Phone a Friend: Oaken Mulholland on LinkedIn Outreach That Converts

Everybody keeps telling me LinkedIn outreach is dead. I hear it from my clients constantly, usually right after they forward me another one of those cringey DMs that opens with "we both went to college" and ends with a calendar link. So I phoned a friend who is booking calls and signing clients on LinkedIn every single week, and I asked him to make his case.

Oaken Mulholland coaches agency owners, coaches, and consultants on how to land three to five sales calls a week using LinkedIn in about an hour a day. In this one he breaks down why all those bad DMs are actually good news for you, the two zones where leads go to die (the pitch slap and the chit chat), and the simple three-part framework he uses to start a real conversation without sounding like a robot or a flatterer.

We also get into the part most people get wrong: thinking content alone will save them, or that they need a huge following to make any of this work. Oaken shares the story of a client in one of the least engaged niches imaginable who booked 17 calls in his first month with under a thousand followers. If you have ever felt like outreach is either sleazy or pointless, this conversation will change how you think about it.

Work with Oaken.

 Work with me at suzieconsoli.com.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

What would it take for somebody to not only pop into your DMs but for you to get on a call with them and then for you to invite them to be a guest on your podcast? That's exactly what happened. It's he had this conversation with my new friend Oaken. He is a lead gen expert. He uh he specifically focuses on LinkedIn and how to connect with people in a way that grows your business, helps you make money without all of the sleazy, what he calls pitch slapping or trying to connect with people in an authentic way. This episode is packed with so much stuff that you can actually implement this week. Go ahead and take a listen. Let me know what you think. Welcome to the Sell Well Podcast. Today I have phoned a friend on uh LinkedIn Outreach, Oaken Mulholland. I'm so excited that you're here with me today. I'm excited that my listeners get to learn a little bit about LinkedIn Outreach. I know that this has a lot of stigma around it. And so I'm really excited to have you on today and kind of hear your backstory and a little bit of your perspective on where outreach is today. So thanks for joining us.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Happy to be here, Susie. Thanks very much.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

Awesome. Why don't we kick off by just hearing a little bit of your story and um how you got into this in the first place?

SPEAKER_00 1:11

Totally. Uh my story. I'll give you the short version. Um I got into this a while back uh over COVID. I was actually working with a with a family friend and uh business consultant for tech startups. And uh he would do all the GTM consulting with them. And I kind of came on as a bit of a LinkedIn help and we started running outreach and booking all their calls to kind of prove sales so they could get their first round of funding and stuff. From there, I actually went off a little while. And then when I came back, I just decided I wanted to build my own business and started off as an agency running, you know, outreach for other marketing agencies mostly, uh, running it with using uh VAs, automation, running multiple accounts for them, booking sales calls onto their calendars for them, which was great. But I wasn't a huge fan of the agency model myself and really wanted to change things up. A few friends had asked me like what I was doing and how it was having success, and I've told them and they had really good sex success with it as well. So I actually just flipped into coaching. And honestly, that's been the last 18 months. It's been really good fun. Traveled around the world, helping a lot of agencies to put calls on LinkedIn. It's great.

SPEAKER_01 2:14

I love that. Well, I want to dive into LinkedIn outreach, and I would love to um just kind of have you define that. Um, talk about your process and kind of what you've seen. Um, you know, when we were brainstorming about what this episode could be about, I think that uh the thing that keep coming to mind for me, or the thing that I keep hearing my clients say is that LinkedIn outreach is dead. I just keep getting all of these sleazy DMs from people who are like, we both went to college, we have so much in common, we should jump on a call. Um then they send you your super long pitch. I'd love for you to kind of destigmatize this for us. It's clearly working for you, and talk to us about why there's still a lot of opportunity here.

SPEAKER_00 2:53

Yeah, totally. Well, I think to start at the end, why there's a lot of opportunity is because there are so many people who give it a bad name, right? It's not hard to stand out. You know, there's a lot of people just trying to AI everything with the let's say AI slop, right? Um, and then there's a lot of people who just do the the pitch slap. And honestly, I look at LinkedIn as the outreach on LinkedIn is like a tightrope between the pitchlap and the chit chat zone, which are both where leads go to die.

