Episode 62 Giving and Getting LinkedIn Recommendations

Intro: I've had the privilege of being in and around banking for more than 50 years. Lots of changes during that time. We've gone from Ledger's to laptops, typewriters to technology. One thing, however, remains the same. Banking is a people business. And I'll be talking with those people that make banking great here on Jack Rants With Modern Bankers.

Jack Hubbard:

Hello, Brynne. 

Brynne Tillman:

Hi Jack, I am really excited to recommend you today. 

Jack Hubbard:

I appreciate you doing that. And that's what we're going to be talking about. You know, one of the things that I love about the show is that I'll get messages from bankers who say, you know, I listened to your show and it's so different from a lot of other people that you actually get practical help in it. What the heck? Why? Why would I listen to something if I can't get anything from it? So last week we talked about some content issues and things like that. And it was so fun because we talked about the set and how they did not move rates at all. And I said kind of in a rant, What are we doing here? What do bankers do? What do you do? And so I got a nice message from a banker who listened to the program, and he wrote this amazing post on LinkedIn about some ideas, what you should do based on what the Fed didn't do. That's going to be exactly the same today. We want to talk about recommendations, but I got to tell you, yesterday, my good friend John Oxford from Renaissance Bank was at Jack Rants with Modern Bankers next week.

Amazing. Dave Curlin, the Legend rant, Master of Sales. I love Dave. And he's on. And then the following week, my good friend and yours, Julian Black, is going to talk about referrals. And then the week after that is my good friend Ron Shevlin, who's going to talk about Cornerstone Advisors, who's going to talk about all things sales and banking in 2024.

So Wednesdays 11:00 Central, be there, be square. And if you want to make sure you see them all, there's that little QR code in the upper left hand corner, my upper left hand corner and it's the public library and all the stuff is there. Well Brynne, recommendations, you know you have over 250 recommendations. That is so awesome. And I'm building my list as well.

And it's really not a list that was a misnomer. It's a way for you to be highlighted and to highlight. So let's talk about recommendations. Give us let's start at the highest level. What is the recommendation where I like, where can I find it on my profile? Why is this important? 

Brynne Tillman:

Well, a recommendation is just that of a client or someone that you've worked with that has experienced you, that sends you a lovely message and you say, Hey, I would love to highlight this on my LinkedIn profile, which you can do, and we'll talk about the tactical in a little bit.

But this is a wonderful way for social proof. It's a great way to reduce the sales cycle. Now, as a banker, I don't know if you've ever faced where you were up against competition. Maybe they're shopping rates, which we hate, but they do it and and and you know they talk to us and maybe we're just starting to build that relationship. Maybe they didn't come in and were referred.

00:03:43:04 - 00:04:11:06

Jack Hubbard:

So your level of credibility isn't where it needs to be at your referrals recommendations excuse me, helps with referrals, too, but you're recommending actions help to give you immediate credibility once someone recommends you and it is on your LinkedIn profile and by the way, they can send you a recommendation until you accept it. It's not live. So just so you know, you have some control over that.

00:04:11:08 - 00:04:47:29

Brynne Tillman:

But when someone recommends you and they go and it's live, when people scroll down to your profile, they will see both the recommendations you've received. And then if they click on the tab next to it, they can see the recommendations you've given. And we're going to talk about the importance of both of those. But the bottom line for me is when someone says, you know, I'd love to talk with someone you've worked with before, are there any local companies that that that you've worked with, that you've provide that I could just, you know, kind of get the feel of what it is to work with you.

00:04:47:29 - 00:05:19:03

Jack Hubbard:

And it may not happen as much when for bankers, but it does happen. They may ask to talk with other folks in getting, you know, when they're evaluating, they want to get other people's opinion just the way it is. And in my world, when a bank would ask me that, you know, I'd love to talk with someone else, I would say now, well, normally I would say, sure, here are three people that have agreed to do this.

00:05:19:03 - 00:05:43:18

Brynne Tillman:

I'll make an introduction. The long gaits, the sales process. Sometimes it takes weeks before they even set up a time to talk, and the excitement of working together kind of dims down. So now I'll say, go take a look at my recommendations on LinkedIn, and if there is anyone in that list you'd like to talk to, let me know and I'll see if I can make that happen.

