Sales vs Marketing: Why You Need Both for Growth with Shannon Kinney

Sep 10

EPISODE: 13

What happens when your marketing efforts attract attention but fail to convert into sales? Or when your sales team struggles because there aren't enough qualified leads coming in? Shannon Keeney, founder and CEO of Dream Local Digital, joins me to unpack the critical relationship between sales and marketing that many businesses overlook.

Drawing from her 30+ years developing digital strategies for companies like LinkedIn, Google, and Microsoft, Shannon reveals why posting occasionally on social media isn't enough and why your digital presence matters even if you personally "don't use social media." We explore the goldfish economy—where attention spans have shrunk to just six seconds—and how to stay top-of-mind without being annoying.

The conversation takes a practical turn as we examine how to determine whether you're facing a marketing problem (not enough leads) or a sales problem (leads that don't convert). Shannon shares her framework for digital presence—from good (basic website and social) to better (authentic content and email) to best (strategic paid advertising and SEO)—and why paid campaigns without solid foundations are like "suntan lamps" that stop working the moment you turn them off.

My favorite takeaway? "You're not being pushy as long as you're adding value every time you reach out." This mindset shift transforms how we approach follow-up and nurturing relationships with prospects.

If you've been stuck in the feast-or-famine cycle, relying on referrals instead of creating your own opportunities, this episode offers the clarity and action steps you need. Run the quick audit we outline, identify your specific gaps, and take control of your business growth instead of waiting for opportunity to knock.

Ready to join our next live office hours event? Check the link in the show notes for your invite to our September 23rd session, where you can bring your questions and get real-time coaching.

