The LinkedIn Playbook: Smart Outreach, Real Conversations, Better BD

Speaker A: Foreign. Hello everybody. This is welcome to Amplify. This is the podcast for accounting firm growth and I'm Chris Kamara. And this season we're focusing on business development and business development, tech, how BDS are using tech to win. Today we're discussing selling on LinkedIn. And in this episode we talk to Rob Brown, who is founder and host of Accounting Voices, a global media platform connecting leaders in accounting, finance and technology through podcasts, panels and virtual gatherings. He has hosted more than 1,000 interviews with firm leaders, influencers and innovators worldwide. He's also an author and a Tech X TEDx speaker. This is an episode you won't want to miss. Rob, thank you so much for coming to the show today. Before we jump in, why don't you tell us a little bit more about yourself.

Speaker B: Thank you, Chris. It's second time on your show, so, uh, privilege. I'm based in the uk, as some of you North American listeners might pick up. I'm in Nottingham, home of Robin Hood. I'm a former high school math teacher, did a part qualification in accounting, but for 20 years taught accountants how to win business in a company called the Business development academy. And LinkedIn's obviously a big part of that. Wrote a book called Build you'd reputation because it's really important to be known and vocal and visible. And we'll dip more into that. And these days I host multiple accounting podcasts potentially, uh, principally to help accountants be more visible, be more relevant, be more informed in what they do. So they've got more of a handle on their own career, their own choices, their own influence, and they can get the kind of jobs and work that they want.

Speaker A: Fantastic. So tell me, how has LinkedIn transformed the BD process for you?

Speaker B: Well, I've seen over the years that, let's just say this, accountants are not natural salespeople, they're, ah, trusted advisors. Uh, the opportunity LinkedIn gives us is not to become louder. There's so much noise out there already. But it's to become visible. And visibility is not vanity. That's what a lot of accounting professionals need to get over. It's career insurance. And if you're not visible, somebody else is going to take the space that should have been yours. Now, uh, LinkedIn is the platform for accounting professionals because it's less social than the other platforms. We're not expecting accountants to be on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter or anything else like that in a business capacity that's more of a playground. So LinkedIn has reshaped how business development Works in professional services. It's taken BD from cold calling and coffee meetings and in person networking to credibility at uh, scale. So it's good for that. It is a great playground. Introductions and talking about yourself is valid on there. And it's more these days about chasing than attracting. No, I'll say that again. I meant that the other way around. It's less about chasing and it's more about attracting. Setting yourself up as the go to person for what you do. Firms use LinkedIn as a credibility engine and so should the professionals that are in those firms. And basically what we want to get to, Chris, is a point where if a, if uh, somebody wants what you do, you want them to think of you first, above and beyond all of the other choices. And LinkedIn works just like Google. It's a search engine. People will go on there and find what they want. And so accountants, they don't want to be selling, they want to be serving and putting themselves in the mix as a person of interest, a person of choice. Ultimately, LinkedIn turns rainmaking into relevance making. That's what we're going to talk about here.

Speaker A: Thank you. So tell me, what are the most effective ways to use Sales Navigator and what's overhyped?

Speaker B: Sales Navigator is a big money maker for LinkedIn. There's no two ways about that. Uh, and they've geared LinkedIn so that you should and must take a premium account. You don't get a lot for free these days, but that's anywhere. And our accounting listeners, watchers will know that. So LinkedIn Sales Navigator is their way to, uh, upgrade LinkedIn. So let's talk about Navigator and how it works. It's brilliant when used strategically. So we've got to think of it as radar, not artillery. You don't shoot at people. Uh, it's not to go at people, it's to find the kind of people you want. And it's good triggering. It gives you great search capability and great reasons to start conversations. So you can search for anything you like in Navigator in a way that you can't on a free account. And yeah, it gives you permission to start the conversations. It's overhyped with the InMail stuff. That's a bit of a, uh, digital version of cold calling in my eyes. But it does encourage micro conversations, little reach outs. It's brilliant for intelligence, not intruding. So you can map your market, you can monitor shifts in who's doing what. You can engage with genuine insight. It's not about volume, it gives you context. It Tells you who people are and what they are doing. I like particularly the ability to search how big firms are and how well connected people are and their roles, how senior they are. And so what's hyped, overhyped. You probably don't need 90% of the functionality of Sales Navigator.

Speaker A: Oh really?

