Become a Rainmaker and Generate Leads from LinkedIn Now with Matt Clark

In this episode, host Eric Dickmann interviews Matt Clark. Matt is the founder of The Virtual Edge and co-creator of The Rainmaker System - an online marketing system that helps entrepreneurs get 2-5 high-value leads per day from LinkedIn without paying for ads.

With their flagship program, Matt has helped thousands of businesses in 26 countries grow exponentially. They helped their clients by guiding them to make their profile attractive and give them a process that will adapt to their profiles and make sure that it will be noticeable. They are now on a mission to reach 10k businesses.

 Eric Dickmann can be found on Twitter @EDickmann and LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/edickmann and my website https://ericdickmann.com

Matt Clark can be found online at https://thevirtualedge.com on Facebook @matthewclarksa, and LinkedIn @MattClarkSA

Episode Summary: The episode summary can be found at https://fiveechelon.com/become-rainmaker-generate-leads-from-linkedin-s3e3/

If you'd like to contact us with feedback or guest inquiries, please visit:
https://fiveechelon.com/podcast

For more information about Virtual CMO strategic marketing consulting services, visit The Five Echelon Group at https://fiveechelon.com
 
Episode #34

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Transcript

Carla: [00:00:00]  The Virtual CMO podcast is sponsored by the strategic marketing consulting services of The Five Echelon Group. If you’d like to work directly with The Five Echelon Group and receive personal coaching and support to optimize your business, enhance your marketing effectiveness and grow your revenue, visit Five Echelon.com to learn more and schedule a free consultation.  

Eric Dickmann: [00:00:24] Welcome to The Virtual CMO podcast. I'm your host, Eric Dickmann. In this podcast, we have conversations with marketing professionals who share the strategies, tactics, and mindset you can use to improve the effectiveness of your marketing activities and grow your business.   This week, I'm excited to welcome Matt Clark to the show. Matt is the founder of the virtual edge and co-creator of the Rainmaker system, an online marketing system that helps entrepreneurs get two to five high-value leads per day from LinkedIn, without paying for ads with their flagship program, Matt and his business partner, Wesley have helped thousands of businesses in 26 countries grow exponentially. Now they are on a mission to reach And businesses worldwide and bring a vibrant community of rainmakers along the way. This is some great, useful information for any business that is looking to develop leads through LinkedIn. Please help me welcome Matt to the show. 

   Matt welcome to the virtual CMO podcast. I'm so glad you could join us today. 

Matt Clark: [00:01:29] Yeah, amazing. Thanks for having me on Eric.

Eric Dickmann: [00:01:32] I wanted to start out with a story I read in your biography. So it sounds like at a pretty early age, you started to do door to door sales and working with salespeople for most of my career, they hate picking up the phone. I can't even imagine what it was like going door to door, share a little bit about that experience. 

Matt Clark: [00:01:49] it was interesting. I absolutely loved it.  my whole background growing up, is door to door sales, my first job ever was working as a waiter. And,  it's, I've only ever worked on commission because here in South Africa, you don't get paid as a way to, you only get tips, 

that's my first job. and then I went into door to door sales and it was unreal, man. I saw people make a ton of money. I'm very grateful that I was one of them. I saw people break down in tears, like grown men break down in tears and crying on the corner of the road. Some days when we saw it all, we had people, I've had people slam doors in my face, swear at me, let dogs out on me, call the police and we try to punch me. 

Try to kiss me. All ends of the scale. it as an experience that. It builds character. It builds a thick skin that allows you to learn how to really connect with people on a deep level and in a short period of time. And man I'm so grateful for the experience because it made me who I am today, you know? 

Eric Dickmann: [00:02:47] It's interesting that you say that because we're in an age now of so much technology, right? It used to be that everything was about in person meetings or phone call followups, but now you can reach people by email. You can connect with them on social media, obviously the emails . Do you think that people are hiding behind too much technology now? 

Matt Clark: [00:03:05] Hell. Yeah. I think, people have always been scared of picking up the phone and, or knocking on their door or whatever it is. I don't think that's changed too much. I think it's just now,  everyone's bringing out this technology and,  promising the world that, Hey, you don't have to do cold calls. You don't have to do this, you know, to do that. 

But in actual fact, those are the things that build, especially if you're doing like,  you're selling things that are more expensive. or higher value rod that, you know, you want to get on a phone call with people. You want to have a conversation and build a relationship, but. I think that's a great way of putting it, that you've had that you said I'm going to make a note of that effect. Stop hiding behind technology. 