LISTEN TO THE EPISODE HERE 👇🏻

Shannon Kinney: 0:00
Especially in an attention-starved economy, people need to hear from you multiple times Now. They don't want an email that says, just checking in, are you going to buy from me now? But they do love it when they say, oh wow, you know what? I got this email from Tam today and that's exactly the tool I needed to help me close this deal this week. Speaking of that, she's the one that did that great webinar we went to and it just that level of frequency is really important today.
Tam Smith: 0:33
Welcome to Sales as Service, a podcast designed to help you change your mind about sales. Literally, I'm going to help you change the way you think about selling. I'm Tam Smith, your host, sales bestie and pitch partner next door. If you're tired of bros with biceps telling you how to crush a million dollars in your sleep or battling imposter syndrome on your own, you've come to the right place. All you need to do is listen, then take action. No gym membership required. Let's get started Real quick. I want to drop something we've been working on inside the VIP Sales Lab.
Tam Smith: 1:07
This is my private client community, where we workshop real-time sales strategies, troubleshoot what's not working and test out what is all, with hands-on coaching and personalized support. And you know that feeling when you're so busy serving clients that you look up and realize you haven't done a single thing to bring in the next client. Yep, believe it or not, that was me when I started Studio 349, I built my business around what I could do, not what I most wanted to be doing, and the thing I loved most sales and business development was the thing I kept putting off. I had no consistent system, which meant one good month, one bad month, over and over again, classic feast or famine. I wanted a clear path for both me and my clients to stay booked out without relying on referrals and inbound inquiries. It's exactly what I see with so many agencies and service-based businesses. They've said yes to everything and everyone, which leaves them with no clear point of differentiation and no repeatable way to attract or reach out and connect with the right people. Inside the sales lab, we've been working on getting crystal clear on the audience we most want to serve and then taking one aspect of our services or approach and turning it into an anchor what I like to call first yes offer. You can lead with indirect outreach something simple, repeatable and relevant, a conversation starter that naturally leads into your bigger engagements. Now don't get me wrong. I'm not saying ditch your custom work, but let that be the cherry on top. You choose intentionally, not the thing your revenue depends on. Build one repeatable offer, you can wrap systems around and you'll finally have predictable sales flow. This is exactly the kind of work we do inside the sales lab Real-time strategy, hands-on coaching and practical ways to stay booked out. If you want to get a feel for what it's like to work together, send me your biggest sales challenge and I'll record a free five-minute sales audit with ideas you can use right away. You'll find the link in the show notes.
Tam Smith: 2:50
All right, let's get back to the episode. Hey, and welcome back. I'm Tam Smith, sales growth strategist, founder of Studio 349 Sales Marketing and your host here on the Sales of Service podcast. Last month I tried something new. It was our very first sales and service live office hours event. We recorded it just like a regular podcast episode, but with the added energy of having a few of our listeners right there in the virtual room with us asking questions in real time. If you joined us live, thank you. It was great to meet and connect and it made the conversation so dynamic and thoughtful and even more fun and, if you missed it, we enjoyed it so much. We're doing it again, coming up Tuesday, september 23rd, so be sure to check out the link in the show notes for your invite and I'll see you there.
Tam Smith: 3:34
In today's episode, you're going to hear my full conversation with last month's guest, shannon Keeney, founder and CEO of Dream Local Digital. Shannon has over 30 years in leadership roles, developing scalable digital strategies for companies like LinkedIn, google, ebay and Microsoft, and she now works with small businesses and media companies to help them grow and scale. Our focus for this conversation and what proved to be an incredibly hot topic sales versus marketing and why you need both for growth we get into where businesses get stuck how to know if you have a sales problem or a marketing problem, and the small, consistent systems that bring the two together so you're not relying on referrals alone. Here we go, shannon, welcome, I'm so glad you're here. Thank you, I'm excited to be here. I always like kicking off these conversations on the podcast with the same first question Tell us in your words who do you help and how do you serve?
Shannon Kinney: 4:26
I help small and medium-sized businesses to promote themselves online through online marketing strategies and implementation.
Tam Smith: 4:35
And I'll just ask, like around this conversation how do you define the difference between sales and marketing for small teams?
Shannon Kinney: 4:43
I first of all, I couldn't agree with you more that they need to work together. And on the marketing side, it's about building the assets that help a sales team or person or company tell their story, to get people to know, like and trust them so that they can encourage more sales, speed up the sales process or bring in more sales opportunities for teams.
Tam Smith: 5:09
And where do you see most small businesses trip up when trying to do both?
Shannon Kinney: 5:13
I see them doing very little to no marketing. I took notes during your session because I couldn't agree more about the no follow-up aspects. Like, really, where businesses trip up is they don't have a system in place, and with both marketing and sales, you need a system that helps them work together. I'll often run into businesses that think if they post on Facebook or Instagram once a week, that that means they've got a marketing engine, and really that's not it at all. It's a great start, but it's about building a system that everything works together to help you bring in more business.