Speaker B: But that 10% that it does do is super valuable. And it's what, seven, eight hundred dollars a year? It's not a bad investment if you are intentional about business development and you want to put yourself out there to create new opportunities. It's a tool in the toolbox, Chris. That, that's how I would say it. Mhm.

Speaker A: So how do you balance personalization with automation and outreach?

Speaker B: Automation's massive, isn't it? In everything these days. We're in the age of AI. Ah, it manages the process. I use some AI automation tools with LinkedIn. It manages the process. But it's personality that wins people. People trust personal brands these days more than corporate brands, don't they? If you think of big government, big politics, big firms, big corporates, very distrustful of that. Uh, we're more likely to want to connect with individuals and recommend individuals. So you can automate reminders, you can automate outreach, you can automate scheduling and CRM updates, but every message, every comment, every first touch, at least it's got a sound human. In accounting, relationships are very much the product, aren't we? We are trusted advisors. So we want people to choose us because it's us. Because there are thousands of competitors out there that will deliver what you do. There are loads of great, technically super smart enrolled agents and tax specialists and accounting professionals. However, given that everything is a zero sum game, there are loads of people out there that can do what you do to a very good standard. What separates the good from the great is often personality. So if you're doing automation, it's got to remove the friction and the grunt work. And accountants know about that. There's been a lot of it. We've all poured over spreadsheets in the past and manual databases, but it should not remove the authenticity. So the outreach that you're doing, this conversation starters that you're doing, if you can make that human, then the automation can scale that for you. It can scale the communication, not necessarily the connection for me. The firms that win, Chris, the people that win are using the tech to free up humans to be more human.

Speaker A: Love that. Love that. So what's your take on LinkedIn automation tools? Where's the ethical or practical line?

Speaker B: LinkedIn doesn't like automation tools, okay? The people that do it, the companies that do it, they get their platforms to sit on top of LinkedIn. So LinkedIn isn't detecting the fact that automation tools are being used. However, it is a part of the game and it is ethical. So my rule, simple, if you wouldn't do it face to face, don't automate it online. So I don't set things up on an automation platform that I wouldn't do manually. Like I said, LinkedIn's cracked down heavily on these connection bots and message scrapers and data scrapers, things like that. We know in accounting, reputation is everything. So automation shouldn't impersonate you. If you could do that in real life, then use automation to do that and duplicate your efforts. It's great for data gathering, it's great for analytics, it's great for scheduling, it's great for reporting, it's great for outreach if you're doing it in a personal way. For instance, I invite people to our Accounting Voices speed networking sessions. Uh, you're aware of those and particularly in North America, uh, we have three or four hundred people registered and I've used LinkedIn automation to fire out invitations to second level connections and say, hey, if this appeals to you, we'd love to have you along. Just connect with me and I'll fire you over the registration link. And some people respond to that and some don't. But automation is great because it personalizes those, it puts their name in it. Chris. So it's a merged field if you like. So it does appear personal. And people receiving that, it's not a sales pitch, it's an invitation. It's offering some value and I don't have any qualms about using that. And if people want it, great, they'll click and connect to me. And if they don't, they won't. So automation should support your discipline and your personalization, but it shouldn't impersonate you. And once you've had it happen to you, if you suspect there's a bottle, if you suspect it's an automated message or it's just part of a block going out, the trust evaporates. And I've had that. To me, you just get all these pitches and sales and spam. Um, it's got to offer some value and it's got to be personalized and automation can help with that.

Speaker A: Great. So how do you measure success on LinkedIn beyond just connection count or impressions?

