Stop Asking for a Discovery Call

Ever been pitch-slapped by a new LinkedIn connection flinging their "free discovery call" link at you? That is NOT social selling: it's pure desperation.

Then again you may wonder if that approach actually does work... 🤔

Otherwise, why would so many people risk their reputation to send one measly link?

Your intuition is not wrong. 🧠

The reason we are skeptical when someone offers anything FREE is that we already recognize the strings attached.

Plus, we also suspect that if they can offer their most precious asset (their time) for free, they must not have many clients or a solid business model.

But what is the alternative? 🤷🏽

If you are not pushing, driving, selling -- you won't close any deals.

Think again.

In this Mondays with Mindi episode, we go into the best ways to build new business relationships or land new clients with a sustainable strategy that does NOT require you to give all your time away for free -- and three things you can do NOW to make it happen.

Discovery Calls Are for Newbies

Have you ever been pitch-slapped by a new LinkedIn connection eager to give you their calendar link to book a free 30-minute clarity call or complimentary 60-minute strategy session? 

If you’re like most LinkedIn’ers I know, you typically roll your eyes and try to resist the urge to remove the connection immediately -- maybe opting for the “mute this conversation” button instead.

Who are these people? It boggles my mind how they have so much free time on their hands that they are ready-and-willing to give up 30-60 minutes of their premium time to a complete stranger in hopes of getting the sale.

This is like getting introduced to someone new at a friend’s party and in the next breath asking for their phone number. Creepy!

When it comes to LinkedIn messaging, you and I have seen it all. Most of the time, we’re disappointed by what we see in our LinkedIn inboxes because it’s one horribly written pitch after another, with maybe an old college friend resurfacing to see “how business is going” from time to time.

Still, the social selling gurus are teaching us to follow these same worn-out strategies that didn’t work well even five years ago when LinkedIn was not as sophisticated as it is now.

Why is it that you feel the first thing you need to do when you want new clients is to set up a “book a free call” Calendly link and plaster it all over your LinkedIn profile, inside your messages and every page of your website.

This is a complete newbie move, and you’re showing your cards that you are desperate for new business by making this link available.

So, if you have a discovery call link on your profile, I highly recommend that you reconsider whether or not it’s actually doing the opposite because we’re going to get into how sophisticated business leaders handle their calendar on LinkedIn.

If you’ve been turned off by flinging calendar invites and booking links back and forth with little success, you’re going to learn what REALLY works on LinkedIn right now.

Your Time is the Grand Prize

One of the biggest mistakes I see people make on LinkedIn is too freely giving away their time to anyone and everyone who asks for it.

We’re taught the old way of networking, which is to hand out your business card to everyone you meet that contains your phone number, email address and even your physical address. (Talk about getting personal!)

A well-connected networker is supposed to just be able to pick up the phone and call or text anyone, and the other is expected to reciprocate with a timely text or quick response to their voicemail.

But think about it, would you expect Brene Brown, Seth Godin, Mark Zuckerberg, or Oprah Winfrey to just willy-nilly hand out an all-access pass to reach them and get on their schedule?

Heck, no!

This is very similar to how a go-to expert should approach their calendar. It’s sacred. Nobody hops on for a face-to-face meeting without being thoroughly vetted and without a specific business reason in mind for that call.

When you devalue your time by letting anyone grab a link and get on your calendar with a very fuzzy reason that doing so is going to “open you to a new opportunity,” you’re going to fill your calendar with calls, but a high percentage of them will be with the wrong people and without an intentional purpose to drive your business forward.

Great business leaders value their time and energy above all else. They have NO time for a call that is not directly related to their business and professional objectives.

They have rules around who gets on their calendar, what will be discussed, and when the meeting will end. There’s no mucking around throughout the day because every call is high-value and deserves their attention.

No matter if you just started your business last month or you’ve been at this for decades, your time is valuable.

When you respect your own time, others will respect your time.

You’ll also notice an increase in the number of highly-qualified opportunities and closed deals as a result of being more stringent with your calendar.

When everyone else is zigging with calendar links, you’re zagging and making sure it’s a viable, profitable opportunity with a high likelihood of closing before you hand out your calendar link.

This also applies to savvy B2B salespeople, whom I find to be eager to cold call and get really aggressive with their outreach. Oftentimes, this can backfire because a great salesperson still values their time and only spends it with their most valuable prospects.

To put this into perspective, I was working with a colleague of mine just a few weeks ago who is relatively new to running her own business, is an expert at what she does, and really should be charging for every hour of her time. 

When we looked at her website, it had “book a discovery call” at the top of her website, which screams “I have no clients!!! Please talk to me!”

I asked her why she was letting any ol’ website visitor who was not properly vetted hop onto her calendar to pick her brain for 30 minutes.

She answered that was what she was told to do from some other online marketing experts. 

“Doesn’t every consultant do a free strategy or discovery call to give them a taste and sell a consulting package?”

I replied, “Nope. The best ones make it incredibly difficult to get a free call, but they often have a paid consulting hour available.”

In that moment, I saw it dawn on her that she had been devaluing herself and turning away the clients who would actually want to work with her and pay her what she’s worth because she was not valuing her own expertise.

It took her 30 minutes to take that free call link off her website and replace it with a one-hour paid consultation.

Guess what? She now has control of her time and is on a path to attract more qualified people to work with her and compensate her accordingly.

Pair that approach with a great inbound marketing and aligned social selling strategy, and she’s well on her way to fully booking her calendar with paid clients.

