Christian Klepp  00:00

Welcome to this episode of the B2B marketers on a mission podcast, and I’m your host. Christian Klepp. Today I’ll be talking to Sivan Ohavim. She is the CEO and co-founder of Elevate media, with more than 15 years of experience in New York City’s corporate scene, where she worked with Fortune 500 companies like Merrill Lynch, Mark Jacobs, MEC Global and LVMH, she’s also an expert in connecting people, fostering collaborations and creating real business opportunities. Tune in to find out more about what this B2B marketers mission is. 

Christian Klepp  00:35

Okay. Sivan, Ohavim, welcome to the show.

Sivan Ohavim  00:39

Thank you. Christian, Hi. Good to be here. 

Christian Klepp  00:43

Good to have you on the show. I really enjoyed our pre-interview conversation. I think we had a lot of common topics, and I’m really looking forward to digging deep on the topic of LinkedIn. So if you don’t mind, we’ll just dive right in. That’s good, fantastic. Okay, so Sivan, you’re on a mission to help B2B marketers and their companies leverage LinkedIn to build trust and credibility and drive business growth. So for this conversation, let’s focus on the following topic, how to use LinkedIn strategically to grow your audience, and strategically, I think, is the key word there, because we had a conversation just before I hit record about how people are not being strategic. So let’s kick off the conversation with two questions, and I’m happy to repeat them, right? So first question is, how will growing your audience lead to more business in the long run on LinkedIn? And the second one, where do you see many B2B companies falling flat in their LinkedIn efforts?

Sivan Ohavim  01:43

Okay, well, that’s a really great question. And yeah, we really touched upon those topics right before we started recording. And I think a lot of B2B consultants and business owners have a big misunderstanding about LinkedIn and social setting and branding. And they’re stuck on traditional ways of generating leads which are not so much relevant these days, and where they fall short is when they do create a LinkedIn campaign or an outreach campaign, they go so broad and they’re not strategic and specific, and they do not address the pain points, or perhaps you might say, even the reality of their prospects. You know, they’re not doing their due diligence in order to create a high quality list, right? That it’s within their target market. And then when they do create some sort of an outreach campaign, they’re not hitting the pain points or the reality points on the other side, right? Per se, you know, you will reach out to someone who doesn’t have a podcast, and you will offer him a podcast editing service, and the guy doesn’t even have a podcast, right? So you’re missing the mark there. So social selling and growing your audience works. You can see it with social media influencers. You can see it with Grant Cardone and many other huge influencers in the B2B market. Obviously, when your audience, you have a large audience, you have more eyeballs on your content. So then it’s another opportunity, or a channel of generating organic leads from your audience. It’s never just one post. It’s establishing a long term relationship with your audience, establishing credibility throughout time through posting genuine and high quality with very good content, post to get to the point where you’re generating organic leads from your just from social media. Then there is another aspect that a lot of companies are missing, which is a direct outreach. They don’t know who you are. They’ve never heard of you. You have about 400 people who are following you on LinkedIn. You are nobody. Another effective way, as long as it’s a very high quality list and a very targeted list, is to create an outreach that works very well with a strong social media presence and obviously increasing your followers. So a lot of companies missed a boat on that they don’t understand it, and especially in B2B, not so much in B2C, and they’re just missing a lot of opportunities.

Christian Klepp  04:52

Yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely. I wanted to go back to a few things that you said earlier, Sivan, maybe we can unpack that a little bit. I. As I was saying earlier, there’s a lot of this, like spray and pray, and a lot of that is linked back to you can say a part of it is the lack of understanding of who it is that you’re supposed to reach out to and how they benefit from your products or solutions. But do you feel that a lot of companies are also like, just not being strategic about it, like they don’t actually have a plan, right? There needs to be some kind of plan for the outreach, some kind of sequence, some kind of system. What are your thoughts on that?