Eric Dickmann: [00:03:43] if you have a choice to pick up the phone or call somebody or to send them an email, I bet nine times out of 10, most people are going to send the email. They just don't like. Picking up that phone and having that personal interaction. in all that you've done with sales, it's still all about relationships, right? 

Matt Clark: [00:03:59] It is, and you know what we do now. And even though we've we focusing on and I think it was one of the reasons why I like LinkedIn so much. Is because for me, it's like virtually knocking doors. that's my mindset and why I gravitate towards that because I am not a tech person. 

 I had to learn all of the stuff. And right now the amount of tech that I'm really good at is I call of duty, modern warfare, you know, playing online. 

I'm getting good at that. But for me, it's still about relationships. you know, we've built our business on the basis of marketing is not there to close sales, but to open up conversations. And I want to be generating conversations, building relationships, building community, building a network, that we can connect and we can grow together. And it's amazing. Like I can go almost anywhere in the world and I know people that want to hang out and,  that want to take me out and connect. And you know, for me, that's what it's about. It's something that I love. 

Eric Dickmann: [00:04:54]  I mentioned before we started today that I lived down here in Orlando, Florida. We're in the middle of summer. So it's raining all the time. We've got two hurricanes brewing in the Gulf of Mexico right now. So what I think of a rainmaker, I think of something different than what you think of. When you talk about rainmaking. Talk about this idea of a Rainmaker. What is a rainmaker? 

Matt Clark: [00:05:13] I think of  money clouds, Do you know. Make it rain like that. so a Rainmaker for me is somebody that can come in and that can make it rain. And not just scattered thundershowers, but someone that can turn the taps on and keep it pouring down again. and again. 

For me, I think there's, there's a lot of, there's a lot of definitions and a lot of ideas around that, but for us, how, what we consider as a Rainmaker is not someone that can do it once. And just be good. But it's somebody that can do it consistently time and time again, 

Even if they're not, they don't make the most sales every single month. They can consistently play at a high level. And that really resonated with me because in, when I used to do door-to-door sales, they were in the company I was working for before I started my own company, there were 60 salespeople That's a lot of salespeople in four different regions. And, there were guys who would have these men's where they'd smash it out the park and they would do one month. That was amazing. And then do the next two, three months they did in the water. And I would be consistently earning at a high amount and some mines that have a peak and some mines, but there was always that regression to the mean, and my mean was at a high level. And for me, that's where the rainmaker is someone that can come and do it consistently. They're predictable, they're reliable. And they get there done .

Eric Dickmann: [00:06:33] do you think that salespeople generally have that kind of a hat on that they want to be a Rainmaker or do you think there's too much whale hunting going on?

Matt Clark: [00:06:40] I think people have this idea that,  sales is easy and they've got the skills and they've got the ability. Whereas, you know, what sales is about is connection is about digging deep into who that person is at their core, and then helping them to make a decision that's gonna, that's gonna better their lives. 

so I think that, yeah, the guys,  they want to go in there. Would they want to do high ticket sales, but it's like doing it once and have this big mount do. 20 grand or 30 grand or 50 grand or whatever the number is for them. And that's like the peak. But it's okay, that's one month. What about the next month? And you're only as good as your last day, you know? 

And that's the mindset still from the door to door sales. It's,  some people want to have whales, but I think too many people are all flashing the pens versus consistent, consistent rainmakers. 

Eric Dickmann: [00:07:32] So I'd love to drill into this a little bit more because as I work with a small and midsize businesses, one of the problems that I see is that many times they set up their storefront, whether it's a real storefront or a virtual storefront, you know, get their website out there, sit back and wait for the business to come to them. 

And what you're really talking about is finding the business, going out, and using a tool like LinkedIn. So how has a tool like LinkedIn changed the game when it comes to prospecting? 

Matt Clark: [00:08:03] Yeah. personally, I love it. and,  it sounds like you see the same things that I see when I talk to entrepreneurs that I, every time I talked to them and I'm like, yeah, so your website, and we could do this and that. Oh yeah. I'm busy doing my website. Like they think that's the thing that's gonna solve all the problems. 