Do you know, almost no one ever says, okay, I want to talk to them When they see all these recommendations. It's enough. So it actually will reduce the sales cycle as well. So that's why we want it. We can go into tactical, but I'm going to throw this back to you because I know you have lots of thoughts around this.

00:06:06:27 - 00:06:34:27

Jack Hubbard:

I do. And I have a question, and it's a question based on a comment that I'll make you turn me on to something so cool. I realize that there's going to be some changes to create or mode on LinkedIn, and that's fine. That's what they do. But in the up and creator mode on your featured section, you can actually take a couple of those recommendations and you can move them up there. And this is brand new to me and it is exciting because it really puts those recommendations, one or two of them front and center.

Brynne Tillman:

So you can pin them inside of your featured section. It is still only available in May. Stay for a premium. So if you pay LinkedIn anything, you definitely have that opportunity and it's great. I think it's a fabulous way and you can recycle them. It's easy. You click a button, you pick which one you want up there. But yeah, it is social proof. There's almost nothing better than a client recommendation to create credibility with someone who's vetting you. 

Jack Hubbard:

So I want to talk about the two ways. But first, I want to mention something that you talked about, and I think it's something that we don't do enough. So you send me a recommendation. I look at it and there's a couple of words that are why I would wish you could say it a little bit differently. I can send that back to you and definitely say, because you're giving me recommendations. This word. I'm curious if you would mind changing this word to this word. And so before you post it, I think that's a mistake bankers make if they get a recommendation and they're so quick to post it on their recommendations.

Take a good look at it. Are there words and are there misspellings in there? And then you can send it back. And then once it's perfect, then you can post it up on your recommendations. 

Brynne Tillman:

Yep. So LinkedIn calls those revisions, right? So you can request a revision. But I'm going to throw a tip in the front end that might help. Often I will say, you know, if I'm asking for a referral from a client, I will say if you're open, I can write a little paragraph to make it easier for you. You're welcome to use it or edit it but you know, and they're always like, Oh yeah, please. And most of the time they'll add a line or two to the beginning. And then I get to say exactly what I want to say and they'll use it. So that is definitely a way in the front end to help that but in the back end, I have, I would say probably four or five times throughout the years, asked for revisions. Often they'll spell my name wrong and they'll leave the “E” out.

And that's a good reason why you might no doubt want revision so linked in two ways. 

Jack Hubbard:

I'll start in the way that maybe people don't think about, and that is giving recommendations. This is a really powerful way to show a true partnership. 

Brynne Tillman:

So we should be giving to, you know, the people that we're buying from. If someone does us a good deed, you know, they we hire a vendor and they're awesome, please recommend them. It's fantastic. But there's a little magic but before I get to the magic, your referral partners write your CPAs, referral of them. But this is the one thing, Jack, that bankers never do, almost never do, is recommend their clients like, Oh, why would I recommend my clients?

Do you want to talk about that or should I keep going? Okay, so there are three major reasons. Number one, you make them feel good. Very few people are getting recommendations and when you recommend them, we love to make our clients feel good. 

Number two, you create this deep loyalty. If you've written a recommendation. Jack was incredible to work with. They were, you know, they were looking to get a bridge loan for X, Y and Z and capital for A, B and C, and he submitted all the paperwork on time perfectly. And we were able to fund, you know, three weeks earlier than expected. So I wish every client was as amazing as Jack, right. Whatever that is. Now that 's out, it's very hard for Jack to ever look at another bank once you've done that, like the loyalty is deep. 

Number three, again, very few people get recommendations. So you actually have real estate at the top of their recommendations on their profile. So if people are scrolling down, they can see you're the banker of choice. Now, some bankers have said to me, and don't I don't want you thinking this way, but some bankers have said to me, Well, I don't want everyone to know my client is, because then they get Jack talk about why that's a bad attitude.

00:11:26:00 - 00:11:55:16

Jack Hubbard:

Look, if you are doing a great job for your clients, first of all, if the only thing you do is to provide a recommendation for a client and that's it, you probably should put that recommendation up there. But if you've got a deep partnership with a client, the average client, by the way, I heard this yesterday on a South State Bank podcast, the average client at a bank stays about 15 years.

