Ep 23: The CRM isn't the Only Way: How A Pearl Jam Post Landed Don (a Seasoned Hospitality Seller) a New Client From LinkedIn

In this episode of The Sales Edge podcast, we dive deep into LinkedIn strategies specifically tailored for VPs of Sales and hospitality sellers. Join Celeste Berke as she hosts Don Barnett, Director of Sales and Marketing at London House Chicago, who shares his unique approach to leveraging LinkedIn for business success. Key Takeaways: Personal Branding on LinkedIn: Don reveals how he transitioned from using traditional sales methods to becoming a LinkedIn powerhouse. He discusses the importance of personal branding and why it's crucial for sales leaders to build authentic connections online. Creative Social Selling Tactics: Learn about Don’s innovative strategies, including how he uses humor and storytelling to engage his audience. He shares real-life examples of how a simple post about Pearl Jam led to securing a major client for his hotel. Consistency is Key: Don emphasizes the importance of showing up consistently on LinkedIn. He outlines his daily routine for content creation and engagement, which has helped him build a strong personal brand and drive business results. Support from Upper Management: Discover how Don secured buy-in from his management team by demonstrating the tangible results of his LinkedIn efforts, including becoming the most followed hotel in Chicago on Instagram and winning new business through social media. Advice for Beginners: Don offers practical tips for those new to LinkedIn, stressing the importance of treating it like a “mini job” and starting small with consistent engagement and content creation. Call to Action: If you’re a VP of Sales or a hospitality seller looking to enhance your LinkedIn presence and drive sales through social media, this episode is a must-watch. Subscribe to our channel for more expert insights and strategies that will take your sales game to the next level!

Celeste Berke [00:00:00]:
We're kicking off the sales edge for Podcast. This is Celeste Post with Don Barnett.

Don Barnett [00:00:08]:
Hey, how's it going Celeste?

Celeste Berke [00:00:09]:
It's Don. Guess a little bit about yourself.

Don Barnett [00:00:13]:
Tom Barnett. I'm out of the Chicago suburbs. I work at 1 in house Chicago, located in downtown Chicago. I'm the director of sales and marketing there. I've been there for, going on 7 years. It's best job I've ever had. So, I'm blessed that way. I live in the suburbs of Chicago, married.

Don Barnett [00:00:29]:
I've got 3 kids, 2 dogs, drive an SUV in a minivan. So Oh, America. Got that suburban dad energy.

Celeste Berke [00:00:36]:
Well, it we're gonna advertise emphasize that marketing piece here, because it does make you just ninja in the digital online space. So both of us coming up from the hotel, working in the space, we have seen a complete shift in how sales are done, how we access customers and how those that are relying on digital channels, digital and building are kind of standing out. And you have some disease from that. Tell us when this can't happen for you. I need to set up either traditional ways of selling you showing up. I need to add this digital social selling piece. The

Don Barnett [00:01:18]:
genesis of it actually started probably over 10 years ago. And it started with, pre LinkedIn back in the day. I was working at a resort and I started doing client contests and I would do a best joke contest and people would send in their best jokes and, best recipe contest. And you ended up with your recipe on our menu in our restaurant. Then I had the idea to do a bingo contest. And I was like, oh, this is awesome. Cause I can give everybody bingo sheets. And then every day they're gonna get an email from me that they want.

Don Barnett [00:01:52]:
Not a spam, but something they're like, yes, where's our bingo number? Cause we wanna play. But it would also be boring. And I think people would've quit if it was just a bingo number every day, or if I was being salesy or pitchy. I set a standard for myself that every bingo email would tell a personal story or a funny anecdote, or it would just tell something funny. I, I tried to be funny in each email. I probably swing and miss half the time. But I would tell a funny story about myself and then I would include the bingo number. It was never any promoting or pitching or anything like that.

Don Barnett [00:02:21]:
I really wanted to build my personal brand and let people get to know me because I understood that people like to do business with people they know, people they consider friends. And that was kind of what I wanted to put out there is like, Hey, you know, let me share what's going on in my crazy world. So I started doing that and it started with like a 150 people and then it eventually grew to over 500 people. It kept growing and growing and it's the first time I ever get like death threats because people would be like, it's 3 o'clock. Where's our bingo number? So we're coming for you. I'd have to make sure I was on top of it every day. And I'd have to come up with this content every day and tell stories about how I'd crinkle my grandma or stories about dating my wife and all kinds of stuff like that. But it was wildly successful.