A website is a tool. LinkedIn is a tool. social media as a tool, right? What it boils down to is do you know your ideal customer intricately? And then can you create a message that's going to attract more of those people in, have you got an offer that solves their biggest problem? 

that's what marketing is, right person. Message. Offer. Boom. You've got a sale. Okay. And so for me, what I really liked about LinkedIn and, you know, like I said to you earlier, is that I'm not a tech guy. I had to learn all this stuff myself and we went down the route of Facebook ads and I'm about to go down the route again. I'm a little bit nervous. 

But I've got someone that's going to guide me step by step this time. what I really liked about LinkedIn was that it takes out the need to be a marketing expert or a copywriting expert, or to learn tech. What do you need to be good at is connecting with people.

And the thing I like about it the most is that,  in my go to door days. What you have to do is when you knock on a door, you're not going to business. Generally, you're going to speak to a receptionist. Who's going to get you to the PA who's hopefully he's going to get you to the owner. 

And you gotta go through her life to her. Look gatekeeper off the gatekeeper. Whereas, what I found on LinkedIn is that I can set up my profile as like a storefront. Okay. As a sales page, that the thing is that it's on there is not about me and my skills like written as a CV. Like most people have got it written as a CV. All right. 

But it's actually a sales page. And what it does is it shows my ideal client, how we can, that I understand what problems that they've got and how I can take them from those problems to their pleasure through a system or methodology. And I can clearly state that in one sentence. 

So people know how to work with me before they talk to me. So when I connect with people, I can go on LinkedIn and I can not really connect with the exact person that I am looking to talk to and start a conversation. And for me, that was a game-changer. you know, I could virtually knock doors every single day. And I started, when we started down this journey, I was knocking 20 doors in and then I grew up to 60 doors a day. 

We started getting meetings. Those meetings started turning into customers and it was just the easiest thing I'd ever done. The simplest process ever. 

Eric Dickmann: [00:10:30] So Matt, how come I keep getting all of these requests on LinkedIn saying that I think we should connect. 

, there's no background, no idea how I know these people, but they send a message saying, I think we should connect. And of course, they're trying to sell me something once we do connect, but they give no indication of what they're trying to do.  so many people are using it wrong? What are some of the things that you see people doing wrong consistently on LinkedIn? 

Matt Clark: [00:10:54] So the biggest thing is that they haven't clarified who the ideal client is. And you know, very often, so I'll give you an example, right? If on my LinkedIn profile where the headliners. Most people have got something like,  Founder or owner or MD or coach, speaker, author, whatever it is. 

what I'm going to mind is I help coaches, consultants and advisors get two to five high-value leads per day through the rainmaker lead system. So when I'm connecting with coaches, consultants, and advisors, they can see exactly what I do. My pickup line is right there. We call that the pickup line. Okay. 

It's right there. They can see what we do. And then the message that I send them is specifically tailored for them. 

what that does is it cuts up. it doesn't look like I'm taking a shotgun approach, which what most people are doing that kind of throwing spaghetti against the wall and seeing what's happening. But. To get that ideal client clearly defined and to show them how they can work with you before they talk to you. 

Everyone knows you connecting because you want to try and do business in one way or not. There's something that you want. That's why you fail. That's why you network. That's why you're in business. No one is an idiot. Okay. So go in there and be clear. it's a business platform. People are there to do business, so do business. 

But you got to set yourself up for success. and that's the big thing that I see. Most people don't set themselves up for success. Because they're being too general. They're not telling people how they can work with them before they talk to them. And they're just taking a shotgun approach and trying to target everybody. 

Eric Dickmann: [00:12:21] So you create this avatar, this persona of your ideal customer, and then as part of your approach to finding that ideal customer, on LinkedIn. You obviously make the adjustments to your page, to your profile as you suggested, but then do you need to take it to the next step ? Are we talking about sales navigator here or LinkedIn premium? 

Matt Clark: [00:12:42] Yeah. look, you don't have to, but it definitely makes it easier. You know, there's some limitations on just LinkedIn. I think you can connect to 30 people a month and, you know, it's just, if you grow, it doesn't make sense because there'll be such slow staggered growth. and it gives you much better targeting and reporting it. And I think it's like in U S dollars, it's 70 bucks a month. you know, they'd literally gives you unlimited access to all of your ideal clients. It's beautiful. You'll go and try, spend 70 bucks on Facebook ads and see where that gets you.

You know, Hundred percent. you know, I would recommend it. You don't have to do it, but I would definitely recommend it. 

