anybody listening or watching. There's nothing wrong with it. Just do everything you can not to make the same mistakes twice.

SPEAKER_02: 21:04

Is that a segue into um your marketing fuck up?

SPEAKER_01: 21:09

Oh god, it made sense.

Ken Hughes: 21:12

I was gonna save it until later on, but I don't know it's the TEDx the TEDx is was interesting. The TEDx story that you you've spoken at TEDx. Where where was that and how did it go?

SPEAKER_01: 21:22

Um, it took place in Northern Ireland. Um I I wasn't aware that the guy who was arranging a TEDx was in the audience. So I ran three I I moved back to Northern Ireland, so I had a great career in London. I I loved working in London and I worked around the world uh for five years running shipping events, and so I had a chance to sell in the USA and Canada and Germany, Middle East and Asia. And I I learned so much about people and cultures and body language and how every country is so different, and it really made me very good at those five years. I kind of really excelled as a salesperson. And unfortunately, I uh when I set my own business out because I wasn't very happy with just you know working five days a week, commuting all the time, I wanted to work from home. No boss would let me work from home before lockdown. Nobody. They kept saying, you know, good salespeople do not work from home, only lazy people do, which by the way, I've never agreed with that philosophy, but that's what a lot of people used to believe. And also, my daughter was doing her A levels, and I wanted to be a present more as a father, and I just got frustrated. So I wrote a book called Everybody Works in Sales. It became a huge bestseller. Um but obviously I worked on it day and night to make sure it did become a bestseller. It's very important to anybody listening, you know that. Um but unfortunately, then my daughter went to university, and I went through a horrendous divorce uh with my ex-wife, and that was bloody and brutal and and lasted over a year. That did affect my work in quite a big way. And then two months after the divorce happened, lockdown happened, and the government gave me nothing, there was no furlough, and I was living off bounce back loans and credit cards. Now, when you're a man in your late forties and you have no job, you have no purpose. Purpose in life, you have no income, you have no partner. Life becomes very dangerous very quickly. Um, luckily, I don't do drugs or porn or gambling, any of the dangerous things a lot of men do, which I'm grateful for. But I kind of went from 14 stone to 21. So I kind of ate my feelings and became very sick very quickly. And my parents, God bless them both. Really, I wouldn't be here without my parents, and I'm very open about that. Said, right, put everything in storage right now. You're coming back home. And I said, Dad, I can't come back home. And I procrastinated a few more weeks until finally I couldn't take anymore. So I moved back to Northern Ireland, a really awful, vile, narrow-minded town where I grew up. I went back and it was horrific. It was embarrassing and it was shameful. And it took me a year to rebuild my life and rebuild my mental health. And when I did that, um, I was surprised how difficult it was to find business in Northern Ireland. I thought I've got all this experience and knowledge, got a best-selling book. Nobody cared. And so I ended up partnering with two guys locally, uh, Jim Irving and Collie Graham. And we ran three major events in 18 months on sales and marketing. And that's what kind of got the attention of people again. Live events, because people were really scared about doing live events after COVID. I was on it straight away because I had no other income. Um, and it was the second event I think I did. Uh, a member of the TEDx community was there. I didn't know this. And he said, You managed to talk about email in a way that was actually interesting, and you were actually charismatic and you made people laugh. It was email is the most boring subject around. Have you thought of doing a TED talk? I said, I'd love to do a TED talk about sales because we need to raise the standard goes, no, no, no, that's boring, that's too boring. I want to talk about your story of failure and how you lost everything and you rebuilt your life through vulnerability and kindness, and went, okay, I'll do that. And that was my TED talk, and that's how the TED talk came about.

Ken Hughes: 25:01

That is very brave. Like, because and then also a TED talk for those of you who have never seen it before, you've got like a spot, right? You've got to go out and stand on the spot, and most people don't even have any. I don't I've not done it. I you've got, I mean, I've presented a lot of things, but I imagine it's pretty terrifying. And you you have was it being filmed as well, live?