Sivan Ohavim  05:32

Absolutely, it has to be a plan, and it has to be strategic. I noticed that going for the sale or the pitch right off the bat, you can meet a lot of resistance there. However, if you come from a point of I would like to help, and I have some recommendations, I have some tips, I have some sort of an analysis that can benefit you, for no charge, right? You have a better chance of starting a genuine conversation when you used your help flow of, how can I help you, not how can I sell you? How can I help you and establish relationship with you and get to know your company better, and companies that use that strategy usually have much better reply rate and a success rate in generating leads in general. Keeping in mind that you know, obviously there are companies that are so established in the market and have such a large portfolio and they can just do name dropping, that they have such a strong hold in the market that they can go for the kill right off the bat, right? But for companies that are built… that are in a startup phase and are scaling right, the best way to go about it is to offer some sort of help or solution and be very personal about the way they approached our client, meaning, like I’ve noticed that you are missing blah, and we do blah, meaning I noticed that you’re doing using Google ads and spending whatever $10,000 a month in group of ads. Well, we use that blah, blah strategy that can help you. So it’s personal. You did your due diligence. Now with AI automation, it doesn’t really have to be so time consuming.

Christian Klepp  07:37

Absolutely, absolutely. So moving on to the next question, and you touched on it now a little bit. But what do you believe are the untapped opportunities on LinkedIn for B2B companies?

Sivan Ohavim  07:47

Okay, so to do is podcasting, a lot of B to B companies. You know, podcasting is great. I mean, we’re having it right now. It’s having a personal conversation, very casual and authentic conversation. I think that in the B2B market, you see more and more podcasters, but you see a lot of podcasting more on personal hobbies and lifestyle and relationships. But funny enough, you know, CEOs and founders of big tech companies or real estate companies that are doing podcast and utilizing podcast as a way of promoting their brand. Because here’s the thing, it’s very funny these days, it’s not just about the brand, it’s about the CEO, the co-founder behind the brand. People are looking to connect with real people. So if you have a founder that really wants to share his vision and help others, podcasting and publishing that podcast on LinkedIn, YouTube and other channels is a very smart and strategic way of generating organic traffic in growing your brand. And I think that a lot of B2B companies they’re missing the boat on that again, there are really fixated on traditional methods of like networking events or which are great, but there’s so many other channels you can use at the same time.

Christian Klepp  09:13

But is it something that you would advise, like, for example, your current clients, would you advise them to jump into podcasting right away? Because, let’s be honest, it’s not for everybody, right? Like to launch your own podcast. 

Sivan Ohavim  09:24

No, not, not for… I would assess if it’s something that they would be able to feel comfortable doing, and they would be able to do it well, and if not, we will use a different strategy. But notice that the ones that you know your CEOs that feel comfortable in front of the camera, there are good listeners, and then they do very well with podcasting or being guests on other people’s podcast. You don’t even have to have your own podcast, but you can utilize the channel.

Christian Klepp  09:55

So on the topic of growing your audience on LinkedIn, what are some of the key pifalls you would advise B2B marketers to avoid, and what should they be doing instead?

Sivan Ohavim  10:05

Well, the pitfalls is to one not have a generic connection request, because it’s boring and your reply rate probably a connection request rate will be very low. Try to make it more personal. Also you’re looking to expand your network of connections with your one ideal clients, two people that you can collaborate with, three people that can you can create cross referral relationship with. So you have to be very strategic about it. Of course, it’s great to connect with your, you know, previous co workers or college buddies, but you have to be very smart about where you’re connecting with because again, that links back into social media, selling posting on LinkedIn and getting traction on LinkedIn. You want to make sure that those that the audience, their followers, are within your target market. So this is my take on that. 

Christian Klepp  11:09

Yeah, no, that personalized piece is definitely important because, as I was saying earlier, it’s very obvious when somebody clearly hasn’t done their homework on you, right? And it’s a very like templated message, spray and pray. I got one. I got one message the other day, which said, Oh, by the way, I realized that you also went to blank University, and the person actually forgot to fill in the name of the university.

