Connecting, the Power of Networks and Professional Sales with Mike Roberts

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Today on The GDPR Series podcast, we talk connection, networks and messaging. Our guest is a solutions provider in the field of keeping mail safe, physical and digital. He is also a well-known LinkedIn personality who is passionate about professional selling. Listen on to find out how he uncovered successful ways to network, connect and sell professionally on LinkedIn through selling a solution for secure mailing.

Our guest today is Mike Roberts the sincere and friendly helping hand behind ‘LinkedIn 101’ and the seamless secure and confidential mail communication solution Frama Rmail ™. Frama Rmail ™ is a solution that encompasses email encryption, tracking, large document delivery and e-signatures. Installation is fast and painless and help is always at hand with Mike as part of your vendor team. Through selling this solution online, Mike came to realise he had developed a successful method for connecting with and selling to his professional network on LinkedIn. Thankfully for us, Mike realised people might want to know the secret sauce. Mike offers a one-to-one 90 minute online session where he gets hands-on with you and your LinkedIn presence. This is followed up with a comprehensive report which serves as a guide for you going forward.

Mike is a great believer in connecting with his clients in a personal way and also a great believer in building networks. In this episode, Mike shares some great advice about the type of messaging we should be focusing on that is client-centric and presenting information in a way that people can receive it. We hope that you enjoy it and that you do reach out to Mike be it for a seamless security solution or for a LinkedIn revamp.

Tel: +447545292184
E-mail: mike.roberts@frama.co.uk

LinkedIn 101 Website

Frama Rmail ™ Website

Transcription:

Philipa Farley:  Hi, and welcome to our podcast called the GDPR Series, where we discuss data protection, privacy and cyber security matters that ordinary people in everyday businesses face. We have a series of really interesting and lovely guests, and we hope you enjoy listening.

Philipa Farley:  Today, we’ve got Mike Roberts on The GDPR series. I met Mike on LinkedIn, which is a great place to meet professional contacts. I think Mike, we kind of met probably when you were I don’t know if you had started with RMail, or how far along the lines you were a bit. It’s quite a while ago now that we’ve been connected. Mike is going to chat to us today about professional selling on LinkedIn. I’ve got his website open here, www.mikedroberts.co.uk. The links will be in the podcast web page with other links that Mike will provide us. Do you want to introduce yourself? Mike, you probably do it far better than then I will and then we can get chatting.

Mike Roberts:  Yeah, of course. Thank you so much for having me on today. I really, really appreciate it. And, and for all your support recently as well, it’s been absolutely fantastic. Yeah. So a little introduction about me. So for the last 15 years, I have been helping people with their mail. And that was in the physical format. So I started off as a young, fresh straight out of college salesperson selling mailroom equipment for law firms and regulated industries. And I have progressed into the digital age. Yeah, so now I’m still helping all of those same clients and all those same customers of mine, protecting their mail, but in a digital format, so there’s two sides to me. One, I help firms and companies, make sure that their email is secure. And yeah, help them automate some of their processes with electronic signatures, and things like that. And then the other side to me is I absolutely love helping salespeople and professionals on LinkedIn. I’ve been using the platform ever since day one. And I just, you know, really enjoy showing people how it’s helped me how it’s helped my business. And,  that’s me.

Philipa Farley:  Yeah, that’s that’s a fantastic summary, Mike. Honestly, like I hadn’t realised that you went so far back with it the mailroom equipment, type of thing. I thought that you were more digital, but that’s fascinating. I’m a bit of a geek for, like, old machines and things. So yeah, we’ll have to talk about that another time. Yeah, yeah. So you’re most of your clients. You mentioned law firms there, and professional firms. Who would you say are kind of the core clientele that you would deal with on the mail side of things?

Mike Roberts:  I would say there’s three: there’s wealth management firms in the financial sector. There are legal firms, so solicitors, barristers, people like that. And then there’s your other regulated industries. And I would probably say that that would be healthcare. Yeah. But wealth management firms are probably my biggest sector. And I and I’ve been thinking recently why that is. And it’s because when you’re speaking to a wealth management firm, for example, their clients are for life. So, your client will be with them from day one, and until the end of their lives. Yeah. So it’s absolutely critical that you make sure that everything is perfect from day one, and no better place to start really than making sure their electronic communications are secure.