Don Barnett [00:02:59]:
So I got out of hotels for a while and was a business owner. When I got back into hotels a couple years ago, I I was thinking about bingo. I had dabbled in LinkedIn and I like the concept of using it to build my personal brand, but I started thinking about bingo again. And I was like, why couldn't I do the bingo thing but on LinkedIn? And, you know, and then I had to get a feel for it because a lot of the things people were posting were, I just got a promotion and stuff like that. And it was nothing really in-depth, but in the last couple years, that's really changed. Like, people are really learning

Celeste Berke [00:03:28]:
Cool. Yeah.

Don Barnett [00:03:29]:
How to create valuable content, and you still get the boring stuff, I guess you could call it. But as I got more brave, I started letting my humor come through more and learning that people wanna be edutained. You know, put that humor element and entertain, but then also educate and bring value. And again, it's not about pitching or promoting. I've, I rarely do that if we're having something really fun at the hotel, like a rooftop event. We did it last year. We're doing it again this year where we invite people to bring their dogs up to the rooftop and get photos and stuff. And it's, we, we did it last year and it's sold out like immediately.

Don Barnett [00:04:02]:
So we're doing that again. So at some point there'll be a post about the rooftop event, because it's just too fun to not post about. Otherwise, I just like to, provide value to people out there. And I know that karma will make it come back to me.

Celeste Berke [00:04:12]:
If you're not out there doing a sales blitz that is handing out canned and cookies, why would you think your customers are on LinkedIn? Says a VP of VP of Sales.

Don Barnett [00:04:27]:
Yeah. I feel like we need more advocates. I wouldn't want other hotel salespeople to use me as an example. I'm happy to help because I've got tons of receipts that show that this works. And for example, to your point, how do we know it's working? There's tons of people that are just lurkers looking at it, but I've won business because of something I posted and they've never liked it. And I would've never even known that they were one of those 2,000 impressions that I got. But I had a guy reach out to me because I had posted something about going to see Pearl Jam. The post was like 3 weeks earlier and he had reached out and said, Hey, I saw your post and I was like, he didn't like it or anything.

Don Barnett [00:05:08]:
And he was like, we wanna set up a preferred rate with you guys. And I was like, oh, wow. Cool. I had no idea this guy had seen it, but I show up every day, putting in the reps, staying top of mind and just providing value and touching on things that people take personally. I like to share personal things and that guy's like, Hey, I'm a Pearl Jam fan. I wanna do business with this guy because we share the same taste in music.

Celeste Berke [00:05:29]:
So what I hear you saying, the post about Pearl Jam led to new preferred rate at your hotel.

Don Barnett [00:05:37]:
It did. Now if only I could get a preferred rate with Pearl Jam,

Celeste Berke [00:05:40]:
that would be I often hear this story, a big PAMA hospitality unit company that I sent 75 messages to on LinkedIn two and a half years ago. One person responded monthly That led to 5 engagements, training 200 executives at that company. It led to doing 2 trainings for internal women, like, subgroup. It led to going to their confidence in the US for them. It led to a training of recruitment options here. And just yesterday, I had a call, a team of other, 6 or 7 hotels that went to put on the training, all based on how do we get our teams up and running on LinkedIn? Why do they need it? And I said, here he is. And they booked directly to my calendar. How did you hear about me? And they said, how are these things in referred me? All from 75 messages, two and a half years ago on LinkedIn.

Don Barnett [00:06:46]:
Yeah. I guess what, I would say is people have to get out of the mindset that you're going to post a LinkedIn, or you're going to send a direct message and instantly get a sale. Cause it doesn't work like that. And talking to people like us that know how this works. It's fun to reverse engineer it, to see where this all the Genesis, where did this all come from? For example, I booked, a $40,000 group for next September of 2025. Let me show you the chain of events. Last year, I meet a guy by the name of Corey Falter, who you know well. We both post fun content and mutual admiration for what we put out into the world.

