The Social Media Takeaway - Louise McDonnell

5 Ways to Transform Sales Conversations with Niraj Kapur

• Louise McDonnell • Season 1 • Episode 71

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In this episode of The Social Media Takeaway, I had the pleasure of chatting with Niraj Kaur, bestselling author of Everybody Works In Sales. Niraj shares his journey from struggling in sales to becoming a top performer, highlighting the power of self-development, the right mindset, and practical strategies for handling objections and ghosting. We also dive into how to use LinkedIn effectively while staying authentic.

If you’re a coach, consultant, or service-based entrepreneur who wants to feel more confident selling your offers, this episode is for you.

You’ll learn:
✅ Why mindset and habits are the foundation of sales success
✅ How to reframe “selling” as helping to overcome fear
✅ Smart ways to handle objections and turn pushback into opportunities
✅ Practical strategies for following up and dealing with ghosting
✅ How to use LinkedIn to build genuine connections and grow your business

SHOW CHAPTERS
0:00 Forget About Selling For One Second...
0:38 Introduction and Guest Welcome
1:36 The Journey to Sales Mastery
2:11 Mindset and Attitude in Sales
3:41 The Importance of Coaching and Continuous Learning
6:21 Challenges and Realities of Sales
7:32 Overcoming Sales Fears and Building Good Habits
11:10 Handling Objections and Client Follow-ups
13:08 Effective Sales Conversations
13:59 The Art of Asking Questions
15:49 Dealing with Client Ghosting
18:50 Effective Communication on LinkedIn
21:01 The Power of Personal Stories
24:50 The Reality of Social Media Success
25:52 Using AI in Business
29:10 Final Takeaways

Connect with Niraj
LinkedIn

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If you'd like to book a call to see how I can support you head over to my website here. www.sellonsocialmedia.academy/hello

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Amazon UK
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Louise McDonnell:

So today I am absolutely delighted to be joined by Niraj Kaur. He is the bestselling author of Everybody Works In Sales. He brings over 23 years of invaluable experience spanning various roles in small businesses to fts E 100 companies, his journey from navigating the intricacies of diverse business landscapes has culminated in a profound understanding of sales dynamics. You're very welcome to the show.

Niraj Kapur:

Thank you so much. I love all those big words you used. That makes me sound really important.

Louise McDonnell:

I really had to practice saying them because they're not easy words to say either. So thank you.

Niraj Kapur:

It's good to see you again. Louise.

Louise McDonnell:

Good to see you too. So sales, how did you get so good at sales?

Niraj Kapur:

By being really bad at sales for a very long time that's the first thing you know, people don't realize.'cause a lot of people, when I'm coaching 'em, say, you make it look really easy. I'm like, yeah, but I spent years not being very good. And then I did the smart thing, which most people don't do, is I invested very heavily in myself by reading books every month, by going to conferences a few times a year. And by getting a sales coach, that is how you become exceptional at sales. You don't become exceptional by guessing. A lot of Irish people think, oh, I'll just do it through the gift of the gab. I'm Irish, and don't get me wrong, some Irish people do have the gift of the gab, but for most of them, they have to work on it,

Louise McDonnell:

it's so true. I have this thing, I don't know if you agree with me, like I think most people are allergic to sales.

Niraj Kapur:

When I speak to people, so my LinkedIn dms are very busy, so the number of people who reach out to me going, look, I really hate sales. Can you do it for me? No, not in a million years. That's not my job. My job is to teach you how to do it so you become better, and I empower you a number of people say, look, I hate sales. Are there any cheat sheets you can tell me? No, there's no cheat sheets. There's no easy answers. You have to put in the work. You're gonna become good at anything in life. You have to put in the work. And I think a lot of it's about rejection of course, as well. When you, are in sales, you're always gonna get rejection nobody likes to be rejected, and that's the problem you have. It's overcoming the initial barrier of people hanging up on the phone, people ignoring you, people ghosting you. And of course if you're a business owner, you take that very personally because it's your business and you have to generate revenue, and you have to earn and make a living and take care of your family or, pay your bills. There's a lot of emotions and a lot of intricacies and a lot of complicated issues involved when it comes to sales. But in terms of learning about sales, majority of it, believe it or not is the mindset, and a majority of it is your attitude towards sales. And how much you really want to learn sales. So I guess you could say it's about mindset, attitude, and also having a bit of a desire and a bit of a hunger to actually want to do well.