SPEAKER_01: 25:22

It was being filmed, and the problem is you can't move from the spot, you're stuck there. And you know, because I spent sort of two years going to Professional Speakers Association and and speaking courses, you're taught to move on the stage, and all of a sudden I had to unlearn everything I'd be I'd been taught just for this one event, and it's so difficult not to move for 15 minutes. It's so difficult. Um, and you can't interact with an audience because all my sales training, my link training training, it's interactive, but you cannot talk to the audience, and so you have to unlearn everything, and it was incredibly difficult. But you know what? I was incredibly proud of that moment. Um, I'm incredibly proud how I opened up my heart. Um, I looked at all other speakers and thought, okay, they're all using slides. I'm gonna do this without slides, which made it more daring and more different. And at the end of the evening, people were queuing at the door to speak to me, which I thought this is amazing. It's the greatest moment of my career so far. This is gonna take off like Simon Sinek or Mel Robbins in a huge way. And then when the TED talk came out a few months later, all the speakers did very well 20,000, 30,000 views. And I got 2,000 views, and I was devastated. I was just heartbroken. Um, it just didn't take off. People just didn't care. I mean, a few of my clients saw it, a few former clients saw it, a few friends watched it and said, Well done. But nobody cared. And that that was that was hard to accept at the time, but at the same time, it's a very good talk. And about eight months later, a beauty therapist who was building her business in Belfast and scaling quite quickly went, That talk was amazing. Can I hire you for sales training? So there that's a good example of thinking long term in sales for eight months. All the other speakers were getting so much work, and I'm like, nobody, nobody was even talking to me.

SPEAKER_02: 27:08

The the credibility of being associated with TEDx, though, you know, irrespective of you. I mean, we'll have to share the video link in the show notes actually, because I'm sure people will be listening to this wanting to thank you.

SPEAKER_01: 27:18

Yeah, it's a good example of A, thinking long term and B in sales. Sometimes, not just in sales, but in life, you do good work. But it doesn't get recognized until a long time later. The best example, I think, in the movie world is probably you know, It's a Wonderful Life. Nobody really cared about it when it came out, but 20 years later, it was shown on TV, it became huge. Shawshank Redemption, one of the greatest movies of all time, came out, complete flop. But then several months later came out and well, at the time VHS, and everybody talked about it, it took off. And sometimes that just happens. And the amount of work I've now had for my TED talk years later, people just going, Oh my god, that was an amazing talk. Can you speak at our conference? But it took years. You know, it didn't happen instantly.

Ken Hughes: 28:01

What why do you think it didn't take off then? Because the others did and you yours didn't. What what what's the magic? If I if there's like people listening to this, they're thinking, What can I learn from that? Why did the others I suppose why did they take off and yours has just kept going but slower? But you've well at least you've had one piece of business out of it anyway.

SPEAKER_01: 28:20

That's good, isn't it? I had one piece of sales training out of it, which was lovely, and then I've spoken at conferences two years later. People then hired me, but that was two years later. I think I spoke about vulnerability. Um when you think of vulnerability in Ted, you think of Brene Brown, who is truly smart, exceptional, talented, groundbreaking, probably the best in her field, or I should say the best known in her field. So you can't compare yourself to that, but now it's like if somebody did a talk about your why, they're always going to compare you to Simon Sinek, no matter what. You know, um Brene's talk was just so much better than mine. And I think second of all, I was fundraising from November. So I look like a Mexican bandit. I mean, I did. I have this ridiculous mustache, I just look ridiculous. Um yeah. And it's almost like and I actually mentioned in my talk, you know, I'm raising money for November just so you I don't normally look like this, but I look at myself thinking, God, that mustache looks it's a handlebar mustache, and it looked ridiculous. Um that's probably the first time people have seen me speak, and they're thinking, this guy just what's what's going on there, you know.

SPEAKER_02: 29:24

So um that was that was a great story, actually. Yeah, I mean, I think um we we hear all sorts of stories about failure and learnings and everything like that, and I think that was that was great to hear. Um let's get a little bit practical. There'll be people listening to this thinking, right? You know, I'm I think I'm good at sales, I want to I want to hit up LinkedIn, I want to start using that as a sales channel. And you talked about um focusing on value first. So, you know, what what should we do? Um, you know, do we hit the DMs and start tapping people up and blanket messaging people? Do we just focus on knowledge and thought leadership content? You know, what what's a good strategy for people to get started on LinkedIn to kind of build their credibility as a sales professional?