Sivan Ohavim  11:36

Yes, oops. Yeah, yeah, that is, yeah. You have to make sure that it’s not spray and pray and you’re doing your homework using a university connections. You know, I had one client. He went to Stanford, so we did a whole campaign for Stanford graduates, and it was great. He got 40% or 50, sorry, 60% acceptance rate, with founders of startups that are stand for graduates. So finding that link of reality with your prospect is always very successful, but of course, you have to make sure that it’s done in a professional way. You can automate it, but make sure that you’re not making any funny mistakes.

Christian Klepp  12:19

Yeah, like sending a blank University outreach.

Sivan Ohavim  12:22

Yeah, yeah, yeah,

Christian Klepp  12:26

You mentioned something earlier, and I think that’s worth repeating, that you don’t push the prospect immediately to, oh, let’s book a call, let’s have a demo. Can I send you my portfolio? Right? That you don’t start out that way, right? That. Why do you feel that a lot of companies out there default to that approach, no matter like how many times people say, please don’t do that.

Sivan Ohavim  12:54

Because it’s the easiest way to go and, because people are, you know, in general, I think in society, people are having a hard time of having conversations and asking questions, right? They jump into conclusions. In social selling it’s a bit different. You have to kind of like ask questions, right? You need to get to know your prospect better, have your recommendations right off the bat, and then suggest, let’s get on a call. One, you want to pre qualify them. Two, you really want to know them and their company, their vision and the problem. And you want to lead them to the conclusion that they want to get on a call with you. So it’s a bit of a longer runway, and I think that’s where people get unmotivated because they’re getting the lead, and they do not know how to develop their relationship, because it’s art to some degree. And if it’s not an immediate gratification of like, let’s hop on a call, they drop the… Yeah, they just don’t do it a proper follow up. But it’s really a matter of asking questions, the right questions, and leading the prospect into the cognition that you can bring some solutions to his problems, 

Christian Klepp  14:19

Absolutely, absolutely and by proper follow up, we don’t mean like, okay, bumping this to the top of your inbox, right? Because that gets annoying.

Sivan Ohavim  14:29

It is annoying. It has to be in a way that doesn’t annoy or betrays as but it could be like, once a week, you know? It could be, you can add a prospect to your mailing list again, mailing list you have, you know, valuable tips and success stories and good content.

Christian Klepp  14:49

Absolutely, absolutely, you just made me think of a follow up question, Sivan, and it’s something that I’m sure you deal with a lot. But how do you deal with pushback from probably, like, senior management of a company or founders that say, like this, this whole approach of growing audience on LinkedIn is just it takes too much time. There’s too much investment required. Like, where’s the ROI? We don’t see the value in it. Like, how do you deal with that kind of pushback? 

Sivan Ohavim  15:20

It’s a very good question, Christian, I go back into the vision, what is the vision that the CEO has for the company, and what is the potential? And I really go and pinpoint on what has been generated. So let’s say, for example, one of my clients, we grew his audience by 200% in five months on LinkedIn. He started with, think he had 1500 now is close to 5000. Out of the 1500 only maybe 30% were within his target market. So one, What are you trying to achieve with your brand? And it really requires a CEO that has a vision and long term goals and understand that social selling right is not a suggestion. It is one of the most cost effective methods out there to generate organic leads and authentic leads, right? And also it’s about brand awareness and brand recognition, but it has to link to the CEO’s vision and growth, meaning, where does he see his company in the next 10 years? Right? If he has long term goals for his company, he wants to be the biggest company out there in IT, or the biggest company out there in whatever, as a consultant. And if he wants to grow and he sees where he can take him, you know, like whatever, in two years, you will have 20,000 and then 30,000 so he will understand the value. But if it’s a very short term vision of instant gratification, I want instantly. I want an instant ROI, he will have a really hard time. So I think the way to do it is like, take them into the future, and the possibility is that, like, you know, one year down the line, when you have 20,000 people followers, or you have whatever, 50,000 followers on YouTube, or 60,000 followers on YouTube, what it’s going to do for your brand? I guess it links into asking the right questions also. 

