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Secrets to Successful Sales Rep Onboarding w/ Mafalda Johannsen

One of the things I love about LinkedIn is the ability to connect with incredible people around the globe, and my guest today is someone I probably never would have connected with otherwise.

Today’s guest is Mafalda Johannsen, who is the Business Development Director at Wonderway, a German sales enablement startup. At Wonderway, she reviewed and improved hundreds of onboarding and trainings, hosts and moderates sales webinars, has two sales podcasts, and is now working on a sales book in Portuguese. Apart from that, she’s also a masterclass instructor at SDRs of Germany and the PR and Marketing Manager of a jazz fusion band called Plasticine.

 

Show Notes:

[4:02] – Get to know Mafalda! She shares her background and backstory.

[5:57] – Mafalda never intended to work in sales.
[9:24] – Rejection in sales is challenging to handle sometimes. Mafalda attributes her mindset to her mother and grandmother.

[10:55] – You can learn or laugh.

[13:07] – Not everyone is meant to work this way. And that’s okay. We need everyone’s skills and everyone’s profession.

[15:01] – Mafalda lists the things she has done throughout her career.

[16:44] – Knowing your strengths and weaknesses is crucial. Mafalda knows that one of her obstacles is her distaste for technology tools.

[19:36] – When it comes to having a team, it is unfair to not guide them and set them up for failure.

[20:31] – During onboarding, only give the information that is necessary. Don’t overload your new team member.

[23:47] – Instead of giving practice that isn’t relevant or a quiz for them to perform, have new employees start the tasks they will be doing independently later.

[27:27] – When you begin to build your team, it is important to give up some control.

[29:55] – Prospecting on LinkedIn is great, but you need to engage on posts and post everyday.

[32:06] – You have to have a normal and conversational feel to communicate on LinkedIn.

[35:00] – Even working in an AI company, there is a human touch that is extremely important.

 

Connect with Mafalda Johannsen:

LinkedIn  |  Wonderway  |  Podcast

 

Links and Resources:

Instagram  |  LinkedIn  |  YouTube

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0:02

Welcome to She Sells Radio one of the things that I love most about LinkedIn

0:07

is just having the ability to connect with Incredible people around the globe who otherwise we might not have the

0:14

chance to connect with and my guest today is someone I probably never would have had the chance to connect with had

0:21

we not been hooked up on LinkedIn which I love so my guest today is Mafalda

0:27

Johansson who is the business development director at wonderway a

0:32

German sales enablement startup and part of what is fun about this and where I love the synchronicity of it all is

0:39

literally just a few days ago I was on a call for the Salesforce influencer

0:45

program and we were all talking about the top AI platforms for sales now I’m listening in on this call while driving

0:51

my three-year-old son to a doctor’s appointment and some of my colleagues

0:56

start like listing off platforms and they say wonder way and I I’m driving my mom is actually in the car with us and I

1:02

was like Mom grab your notepad write down wonder way I need to learn more about it totally not even putting two

1:08

and two together that my father who I’m interviewing today uh is the business

1:13

development director at wonderway so I thought this is very synchronistic and I

1:18

love how it comes together so I’m excited to have that um kind of that connection and be able to talk more about what you’re doing

1:24

there on the show and so at wonderway uh Mafalda reviews and improves hundreds of

1:30

onboarding and training programs does incredible sales webinars she hosts two

1:36

different sales podcasts so we’ll tell you more about those two and where to get plugged in and listen to those and

1:42

she’s also working on a sales book in Portuguese so I love how diverse and

1:47

expansive her interests are and outside of that she’s a master class instructor

1:52

at sdrs of Germany and the pr and marketing manager of a jazz fusion band

1:57

called is it plasticine am I saying that correctly okay awesome awesome Mafalda

2:03

welcome to She Sells Radio with you no I’m so excited thank you

2:09

first of all so much for having me and second for surprising me with that story

2:15

I mean I can’t wait to tell my CEO that you heard about us in the in the sales

2:22

force I mean that means I’m doing my job right oh my gosh no absolutely yeah

2:28

absolutely and so yeah it was a big top of it hopefully I can say this I think I could say this but it was a big topic of