SPEAKER_01: 30:08

Okay. A big mistake I see a lot of people making on LinkedIn is they go straight into your DMs, they'll buy some really bad pieces software that allows them to message 500 people a day. Um, or you know, they'll buy data lists where they can email a thousand people a week. And and both these ideas are terrible, by the way. So if you want to do well on LinkedIn and you message anybody, first of all, you have to think, how am I going to sound different to 99.9% of people who are using AI or some kind of awful software or some kind of awful automation. LinkedIn isn't about being the best, it's about standing out. I am not the best at LinkedIn. I hold my hand up, I can name about 20 people right now who know every nuance and every single detail of LinkedIn that I don't know. But they often don't get the business because they don't sell or they don't put themselves out there, and I do. Or they often sound too intelligent and people can't understand them. Okay. So um, my advice is if you want to be good at LinkedIn, first, it's okay to be different, and it's very important to understand that. Okay. Second of all, if you do message anybody, the first thing they will do is check your profile. And if your profile isn't optimized, you got a major problem. It's like somebody going to your website and the website being half-assed. They're not going to do business with you, they're going to go elsewhere. So, uh, first of all, embrace your voice and be different. Second of all, understand when you do contact people who will go to your profile, therefore, you have to know how to optimize a profile. And the third thing is write content that engages with people. Because my business in LinkedIn, yes, I do outbound, of course. And outbound is very hard and very time consuming, but I have to do it because my clients do it. So I have to be able to empathize and understand them. And that's why I do outbound. But ultimately, inbound inquiries are the best and they tend to convert quicker and they tend to be of a higher quality. But that's because I'm putting out four pieces of valuable content a week to people, saying, here's a challenge people have in sales, and here's a solution. Here's a challenge people have, here's a solution. Here's a challenge people have, here's a solution. And maybe the fourth post will be a sales year post, like here's a testimonial, or here's me working with this brand new client. Because I I do believe in the 80-20 rule. 80% you give value, 20% you sell. So for me, that's probably one of the best ways to generate sales. Um, at the same time, you can't just rely on writing great content and bringing in leads. You have to go in the DMs. So when I go to people in the DMs, I'll often approach heads of sales who've just started a new role. Or if I see a business owner who's bought a new company or celebrated a rebrand, I'll I will slide into their DMs and I will congratulate them on the rebrand. So the first thing I do is I make it about them. I never say hi, I'm an official LinkedIn talk voice, I've written three books, I'm a TEDx speaker, I got 30 years' experience. If you hire me, I'll do an amazing job because nobody cares. What they care about is A, do you not have commission breath? You know, do you have you actually researched the business, which most people don't do? And what value are you giving me? So I'll I'll acknowledge something I saw they have written about on LinkedIn or their website, because that's important. Only 2% of people actually post on LinkedIn. So quite often you want to do business with somebody. 2% of people. Only 2% of people on LinkedIn post.

SPEAKER_02: 33:41

So just by posting, you're already in the um, you know, you're already standing out, aren't you?

SPEAKER_01: 33:46

Already in the top two percent. So a lot of people you want to do business with, especially in industries like pharma and things like that, they rarely post. Um, a lot of law firms I do business with, law firms don't post that much. When they do, they just share boring blogs from the marketing department. You know, they're not that interesting. So with law firms, with pharma, public sector, you tend to get the information from their websites, not LinkedIn. Um, but when I go into somebody's DMs, or if I email them, I will always refer to something I read on their website or on LinkedIn. The second thing I'll say is, you know, I've noticed you're rebranding or growing your team, for example. You know, 90% of business in sales isn't the follow-up. And I guarantee your sales team are losing money because they're not following up properly or even following up at all. They're probably saying things like, hi, I hope you're well. Instead, here are three better ideas I have on following up. And I'll share those ideas and I'll say, if this is of interest to you, I'm happy to talk further. Now look at the process, the very specific process I've done. Most people will talk about themselves, which I don't. Most people will say, Here's my kindly link. Are you free for a 20-minute meeting? I have not done that. I have talked about them, I have shared value that will help them. And then I say, if you want to understand more, I am happy to have a chat. It's non-salesy, it's non-threatening. I've tried probably a thousand versions to get to this point, just to be clear, but that's how I know it works so well because it took me years of kind of working on it to get to that point.