Philipa Farley:  Yeah, I mean, in that context, Mike, like they’re based purely on trust, you know, obviously also with their strong obligations to the laws that govern them. But nobody wants to see a wealth management firm in the news for breaking trust. And that’s what we deal with in the GDPR, is it’s about to trust more than anything else. And once trust is broken, it’s so difficult to come back to that. So when you’ve got that, kind of, those stakes on the table, you need to make sure that what you’re using is pretty much bulletproof and easily managed by the client that’s using it. So I think that’s what’s come across to me on a lot of your posts and your videos, which I love. I love the way that you present your product on LinkedIn. You know, you’re not a pushy salesman, you engage with your clients, your customers, your potential customers, you know, you have relevant industry discussions. It’s fantastic. So, yeah, I think like you’ve got this lovely way of reaching people kind of where they’re at, and drawing them in and making them feel very comfortable. With the solution that you provide, and obviously you’re fully behind that solution with the knowledge that it’s one that works, you know, and I think that’s a great message for people to hear.

Mike Roberts: Absolutely. And then one of the big key things that I talk about regularly is clients’ experience. And that hits so many levels with me, because when I’m talking to my clients who use Frama R mail. Yeah, and they’re, they’re needing email encryption or electronic signatures, it’s not all about security. A lot of it is about the client’s experience and making it easy for their customers. And I try to do that myself on LinkedIn. So when I’m, when I’m selling my product to potential clients, I want to make their experience good and I try to do that in as many ways as I can, whether it’s engaging content, creating videos, trying to use a bit of my graphic design in there. I just want it to be a pleasant experience right before we’ve even spoken.

Philipa Farley:  Yeah. And you know, I think that’s one of the things that I really love about you and your personality, Mike, like. Just to get really personal here is that you’re just, you’re such a nice guy. And I think I’ve known you for long enough now to know that that’s not like a huge pretence, you know, you’re not like some kind of, I don’t know, Jekyll and Hyde, where you have this persona online and a persona offline, you are genuinely a good guy. And that comes across through everything that you do. So you really like, live your brand, which is amazing. I know that I have sent some questions over to you. Can I ask you a couple and we’ll get back to this discussion because it’s flowing really nicely, you know, and back to you specifically your www.mikedroberts.co.uk website, where you offer LinkedIn training and other services. Yeah, because I think we’re kind of crossing over here a little bit now. Specifically, and I’m going to reiterate what you said to me: you’re not a GDPR expert, a specialist, but I believe that the work that you do and the services that you offer, bolster a message that we who kind of work purely in the field, are trying to send out, where you’re approaching it in a way and with a language that the customers understand. Sometimes we can throw language or things, throw requirements at things that really scare people off. And I’m very, very mindful of that because I don’t want anybody to be scared of owning their responsibilities to others’ personal data. So, I sit back a lot of the time and I kind of “watch and learn.” And I really appreciate somebody like you who is giving it to people in a way that they can receive it. You know, we have to learn as an industry, there’s an appropriate time to kind of get heavy about the topic. And then, there’s an appropriate time to kind of tone it down, and bring it right down to earth for people to receive it. So that’s kind of the mission that we’re on, if you want to call it that. So I asked you here, where did you first come to grips with or aware of data protection and the GDPR?

Mike Roberts:  I 100% fell into it by accident. When I was transitioning from physical mail into a digital mail specialist, I began to understand the basics of email encryption. What happens to a standard email as opposed to how an encrypted email looks? Yeah, and this all was happening around March of 2017.

Philipa Farley:  Yeah.

Mike Roberts:  So GDPR was slightly in the news. And people were talking about it, but as the months went on, it became more of a big thing. And I just thought to myself, you know, I was in a very lucky situation where I was learning this with everybody else in the UK or, I mean, as much as you know, people that weren’t, you know, “with it” as much as I was.

Philipa Farley:  Yeah.