2:34

conversation because as I’m sure you’re aware everyone right now is talking about AI for sales and what are the best

2:40

platforms and tools that I’m getting asked a lot of questions my colleagues in that program are getting asked and when they send wonderway again I just I

2:47

didn’t even put two and two together but I spent part of this this weekend researching wonderway and so I was like

2:53

oh I need to start recommending this to some of my clients too so anyway full circle

2:59

the best way to start this for me at least I love it I love it so we’ll you

3:04

know we’ll talk about what you’re doing there too but I also want to talk about you as a person as an individual

3:10

um we were connecting before we hit record just about you had a fun post on LinkedIn by the way we’ll tell you for

3:15

you listening we’ll tell you where to connect with Mafalda and follow her on LinkedIn because she does a great job of

3:21

posting content and it’s personal and it’s witty and it’s funny and you get to know her better

3:26

um but she had just shared a post recently about being named after a cartoon character so we were talking a

3:31

little bit about that and getting connected on that and I think it would just be fun as we kick off um Mafalda if you want to share a little

3:38

bit of your back story and um you can Loop it Loop us and with your name and that came about if you want and

3:45

and what got you into this path of sales yeah that’s uh that’s I think it’s a

3:50

great way to start so yeah my name is Mafalda my father even though it’s quite a common name in Portugal I’m Portuguese

3:57

um half Portuguese have German um my mother always liked this cartoon from Argentina and

4:05

um and she was like I want you know my daughter to be you know strong independent critical thinking all of

4:12

that and Mafalda is that the cartoon is is that

4:17

um and the only thing that me and that my father we are very different is she doesn’t like soup and I do so

4:26

um so that’s two in Germany right it’s cold a lot you got it yeah exactly exactly and we have a huge subculture in

4:32

Portugal we are very snowy bought soup and coffee for some reason and and yeah and that’s what my mother named me after

4:40

and you know she always made sure I knew and she always gave me the full collection of books for me to read

4:47

um and uh yes so so that’s that for my name and as I said I was born in

4:53

Portugal um I lived in the United States I lived in South Korea I’m now living in in

4:58

Germany and so I’ve been living in three different continents and yeah and I

5:05

started my sales career in the US like everyone else I didn’t plan to work

5:11

in sales I never met the person who said you know what since I was a kid I wanted to work in sales yeah

5:18

um but I I had I wanted to do my masters in in the states and when you study

5:24

there when you have the F1 Visa you can then upgrade for a one year working Visa

5:30

and and I did but I had to find a job also because you know my bills were piling up I really need to pay them my

5:38

rent and Etc but because I didn’t have much work experience and Americans they they worked while studying and they work

5:46

a lot so when they finish studies usually they’re already they have some work experience which doesn’t happen when you come from Portugal

5:53

um so I was like all right I’m on a Visa I’m not a local and I don’t have work

5:58

experience so it was really hard to find a job and uh and the only job that took

6:04

me was a hundred percent sales commission job because I was like guess what number is for them they were not

6:09

paying me a salary anyway if they didn’t sell so there were no answers like you can work

6:15

um and I was like it’s not that I’m interested in working 100 sales commission but I have no other choice at

6:20

the moment so I’m gonna go for it and because I’m Portuguese they’re like you

6:25

can sell to the Latin American market right they’re like well I don’t really speak Spanish ah you learn it

6:32

wow so you got to learn okay so you gotta learn a new language while working

6:37

on a position yes that’s the best that’s the best way for you to learn the language a month later you’re fluent

6:43

because you have no other choice you have to be what were you selling um don’t judge me

6:49

um timeshare I’ve sold so many I sold Yellow Pages my first like quote unquote

6:56

legit sales job out of school I sold Yellow Pages which you may not even know because a lot of people don’t even know that that makes you sound like a

7:02

dinosaur no I know I I still remember I still know okay but yeah I get it yeah

7:08

okay so you would cut your teeth wow learning new language 100 commission

7:13

selling timeshare what was that like I mean that’s Lori the sun it was in the unflex mall so I was like yeah 40