So if you can get that client to stay 15 years and really get deep and wide with them, they'll stay longer. And one way to do that certainly is a recommendation. I agree with you, Brynne, that some bankers would say, well, I don't want people to know who my clients are. Well, look, in a community, a lot of people know who your clients are anyway. And I've always seen bankers put clients in their ads, in their annual reports, etc. I don't see it being any different. And it's so much better because what you say about the client can help maximize their revenue and you show your appreciation by doing that. I think it's a great idea.

Brynne Tillman:

In general, when we were talking earlier, one of us said it's like the digital sign in the grass, right? We're proud to put the sign in the grass. Put the recommendation on your LinkedIn. 

Jack Hubbard:

Yeah. And we do tombstones when you make it a commercial loan, we made a $5 million loan to XYZ. Well, it's out there in the public. And to your point about the sign, bankers will put signs up on a major project financed by X, Y, Z. I don't see any different look. It all goes back to the partnership. If you're authentic, if you're providing value, there's virtually no downside. But I do want to play devil's advocate with you and ask you a question. So you mentioned a CPA. Let's say that I get referrals from four or five CPAs and I only do a recommendation for one talk about the upsides and downsides of that.

00:13:35:00 - 00:13:59:08

Brynne Tillman:

So I mean, I really think you should do for any CPA that sent you a referral that close, that became business, I would say do a recommendation, thank them for the referral and how wonderful they are to do business with. On the other hand, if you've referred business to them and they've done a great job, talk about that as well.

I don't know that I would limit it. I might space it out. I don't know. What do you think? What are your thoughts on that? 

Jack Hubbard:

I agree. I think, well, there's two things that we need to talk about. The first one is that you made a very important distinction. I'll talk to bankers all the time and they'll say, Oh, I've got a lot of size, I've got a lot of referral sources, and then I'll ask them, okay, how many referrals did they send you? Number one. And number two, how many did you close? And that's the key. So you can certainly make the distinction of and you can even do it in your recommendations if I was able to close or earn three new relationships. Thanks. This great partner. That's important. 

Number two. I do know of a bank that does not allow their bankers to recommend or be recommended. No, I don't agree with the policy, but it is the bank's policy. So one of the things we always have to say in these programs because they're such great ideas here, is know your policy, know what you can do and can't do. Every bank has a social media policy. Heck, I don't even like to call social media LinkedIn, but it's lumped in there. And so the bottom line is know your policy before you go out and do anything like this. 

Brynne Tillman:

The idea of recommending those referral partners and those clients, these are things that bankers are not doing today and can make a huge difference. I'm going to just do a caveat: if you recommend a CPA or a tax attorney or an estate attorney business and they close that business and now you've recommended them, who do you think they're going to refer first? I'm just saying. 

Jack Hubbard:

That's exactly right. That's exactly right. And I'll tell you the other thing that I think bankers miss a great opportunity on, and I know you want to share some other best practices, too, but we all as bankers, we put out these pitch books, really, that we could talk all day about. That's another topic. But in the pitch book or in the proposal, you might have a couple of references. You may not have thought about putting references in, but what strengths? Now let's go back forward in the sales cycle. Let's say that you're on a very first call or a second call, and they say, you know, I'd love to talk to some of the folks that you work with. You could proactively have and I've done this for a couple of banks. You go into your referrals, your recommendations, and you look at them by industry.

So you copy and paste them in word documents. And so I have recommendations from three medical practitioners: a doctor, a dentist and a veterinarian. I can put that in a word document, I can pdf it, I can put the name and the business name and the phone number, and I can use that as a leave behind. I can use that part of my proposal. And to your point, they may never call, but it does say this banker has experience with the medical practices. So those are things that you can do. And if you do it in a proposal, same, same. I use those recommendations wisely. I used to do that all the time. And here's the other thing it did when I was with Saint Myer and Hubbard, and we're the same as The Modern Banker, we don't have tons and tons and tons of clients.

So when somebody asks for a testimonial or a referral or a recommendation, we have to give the same basic clients. So one other way to avoid bugs in your clients all the time is to use your recommendations because they've proactively done it on your behalf. Love some other thoughts on that from you. 

