How to Use DMs to Contact and Drive Real Results w/ Aaron Patton

UX Marketing

Aaron Patton

Blake: [00:00:00] Perfect. We are live on the podcast today with Erin Patton, where we're going to be talking about prospecting and networking, but through some different channels that maybe we haven't discussed here on the podcast before. Before we get into that, Erin, how's your day going?

[00:00:15] Aaron: [00:00:15] Fantastic. Blake, thanks for having me on and hello everyone.

[00:00:18] Blake: [00:00:18] Super excited. I would love to get some context on you as a person, as a professional. Before we dive into the details here. So just to give the audience an idea of who they're, who they're working with here, could you just give us the story of your career so far, briefly as to where you started to, how you got where you are now.

[00:00:35] Aaron: [00:00:35] Sure. Absolutely. So myself and just a regular guy, I, I went through life just a regular path like most of us do. I was just accepted to go to high school, try to get good grades, go to college, get a job, right. The normal path that we're all used to and accustomed to. And I, my parents, had done that.

[00:00:52] They were. Good students. And that was the just accepted way. So I didn't really have any thoughts to do anything else like entrepreneurship wise or, or any other path that was, that was my journey. So went to college, got a job in sales, and worked at about four or five different companies in sales and software, software's a service companies, and then really just hit a wall in my later twenties, and decided that I don't want to do this long term.

[00:01:16] So I essentially started over. I quit my job. I did a little traveling, was playing a little poker. That was a serious hobby of mine. So, trying to chase the dream of not really waking up and go into an office every day, like someone you have a dream about. And, I quickly realized that I don't want to spend all my time at a casino.

[00:01:37] So I decided that I wanted to take some of the reasons why I did love that game. And parlay it into a more productive and business oriented manner. so I came up with podcasting, content creation, first and foremost just to learn how to do online business, but also to be creating content at the same time.

[00:01:56] So kind of learning with the audience. And then it's been about 15 months now, and I feel like I'm in a place where I can. You know, actually launched something decent on my own and help people in their endeavors for what they want to do online. So that's the route that I'm going for this year, and I'm putting a hard focus on building up a little community and membership group to enable people to do just that.

[00:02:18] Blake: [00:02:18] And what would you say your professional superpower

[00:02:20] Aaron: [00:02:20] is. Professional superpower for me is definitely prospecting. It's, getting in touch with the right people, excuse me, the right people, the decision makers, people that, are actually going to be able to either purchase a product or service, like in my sales job or in this case for podcasting, be a guest on the show.

[00:02:41] And part of my show for new age influencers is to try to get people that are really living a true online. You know, dream based lifestyle, and sometimes it's really hard to get in touch with these people, but I felt like it was my duty to, to try as hard as I can to get as high quality guests as possible so that they can give back advice and lessons that they've used in their lives to attain success and give it back to the audience.

[00:03:07] So that's what I try to do every single week, week in and week out. Well,

[00:03:10] Blake: [00:03:10] let's dive into your superpower then and start with the very foundation. I'm curious how you would recommend going about starting to establish herself. So if first off, how you can identify the proper niche for you and then beyond that, just establishing yourself as somebody that anybody should listen

[00:03:29] Aaron: [00:03:29] to.

[00:03:30] Yeah, sure. So, I think. First it comes down to, you know, like what Gary V always says is self-awareness, right? You need to figure out what drives you, what, what you actually enjoy doing, what you have fun doing. Because the internet game, content creation game, it's a hard game and there's a lot of effort on the front end with minimal payoff, but if you keep with it and stick with it, the pay off will come eventually.

[00:03:53] But the, the regular person in society doesn't have that mindset. So it's very hard for them to keep at something for that long without an actual payoff. So that's why I say I'm part of my whole shtick is the new age lifestyle, which is the internet lifestyle. But part of that is really having fun first, so whatever you want to try to pursue, make sure that you at least are interested in it or have fun.

[00:04:19] I see so many people out there making the mistake that they think that they want to be a social media guru or they think they want to be a real estate agent online or they think they want to be this or that, when in reality, they really just want to do that because they see other people having success in it and they think that that's what glamour looks like.

[00:04:38] But that's really not the case. You've got to figure out what drives you. Like whether it's a hobby fishing or whether it's something that you're doing right now professionally, whatever you're doing, if you enjoy it, keep with it. But if you don't, they'll be afraid to switch it up and make sure that you can actually pursue something that you can commit to.

[00:04:55] And if you don't know what that is, well, the only really way to find that out is to experiment with different things and try it out. And it's okay to experiment and fail and not, you know, continue to pursue that path if it's not right for you. But that's the first part. So the first part is just finding out what, what lights you up and what you have fun doing.

[00:05:13] And then the second part is creating a plan and a concept, where you can be proud to pitch it to people. So for me, for the podcast, I came up with this concept because I really enjoy talking to different types of people in the poker. arena and learning their stories. So I, I said to myself, I want to do this in online business.

[00:05:32] So I wanted to learn from people doing it out there in the space, and I pursued them on the, and Instagram and the DMS. And I just prospecting my head off and I pitched them the concept of new age influencers as I want to give. The people that don't have knowledge, knowledge from the people who have it.