SPEAKER_01 3:23

Okay, can you define each of those for us?

SPEAKER_00 3:25

Of course. The pitch lap zone is where you just send somebody a three-paragraph thing of all of your features and benefits and then slap them with a calendar link at the bottom. Right? This is what you see in the in the DMs. It usually comes through as an in mail of some kind, um, and you instantly hit delete, right? The chit chat zone is where somebody comes in trying to build rapport in super cheesy ways. It's over-complimenting you on 20 different things about your profile. Oh my god, I love your hair, face, and phone, you know, kind of really cheesy outreach, which you know is just some kind of uh a veil in front of them, trying to then flip it into a business conversation, right?

SPEAKER_01 4:08

I feel like that's a hard balance to strike because you want to be upfront about the fact that you're selling something, but you also don't want to come across as that. So you have kind of I've seen you strike this balance super well. Um, we're right here because of how you DM'd me. So I'd love for you to just kind of demystify some of that.

SPEAKER_00 4:26

100%. Um, I mean, if it's not too bold to just share a framework, right, with the types of outreach that we need to do. I just use the ACA, which is the best way to start a conversation with somebody. It's acknowledge, it's compliment, and it's ask. And all we need to do is hit those three things. It's reaching out to somebody and acknowledging why you're reaching out, whether they commented, viewed your profile, comment, uh, liked your profile, anything like that. You reach out, you just acknowledge why you're why you're doing that, right? Just one sentence. The next one is a compliment. We use what you might want to call like a restrained compliment or a compliment that is not over the top, right? Going back to that hair face top phone. Um it might just be like, hey, congrats on three years in the business. Or it might just be an observation, hey, business looks interesting, right? And then just a question that leads into a business conversation, right? That might be about their business, or it might be about the result that you can help somebody get.

SPEAKER_01 5:22

Okay. Could you give us like use my business as an example? Or could you give me an example of those types of questions you would ask?

SPEAKER_00 5:29

Yeah, totally. So I might just be like, hey, Susie, saw you commented on my post recently, appreciate it, right? Uh business name looks interesting. Uh is that just you or are you running a small team?

SPEAKER_01 5:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:41

Right. I can then move that into a conversation, however. Or I might just say, business looks interesting. Um, that's consulting for agencies above 50k, right? You help them close more clients. That's asking you about your business. Most people want to talk about their own business, right? I think it's like the third law of power in Robert Green's book or something like that, right? Everybody wants to talk about themselves, right? Make somebody else feel interesting. They open up, they start having a conversation about the business. Where most people screw that up is they try and have a conversation that's not about business, but to build reports. So it's about uni or it's about the weather, or it's about filling irrelevant blank, right? It's the most important thing that we can do is ask a question that leads into the direction we want to go. Start with the end in mind.

SPEAKER_01 6:32

I think something you do, and I've seen you post about this too, that's so interesting, is you actually send each of these as an individual message. Um, and it feels more human that way. You said something the other day in your post, just like that's how you actually text someone when I think about how I text my husband or my mom or somebody like that. I don't send, you know, here's a nice detailed paragraph. I'm sending things as I'm thinking about them. And so your DMs are coming in a little more rapid fire, which does stand out, I think, in a really cool way.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

Yeah, totally, totally. Um, I think when one of the frames that I speak about with clients is imagine you are sitting having a coffee with a friend. That's how you want to have the conversation. Right. Because I was speaking to somebody earlier today and they were saying, Oh, well, how would I, after asking that initial ACA, how would I then talk like ask about their problem? Right. And he I got him to kind of like role play with me, and he was like, Oh, well, the next question I'd ask is like, Oh, are you experiencing any challenges at the moment? And I was like, you just wouldn't say that to a friend.

SPEAKER_01 7:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:39

Right? You wouldn't say, Oh, should we explore some synergies? Or, you know, are you experiencing any challenges right now? Right. You would say, Oh man, yeah, I've, you know, I've just actually had that experience as well. How are you feeling about that thing? Or like, you know, did you enjoy that part? Or something like that. You would ask a question that gets somebody to open up rather than sounding like a business conversation. Right? We are all on LinkedIn to do business, and we shouldn't shy away from that. But the way that we have a business conversation isn't this kind of like image of corporate jargon speak.