Louise McDonnell:

Yeah, and I've said this before when we talk about sales. I think that people think that marketing replaces sales and that they don't realize that sales is a function of marketing. That without the sales, the marketing just becomes a waste of time. Yeah, I think so. So you tell us about the book. Everybody works in sales.

Niraj Kapur:

Spends almost 23 years in the corporate world. It was only really in my 11th year I would say, I became a decent salesperson and in my 16th year I started to hit president clubs and become the top 1% because I got a coach. I started reading books, started going to conferences, and I loved it. I was what you would call a player coach. So I spent half my day selling like everybody else, and half my day coaching my team to success, and in all fairness, coaching my team to success. Gimme greater joy. Taking somebody who was an introvert, not making 'em an extrovert, but giving them more confidence was very important to me. Taking somebody who was an A player and making 'em an A plus player, that's really hard to do, but that was important. Taking a B player, making'em an A player, I can't tell you the joy you get from helping people do that, especially young people. They really appreciate it and I thought, this is what I wanna do with my life. The problem was around 2016, 2017, Louise most. Most companies weren't investing properly in their teams, and profit became the number one thing. Of course, businesses are built for profit. We know this, but you have to invest in your team. You have to coach your team, and the companies I was working for weren't doing that, so I thought, you know what? I wanted to do this myself, but I had no idea how to, being good at your job and being good at running a business. Are two completely different skills. I'm very good at sales, but I have no idea how to run a business, and I found it very difficult. I thought, I need something, I need some kind of hook to attract people. So I wrote, everybody Works in Sales, and the reason I became an international bestseller in 12 countries is because I thought, okay, I can't compete with the best salespeople in the world who've written books. There's nothing I can say that's gonna be smarter or better than that. So what I did was I told my story. Of my 23 years in sales and my life and how I'd feel so much and overcome that failure. And because most sales books are very showoffy and my book was about struggle and overcoming failure, people reacted to it emotionally and they really invested in it. And I got amazing reviews and they recommended it to friends, and they gifted it to friends and salespeople were buying it for their sales teams. And all of a sudden the book just took off. There's certain moments you have in your life, in your career that you never forget, and that was definitely one of those moments

Louise McDonnell:

I can imagine like a number one bestseller in, how did you say, 12, 13 countries?

Niraj Kapur:

It wasn't number one, it was a Amazon bestseller in 12 different countries. That's amazing. It's currently on about 110 reviews worldwide. Half the people who've reviewed the book, I have no idea who they are, which is even better. I really have no idea, but I'm very grateful to them. But here's the thing. Nobody tells you about being a bestseller after a few months. The royalties run out. And so I was enjoying life. I'm like, this is brilliant. This life's a bestseller. People say it takes five years to make a business successful. I'm successful in three months. What are you talking about? And after month three, the royalties went from thousands of pounds a month. It's hundreds of pounds a month, which for those listing in south of Ireland are talking about two or 300 euros. You cannot pay your mortgage in two or 300 euros a month. You can't feed a family of two or 300 euros a month. And all of a sudden I'm having a major panic thinking, what am I supposed to do? How do I make money? So of course I went on LinkedIn, buy my book, buy my coaching, nobody cared. And that shocked me. That really shocked me 'cause I was just another solopreneur, another business owner trying to make it in a sea of crowded business owners. There was nothing really new or different about me after I'd sold several thousand copies of the book and major panic set in. And sometimes in life you have to really struggle and go through difficult times. Before you become better at anything. And that's what I always say to people that are working in sales. It's okay to be terrible at the beginning. It's okay to start off at the bottom. That's how you get better.

Louise McDonnell:

So tell us like for somebody who's sitting here now going, okay. I know I'm particularly crap at sales. I know there was a girl I used to work with and, she'd say to me, please Louise, please just don't ask me to do those calls. She said I'd rather stick a pin in my eye. Then do those calls. So like where do you start? Obviously by your book. And for anyone who's just listening in here, what are the steps you advise that somebody should follow to have better sales conversations?