unknown: 35:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 35:18

That that you you this is a this this might be a difficult question, um, but you you talked about you know the importance of being different. So if people are listening to this thinking, you know, and I'm I'm sort of thinking this as well, how can I be different? You know, surely every every piece of content, every idea has already been done on LinkedIn, you know, is there a process people can can go through to to be different? What would you advise?

SPEAKER_01: 35:42

Well, there's two answers to that. First of all, on the LinkedIn DMs, to be different, what you don't do is copy and paste. If you want to be different, don't use automation. If you want to be different, be personal. Because nobody else is doing that by the way. So that's the easy answer. Okay. Um, in terms of writing content and being different, it takes practice. You know, you do not just suddenly turn up on LinkedIn and be different. It takes practice and repetition and repetition. So for example, um how I'm different on LinkedIn is I will tell personal stories twice a month. Most of my competition don't. I do video on LinkedIn, and I'm still shocked that most of my competitions still don't do video. Video is the best way to generate trust, authority, and leads. Um I show up even on bad days, I still show up on LinkedIn. Most people give up. So that is a very good example of being different on LinkedIn. Showing up when you're not in the mood, shooting video, which by the way, for those of you watching, for those of you listening, I'm holding up my iPhone. It's not an iPhone 17, which is a brand new one, it's an iPhone 13, which is I think three or four years old. But I shoot a video on this, no fancy editing, no fancy lighting, don't need teams of people to edit it. I should have video. It's really people often overthink these things and think I need to have a team of people. No, you don't. If you're scaling your business, yes. But but if it's just you or a few people, you can do this yourself. And it's very important you know this.

SPEAKER_02: 37:16

And that idea of that idea of showing up is so important, isn't it? I mean, Chris and I, when we launched the podcast, we read a stat that said something like 78% of podcasts never make it beyond episode three. So just by having a fourth episode, you're already in the uh in the in the elite minority, aren't you? And it's true on LinkedIn. Monday, you know, a Monday morning, you've had a busy weekend, the last thing you want to do is is show up on LinkedIn. But by doing that, you have you're absolutely different to basically everybody else in in your market, aren't you?

SPEAKER_01: 37:45

Oh, I know so many people who post on LinkedIn and after a few months they give up because they got nothing. You know, if you're on a business and for three months you get nothing and you give up, you've lost your business. You know, yeah, people give up so easily in life.

Ken Hughes: 37:58

Uh you look you look on you look on LinkedIn, I often find the B2B content, and people some people say boring to boring, but it's not true because that's what we're all we're everybody here on this call is doing we're doing B2B, but we do B2C as well. But it amazes me when I'm looking at content of some people that use or brands that use like stock imagery constantly, and it's like you what you've just talked about there, like the authenticity, which is a word that has been so overused in 2025. Be authentic, let's be off and and but you're right, get your phone, talk to your phone as if you're talking to the individual. But I I've seen you before talk about being human is the new moat, which I quite liked, um, in an AI-driven world. So being human, acting human, that's kind of what you were saying there with the outreach. Like the personal touch, though, it takes a lot, doesn't it? So, how do you find the time to um how many people are you being personal to on LinkedIn but also in sales? How how do you find the time to do that without wanting to jump out the bloody window and being fried to your phone?