Speaker B: I tell you how it used to be. There was a mechanism, there still is. Called the social selling index. SSI. Everybody can get their social selling index on LinkedIn. You can Google it and it will take you to a page that when you're locked in to LinkedIn, it will give you scores out of 100 based on four criteria your connections, your relationship building, your sharing of insights, things like that. And any score above 50, 60% is good. You can compare to other people in your industry, you can compare to other people in your own company and it will give you a ranking. They're phasing that out, I'm led to understand, but that was as good a metric as any for measuring your success on LinkedIn beyond connection count. But we've got to move beyond the vanity and the metrics. It's a big reason why we might come onto this. But when I ask accounting types why they don't go on LinkedIn, they're scared of crickets and tumbleweed and having nobody see them, or, uh, worse still, having people not like what they put up. Uh, but success for me on LinkedIn is not about likes, it's about conversations. Accountants are traditionally lurkers. They don't engage a lot. They watch from the outside, they see what other people are doing, they have a listen in. They don't always like things, they don't comment on things, it's just the nature of the beast. So you can't measure how well you're doing on LinkedIn by the number of views that you're getting. The best firms are tracking conversations that they've started, referrals that they've generated, inbound inquiries. It's a little bit more commercial rather than just the views, because a little bit like, you know, our accountants say turnover is vanity and profit is sanity, because profit's a better metric of how you're doing turnover. Anyone can have a big turnover but still make no money. So with LinkedIn, it's about commerciality and leads and opportunities created, rather than the number of views and the number of likes. I know LinkedIn influencers that get lots and lots of likes, but it's an echo chamber. It's all of their mates, it's all of their friends, it's all of their network. But they're not potential clients, they're not potential customers, they're not potential users, they're not even potential referrers. So if I offered you. If I offered you five new people to talk to, to sell what you do, or I offered you 5000 likes on your post of people that weren't interested in what you do, you then Start to think which is the most valuable to me, because nobody here wants more friends. We don't want more likes. We don't want more popularity. We want more opportunities. We're talking here about business development, Chris, aren't we?

Speaker A: Right?

Speaker B: Creating commercial opportunities. So one post you put up that sparks a meaningful, direct conversation or gets you remembered six months later by the right person, that's more valuable than 50 random likes. So if we start to see LinkedIn as a conversation engine, not just a broadcast tower, then we want to be measuring relationships and, uh, not reach. That's the way I feel.

Speaker A: Now, you alluded to this in your previous answer, but let me ask you what advice you have for CPAs who are lurkers and they're hesitant to post or engage.

Speaker B: Yes, it does need addressing, doesn't it? Because accountants by nature are introverted. It's okay us, uh, putting them in that box because many of them would add minute themselves.

Speaker A: Sure.

Speaker B: So they're reticent about, well, the whole networking thing. Because selling yourself is awkward, isn't it? It's not for the socially unconfident. And accountants are brilliant when they're doing the technical stuff, Chris. You know that. You talk to a lot of them. They're in the zone. Um, they're in flow because it's what they know best. But when you ask them to sell themselves, it's awkward. So fear, fear of rejection, fear of saying the wrong thing, fear of being seen, fear of putting your head up, fear of having an opinion. All of this is difficult for accounting types, and I sympathize with that. I might come across as confident, but I'm what they call a situational extrovert. So if you ask me how I recharge my batteries, I like being on my own. I like being an introvert. I like reading my books, I like playing chess, I like creating stuff. And I'm very comfortable on my own, and that's how I recharge. But like you, I can do a podcast. I can be the life and soul of the party. I can address an audience. I can go into a room full of strangers and do the networking. So I can switch it on if I have to, but it takes a huge amount of energy, and I have to recharge after that. So accountants can see themselves like that, that to get over the fear, they can be situationally extrovert. They can put themselves out there if they need to. Yeah, if they get judged, they get judged. But silence speaks louder than you think. If you're invisible online, if You've not got a profile and people assume that you're inactive offline. They don't see you as a player.

Speaker A: Oh.

Speaker B: They don't see you as a go to person because you're a well kept secret.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And you can only afford to be a well kept secret if you're already famous and you've made you millions and you want to be a hermit and you want that exclusivity and you want to charge premium. But if you're making your name, visibility is the strategy for survival. So I'd say in practical advice, start small. Comment on other people's posts because that's their stuff and you're starting to get more confident there. Uh, share one useful insight a week m answer a client question publicly. A client asked me recently about this or I was working on this for a client. Accountants are in the business of risk mitigation. It's binary. They're right or they're wrong. They're perfect or they're not. But the problem with perfectionism, it's an enemy of getting out there. It's an enemy of visibility. If you wait until your post is perfect or your personal brand is perfect, someone else has already published a good post about that. So LinkedIn rewards helpful visibility. It's not like Facebook, the meal that you had, or I've just been to this event. It doesn't have to be polished. Self promotion. You don't need to be entertaining, you just need to be insightful or genuine or useful. And I'd finally say, Chris, nobody remembers your first post, but they remember the fact that you show up with some consistency, some regularity. They'll start to get to know you. It takes a few touches and it takes a while to be an overnight success, doesn't it? When you see people that have got thousands of comments and reposts and things like that, it's intimidating. But they don't get like that overnight. And accounting's a niche thing. If you can get a few likes, the odd repost the odd, resend the odd share, that's a win. Because 99.9% of accountants don't post on LinkedIn.