Eric Dickmann: [00:13:16] so you found your target customers. You reach out to them with a targeted message. You've got your, page set up correctly. What then do you do around followup? I think follow up is so tricky with people because they feel they're pestering someone, you know, if they haven't responded. 

what do you tell people in terms of the best ways to follow up? 

Matt Clark: [00:13:37] Yeah. So it'd be valuable, is very simple and have multiple points of contact. you know, one way is you reaching out directly and you're having conversations with people. some people are gonna respond. Some people aren't that's okay. I can't tell you how many times I followed up with people. I look in the string and,  I've sent them five messages, no response, nothing. 

And they're like, Oh my gosh, Matt, sorry, I didn't see these messages and this and that. And when can we talk? And I'm like, yeah, man, that's it.  just follow up. it's that simple. But also content plays a large part and follow up. I can't tell you how many times I've gone. And, you know, I build my connections and then I use content as an added touchpoint in the process because if they're seeing me on direct conversations and maybe they don't even see it there, but we connected, then they start seeing some really good content and they're like, Oh my God, let me a message to this person. Then they click on that. They see I've sent them a bunch of messages that are like, Oh wow. let me actually connect us. He's been trying to connect. 

You know, Most. Salespeople entrepreneurs. Give up off to one contact. 

Most sales are made after five or more contacts. So don't be afraid to connect with people, follow up, be valuable.  you don't have to write articles and shoot videos every time and every single time, but just be valuable to people. That's simple. 

Eric Dickmann: [00:14:56] You mentioned video there. one of the things that we've been experimenting a lot within marketing is embedding videos, personalized videos, whether it's through loom or another tool like that. 

Have you seen success with that as well? 

Matt Clark: [00:15:09] Oh, yeah, I love it. That's a big part of our strategy. You know, it just comes because no one else is doing it. 

so for us in our sales process, like what we'll do is,  I've got my setters who are generating the leads, qualifying people, booking them into my closers diary or to my diary. And then what we'll do as a follow-up, if someone's booked into my diary is that, you know, I'll pop them a video message the day before. 

Maybe. Okay. Really looking forward to our call. Here's what we're going to cover. This is what you need to have ready. And by the way, you know, I just got off a call with one of our clients and you just reported, he went from 30 to 120 K a month and the first two months. So I'm excited to get you results like that. 

So when people show up to the calls that I, you know, already that excitement is higher already, they're engaged and you've sent them a personalized message. And it took, it takes less than a minute. 

Eric Dickmann: [00:15:56] It's very quick and easy. And I think during this whole time of COVID people have become so much more comfortable on video.

People have relaxed a lot. And it seems like that just is a natural segue into putting video into more of your marketing into more of your sales outreach. 

Matt Clark: [00:16:11] Yeah, they've had two haven't they? And it's so funny. Like all the people that you know, that I used to tell before, and  we've got tons of clients. I'm like, go shoot videos, go and do this. This is what you need to do. No, I'm afraid of videos. Now you start seeing the videos come out cause you can't see people face to face and then and then they love it because it works. 

Eric Dickmann: [00:16:30]   Hey, it's Eric here and we'll be right back to the podcast. But first, are you ready to grow, scale, and take your marketing to the next level? If so, The Five Echelon Group's Virtual CMO consulting service may be a great fit for you. We can help build a strategic marketing plan for your business and manage its execution, step-by-step. We'll focus on areas like how to attract more leads. How to create compelling messaging that resonates with your ideal customers. How to strategically package and position your products and services. How to increase lead conversion, improve your margins, and scale your business. 

To find out more about our consulting offerings and schedule a consultation, go to fiveechelon.com and click on Services. Now back to the podcast.  

What do you say about, other social media channels? you know, sometimes it's easier to find people on social media than it is to actually get their phone number or their work, email address, but they may have a presence on Twitter, or they may have an Instagram page or a Facebook page or whatnot. 

do you look at those as all fair game or some of that? Two personal versus a business contact. 

 Matt Clark: [00:17:40] I look at it as multiple touchpoints. you know, if they're I'm there's a reason. social media is social. Let's add in the public. so as long as you're not back. Being a stalker. And coming across as a stalker. Yeah. You just like going in and being genuine and connecting with people on multiple platforms. It's fine.  we know me take people from LinkedIn. 