Mike Roberts:  And by the time May 2018 came along, I was in a great position to talk to my clients and, by the way, my clients are not big companies. They’re probably in the one to 20 headcount. So they wanted to be able to speak to somebody, without having a techie jargon-filled conversation. And I was fortunate enough to be able to say, “Okay, well, I’m all I’m going to be talking to you today about is a Microsoft Outlook or Gmail plugin. And I’m going to go through the basics with you. And I’m just going to simply show you how you’re going to transition into basically being secure with your electronic communications.” And I did it in a way that I wanted to, I wanted to have it done to me in March 2017. And that’s basically one of the things I do where a lot of people want to go down the whole jargon-filled, really technical-filled conversation. And that’s not me, but if my clients want that, I’ve got people fantastic in my network, for instance, yourself with Serity, and things like that, who have got some amazing offerings and platforms and discussions that they can have. So not only have they got a great product with me that I can provide to them, but I’ve got a network behind me that really does know their stuff. So I’m very fortunate.

Philipa Farley:  Yeah, and Thanks, Mike for that. I do appreciate it because like, you know, you can approach us anytime and give us a shout and say: “Would you mind chatting to this person or that person or what’s our opinion on this?” And I think you’re quite great at that. Like, just sort of, minimally tagging people who are relevant to posts to hop into a discussion and I love that. You know, I love interacting in that way. And I think what you say is so important because, let’s just focus there, what you were saying about sort of the technical kind of reviews of a platform. Now, we would speak about vendor assessments, and due diligence, and all of these things. And, you know, there are certain parts of the GDPR that vendors have to stand up to. And then, there’s sort of more nebulous parts that aren’t very specific, like technical and organisational measures, you know, and you have to kind of dig quite deep to find out exactly what that means. And then we get to places where it says, you know, in proportion to the risk presented to the data subject, and then it’s like, oh, it doesn’t necessarily have to be state of the art, but it must be appropriate to that risk. And these kinds of things, like really frighten people. So I’m gonna say it again, that really, I love the way that you present your solution and particularly, that point of people wanting it to be an easy customer journey. Because going back to applications, that would have sort of mushroomed up around the time that the GDPR was brought into force, I would have tried a couple of email encryption solutions. And I mean, 10, 15 steps down the line, you still don’t have your message and you actually really want to just throw the computer out the window. It’s just an impossible landscape for people to navigate. So I think, really, it’s so vital, what you’re saying there, that people work together to provide the best, overall global solution – the networks work together. And this is another message we’ve been trying to put out as this podcast is that, yeah, competition is healthy, but actually, like we’re all much better off for working together, because our clients actually benefit from that,

Mike Roberts:  Well, you know, well, absolutely, for sure. And the thing is, with Frama, we, you know, we’re not a multi billion Dollar organisation. Yeah. Often when I’m demonstrating our mail to my clients, they ask about the support and I tell them about my team and myself. And I say to them, you know, chances are you could text me or call me at 8 o’clock in the evening. And if you need help, chances are if I’m available and I probably will be, I can jump onto a quick screen share, and help you send that email, or create that document for an e-signature. And a lot of people think Yeah, okay, you know, he’s saying that because he just wants the sale. But when they actually do make that call, or give me a text at 8 o’clock and realise that I am there, I’m able to help them think, do you know what? That’s absolutely fantastic, because people are looking for that little bit of extra customer service especially in today’s day and age. Because you know, our big giant competitors you know, yeah, they are a customer and there is a figure on a whiteboard to them.

