Stop Wasting Your LinkedIn Ads: The Secret to Smart Prospecting

Hello and welcome to the show. I'm taking today's recording at an undisclosed location. And yes, I am also in the car park before I head off for another engagement. Now if you want to learn about things, sales and marketing, things that are business related, then you are at the right place. Don't worry, this is not a show about my travel schedule. And if by the time we're done with this podcast, you find the things here, elements that are useful, then do me a favour,

share, promote and talk about the show so that your friends and family members in Nigeria and abroad can benefit from the questions that we tackle. They can do that by subscribing on Spotify, YouTube, Apple or any player of their choice. And if you in particular, dear listener, if you have any sales and marketing questions, bring them to me. You can call, you can SMS and WhatsApp me on 08064662140. Now today on the show, I want us to look into other popular methods of business outreach and then also discuss principles on how to make our outreach better for those of you who are just discovering the show For today,

outreach was just a way of reaching out obviously to other people so that you can get more customers, more clients for your business. So that's what we're going to be discussing today. And today we're going to be looking as LinkedIn as a method of drumming up business. It's a method that is becoming more popular, becoming increasingly popular as more people jump on LinkedIn. So I've done lots of WhatsApp episodes where I'm going to do a LinkedIn episode today.

And by the time we're done, you're going to see what I've been saying. You know time and time again that whenever we're talking about business outreach and we use one particular case study or one particular method, you will find that the principles that we discuss can apply to other scenarios as well. So whenever you're listening, you know, get the information, take dressing and apply it to whatever situation it is. So if you like to use Snapchat to draw more business or Instagram to draw more business,

the fact that I have not done a Snapchat episode yet or an Instagram episode yet does not mean that because I've only discussed WhatsApp and LinkedIn that you can take something good and apply from there. Now First off, let us define LinkedIn because to be honest, until I did that show, I think was like 2 years back, that was the NBC thing on how to use AI to improve your careers on business. And to be honest, until I did that show, I just assumed that everybody in Nigeria knows what LinkedIn is.

I just assumed. So it was a shocker down more stage and I'm yawning and clearly, you know, people are not picking up what I'm putting down. I asked one or two questions and lo and behold, they are people who in 20. OK, no, that was two years ago, so 2023. So there were people in 2023 who had never heard about LinkedIn. And the thing that shocked me the most was I thought would be the old people. You know, like my mom sees age up who I've never heard about LinkedIn was young, young people.

And I'm thinking, what the hell? Now you guys want to build careers, You want to build businesses. You've never heard of LinkedIn, Not to talk of even putting a profile on LinkedIn. One guy even called it in Linked. I said, hey, anyway, so let me define LinkedIn since now everybody knows it. Now LinkedIn is just a social media platform, in case you've never heard about it. But the focus of LinkedIn is online networking.

So for those of us who came on Facebook when Facebook was brand new, you know, those of us who are like 20 something, you know, 20 something, almost 30 when LinkedIn, when Facebook first came out, remember back then we used to go there and it was a nice place to look at babes. You know, you check out your classmates, you know that girl in your class that was cute, you know, you had, you went to America. OK, now you can find her, you can start conversations again,

you know, that kind of thing. So that's why some of us were on Facebook. So different social media apps have different purposes. But when we're on LinkedIn, it's not to check our past girlfriends and it's not to look for husband or wife. LinkedIn is built around online networking for career and business. Let me repeat, LinkedIn very serious, which is one reason why lots of Nigerians don't like it. They say LinkedIn is very serious.

What am I going to be doing there? LinkedIn is not fun and yes, you're correct, LinkedIn is not fun. I'm not on LinkedIn to be entertained. I'm there to make some money. So LinkedIn, that's where everybody gathers for online networking, career and business. That is the focus and that is the reason why I scratch my head when I run into another Nigerian person who doesn't have a LinkedIn account. Every single person in Nigeria who is self-employed or in SME

space. You have a small and medium scale enterprise, you have a micro, nano, whatever, but you should be on that space. Create your account today. Start joining relevant groups because whether it is bakers groups or I don't know, oil and gas group, whatever the group is, you will find a group. Start joining the group. Start having conversations, start hooking up with stakeholders in your in your space. Don't just stay on the Internet for entertainment.

Use the Internet for career and business development. Everybody should be on LinkedIn. Everyone and it's not linked is LinkedIn in case I run into another one of you. So like most social media platforms, LinkedIn has a free account that allows you to post content. You can send connection requests or by the way, you have weekly limits. So it's not like Facebook that you can just be adding, adding, adding sense and sense.