Tam Smith: 5:50
And just kind of define for teams again with a minimal digital presence what is good, better, best look like.
Shannon Kinney: 5:58
So I'd say good is that you have a presence and can be found. So a website, a social media channel, that's right for you, depending on who your targeted audience is. I get most of my business from LinkedIn, but for somebody else it might be Facebook or TikTok or Instagram. So having a presence on social media and a simple website I'd say is good. Getting you into better is when you are doing reasonably authentic, educational and empowering content on the site and social media and starting to do email, which is really important. And then I'd say when you're best is when you're doing some advertising to pull in people, when you're potentially doing SEO so that you're found more strategically under the words that you care about, and potentially on more than one social channel. That would probably be best.
Tam Smith: 6:58
And to that point, is there a benchmark for, like, when someone is ready for paid, like organic versus paid, and it's time for that?
Shannon Kinney: 7:08
A couple of things, really. When you're thinking about paid, it's like a suntan lamp right, and it feels great and warm on your skin. The minute you turn it off, it gets cold and dark, and so you want to make sure that you are ready to convert on anything that comes through that paid. Sometimes people will start with advertising first and send people to a website that leaves them flat or a social channel where there's no information. Things need to be aligned, so whatever you're selling or promoting in the paid needs to be quickly found by the link that you send them to, and so there just needs to be some thought with a campaign.
Shannon Kinney: 7:47
That said, I've had businesses come to us and we've started paid campaigns that have high conversions right away, but they were willing to invest in. We need a good landing page, we need a whole story to tell here, but for many businesses, they focus on the good, which is that presence. First, I love your focus on the offer in the VIP stack, because that's the other weak link. If you're just saying I'm a financial planner and that's what I do, yay, you don't really have a good hook or offer to pull somebody in to get your conversion rates up. So for me, I tend to work on strategy and presence first and then go into paid to help businesses make sure that when they're ready for paid, their conversion rates will make it worth it and they'll get an ROI.
Tam Smith: 8:36
Absolutely. I've seen that. It's seen everybody's sort of reactive response when they need you know, lead generation is oh, I need to do paid ads, and it's like wait back up you know, before you pour gas on need you know lead generation is oh, I need to do paid ads, and it's like wait back up. You know, before you pour gas on something you know, make sure it actually works, works and is going to convert and it's something that people actually want. I've had more conversations with it's like they've reverse engineered it. They come into you know, they've invested all this money on you know website and all the things, but they either don't have a real clear offer or have a real clear you know focus around the audience that they're targeting with it to know if it's. They're spending a lot of money to test something you know where you could have organically, on a more low cost way, tested to see is this messaging resonate? Is this something people want? Have I actually sold this or I start putting paid ads budget towards it? Right?
Shannon Kinney: 9:28
And you know. The same is true, I would say, of high, high, high volumes of outbound, yeah, and you are such an expert in that space. But when I see your VIP framework, you're really nailing the who and the offer first, Then we'll start doing the outbound, just to make sure that it's a good use of your time. And I know for me I'm probably getting 15 to 20 messages on LinkedIn a day that I'm not even in the right target audience group. People are just spray and pray Like I hope all this outbound works sooner or later, and the point is like you have to. People's time and attention is very precious right now and you need to ensure that you've got the right foundation in place to make that kind of effort return.
Tam Smith: 10:16
The reason this is so important, like it's one thing, especially for businesses, founders and businesses that are, you know, reliant on referrals. You know the conversations you've had to this point in your business, it's been people that you know have already elected to talk to you and have a need, and that's great, you know. It proves that you have something valuable. That is, you know that people want that you can sell. But when you start, as long as that's consistent, it's great. But what I really encourage folks is not to be dependent or reliant, that you know you are in control of your own destiny and your own business and it's not. You know your business is not dependent on someone else coming to you first and that you have tools to be in those conversations. You know, do that strategic, upfront work. How do you work with folks you know who? It's always a tell for me when I say, well, ask clients. Well, who do you work with? Well, I can help everyone. Well, yes, Well, first.
Shannon Kinney: 11:06
So I'll help you on that. But first I want to pick up on something you just said. Which is what makes referrals work is, if your mission is to help people know, like and trust you, a referral is sort of fast boring the trust part, right, it's taking one of those three elements, and so you really want to think through what can I do in my marketing to also shortcut that? And a video or a podcast or content that helps people get to know you and what you're about and trust you a bit, that also fast forwards it. So a little bit of good marketing can work as well as a referral, and I often will say to people well, you know, when somebody refers you, the first thing somebody's going to do is look you up. What are they going to see? But back to your question about target audience.