Niraj Kapur:

Okay, so if somebody says they're terrified of sales, what you can't say is, Don't worry. Just try it. You just can't say that. Not to an introvert or a shy person. You can't. So what I talk about are reframes. So I always say to people, look, forget about selling for one second. You're not selling to anybody. You're helping people. And the fact is that most people, even those who are shy, even those who are introverts, even those who cannot think of anything worse than picking up the phone and calling somebody, or even sending an email to a stranger, everybody wants to help somebody. And if you say to yourself, I'm not selling, I'm helping somebody. That change of attitude and that change of mindset means you're more likely to contact the person. It means you're more likely to be a person of value, which really what selling is you can call it a transfer of energy. You can call it a transfer of value. You can call it helping people, you can call it serving people. All of those are absolutely fine, by the way. But that's what sales is. And when I talk to people who are introvert or shy or terrified of sales and tell'em to take that attitude, it's amazing how many of them. Sometimes they'll do it immediately.

Louise McDonnell:

It's so true actually.

Niraj Kapur:

Don't forget, even my business is now seven years old and the first few years are very tough because I was trying to learn how to run a business. And then of course I went through a traumatic divorce for a year. That knocked me out completely. And then lockdown happened. And all these things happen in life. And sometimes you have big life moments which do affect your confidence and do affect your sales. It's moments like that really define you, and it's really important people understand that in sales, that you know it's okay to go through difficult times. It doesn't really matter. We all go through difficult times. It's not what happens to you, it's how you react to what happens to you, and it's how you deal with it. That's why the first thing I deal with when I work with anybody, Louise, is I have to work on your mindset. I have to work on your routines. I have to work on your habits. That's the first thing I do. Because if we can't get that right, nothing I teach you is gonna make any difference at all.

Louise McDonnell:

Okay, great. So the first thing is to stop thinking about that you're selling and to start, that you're helping. What else would you recommend people do?

Niraj Kapur:

The second thing is I work out good habits with people. So when I ask most people, what do you do when you wake up in the morning? 99 times over a hundred, they look at their phone, then they get distracted, then they go onto social media, then they're on the toilet, looking at their phone. It's just bad habit. And I say, okay let's change your habits. Okay? Let's wake up state of gratitude and spend 60 seconds talking about everything you're grateful for. You can do this out loudly. Or do it in your mind, or go into the next room and do, it doesn't really matter, but wake up in gratitude. Something as simple as, I'm so grateful I have fresh water by my bedside. I'm so grateful. I got heating in the winter. I'm so grateful. I got a lovely bed I can sleep on. I'm so grateful. I have a partner in my bed. I'm so grateful. I have kids in the house. I'm so grateful I have a cat or a dog. I'm so grateful my parents are alive. I went to the coffee shop, got a soy flat white. I went for a lovely walk. Came back in, hadn't even looked at my phone yet, and all of a sudden I'm networking with people. So your habits and your routines you have in life have a profound impact in your business and in your everyday sales.

Louise McDonnell:

Very good. And you talk about handling objections. So let's say you're on a call and you're doing all the right things. You've started it off and you know you're helping somebody. But when somebody pushes back, what do you do?

Niraj Kapur:

First of all, you need to welcome it. A lot of people wanna get pushed back, start getting nervous and thinking, oh God, i'm losing this deal. Again, that's all about habits. Attitude, things like that. If somebody offers me an objection, it's how you perceive it. I look at that as a really good signal for growth. And the person wants to buy from me because they're asking questions, they're showing potential interest. A very common one right now, it's called back in three months. That's what you hear a lot. Most people make the mistake, of course. I'll call you back in three months and in three months time you call the person and you can't get hold of them, or they forget who you are and you have to start again, and it's a complete waste of time. So when a client says to me, call back in three months, the first thing I say is, I'll be more than happy to what time? On what day And I send 'em an invite so at least it's in the diary, which is very important. The second thing I say is, three months is a long time in business. I wanna make sure I'm still giving you value. Is it okay if I send you some valuable content every week or every two weeks? I promise not to spam you. I just wanna make sure you're getting good value until we speak again. And about 70% of the people will say yes. 30% will say no. They're gonna be a much tougher client to convert because they're really not interested. But don't forget, sometimes when people aren't interested, they can't say no. So they drag you along so they can't say no to your face. It is a hard thing to do sometimes, but I'm constantly giving value and it means that three months later when I call you A, it's in the diary. And B, I've given you three months worth of insight on LinkedIn or on sales strategies. Therefore, you're a much warmer client. And therefore when we have this conversation, you're almost like halfway through the sales process. It's a big difference to starting again, to being halfway through the sales process.