The LinkedIn Coquette at Work

I like to think of LinkedIn as a game, because it is. When you know how to play it well, you can do less on LinkedIn and build better relationships that actually lead to business growth and actual dollars in your business bank account.

And if you’re curious about my own approach to LinkedIn, I will share a little secret: I like to play the coquette.

Now what do I mean by this? I’m not talking about being flirtatious or leading people on, as that’s a negative connotation that is not applicable on LinkedIn.

What I am saying is that I’m not a sucker for handing out my calendar invite or frantically fawning over people who could be a good prospect for my business.

I focus instead on building long-term relationships through credibility, piquing interest, sharing good content, showing up consistently, encouraging people, and noticing when a connection is doing something brave or awesome on LinkedIn.

And then, I let them seek me out in their own time. If they like what I’m doing, they’ll message me. It’s as simple as that. No hard selling necessary.

I never chase people down or hound them with aggressive messaging to “close them” in any way. In my mind, if they see any synergy on their end, they’ll message me or ask about my services.

If I think they’re a good fit, I will send them a link to book a paid consult with me -- if they don’t find it first on my website and book a session without EVER reaching out to me on LinkedIn.

And you know what feels amazing? Seeing paid consults showing up on my calendar every week without having to be pushy, salesy or spammy.

But, I learned the hard way! I used to be that person who handed out her 15-minute calendar link to anyone who even seemed remotely interested in what I did.

To be honest, half of those calls were a complete waste of time, and I got frustrated. Why not take a different approach and treat my calendar as a highly paid consultant would do with a select number of days/hours per week. 

Then, show up for my LinkedIn network consistently every day in my messages and every week in a long-form piece of content (like this livestream) to share value and build connection.

You can use this same approach, too. It’s not that hard.

If you haven’t already figured out, it works like gangbusters on LinkedIn because my network knows I truly care about helping them reach their goals, show up with integrity, and don’t push anything on them.

It’s just not my style, and I’ve discovered that I don’t have to resort to “icky” tactics to build a multi-six figure business doing what I love, working with people who are awesome, and effecting change in ways that are bigger than I am.

3 Ways You Can Build Professional Relationships

Let’s talk three simple ways to start building relationships on LinkedIn that lead to new business growth without ever having to hand out a discovery call link to someone who just wants to pick your brain or sell you something!

#1 - Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile for Connection

Many of you know that I teach profiles and that I believe it’s the foundation for everything else you do on LinkedIn. When you craft your profile with the intention to connect, it does the heavy lifting for you.

Building a network on LinkedIn or growing your business is at least 2-3x easier if you have an excellent profile that is up-to-date and accurately reflects what you’re doing now. 

The upfront work pays off in the long run because you only need to do a minor refresh when you make a job change, career pivot or shift your service/program offerings.

Your LinkedIn profile is like a mini-website, especially if you're an expert with a 9-5 and don’t have a website. For those of you with businesses, many times people will look you up here first before they even realize you do have a website.

Your profile sets the stage for every interaction you’re going to have with professionals and prospects on LinkedIn.

Your profile is always evolving, but once you nail it ONE time, you’ll understand exactly what to do the next time you need to update (rather than haphazardly tweaking sections and hoping for the best.)

#2 - Always Be Connecting on LinkedIn

Look for reasons to connect with people on LinkedIn. Whenever I attend a great online event I attend, I usually research the active attendees on LinkedIn to find out if there would be synergy in connecting. I then reach out to get connected with them and reference the event.

This week, I also taught a workshop in my membership about how to get connected with professionals in your communities, groups and associations. Most of us are members of multiple online business communities and never actually connect with other members on LinkedIn, which is a huge missed opportunity and one of the easiest ways to grow your network with peers and colleagues.

What other places can you think of that would make for an easy way to get connected with people? Send them a personalized connection invitation and reference the connecting point. It’s really that simple.

#3 - Show Up with Value Consistently

Whenever someone comes across your content or comments online, what do they find? Is it fluffy content that lacks substance and is aimed at a short-term engagement? Or is it something that will shift their perspective and get them to actually rethink a misplaced assumption or fix a particularly troublesome issue?

The key with making this strategy work -- not having to rely on giving away your time for free -- is that you are already showing up and providing value consistently over time. That does not go unnoticed by your A-list prospects, as they pay attention to the details and will reach out because you are in integrity by aligning your message and prioritizing your presence.

Showing up consistently can look a LOT of different ways. This does not necessarily mean you need to become an inbound marketing content machine, as many of the coaching clients I work with show up behind closed doors in their messages, for their members and in places that are not necessarily public. When you know your audience well, you will figure out where and how to show up for them in more meaningful ways.

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So there you have it! You can now make a start with your LinkedIn networking and relationship building in a way that is more scalable, does not require you to serve up your calendar anyone and everyone, and allows you to do your best work in your zone of genius.

Yes, it does require a bit of a paradigm shift in how you’re approaching your LinkedIn network now and whom you want to attract, but talk to me in 3-6 months after you make this shift and tell me it’s not working for you. I double-dog dare you!

If you’re looking for that extra edge to get your started on the right path, get on the waitlist for the next cohort of The LinkedIn Accelerator kicking off in October, which is tailored to take you through ALL of the steps I covered today (and more) in just five days flat - - one week, and you’re off to the LinkedIn races. If you’re interested, here’s the link to get on the waitlist and find out a few more details.

I’ll see you next week on Mondays with Mindi! Feel free to leave questions or comments below - and my inbox is open if you want to message me directly! :)