7:20

degrees I don’t know 90 19 Fahrenheit 40 Celsius sun on your face yeah was

7:27

interesting but hey I I was happy because I was making money I was like if

7:32

I had like a normal job being Junior right with my no my library I’ll be

7:37

making less money right so an entry job I was 21. so an entry job

7:44

would I would be making within like a a normal salary I’ll be making less right

7:49

right there it’s like I have no limits so I’m making more like depending on the

7:54

week but you know you cannot see week by week you have to see by the end of the month or by the year how much you made

8:00

right right I’m making more than if I’ll be like a recessionist or something like

8:05

that in Florida so I was like fine and after after that nothing else is scary

8:11

you know when you do 100 Commission you said to yourself for you know a very

8:17

good start because it’s like nothing else is difficult you know how did you so I actually just want to take a moment

8:22

on that because I think I was just talking with a friend of mine about just rejection in sales and how prevalent it

8:29

is and how you have to have such a strong mindset to be able to get past so

8:34

I’m imagining you faced a lot of that in that type of role what was what mindset

8:39

did you develop that helped you be able to look back and say actually this is great I’m making more than I could working as a receptionist or whatever

8:45

like how did you overcome the rejection I I to be honest because I

8:52

I I was always I have to actually thank my my mother and my grandmother for that because both of them are extremely you

8:59

know strong women my grandmother you know in Portugal we had a dictatorship until 1974 and women didn’t have much

9:07

rights by law by then you know we couldn’t have your own passport yeah yeah I could go on with the with the

9:12

horrible things that we didn’t have access to before 1974. but my grandmother she didn’t give to them so I

9:19

was like I don’t care I’m gonna work with with my husband not for with my husband she learned at the time French

9:26

English and a bit of German so she did the negotiations with the construction companies and she’s like I’m gonna do

9:33

that so I was raised like my grandmother like that with my mother and

9:39

I I was like I always took rejection okay even from Young ages because I was like I’m doing what I can I’m doing my

9:45

best some days I win some days I I don’t and we cannot win every day and um and I

9:52

just don’t take it personally so incense was like okay I lost this client or they say they

9:59

don’t understand my very broken Spanish at that time I was just like laugh and move on you know like when something

10:05

doesn’t work out you either learn or you laugh from it doodle yes learn or laugh

10:11

I actually really love that I I think when you train your mindset to be

10:18

that way everything gets so much easier this is a completely random Side Story but yesterday I we have a brand new car

10:24

we bought a couple weeks ago and I was backing out and I didn’t do anything different from what I normally do but I

10:29

scraped the whole front side against this brick wall and I was like the version of me before I had worked on my

10:35

mindset would have been really upset about this but I I honestly just laughed I was like because what’s great

10:41

about when you’re in sales or an entrepreneur is you just there’s always more money like you just go get more

10:47

money take care of it it’s more like an inconvenience but I was like well that was inconvenient I’m gonna move on and laugh right so exactly in sales and

10:54

business right we just I love that and the reason why we make more money when it’s a variable income it’s because it

11:02

takes it’s more risky right yeah it’s the same when you invest right high risk High return low risk low return same

11:09

with salaries the reason why you have like what people have like a like let’s say stable seller rates because there is

11:15

no risk to it right therefore let me quiz yes if you have a variable or a

11:21

commissioning it has to be it has to pay off the risk yeah and people have to

11:27

embrace that mindset and it’s okay if they don’t I have a friend of mine she says I don’t want that I’d rather

11:33

make less money and know what I have in the end of the day and that’s okay we also need these

11:39

people right and you have the others like me like you who are like no I

11:45

prefer to take the risk and make more and I can deal with that and if I can’t

11:51

if that if that takes a toll on my mental health then I should maybe I

11:56

should review my priorities and maybe I should do what my friend does because she started feeling at the time that

12:02

that was taking a toll on her happiness at work so she shouldn’t be doing that and she made enough money with the

12:08

normal salary yeah so it’s okay so you also have to put the things in the balance and say what works for you

12:15

I think that’s so important I was having that conversation with someone the other day like I don’t think I’m curious your