Shannon Kinney: 11:55
I had this one MediSpy I worked with and she was like all women and I said well, you know, I started digging in. I said, well, tell me what your most profitable product and service is. Well, it's what I would call age management products. Right, they're like Botox and creams, and they're all really expensive. And creams, and they're all really expensive. And I was like. Your target audience is somebody maybe 35 to 59. That's making about 75 to 100,000 a year minimum and they're busy people. What's your second highest seller that's most profitable? She says gift certificates. I said, well, men buy those, so let's have something targeted to men to buy things for their women.
Shannon Kinney: 12:36
And then all of a sudden, all of her marketing started converting. So target audience understanding who it is, the more specific you can be. It doesn't limit your abilities as a business. You could always help other people, but the more specific you are in your marketing, the better it will work for you and the higher it will convert. So I often say if you've got the lower your marketing budget is, the more specific you better be about who exactly you're talking to and what motivates them. Like. What pain do they feel that you fix and how are you uniquely qualified to fix that pain? Right that when you start nailing those things down, then everything you say will speed up no like and trust and I find it creates I refer to it like the halo factor.
Tam Smith: 13:21
You know where you get really, you know it's that that fear of oh, if I niche down, I'm gonna, if I don't cast a wide net, I'm gonna miss business. But I found, like when you get really targeted and focused, you're you're going it's going to convert better, but you're going to have that halo effect where you're going it's going to convert better, but you're going to have that halo effect where you're attracting other companion clients.
Shannon Kinney: 13:38
And I I mean in my business. I do help a lot of different types of businesses, but in for my roofing and construction and home services businesses, I have specific content that is tailored to them that I send to them. You know, real estate mortgages. I do that for my growth and scale businesses. I do that. So, even though I have multiple industries that I help, I make sure that what I'm saying is relevant to them and being posted in the groups that they're in. Right, it might not be on my LinkedIn profile for everyone, but it will be in the roofing groups I'm in or in the dentist groups I'm in. So there are ways to service multiple industries with a niche strategy. But when you could say, like I help women-owned businesses grow and scale through marketing in a really specific way, it speeds everything up, everything up.
Tam Smith: 14:35
You know the sales game has changed, you know to your point that people have gone, you know, have checked you out even with the referral, have, like, checked out your digital presence before they, you know, make an initial contact. And they probably didn't, you know, get just that. Whoever gave the recommendation, probably gave, you know, three or four, you know, including you.
Tam Smith: 14:47
And so you know they're going to check out your website, your social channels, your reviews. You know your competitors and do you find that folks are still like kind of they perceive, you know, digital presence as a nice to have. You know that, oh, it's just, you know, use it in their personal and don't understand the value of it or the need, the necessity of it for business.
Shannon Kinney: 15:09
Yes, I see that a lot Like businesses will say, or business owners will say things like well, I don't use social media and I'll be like that's totally fine, but the vast majority of people do, and so you can't assume that in any way. You can't assume people shop the way you shop, and I'll often try to get people. I'll say, okay, well, last time you made a purchase over $1,000, what did you do? And they'll say, oh well, I checked reviews, I tried to see. Could I do this myself first? Or I price shopped, right, great, so you've just gone on a buyer's journey that almost everyone else does too, and the internet is involved multiple times in that process. Right, and you check reviews. Where are you doing that? When you looked at their website, you know. And so the minute business owners, like sort of, take off the business owner hat and put on the consumer hat, they realize that they are going on these journeys too.
Shannon Kinney: 16:09
You wouldn't list your house with a realtor that didn't get the internet. You just wouldn't. And so why would you assume that people are going to hire you if that didn't get the internet? You just wouldn't. And so why would you assume that people are going to hire you if you don't get the internet and I, you know, frankly I can say more of them get that they need a basic website presence. But typically when people are researching it's social they're looking at.
Shannon Kinney: 16:28
And I do get people who say I just don't do that, I'm not, I don't want to be tied to my phone or I don't want and I get it. But it is part of that research and really it's the trust they're trying to get. That trust piece know like and trust and referrals are wonderful because they really warm that part up. But very few people are going to make a purchase of any real significance without doing a little legwork first. If I was selling you know, phone chargers or commodity-based widgets, I wouldn't care as much about this stuff. But I think you know if you're selling something that has any consideration phase at all, then you need to give people some tools to look at when they're doing the consideration.
Tam Smith: 17:12