Speaker A: 99%. Interesting. Interesting. Situational extrovert. I love that. That's a great way. So tell me, how can marketing teams support BD professionals in creating and maintaining consistent LinkedIn presence?

Speaker B: Marketing teams are the engine room of creating opportunities for accounting firms. But they're not accountants. So they don't have the expertise of an accountant. But they should be supporting the accountant. They should be empowering accountants. And the best firms have marketers that co create content. A lot of marketers, Chris, you come across this, uh, the association of County Marketers that they're asking accountants to can you create me some content? Can you write some more blogs? Can you write some more posts? Can you do some videos? Can you talk about the things that you're good at? And accountants are not naturally creative like that. Maybe they haven't got time to do that so it makes them reluctant to do it. But what if marketing people could be a little bit more collaborative and co creative and say let's write this together or let me sit and interview you about some of the things that you're working on right now. We'll turn that into some posts, uh, turning those FAQs, those client questions, those client inquiries, they become great LinkedIn posts, great conversations, great short content pieces that can build a rhythm. Marketers can also help accountants with the visuals because we know that a uh, two dimensional text post does not grab the attention like a text post with an image.

Speaker A: Right?

Speaker B: And you're great at that. You're very creative Chris, because you're a marketer. But accountants are not like that. So they wouldn't know how to create a great image or source a great image. So providing libraries of good visuals, good templates, good insights, good quotes that the partners and the fianna's can add their own voice to, that's very valuable, very helpful. Marketing can write some posts for partners to edit and tweak and put their own voice to certainly writing them with the partners and the fee owners. The difference is ownership. The marketers don't want to own it, but if you can give them something to adopt and to tweak, they'll start to own it and feel more confident about putting things online. And you know what? When leaders show up online, it signals to the whole firm that visibility is a hallmark of leadership. They are brand ambassadors. If your leaders and partners are not putting stuff out there, why should anybody else? So you set in the example, you're giving permission for everyone else to start to be more vocal and visible and brand ambassadors and advocates for the great things that the firm is doing. And you could chatgpt. Chris, I'm sure you use AI in your stuff and use it very ethically, but it's a great creative tool for you. So if you gave an accountant your, uh, sorry, a GPT, your LinkedIn profile and said I want 10 article ideas for this, I want some ideas for 12 posts, I could do about this over the next Month. It would write it for you in a way that you could tweak and um, personalize in a way that's authentic and feels right for you. Marketers could help the non creative accountants to put together some ideas. Hey, we've all got expertise and even the most introverted person will influence thousands of people in their lifetime. So there's no point saying I've got no audience. You're never going to have an audience unless you put something out there. So it's teamwork, isn't it Chris?

Speaker A: Yes. Yes, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I just have one more question for you Rob and that is what types of content actually convert to meaningful BD conversations and professional services?

Speaker B: Well, I'm not going to pretend to know the LinkedIn algorithm because it changes all the time. Like Facebook and X and all these other platforms, they are very proprietary about what works and what doesn't and they keep moving the goalposts.

Speaker A: Uh, but they do.

