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#101: Imagine this — you start a cold call, mention your name and company, and instead of immediately remembering an important meeting they just can’t miss, your prospect says, “Hey, I know you.” Once you’re able to pick your jaw off the floor and start asking a few questions, you learn that your prospect has read a few of your posts on LinkedIn and maybe watched some of the sales videos you shared. What started as a cold call has quickly turned into a warm conversation.
And that’s the power of a personal brand.
Yurii Veremchuk joins Tyler Lindley to share tips and insights around how to build your personal brand and the importance of content in sales. He explains how social media can boost sales by elevating both individuals and the company profile. While it may seem daunting to get started, once you do, a personal brand can elevate your work in sales and may also enhance your understanding of yourself.
Explore the human side of sales and business with host Tyler Lindley. Leaders in their field share a dose of inspiration through stories about life and business. Sales professionals provide tactical tips you can put into practice today. It all comes together to help you chart your path forward.
Achieve your goals on your terms — get inspired by stories from extraordinary people, elevate your performance with the latest outbound tactics, and find the lift you need to take your career to the next level.
Outbound Sales Lift
Episode #101
Building Your Personal Brand with Yurii Veremchuk
Hosted by: Tyler Lindley
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[00:00:00] Tyler Lindley: Hey y'all. I'm Tyler, and this is Outbound Sales Lift where you can elevate your SDR team and transform your sales development efforts. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy this show, please consider dropping us a rating. To help others find us, and you can also subscribe to get each episode delivered straight to you on Tuesdays, right when they're released.
On today's episode, we'll be covering the importance of a personal brand in sales, and I've got the pleasure of being joined by Yurii Veremchuk. Hey Yurii. How's it going today?
[00:00:39] Yurii Veremchuk: What up, Tyler? Thanks for having me. It's all good.
[00:00:39] Tyler Lindley: Yeah. Thanks so much for joining. Yurii is the head of business growth and outbound sales over at Woodpecker, and he's been writing some great posts about having a personal brand in sales.
Do you think that's important? Do you think sales reps need their own personal brand in order to be successful in sales these days?
[00:00:59] Yurii Veremchuk: Short answer, definitely yes. It's like, you know, sales is constantly evolving field. You have the fundamentals, which are cold calling, cold emailing, and like IRL meetings.
But a, as we progress, all of a sudden, video prospecting is a thing. Then posting, like, you know, finding people on LinkedIn and engaging in their comments is a thing. And then, I don't know, texting is a thing. Personal branding and basically like building your persona. Either it's on Twitter or on LinkedIn.
In case of salespeople, it's more on LinkedIn because this is where we prospect. Mm-hmm. is crucial because especially in times like this where the budgets are tied in organizations, you need that social proof, that additional social proof and uh, selling through content is more and more of a thing of right now.
People are willing to kind of, people are willing to give attention to something. We just have to. The media companies that they're willing to give their attention to. Mm-hmm. . And it, it's just one of those things that won't hurt you if you add it to your process. You can hurt you if you're not able to really extract the value out of, kind of track what happens afterwards.
And obviously if you are not doing the essential activities, like, you know, if you're not hear in the cold calling numbers, the email numbers, that will hurt you. But it's definitely a superpower if you do a dry.
[00:02:20] Tyler Lindley: Yeah. Yeah, a hundred percent. Lot to unpack there. You talked about selling through content. Do you essentially think, is that what personal branding is?
It's basically creating content that's engaging and adds value for your prospects?
[00:02:33] Yurii Veremchuk: It, it's one of those things that it can deliver. It depends from which perspective that we were talking to, but I assume we were talking here from a perspective of a seller, what it can do to you. So
[00:02:42] Tyler Lindley: yeah, for definitely for sales reps.
Yeah, for sure.
[00:02:44] Yurii Veremchuk: Yeah, definitely. it is helping you sell. Like I have so many leads that are engaging into our website and they're like, yo, I've seen yours content. And it was like just checking in our tool. Or they are DMing me like, Hey, I'm just currently te checking in your tool, getting got any tips and stuff like that.
Mm-hmm. So it's definitely helpful. But other thing is that it also helps you stay on top of mind. When you are not even prospecting those people. So let's say I'm put 'em in my cycle and I'm just like, I don't know. I, I want to eventually be relevant, but I'm not still getting in touch with them. Mm-hmm.
But what I'm doing through my content is I'm starting to build trust. They're starting to like me, if they engage in my content, they get to know me a little bit more. Yep. And then when the right times come from their perspective, I dunno, something happens that shows me, oh, we can be relevant here. Yep.