12:21

thoughts on this I think you just shared them like I don’t think everyone is meant to be an entrepreneur

12:26

um and I don’t think everyone is a good fit for sales and that’s okay because everyone was fired the same way it would

12:32

be a very boring world and we did every and we needed every profession we need doctors you need Pilots we need people

12:39

who who clean hotels you know cleaners we need you know we need there are so

12:45

many things we need and so many professions that I don’t have to like be good and and

12:51

liking these lifestyle you know like I remember um my boyfriend from teenage like my

12:56

ex-boyfriend when I was a teenager um at the time he was always very into numbers and Mathematics at school and I

13:03

always liked Arts you know I like literature I like to read I like to write I like music I like theater

13:09

and I remember him saying when he you know when I was studying music or theater he was looking like with like

13:16

despise like oh how can you like this and then he said well I’m so glad people

13:21

like this so I don’t have to do it and I think the same way you know like I’m so

13:27

happy there are people in Academia like my brother he’s doing a PhD in deep learning applied to meteorology I’m so

13:33

happy I don’t want to do a PhD it’s definitely nothing deep learning exactly exactly so the power of knowing yourself

13:40

which I think is also so so important in this process and what works for you yes

13:46

exactly exactly um so tell us about it I know it’s it’s more than we have time for today but

13:51

just high level the journey then from this time share sales job outside in the summer heat commission only to what

13:58

you’re doing now which is business development for a very cool very Cutting Edge sales AI enablement company

14:06

um I will try to summarize so it’s been 10 years in between more or less uh in

14:11

the meantime I’ve worked um for well I in Florida I worked always for uh sales

14:17

in internships and then I’ve worked in Berlin in London and Belgium uh also in

14:23

sales but also in events management I organize a lot of conferences and uh so

14:29

I did also event management I did operations manager so I was operations manager as well with a bit of sales

14:34

because I also trained my teams in sailing and then I went back to sales with SAS uh and then I’ve been there

14:42

um you know ever since and I always say when people say there is no more stressful job than sales like there is

14:48

event management management like I’m sorry but like there

14:54

is for me from every job I did I think the most responsible one was

14:59

events because everything that can go wrong will go wrong and and things that cannot go

15:05

wrong will still go wrong you know and yeah it’s the lack of control is even more it’s bigger than in sales in my

15:13

view so yeah so I um long story short that’s what I’ve been doing the last uh

15:19

10 years I love that I love that and we’re going to get into some of what you help and teach people to do through

15:25

Wonder way shortly but I’m just curious on that Journey for you because I always think it’s so helpful to hear again to

15:31

hear the mindset of someone who has developed a really successful sales career what would you say my father

15:36

what’s the biggest obstacle you faced over the past 10 years on your sales journey and then how did you overcome it

15:43

I would say I have like what One internal mine and

15:49

one external so internal is and I should be ashamed of saying this but there you

15:55

go I’m gonna be very blunt I’m very bad with technology like I don’t like I I

16:01

didn’t have a smartphone until 2019 because I don’t like it yeah um I so I

16:07

have one of my weaknesses as a professional and as a professional sales is I’m not very tax saving of course I

16:13

know how to use myself what are not these people who love

16:18

technology and love to work and free and takes me longer than I would say a person who likes technology to figure

16:24

something out in terms of tools so for me it that’s something that it’s an

16:29

obstacle in my professional because while I’m very fast in other things I’m not fast in you know tool management and

16:38

use and you know tools when they’re really well used they’re your best friends and I know that and when I

16:45

manage them I loved and I was like oh why were you so lazy to get to learn this you know your life is so much you

16:52

know but it’s something that really the process of learning how to use a

16:57

tool in driving for me personally so and that’s something have you found that that like was there a time when that

17:03

slowed you down or you had to get past the mindset with it like yeah I had to really like okay think okay the next two

17:11

hours will be Dreadful you know you’re gonna hate them but you need to do a lot you know so this is something in me that

17:18

I think it’s an obstacle you know to be more efficient as a sales as a professional overall and the second one

17:24

um that I’ve seen in my life and there’s something in it and I think it’s a good way to talk about business development