Louise McDonnell:

And what are some good questions to ask when you're having those phone calls?

Niraj Kapur:

The initial phone call or the follow up one.

Louise McDonnell:

Any sales initial or follow up? Start with the initial.

Niraj Kapur:

Okay. So I had a LinkedIn Inquirer this morning. I just says, wanna have rates for your LinkedIn training? And I'm like before I quote you rates, I have no idea what you want. Okay. I love when people just say quote me. I'm like, quote you what? LinkedIn training, but what does that mean? So an hour,

Louise McDonnell:

two days, a week, a month

Niraj Kapur:

What we do is not copy and paste. You have to spend time preparing for every single call in detail. And almost everybody you work with is different. It's boutique and crafted, especially for you to get you the best results because if I get you the best results, you're going to gimme a recommendation to somebody else, hopefully, or you're at least gonna gimme a recommendation on LinkedIn. That's not gonna happen unless I overdeliver for you. So I have to create the best environment to get results for you. And I ask questions like, what do you want to achieve? Which is a very important question. Why do you want to achieve it? Because understanding somebody's why helps you understand them. How committed are you to achieving this? That's a very powerful coaching question. If somebody says seven outta 10 or six outta 10, they're going to be a pain to work with. If somebody says nine or 10 outta 10, they're gonna be 10. Outta 10 is obviously ideal, but if they say even eight or nine, they're gonna be okay to work with. And I always say them, what kind of budget? You must have had a thought about this. What kind of budget do you have set aside? And that's very important.'cause if they say a few hundred pounds, you know you've got a lot of work to do. Or you just say no straight away. If they say, I've got about a thousand, 2000, you think, okay, I can spend more time talking to you and I can take my time getting to know you.'cause you really are a potential customer. But you gotta be careful in the questions as well. You'll not ask more than say three or four questions in a row. And then once you've asked those questions, you wanna repeat the answers back to the person because it shows you're listening. Most people in sales calls do not listen. What they do is they listen artificially and then try to sell their product or service. So what you must do after you've asked these questions is make sure you're taking notes and then repeat the highlights of those notes back to the person to make sure they know you have listened. And then to ask, is there anything else I might have missed that shows a bit more humility? You're a bit more humble and it shows you a link to learn more as well and these are all simple questions and processes. I teach people in coaching because sales is a bit of an art form, it's a bit of a science too, of course, but there's certain ways and systems of doing things and once you understand these things, sales becomes a bit easier. It's never easy, but it's easier.

Louise McDonnell:

Yeah, that makes total sense. What do you do then if somebody's ghosting you?

Niraj Kapur:

The mistake most people make when they get ghosted is do nothing, which is a terrible thing to do. They will send 'em a follow up email to say, hi, I've not heard back from you. What are your thoughts on my email? Which is a terrible thing to do and rarely gets a response. The smart thing to do is to contact the person and empathize. There's no doubt being a business owner. You're super busy right now juggling staff or juggling offices or juggling your business. You have to understand how busy people are. You are not taught with our priority list. They've got a hundred other things to do as well. So the first thing you do is empathize. Second of all, I should have done some research in their field. So i'm working with somebody right now in the AI industry, and so I said, here's, I gave a talk about two weeks ago in London on ai. And here's a list of the top five soft skills people need in business. I hope this is useful to you. Notice I haven't said, why haven't you returned my phone call? I gave you so much of my time earlier. I'm giving tremendous value to people. Now, does that guarantee somebody will return my call or reply to my email? No, it's not a guarantee. I get a much higher rate of response, which is what you want when you're getting ghosted. You want people to respond to you and the response saying, I'm really sorry, I've been super busy. Or the response saying, you know what? We've changed our minds. Or sometimes the response saying, you know what? We find somebody else who is cheaper, in which case you've got a response and that saves you time going forward. There's nothing worse than chasing a client for three months or six months. It really is. It's frustrating.