Philipa Farley:  Oh, yeah. And all the call centres are outsourced, and good luck to you actually finding something that’s not a computer that’s answering questions. My favourite trick with the help bot is “Please may I speak to a human?” And, they all seem to have some kind of code programmed in to pass you off on to, like a human being, that actually will answer the questions, you know. And what you’re saying is so important, because I’ll just put a note here, because this is kind of like evergreen content. But we’re recording this in the middle of the lockdown in 2020, where we’re working from home offices and people aren’t having meetings in person unless you’re essential services. So, that kind of goes to what I’m about to say here is that, you know, you say your customers are in the bracket of people, you know, in one to 20 teams, of one to 20 in the business. So not more than 20 employees, where we ourselves, we deal with a lot of people in that bracket, a lot of local businesses around Cork city and Cork county. And then we would have a lot of startups that we deal with globally. Also, in, like, the 1 to 5, 10, 20, not more than 30, teams, because when they start getting to that stage, they start hiring in-house and we kind of help them cross over, you know, Internet security and data protection expertise that they need on board permanently. And, going back to my point of people working from their home office, and that I think, like I’m, I see, maybe a shift in business where, you know, obviously, there is a place for the enterprise and there always will be the enterprise-level business, but there will be a lot more smaller businesses around, Mike. And, you know, we can’t, I think this is just this is just me personally, we can’t think that anymore in business that the goal is to make millions and millions and millions of Euros, Dollars, Pounds, whatever. Because what we’re seeing now is this sort of humanity around us where, that’s not really appropriate, you know, the human connection is far more important than the money making. Yes, the money does grease the wheels of the business to continue. But I think what’s really coming to the fore, is that that human connection that one to one, reputation matters. You know, and I really love the model that you’re building here because I think that’s, that’s core to you. That’s the LinkedIn sales, professional selling, that you do the help there is really, really core to that. And it, kind of, is parallel to data protection and the trust, you know, and it’s a very philosophical message and, and a lot of people kind of battle with that. That it’s not just another law, you know. That we all have to do and we have to tick the boxes, and we have to, kind of, it’s such a drag, it actually really should be like a pillar to your business that: How do I care for my customers? What am I doing to make sure that their trust is minded? It’s taken care of. And, you know, they deserve to have that trust. So, yeah, like it’s GDPR and data protection, and it was a drag, and it shouldn’t be a drag. But I think, you know, with enough of a message going out, people will hopefully start to see that.

Mike Roberts:  Yeah, absolutely, totally agree.

Philipa Farley:  My soapbox. My soapbox, there! I asked you a second question here: the impact on you personally of the GDPR. And it’s fine, like if you haven’t had kind of a personal rumble with the law as such. Everybody who follows my Twitter will kind of have a laugh every now and then about the things that I post where I might get into a situation. The one was the insurance broker or company and asking for the blood tests because we are kind of newly arrived in Europe enough, for you know, HIV to be a concern, but the way it was handled was just really, really difficult and it took months before the correct information, you know, came out. And like, it would have been so easy for me just to sign the paper and go for the test, you know, like, whatever. But sometimes I just get to the point where I think like, if I don’t say something, you know, other people are going to have this bad experience and not get the information that they are required to get in the law. So, I kind of do stand up for it a little bit. Have you had any personal experience with the GDPR data protection that you could share with us I want to share with us, or want to share with us?

Mike Roberts:  Personally, I don’t think so. But, you know, what we do as a company at Frama is we are learning, just like everybody else. And if we ever get anything wrong, then we hope that people will tell us and make sure that we can put it right. And, you know, we’ve had people that have approached us with regards to our privacy statements. Yeah, asking is about asking us about, you know, our products and where we keep people’s data? Yes, yeah. And, you know, again, we’re in a very brilliant situation with our solution because we aren’t a cloud-based tool. Yeah. Yeah. So unlike other email encryption companies that take a copy of your email, put it in the portal of somebody else’s computer, i.e. the cloud. You know, we don’t do that. And so again, it’s nice, it’s a nice weight off people’s shoulders, knowing that we’re not taking copies of people’s emails and putting them in the cloud somewhere. So, I think we’re doing good. And again, I’d ask anybody out there, you know, please, if there is something that we can improve on, we’re always open to learning.

Philipa Farley:  Yeah, and that’s an amazing statement, right? Because a lot of people kind of just tuck their heads under their desks, and close their ears, and don’t want to know about it. Because, I think and you’ll hear this as a thread through the other episodes, where I say every now and then that I find quite a few Data Protection team or Data Protection Coordinators, the Data Protection Officers in businesses that have not been afforded the training and the backup that they should have been afforded. So, you’ve got people that have just, kind of, been appointed in positions and have said yes, and they’re trying to learn on their own. And you might come across a product or a service or website online that actually technically is not compliant with the GDPR. But to, kind of, shred it, if I can say it like that, on a professional network and publicly name and shame and, you know, say things about it. We’re forgetting that there are real people behind that you may be struggling with resources in their jobs. They may be struggling with the time in the day, you never know until you approach somebody personally. So I think what you’re saying there is an excellent message for people to receive, is that if there is a problem, please pick up the phone or send us an email, and let us know, you know, you will definitely get an answer, and things will be improved. And we all get better that way.

Mike Roberts:  Absolutely, absolutely. And the other thing is, you know, I would highly recommend people to use online learning platforms. I know a few of my clients who’ve used Serity, have given me absolutely fantastic feedback. So, yeah, I, you know, well done on what you do as well for your clients.