And after a while, LinkedIn will tell you that look, Bros, you know, you've been sending too many too many connection requests or a pipe low. That's enough. Stop there. So yes, there are limits and depending on who you are, because me, I post like a beast, you know, every day. Well, in the past, sometimes I used to post like 10 times a day. So you know, they started limiting how much I could post. So you know, there will be some limits that you are not used to if you're coming from Facebook and if you're coming from Instagram, nobody on Instagram will tell you that hey bro, you don't post like 20 times this week or I'll stop.

But actually it can happen on LinkedIn where they will send you a message, they'll say, look, you've been posting too much or I'll stop. You're only limited to XYZ number of posts per week, so that's the free account. Now with the free account, you also can send messages to people privately in the inbox and that is the feature that most people are trying to use to draw more businesses. People try and connect with one or two people who might be potential clients.

Then when they agree, you will now send them something in the DM to try and get them to be a customer on the free account. There's also a limit on the number of messages that you can send to people and you can only send messages to people that you are connected to, which is why on LinkedIn somebody will send you a a connection request first. Then when you accept, that's why they will now send you the message that oh, I have this for sale, I have that for sale, come and buy.

So now there are also paid accounts that are available on LinkedIn. And the benefit is that it allows you to send messages to a wider selection of people and to get connect, get connected to more people. So with the paid accounts, you don't have to be connected with someone on LinkedIn before you send them a message. This is also a feature that lots of Nigerian businesses are exploring. You get on LinkedIn, get the paid account and if you want to send downloading a message, you send him a message.

So like now for instance, if I want to send down with a message and say uncle uncle D how far now please raise me like 500 MI can't send him a message because him and me we are not connected. But if I get the paid account on LinkedIn, I might. It doesn't mean that when down with this is the message he will send me 500 M but you know, at least I should be able to get access to uncle down with it once I get my paid LinkedIn account.

So the case study that we're going to do today is this I received the message from someone that I am not personally connected with. So this is not somebody who has sent me a connection request. We're not connected, we're not friends, we're not nothing. And apart from online, even in real life, I don't I don't know this guy. So one moment, let me open this message. Let me scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll and get to the top.

OK, Now this is the message. So how will I do this in now? OK, let me just read the message. Work forward. Hi Tavajima, if managing multiple currency accounts and dealing with high foreign exchange fees are paying for your business, XYZ Organization is here to help. With our multi currency account, you can hold and transfer Naira, U.S. dollars, Euro, EUR, the Great British pound. KES. What's that? Is KES, is that Kenya?

TZS, is that one Tanzania? UGX I mean that one is Uganda. ZAR I don't know, is that Zambia? And that's my guess. You know what, let me just have from the beginning. So this is the message. Hi Tava Shima, if managing multiple currency accounts and dealing with high foreign exchange fees are paying for your business, XYZ Organization is here to help. With our multi currency account, you can hold and transfer NGNUSDEURGPBKESTZS, UGX and zer all from one account while avoiding hefty bank fees and reducing the hassle of cross-border transactions.

Let's jump on a free call to explore how much your business could save or if you're ready to streamline your payments today, sign up here. Best regards blah blah blah, FX specialist this at that that organization. So that is the message that I received. Now let's go into our usual, you know, our usual usual tear down. So while I put it, OK, now some of you probably didn't get the gist of what the message was, which is one of the reasons why I say people when you're sending messages, I know that they look brilliant on paper, but they're too long, too many words, too many buzzwords, too many this,

too many that the average person will read it the first time and not get a clear sense of what it is that you do. So let me tap things down and just highlight some some elements from the message. So number one, this message is a sponsored advertise advertisement. Now sponsored advertisements. This is also a regular. This is also a feature of paid LinkedIn. Now when you pay, you can also pay extra and you send messages to somebody's inbox, but the message is more or less is an,

is an ad more or less. So this message was a sponsored ad and the thing landed straight in my inbox. So if you want to use LinkedIn for business, this is something that this is a feature that you can explore for your business. Then #2 The sender is obviously some sort of FX specialist, you know FX as per Forex, you know, foreign exchange. So that's the guy's jam. That's what he does. Now the problem he solves is that people who have problems with multiple currency accounts,

you know, you have a dumb account for dollar, you have this account for China, you have this account for Kenya, you have this account for Canada, you know multiple currency accounts. The pro. That's part of the problem that he solves. If you're juggling too many accounts, you try and solve you how you can do everything one account easy one hand for all your transactions. Then he also promises that if you're getting plenty bank fees and you have plenty of hassle when you're trying to do cross-border transaction.