17:30

and sales in general is most companies then they don’t onboard and train their sales reps

17:37

either at all or properly and you cannot expect good results from it and I

17:44

remember obviously at the beginning I wasn’t good at it because I had no clue

17:49

what I was doing I was even selling in the language it was I didn’t you know speak at the time but even later on when

17:57

I moved to SAS sales it was like the old morning was terrible and I’ve heard these horror stories over

18:04

and over and over again and this is a huge obstacle in everyone’s lives all

18:10

over the world they can not expect your sales reps to perform when you provide them either no training or poor training

18:17

or poor training what’s gonna happen is the proactive ones like I did they will

18:22

self-teach themselves and they go after and it’s not really their job you should

18:27

do that in life but it’s not your responsibility yeah and it’s not

18:34

okay to to to leave people up to chance and up to their proactiveness you know there are people who are more proactive

18:40

than others there are people who are much more self-confident than others so people who are more self-confident they

18:45

trust themself to train themselves go after try and not being afraid to fail but there

18:51

are people who are afraid to fail and when you’re not training them it’s being very very fair to these people you know

18:57

because I don’t mind failing we talked about it I don’t mind being rejected I don’t care right many people do you know

19:04

and that’s not okay to put them in that position so let’s speak to that a little bit and I’m gonna actually take some

19:10

notes while you talk because we have a lot of listeners who are we’ve got our listeners fall between typically either

19:16

someone who’s an entrepreneur or a sales professional then we we have listeners outside of that I would say most of ours

19:22

probably fall in those two categories so I’m just thinking about two for sales managers who are listening in or for

19:28

entrepreneurs who are listening and who maybe they’re hiring their first sales person or they know it’s time to expand

19:34

like what are some of the top things we should be doing to successfully train

19:40

and onboard a new system I love that question first first

19:45

um in the onboarding only give relevant information okay so something something

19:51

that I’ve seen happening and as you said at the beginning I’ve corrected a lot of onboarding paths because it’s one of my

19:57

jobs here at wonderway and I’ve experienced myself as a salesperson being onboarded they love to overload

20:03

you with nice to have information what happens is the Newbie you don’t you you

20:08

still don’t have enough knowledge to prioritize so you’re gonna try you’re gonna try to learn everything with the

20:14

same eagerness but then we have limited storage space space in our brain and

20:22

then maybe you focusing in less important things is the managers or the person who is on boarding your job to

20:28

tell you this is what you need to learn this is where you have to focus your energy it’s not my job two out of 100

20:34

things to say number 20 is the one no so that’s the first failure I see all the

20:41

time so the first two weeks because even the essential information is already a lot

20:46

and people want to prove themselves and they are nervous so you don’t want to overwhelm them the second mistake I see

20:53

a lot is a lot of theory a lot of videos and presentations and no practice

20:59

no exercises so like we especially adult learning we

21:06

need to do no two things why am I learning this because if I don’t know why am I learning this they don’t have

21:13

my buying I’m not going to learn I’m not at school so and second is

21:18

after I understand why I’m learning this I need to apply to remember

21:23

and what happens many times is you have four weeks on boarding full of theory

21:29

no exercises no nothing or very or just lame quizzes here and there and then in

21:35

the end for example on Str all right did you understand all the 10 000 products we have and all the 10 000 technical

21:40

personas we have good luck and please bring results that’s not

21:46

that’s not how it works what we do for example I can give you an example at Wonder way because I also learn and

21:51

train my business development team is and also another another mistake I see

21:57

often is a lot of focus on the product and product features very little on the Persona and as an SDR you better

22:04

understand your persona the product it’s okay we have discount Executives you have sales Engineers we have we have

22:11

technical support yeah you have to understand your persona even more than your product so so what we do for

22:18

example here I can give you a very uh concrete example is I usually teach one Persona one of the many

22:26

the challenges the priorities and which part of my product solves and why and

22:31

what happens with and without our product and then I asked them for example when assessment is write me a prospecting

22:38

email not a quiz not a quiz the kiss doesn’t tell you anything so write me a prospecting email so your exercise is