Cause,  most people like our goal in LinkedIn is not to keep people in LinkedIn. because most people aren't as active on it as some of the other social platforms. Cause it's, you know, for business. So what we'll do is we'll connect with them. They will get them into an offline conversation, bring them into our Facebook group, connected them on Facebook on Instagram. 

wherever they're at and just keep them in the, you know, keep them in the network. Cause, like I said, multiple touchpoints. 

Eric Dickmann: [00:18:29] I'm also curious to get your thoughts on what I think used to be the standard for outreach, which was engaging with a service like Zoom info, Discover.org, Tech Target, you know, even a done and Bradstreet or something where you could go and buy information from these providers. And maybe it was still a good email address or a good contact. 

what do you think of those it has as the time for those gone, or do you think they still have a place. 

Matt Clark: [00:18:55] people are still doing it and it's working for them. I think,  if you are doing that, what I would always do is, if that is part of your strategy, I'd say, okay, cool. How could you take those guys and you could warm them up. before you talk to them before you started cold emailing. 

Look, cold emailing works. the results are like less, but it works. And who might a judge, but so does sending people direct mail? so does cold calling, so does door to door sales, you know, so it's whatever works for you. what I would do though, is that if I had those lists is I would upload them into a Facebook or a LinkedIn and run ads to them. 

 if they are ideal clients, I'd run ads to them and then take them through an education journey, versus sending out cold emails because, if you're sending out cold emails and they bounce or people report you, then they'd hurt, hurts your domain. And then more of your staff ends up in spam. 

So there's a whole knock on effect to that as well. that's yeah, so it's pretty solid  take.

Eric Dickmann: [00:19:55] I'm a big fan of marketing automation technology and all the great tools I come from a CRM background. So when you're talking about generating five, seven leads off LinkedIn, for your customers, are you suggesting that all of that, all of their outreaches put into a CRM system, do you wait until you actually have that connection? How do you integrate some of these other tools? 

Matt Clark: [00:20:17] Yeah, so we like to use, so we use HubSpot's in our business. I actually. Oh, man. I love HubSpot. And  I'm actually in infusion soft, certified partner as well. and it had been for the past six years and we recently moved over to HubSpot, you know, because it gives me just such beautiful reporting and everything as well. And for my sales team, I can track everything for the first time. It's amazing. 

But also it's got a direct integration with LinkedIn. And with my emails.  when we move people and we bring them into a stage and  I like to track my stuff a little bit different. Like I don't want to put everyone that I connect with into a CRM. I want to quit interested people into the CRM. 

 Cause also wanting to protect the integrity of the people that I'm connecting with and protect the integrity of my CRM and the data that I keep in there. I'd rather have a smaller list with higher quality people that engage in by versus this massive list of, you know, tens of thousands of people where,  you've got a 1% open rate to no one cares.

Eric Dickmann: [00:21:19] Yes. You want good people in there? You just don't want to flood your CRM database with names. I think quantity is not what you want. You want quality? You want good names in there? 

Matt Clark: [00:21:29] Absolutely. And especially if you're using HubSpot it's damn expensive. 

To have lots of emails. So you want to make sure you got good people in there, you know?

Eric Dickmann: [00:21:39] Oh, that's exactly right. But I think it's such a great point because a little time and effort and investment in some of that underlying infrastructure with the tools can really save you a lot of time and effort later and really increase the amount of productivity you have and just being able to track. because you can't keep track of everybody in your head and what kind of interactions and conversations you've had. 

Yeah, a CRM is 

Matt Clark: [00:22:02] It's. Yeah, listen, it's easy if you're talking to 10 people. All right. That's you can use your diary for that, right? But,  when you start generating,  and you start growing and I've got four people on my sales team now, and there's no way that I can track any of that. it has to be put into CRM. It has to be managed properly. 

And even then were there conversations,  they're talking on average, they have 15 conversations, 15 to 20 conversations going on a day. With different people. Like how do you keep track of that? You've got to put that into CRM and manage it. And then it also gives me as the business owner insight into what everybody's doing. And I can actually see,  when the guys are doing well, if they're going into a rat, I can pick that up quickly. 

So I can actually manage because I'm seeing what's happening at each stage and I can track their activity. It allows me to manage my projections allows me to manage my cashflow, allows me to grow my business. 

Eric Dickmann: [00:22:56] I'd love to know more about your business as well. So you've talked about this Rainmaker system, how you help people really build consistent lead flow out of LinkedIn. So talk about how you do that. Is this through online courses is as seminars workshops, all of the above. 