Philipa Farley:  You know, we, we, we hope to democratise the law a little bit, Mike, and let’s let people, kind of, you know, get that knowledge without too many barriers. Okay, so the third question here is: where you’ve seen that you’ve seen opportunities for your own business in the context of the GDPR. I don’t want you to answer in any GDPR-centric way. And I would like you to please tell us about your LinkedIn services for professionals, because I think, if I may be so bold as to say it, that’s kind of the opportunity that came out of this for you.

Mike Roberts:  Yeah. And so I’ve used LinkedIn from day one. I’ve never been on a LinkedIn training course. And I’ve never sat in a classroom with somebody, you know, on a PowerPoint presentation telling me how to use it. I spent many, many years using it for no real benefit, I suppose I was getting no interaction. And it was only really, probably in 2016 or 2017, where I actually started to record and look at why things were turning around for me. What was it? I was doing something different?

Philipa Farley:  Yeah.

Mike Roberts:  And, you know, within a 12 month period, suddenly I was getting lots of brilliant people in my network. I wasn’t doing anything ridiculously time-centric or it or, you know, throwing loads of money at the platform. But I was just getting to understand a little bit more about personal branding, what people enjoy seeing, and how to make your content different to other people’s. And then I started just kind of delving a little bit deeper into it, you know how Google and the Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) works with LinkedIn.

Philipa Farley:  Yeah.

Mike Roberts:  And how to make yourself different from everybody else, in your industry and competitors. And it was literally just just over a coffee one lunchtime with a friend of mine, who I spent half an hour with, and I gave him some tips and tricks for his LinkedIn profile. And he said, you know, you should be doing this as a service that you teach, you know, I’ve never heard it before. So I just decided to call it LinkedIn 101. And it’s, it’s an hour to 90 minutes with somebody on a screen, sharing a session. And all I do is I just absolutely pack in as much as I can in that 90 minutes to look to look at the front page, and help people with their headline, their summary ideas for content.

Philipa Farley:  Yeah.

Mike Roberts:  And we just try and squeeze as much as we can into our session so that the person that I’m speaking to, can just walk away after that 90 minutes and think, you know, there’s a couple of things there. There’s 1, 2, maybe 3 things that I can walk away with and put into practice immediately. And so far, I have a 100% success rate in the fact that the people that I’ve provided this service to have actually seen an increase in lead generation, or conversations. So, I, that just absolutely delights me because when I would, I would put all of those years of practice into giving people nice, bite-sized chunks so that they’re not just sat there; there’s no PowerPoint presentations, and there’s no classroom environment. It’s very interactive. And they walk away with a PDF ebook at the end of it with a personalised report on exactly what we’ve discussed. So I love it. I just love what I do.

Philipa Farley:  Yeah, I know. And that really comes through and it is amazing, Mike, I would have personal knowledge of a couple of the people that you have assisted. And, the difference is remarkable. And I’m going to bring us back to what we were chatting about just before I think we press record there and say that: Basically, the way that you’re teaching people to use LinkedIn to develop those relationships, you know, and to make those sales is kind of what people need to learn in terms of data protection, and e-privacy, specifically, you know. Long gone are the days of using analytics person analytics, mailing lists, and just bombarding inboxes with emails in the hope of a sale. You know, let’s email 10,000 people and we’ll be lucky if we get one sale out of it. And that’s a really bottom line true statistic because, around the time the GDPR came into force, I would have sat with many, many people going through their mailing lists: How do they get the data? How do they compile it? Could they tag origins? Had they obtained the correct consents? You know, could they justify under legitimate interest? And then going through it and saying to business owners, who are very, very concerned about, you know, working through this prospect of losing contact is how effective are these mailing lists anyway? Particularly like in a b2b context, and it turns out, most people were not actually making any sales from them. So I really, really love what you’re doing here. And I have hope that people do take up the opportunity to get in touch with you and, to sort, of revamp the way that they think about sales. Sales are not scary, you know, you’ve got something people need. And I think you’ve said that to me before people need it, they need to hear about it. So take the opportunity to do that, you know, into being kind of proud of what you’re selling and what you’re doing.