22:45

your it’s something related to what you’re gonna do in the end of the morning if it’s a good email I even say send it

22:53

yeah if people committing you book in your first or second week which is very motivating as well I’ve had this the

23:00

yard booking for meetings in the second week because we you know we did the exercises we send them let’s see if it

23:06

works yeah yeah and this and this gives them confidence that doesn’t overwhelm them

23:11

on the opposite they’re like excited like all right I booked for a meetings this is not so difficult to explore them

23:19

they will see but you know um or for example if I want them to hear

23:24

if I want to see if they understood a certain product I asked them to record a small video of them speaking about their

23:30

product again not a quiz tell me how you would you pitch it right

23:35

so imagine I’m this Persona I have this trigger how would you pitch in one

23:41

sentence and then they record a video so every single assessment is related to what they’re going to do

23:49

so when they start working they’ve seen they’ve done that without any risk before they know how to do it because

23:56

they’ve done it how long is typically a good sales training and onboarding program

24:03

um it depends a lot but I would say for sdrs I would say two weeks the first

24:10

part of the onboarding meaning just onboarding and then after the two weeks

24:15

you do like uh you already you already working while being trained on extra

24:20

things okay so so and then you and then after that month you can already start

24:26

working with continuous training because another mistake I see is all right here was the onboarding and then see you in a

24:33

year or if you’re not performing let’s do like a performance review or performance plan to you know to make you

24:40

even more nervous about milk right you know not reaching results

24:46

um so that’s also the thing and also like in the first weeks of onboarding personas challenges the basic of the

24:54

tools that you need to use and then you work while you continue

24:59

being on board so we already booking meetings you’re already prospecting but

25:04

then you continue being trained so you can then you can then talk about objection handling why are we talking

25:09

about objection handling in the first week when you’re not handling any objection

25:15

it’s a valid point so kind of try to stack it and again I’m asking these questions because some of our listeners

25:20

are literally thinking about onboarding their first sales person or maybe they’re doing it with you know with with

25:25

quite a few and they’re working in a bigger Corporation and they’ve been doing it for a longer amount of time but you’re saying stack the onboarding and

25:32

training with what they’re actually going to be bumping up against Real exactly exactly yes okay that makes a

25:38

ton exactly and and if you don’t need them to for example work with a certain

25:43

tool up until a month or two later don’t train them on the tool they will forget um

25:49

they will forget so let’s only train them when they will use that that’s a

25:55

great Point how does so if someone’s listening and they’ve been doing founder-led selling and they’ve they and

26:00

I know you probably work with you I’m imagining the organizations you work with are largely more established but

26:06

I’m just curious if you can speak to this for a moment so if somebody has been doing most of the selling

26:11

themselves and they’re bringing on a sales person now for the first time they’re giving up some control they know

26:18

that it’s smart they need to get somebody else in charge of handling this so they can free up

26:25

their time but what does the mindset shift need to be for someone to grow their sales team and to give up that

26:31

control knowing that not everyone is going to sell as well as them at the beginning like what why don’t we how do

26:37

we need to be thinking about that so I think that’s a great question um and it’s definitely very relevant so

26:43

you need to set up your people for success and you need to know you’ve done everything you could to do that so

26:49

like obviously and especially startups I work in a startup many things I have to figure them out right so but like the

26:56

less it can heavier people figure them out themselves the better yeah right so to

27:03

make sure you have to make sure they you give them all the information in the right way and you know they understood

27:11

it and this will go back to what I’ve said how do I know if they know how to write a good email if they’re active

27:17

would emotional assessment right and I can tell you um from all the data we have usually

27:25

people are on board so at new sdrs who are doing who have great assessments

27:31

those who complete their assessments with really high grades usually they are the top performance because it’s related

27:38

right so if you if I give you a five star in an email in an email that you wrote or in a role play that you did

27:46

that you did a really good job I’m assuming this is how you’re gonna perform when it’s real life right but if

27:53

you’re already from the beginning your email is bad why would I think that the remote on our rights to an actual

27:59

Prospect will be good right so you have to assure before you you give your

28:05

accounts and you give your brand and you give that to your

28:10

um newbie you need to make sure they are ready by assessing them in the right way