[00:05:50] And so that was my concept pitch. I was very regimented with it. I took all the skills that I had learned in software sales and applied it to pretty much Instagram DMS. Yes, I would have some email reach out. If people weren't responding to DMS, but, it was mainly DNS. I had a whole Excel spreadsheet. I had, all my prospects of guests that I wanted to have on the show.

[00:06:10] I would reach out to them. I would Mark whether they saw that message or not, I would Mark whether they responded back, if they committed to being a guest, if they showed up all the different data behind the scenes. I was just very organized with it at the start and, I got a lot of nos at the beginning.

[00:06:24] Like anyone, you know, would get, when you're starting something new, it's not going to be easy cause you don't have any established reputation or social proof yet. So I would reach out to maybe a hundred people, maybe 20% of them would actually get back to me. And then maybe half of those people would say that they're on board for an interview and then maybe half of those people would show up.

[00:06:45] So a hundred reach outs. Three interviews, you know, so it's, it's hard. But I, I, and, and a lot of people wouldn't have that if they weren't reaching out, if they were reaching out to more, you know, kind of, reg regular, you know, people that haven't made it already, but I wanted to differentiate my show, whereas I wanted to start out with a bang.

[00:07:05] People that had some social influence online for that credibility factor. So that's why I put in so much effort to try to get really good guests right from the get.

[00:07:15] Blake: [00:07:15] I do have a question regarding the DM thing. So you, you mentioned if maybe on average you outreach to a hundred people, maybe you'll get 300 views in return.

[00:07:24] Okay, so that's 3% conversion rate. You can live with that. You're at least you're getting interviews. I'm curious though, because. Often the advice that we get as side hustlers is you have to be consistent for a long periods of time. You have to be okay with not seeing results upfront to get results down the road, but there are certain instances where it just doesn't work, where whatever your idea is, it's just not going to work.

[00:07:47] And I'm curious if you have any ideas as to when to actually quit, when did actually stop? If there are any indicators that you seen that say, consistency really isn't going to fix this.

[00:07:59] Aaron: [00:07:59] Got it. Yeah, no, that's a great question. so first I would say that do your best to make it as good as possible. Get as good of a pitch as possible.

[00:08:08] So for me, I already had like good looking cover art already done. I had the show concept in my head, so it was clear for me. It wasn't like I was reaching out to these people like. You know, in a shy manner or shy nature. I was like, no. I was like, this is what I'm doing. Like if you're on board, fantastic.

[00:08:24] Would love to have you as a pioneer guest. If not, no worries. Have a good day. Like I was, I was explicit with it like that. but what I would say is if you're reaching out to a bunch of people and you're not getting even a three or four or 5% conversion rate on what you're sending out, no matter what you're doing, doesn't have to be podcasting.

[00:08:41] It could be like a YouTube show or it could just be like feedback on our product, whatever. I would say that you should just go to your immediate circle of family and friends and ask them what they think of it and then take that feedback. But but mirror it against strangers feedback. So not only go to your inner circle of family and friends and ask them what they think like honestly, because a lot of them would just not want to hurt your feelings, but just be like, honestly, tell me what you think it is.

[00:09:07] Is it, is it a good idea or not? And you will not hurt my feelings if you say no, you have to have, you have to be, have a strong back. and then go to maybe some random meetup groups in your area, in your city or online or whatever, and or Facebook groups and post something and ask people for feedback on the idea and the concept.

[00:09:24] So that way you're getting immediate feedback from the people that you're closest to and also feedback from people that are strangers. And if the consensus is maybe you should work on some things a little more, or your message is not clear on who it's for or what you're doing. Or you just feel like people are suggesting things because they don't think that your idea is the best.

[00:09:45] You know, probably no one's going to come out right and say your idea sucks. Right. But you know, you can kind of tell if people aren't truly on board with what you're pitching. if they're not using exclamation points, are happy about what you're doing or whatever, like you can, you can tell. So that's what I would say, you know, first, first, do what your best of your ability reach out.

[00:10:02] And if you're just not getting any responses, like reaching out a hundred people and not giving anything back, like maybe something's wrong there, go to your friends and family, go to some strangers, figure it out. And if they say that it could be improved and just rework it a little bit and try again.

[00:10:17] But a lot of people are too stubborn to do that. Unfortunately, but that's just the way that it has to go.

[00:10:23] Blake: [00:10:23] Yeah. I appreciate that cause I want to lay the foundation for this whole thing before we actually get into the tactics of doing the outreach, which is the second part of it. But part one is the behind the scenes stuff that nobody sees the all the setup.

[00:10:35] And now that we've kind of covered that, I would love to go through. A couple of different formats that you could do outreach through, so DMS podcasting and other content creation as well that have worked for you. We can start you. You've already touched a lot on the DM side of things. I'm curious if there, if there are any other really practical tips that people can use that you've seen really make for more effective conversion.

[00:10:59] The conversions on DMS.