Don Barnett [00:07:24]:
We've gotten to know each other over time, and now I consider him a great friend. Cory has a webcast where he has on a guy named Nick Horgan. I meet Nick, and now Nick and I have that same mutual admiration for our content. Then Nick invites me to the BiTEQ conference, and I go to the BiTEQ conference. And I've also met this woman, Allison Mapp, who works in Virginia Beach. And she's also at BiTech and we've become friends. Earlier this year, one of her clients in Virginia Beach says, Hey, I'm having a conference in Chicago. Do you know anybody? And she goes, I know exactly the guy reach out to Don Barnett.

Don Barnett [00:07:56]:
And, this woman reached out and she's like, Alison had nothing but great things to say about you. So here's what we want. And I was like, awesome. And then I sent, dozen roses to Alison. It's, it's, it's, it's a work.

Celeste Berke [00:08:08]:
How does, I'm in this, well, the Corey Nick wrote yesterday. We weren't just sharing some contacts back and forth. I'm gonna be being in real quick. We're happy to share his as well, but I met him through Corey, and I consider him a friend. We met in person this year, which was awesome to hear all the First of all, I don't have any Well, when we start to look at our day, it's interesting how these small moments add up. Waste of time. This morning, I was on my way back from a doctor's appointment and I was messaging my friends. I realized today I spent like 45 minutes talking real and I wasn't working on my own business.

Celeste Berke [00:08:48]:
That's wasted time. Many of us. But my point is when people think I don't have time or I don't know what to post. So I don't, what is your advice that novice user about getting started?

Don Barnett [00:09:06]:
First of all, one thing that makes it easier is, and I just posted about this is if you enjoy writing, if you enjoy storytelling, if you enjoy selling, this will definitely come much easier to you. This probably isn't for everybody. If you hate writing, maybe this isn't for you. I thoroughly enjoy coming up with content in doing this. If I get a smile out of, or help at least just one person then great. It was a great day. So there's the passion part of it. Oh, what was I about to say? I'm having one of those moments where I've got like 3 points and now I forgot 2 of them.

Don Barnett [00:09:40]:
There's the passion part of it. Oh my give me one second and I'll remember it. We'll just edit this part out. Tell me the question again. That'll prompt it.

Celeste Berke [00:09:48]:
I'm gonna mark that. Yeah. I've never used to mark it before, but we'll see.

Don Barnette [00:09:53]:
How to like, are you getting the feedback?

Celeste Berke [00:09:55]:
Often in and people have them had guns, which we can work on later. It's the time of fear. I don't know where to start.

Don Barnett [00:10:02]:
So one of the things that really clicked for me that really got me going with it, when I started thinking about the time was somebody said, you need to think about it like a mini job. And that clicked for me. You don't need to think of it as I need to be on LinkedIn all day. I look at it as a little mini 30 minute a day job. Every morning on the train to work, I get on for 15 or 20 minutes, see who's posting, leave comments and ask thoughtful questions and leave thoughtful comments. And then I'll have the night before created my own content. And then I have it scheduled to post every Monday through Friday at 8:30. So I come up with that, you know, in the evening.

Don Barnett [00:10:39]:
And then throughout the day, you know, I'll check-in, you know, maybe lunchtime I check-in and and see, oh, what, you know, I wanna reply. You know, if somebody's left me a comment, I will always try to reply and and say something, unless they've left something negative, in which case I just make you go away. Yeah.

Celeste Berke [00:10:55]:
Very rarely. You know,

Don Barnett [00:10:56]:
I'm I'm okay with people disagreeing, but I've had 1 or 2 people that left something that was kind of like, what's wrong with you? You know? And so like, nasty and I like, yeah, you're you're being negative.

Celeste Berke [00:11:05]:
I think I'm critical. And that's why I always share examples of people who are like really doing it well and putting themselves out there and being vulnerable professionally is look at what somebody helps us do it. Get ideas. It doesn't have to be recreating a wheel each time. It can be your thoughts on something that's happening. You make your take. You get inspiration. I do that when I'm in a content club.

Don Barnett [00:11:32]:
You know, something I do well, there's there's 2 exercises I do. I'm gonna write this down so I don't forget the second point. It is one thing I'll do is it's if you're getting in the LinkedIn game, it's a two way street. You can't just post and then not reciprocate because the algorithms pick up on that. They won't feed your content to anybody. So you need to, it needs to be a two way street. So you need to go out there and like, and, and interact with other people's content. The more your head is in the game, you'll post something and then I'll think of something to piggyback on that.