Brynne Tillman:

Well, I'm going to throw a little tech in there for a second. So one of the tools that we use is magical. It's getmagical.com Not all banks approve it. It's a Chrome extension. But what you can do is you can grab those testimonials and give it a shortcut. So copy it one time, put it in magic and you give it a shortcut code. So whenever you want to refer back to those, you have a short code that will auto populate all of that into your proposals.

Now, it's hard to understand this without the visual, but I'm if you've ever been on your phone and you type a message and all of a sudden it auto populates, I'm in a meeting. I'll call you later. And you're like, Where did that come from? Like that Accidental. Those are short codes. Most of us have experienced that. So those are short codes. You can do it on your phone. You can do it on your computer with magical.com. But when you have content like for three or four of these recommendations, it makes it so simple to just recall it on demand. So that's my edition is go checkout get magical.com with this is not sponsored it's just a tool we love.

00:19:17:26 - 00:19:49:06

Jack Hubbard:

So I have a question for you. So if you go to someone's profile or your own profile and you look at your recommendations, is it possible because let's say you have ten and you want for a particular reason to move number nine up to number one, is that doable? It used to be that they retired, that it is now chronological, magically listed and that's why I think they launched it in the featured section.

00:19:49:06 - 00:20:13:11

Brynne Tillman:

Now to make up for that. Yeah, that's too bad because I think that used to be a terrific feature. And I'll tell you, if I was calling on a bank in Utah, I would get all of my recommended nations from the area and I would move them up and I would then refer them to my profile on LinkedIn and they could see the recommendations from local organizations.

00:20:13:11 - 00:20:42:26

Jack Hubbard:

That's too bad. But there's another reason why you can actually go out and put them on word documents and you can write them from there. So I have another question for you. So I get this all the time, and I'm sure you do, too. What about recommending your colleagues? What about you? If you're a manager and I recommend you, Brad, you're my manager and you recommend me, what are your thoughts on recommending each other inside the organization?

Brynne Tillman:

So talk to HR first. There are some banks that just truly discourage it, especially a manager to the person that's reporting to them. It could create all kinds of things even down the road if there are layoffs or anything else or something else happens. There are potentially some legal consequences. So I love it. But you have to make sure that anything like that is approved, whether you do it through HR. Just get it approved before it goes up. People that leave great. Loved working with them. It was amazing. So I love it and I think it's great. Just make sure again that it's compliant with your social media policy. 

Jack Hubbard:

All right. So we've talked about virtually every segment that we could recommend except for one, and that's prospects. What are your thoughts? So I'm working with you and you're not a client of mine yet, but I really had some excellent interactions with you. And I love your business. You're not a client yet. I don't know you terribly well, but well enough to be able to recommend you. What are your thoughts on recommending a prospect? 

Brynne Tillman:

Okay, so I'm going to take it down a notch and I would say this is a great opportunity to give a kudos, a public. You're awesome, but not a permanent recommendation yet. And the reason is low. So a quick story. I'm in a live classroom maybe ten years ago, and we're talking about adding skills and adding and I put in just for the sake of the class. I added parenting and didn't do anything. And at the time I had three adult children and by the end of the class I had five recommendations for parenting or endorsements for parenting. And none of them were my adult children, by the way. So there is an inauthenticity that might happen with the full on recommendation, but you can give a kudos. 

So kudos is this public postcard that shows just how fabulous it is making work fun or, you know, whatever, there's lots of options to take. And so you are publicly acknowledging them, which I think is great, but it's not you know, it's flirting. It's not a date yet. 

Jack Hubbard:

Okay. All right. That's fair. Oh, I love picking your brain on this. You've had it. You had so much. So let me ask you a question. So let's say that you recommend me. And either because policy wise, I can't, that's a little bit easier or I don't feel I know you well enough or I'd rather not put a recommendation up. I don't want to do this. What have you seen that happen? 

Brynne Tillman:

Oh, sure. Some people have asked me to recommend them and I don't know them well. And they to them. Yeah. So? So I actually have a canned response that's in me because I get this a lot. I truly appreciate how well you're using LinkedIn. Typically I only recommend people whom I've experienced. If we should work together in the future, I'd be thrilled to give you a recommendation. 