Louise McDonnell:

So you wanna

Niraj Kapur:

get an answer from people sooner rather than later.

Louise McDonnell:

And tell me when somebody then has an objection around price, how do you handle that?

Niraj Kapur:

Okay, so you and I are talking and I want to sell, say LinkedIn training to you. And you go to me Nira 1200 pound for four sessions. You're too expensive. The big mistake people make is they go yeah, but I'm an award-winning company and my customer service is really amazing. And what they do is they start defending themselves and they start speaking too quickly. That's the most common objection I see. Or sometimes they just sit there in silence thinking, oh God and they're almost like a deer in headlights. They're like almost frozen because they don't know how to respond. So bear in mind, the person you're talking to is a human being. Have a conversation with them like they're a human being, not a prospect, not a potential client, a human being. So Louise, you said'em too expensive. Compared to who? And you listen to the answer and you might say, compared to one of your competitors. I'm like, okay, cool. So out of curiosity, what is the competitor offering that I'm not offering? And again, you listen and you take notes. You're not trying to sell at this point. You're taking a step back and you're trying to understand the decision they are making. And last question I have, is there anything else I've missed in this process? There's anything that's truly bothering in the business that I haven't paid attention to, and you listen again. So you see what I'm doing here. I'm not trying to defend my position. I'm not saying to anybody, come on, I've written three bestselling books. I'm a 10 x speaker. You should be paying a lot of money for my services. No, I'm not saying any of that. I'm asking questions and I'm trying to understand the person's position as to why they are doing what they are doing. That's very important. And again, I observe demos every single week on Zoom or Teams. I listen to phone calls every Friday morning. I listen to clients' phone calls for at least half an hour, 40 minutes. I rarely hear people say that when it comes to objections.

Louise McDonnell:

Very good. That's very interesting, isn't it? And so tell me then, I know you're a big fan of LinkedIn as well. So how do you translate all of your expertise over to LinkedIn because you have a really successful LinkedIn profile as well?

Niraj Kapur:

The way I communicate on LinkedIn is different.'cause LinkedIn, I use video and I use voice notes and people always say to me how do you communicate on video? Do you have a camera set up? What do you do? I'm like, no, this is how I communicate on LinkedIn.

Louise McDonnell:

Sorry.

Niraj Kapur:

I literally have my phone and I speak into the camera. That's it. There's no editing, there's no software. I pick up the phone, I look into it and I'll say to somebody thank you so much for commenting on my profile. I had a look at your LinkedIn profile. I looked at some of the posts you've done. I noticed you share posts. Instead of writing original content, even though sharing posts is a lovely thing to do, you don't build following, you don't generate leads, and you don't become a thought leader by resharing posts, but writing original content you do. If you want me to share some other LinkedIn advice, happy to have our 10 or 15 minute call with you. Thank you. Here are my details. That is really important and a really good way of communicating with somebody because I'm saying, here's how you're doing something. Here is a much better way of doing something, and if you want to learn more, I'm happy to have a brief chat for 10 or 15 minutes. I'm not saying, here's my program. I'm not saying If you want some LinkedIn training, please contact me. I am being a person of value and I'm helping somebody out. Now again, I'd probably say half people come back to me going. Thank you very much. About 40% of people ignore me and 10% of people go, oh my God, that's amazing. Thank you. Can we have a meeting? And I'll have a meeting with those people. And sometimes I just leave them better off than how I found them, and sometimes they go. I'd like to inquire more about your coaching. Can you tell me more about that? Please. And that's how you do business. Again, it's very conversational, it's very helpful. They're not getting 20 emails from me a month, they're just getting, it's almost like a human way of doing business in a very technology driven world.

Louise McDonnell:

Very good. And so what are you seeing is working right? So you're obviously doing all that in the direct messages and dms. Yeah. In terms of like content creation to get your message out there and to be seen by hundreds of thousands of people. Now, I know you had a very successful post this week. How many comments did you have on that Wonderful post?