SPEAKER_01: 39:05

Well, I focus massively on the quality of people, not the quantity. I I don't want to reach everybody, I want to have great relationships. So I was in London four weeks ago on business. The client hired me for training, and I said, Look, you know, doing a half day of training on Zoom isn't fun. I don't enjoy it. But you know what will really help is I do this training face-to-face. And most clients will then say we can't afford to fly you over and put you up in a hotel. And at that case, you have to make a very difficult decision because for me to get to London, I I live in near the Giants Causeway, sort of Game of Thrones territory. Nice, right? Very boring place to grow up, but as an adult, oh my god, it's most kiss the world. It's stunning. But it's 90 minutes to the airport, airport parking, airport flights, which are disgraceful, and a hotel in London. I mean, a decent hotel, not even a great, just a decent one, 300 pounds. So you're losing 700 pounds plus travel time. So I said to the client, look, I'll come and do this face-to-face. And they're like, Really? He said, Yeah, and I'll pay for it myself. Now that cost me money and it cost me time. The time thing is fine because while I was in the train, I worked. While I was in the car, I listened to the sales podcast, while I was traveling, I stepped a bit, you know, I I made the most of my travel time. In terms of the money, I just took a bit of a hit. But here's the important thing: it was done face to face. We didn't just do sales training, we had breakout sessions, we had competitions, their team loved it. And their team persuaded their boss to hire me for a second half day, which this time will take place over Zoom in January. So I doubled the amount because I took a small hit. A lot of companies are not prepared to take small hits for long-term gain. And I do this a lot, and it doesn't work every time, but it works more times than it doesn't work. So that's a really good example. Uh, second of all, uh, for those of you listening, I'm holding up Christmas cards. As you can see, a lot of them have been used. Um, I send Christmas cards to my clients, I send birthday cards to my clients. Again, hardly anybody does this. And it's such an important skill set to have. And it's about being real and human in an AI-driven world. Happy birthday texts don't mean much. I'm sorry, they just don't. But a happy birthday card sent in the post, knowing you have to go to a post office and remortgage your house to pay for a first class stamp. That's a big deal, you know?

SPEAKER_02: 41:29

It's mad that we have to remind ourselves to be human, isn't it? As humans, we need to remind ourselves we need to be human.

Ken Hughes: 41:35

I know how to be human on LinkedIn. You just click congrats on your work, work anniversary.

SPEAKER_02: 41:41

Or if someone had told Mark Zuckerberg to be human in the interviews that he does, that's uh I've never seen, I'm sure he's a cyborg, isn't he, Mark Zuckerberg?

Ken Hughes: 41:49

Right. Well in terms of personal though, we talked about where where do you draw the line at what because we mean Will have talked about this. Like LinkedIn is during the pandemic, it went really personal. People were sharing their back gardens, even on LinkedIn. What where do you where do you draw the line today with personal because the vulnerability thing that you just talked about there with in TEDx? Brilliant. Like vulnerability, because nobody does that. That's why that's why we started this podcast about sharing things where we've where we're vulnerable and we make mistakes and our learnings. Where do you draw the line though on on what you personally share on LinkedIn? See, I struggle with that.