Jack Hubbard:

Oh, that's great. Well, there's our friend Dustin Martin down in Oklahoma, by the way. Dustin is president of his RMI chapter down there. And congratulations to Dustin, because that is such a great vacation. And I just wish more bankers on this program would attend their regular RMI chapter meetings.

There used to be 37 RMI chapters. Maybe there's more or less now, and I've spoken to all kinds of them, and Dustin does such a great work down. And it was Texas, not Oklahoma, my bet. But can we put that… So what other credible individual for the entire world to see has thousands of impacts compared to what we state about ourselves? Recommendations. The only other impacts in profiles? Oh, yeah, that's a good point. Yeah. 

Brynne Tillman:

So this is really about when you can tell someone all day long how great you are and they don't believe it until they hear it from someone else. And I think that's Dustin's point, right? I think it's very powerful. And the LinkedIn recommendations and they do link to the other person's profile.

So even if they leave the company, it'll still link back to who they are. You know, one of my early big accounts was IBM, and I got a link to IBM. Now, the guy at IBM has been at four companies since, but it still says it's from when he was at IBM. And if you click through, you can scroll down and see he was there. And I love that. And I got an IBM in there, right? So 88 chapters. 

Jack Hubbard:

That's exciting. It's exciting that there's 88 chapters. And I can't emphasize enough lunch meetings. Breakfast meetings take an hour and the speakers are great and the networking is better. So congratulations on all the hard work you do. Dustin Any final thoughts on recommending sessions before we talk about next week?

00:26:12:26 - 00:26:37:18

Brynne Tillman:

So I think it's really amazing how fast time can get by. And I would say kind of put in your calendar once a month, then I'm going to think about recommendations. Who did I work with this month that I can recommend or that I can request recommendations from? So I have one client that has first Fridays and there's a list of things.

So every first Friday there's a look and one of them is a recommendation. So it's just a recurring appointment in the calendar and there's like six or seven things and one of them is recommendations. 

Jack Hubbard:

That is a great idea. I really like that. And bankers, if you've done something really good for a client, that's the time they say, Jeez, I couldn't be in business without you. That's the time. Would you mind saying that on LinkedIn? If so, I'm happy to help you with that. We do have to be proactive on this. I used to think that, you know, it just feels awkward to reach out and ask for a recommendation. It's a lot easier now. In fact, when I do my Jack Rants with Modern bankers, I'll say, if you know, they'll say things like, Well, I had a great interview or whatever.

And I say, If you thought it was good, would you mind recommending me? And I've gotten a couple of recommendations, so that's great. Be proactive. Be proactive. Well, great show. Next week, Brynne, you got to put this one out there. 

Brynne Tillman:

So just how are the grandchildren? Amazing, my heart. 

Jack Hubbard:

Talk about what you're going to do on Saturday. So we're going to take a one and a half year old and a three year old and my daughter, the mom, to a magic school bus show. We have a front row center. So this is going to be interesting. So Jack and I usually get together on Saturday when there's no client work. So we can do stuff, but it's going to be Sunday this week. Yeah, that'll be fun. Well, thanks, Brant. And I know you'll enjoy the play with your grandchildren. That's next week we're going to talk about using LinkedIn skills and endorsements to your advantage.

00:28:29:12 - 00:28:49:19

Jack Hubbard:

So it's a little different than recommendations, a little easier, but you've got to be really careful about it and we're going to talk about that next week. Thanks to Dustin and for everybody two for being here. Really appreciate it. Brynne, always great to see you. Great to see you, too. And I just want to publicly shout out the paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, New Jersey.

00:28:49:19 - 00:29:15:25

Brynne Tillman

Just that's where we're going. A lot of people know it. So if you know it, deem me at Lynn LinkedIn. All right, Jack, thank you so much. I had so much fun. 

Outro:
Thanks for joining us for Jack Rants with Brynne brought to you by our good friends at Vertical IQ and RelPro. We're live on LinkedIn every Thursday at noon Eastern time helping bankers turn connections into conversations. Don't miss an episode, visit themodernbanker.com/tmbpodcast. Leave us a review if you would. You can also listen to this program and the new Jack Rants with Modern Bankers on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Google Play and I Heart Radio. We're on YouTube as well. Subscribe at https://www.youtube.com/@TheModernBanker. Finally, don't forget, make today and every day a great client day!