Niraj Kapur:

The post went viral. It's on about 130,000 impressions right now, but again, the posted so well. Because I proposed to my partner and I could have just said, she said yes and put a picture of a wedding ring and I would've done okay. But what I said was, after my divorce, I never thought I'd find love again. Everybody knows what it's like to have their heart broken and to be a bit cynical about love, but I never stop believing. It's so easy to become cynical in life when you've had your heart broken. It's so easy to become cynical in business. Clients like you Don, or they don't pay their bills or they choose somebody else. It's so easy to become negative, and I was very hurt for a long time after my divorce, but I remained positive. And because my first marriage was arranged, I knew my wife for 20 minutes and we got married four days later in front of 600 strangers in India. It was terrifying this time I wanted to do it right. So I went to Rachel's closest friends saying, can you please help me do this? And they were over the moon and happy to help me. And we had two meetings in private. I had to say I was off to networking events and I met them at the Bush Mills Inn and I got the staff at the Bush Mills Inn who were amazing. And we had balloons, which we had to blow up. We had champagne. We had. Strawberries and chocolate. We had heart shaped bowls full of lin chocolate.'cause Lin's, her favorite chocolate. We went to Tommy had candles they bought lavender candles. She's allergic to lavender. We had to replace 'em with vanilla, and it was just like this whole big operation. And when I went to the bathroom, I gave her friends my key card to my room, and they spent 90 minutes doing up the whole room. It was stunning. And then I brought Rachel into the room and I said to her, I never thought I'd find in love again after divorce. Thank you for giving me a place in this world to belong. Thank you for giving me hope. And I got down to my knee and I said, you do me the honor of being my wife. And she cried and said, yes, now that was it. But that only took me 10 minutes to write because it was a real life experience. But people can relate to that on so many levels. But most importantly, it's a story about hope. And people need more hope in this world. And when you do posts like that, people really engage with it on another level. They really do.

Louise McDonnell:

Yeah. It just goes to show, we were having the chats before we press record on this, I loved how you said that there was people commenting on that post that you hadn't seen comment on a post in six years,

Niraj Kapur:

it's a big surprise people, 'cause I lived in England for, almost 30 years and just, after my divorce I was really. Damaged and hurt badly by it. And then lockdown came along and I wasn't making any money and I was living off bounce back loans and huge debt. And my mental health really started failing badly. I don't do drugs, I don't smoke. I'm not abusive, so I just get my feelings. And I ballooned from 14 stone to over 20 stone. I lost about five stone. My father said you live in this house. You live here rent free, but there's certain rules you have to abide by. My father's a very strict man still, even one, he's still strict, and he goes, you have to spend one hour a day reading about stoicism and mindset, emotional intelligence. You have to go to that gym every day. You can't be a mess. Look at you. He's also an immigrant who's got no subtlety. Look at you for God's sake. You sort yourself out. And you have to have family dinners five nights a week at seven. The rest of the time is not my business. But those are the rules. My mother's the complete opposite. She gimme hugs every night, hadn't been hugged for almost a year, and that makes a big difference. Life just getting a hug from a loved one. And she made fresh Indian food every night. She's an amazing cook. So I think the combination of my father's tough love, my mother's maternal love was a perfect combination to help me rebuild myself. I went into therapy, I read every book I could, the stoicism and mindset, and I rebuilt myself and I was very open about it on LinkedIn because, I don't know, sometimes you just wanna tell people what you're going through. And hope it helps one or two more people. And by doing this and by talking about the really severe challenges I was having in life, and more importantly, how I was overcoming them and not being a victim, I started to go viral on LinkedIn. In life you have all these plans, but sometimes other things happen that take you in a completely different direction. And so I became very well known on LinkedIn. But being very well known on LinkedIn and making a lot of money are not the same thing. Most people don't understand that. They go, oh, you're so lucky. You must be loaded. I'm like, no I'm doing better than before. I'm making a living, but I'm just about breaking even. So it's very important. Anybody listening or watching understands that having big numbers. Followers and having big numbers in revenue are not the same thing. I get approached by people with 200,000 followers on Instagram and they can't make money. Some of my clients have over a hundred thousand followers on LinkedIn and they can't make a single penny and they come to me, so please never mistake big following with authority. They're two completely different things. When you work with people, hire people you like. And hire people who have your best interest at heart. That is how you make decisions. Don't make it based on big numbers.

Louise McDonnell:

I always say to people the people that make the most money from social media are not the people with the most followers. They're the people with the biggest email lists.