SPEAKER_01: 42:27

It depends how much you share. So uh today is the 12th of December, and yesterday I shared a post on LinkedIn, which did very well. And I talked about if you go into Google AI um and say, Should you share wedding posts on LinkedIn? The answer word for word is do not share wedding posts on LinkedIn. That is for Facebook or Instagram, keep LinkedIn professional. And I said I strongly disagree with this because my LinkedIn posts went semi viral about my wedding two days ago. And I'm very proud of that. Um, I went through hell of my divorce. I lost almost everything. I rebuilt my life through therapy. And I'm a better person now because of it. And I found happiness the second time around. I cannot tell you in words how truly grateful and blessed I am. Even though the journey was horrendous, the end result was beautiful. And I'm so grateful for that. And I share my personal post because when I announced my engagement several months ago, it went viral. I was shocked. It had like almost a thousand comments about me saying, never give up on your dreams, never give up on love, no matter how much rejection you get. I had four bridal companies make inquiries after that post. And two of them had the budget to hire me to train their salespeople. Because a lot of the time it's young women age between 25 to 30 who are trying to sell to mothers of a bride who are in their 40s and 50s, and they just can't. Apart from saying, How are you? You look beautiful. Oh, that dress was made for you. They're incapable of any other conversation apart from that. So for me, it was an amazing experience to do that. But that's a great example of a personal post doing well. But quite often with a personal post, it lets people know who you are. So my one-to-one coaching, just one-to-one, 90% of my clients are women. And the reason women hire me is because they see who I am, not just through my business posts, but through my personal posts. They see kindness and they see somebody with values. And so once a month, at least I'll talk about my charity work and fundraising I'm doing. And I'll tag in the charity I'm fundraising for. And then once every sort of two or three months, I'll do a deeply personal post. And then probably once a month I'll do a fun post. So for example, two months ago, my post said, um, I'm celebrating Christmas today. And people are going, What? It's October, what's he talking about? And the next line said is today is Diwali. And Diwali is our Christmas. And Divalley's about giving. And here are five charities I'm supporting right now. There's food stock, there's autism in eye, and here are the lakes. Please give to these charities. And two of the charities contacted me to say they had donations come in. No, they weren't multi-million, like£50 here,£40 there. But it's making a difference to other people. So it's okay to talk about your charity work. It's okay to talk about special occasions and wedding anniversaries, as long as it's non-again. If you're doing this every week, two or three times a week, you don't really have a business. And I know a lot of business coaches who just spend personal stuff all the time. But I know for a fact they don't really have businesses that are doing much. And they believe they have to talk about their personal lives all the time to get big followers. But I don't care about the big followers. Yes, I'm grateful to have just hit 40,000 followers, but I know people with 2,000 followers who do amazing. I know people with 3,000 followers who are more successful than me. So don't think that having a big following equates to business. It's lovely for your ego, but it doesn't necessarily convert to profit.

Ken Hughes: 45:55

Enjoy the journey, not the destination.

SPEAKER_01: 45:58

Oh yeah. It's really important to enjoy the journey and also understand that I'm really into personal development. And there's an old saying, success leaves clues. And I was watching an interview with Denzel Washington, who's an actor I admire greatly. He's not just a great actor, he's a great man, man of faith, married to the same woman, family man. He has values that I aspire to and have in life. And he says, I don't see problems, I see opportunities. And I love that quote. And I wish more on sales and marketing. Instead of getting frustrated or disappointed or disheartened or blaming the client, more people would look at problems and go, you know what? I understand this has happened. Where is the learning in this, or where is the opportunity in this for me?

Ken Hughes: 46:43

Yeah, that's amazing. I mean, amazing. Well done, mate, by the way, uh, for everything that you've done. I think it's great. Um, I think, yeah, rebuilding your life and everything is is is brilliant. That's why I wanted to get you on the show. Um, because we've spoken to a couple of other LinkedIn um specialists. We like to talk to them, and it's um yeah, it's nice to hear it's nice to hear a story that's you've been through it and you've come through the other side. That's exactly what this show's about. Um, and actually, uh I've well I'll can I ask you a selfish um uh question, not from but but like I I share stuff on LinkedIn about the show, and I don't I don't want to show too much about it, but we do so much content, and it's video content, it's valuable content. But for instance, right, last month we were the 45th biggest marketing podcast in Mongolia, right? I didn't want to make a big song and dance about that. Well, I did mention that on LinkedIn because I thought it was funny. Today we're number one marketing podcast in the UK, which is amazing. Uh we've not shared anywhere because that I feel like we've bigged it up too much, and I don't know, you know, like I feel like we're oversharing now. There's like a video every week, and it's all value, it's like guests like yourself. And I never know, like I just feel like I don't want to show off anymore. Oh, we're number one now, and I'm a bit embarrassed, so I haven't shared it. What do you what do you think about that? What do you think we should do with that?