The resistance does it come from? You know, is it a fear-based? Is it, you know, bandwidth-based? You know, like, where does most of like their, I guess, the pushback, as far as you know? An ask for you know how they need to show up on digital, like what's the? Where does the resistance come from?
Shannon Kinney: 17:27
Well, I see, historically, like I started my business 16 years ago and we've helped 75,000 businesses over that 16 years understand digital marketing through education or implementation or client relationship of some kind, and for years the resistance was time.
Shannon Kinney: 17:46
I don't have the time, but I can say the resistance has actually spiked since about Q4 of last year to people reacting to divisiveness around politics in the US. In some way they're sort of distancing from social to get back to life where people respect each other, and I totally respect that. Even I myself find myself needing to to avoid some of that conversation. But the point is we're business owners and if I'm going to try to tell somebody that I know how to make them be successful online, then I need to be successful online myself. Right, so I can't. I can't put my head in the sand and say, oh, I hate this conversation, but most of our business is here in North America, between Canada and the US, and I've seen that that is an increasing area of resistance. It's people's personal preferences assuming that their personal preferences carry to the rest of us, which they don't, or that people's shopping habits are going to completely change, which they don't.
Tam Smith: 18:57
That was one of the best early in my sales career. One of the best pieces of advice that I received and have to constantly remind myself is you can't sell how you spend. Just because something's not right for you doesn't mean it's not right for the person that's in front of you. Early in my sales career I sabotaged myself more often than not because I was selling to my pocketbook versus someone else's yes, yes, you assume that they can't afford it.
Shannon Kinney: 19:23
Or you're nervous to ask for the rate. And I always say when you're creating an offer, you need to first of all really think about your target audience and what will motivate them. Don't make assumptions to your team. But the second one is how can I make this offer irresistible? And it's not about price necessarily. If you are a higher ticket priced item, then you need to have a value stack. I always think of those infomercials from when I was a kid that would be like and wait, there's more. Right that they're saying you get three knives instead of one, right? So what can you do or offer that adds so much value that it helps them trust you?
Shannon Kinney: 20:09
know that trust, but also that just makes it feel good to someone, and so often I don't try to get them to go down on price, I try to get them to go up on value. You know where, and a lot of times, like in my business, I can add value in ways you don't even expect, like I did a quick educational webinar and one sheet, or on how to really maximize your Google business profile At any time. People buy stuff from me. I'm like are you having trouble on LinkedIn or Google business? For whatever they say, I'm like, oh, I got stuff on that, so we are sending them things that we had already as assets and people. To them. They perceive this as just significantly increased value, and so what would your, what would your target audience perceive as as that, and then then your offer will really sing.
Tam Smith: 21:02
And that kind of leads into.
Tam Smith: 21:04
You know, I was thinking about the resistance to the. I mean, what prompted this conversation not articulating this very well, but what prompted this conversation was, you know, in my own business, in in the last year, I pivoted from focusing exclusively on marketing, you know, solving my own problem. My transition to business was, you know, I was so busy delivering the creative that I was not dedicating any time to business development. And then, you know, you either have a client that moves off or you're, you know, trying to grow in scale, and you know you are I'm not a good one to, you know, sit and wait. So it's like, how can I be proactive to create? You know that that the marketing is. You know people say, well, I'm marketing, I'm I'm selling, well, no, you know. Or if I'm selling, I'm marketing, no, you know they're, they're parts of a whole. And I find, like the lead generation is one thing, you know, as far as the attraction with the marketing, but then having a system to actually follow up, you know, make connections, start conversation and nurture to actually Exactly.
Shannon Kinney: 22:02
The attraction is just the top of the box. That's just the beginning of a purchase decision cycle and you have to be what, okay. So then you think okay, I got the people to subscribe to my email newsletter, or I got people to download this thing. Okay, I got the people to subscribe to my email newsletter, or I got people to download this thing, I got them on the top, I've got them. Or they looked at an ad right to your earlier point, tim. Well then, what are they thinking about when they try to purchase what I sell, right? Are they comparing me to other people? Are they price shopping? Are they looking for a guide? Are they price shopping? Are they looking for a guide?
Shannon Kinney: 22:40
And so a lot of the marketing we create for our clients is things that are useful in the middle, because that's how, if you're the one that helps somebody make a decision, or they can make a decision with you the fastest, like they see a bunch of testimonials and reviews, they see that you're a price competitive and you gave them a tool that told them what they should be looking for in a solution provider, then you're naturally the one that they will go down and, at minimum, book an appointment with, depending on what kind of business you have, and so you know a lot of marketing.
Shannon Kinney: 23:10