Niraj Kapur:

That's a very good point.

Louise McDonnell:

It is. Because that's how you scale. So tell me, how are you using ai?

Niraj Kapur:

I use ai. I sometimes use it in email writing because I find it very useful. LinkedIn's ai, unfortunately is not very good. Sorry, LinkedIn, but it's really not good enough. I've actually done posts on LinkedIn of use LinkedIn ai. Against my original posts and my posts been liked vastly more than ai, which were really generic and bland. According to LinkedIn's ai, it's hi, I hope you're well. I see you're connected to this person here. Cheaper. You can't do business in 2025 and beyond with messages like you just can. Yeah, so I obviously, Salesforce, I do a lot of work with them and I speak at their events and their AI is the only one I've seen that's quite exceptional. ZoomInfo and I are starting to really do a very good job with AI and they're almost like prompts. Their prompts are very good. And so I like that. But a lot of the out there is very generic. And right now my LinkedIn dms are bombarded with companies who are saying, hi. I see you talk a lot about AI events. Can you please be to test our platform? Let us know this slide. I'm like, of course I can. Here's my bill for a thousand pound. Who do I send it to? Oh no, we can't pay you. We just want you to beat a test. Like why? It's amazing how many insincere inappropriate people. Are trying to sell AI right now, whether it's AI events, AI networking events, or AI software where they expect you to pay for their services, but they want you to work for free testing their services, it's incredible. So the AI industry is not really well regulated, sadly. Then again, now there's the coaching industry, that's a different conversation. But it's true. I just wish it was better regulated because every single day without feel, I have a CEO of an AI company approach me. And none of 'em sound like, you know what CEOs sound like, none of 'em sound like CEOs. They sound like amateurs who are really trying just to get free advice and free testing, and there's a big difference between that and a CEO.

Louise McDonnell:

So

Niraj Kapur:

again, in business, don't be fine. School by job titles from anybody.

Louise McDonnell:

Exactly. Look I think as well, just to go back a step or two to your very successful post and congratulations, by the way, that is a really lovely story. And you ruined my makeup a little bit while you were telling it, but I, what I'd say, I suppose again and is that it's the emotion. I think when you can get an emotion and you can get authenticity and emotion into a post, you see then how people respond. So I'm not surprised that the Post got 850 comments.

Niraj Kapur:

Final thoughts? I'm gonna go back to something you just said right now 'cause it's really good advice. So many people will often watch on LinkedIn for three months, six months, sometimes even a year. They won't even like a comment in your post. But often they'll reach out to you. That's why showing up is so important. Sales is not something you do when you're falling behind, and that's a mistake I see a lot of people make sales has to be a daily habit. Even today literally 20 minutes before lunch. I followed up with two people. First person wasn't around. The second person was, and I followed up not by email, by picking up this, never underestimate the importance of picking up a phone. People hardly make phone calls ever. I get maybe three, four cold calls a week. I used to get 30 or 40. Now it's only three or four people are not making phone calls, so please show up consistently. Always follow up effectively. Be aware of your mindset when it comes to sales. It's not sales. You're serving and helping people have a positive attitude all the time because you always achieve more with a positive attitude than a negative one. And lastly, if you wanna succeed at anything in life, you hire a coach like me or an expert who can take you there in any field, no matter what that field is. Someone like you or me, Louise, we will take people further way faster. Then if they spent five years learning about it on Google or chat, GBT.

Louise McDonnell:

This is so true. What amazing advice. Thank you so much for coming onto the show and for sharing your advice with us. Now, if people want to check you out and find you, where will they find you?

Niraj Kapur:

If you go to, everybody works in sales. Com or something to UR on LinkedIn. Tell me you've listened to Visa's podcast. I reject most invites I get. So please send me a personalized invite if you can. Because 30,000 is a limit you have on LinkedIn. I'm on 36. Most of those are followers, but many are connections to, so if you can send me a message or a personalized invite, that's even better.

Louise McDonnell:

Excellent. I love it. Thank you so much once again and reach out to, if you need to get better at sales, this is the guy for you and that's definitely the book as well. Everybody works in sales. Niraj Ka, you're very welcome. Thank much.

Niraj Kapur:

Thank you.