SPEAKER_01: 48:06

Well, if two or three times a week you're telling people how amazing you are, it gets boring and repetitive. Yeah. If once a week you're sharing clips from your guests, that's absolutely fine because what you're doing is you're sharing value. There's nothing wrong with that at all. But if once a week or once every two weeks you're saying, look, we'll just hit number one, this is a big deal. And even say, you know what, being British, I kind of feel embarrassed sharing it because that's what we do. If I was American, this wouldn't be a problem. You know, make make fun of it that way. Because Americans would not have a problem. But being British, I feel is a bit embarrassing. But you know what? At the same time, we've produced so many episodes of this podcast. I am so proud of the work behind the scenes, which by the way, nobody sees except me and Chris. We know the work we've done, nobody else sees it, and I'm so proud to hit number one, be number one. I want to say thank you to everybody. And if you want to know why we're number one, here's a link. Please subscribe. Uh there's nothing wrong with doing that. That's what I would do in your position. There we go.

SPEAKER_02: 49:02

That's your post for Monday. That's the value. I love it.

Ken Hughes: 49:09

Will shares extensively on his LinkedIn. He's still got um he's still got a link, he's still got the uh podcast banner from about three and a half years ago. Yeah, that's that's fake news. Fake news, fake news. Um we haven't forgot to ask him about his um other fuck up there. There was another fuck-up which you wanted to share. Sorry, Will, because you were on a SEO experience. Yeah, and Will hasn't heard this one, so I thought it'd be good. Let's hear let's let's I mean we Will loves SEO, so let's let's hear about your Will likes to talk about the benefits of SEO, and he's a big fan of SEO uh consultants, that you will. There you go. What do you think of tell us your story, Narash?

SPEAKER_01: 49:49

Well, it was last year, and I was working with my business coach. She was a great woman. I really loved working with her, and she'd helped me achieve more success. And I was saying, I really want to be more successful. And you know, there's only so much you can do on LinkedIn. LinkedIn's very important, but I feel I'm working harder than I should, and I should be investing something like SEO. And she said, I know what brilliant SEO company you should invest in. So I contacted them and uh it was a 7,000 pound contract, which is a lot of money. It's a huge amount of money. And I had to pay these guys 7,000 pounds. And I said, Okay, you'll come recommend it through my business code. You're saying all the right words, let's go for it. And they agreed to it. And then as soon as I signed it, and they said, Okay, we have to take over your website and create a news channel. I said, Well, hang on a second, why? And they said, Well, Google is driven by news stories. Like, okay, that kind of makes sense. My website's designer is like, I don't like this. These people have not got they're not very good on. I've had a look at their website, they're not very good, they're not very good at SEO. I said, I appreciate that. But I, you know, I my my business coach is amazing. She recommended them. Let's just give them access to my website so they can create a news channel. And they did. And two or three times a week they produced news. The problem was it was generic sales news. It wasn't in my voice. There were stock images everywhere. It looked horrible and it didn't sound like me. And every time I questioned it, they gaslit me with horrible emails saying I knew nothing about SEO. And I said, Okay, it's true. I don't, I said, You guys are the experts. Okay, I'll trust you. I trust my business coach. Great. Month three, actually, a client of mine called Peter, this looks terrible. I said, guys, I have to get out of this contract. I'm sorry. I've not had a single inquiry in three months. And they goes, You can't, you're tied in for six months, read your T's and C's. And I read it, and it was like number 12.g part two, just hidden in the background. You have to, you're tied in for six months. Oh God. And I spoke to my business coach. She goes, Ah, I'll just wait for six months and see how it goes. And I thought, that's really bad. If someone comes to you with a complaint, don't be casual in how you deal with it. And after six months, I the SEO agency sort of blaming my website person saying, Your website isn't very good. Let us take over your website, pay us for your website, and we'll pay more. Yeah, pay more. I said, guys, you made it. No results so far. Yeah, nothing. I've had no business in six months for the first time ever in my career, by the way. Wow. And you've really made a mess of this, and you should not be allowed to do what you're doing. And obviously they could gas slap me on email, but face-to-face, or sorry, on Zoom, they couldn't because I wouldn't let them. And I was very angry. And I said, You guys have lost so much business out of this because you're never going to get recommended by me. Ever. And they said, Well, don't worry, your business coach got a nice little kickback from us. And so I called her and confronted her and I said, I'm going to fire you right now. And I hate this because you're a great business coach. Never heard from her again. Um and that was a painful lesson to learn about when people say the right words, still do your research, still find out who's work with them and contact them and say what was the experience like working with this person and read your T's and C's very carefully. Because people don't read terms and conditions, and yet they just don't. I don't. But I should have read them. And I'm kind of disappointed in myself that I didn't. And as a solopreneur, to you know, it's not just£7,000 you're losing. You have to earn about£10,000 to make£7,000. And second of all, it was the stress was horrendous. It was such a stressful and painful experience. And that's probably the biggest disappointment and the worst decision I made my seven years of business was hiring that SEO company.