You know you want to send money to your side piece in Zimbabwe, it's a problem. You want to receive money from your brother in Canada, it's a problem. You want to send money to mumsy in America is a problem. And you know you want to receive money from your sugar mummy in Australia is a problem. If that is your situation, then these are the problems that he can help you solve. So the guy's call to action now was that he said I should just get on the free consultation call with him and explore how much money my business will save and let's see how he can streamline my payments.

Now for those of you who listened to the last 2-3 episodes, just reason with me. Now. Let's let's be thinking, what is the problem with this outreach? You know the number one thing I'm going to say this message is too long. It's too many flicks. I've been telling you guys, you people are sending paragraph upon paragraph upon paragraph and you think that somebody will flick, flick, flick, flick, flick, be reading like they don't have problem, they don't know you, they don't care about you.

Like I don't know who The Who the F this guy is. I'm sure he has sent this message to like 1,000,000 people and in his mind now he'll congratulate himself that he has no work. You haven't done work. What's the point of sending 1,000,000 messages if 9,999,999 people don't even read the message? Now what's the point? You've wasted your money. You opened paid account for LinkedIn. You now paid for sponsored advertisements.

You now sent message. Message was now ignored by 99.99999999999998% of the people who opened it. And you think you don't work guy, you've wasted money so message is too long. The message is also built around too many ideas. When you're sending messages, remember people are on their phone. People are busy. Build it around 1 message. Only confirm if they're interested. If they're interested, try and tease them into a conversation.

Full stop. If you chalk too many things into a message, people are not going to read. Of course, this one is contextual. You know, contextual to the medium. Like this is a podcast. Podcast is long form. People listen to to long form. Joe Rogan. In fact, some of his episodes are five hours. And I say, me, how will I listen to five hours? But you know, there are people who listen to five hours. But bottom line is podcasting is long form.

So if it is relevant, people might stick with you. Messages inbox is not long form, it is short form. So one key idea. Gauge whether the person is interested. Try and tease out a conversation over a sequence of several messages. Don't craft 1 long message and then throw everything inside that message and hope that somebody will will now take action at the end. Then another thing, this message assumes that I'm going to get on a call with a total stranger.

Think about it, how many of you listening to this show now you just get on a call with a total stranger. Think about it, especially nowadays in Niger that spamming and identity theft and all kinds of things. Then people just be sending link. Click on this link to jump on the call and you and your right together send these messages in Nigeria in your right mind. You think Nigerians will be jumping at the chance to click on this your message so that they can jump on the call with you.

Anyway, the biggest scene of this message is my guy. He assumes, even though there is absolutely nothing on my profile that assumes I am interested in FX, foreign exchange, forex trading, currency, anything. Go on. I mean, check it. My name is Tavish Shima IED. That's my profile on LinkedIn. Go and check. You will not see a single thing that even gives a small hint, a small whiff, that I might be interested in any of these issues or that I am engaged in a business that has any kind of FX

consideration at all. That is the chief scene. You're sending a message to someone when you have absolutely no reason to think he might be interested in your product or your service. So this is a perfect example of why when people say prospecting is hard, advertising is hard, sponsored messages don't work. This doesn't work. This is the reason why I say, look, you are wrong. The tactic works. The problem is too many of you are doing it wrong.

Advertising works. Sponsored messaging works. Prospecting works. The problem is you don't work. You are not putting in the work. Prospecting, advertising, sponsored messaging, whatever. This thing only works when you're going after a relevant audience. Underline that, please. Relevant audience relevance. You can't sell baby diapers to a couple that does not have a baby. It's not possible except if the couple is looking for, you know,

to buy diapers for a family member or a friend who has just had a baby. So I mean, in other words, if you're looking online, you want to send messages to people because you want them to buy baby diapers. You know, why the hell would you send a message to people who are single and say, OK, single people have babies. But I mean, it's too much of A stretch. At the very least, we're looking for people that you know that OK, they're married or you've seen something that OK, they had a baby recently.

You can see how when you start doing that, the chances of you closing a deal start to go up. But this whole thing of open my phone, select 1000 contacts send or open my e-mail box, select 1,000,000 contacts send or open my LinkedIn, pay for it to be sent to 1,000,000 contacts send. That does not work. Prospecting, sponsored advertisements, you know, whatever, sliding into D and all this. It only works when you're going after a relevant audience.

If you sell adult diapers, you cannot sell adult diapers to a young, healthy couple. It's not going to work. The only people who buy adult diapers are people who have incontinence or who have prostate or who have prolapse issues. So if you want to sell your adult diapers, you need to look for a way of figuring out who has incontinence or who has prostate or who has prolapse or who is a young couple that is dealing with elderly parents who have these issues.

