You do NOT miss 100% of the shots you do not take.

This is my Newsletter series on LinkedIn where I aggregate the best content from business influencers each week. I do it because I like bringing attention to people who are adding value here. If you enjoy it, you can hit the "subscribe" button to get this automatically every Monday and start building a bigger and better LinkedIn network.

Happy Sunday, LinkedIn family!

With the weather getting hot, vacations increasing, and the summer slowing down, Q3 can often be one of the most challenging quarters for your business. Here are some simple tips for getting through this tough time:

1. Increase your targeted activity - Your teams should come prepared to over-exert during Q3. That means upping the activity levels to ensure pipeline volume stays the same.
2. Generate more referrals - Run a contest for your team. Who can get the most referrals from their current book of business? Referrals have such a high close rate and are typically closed faster than other deals. Now is the time.
3. Try something new - Can you offer a new product or service this quarter to your customers? Can you sell something back into your install base? It's slow now. Give this a go.
4. Overplan for EOY - How will you crush September, October, November, and December? It's July, but you should already have a great gameplan for the back half of the year.

If you're a Founder, sales leader or salesperson that needs some help, feel free to follow me on LinkedIn & Twitter, or sign up for my free newsletter. I share tactical information for salespeople and high-level strategy for sales leaders and founders.

This week's content is a good blend of sales and business advice, plus a nice dose of LinkedIn strategy.

We'll cover:

• Choosing what to pursue vs. what NOT to pursue in your career
• The importance of active listening
• How to handle direct feedback
• What type of people you should surround yourself with
• How to focus your LinkedIn content
• How to engage with LinkedIn comments
• What you'll sacrifice for greatness
• An old Italian interview trick
• Using LinkedIn for social selling
• Applying for jobs that you might not be qualified for

The content this week comes from Mark A. Smith, Megan Bowen w/ Anna Elwood, Mark Thompson, Cornelia Pintilie, Tim Denning, Jason Vana, Jake Dunlap, Gaetano DiNardi, Robert Knop, and Austin Belcak. If you're not following these folks, do it now.

This week's title content comes from Mark A. Smith. I love the content he is putting out because I get the sense that he spends a lot of time thinking through the message every time. When he posts, it's usually very thorough and well thought out. This post from last week is no different. He talks about a misleading motivational quote, "You miss 100% of the shot you don't take", and shows why that isn't the case. If you're thinking about making a big change or pursuing something that you haven't thought through fully, read this post below first.

Another post that I really enjoyed last week came from Megan Bowen, a former colleague of mine, who references another former colleague of mine, Anna Elwood. I love this because it resonates so deeply with me, as I struggle to be a strong active listener. I often find myself doing some of the exact things that Megan cautions against below, such as thinking about what I want to say next. She provides a really great framework called LAAAR for changing that behavior: Listen. Acknowledge. Align. Ask. Resolve.

One of the most difficult areas of personal growth for a lot of people is learning to take feedback, especially when that feedback is very direct. Early in my career, my most likely response was to get angry and lose my cool. When you do that, you look foolish. When you respond to feedback professionally, you look like the coolest and calmest person in the room. Mark Thompson talks about that below.

I came across this great video from Cornelia Pintilie, and it hit home for me because it's part of my personal mantra, "Surround yourself with superstars". It does not matter what type of role you are in, you should always gravitate towards people who make you better - people that are positive, motivated, hungry, smart and curious. If you catch yourself in a group of downers, get out of there! You are whom you surround yourself with. Check out more below.

I thought this post by Tim Denning was spot on when talking about how to utilize LinkedIn. Here's the issue: too many people are on LinkedIn just pushing their product, pushing themselves, and adding zero value. That's the opposite of how you should leverage this platform. Instead, think about what you love to do that you are also really good at. Go help people get better at that particular thing, and don't ask for anything in return. It will pay off over time.

Really great advice below from Jason Vana, the Owner at Reach36 creative. He talks about how the LinkedIn algorithm is changing and what that means for engaging with the LinkedIn community. He provides three actionable tips that you can use to increase your reach and following on LinkedIn today. Check them out below.

Last week, I had a blast going on LinkedIn live with Jake Dunlap and sharing sales strategies and success stories. A day later he dropped this great piece of content about the path to greatness and what it takes to succeed. Listen - the best people in their industry are NEVER overnight successes. They put in the hard work day in and day out. Everyone else trying to sell you a dream that doesn't include a ton of effort..is generally full of shit. I like that Jake talks about reality below. Check it out.

Bonus: Here's our LinkedIn Live session from earlier this week.

Gaetano DiNardi has some of the best swag on social media. He's putting out really unique marketing content, plus he'll make you laugh a lot. I literally love reading and watching the stuff he puts out. Earlier this week, he shared an old Italian interview trick, which I thought was great. See it below.

This post by Robert Knop caught my eye because I'm seeing a lot of different opinions on social selling. Some people love it, others hate it...and in my opinion, a lot of people are just not doing it correctly. When done well, social selling is a great tool in your prospecting toolbelt. It just needs to be aimed at the right people, at the right time, with the right message. Robert talks about using LinkedIn before an event and shares some of his wins from doing it well. Love this.

Austin Belcak is a guy who hit my radar about a month ago, because I had interacted with his content on the same day my wife had, and his name came up in conversation. Since then, I've been checking out his tips on interviewing and he's got some incredible advice. Last week he talked about applying for jobs you aren't qualified for and some of the responses he got from recruiters and companies. Check it out below.

Well, that does it for my weekly content rundown on July 15th, 2019. I hope you enjoyed it, got some value, and added some new connections to your LinkedIn network.

Before you go, remember to connect with me on social media and subscribe to my personal newsletter, where I talk about all things sales and marketing, using the links below:

• Personal Newsletter (new website coming August 20th, 2019)
• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• Quora

Also, don't forget to subscribe to my Weekly Content Rundown using the "subscribe" button at the top of this page. Until next week....happy creating.

Cheers,

Justin