SPEAKER_01 8:19

It's almost more like water cooler speech. It's not like, hey, we're in a being together, it's hey, we ran into each other in the break room kind of conversation. Totally.

SPEAKER_00 8:28

Totally. Yes, exactly. So open a coffee, buy the water cooler. It's a good frame to have. Like if you literally picture yourself there when you're DMing someone, it will become a lot easier.

SPEAKER_01 8:39

How are you finding these people to pitch them?

SPEAKER_00 8:43

Sales navigator. Well, there's a lot of different ways, right? So fundamentally you have to start cold. Right? If you don't have uh some kind of a following, and to be clear, you do not need a big following. Maybe we can touch on that as well. But you don't need a big following, but you will have to start somewhere, right? Starting cold is essentially sending a connection request to people. Right? You are sending a connection request using sales nav. If you can't afford sales nav, look at your suggested people on LinkedIn or use the free search filters. Also absolutely fine. You basically just want to make sure that there's the head count you want, the you know, the title that you want, and that's kind of it, and then like the location, right? Send out connection requests. The other way that we find people is we build what's called intent triggers. And I call this adding leverage, and we use that do that using content, right? So you're sending out connection requests, x amount of people will accept. If you have a good profile, good content, about 50% will connect, 40 to 50%, depending on your ICP. But once that happens, we then need to use intent triggers to be able to one, connect with more people, right? And two, increase the leverage of how effective your DMs are. So the DMs are where you book the calls, you make the money, you sign the clients, all of that, you build the real relationship. But content is where you add leverage to that process by generating intent triggers. An intent trigger is a like, a comment, profile view, somebody filling out your form, let's say you have a quiz funnel or even just like a free thing that you give away in return for name, number, and email. Right? Anyone who does that as a lead and they've taken a step towards you or they have triggered intent. And that, if the goal is booking a meeting, the cold is here, you're starting the conversation here. If that person has filled in a quiz and got a free thing from you, a free course, and they've signed up for something else, they're like here, right? That person is showing a lot more intent. So we use those to add leverage.

SPEAKER_01 10:41

How often um do you think somebody should be posting on LinkedIn?

SPEAKER_00 10:46

That does depend on the business, right?

SPEAKER_01 10:51

Looks like most of my audiences, they're agency owners. We're in a very service-based business, um, uh, run like an agency. So how often do you think they should be posting online?

SPEAKER_00 11:01

Three or five times a week. Three absolute minimum. Five is great. Weekend is kind of unnecessary.

SPEAKER_01 11:08

Okay. That's awesome. And I love that you talk about this kind of supporting your DM conversations because I do think that there's um this hope that if I'm posting content, I'm gonna have sales, right? And then there's this hope of if I DM people, I'm going to have sales, but one without the other falls flat. Um and I think a lot of people put all of their hope in one or the other.

SPEAKER_00 11:31

Yeah. Well, the reason why I like DMs is because it is the closest thing to money. You can 100% book calls, make sales, only using the DMs. I know people who book $100,000 deals with a no banner, no profile picture, and no content, right? But it's well hard to do. You know, you will need more leverage or you will need some kind of case study that you can send to people that's just ridiculous, right? Whereas if you just have the three things, profile content and DMs, if you have three of those at average, you will book far more than somebody who has really good content, for example, or just really good DMs. So it's just about tweaking the three things and being able to improve them over time. And you will hit a point where you just have a a wave of potential leads that you you can pick and choose who to work with.