You will now start to target all these people whether on LinkedIn or WhatsApp or Instagram or whatever. If you're messaging everybody about these, your products, your campaign, your messaging, your prospecting, your whatever will be ineffective and you will waste time and money. And you will be one of those people who will complain and who will say that sponsored ad does not work in 2025 or if you're listening to this in 2037, it's still the same thing.

You'll be complaining does not work in 2037. The problem, The thing is, it's not that it doesn't work, it is that you don't work. You're not doing it right. So if you sell these kind of program products, you have to focus on messaging people that you have reason to believe have met the following conditions. Number one, they have a baby. Number 2, they know someone who has a baby or #3 they have prostate issues #4 they have prolapse issues.

Number six, they'll be #5 they have elderly parents who might be dealing with these issues, or they're interested in buying diapers so that they can become a distributor. These are the things you'll be looking for. Before you start targeting people so that when you now send your sponsored ad, when you now send your sponsored message, when you now do your sliding to DM, when you now do your sliding to LinkedIn inbox, the chances of your messaging bringing you some money, it goes up.

Summary. What I'm trying to say is stop blanket messaging people. If you're going to try and use LinkedIn to draw more business, WhatsApp to draw more business, well, which one? Instagram or I don't know, Tiktok or whatever. Stop blanket messaging people. Try and message people you have reason to believe might be interested or might have a need for your product or your service. Now let's move away from diaper. I'm just trying to be extreme.

That's why I said diaper. Let's move from diaper. Now this our case study, now our FX guy, who are the people that you should be mess messaging? The answer is very, very simple, straightforward, which is why I'm surprised that I received this message. Any individual or any company that deals with international payments or that receives foreign income or does cross-border business, those are the people that my guys should be sending these messages to.

Maybe there's some other classes of people, but for now that is all I can think with anybody that does that deals in international payments, my guy should be hitting them up. Anybody who receives foreign income and is that why he sent it to me? He thinks I'm receiving foreign. OK, well maybe he thinks I'm receiving foreign income or people who conduct cross-border business, somebody like him. This, my guy, should not be sending messages to consultant podcasters because what do you know, what have you seen?

What has given you the reason to believe they might need your product or your service? I really think when he was sending out these messages, the people who should have been targeting on LinkedIn are CFO's, chief financial officers or financial directors or head of finance, people like that, OK. Even if we don't know anything about the company, you know we can reason it that they might be close Treasury managers and heads of treasury. 2 days ago somebody came over to the house to try and set up an investment account for Mumsy.

So I won't say what our business is, not be as if I'm giving them free advert. But bottom line, if you reach out to treasury managers or heads of Treasury Department, Zenith Bank or you know access wealth management or something, it makes sense. These are the kind of problems that they will have while multiple managing multiple accounts was sending out too much dollar or receiving too much yen or sending out too much Canadian, you know whatever, too many accounts.

We need to manage all these things, accountants, financial controllers, these are people who should have been targeting e-commerce businesses, especially people who sell international. They are the ones that deal with multiple currencies, different sales platforms, different suppliers, companies that do import, export. Those are people that my guy should have been reaching out to because businesses like this, for some of them the entire business model is built around cross-border transaction.

You know as per I'm here in Nigeria, I will send something to Ghana, I will see payment in cities or I want to buy something in America, I will send payment in dollar and on and on. Then let's see what else. Let me get my list, OK, tech startups, maybe, maybe tech startups, OK manufacturing companies, especially companies that source raw materials from abroad. So let's see anyway, I came up with a list, OK, Companies with remote teams, international teams, yes.

And then the list was plenty because I need to show that with some small common sense and with some small Google skills, just use Google and do some small research. You can come up with a list of people that you should be looking for to target. So by targeting these kinds of roles, these kinds of industries, the guide sponsored messages most likely will reach individuals who face this kind of pain that he's trying to solve.

And it will increase the chance of getting your free consultation call instead of saying to somebody like me that realistically speaking, looking for my profile, you have no reason to believe that I face these sorts of problems. So my solution, just like I recommended with the last message, number one, you see in the shorter message, the skeleton of the message should be this, hi, do you face any of these problems in your business?

Then you now insert the problem and then you confirm that they're interested. That's all. For the people who reply, you engage with them in the conversation, but then you don't just send one message to everybody. What you're going to do is you're going to segment your audiences. The message that you go to people who are accountants and financial managers and stuff like that should be different from the kind of message that will go to that will go to who?

Who. Let me see. Let me look at my list. OK, Let's say people are also in hospitality and tourism business. So they're sending money in dollars for locations or they're receiving payment in dollars. So the money, the message that will go to the accountants will be different from the one that will go to people who are in hospitality and the tourism industry. So that is what we mean when we say segmenting this message is supposed to go to different people, different classes of people.

