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Secrets, hacks, and advice that can help you with fundraising on LinkedIn to collect hundreds of leads or get more responses from potential investors.

7 Secrets for Sales & Fundraising on LinkedIn

Published on 
December 21, 2022

Mitchell is the founder of VentureRoof, and CGO at Speechki, backed by Tier 1 VC GreyCroft. He is a mentor, judge, and speaker at Alchemist Accelerator, an advisor to 9 startups, and is currently helping startups from Alchemist and YCombinator to raise rounds and find clients. He dreams of one day being a guest lecturer at Stanford University. 


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Mitchell Kim, founder of VentureRoof, and CGO at Speechki

7 Secrets for Sales & Fundraising on LinkedIn: Gleaned from Real-World Experience. This article is intended to help startup founders who are planning to secure investment and mine for prospective clients using LinkedIn.

The American market has always been a priority for founders around the world. Today Mitchell Kim, a mentor at Alchemist Accelerator, will reveal secrets, hacks, and advice on how to use LinkedIn more successfully. With it, you can collect hundreds to thousands of leads from one post or even receive as many as 500 responses from a list of 3,000 potential investors. You just need to understand that the role that dopamine plays in decision-making might help you reach your goals.

Networking and all the lead generation channels

Let me start with a gift 🎁. Here is a perfect mindmap with all the lead generation channels available. It will come in handy for founders to find and reach investors and clients. We start with this mindmap to explain how essential LinkedIn is as a lead generation channel (tagged as Telemarketing and Social Media). But, first, let’s talk networking.



Mindmap

You might hear that networking offers you a conversion rate of almost  100% with investors and clients, but anyone with real-world experience knows this is more myth than fact 🤷🏻‍♂️.

More realistically, founders can close up to 80% of investment rounds through networking and friendly introductions. In every startup community, founders have learned how to use networking well and have efficiently closed hundreds of rounds of fundraising. 


Nevertheless, even networking has disadvantages:

1. Lack of predictability. It remains unknown when someone might provide a networking lead and when a deal will be closed.

2. Lack of scalability. Networking is done by founders mostly, quite often by co-founders playing a hustler role. So, hiring 5 networking managers is no substitute for a founder doing outreach with his or her network. 



There are many networking and lead-generation channels, but today's topic is LinkedIn.


Secret #1. Dopamine is an essential tool.

Ravi Belani, director at the accelerator, refers to the croc brain and a three seconds rule during his lectures at Alchemist. This rule states that we only have only 3 seconds to make a first impression 😍, to be liked or disliked because the human mind still contains the remnants of a reptile brain that is trained to act instinctively.  

Imagine going to someone’s profile on social media. Scroll down. It takes you just a few seconds to decide whether to read or like a post, or not.

Despite being dismissed by some recent research, the theories about our triune or croc brain show that we have an embedded drive to want, win, and be successful quickly. That’s exactly where dopamine comes in…. 


Why is Dopamine so important?

  • This neurotransmitter is responsible for our motivation and pleasure.

  • Beneath the surface, we love being in our comfort zone and enjoying pleasure. Our pride and our selfishness are also strongly activated by dopamine.

  • People make conscious decisions (and, more likely, unconscious ones 😁) based on ego, emotion, and, finally, dopamine.


Here comes the fun part….We are able to influence the decisions of potential partners and investors by realizing how dopamine works 😎.

Over the past couple of years, I have talked to over 2,000 founders and have learned that, more often than not, when founders pitch their company, they keep talking long after they should have stopped 😆. They make their pitch, and excite their client, but fail to close their deal at the height of the excitement when dopamine is flowing. They wait too long. The client thinks and overthinks. The dopamine surge is gone. The excitement is gone. The chance to close has been lost. 

Once we learn how to trigger a surge of dopamine in both investors and clients, it becomes clear how and when to try and close your deal. It also teaches you to avoid the same feeling so you can always make a decision that is right for you. 

 

Secret #2. Success itself is a sales hack.

Warning: If you are a founder who has a technical or product background, this secret may upset you 🤣. A startup is not a story about a product, but a story about potential growth 🚀. I say with confidence that “product” is not equal to “sales.” Sales are equal to success!

Sales = success

Let’s see examples:

Case #1
A founder presents a pitch to an investor at a conference.

"Hi, my name is John Doe. We have developed an AI-based mathematical model for building routes in real-time for…." John doesn’t stay on message. He rambles on. He goes off on tangents. He doesn't focus on his client's needs and whether or not his client is paying attention to what he is saying. His investor finds himself eager for John's monologue to end. John thought he was bringing up something innovative and interesting, but it was interesting only to him, not to his investor 🥲 . He lost his chance to close.