It's so easy for me to get in touch with that person. Because we've already been exchanging comments if we've been exchanging comments, but sometimes you also see that situation as a dark social. Dark social is a huge thing. You, you, you never know who watches your content and never engages or who, who shares your content in the inside Slack groups, uh, like, uh, like messages, dms, and then all of a sudden you get in touch with them like, yo, I know you, I've been following you on LinkedIn.
I've been seeing your content there. And it's like, oh, I didn't even never knew about that . So there's this side. Yeah, but it's so much more, it's so much more. It's just, uh, it's personally elevating you. It's giving you the ability to be kind of in the c e o mode because all of a sudden you start to realize that you're having a voice and other people like listen to you.
So it elevates you as a person. You're, you're not, you're not thinking from that perspective that you're only selling through content. Yep. Which we're building so
[00:04:32] Tyler Lindley: much. Yep. Yeah, you are building a lot more. You bring up a good point too. You ask like, is this for sellers? What about for sales leaders, right?
Because you're a sales leader, right? You lead an outbound team over there at Woodpecker. Do you think it's important, just as important for sales leaders to develop a personal brand and, you know, why is that valuable, uh, for, for a sales leader versus.
[00:04:55] Yurii Veremchuk: So I'll just give you two perspectives of the first perspective from the company and the second perspective from you as a sales leader from a company.
All of a sudden they gain like a big brand advocate who is like basically sharing the values of the culture. People are able to see like what the culture of organ of organization is through the content that you're producing. And in my case, if I'm producing, I dunno, like sharing my vulnerabilities, showing stuff where I failed or cheering up my rep.
It builds a lot of like credibility and trust in us. And what it does from the organization perspective, it shows that this is. organization. It's definitely worth of trusting. So way more people start engaging and checking in products. I have a lot of more people that are starting getting in touch with me before the hiring positions.
If we are hiring someone, it's getting easier to set up a corporation with like really, really big brands that you would never thought of. Mm-hmm. before. If you are starting all of a sudden popping up on the social. and there's, there's so much more cool stuff. All of a sudden you can set up great, uh, corporations in terms of podcasts.
Mm-hmm. , marketing, cos whatever. That's from the company side, from your personal side, you're getting to not only share the content and attract people who are engaged with your content and basically kind of built, I don't know who someone calls it, ego. I, I, I don't look for that for that way. I just look kind of, okay.
This is a confirmation from my side that. , I learned a little bit of something and I'm, I'm able to share it and what I'm sharing resonates with people. Mm-hmm. . But at the same time, what you're doing, you're exchanging your experiences with other sales leaders and you're, all the time, you're learning, other sales people are getting to know you and what you can do, like from your individual side.
All of a sudden you start. Getting in groups with them together, exchanging their perspectives, doing live events, getting invited to conferences, uh, like in real time meetings. What it does for you as a person, it broadens your perspective on things. All of a sudden, you see things that you are, you haven't, you haven't thought of before, that you're doing wrong, maybe on your organization, but once you've seen what other people do in their, so you're.
I'll definitely try it. And then you'll look and say, oh, I probably should fix it quickly. . Cause it, it hasn't been working like that in my team. Yeah. So there's so many benefits, but the essential benefit here is implemented in the way that you're not hurting yourself, your main tasks, and kind of have the board clear on that.
That, Hey guys, I'm going into the social, here's the reasons why. Yeah. What, what that means. Probably I won't be able to put eight hours of managerial work that I used to. It's now gonna be like seven hours. So expect a little bit of less stuff. I'm not gonna be performing 110% in those eight, like seven hours.
Mm-hmm. expect a little bit less of me, but from the other side you'll see so much more of, yeah. Of additional
[00:07:48] Tyler Lindley: benefits. So, and it sounds like that might apply both at the, whether you're a sales leader or a sales rep, maybe just like set the expectation that like, I'm gonna be involved online, I'm gonna be posting on social, I'm gonna be interacting with people, and like that's gonna be a part of my day.
If you just kind of set that expectation, cuz I could hear a lot of company leaders out there, well, You won't be able to make as many calls or send as many emails or you know, like this. This sounds like it's only gonna benefit you, you know, you being on a podcast. How does that help us? But like you said, like that rising tide lifts all boats and like you being on this podcast right now is just as much a benefit to you.