Christian Klepp  17:40

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. On that note, about, like, growing your audience on LinkedIn, like, you know, just from your experience, like, because there’s different forms of content that you can put out there, right? There’s the long tail posts, there’s the short posts, there’s infographics, there’s videos, there’s carousels, etc, etc. Just from your experience, which of these content formats would you recommend, or would you recommend all of them? Or what do you tell your clients?

Sivan Ohavim  18:13

I feel that you have to be strategic about it. You have to it has to be videos, right? Could be reels, could be shorts. Could be with some tips, with some information, it should be some success stories, authentic ones you know. It could be clients, a video of a client, recording like you know, his satisfaction, how he’s satisfied with the service or product. And it has to be also some personal stories of the CEO himself, his journey growing the company, his you might even say, struggles, right, personally. And it has to be his own personal story, or the own personal story of the brand. You see it more and more in many companies, B to B and B to C, when the founders are basically, in a way, exposing themselves and their personal life and pouring their personal life into content to create more of intimate relationship with your audience. And I noticed again and again and again that it works 10 times better when it’s personal, when it’s not another can of a template.

Christian Klepp  19:37

Right, right, right. Exactly, exactly something that’s relatable., 

Sivan Ohavim  19:43

Exactly something that’s relatable.

Christian Klepp  19:45

Relatable and relevant to whoever it is that they’re targeting. Okay.

Sivan Ohavim  19:50

And some people feel very uncomfortable with it, because, yeah, but it works,

Christian Klepp  19:57

All right. For our next question. In our previous conversation, you mentioned that B2B companies should have a smart strategy regarding their LinkedIn approach, and you talked about it a little bit earlier. But can you elaborate on that further what you mean by that?

Sivan Ohavim  20:13

About smart strategy? Yeah, sure. Well, it boils down to really understanding and knowing your audience, who’s your audience, and within that audience, who’s the decision maker. If you’re dealing with companies with that are, you know, SBM, small into medium sized companies, you probably would like to reach out to the operational VP or the co-founder, right? You’re not going to reach out to the marketing manager, so you have to be very specific. You also need to know your audience. And per se, maybe you have a lot of clients in Texas, and you are really familiar with clients from Texas, so it will be a better idea to start with a list of companies in that area. So you need to understand their demographics, location, size of the company, the decision maker, if it’s a C level exec or not. And then you have to understand the pain points, and that goes into also making sure that you have the right filters on your list. Like, what are the pain points? Are you a B2B advisor? Are you in SaaS? And you’re looking for companies that are a low growth, right? They haven’t hired… maybe their growth was, like less than 10% in the last 12 years. So now they need a consultant, right? Or perhaps you are in AI and Google automation, and you’re looking for a company that is using they don’t use Gemini, and they’re using ChatGPT, knowing that specific factor right, can create an instant reality with that prospect. So you really have to pinpoint and again, it goes back to high quality list of like, what is the problem? Who’s your audience, who you want to talk to, and portraying some sort of a reality. I know your company. I understand your pain. I understand what are the tools you’re using right now. Let me share that there is a better way that can save you either money, time, resources, etc.

Christian Klepp  22:35

Yeah, absolutely answering the what’s in it for me question.

Sivan Ohavim  22:40

What’s in it for me? 

Christian Klepp  22:41

And it better be a good answer, because otherwise,

Sivan Ohavim  22:45

Yeah, this, yeah, of course.

Christian Klepp  22:48

Okay, so just in the interest of time, if you could provide one example for each in terms of how B2B companies can do the following on LinkedIn. So the first one is build their brand authority, and the second one is generate qualified leads.