Don Barnett [00:12:01]:
And now I'll be like, oh, I'm going to turn that into my own post. So my comment, then I'll twist it into my own post about it and leave my own photo or, or GIF or something like that. The other thing I'll do too is as I think of ideas, which come to me at just random times, but I'll think of things or or I'll see something on TV or I'll see a reel or I'll see anything, and it'll oh, I should write about that. And I email myself. I have a subject line that's l I cut content.

Celeste Berke [00:12:26]:
Then you don't.

Don Barnett [00:12:27]:
And I You

Celeste Berke [00:12:27]:
don't have no

Don Barnett [00:12:28]:
problem. So, yeah, I email myself and I have the same subject line, so it's always easy to find. And then I have a whole folder in my email of, like, ideas. And then when I'm having a day where I'm just like, I don't know. I, I just go to that folder and come up with

Celeste Berke [00:12:41]:
something great.

Don Barnett [00:12:42]:
And then tip. The beauty of doing this over time and, consistently is I've been doing this now hardcore for like 2 years straight. Now I have a ton of past content that I can go back to and repurpose. I can take something I've said in the past and say it in a different way. Or take something that I wrote and now do a video of it. And talk about it in a video. It's the same content. And the thing, to not worry about is are a couple people gonna see the same thing again? Yes.

Don Barnett [00:13:10]:
Are they gonna remember that you did that? Probably not. But it's also gonna feed it to a lot of new people and new connections that you've made over time. So once you've put some reps in and some time in, you be you get your own library of content that you can go back to. Yep. And you may see something you posted before and and then you have a new idea about it, or you learn something about it, or what the hell was I thinking? Here, this is what we should do instead. You know?

Celeste Berke [00:13:33]:
How has the support from customers, a kennel that you have been?

Don Barnett [00:13:41]:
Awesome. And because like I said, you don't realize who you never realize who's seen it. I, most of the, the emails or the conversations I've had of people that have told me that they've seen my content, or I've gone to a conference and people are like, Hey, you're the LinkedIn guy. I used to be the bingo guy and I've now become the LinkedIn guy, which is a cooler, nickname. It happens all the time. And it's people that don't even like my posts. I would know again, I would never know that that they even see them. And they're like, hey, I know you.

Don Barnett [00:14:12]:
I feel bad that I'll go. I went to BiTech where, Nick had invited me and I had a call. I had at least 5 people that were like, oh, I recognize you from LinkedIn. And I felt bad that I couldn't reciprocate because I'm like, this is my first time seeing you, but I appreciate you checking out my nonsense that I post on here.

Celeste Berke [00:14:26]:
Someone yelled at me at high temp. They're like, Jessica, what's your name? And my

Don Barnett [00:14:30]:
What another great receipt for those people that are thinking about getting into it, that, you know, you go to a conference where you're gonna run across a couple thousand people and it's like a whirlwind. But when you're doing this day in and day out on LinkedIn, you don't even have to do it 5 days a week, do it 3 days a week, and you'll still be ahead of everybody else. Now you've got people that recognize you regularly. You'll get to skip a couple steps when you go to that conference because they already recognize you. You don't have to do the icebreakers and introductions because they already know you and they know about all these things you've posted about your family. And, it's almost weird when I have somebody come up and they'll say something something like, oh, how's your wife doing with blah, blah, blah. And I'll be like, oh, yeah, I guess I did post about that. I guess I did post about her poisoning me or something.

Don Barnett [00:15:09]:
And that's interesting because we do have this,

Celeste Berke [00:15:19]:
it's harder than 100 reach prospects. It's harder than customers. They're no longer in buildings. They're afraid to open their inbox or their spam folder. Phone call is this gonna be spam? Not. And if you were not creating that kind of product person, correlation, somebody else could beat you to it, like a dot. No one's gonna beat you to it. I'm gonna beat you to it.