As an individual as much as it is to your company, like to woodpecker. I mean, cuz at the end of the day you're like you said, a brand advocate. You're an extension of your company and you being out there with a voice matters, like both at the individual and at the company level. I think it's just companies being able to see that.
I think a lot of companies are still thinking that social doesn't matter, there's no impact. What's the r o roi? But it's like, I mean, what's the ROI of all these dms flowing in and all these leads flowing in? I mean, you could probably start to track it. I mean, is that something that y'all are doing? Is tracking the impact of your personal brand on like woodpecker roi?
[00:08:58] Yurii Veremchuk: Oh yeah, definitely. Um, let's say once I produce like a, a post that goes like above thousand likes or something mm-hmm. as like, in four, three days, I'm able to observe that even from a marketing perspective, we have like a small spike of views Yep. On our website, on our group, uh, registrations for the trial and marking.
He was like, Hmm, what happened there? And I'm like, I, I know what happened there. , like, I know . Yeah. To the point that you raised. . It's like you, you said it. The way you introduced me even is Yuri from Woodpecker. So every time I'm popping in somewhere, I'm showing up. In any event, they're hearing that name, they're hearing that brand, and through what I'm sharing right now, they're able to see like, oh.
This guys knows a little bit or does not know what he's talking about, they're able to start like building their thoughts of this kind of what kind of people are working in with Piker. Mm-hmm. . And this process of building a trust to peer person organization is not a quick one. It's kind of a lasting process.
Mm-hmm. And we are, the people who are present, like present with their personal brands are doing actually a lot of jobs led more than just selling. So it's very crucial. Side of proper KPIs and coming back to the questions, the way how we track it, not only we track it from like, you know, regular side.
Okay, how many engagements did we have out of it? Mm-hmm. . But we also use it for prospecting ourselves. Like I'm creating a content. So just give you a perspective what clicker is a. Sequencer. Basically like, you know, like an outreach or SalesLoft. Gotcha. But those are going for the enterprise. We are going for the SMBs.
Got it. And the ideal users who are going with Woodpecker is basically those who are sending cold emails? Yeah. So a lot of sales reps. What I'm doing through my content, my content is, is. It's geared so towards what I'm doing on a, a daily basis. I'm leading the sales team. I'm sending cold emails and doing outbound sales.
So I'm sharing my experiences naturally. I have a lot of people who are also doing that stuff, engaging in my content and what my reps are doing afterwards, after like a checkup. Hey, so we've checked out that you have, you've got like a hundred people left the likes on your post. Check this out. We've.
This, this, this, this person, it fits our icp. Could we contact them? Yep. I said, yeah, no problem. And then what they do, they already know what pack they engage with my post. They could say the same. So like, Hey, thanks for engaging with your posts about that was helpful. It's a great icebreaker because they are not coming out the blue.
Or even more I could start that conversation like, Hey, thanks for engagement with my post. Yeah. Yep. So basically they could send a message through my profile and then like kind of lead it from. So,
[00:11:34] Tyler Lindley: well, it's a great trigger event cuz like you said, they've already kind of given their consent to like, almost to the outreach they've, they've said like, Hey, that's an interesting post.
You added some value. And then all you're doing is just reminding 'em that, right? You're reminding 'em that like, Hey, you saw some value in this post. You know, are you facing any of these problems? What does this look like in your business? You know, and then looking maybe for opportunities where woodpecker could help, but I love.
As like a way to start conversations because I do think, and, and also like you brought up a point that's earlier, like there's all the people that liked and then there's all the people that don't like that still saw it, you know, and there's that like, I dunno, whatever you wanna call 'em, lurkers, dark social, you know, like those folks out there.
Watching and listening and looking at your content, but you never know it. Um, so there's that group of like the folks that, yeah, let's go hit these folks cuz they liked it. And then there's maybe just those folks that follow you. Those might be a little bit harder to find, but they're also out there too.
Well,
[00:12:27] Yurii Veremchuk: you can hit it all. Like there's no one trick, uh, for everything but. . It's definitely a very powerful tool if you're able to set up a process out of it. One thing I wanna kind of also touch, the one that was something you mentioned is the companies are not understanding and not able to kind of empower their sales reps to create cuz of their own fears.
So one thing I I, I get it. World likes to remain static and you know, sales teams are not the exception. So it's hard really to convince unless they see something like, oh, we actually see a lot of people are doing a great success out of this. So like, it's like, you know, with cryptos like in 2015, what is that in 2019, everybody in west in that, in 2022 ever is like, okay, we don't like it, but the point.
everybody started invested in where a lot of people started making money of it. The same goes with personal writing. We, I feel like we are in this change of like, you know, year two or three of, uh, crypto where a lot of people are starting to making money out of it. And then like, you know, in brands, kind of people are using those personal brands really, really well.