Sivan Ohavim  23:02

Okay. So how they can build an authority on LinkedIn? Okay. I would say post every day, a minimum of two, three times a day. Make sure it’s authentic. Make sure that it communicates to your audience. It can be success stories. It could be personal stories about your how your company grew, and I was impinging on the market. It could be a hard CTA, which is call to action, or soft CTA, but you have to post at least three times a week, a minimum of three times a week. That’s one way of growing your audience. Second way of growing your audience is to increase your connections right within your target market. I think LinkedIn allows you up to 100 connection requests per week. You have to do it. You have to make sure that you’re growing your audience by at least 30% a month. Now. The third strategy is doing direct outreach to your audience, because they don’t know who you are and who’s so doing a direct outreach to your audience with the strategic steps, you know, I would say no more than three or four messages, introducing yourself, your value making sure that it has some sort of a personalization into it so it communicates and resonates with the recipient, and offering some sort of help that can save them either money, time or resources. Once you get a positive reply, you will need to basically nurture that lead into a meeting where you can do a discovery call and find out more about the company and what they need and want.

Christian Klepp  24:50

Okay, okay, well, those are some pretty good tips. So posting, posting two to three times a day, I think was your first one?

Sivan Ohavim  24:58

A week, 

Christian Klepp  24:58

A week.

Sivan Ohavim  24:59

If you can do it 2-3 time, I mean, the day, great, but people don’t done so at least three times away,

Christian Klepp  25:04

Two to three times a week, okay, increasing your connections. What’s the second one? 

Sivan Ohavim  25:10

Strategic outreach that is not spammy, that is personal, that is based on some sort of your own familiarity, being familiar with the company and their mission, their vision, the tools they’re using, pain points and so on and so forth.

Christian Klepp  25:27

Absolutely, absolutely. And that, that last one, I think, is also very important, is nurturing that lead into a meeting. And I think nurture is the key word there. It’s not push them into a meeting. It’s nurture them, right?

Sivan Ohavim  25:40

Yeah, it’s nurturing them, and it’s offering some sort of recommendation or help, right? Because people think that they’re wasting their time, but again, if you’re reaching out to your target market, right? So you’re not wasting your time here, you’re building a relationship and with B2B, it’s obviously not instant, so you have to create a relationship, and that takes a little bit of time.

Christian Klepp  26:11

Absolutely, absolutely okay. We get to the point in the conversation where we’re talking about actionable tips, and you’ve given us so much already, all right? But I think if we were gonna compress that all into three to five things, right, let’s say, for example, there’s somebody out there that’s listening to this interview, and you want them to go and take action on what you’ve just talked about right away, not in 6 months, not in 12 months. Like right after they listen to this, what are three to five things you would tell them to do? 

Sivan Ohavim  26:45

I will tell them to go over their client base and make a list of the size of the companies they like to work with. And it’s been successful for them in the past. Their location. How much money they’re generating? Right? If it’s a small company, are you looking for companies that are making a million dollars a year or companies that are generating a $14 million a year? What is the sweet spot for your company, right? And really write it down. It’s kind of like creating a customer persona. Where they’re located. What are the technologies that are using? What are their hobbies? What do they like to do? Really create a whole customer’s persona for yourself based on previous statistics, meaning, like, where did you had the most success? Once you have that nailed down, you know, log into your LinkedIn, look at your connection request, or your first degree network of connections, right? And check for yourself of out of the 1000 connections that you currently have, or 1500 or whatever, how many of them really answer that criteria of being the perfect client, usually you will notice that maybe less than 20% so now you have a customer persona based on previous deals that were successful or previous relationships that were successful. You can use Sales Navigator and compile a list of similar personas, and you can start reaching out to them with a connection request and growing your audience, which is the first step. Why are you doing that? Start creating social media posting. You know, you can automate it, or you can use someone else’s help. You know of success stories and testimonials and special promotions and some personal stories of you know of yourself as a CEO, co-founder of the company, and start posting it like at least three times a week. Any video recordings, any videos, or perhaps you were guesting podcast. So post it on LinkedIn, and you will see that gradually, you’re going to grow your audience and create some strategic partnerships and collaborations and generating organic leads just from doing that basic steps. You know, posting, being strategic about your outreach, your connection request, and starting authentic conversations.

