Samantha McKenna’s Post

"It would have seemed greedy to even hope to have all of that 9 years later..." -Mayor Pete.😭❤️ If you swap the 9 for a 5, that is my exact sentiment about #samsales. Five years ago, I stepped away from LinkedIn and corporate America, took a deep breath, launched #samsales alone, and hoped to work part-time and make half the money I made in SaaS. But, at 38 years of age, I should have known myself better than to know that that would ever fly with Sam.😉 I could tell you 100 things I'm proud of as we hit our five year anniversary, but first a breath for how we, especially as women, often shrug off or "oh, it was nothing" the impact we have. I had a moment last night where I told myself that I need to admit (?) a few things to be true, without question. Three things that I hold as my proudest achievements here: 1. Impact. I don't share it often but we are FLOODED with messages, DMs, notes years later, and posts about the impact we make. I know we're changing lives. It's not an assumption, people tell us so an average of every single day. To hear that we were the method that worked, that saved a job, that convinced a woman she could succeed in sales, that people are angry they didn't find us sooner. Man...💓 2. Company Culture. I don't use "I" often for our achievements, but I'll do it this once. I created a company and a culture, being meticulous about who we hired, that our people will tell you is exceptional. I valued heart, character, values, intelligence, and resourcefulness over experience in the specific thing we needed. Hard to teach the first, easy to teach the second. I built a company with what mattered to me: leaders who are empathetic, time off to live your bloody life outside of work, and an endless pursuit of making our teams feel seen, delighted, surprised, loved, and supported. 3. My world. I built something that lets me live a life I always dreamed of. Following in the footsteps of my entrepreneur parents, who I'd kill to have here to see what we've built and offer advice (or inappropriate jokes at just the right time). Wondering if you'll see the same financial success you did in corporate, and then blowing those numbers out 2, 3, 10 fold. And while the financial reward is a delight, it's not even that. It's getting to do things my way, to build a company my way, to do meaningful work, to test all the theories I had before and see them convert for us and clients, to REALLY make a stamp on this world. Crushing my quota and leading national teams was one thing, but building my own company and carrying this legacy forward is in a league of its own. *********************************************************************** All this to say: what a privilege. There's no other word for it. If you told me, five years ago, that I could see the success we've had while doing work that I'm wildly passionate about and that changes lives...it would have felt greedy to even hope to have all of this... #samsales

When you come downstairs and see this little surprise, remembering that your milestones matter as much to the impossibly thoughtful human you married as they do to you! ❤️ Happy five years to #samsales!

IT'S OUR FIVE YEAR ANNIVERSARY!!!! 😍🔥 A fun video today to celebrate, and tomorrow I'll post a video about our beginnings, what we've achieved, and some learnings from these last five years. Am so impossibly proud of this team - cheers to our five years, to the clients who've invested in us, to all of you who have shared the impact we've made on your careers and goals, and cheers to taking some time to celebrate today!!! #samsales

Why does a post with 50 likes get 10,000 impressions but one with 300 gets 5,000, and what's a critical practice we run for our LI Exec Branding clients with the former? The Math: Once your post exceeds 100x multiple of the likes:impressions, you've got what's called Dark Social. It means your post was lifted off LI, dropped in group texts, emails, Slack communities, etc. because it shared something useful that someone felt would be relevant, and more people came to read it. Don't go cross-eyed on me, it's easy. :) 50 x 100 = 5,000. Or, 5000/50 = 0.01. Once you get higher than 5,000 or lower than 0.01, assuming your likes stay at 50, you're cooking. So 50:10000 is a 200x multiple and an outrageous success. 🔥🔥🔥 ****************************** 300 likes, 5,000 views: You're going to see this from posts the are celebratory or personal. Your network is going to engage, but they're often not going to do anything with it beyond that. ******************************* Why Dark Social Matters: You show up here for a reason: brand awareness. Most people show up to solve one of two challenges: - No one knows you or your company exists - Everyone knows your company exists, but you're a massive, faceless brand You show up to teach and for reach. So, if you keep getting 300:5000, your audience growth will be minimal. You'll be in the same sandbox all year. When you get Dark Social traction, your brand awareness lights up. But... ******************************** The CRITICAL step to capitalizing on your posts and Dark Social: In our LI Exec Branding offering, we write the content, but we also run the administrative support of the exec's profile (posting, DMs, profile views, connection requests, and a whole suite of sales plays). We do this for Fortune 500s, newly funded companies, and celebrities alike. One of those plays is looking at the profile views, as the video says. Look at all those people that came to your profile, likely read that Dark Social post, and then ✌. They didn't engage or connect because they don't know you. The WORK it took for you to get them to see your profile was huge: a 1st degree to you had to like/comment and then get the post over to their feed, or someone had to share your post externally. Don't squander that opp - connect with those anywhere remotely close to your ICP and with messaging that reminds you how you connected with them. Not only will you systematically grow your network but you'll immediately up the odds that your impressions will continue to skyrocket because you're now directly tethered to people you previously had to jump through hoops to get to see your content. Want to get started with us? We'd LOVE to chat with you! https://lnkd.in/e8kB95jq Want to get started and self-study for a fraction of the cost? We've got you! https://lnkd.in/eDiFhbzM #samsales #LIEB #linkedintips

One secret LinkedIn algorithm rule that always seems to baffle: hitting "repost with your thoughts" kills the visibility of your post. 😳 See more below + nine other algorithm rules and strategies I broke down. Algo strategies - https://lnkd.in/eZtdPEjf Full episode - https://lnkd.in/et-R5bQT Thanks to the GTMfund squad for hosting me for this session - proud to have been an LP and investor since day one! #samsales #LIEB #linkedintips