Speaker B: There's maybe a few types, explanation type stuff taking on real problems. The businesses out there and the people that need good trusted advisors and accountants, they want to understand that uh, an accountant knows their world, speaks their language, appreciates their vocabulary, knows their pain. So any explanations and uh, takes on real problems, takes on situations that clients will find themselves in. That stuff always works with the target market that you're going after. It could be a particular niche or sector or industry. It could be a geographical location, uh, so you don't have to take really big juicy topics. If you know your audience well, you might just work in real estate or healthcare or technology or startups or whatever is family businesses. There are a million and one problems and situations you can speak into with a few tips. So they are good case studies, case stories. Here's how we solve this issue and uh, that beats post like we're proud to announce or we're thrilled to tell the world. We're really excited to share. So those here's how we solve this. LinkedIn audiences, Chris, you'll get this. They're very curious to peer over the garden wall to look in your bait box. What did you use to catch this? What did that look in the medicine cabinet? They are keen to know what, how you've solved this, what you take for this, how you got around this problem, how you've helped people do this or that. That curiosity plays out well in LinkedIn because if you write it well, people will be intrigued by that. And the more you do it, the more you will be known for doing it. And probably a third one I'D say, uh, conversation starters. Posts that uh, invite some interaction. You can write about the challenges of AI, but tagging it with what's your biggest AI challenge this year? You're asking the question and it's difficult not to respond to a question. Questions are great because questions are conversation starters. I have this wonderful business development, uh, I call it a carousel. So it goes around in these five steps, Chris. So the first step is great questions. Great questions build great conversations. They start great conversations. So questions goes around on the carousel to conversations. Great conversations lead to great relationships. You can't get close to somebody you've not talked to a little bit, can you? And I'm being a little bit vulnerable. So great conversations lead to great relationships. Great relationships lead to great opportunities. Nobody's going to call you and say, hey Chris, I've never heard of you before. I found you in the yellow pages. Will you do this for me? Here's $5,000, can we start tomorrow? Because you're a complete stranger. So if you want great relationships, and accountants claim to be a relationship business, so you've got to preface that with great conversations because that's what creates great relationships. All the people that you're close to, you've had great conversations with them and um, what a great relationship. Give us great business. So think about this in business development. If you want great business, you've got to create great opportunities. If you want great opportunities, you've got to create great relationships. If you want great relationships, you've got to have good conversations. And if you want good conversations, you've got to ask good questions. So that's a five step little carousel. And you know when you get to the top, Christian, you've gone round and you're doing business with people. Do you see how that would give you permission to ask more intimate questions and better questions and higher level questions and you go around again and you create more referrals and introductions and cross selling and deeper, more advisory based conversations because the relationship is a lot deeper. Uh, so for me, the post you put in out, it's the conversation that follows it and it's the conversations that convert. It's not particularly the campaigns. So these leaders who are willing to and um, by leaders I mean thought leaders, opinion makers, people that are putting it out there, talk about lessons learned, not about self promotion. And you can talk about mistakes that you've made. That's great too. People appreciate a little bit of vulnerability. And you will find, or the clients will find you those peers that they'll reach out to you, not necessarily on your post, but it might be privately. And that's the way we get some traction with our LinkedIn activity. And I finally said practically, just devote five, 10 minutes a day on LinkedIn. It doesn't have to be hours at a time. You can get lost in LinkedIn, like any platform.

Speaker A: Sure.

Speaker B: And, uh, don't wait till you've got an hour to do it, because accountants, they never have an hour. There's always so much going on. But if you are disciplined, set a timer for 10 minutes and even ask ChatGPT. If I've got 10 minutes a day for 5 days a week, what kind of things could I do on LinkedIn? How could I make the best use of that time to win more business, to create more opportunities, to build my network? That's the most practical advice I could give.

Speaker A: That's great, Rob. Um, thank you so much. Where can people find you?

Speaker B: Well, Accounting voices is on LinkedIn. There's a company page, and there we have a lot of good conversations. I'm doing a series at the moment about I'm asking 40 people, influencers, firm leaders, tech people, uh, how 2025 has played out for them, what defined the year for them, and asking them, one prediction and we'll put in all of those videos up there. So accounting voices on LinkedIn. And that's where I'm most active, probably for you, Chris, as well, it's where you're most active. So that's where conversations start. And, uh, if I may leave people with this as a sign off in accounting visibility, and this is not a warning, I'm not apt to scare people, but visibility is no longer an option. You can't build trust in private. The future belongs to those firms and those professionals who are visible and credible in public. They're helpful in their tone, they're consistent over time. Visibility is a hallmark of good leadership because your people, your clients want to see you out there. Uh, credibility is currency, attention is currency. And LinkedIn is a great platform to build credibility and attention. So beyond that, most people are not active on LinkedIn. It doesn't need much to put yourself in the top 1%. You've just got to be intentional about it. Hopefully that's helpful to your podcast listeners and viewers.

Speaker A: Absolutely. And thank you again, Rob. So that's it for another episode of Amplify, the Podcast for Accounting Firm Growth. Big thanks to all of you for listening today and again to Rob for the engaging conversation. And if you like what you heard, we'd love a review on the podcast platform you're listening to us on now. And be sure to listen to the other episodes this season. Our theme is business development and Business development Tech. You can learn more about Amplify and our, uh, past seasons on accountingmarketing.org and look for podcasts under publications. So if you want to connect with me, reach out on guess where LinkedIn. And, uh, thanks again and we look forward to having you join us for another episode soon. Thank you.