Case #2
Let’s have a glance at the pitch of the Whizz startup. 

“Hi! We have reached $1M ARR within 6 months, have more than 100 clients, and I was featured on the Forbes '30 under 30' list.” They grabbed the investor’s attention! The team instantly gets questioned with, “What’s your name? What is your startup all about 🤯?” … SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!

At this point, it is alright to focus on the product. Yet it is still better to commence with the use cases. For instance, start with the success stories of your clients. As a result, even if the investor is a little overwhelmed with detail, he will want to become a part of your ongoing success. Triggered with dopamine, he is fully engaged in your achievements.


Case #3
Here is another great example of how to sell success. This is a picture that went viral and nearly broke the internet taken by my friend Elena Beloshapkova. This young man arrived at the TechCrunch Disrupt-2022 event wearing a T-shirt with “ARR $1.6M” 🤑 printed on it. I have no idea what his name is, but I have no doubt that countless investors now do and are waiting in line to have a chat over a cup of coffee with him about his company.
 

T-shirt saying ARR $1.6M

Why do people like someone else’s success? People connect someone else’s success with their own. In other words, we believe that other people’s success can become our success. When a person imagines success, dopamine starts flowing. Imagining success triggers all sorts of emotions: excitement, happiness, vanity, and pride.

How can it be used wisely? Sell to customers by focusing on the company’s success instead of focusing on a demo product. This would make a customer think he is falling behind the competitors if he hasn’t taken the advantage of your offer. 

What can be considered a success? Your achievement of any kind can be, be it revenue, your clients, years of experience, increasingly large numbers, certificates, or the people around you.


I could introduce myself this way:


“I’m Mitch. I am the founder of VentureRoof startup, the Chief Growth Officer of Speechki startup, and a mentor at Alchemist Accelerator”.

 

Profile example 1Option 2.0, designed to boost dopamine production:

“Founder of Venture Roof, #1 Product of the Day at Product Hunt. CGO at Speechki, backed by Tier 1 VC GreyCroft.

Mentor, judge, and speaker at the #1 B2B accelerator – Alchemist. 

Advisor at 9 startups and most of them have already raised rounds with my help.  

Currently helping startups from Alchemist and YCombinator to raise rounds and find clients. 

I dream of giving a lecture at Stanford University.”

I strongly recommend that you fill out your LinkedIn profile using the same logic.

 

Secret #3. Create a LinkedIn profile that is exciting.

Do you remember me writing about dopamine and the croc brain? When it comes to a LinkedIn profile, the model is the same. Create a page so exciting that it will provoke an investor's or client's croc brain. Let dopamine push them to contact you.

Here is one of the many profiles owned by a founder, which we updated before kicking off the outreach to investors. This is worth a closer look 🤩.

 

Profile example 2

A human is built in such a way that he or she eats first with his eyes… which means a photo is seen before a block of text. Your profile photo is your first chance to make an impression and should be as attractive and positive as possible.


A bio comes next. It is worth doing more than just writing “A founder at ABC Startup,” and adding the details of your achievement. You are trying to elicit a response with everything you do.

 




Take some time to think about…

1. If you are incorporated in the US but are based overseas, just use your American address. (Your actual US address is just a matter of time.)

2. Indicate your mission and successes in the “About yourself” section. Bring some informality by using emojis and mentioning something personal. 

3. Don't write about yourself in the third person and avoid putting up a huge wall of off-putting text.

4. A lot of information can be put into the “Experience” section, but you should concentrate on the current startup. 

5. Delete older or obsolete information on your previous employment. No one cares where you interned 10 years ago. You can always tell anecdotes about your rise when you meet.


Worried you don't have enough content? Think a little more. Everyone has stories or experiences that they can use to create a reaction.

Secret #4. What you need to make outreach successful.

Remember what I wrote about networking? One of its disadvantages is an inability to scale. Remember the importance of dopamine? What will get someone excited if you're not offering the iPhone 14 Pro Max, a product that absolutely everyone wants? Will you remember to concentrate on growth and not just your product?

LinkedIn Outreach steps 🤓:

  1. We apply software for LinkedIn automation – e.g., Expandi.io, LinkedHelper, Phantom Buster, and others. 

  2. We connect three LinkedIn accounts in there – it might be the account of the founder or the top manager. 

  3. We start outreach with 30 connections per day via each account.


The result will be 1,800 contacts per month. Even a poor conversion of 5% could bring us 90 replies per month. Hundreds of responses can still be collected via email outreach, but that’s another story 😏. As to the experience of the Speechki startup, our conversion rate reached 19% during investor outreach. 

