Serve to Sell – Get Booked Solid With Your Ideal Clients Using LinkedIn – in Just 7 Minutes with Sarah Santacroce

Resources/Links:

• Steal Sarah’s 6 LinkedIn Invitation Messages to EASILY add the Right Connections, visit: www.bitly.com/sarahstemplates

Summary

Sarah Santacroce is an internationally recognized LinkedIn Specialist and Online Presence Mentor who has personally coached over 1,900 entrepreneurs. She helps them position themselves as experts on LinkedIn so they get clients with ease.

In addition, Sarah is known for helping fellow introverts market their business authentically & anxiety-free, sell their services & make a difference.

In this episode, Sarah shares how she helps entrepreneurs position themselves as experts on LinkedIn and get more clients with ease without aggressive selling. She also shares her mission to help people understand and use LinkedIn as a business development tool rather than a Rolodex of contacts.

Check out these episode highlights:

• 02:02 – Sarah shares her ideal client: executive coach or a consultant who tries to book corporate clients through LinkedIn
• 02:30 – The problems she helps solve for her clients: help them position themselves as experts so they get recognized and get clients with ease and not sleaze
• 02:53 – Typical symptoms that these executive coaches and consultants do before reaching out to Sarah: They usually rely to word-of-mouth marketing only. And wants to try LinkedIn because they heard it is a ‘gold mine’ to getting clients
• 03:59 – Typical mistakes that people make before they get to Sarah’s solution: They use LinkedIn as a Rolodex just adding numbers to their network rather than building relationships and they use LinkedIn just to sell and not give value
• 05:02 – Sarah’s Valuable Free Action: Build up a network of ideal clients and you do that by adding new connections.
• 07:09 –Valuable Free Resource: Steal Sarah’s 6 LinkedIn Invitation Messages to EASILY add the Right Connections, visit: www.bitly.com/sarahstemplates
• 07:38 – Q: What does slightly unconventional LinkedIn strategist mean? A: My profile says I’m a slightly unconventional LinkedIn strategist and the unconventional stands for- the non-sleazy approach. So, I don’t teach any automation, I don’t teach to go out there and send a thousand messages to people. So, I really take that to heart, serve and don’t sell.

Tweetable Takeaways from this Episode:

“You have to invest some time to position yourself as the expert so that you get recognized, get the credibility, built the relationships, and then eventually that will lead to the sale.” -@sarahsantacroce Share on X

Transcript
(Note, this was transcribed using a transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast)

Tom Poland: Hello everyone. A very warm welcome to another edition of marketing the invisible. I’m Tom Poland as usual, beaming out to from on the sand that Little Castaways beach next to the whites in Queensland Australia, joined today by Sarah Santacroce.

Tom Poland: Sarah, very good morning I think it is for you. Where are you calling in from?

Sarah Santacroce : I’m calling in from Switzerland. Thank you so much for having me.

Tom Poland: Oh thanks for rocking up. Switzerland, beautiful just outside Geneva. I think you said, was it?

Sarah Santacroce : That’s right.

Tom Poland: Beautiful country. Where did you move from? I’m detecting perhaps somewhere in North America.

Sarah Santacroce : Yeah that’s what I usually get. No, I’m actually born and raised in Switzerland. I’m just a copycat with accents and so I copy my husband’s accent who’s from Canada. I’ve always been here. Lived in California for four years but that’s about it.

Tom Poland: Right. All right. Well thank you for that interesting little tidbit, and sorry to be so nosey. Let’s, let’s get back on subject. So, for those of you who don’t know Sarah, she’s an internationally recognized LinkedIn specialist which is an absolute goldmine probably for just about every listener on the call. And she’s also an online presence mentor who has personally coached over nineteen hundred entrepreneurs. Wow. And all before you’re twenty-three. That’s incredible.

Sarah Santacroce : Yes. Thank you.

Tom Poland: She helps them position themselves as experts on LinkedIn so they get clients with ease. Additionally, Sarah is known for helping fellow introverts. Market their business authenticity and anxiety free. Sell their services, make a difference. So, folks, I think you get to love the title for this which was selected by Sarah not by me I should hasten away. It’s “Serve to sell, get booked solid with ideal clients using LinkedIn”. We’re going to, Sarah’s going to show you how to do that in just seven minutes. Sarah, our time starts now. Quest number one is, who is your ideal client?

Sarah Santacroce: My ideal client for this interview because I have several services. So, for this and I’m going to focus on the coach or consultant who works with people in the corporate world. So, this is an executive coach or a consultant who tries to book corporate clients. So that’s why LinkedIn’s an ideal place.

Tom Poland: Absolutely. Thank you. Question number two six and a half minutes left. What’s the problem you solve for them?