28:16

because if they do a great assessment if they prove to you in the right way they can do the job then you can be rest

28:23

assured if they deliver to you and they’re like they don’t explain your product well or your branding you don’t

28:29

they don’t communicate in the way you like them to they don’t really understand who is your ICP in the sense

28:35

that you ask them for top 20 accounts if the top 20 are not good ones then you

28:41

know they’re not gonna do a good job but if they are good then why would they screw up when it’s real life yeah that

28:48

makes a ton very unlikely it’s pretty simple actually when you lay it out like that so I love that tell everyone

28:54

because I know we’ve got just a couple more minutes here mofalda I think we can’t have you on without talking

28:59

prospecting and I think LinkedIn in particular because you do such a great job on it what are like one to two of

29:06

the things that you see working best for you right now when it comes to prospecting on LinkedIn yeah

29:12

um so basically um it’s really important and I know a lot of creators say that that you post

29:19

uh you post and you engaged on LinkedIn so before you even start prospecting on

29:25

LinkedIn make sure that you post once a day every day Monday to Friday and that

29:31

you will also engage on people’s posts um so people know you’re face and your

29:37

name so when you reach out to them you’re not such a stranger so actually a

29:42

lot of the LinkedIn prospecting starts before you even reach out to to the to the prospect yeah and then when you do

29:50

um I usually don’t send unless I have something very specific to say I always send invites without any message okay so

29:58

that’s where it seems to work much better unless it’s something specific like Elyse told me to reach out to you

30:04

because right then it works best but if you don’t have nothing to say or if you just want to see if they are interested

30:10

in your solution just don’t say anything the likelihood is much higher for them to upset you and then

30:16

um yeah and then something that I see a lot of sdrs doing even the really good

30:22

ones and is like talk like a normal person like

30:27

like I know it sounds such a weird um and useless advice but it’s not like

30:33

even the best sdrs when I check their emails on their messaging they do

30:39

everything correct they understand the Persona they do the homework they know how to research accounts they do check

30:45

check check check but the user gone that’s like that’s a turn off you know like I remember training my

30:54

in my previous company we were selling like software testing to engineers and quality assurance you know like wait

31:01

that were uh with our solution you can I know something like gibberish and I’ll

31:07

like just say you can find bugs that they wouldn’t because it’s testing in real life

31:14

language yeah I know exactly and that’s some and especially if this is true on

31:20

email in in in LinkedIn it has to be even more because you’re texting so you

31:25

have to give the feeling their prostitute just texting yeah like a normal person and and I think this is

31:32

going to be even more important now with the AI because with AI you will see there is a

31:38

lot of automation already on LinkedIn and on the messaging it’s gonna get worse or better depending I don’t think

31:44

it’s very good from what I’ve been experiencing so far I mean there’s lots of like fail fail fail that I’m going to

31:49

use somewhere somehow in a trade me neither but there will get better eventually this will get better so the

31:54

more robotic you sound when it’s you even right that’s so true you’ll think it’s it’s a robot and it was you after

32:00

all but you just cannot write like a normal person yeah that’s that’s a good

32:06

point so an exercise I recommend doing is okay you wrote your message you wrote your email now imagine if you write

32:13

exactly the same thing to a friend of yours that’s how exactly you should be with formalities obviously maybe don’t

32:18

say bro or dudes to a prospect but you know um that’s a fun exercise and I think you

32:25

will get your messaging much better especially on LinkedIn when it’s texting it’s messages it’s not an email yeah

32:31

okay and send and send voice messages I was just gonna say voice messages are

32:36

huge I’m gold yeah I agree and uh I I can believe that it’s still I never give

32:42

that advice on LinkedIn because I say that’s obvious everyone is saying that he should be doing that I feel like if I

32:48

say that on LinkedIn it’s already old old advice but apparently it’s not um so definitely voice message on

32:54

LinkedIn use them they are good they will get you or either meeting or

33:00

referral or a no faster which is great yes just be be human and do something a

33:07

little bit different and once again please don’t don’t start your voice messages hello I’m from Wonder way the