People will spend all this time on paid which you asked about before to get people on the top. But if you don't have anything to move them through the cycle, then all you're doing is making them aware that they have pain. Yeah, oh, you know what I really should hire somebody to do my marketing. You know now that you say that I should be thinking about that, and then they get onto their busy day. They don't think I got to call Shannon, meet with her, right? And so I think your point earlier about really understanding that target audience yeah, it's not only critical to attract them, but it's super critical to get them in the consideration phase to choose you, because you give them whatever they need to save them time and make them know, like and trust you. Anything you sell will sell more.
Tam Smith: 23:56
I would say like that, that mindset shift of you know I'm hearing you say serve, help.
Tam Smith: 24:01
You know, so that you know on the flip side of actually the you know the prospecting, outreach part, I think you know the resistance on my end comes from that perception that we're being salesy and we don't want to push.
Tam Smith: 24:12
But when you flip that mindset around, that you know if you have a, a service or offer that can actually help someone solve a problem, meet a challenge, you know, elevate, you know their, achieve a goal, elevate their life in some way, you know I've put responsibility on myself that you know if I have that asset or skill, you know it's, it's. You know I have an opportunity to help and serve and it's really taken that pressure off, that gross yuck feeling of it's not a transaction that I'm trying to take. I don't want to make assumptions about anybody's business on this in this audience but I'd be willing to guess you know none of what we're doing is transactional. You know it's not an impulse purchase and it requires, you know, connection, relationship building and nurturing, you know, to build that trust and having you know the marketing and sales piece in place to facilitate that. So someone can, you know confidently, you know, make it easier to make a decision and say yes to you.
Shannon Kinney: 25:08
So true, and you know when you, when you're coming at it with a focus on serving, coming at it with a focus on serving, then your tone is typically a lot more accepted. But the other piece I'll tell you is I used to have this slide when I started my business that had this picture of a goldfish on it like a really funny goldfish and I would say you know, a person's attention span is 12 seconds and a goldfish is eight, and your job is you have to recognize, when you're doing your marketing and you're telling your story, you've got to pull them in, right. You really like to pull them in. Well, now that slide is reversed, right, a person's attention span in today's economy is six seconds, so a goldfish is going to make more eye contact with you longer especially if you have food in your hand than your kids will or your customers will. I could have really liked your offer and loved the call we had, or seeing your post on LinkedIn. And then I go back to the rest of my day and it's like I got so much going on. Well, the point is, especially in an attention starved economy, people need to hear from you multiple times Now. They don't want an email that says just checking in, are you going to buy from me now? But they do love it when they say, oh, wow, you know what? I got this email from Tam today and that's exactly the tool I needed to help me close this deal this week.
Shannon Kinney: 26:40
Speaking of that, she's the one that did that great webinar. We went to Awesome. I love Tam, right, and Tam Tam. It's getting solidified in their six second brain and it just that level of frequency is really important today. So you not only are you helping because you're ready to serve them when they say yes, you're also serving them by staying top of mind so that because if they don't want to hear what you're saying, they'll unsubscribe. They'll tell you thanks for following up with me, tam. This isn't something I'm going to move forward with right now, but they don't always say no because they're thinking you know, one of these days I might need Tam, so I don't want to lose her, and so I think, like I have to constantly remind people you're not being pushy as long as you're adding value.
Tam Smith: 27:32
every time you reach out, you know if you're going to say just checking in that's annoying, I mean and honestly I would for anyone listening like your best ideas for approaches. Again, it goes back to kind of look at what you respond to and how and where you're spending your own money, because that's a really good guide you know to. I mean, I'm a for my. Again, I know it's the you can't sell to your pocket, but but I do look to the things that I know get my attention and that I pay attention to. It inspires a lot of great, great ideas there. What emails do you open?
Shannon Kinney: 28:07
Yeah, yeah, instagram reels, do you watch why? And as long as you're in your target audience, I, I have another client that we just helped that the person that was doing all their social media was in her 20s, right, and their average age range of customers in their 50s to 60s. Guess what? All that stuff isn't working Right. So so you, you do have to make sure that you're looking at the target audience, but also you get ideas, like of what emails you open and what made you stop your scroll and look at something for sure.
Tam Smith: 28:43
Well, let's jump into our fast five. Your I can't live without it software or app SaneBox. Oh yes, I'm a new SaneBox user. It is, dare I say, life-changing. Yep it pulls.
Shannon Kinney: 28:56
it pulls about 200 to 300 emails out of my inbox every single day and I just once a day at 2 pm, scan them real quick, boot out the ones I don't want. I couldn't live without SaneBox. It saves me so much time.
Tam Smith: 29:10
Best advice you've ever received about sales and business development.
Shannon Kinney: 29:13
Speak from your heart to the person that's going to buy. So I think it's really about being authentic, but also knowing who your who is and that business. I'm just helping that one piece of advice. They were like none of our marketing from the past year works, did it? I'm like, yeah, no, you're letting a 20-year-old TikToker try to sell your product to B2B people in their 50s to 60s no, your morning routine must have.