SPEAKER_01 12:21

You mentioned not needing a big following, and I think that that's something that really holds a lot of people back is that they feel like, man, I just don't have the network or I just don't have the, you know, enough people liking and commenting on things. Talk to me about that a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 12:35

Totally. Uh maybe I'll just give you an example. So I worked with an agency owner who runs an email marketing agency, right? He does email marketing for um commercial solo companies, right? Super unengaged niche, by the way. They do not like, they do not comment, they do not spend time engaging on, you know, you're talking like CMOs and stuff. Um, they don't spend that much time engaging on LinkedIn, right? He worked with a couple of ghostwriting agencies on LinkedIn, and he spent, I think, about 10k um on them over the months and had literally zero to show for it because again, they're not an engaged type of people, right? They're not going to come through the posts. So when we started working together, I said, all you need to post is proof, right? And what it's like to work with you, the actual actions that you take daily, and then reach out to people using sales nav. And if you want to double tap them with email, right? But he booked 17 calls in his first month, added $30k dollars, I think. No $25,000. I think it was about 18,500 pounds per month in new monthly recurring revenue, and had 47,000 per month in pipeline within 30 days. And he had under a thousand followers and under a hundred connections. So you do not need a high amount of followers. You don't need to be, quote, influencer, right? You just need to show that you can solve a problem, show what it's like to work with you and reach out to the right type of people with a good outreach process. The content will add the leverage, the DMs will do well, and if you have a good profile, people understand who you help, how you help, and how they can get that help. It's pretty straightforward.

SPEAKER_01 14:18

It's awesome. Uh, one thing that I talk about a lot in my coaching is putting together some kind of I compare it to like a fitness plan, right? Of outreach, whether you're doing this on Instagram or LinkedIn or wherever, you need to just decide. I'm going to reach out to three people a day because you could reach out to 300. You could reach out to no one. So you need to just decide how many. Can you give us for an average agency owner who, let's say they're doing 150K, um, they're doing well, but they really want to take things to the next level. They should be posting three to five times a week. How many people should they be DMing every day?

SPEAKER_00 14:55

Good question. So if they have sales nav, you can send 40 connections every single day.

unknown 14:59

Right.

SPEAKER_01 14:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 15:00

You can send about 200 a week. About 50% of them will connect.

unknown 15:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 15:05

So 100 new connections per week. I would advise you DM 50 of them, so 10 per day.

unknown 15:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 15:11

You can look through those people, you look through the most engaged, the people who are the best fit for you, and you just DM 50 people a day. A week, excuse me. 10 per day.

SPEAKER_01 15:19

Okay. I feel like that's a really good baseline for people who are looking to just kind of test it out and get in the game. If they are sitting here and they're like, uh, that sounds really overwhelming. I don't even know where to start. I want somebody to coach me. I'd love for you to just share a little bit about what you do and how they can work with you.

SPEAKER_00 15:35

Yeah, totally. Appreciate it. Um, so I coach one-to-one and in a community setting. Um, agency owners, coaches and consultants on how to book three to five plus sales calls every single week using LinkedIn in roughly an hour a day. We look at your offer, we put that into your profile, make it super clean. We then focus on outreach, where you make the money, where you book the calls, right? 10 per day, three to five calls a week, super simple. And then we add leverage with content. If you'd like to work with me, you can shoot over to my profile, Oaken Mole Holland on LinkedIn, and uh find me there.

SPEAKER_01 16:11

Awesome. Great. Well, I'm gonna put um your info too in the show notes so everybody can go in and just kind of add you there. Um, would also highly recommend following you on LinkedIn. I think you share a ton of uh just really valuable content. You um just give so much wisdom away for free, which I think is so kind and generous. Um and I've learned a lot from just kind of what you've shared already, but um, and in this episode. Um, but also I know that working with you would just be so valuable for a lot of people listening. So just really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 16:41

Appreciate it, Susie. Thanks very much.

SPEAKER_01 16:44

Awesome, great. Well, if you were listening to this um and you are feeling like you don't know where to start when it comes to outreach, you don't have your offer set yet, you're like, man, I would love to do all this, but I need to put all of the pieces together before we get started. And that's where I come in. And um, Oaken and I actually have very complimentary coaching services. Um, would love to book a call with you and kind of figure out how we can, all three of us can work together so that you can make more money and sell well. So, with that, I will be with you next week. Uh, we've got a great conversation coming up that I'm excited to share with you. Until next time, friends, sell well.