Matt Clark: [00:23:12] So how we work,  we've got a couple of different levels where we help people, depending on where they're at in their business and their goals and where they want to achieve. so level one is Hey, you need leads. Perfect. We've got the Rainmaker lead system. Come in. We'll teach how to get leads. 

If you want to start putting in some systems and automation and really growing that rapidly, maybe you need a bit of help with your offer. We've got a level for that. And then the next one is like a high ticket client acquisition system. Where we take people through all the way from, so it's, how do you generate leads then? How do you convert more of those leads into paying customers then how do you put predictable and repeatable systems so that you can do it again so that you can start hiring people to take over some of those processes? 

Start looking at your marketing processes and it's all about acquiring clients, right? That's the big promise. It's about how do we put in a predictable repeatable client acquisition system? Using LinkedIn as the lead source. So we do that through a combination of, online training. so we've got some online courses. 

But everything we do, it's never just an online course. It's always a combination of do it online. And then get some real app support. And so we've got, you know, a group coaching sessions, depending on what level people are coming out. They'll either come in at a group coaching session or they'll get some more one on one support where we focus specifically on them and their business and help them grow. 

but it's all online. you know, in the last two and a half years, we've helped over 1,500, entrepreneurs in 23 countries. 

So it's all online. 

Eric Dickmann: [00:24:43] One, it sounds like something that you can go through these various levels, but you can quickly get up to speed on the basics and start to get a program like this implemented in your business. How soon do you think people can start seeing real results from implementing a system like this? 

Matt Clark: [00:24:59] Yeah, great question  and I get asked this all the time and it really depends on the entrepreneur and how fast they want to move. Okay. So I'll give you some examples of this. a lady that we, that started with us, I don't know, about two months ago, she joined on the Friday by the Tuesday. She had seven sales call set up. 

We helped formulate an offer into leveraged high ticket offer of $4,000. By the end of the week, she'd signed up three of them.

Right. Yeah. So I had another guy, who we working with and in his first two weeks is we created a $10,000 off. And you saw two of them in his first two weeks. We've also had other people that have come in for,  two months and I've got any results. And the reason that they don't do that, because there's always going to be that. 

Is, if they're not clear on the ideal client and they say, don't go out and do the work. 

But really, if you get stuck in, who your ideal client is, or you've got an idea and you're looking to refine that's part of the process that we take people through. But if you're hungry and you get stuck in, you could be generating leads and having calls within a week. 

Eric Dickmann: [00:26:07] Do you see a lot of what you do in terms of your process? Also fitting in very nicely with the concept of funnels. We hear so much about funnels. You know, Obviously Russell Brunson has made a fortune off ClickFunnels . But there seems to be a very nice segway to being able to put a clear offer out in front of people, finding your ideal customer, and then walking them through a funnel to actually create that sale. So is that kind of part of the process as well? 

Matt Clark: [00:26:34] what we do is particularly with us, cause we, you know, we work with people who do higher value sales, so high ticket sales. and typically those are done over a phone call. So there are elements of a funnel in there, but we don't take them to landing pages and download the thing and then watch a video and then book a call or whatever that will run through LinkedIn ads. 

So we're doing quite a lot on LinkedIn ads and men. The results are amazing. Absolutely having it. And then we take people through a very basic funnels. So we get them to download our 20 minute profile makeover. Then they watch your video that takes them through. It gives them some really cool staff to go and implement now. And it says, listen, if you want to get some great results in your business, book, a call with us. 

And we see some good numbers on that. but in terms of when you're doing it organically and you're just having conversations, like the goal is get them on a call as quick as possible. 

Eric Dickmann: [00:27:26] I think that's really helpful because,  we talked a little bit before about setting up a website and I think funnels have almost become that same thing for a lot of people. It's like,  You have to have a funnel. a funnel, isn't the end all be all of sales, There are other sales methodologies, and we could do it. But I think it's been pushed pretty heavily as, Oh, you've got to have a funnel. 

Matt Clark: [00:27:44] Yeah, I think,  funnel in reality is actually just a sales process, but it's an online sales process. for me, when I was doing the door to door sales, my funnel was. choose the area, drive out to the area, choose a couple of doors, go and knock on the doors, speak to the receptionist, get through to the owner. do the presentation and the pitch. 