Christian Klepp  29:28

Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, I for myself, can say that everything that you have just said is something that I have done myself. So it’s totally true. And it takes time. It does take time. 

Sivan Ohavim  29:41

It takes time.

Christian Klepp  29:41

It didn’t happen in one week.

Sivan Ohavim  29:43

No, it takes time also to figure out who is your ideal client, for companies who just started, you know, think we were having this conversation right before we started recording, and that could be a pitfall for many companies. Yeah, if you’re working for a company that is too small or perhaps doesn’t have the vision, right, the mindset, the right mindset, that won’t last as a client. So you really need to think also about who do you like to work with? 

Christian Klepp  30:13

That’s right.

Sivan Ohavim  30:15

Who really fits your brand and your vision as a company, and be selective about it.

Christian Klepp  30:21

Absolutely, absolutely okay. So on this topic of growing your audience on LinkedIn, what is the status quo that you passionately disagree with, and why.

Sivan Ohavim  30:35

I disagree with being very sporadic about growing your audience, and it’s a volume and not… and really dismissing the fact that it has to be quality, right? I think that is where a lot of B2B companies are failing. You know, it used to be like that on Instagram. We used to buy followers that are completely irrelevant to the brand, yeah. So being authentic is very important. I disagree with posting content that is too generic and doesn’t communicate. I think personalization is a key right now. So, yeah, you have to put your face out there, and you have to make sure that your content is authentic and resonates. Three people who said that LinkedIn and social selling doesn’t work. That is, again, a one big misconception about social media marketing, social selling, growing in your audience and online community, which is obviously very successful for so many entrepreneurs and companies. So people who just say it doesn’t work, branding and marketing and podcasting and many different strategies, they just have a one, either they failed because they didn’t know what they’re doing. Two, they think too small. They don’t have the vision necessary to grow up their brand. So this is my take on it. Yeah, harsh as it sounds, but…

Christian Klepp  32:11

It’s not harsh at all. It’s the truth. It’s the reality of it.

Sivan Ohavim  32:15

Yeah, it’s the truth. You can’t say that like, Oh no, it doesn’t matter if I have followers. No, it does matter. Even if you’re a B2B, it does matter.

Christian Klepp  32:24

That’s right, that’s right. Okay, so here comes the bonus question, sure, if you had the opportunity to go and learn a new skill, what would it be, and why?

Sivan Ohavim  32:37

I would learn architecture. Yeah. Yes, I’m a designer. I’m an interior designer, but, you know, I mean, I also B2B marketer, but I love art, and if I had way of, like, wanting back in time, I would study architecture in Italy, probably.

Christian Klepp  32:59

Probably, probably, and you’d end up doing an internship with Daniel Libeskind or something like that,

Sivan Ohavim  33:06

And because art is just one of my passions,

Christian Klepp  33:10

Yeah, yeah. Well, that’s amazing. That’s amazing. Sivan, thank you so much for your time. This has been such a great conversation. And please quick introduction to yourself and how people out there can get in touch with you.

Sivan Ohavim  33:22

Sure. So I’m Sivan. I’m the founder of Elevate media. We specialize in helping B2B companies grow their LinkedIn audience with smart and strategic outreach. We look at content distributions and strategies that can grow your brand and get you high authority, high quality leads so you can grow your business. So you can contact me on LinkedIn again, Sivan Ohavim, or you can book a time with me right here for one on one consultation. Here is that calendar link. 

Christian Klepp  33:56

Fantastic, fantastic. Alright, and we will be sure to put that in the show notes. So once again, Sivan, thank you so much for your time. Take care, stay safe and talk to you soon. 

Sivan Ohavim  34:05

Oh, yes, absolutely. We’ll talk soon. 

Christian Klepp  34:07

Thank you. Bye, for now. 

Sivan Ohavim  34:12

Bye.