Let me separate them, the blanket message that I will send to them. Let me send different messages to all of them. Let me craft different messages, see how I can engage them in conversation. So now the main segment of the messages or the, the UVP, remember, UVP unique value proposition just means why do people do business with you or why should someone do business with you? So the core things, the UVP that he's going to build this messaging around, one of them is going to be excessive international fees.

So it'd be one set of messages to them. So if you're, if he's writing to people in Access Bank, Wealth Management or something, 1 you, you could send a message like that. You know, are you tired of excessive fees on international transfers? You know, send here, here what you have to say, here what they have to say. Another sort of message is going to be on complexity, this whole thing of managing different accounts, you know, so you reach out to some of these people.

Do you have a problem with managing multiple accounts in FX transactions send, it's not flick, flick, flick. You open the eye will see it one time. And for some people it won't make sense. They will close no problem. But for some people it will make sense and maybe they have nothing else better to do with their time. They will look at your profile of the person who is sending it and you know, might respond, you know, yes or no or not at the moment or I'm something I'm curious about or whatever.

But the people who respond, you engage with them. Then another set of message is going to be for those who are experiencing difficulties with cross-border transactions. I don't know if these are issues that I've been solved, but back when my brother and I were involved in export, you know, stuff like this that we used to hear about that. OK, yeah. If you're sending it to USA, Canada, yes, you can expect, you know, Papadia money will go quick.

But then if it's some inter regional something like you want to send to Ghana or you want to send to Malawi or you know, all those kind of things will now be taking time. You don't know how to get the transaction to just go through quick, quick, quick. So maybe he can now send another one to freight forwarders, you know, things like that. And the question will be whether they're dealing with inefficient or slow cross-border transactions.

Then let's see what else. OK, another set of messages could be around poor exchange rates. You know, let me stop here because I came up with too many. But the point that I'm trying to make is that with some small common sense and some small Google research, you can segment your audiences. Instead of sending one message, I should be sending 10 different messages to 10 different groups of people. And then you can also try and figure out what kind of messages should I even be sending and it is 30 minutes, so let me not overdo it.

Summary Like I said a couple of episodes ago, I'm repeating again. Stop expecting that you will craft one magic message and it will solve all your business problems. That is not going to happen. Think in terms of a sequence of messages. Sequence. I will send one, I will send two, I will send three. I will send a follow up, a sequence of messages that will draw people into a conversation. That is what will give you a chance of talking to serious customers instead of dealing with worker pass and dealing with time wasters.

Because I can assure you that you send this kind of magic messages. Somebody clicks, they go for the call and you will now see that, excuse me, you will now see that this person that I spoke to, I just wasted my time that the person was not even close to buying my product or my service. This is how you reduce your chance of reduce the chance of dealing your workout pass and dealing with time wasters. Draw them into a conversation.

From the things people say, from the questions that you ask, you'll be able to see that this guy, no need, no need for phone call. I can see that he's not serious, but the main message that was supposed to get today if you're trying to use LinkedIn to promote your business is please stop sending messages to people on LinkedIn. If you can't see anything from their profile, excuse me, to show that they might be interested in your product or service.

You're wasting your money. You're wasted the excuse me, you're wasting the money that you spent on sponsored messages. And please, I keep saying it and I'll repeat it again. It's not about sending 1,000,000 messages in a day. It's about how many people we can get to take action on the messages that we send in sales. We call that conversion. It's not about deliverability. How many people was it delivered to? It's about conversion of the people that it was delivered to.

How many people took the desired action. That's your focus. So I repeat it and I say it again. If you send a million people and only 6, a million messages and only six people take action, that is bad. But if you send 20 messages and only six people take action, that is good because on the subset of 20, you got six people to take action. The person on a subset of 1,000,000 who got 6 to take action is wasting a lot of money.

The reason why the other person is better 6 out of 20 is because if you're getting 6 out of 20 and then you now sent to a million, think about how many people would take action. So that's the goal con version. We should also be looking at re levance. Check somebody's profile before you send the person a message or come up with segmented audiences who might be interested in this thing before you send the message. You will are paying for this LinkedIn thing in dollars.

You're not paying in naira. There's not 500 naira every month. So stop wasting your dollars or just call me. I give my contact details at the end of the show. Send the dollars to me instead. So that's all for the for the show today. If you have any sales or marketing questions, bring them to me. You can call, you can SMS, you can WhatsApp me on 08064662140. Thank you very much for your time and attention. I'll catch you, dear listener,

at the next episode.