Shannon Kinney: 29:41
I get up early and I focus on the five things I want to accomplish that day before I look at anything on my phone or my email inbox.
Tam Smith: 29:55
Your walk-on song, the one song that always pumps you up.
Shannon Kinney: 29:58
Ready to Go by Republica?
Tam Smith: 30:01
Yep, that was in a workout yesterday.
Shannon Kinney: 30:04
I love that one.
Tam Smith: 30:05
Yeah, and if you only had one hour each day for business growth, how would you spend it?
Shannon Kinney: 30:09
For me on LinkedIn. I sell B2B and I spend the most time, most thought, on LinkedIn and I already I'm about 45 minutes a day on that platform.
Tam Smith: 30:21
What does your routine look like as far as the time that you spend? Do you have kind of a checklist that you run through as far as to make it a valuable investment of time?
Shannon Kinney: 30:32
I do so. I sync with my marketing team to understand the overall calendar or strategy. Is there any particular offer we have this month? Events I should be promoting? I take those things into consideration and then I have a time block of one day a week where I typically write and or shoot any video, any blog. So I have one day a week where I do that, one day a week where I am then organizing all of it, and then I have a schedule that I post it and I spend about 40 minutes a day looking through messages and or commenting on other people's content. Yeah, most of my system is really around the creation of my own and then it's time to keep up with everybody else.
Tam Smith: 31:19
And finally, where can folks find you and connect with you?
Shannon Kinney: 31:21
So my website is dreamlocalcom. You can also find me under Shannon Kinney on LinkedIn or any other social channel. Literally that you are on, I'm there and I'd love to be a resource to anybody that needs some help in marketing.
Tam Smith: 31:36
Thanks so much for being here, thank you for having me, and that's a wrap on our very first sales and service live office hours event. Huge thanks again to Shannon Keeney for joining us. And if there's one thing I hope you'll take from today, it's this Marketing gets you found, sales turns that attention into revenue, and you actually need both working together to keep momentum going in your business. So, with that in mind, here's your sales and service challenge for the week. Take a look back at the last 30 days in your business and ask yourself how many new leads or opportunities came in and where did those leads come from? And of those leads, how many actually converted into paying clients?
Tam Smith: 32:10
If the number of new leads is low, that's typically the sign of a marketing problem, a sign you may need to revisit your audience, your offer or your messaging so you're sparking more interest. And if you're generating leads but not converting them, that's typically a sales problem, which usually points to gaps in your follow-up, qualification or how you're guiding prospects to make a decision. And here's one more lens to consider. If you're stuck waiting for referrals, random inbound or just the occasional, someone found you online. You're at the mercy of other people's timelines. That's not a growth strategy, it's actually a holding pattern. So once you know where the gap is is it a marketing problem? Choose one channel to consistently post, engage and grow your visibility. Is it a sales problem? Block time each week literally as little as 30 minutes a day for direct, follow-up, intentional outreach, refining your discovery process, so you're leading prospects toward a clear next step. And if you're waiting for opportunity to knock again, make space as little as 30 minutes a day for proactive, targeted outreach so you're also creating opportunity and not just hoping it shows up. Run this quick audit each month. It'll keep you from guessing where to focus and help you take action where it matters most.
Tam Smith: 33:21
And if you want to be in the room for our next live office hours event, tuesday, september the 23rd make sure you're signed up using the link in the show notes. You'll get the invite first and a chance to add your own questions to the mix. And remember until next time, sales is an active service. It's about what you give, not what you get. And when you serve well, the ROI always follows. See you next episode. You've just listened to the Sales as Service podcast, the podcast to help you shift your mindset around selling. If you liked what you heard, be sure to hit subscribe and share it with a friend, because we're all about more sales awesome and less sales awkward. See you next episode.

✦ YOUR SALES AS SERVICE CHALLENGE

This week, run a quick 30-day audit to see if you’re facing a marketing gap or a sales gap:

Look back at the last 30 days

How many new leads or opportunities came in?
Where did those leads come from?
Of those leads, how many converted into paying clients?

Diagnose the gap

Low new leads? → Marketing problem. Time to revisit your audience, offer, or messaging.
Lots of leads but low conversions? → Sales problem. Focus on follow-up, qualification, and guiding prospects to decisions.
Stuck waiting on referrals or random inbound? → That’s not a growth strategy. Build in proactive outreach.

➡️ Share your results on LinkedIn/Instagram with #SalesAsService so I can cheer you on!

RESOURCES & LINKS

Dream Local Digital – Shannon’s company
Shannon Kinney on LinkedIn
Join the Sales as Service LIVE Office Hours – get your invite for the next session
LinkedIn Lead Generator – daily actions that lead to real conversations
Grab your 5-Minute Sales Audit – a quick scan to see what’s working, what’s not, and what to improve

SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW

If you loved this episode, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts! Your support helps us reach more creative agencies and service pros who need these insights. Thanks for tuning in to Sales as Service—see you next week!