33:14

living room father of like you know hey how you doing I saw you doing this a lot

33:20

to chat let me know yeah exactly exactly and it’s amazing still to this day how

33:27

many people haven’t received a voice message on LinkedIn I found and they’re like oh that’s so cool I’ve never gotten one of those before so just something

33:34

different

33:39

talk like a normal person yes so send your rehearse page on the on this

33:45

voicemail or voice message on LinkedIn you do that your friends how weird would

33:50

that be hey best friend uh I would like to take you to the best

33:56

restaurant in town like no no one talks like that well I hope at least not my

34:02

friends no I think it’s what’s also refreshing

34:07

is just hearing from your perspective and you’re working you know deep in the trenches of an AI company in the sales

34:15

space but it’s still like that human touch is at the end of the day what is going to help you rise above so exactly

34:22

and and and still a parenthesis there is and that’s what we’ve been advocating in

34:27

in Wonder way like my boss and the CEO and also every time we write articles with webinars like the AI is not here to

34:36

to replace the human in you that that’s exactly where your strength is hey I

34:41

will replace you in admin stuff in things you don’t want to do actually yeah you know filling out your crms you

34:48

know doing all the summaries for emails etc etc so you should use AI

34:55

to save time on stupid tasks or repetitive tasks like I can do it so you

35:01

can spend more time being human like you know yeah yeah I love it thank you so

35:08

much this was so fun and so if somebody’s listening and they want to go connect with you Mafalda on LinkedIn and

35:13

learn more about what you’re doing and what you’re up to tell them where to get in touch with you um maybe mention your podcast let’s

35:19

let’s tell everyone where they can connect further thank you thank you for that so LinkedIn as you see it here

35:25

um yeah don’t you don’t need to write me like a connection message just just send me a connection and I will accept and on

35:33

my podcast so one is a day in the life off so I um I interviewed three heads of

35:40

departments head of data head of engineering head of sales head off and I

35:45

asked them what sales supposed to be asking them so what are your challenges how does your day look like here’s a

35:51

prospecting email what do you think about it so it’s free it’s on YouTube and on Spotify I don’t have to give your

35:57

data to access it so if your buyer person is there I really recommend you

36:02

to listen to to that episode and then the other one is sales training drug listings where I have you at least in

36:08

the future we will um record it in September which is a very short podcast 15 minutes I ask

36:15

three personal questions so you get the speaker to get to know the speaker better and then I asked three sales

36:20

training mistakes and as you can see in the beginning of this podcast I was speaking a lot about the mistakes people

36:26

do on onboarding and we basically tackle three mistakes per episode and per speaker amazing amazing and we’ll link

36:34

all those in the show notes as well um this is so fun and this is the power of what you’re talking about this is how

36:39

we initially connected it was LinkedIn connection request I love that they’ve been built from there and just seeing

36:44

where things go so I think you know one of my mantras for my life and for my clients too is like let it be easy like

36:51

yes let it be easy let it be easy and this is an example of how great things can come from just letting it be easy

36:58

connecting being a real human and um and walking yeah and as I said in the

37:03

beginning without LinkedIn and this power Community we would have never met and I have the feeling with same people

37:08

in the space I actually have I have now a friend or two coming from LinkedIn connections so it can be a great way for

37:16

you know even new friendships so there you go absolutely absolutely which I I will put it out there I think we’re

37:22

going to be great friends and continue to do good things together in the future so this was so fun thank you so much no

37:28

thank you for having me absolutely and uh to you my listener like I said we’re

37:33

going to link all of my father’s information in the show notes but go connect with her she is a woman who is

37:38

doing big things in the sales world and uh and we need more women in sales we do

37:44

we absolutely do so go connect with Mafalda and as always thank you so much

37:49

for tuning in to today’s episode you can head on over to elysearcher.com for all

37:54

sorts of goodies trainings to help you elevate your sales step into a greater level of financial abundance and truly

38:01

transform into the person that you know you are meant to be I hope you enjoyed this episode and I want to encourage you

38:06

to go check out another one of our shoe sales radio episodes right now for continued inspiration see you on our

38:13

next episode bye for now