Celeste Berke [00:15:47]:
I work with all the sellers. It's like, you have to look at yourself online through a prospect or a customer's eyes. If I'm pulling up your link with and it's blank, there's no banner, which PS, all of you out there with blank banners or the, like, cat or coffee. It doesn't tell us anything about your professional, like who you are, who you stand for, how you help, and it doesn't tie yourself into the brand you're representing. We have all this missed opportunity from a marketing standpoint. There's a very low lift across our team. And it is so important because of all the statistics I won't get into. You probably know them better than you do from your marketing side.

Celeste Berke [00:16:27]:
That's driving that view. How much personal brands are driving you? So I'd love to know how do you get the buy and support of upper management, C suite, the executive on what you were doing and how it's going at the receipts.

Don Barnette [00:16:44]:
I think I'm just fortunate. I I have I have a boss who he's young. He's younger than me. He's super intelligent, very practical. He's somebody that really believes in social media. For example, we've always gone all in on social media at the hotel. We've made it a a a yearly goal until we became the most followed hotel in Chicago on Instagram. And now it's not even close.

Don Barnette [00:17:08]:
Yeah. You know, the next closest hotel is, like, 20,000 followers away because we went all in on it. He's very progressive that way and knows where people's eyes are and that people are on their phones. He understands LinkedIn and personal branding and the power of it. And then he and I have a trust. He trusts me to run the department and the messages that I'm putting out. He trusts that I'm not gonna embarrass the hotel in any way. There's a trust there.

Don Barnette [00:17:31]:
And then he's just progressive.

Celeste Berke [00:17:33]:
Yep.

Don Barnette [00:17:33]:
And smart. So I think also when

Celeste Berke [00:17:36]:
you show that return on time, those small tidbits of you getting the room and conversations you've had and being invited by Saturday and that preferred Pearl Jam, preferred, you know, that's large to build that connect or that through line from, okay, I see how this activity has resulted across all of these areas.

Don Barnette [00:18:02]:
I think one of the problems some of the C suite or even GMs or DOSes you might have with LinkedIn is we're reactive. It's like, oh, we're having a bad month in 2 months. What are we gonna do? LinkedIn's not gonna fix that If you haven't been on LinkedIn, if you're just jumping on LinkedIn and hoping to post about, oh, look at we're we have neat dates over these dates. Don't you wanna come stay with us? Nobody wants that pitchy stuff. But if you've put the time in, it's a matter of trust and patience and letting people put the 6 months into a year that it's gonna take. But I swear to god, once you do, it it clicks, and and people know who you are, and you get calls. Who knows how many calls I've gotten that didn't even bring up LinkedIn? But that's where it can There's

Celeste Berke [00:18:44]:
no app.

Don Barnette [00:18:45]:
I don't know. But I also have plenty of instances where people have said, I see you on LinkedIn, or I love what you're doing on LinkedIn. And by the way, we'd like to set up a rate with you or whatever the case. And other cool collaborations or opportunities to learn, things like that Right. That where people just

Celeste Berke [00:18:59]:
and 5 people. What do you mean London House has the highest followers on LinkedIn? Like, what are they gonna do? Like, Kraystack Yeah. Asked me, a trailblazer. And when I look across 5,000,000 there's probably more. The 5,000,000 Vitality users on LinkedIn, I'm saddened because there are so much opportunity for individuals to step out of that zone. And, again, I was there. A trickless seller, a bent seller with deep budget. It's not even looking outside.

Celeste Berke [00:19:28]:
And now we have these tools that are free. LinkedIn is free. At our disposal that we're not even tapping into.

Don Barnette [00:19:36]:
I think the I think people just gotta get over the stigma of, oh, they're just playing around on social media. This isn't Facebook. This isn't Instagram. This is LinkedIn where you can do similar things, but, there's ways of doing it that will really move the needle.

Celeste Berke [00:19:50]:
Yes. I have had to apologize to John. I'm sorry. I'm on your response because that is my idea box, like, miserable pursuit, 5 conversations. I have to keep going until I move to a call center, send them something. I'm sending voice mail. It's it's deep, but I attribute those conversations. They're moving offline or receiving something for future.

Celeste Berke [00:20:18]:
Absolutely. And it's my hope that after our our fellow opportunity goers watch this, they and say, hey. Help me. Right? Because there's opportunity and not only personally, professionally, but through the body. As we close down, we're gonna hope and margin that we're able to revise that. We need to have Corey, Nick, myself, Mickey Al to to do, like, a couple of content days. But tell me what sales myth you want to plus, something you wish to go with.