Ken Hughes: 53:28

Um wow. Well, maybe we'll still support them. What do you think? Well, you're going to stick up for the SEO community there.

SPEAKER_02: 53:36

I'm not getting involved in this argument, Chris.

Ken Hughes: 53:39

I want to say, I want to say, but firstly, Niraj, um in their defense, uh SEO can take about three months to make a a change. If you do if you do things right, it would all take six months to make any impact whatsoever. That sounds like it's not right. Um, and yeah, there is some great SEO consultants out there, they do some great work and um technical SEOs, we've worked with loads of them, and you know, uh PR can help SEO, especially with the way that the the world is changing with uh the way people are finding things on looking on uh searching on these AI bots now, uh answering questions, FAQs. They were they were kind of right. It sounds like you had some bad advice though. Um, but there's some brilliant SEOs we've had on the show, and um we always ribbed them a little bit that there's a they've got like this magic black box that they never let you see what it actually is, and it's always like, Don't you worry the fact that you they said to you though, the worst bit of that story for me was that they came back to you and went, You don't know anything about SEO. Like if we said that to one of our clients, they said we we've got we're not impressed with your your your PR results. You could say, Okay, fair enough, let's look at but we wouldn't say you know nothing about PR. That's a bit rude, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01: 54:48

It was, but then they tried that at the end they started gaslighting my website designer who has done amazing work with me. My website looks so good, it's professional. I get inquiries, and they started gaslighting her saying she's not very good. You should really hire us to do a better job. And I just didn't like their attitude and their aggression at the end. Um and they really shot themselves in the foot. They really did. And uh yeah, but at the same time, it was a painful lesson to learn, a real marketing screw-up, and a mistake on my part. Always check out testimonials from other people and always read your contracts and T's and C's.

SPEAKER_02: 55:22

Well, um this has been a great chat, um, Niraj. We we covered a load of area, a load of um a load of different topics, and there's a ton of value, as we'd hope, being focused on value as you are. Um, you've been on the show, you've you've seen how it goes and and the kind of questions we ask. Now, I'm gonna put you on the spot a little bit here. Who would you invite on the show next and why?

SPEAKER_01: 55:46

Okay. I've only been asked this question a few times and recommended people in the past. So, what I'm gonna do is this I'm gonna wait till the podcast comes out, I'm gonna see what kind of video clips you put out of me and how you promote the show, and then, and you can quote me in this, I'll be happy to make one or two recommendations because it means I can then think about it as well. I can think about the experience and recommend people to you. That's a good answer. Recommend people for the thought. I should I should have thought about it a bit more. That was all.

SPEAKER_02: 56:14

Actually, we need to, and um if people want to get hold of you in your edge, do you want to give people your contact details, your website, LinkedIn, etc.?

SPEAKER_01: 56:22

Certainly. Well, the website's everybody works in sales. There's about 50 blogs there on really doing better in LinkedIn, growing your brand on LinkedIn and growing on sales. If you want to go to YouTube, by the way, I'm a complete nobody on YouTube. I've only got 500 subscribers, I make no money from it. There's about 200 video clips on LinkedIn, on sales, it's there to help you. Just go to Everybody Works in Sales on YouTube or simply follow me on LinkedIn. Or even better, tell me you listened to the podcast and you heard it on LinkedIn. That would be amazing.

Ken Hughes: 56:52

I love this. Thanks for coming on the show, Nier Eyes. I really appreciate it. Yeah, that's excellent.

SPEAKER_02: 56:57

Thank you.