Get him to sign up, collect all the documents, submit for finance, get approval. Do the install get signed off. Get paid. That was my funnel. It was all manual, but it's still a funnel. So it's just a sales process. And then any funnel, it's the same thing. You're going to have something that they're going to download. So he has a, something for free. Then it's going to be watch a video, which is the education part of the presentation pipe. Then it's going to be call to action. 

And then you've still got to walk them across the line to make the sales. It's just a sales process online versus in person. 

Eric Dickmann: [00:28:35] I think this is such great and valuable information for people, because I'm sure just about every entrepreneur, your business owner is on LinkedIn in some way, but I bet the majority of them are really taking advantage of it and using it, leveraging all the great connections that are available there. And it seems like for the investment that you make in a course, like what you're offering, getting your LinkedIn premium or a sales navigator subscription, it seems like a no brainer. If you really are looking to. generate some good quality leads for your business. 

Matt Clark: [00:29:08] Absolutely. It's just the simplest and easiest way. And you know, it doesn't matter if you are just starting out or you're already doing well and you want to take it to the next level. you know, one of our clients, is a book publisher, so he helps CEOs write books. And he charges $36,000 for that. 

he consistently has six figure months and all of his clients come from LinkedIn. 

 when he came to us, he was doing like 30 K a month or some Monte that he'd do a hundred. And then three months later he would be doing zero, you know, So as a very up and down. And just putting the right processes and systems in place changes the game.   cause we get some people that come to us and then like they doing pieces of the puzzle, but it's, they've got some of the pieces of the puzzle, but they don't know what the whole picture looks like. 

And there's missing pieces and they're not doing things in the right order or the right way. And very often that's a couple of tweaks that we need to make. So it's like these guys are hungry and they're going to be successful regardless. They just need the right method or tool or system to be able to do that. 

And we can take a look at it and make a few tweaks, make a few adjustments. In some cases, we need to do a complete overhaul. In some cases, they starting from the beginning. But then you've got a predictable and repeatable system that you can go and turn on or off Apple down as much as you want. 

One of our, one of our clients send us a sentence in a message the other day.  they applied the same methodology and we don't typically. Tell people advocate this, but they applied the same methodology to his wife's network marketing business. It seemed to me, they booked in 48 leads. Okay. They had 48 people respond within two weeks. 

24 of them gave, contact details. Eight of them had signed up as clients and they ha they switched all the marketing off because they're just overwhelmed and onboarding and following up and all the rest. 

It just works, man. it's building a network and having conversations with people. 

Eric Dickmann: [00:31:00] The basics, building a network, having a conversation, building that, relationship. I love it. Matt work and people find out more about the system and you. 

Matt Clark: [00:31:09] Yeah, absolutely. So connect with me on LinkedIn, obviously, right? Let me know that you saw me on Eric's. On Eric's podcast and I can give him some feedback too. but the best thing to do, is it cool if I give them a bit of a gift, if I give you. Cool. So to get going into really dive into this, I'm not someone that wants to just sell stuff straight off the bat. what I want you to do is go and experience some of the stuff. 

So we've created something called the 20 minute profile makeover, which you can grab on my website, www.thevirtualedge.com. And you can go grab that 20 minute profile makeover and it'll show you the first steps into getting your profile the right way. Then there's a video that you can watch afterwards, which goes deep. It's about 30 minutes or so to in depth training that you'll get huge value of actionable strategies that you can implement right now. 

And at the end of it, if you see that there's a good fit and you want to do some work together, book a call with us, let's have a chat.

Eric Dickmann: [00:32:08] That's excellent. I appreciate you making that available. I will make sure to have all of that linked up in the show notes so that people can find it. If they're driving in their cars right now, I think this has been very informative, Matt, thanks so much for taking the time to be on the podcast today. This is useful information and I think could benefit so many who listened, as part of our audience. So thank you again for taking the time. 

Matt Clark: [00:32:28] Yeah, thanks for having me on. I really enjoyed being on and you ask great questions, lovely stuff.

Thanks, Eric.  

  Eric Dickmann: [00:32:38] Thank you for joining us on this episode of The Virtual CMO podcast. For more episodes, go to fiveechelon.com/podcast to subscribe through your podcast player of choice. And if you'd like to develop consistent lead flow and a highly effective marketing strategy, visit fiveechelon.com to learn more about our Virtual CMO consulting services.