Don Barnette [00:20:58]:
I don't know if this is a myth, but when when it this is very hotel kinky as I like to say, because, it's specifically for hotels. But when we're having you know, everybody has off months. You're not gonna run a 100% all the time. And when you have an off month and, and I'm not, I'm not slamming people on the operations side, because they're, you know, everybody is critical to the organization and important to the business, but you'll have people that when it's a slow month, all of a sudden are like, well, what is sell sales doing? They're they're, they must not be doing anything. The myth I'd like to bust is we are always on. A slow period for us might be right around a holiday. Sure. That's when it might get a little quiet.

Don Barnette [00:21:41]:
If, it's the 4th of, you know, the 5th July, nobody's in the office. That is gonna be a slow day for sales, but just because the ballroom is sitting empty, doesn't mean we're not on the phone, reaching out to clients, taking leads and working. I wish people would stop saying, they must not be doing anything or

Celeste Berke [00:21:58]:
the thing

Don Barnette [00:21:58]:
or, or, you know, we see them at lunch with somebody every day. It's like, yeah, we're taking clients and building relationships. It's not just the booking, but there's a lot of things that go into it. So, so yeah, there's there's that part of it. Like, if we're worth our salt and we are actually doing our job, we're working even if it appears slow.

Celeste Berke [00:22:15]:
Yes. Love that. Because I've been in that operation many years. Definitely. I call it your sales edge, like your unique factor, your ex factor. What is your sales edge?

Don Barnette [00:22:31]:
Wow. Okay. I could name a few.

Celeste Berke [00:22:33]:
That's the only one?

Don Barnette [00:22:36]:
Personality, work ethic. I think something very unique that I have that a lot of people don't is I got out of hospitality for 7 years and was part owner of a limestone fabrication business. So complete career 180. I got to see things from the other side and what it's like to be an owner and be in charge that way. I built up a very healthy respect for revenue and understanding that the decisions you make will have a direct impact on, you know, people having to possibly be laid off or things like that. It's just a whole different perspective. So when I came back into hotels, having been a business owner, my work ethic had totally changed. I look at things more whole now.

Don Barnette [00:23:16]:
I think about the greater good. As a leader and as a business owner, I'm always looking at the greater good, even if it does not benefit the sales department. For example, we have transient business and your reservations and revenue managers trying to get, you know, transient business in, and we're trying to book group rooms. Sometimes it doesn't make sense to book group rooms. At our hotel, we sell out just about every weekend of the year. So it does not make sense for us to take a wedding room block, with just rooms because we would be discounting just for the sake of discounting. What what's the point of that? So we don't do it. And it just makes good business sense.

Don Barnette [00:23:53]:
I, I like to think big picture of what's best for the hotel. And I think that's being a business owner has given me an edge. And one of my favorite quotes comes from Kobe Bryant. He was at the, Staples Center at the time, and Jay Williams came in and was doing workout, and Kobe was there already working out. And Jay Williams went and he worked out for hours and left, and Kobe was still there. The next day, Jay Williams said, hey, man. Like, what were you doing? Like, you were there when I got there. You were there when I left.

Don Barnette [00:24:20]:
And Kobe Bryant said, I just wanted you to know that no matter what you do, I'm willing to work harder than you. And that's kind of, I have that same kind of mentality that you're not gonna outwork me.

Celeste Berke [00:24:30]:
I love it. Well, it has been a pleasure.

Don Barnette [00:24:32]:
And you're not out LinkedIn me.

Celeste Berke [00:24:34]:
You do not out LinkedIn me. I love that. I appreciate you sharing everything today. This episode, you're watching it on on the replay. Please follow Gong. I'll drop his information, but it's been a pleasure hearing about your journey on LinkedIn and the impact it's making and how you're helping to pay that forward to pave the way for other hoteliers who may be a little bit nervous about getting their toe

Don Barnette [00:24:58]:
in. Thanks, Celeste. I appreciate you having me on. I'm always happy to help. Love to see people join in the the LinkedIn game. There's plenty of room for everybody.