Yeah. And the organization starts waking up like, oh, actually it works a little bit. Like, you know, it's not only a sales role, but it is a sales role as well. It's has so much benefits. , but at the same time, there are some organizations that are not open. So is it, and kind of the thing that I want to say to sales rep is this, the first one, try to try your best to present them with, with the results first stuff.
Mm-hmm. . So kind of not, don't ask for permission. Kind of ask for forgiveness over here. Like, you know, do a little bit of it and like do it for a month or two. And then if you're able to show something, like go to the board. I'm like, yo, check this out. What happened? So what literally happened with me when I, when I started posting and I started posting.
The second read of posting my, my post went like bonkers, like crazy, like amount of likes, and I just came back to the board like, Hey, I've been posting only for two weeks and I already got like, as many likes as you guys got in the whole history of the organization. Let's double down on that. It works.
Yeah. And uh,
[00:14:33] Tyler Lindley: then they were like, that data, that data is valuable then, right? Yeah, yeah.
[00:14:37] Yurii Veremchuk: Then, then they see the, the, the, the background behind it. Though not everybody will see that. So if you find yourself in this situation that they won't allow you to do that, it's probably a good move to consider even if you want to stay the organization that Right, that won't give, give you an opportunity to raise.
So that's, that's my thoughts on it. .
[00:14:56] Tyler Lindley: Usually what I'll hear next is, you know, you and I, we create some content online, but we are in sales but we're all, our content is geared towards sales reps, sales teams, sales leaders. So it's a little bit easier cuz we're kind of like doing and swimming in that same boat of where a lot of people are hanging out on LinkedIn.
Right. You think like LinkedIn's a lot of sales reps, a lot of recruiters. Usually what you hear next is, well my audience. Engage and interact and live on LinkedIn or even many social channels at all because they're this certain industry or they're this job title and they're just not there. They just don't engage as much.
So what do you say for those folks out there who are trying to build a personal brand in a space where it feels like it might be harder or there's not as much? Kind of like of that reinforcement that like this is working because there might not be as many of those folks engaging. How would you go about that and is a personal brand still important in those different industries or spaces?
I would
[00:15:54] Yurii Veremchuk: say it's still important because personal brand is not only about selling, it's much more so is it so, but I, I've definitely seen so many people find themselves in those situ. One thing to remember here is that a lot of people are prospecting on LinkedIn. Even though they are not really active on LinkedIn, they might not be engaging a lot in LinkedIn themselves, but they're still prospecting there.
So even though you are. , I don't know. Working for a legal sector. Not a lot of legal people, well, in legal people actually are engaged in LinkedIn. Mm-hmm. . But let's say a kind of, I don't know, manufacturing or whatever, you're just going on LinkedIn and looking for those companies or either like, you know, you're not only going with the Zoom for other provider, but you're still going on LinkedIn.
Well, you can get in touch with their sales team of that organization and use that as a. Information to find out a little bit more what's going on in our organization. And if it all goes well, you can either A, ask for an intro to somebody about like C level or B, just kind of use that information yourself and just go to a C level yourself.
So, What's great about it is through your personal brand, you might be able to attract the attention of, not directly the D decision makers. Mm-hmm. , but somebody who will give you that valuable information that you'll be able to use to the decision makers. And I get it. It's hard for different industries.
But it's not about gearing your content towards that industry. You might be just just like, like I just stick with posting about sales because it's my job and I'm kind of in a lucky situation that yeah, we, we help with the sales. Exactly. But still those people, even in the manufacturing stuff, they're also doing sales themselves.
So they'll be looking for sales tips. They have a marketing team who is looking for marketing tips. You'll still will be able to catch their attention. Maybe not directly the decision makers, but they'll make you an intro. .
[00:17:47] Tyler Lindley: Awesome. A hundred percent. One thing I also hear is like frontline SDRs. Folks that are newer to their career, they're always worried about getting started, right?
Like I can't have a personal brand, I can't post, like I don't have any followers. I don't have anything to say. I can't, I don't have any value. What do you say to those folks out there, especially SDRs who are just thinking, I'm nervous or I can't do this. Like, how do you pass that? Because I think that's a common fear amongst early earlier reps who are just getting started in their career.