[00:11:02] Aaron: [00:11:02] Got it. Yeah, so I mean, the, the biggest one that I would say, and it's, it's pretty obvious once I say it, but a lot of people just don't take advantage of it. And that's using the voice feature and using the video feature and the DMS, you will get a response back from a personal video DM that you send someone like 50 times greater than you would just texting out a message no matter who it is, whether it's a big time influencer entrepreneur or just your friend Chris, like.

[00:11:31] You know, if someone sees your face and there's a personal message and it's a video, like they're going to at least try to be like, Oh man, I should respond to this guy with at least something like, he took all this time out of his day to send me something like, yeah, you should. You should do that. So, and then a step down is for his voice DM.

[00:11:49] But I like the voice DM better because I can do a lot more of them in a shorter period of time. Video DMS, that takes a lot of time, especially if you're sending like 25, 30, 35 a day or more. so the voice DM, I mean, especially as me as a podcast, or I'm using my voice all the time, so I just, I S I just pumped out voice DMS all the time and it doesn't even have to be the people I'm trying to.

[00:12:09] You know, prospect or get on guests, just people that maybe have liked a photo of mine or interacted with a podcast account or given a comment and be like, Hey man, I appreciate you taking some time to, interact with the account. let me know if you ever have any opinions or feedback on the recent episode.

[00:12:24] Would love to hear your, your opinion or something like that. You know, just something light and, you know, it just works magic for so many different reasons. Whether you're, again, thanking someone or you're actually prospecting. So that's the reason I'm so high on the DMS is because you can do voice and you can do video.

[00:12:43]and I think you can on most of the social media platforms, maybe I have to double check, but Instagram is my main, my main gig is to where I spend my time. And if they are just not responding or they never see a DMS, I go to email and I try email and I just send some short concise emails to the point with good subject lines.

[00:13:03]to make sure that, you know, someone can actually see it, whether it's their assistant or themselves or whoever.

[00:13:09] Blake: [00:13:09] Well, why, you mentioned the email, so what, what's, what are some of the little tricks that go into a good subject line and then we'll move on to some podcasting stuff.

[00:13:18] Aaron: [00:13:18] Yeah. So I really, I just always think like, put yourself in the end person's shoes.

[00:13:24] And that's what social media and sales is at the end of the day. It's like, how are you making other people feel? Or how do other people perceive what you're sending them. So if you send an email with a subject with all caps saying free something, like chances are it's not gonna get open cause they get tons of emails like that.

[00:13:41] So I, the first little tip, I always keep it lower case, never upper case. So it's, you know, when you get an email from a friend, you know, they don't take the time to like punctuate or make a nice capitals and things like, it's just like lowercase. Like, Hey, can you look at this? Or something. Like, it doesn't even have to be.

[00:13:58] It truly about the message, but it should relate in some way, or like, Hey, can you look at this for a second? Like that's much more laid back, conversational. Then here's a message, for mr or something, something or whatever. Like, just try to keep it casual, keep it light, and just what would a friend send you and then do that, you know, whatever your topic is.

[00:14:19] And

[00:14:19] Blake: [00:14:19] that probably applies across the board to DMS or any other way you can outreach. Probably just being a little bit more personable. Then robotic.

[00:14:28] Aaron: [00:14:28] Yeah. Really on anything. the key to, yeah. I mean, we can go into a tons of keys to selling, but like, you know, sales, just networking, everything like people, you know, if you're someone that's going up and you're, and people can tell that you've said this a million times to the millions of different people and it's just been practiced and there's no like, personality or personable approach involved.

[00:14:47] Like they can sense that and that's going to make people feel kind of gross on the inside. So you just want to be real with people on the phone. you know, in person, whatever, just be a real person, especially this decade, like, it's just going to get more and more important because there are so many, you know, fake quote unquote fake people out there trying to do it.

[00:15:07]and trying to, you know, maybe either scam or just pretend there's something they're not. So it's a breath of fresh air when you come across someone that actually can help you or do what they say they're going to do and do it. And a real nature. Let's, let's

[00:15:20] Blake: [00:15:20] go into podcasting then, and prospecting and outreach specifically through

[00:15:24] Aaron: [00:15:24] podcasts.

[00:15:27]in what context do you mean? Yeah, so just

[00:15:30] Blake: [00:15:30] I guess what's the most effective way to do that? I guess if you, if you are a podcaster, for example, looking to get guests on your show or looking to get listeners, what's the most effective strategy you've seen for, for doing that? For reaching out to those potential prospects.

[00:15:46] Aaron: [00:15:46] Like just the details of what I say in the DMS. Sure. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I keep it light and casual and I try to exude, you know, confidence and just believe in what I'm saying. And it helps right now because I've done it for 15 months, so I have an established guest bank of people that it can be like, Oh, okay, he's done a lot of episodes with some good people.

[00:16:05] Like, I, I should actually take a look at this. but really what I would, I mean, I would just send a quick voice DM. I mean, I'd just say something like, we like, Hey Blake. my name is Aaron. I host the new age influencers podcast. I just want to say, man, I absolutely love your content, your message, what you're about.

[00:16:21] I think you'd be a fantastic guest for the show if you ever have...