Once a year, this relic makes an appearance. Hello from very-high-waisted-pleated-shorts 7th grade Sam who wasn't athletic enough for Guts but just enough for this. #samsales

If you've ever been been on the receiving end of a kind gesture from Matt Green @ Sales Assembly, this post is for you. In 2019, Kelly Marberry said, "You don't know Matt Green? Let me introduce you!" Since then, like many of you reading, Matt has become a dear friend and has also done an endless stream of kind things for our team and for many of you reading. Whether it's to help people land a client (🙋♀️), nail an interview, offer up mutually beneficial introductions (🙋♀️), get a seat at the SA dinners (🙋♀️), get counsel on the house (🙋♀️), stand on stage and speak to a room full of our buyers (🙋♀️), reply to "can I pick your brain" emails (again, on the house), get a new job, or be the referral source to a client who then refers you in turn (looking at you ORBA, our accountants, and Baird, our wealth managers!)...there seems to be nothing that he hasn't done for us. I think it's safe to admit that he's also the first we turn to with any problem. Have questions about your tech stack? Call Matt. Need to figure out who to hire for X issue? Call Matt. Have questions about your A/C unit? ...Call Matt. The kicker? He always helps out of the kindness of his heart, with zero expectations of reciprocity, and no scoreboard on his side. It's hard to match Matt's generosity and thoughtfulness, and of the hours I could spend on all my Matt grievances, I thought it would be good to change my tune for just one moment 💁♀️ and offer gratitude for all he's done for me, our team, and so many of you. #samsales

This was my phone today. Let's say, instead of badgering our buyers into meeting with us, we spent the same amount of time building an amazing Show Me You Know Me cadence. That we spent the time investing in them, and building a cadence that thought about them and their challenges. That we instead let them learn alongside us, let them read the content we wrote, and let them inbound to us on their terms, not ours. Rather than calling them with the double-tap or every minute sometimes, we instead put the effort into earning their attention and time. The service calling me IS something I'm in the market for, right now, hence the calls. Hello, intent data. But the way to catch me isn't with 30 cold calls - it's with putting in the time and saying, "I made an effort, here's why we're different, here's one objection we normally get and what you should consider, worth a chat?" Don't push and push for the chance to be heard. Make the effort and practically guarantee you'll be seen in their inbox by putting in the time and effort of SMYKM. Be different. #samsales #SMYKM

In Vienna, VA, you’ll find a wine/beer shop that I’ve become a devoted fan of - Norm’s Beer and Wine. When you walk in, it feels like walking in to a 90s movie. Think Clerks or Airheads ☺️ You’ll find Hagrid and Stella, two dogs happy to greet you. You’ll find wine and beer tastings every Friday night, making for a bustley store. You’ll find a rotating selection of really interesting beers, with a little humor attached in various corners. More than this, you’ll find this small shop overstaffed, in the best way. It made me think of the impact this could have in tech - if we overataffed our CSM teams to make sure the clients were proactively and overly delighted. What could happen if we added even one or two extra headcount whose only job wasn’t 3 days of implementation and some random “hey, we have new products…” to some odd 150 clients. But instead, we reduced the CSM:client ratio. We gave them breathing room to delight those who’ve invested in us…and we rewarded them when the client agreed to give a testimonial, or when they sent us a referral, or when they took the time to send our leaders a note of gratitude or when they gave us a MY renewal because they couldn’t imagine going anywhere else? What could that do to our NPS scores, to our growth, to the decline of attrition? I think we could stand to learn a lot from this tiny shop that doesn’t take themselves too seriously, but takes what they do very seriously. #samsales

On a call this week, senior three senior executives echo'd the same sentiment we hear often - "We want to see more inbound and referrals, they seem to have dried up these last 18 months." My question back was, "Cool. How do people know that you and your company exist?" #samsales has seen tremendous success because of a variety of factors, but the core to our pipeline has been showing up on LinkedIn. If I didn't show up here, I'd be stuck fighting for attention in the EXACT same way others are - webinars (come to ours today with 522 others!), pay-per-click ads, syndicated 3rd party content, marketing emails, expensive one-and-done conferences, on and on. And while we do some of that, there is nothing that drives more awareness and pipe for us than showing up where our buyers go, not endlessly convincing them to come to us instead. There is nowhere that we spend more money and time than this platform. Showing up here also builds trust - 82% more, in fact, according to Edelman. Consider too, that posting content here is the half of it. What you do with all the impressions, engagements, DMs, and profile views is where the magic happens. Your network of 500 people today can grow to 1000 next month by adding process (or having someone on your team add process for you, as two people on my team do for me). Today's impressions of 2100 can be 2800 next month...and 3100 next month...and 4389 the following month. What would it mean if 4,389 people saw one of your posts? Or if 8,778 people saw two of your posts, or two executive's posts? Showing up here is the easiest short cut to brand awareness, to creating a flywheel of impression growth, and of then creating qualified, ready-to-purchase inbound that then has a shorter sales cycle. Bonus? Repurpose your PPC and ad spend to super inexpensive Thought Leader Ads from LinkedIn and turn that lackluster ROI spend to some real money. Bonus? Don't keep building on someone else's land, so to speak. You can easily take your audience from here and encourage them to sign up for your content, newsletters, substack, etc. Your competition is either on LinkedIn and you need to catch up, or they're not, and you have a competitive advantage. Ready to tackle this yourself? Grab our LI Influencer Playbook - https://lnkd.in/e_i-Bb2B and use code "WRITE" for 15% off through Monday 😀 #samsales #LIEB