[00:18:16] Yurii Veremchuk: and, what do they call it? Imposter syndrome. Yeah, imposter syndrome. Yeah. It's, it's, it's a real thing. Well, think of it from this perspective. A lot of things that are so crucial for sales learning actually gets learned during the SD R role. So let's say as a vp, you are VP of sales right now. , you probably earned a lot of cash when like you were AE or got to the VP position, but the skills that got you there is actually those that you got during the SDR times where you were hit the phone sending those emails.
So if you think about this from that perspective, you're actually. on the front rows of everything that's got on in sales. You really understand the tendencies of the market. You are alerting yourself. So do many people, they also learn, they don't know a lot of stuff. Like, you know, I have so many CEOs getting in touch with me, said like, yo, it's been so long, I've prospected myself like 3, 2, 3 years ago.
I don't know what's relevant right now. So it's like checking your, your content is refreshing for me because remember sales is evolving like all the time. Mm-hmm. and actually, Figuring out yourself. It's a huge value boost for a lot of people because a lot of people are also in that situation. Yeah. So if you are still yourself just calling and.
I dunno, getting any kind of scenario that somebody picks up the phone that maybe, I dunno, screams at you or talks with you for three minutes and you book a meeting, it's a great experience to share. Yeah. It's not a lot of people get to experience that. You know, the story is like a ae closing the deal.
Yeah. We kind of get that, but what got to that point that we started actually that conversation. Yeah. What led to it and as a, like a confirmation to what I'm saying here, I see so many great SDRs getting a crazy amount of likes just describing their experiences. There was one experience, the woman was so happy about booking meeting, whether with a client, and it got like a lot of, a lot of engagement, a lot of reporting because a.
VPs of sales been in those situations themselves? Yep. They know what it takes. So they're like cheering up. Also their post like, you know, where people share vulnerabilities, like, yo, I've called, called for an hour, did like 80 calls, no one picked up. It gets a lot of engagement itself because, People been in those situations where you're just doing and things are not falling the way you want it to go.
And it, it, it's frustrating once you are just starting to be authentic and presenting the content, what you're going through on a daily basis. You're starting to realize it's not about your expertise and things, but you just, you being you and eventually this is how you start building your engagement.
But also you see a lot at LinkedIn is a field where a lot of SDRs engage. So eventually somebody will relate to what you're posting. Yep. So when you think of it from that perspective, , you're actually in a very privileged position to start doing like personal branding cuz it's so easy. A lot of people are doing that well
[00:21:07] Tyler Lindley: and there's so many people out there to relate to like what you're saying.
Any other parting words of advice, Yuri? For sales leaders. Sales reps out there, SDRs trying to build their personal brands online. Anything else we haven't touched on? You wanna make sure their audience knows?
[00:21:22] Yurii Veremchuk: Yeah, so first off, if you're trying to build a personal brand, I see that kind of thing that we basically covered in the last question.
What I post about, what if I posted, nobody engages with my content and stuff like that. Well, the hardest part is the start. So what you have to do is kind of, you really have to put an extra effort at the beginning to analyze other creators post, like see why it performed, what led to it, what kind of structures of the post they used, but don't be comparing your first post on.
Journey day number two to their year number four journey because you're in, in different situations. Just like observe what happened with those posts. Start engaging in other people's content because engaging is just as important as posting the content yourself. Mm-hmm. . And the third thing is create an environment where people will be willing to create on social, it's not about writing and stuff.
So LinkedIn used to be that kind of, Dumpster of job updates and the company news, webinar, registration, whatever. It was boring. It's fun right now because people are sharing their personal stories, people are sharing good memes. People are sharing, like doing live events with each other. Actually events that are interested, not like, you know, boring webinars.
So, That empowered them to create. And what I mean by that, just give them incentives not to be afraid of starting doing that. Because for most organizations still, it's an extra time of creating a personal brand because they're kind of doing it on a side. Give them a room to do it while they're in job.
So,
[00:22:49] Tyler Lindley: Yeah. Love that. Awesome. Yurii, thanks so much for the great conversation today. Uh, if you wanna find Yurii, obviously you can find him on LinkedIn. He's Yurii at woodpecker. And, uh, I hope you enjoyed this episode of Outbound Sales Lift. If you need help elevating your SDR team, please visit our website at thesaleslift.com to learn more.
Also, make sure you hit subscribe wherever you get podcasts to check out next week's episode filled with more great ideas on transforming your sales development efforts. Thanks again for listening and remember, no sale starts until you book that meeting. See ya.