Sarah Santacroce: I help them position themselves as experts so they get recognized and get clients with ease and not sleaze.

Tom Poland: Beautiful. Thank you. You said that before. All right. So, question number three just over six minutes left. What are the typical symptoms I should say that your ideal clients experiencing before they find you?

Sarah Santacroce : Usually these are people who already have a successful business. They have clients they usually only refer on word of mouth marketing. And so, they come to me because they are like “Well, I heard LinkedIn is a goldmine but I just don’t know how to access it. I maybe already have a lot of connections on LinkedIn but I just don’t know how to go about getting clients”. So, that’s what I help them with.

Tom Poland: So presumably that feeling a little lost perhaps lacking a bit of direction perhaps. Do they have clarity about where clients are coming from?

Sarah Santacroce : Yeah. They just don’t know how to use LinkedIn. They feel that it’s not really user-friendly which I often agree with them first. Figures it’s true, that it’s not that user-friendly and so I kind of guide them around how to use it.
Tom Poland: Right. So, when people are aware, they’ve got this problem that depends on the word of mouth marketing it’s not as predictable as that like. They’re probably going to do some things that are going to work very well before they find you and your solution. So, question number four, just under five minutes left. What are some of the common mistakes that people make when they’re trying to solve that problem?

Sarah Santacroce : Well they actually use LinkedIn either just as a Rolodex. So, they’re just adding numbers to their network rather than building relationships and really being there to position themselves as experts and sharing valuable content. Or they use LinkedIn and tried to sell on LinkedIn. So that’s why the title serves don’t sell. So, we’re not using any kind of social media actually to go out there and sell we’re just using it to serve our audience. Would then, in the end, leads to a sale If you do it well. But you have to invest some time to position yourself as the expert so that you get recognized, get the credibility, built the relationships, and then eventually that will lead to the sale.

Tom Poland: Wonderful. Thank you. And so just over four minutes left. Question number five is, what’s one valuable free action that a listener, an audience member, could take that’s going to take him a step closer to fixing this issue? Won’t solve the whole thing but it’s something that could take action on.

Sarah Santacroce: So usually people they come to me and say “I don’t get it, I don’t see any interaction on LinkedIn, I don’t see how to engage with the audience”. And that’s usually because they have the wrong network. So maybe they have left their corporate job and they still have all these old connections from their corporate life who are not necessarily their ideal clients. So, the first step is to actually build up a network of ideal clients and you do that by adding new connections that fit your ideal client description. And I’m not talking, I know, you talk a lot about leads. I’m not calling them leads because they’re not leads yet. They’re just new connections. Yeah. They’re just there are new connections where you’re trying to build a relationship with. And so to do that, well you can use different strategies, one of them is to use the LinkedIn search bar. So you type in your keywords for your ideal client and then start to connect with these new people. And usually what people struggle with there is, well, what do I say in this invitation. Right. Or actually, before that people make this mistake of just adding or sending out the default invitation. And so, it just says, “So and so would like to connect with you”. And then the people on the receiving and the person on the receiving end goes well, “Why would I want to connect with you, I don’t know who you are”. “You’re based in Australia; I don’t know who you are”. The strategy is actually to customize this invitation all the time. And in order to make sure that you don’t come out sale-sy again. Right. Here’s the sleazy part. Don’t connect with them and say “Hey, I looked at your profile looks like we’re a good fit. And here’s my services, are you open to connect and get on the call”? Ooh, nobody’s going to want that. So, it’s a matter of finding something that you have in common with this person and using that in the invitation.

Tom Poland: Sarah thanks for that. Question number six is what’s one valuable free resource that you could direct people to that’s going to help them even more?

Sarah Santacroce : Yeah. So, regarding what I said before, people sometimes ask me “What do I say in these messages?”, and I have a template for that. So, at bitly.com/sarahstemplate that can get these message templates out there.

Tom Poland: Perfect. So, bitly b-i-t-l-y dot com forward slash Sarah “s”, Sarah’s templates. Thank you so much. Question number seven, one-minute left. What’s the one question I should have asked you but didn’t?

Sarah Santacroce: So on my profile it says I’m a slightly unconventional LinkedIn strategist and the unconventional really stands for the non-sleazy approach. So, I don’t teach any automation, I don’t teach to go out there and send a thousand message, messages to people and no spamming. So, I really take that to heart and serve and don’t sell.

Tom Poland: Perfect. Sarah thanks so much for your time.

Sarah Santacroce : Thank you.

Tom Poland: Thanks for checking out our marketing the invisible podcast if you like what we’re doing here. Please head over to iTunes to subscribe, rate us, and leave us a review. It’s very much appreciated. And if you want to generate five fresh leads in just five hours then check out www.fivehourchallenge.com.