 

 

 

 

Through services such as Expandi.io, you can build native flows by visiting the lead's profile, liking his posts, and sending not only connection requests but also follow-up messages.

 

Connection flows

 

Secret #5. Cold emailing can provide a 19% conversion rate.

How to draft emails with a high conversion rate.

Email Subject example

The subject of the email

Create a subject line designed to get dopamine flowing in the recipient, so that they open the email. It has to be exciting!  People like to be addressed by name. And keep in mind the idea of success and value.

I suggest using these templates:

 

{first_name}, Seed round to record 1 million audiobooks a year with synthetic narration. Greycroft portfolio company

 

{first_name}, closing a $1M round with a $500K commitment from Xsolla

 

Email body

Remember how I said that we are social animals and that our trust lies in the magic of networking? That's why I use references or recommendations in outreach. For example…


“Ravi Belani at Alchemist recommended reaching out to you”. 

(Always get approval to use someone’s name.) 


Done properly, our lead gets an email and he has a surge of dopamine. He feels the outreach is personal because you've used his name and feels important because Ravi Belani himself recommended the contact. As the recipient reads, he's more and more energized, his dopamine levels rise, and he responds right away.


Remember what to focus on in the email → success, success, and success again. The story of the product is done through a use case description and your clients’ success stories. 


Full email example:

Email body example


A bonus secret: the 1% rule

The 1% rule is that even the tiniest improvements may end up in super high growth. A story of an unsuccessful cycling 🚴‍♀️ team, “Team Sky” provides a great example. Dave Brailsford, a newly appointed coach of the team at the time, added slight changes (think of it as 1%) to everything that could enhance the results – the best tires, seats, and sleeping pillows were purchased. These measures worked and led to gold medals for years ahead. 


I am fairly convinced there are plenty of stories like this in the venture world! What can you improve? Upgrade your website. Improve your LinkedIn profile. Personalize your emails. Improve your in-person pitch for investors and clients. You can even do better with your standard email signature. Each and every detail affects the conversion of the deal and impacts the path of the lead in the Client Journey Map.


Talking about signatures, by the way, here is an example:

 

Email signature example


Secret #6. Webinars can be a growth hack.

I would like to share my experience on how my team collected over 80 top-end leads from our industry through one webinar alone. 

 

Webinar copy example

 

How did we succeed in just a week?

  • We chose a trending subject for the webinar

  • We invited well-regarded, well-networked opinion leaders to speak

  • We invited our clients to speak 

  • We sent invitations to participate to lists of leads


During the webinar, we focused on our next-generation product and our success stories, supporting our statements examples for our attendees. We got our leads excited to start a pilot program with us. And– next–we closed deals. 

Secret #7. Viral posts on LinkedIn

One of my LinkedIn posts received over 8,000 views resulting in several investors and major leads reaching out to us. 

I considered it a great outcome. However, I know one founder whom I coached, racked up 2 million views. He received a few thousand leads and, he is still responding to all his prospects.

 

Viral post example 2Viral post example 1


Two steps to achieve such a result:

  • We make exciting, beneficial, and "sticky" posts

  • Use such services as LinkBoost and LemPod or similar.


Most social media platforms promote posts using their internal algorithms. If the reach of your post elevates in the first minutes and hours, the social network autonomously puts it forward to potentially relevant users (This applies not only to LinkedIn Posts, but to TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and others). 


But what does LinkBoost or LemPod have to do with that? Both of these services are set to wind up likes and views. Every subscriber of one of these services gives the nod to put a like under other posts via the follower’s LinkedIn profile. By subscribing to any service of this kind, a follower will automatically upvote someone else’s posts.
 

Lastly…

Sales and fundraising is a subject so fascinating that for those of us in the field, they could be discussed and studied 🎓 endlessly. Today we covered LinkedIn only, but I promise to get back soon and address even more aspects of this extensive topic.


Remember how dopamine works! 🤌🏾


Apply to Alchemist Accelerator to get more fantastic content

www.alchemistaccelerator.com 


Reach out to me with any inquiry

www.linkedin.com/in/salesandvc 

 



Alchemist Accelerator is a venture-backed initiative focused on accelerating the development of early-stage ventures that monetize from enterprises. Alchemist has become a critical hub connecting enterprise founders, VCs, corporations, and mentors through its extensive network.