Mike Roberts:  At the end of the day, I am a salesperson, and I have been ever since I left college, well around 15 years ago now. And what I tell people time and time again is, forget your mailing list, forget the spam emails. Basically, start with, and again, I bring it back to LinkedIn, because that’s where I’ve made all of my success is: start with one success. Let’s call it a penny, and then then turn that into another penny. And before you know it, you’re springboarding your way through to this fantastic, successful world of sales where it’s an enjoyable experience. And, and everything that you’re doing is off the back of your last major success, where you’re helping them. They’re helping you. And suddenly, it just becomes a fantastic world to be in. And that’s what I try to help young people with, especially people who have just started off in sales. Yeah, they might not be on that journey that I had 15 years ago. And they’re bombarded with this whole world of digital solutions to this and video this…All you gotta do is take it one step at a time and before you know it, it’s it’s, it’s great.

Philipa Farley:  Yeah, no, and that’s, that’s a fantastic message. Thank you for sharing that with us, Mike. Okay, the opportunities for your clients. I think we’ve just mentioned that here. So let’s not spend too much time on that. Unless you’ve got a sort of a story or two you’d like to share with us. People’s kind of them being turned around on LinkedIn where it has made a deep impact on their lives?

Mike Roberts:  Well, I do get a lot of messages from my clients, both Rmail and under LinkedIn training. You know, and I try to put that on my testimonials page. And I just want people to walk away with one thing, which basically helps them gain that extra sale. And, I say to a lot of people, when the extra sale comes in, from what I’ve taught you, use it and piggyback off the back of that and make sure it’s, you just continue that success. And, I think people just enjoy it and enjoy the short, fun, jam packed time that we have together, rather than sitting in a classroom on death by PowerPoint.

Philipa Farley:  Yeah, exactly that those days are long gone. Yeah, thank god for that as well. Okay, I’m going to ask your personal opinion on a platform like LinkedIn, in our very likely future of work from home remote work-type models, and I sent these questions to you two weeks ago. I think I just, maybe, tweaked the last one maybe more than two weeks ago. So small little inside laugh there. I’ll ask it again, what’s your opinion on a platform like LinkedIn in our very likely future of work from home remote, remote work type models?

Mike Roberts.  My opinion on a platform like LinkedIn is, I think they’re fantastic.

Philipa Farley:  Yeah, yeah. Essential.

Mike Roberts:  Yeah. I think you can make them fun. The technology that is available to us nowadays, has presented this with an opportunity like never before. And, I’ve been doing online meetings and video meetings now, every day for the last, probably, three years. And I just think that they’re great. It saves time. It’s easy to do, once you start using it.

Philipa Farley:  Yeah.

Mike Roberts:  And then I think the opportunities are endless. I really do especially with them. Now that we’ve, the globalisation that we’re faced with, I know that you and some of the contacts that you’ve connected with me, Andrea, you know, connected me with a wonderful company in Mauritius. And without the technology available to us, I would have never had the opportunity. So I thought I think it’s great.

Philipa Farley:  Yeah, it is. I mean, I kind of grew up in isolation, if you can call it that, like our nearest city was about 100 kilometres away with the nearest sort of rural hospital 25 minutes away from our farm. And when we had that first screaming modem in the house, connected to a small satellite dish that connected us to the telephone services, it revolutionised and changed our world, you know. Just understanding that in 5 or 10 minutes, you could get something from the other side of the earth, that had taken weeks or months previously to organise. And I really do feel that excitement that you’re bringing forward in your statement there. Because you’re right Mike, the opportunities are endless. Technology might be a barrier for some but you know, we all have our challenges in business, whatever area it’s in. We have to recognise that and work towards overcoming those challenges. But yes, video conferencing, video meetings are definitely a part of our future. And I, for one, we’ve, we’ve worked in a home office, I dip in and out of co-working spaces as my clients might require. But, I prefer a home office because of the absolute security. You know, I’m kind of guaranteed for the work that I’m doing but also the work life balance. That’s very important to me. So I really love technology and I love the opportunities that it presents us with You know, and obviously from the data protection and security point of view, and this goes back to your Frama RMail point is, you know, we need to make sure that we’re using the correct tools to help us enable enable us to do our work in a compliant manner. So, yeah.

Mike Roberts:  And it also sets you apart from your competition as well, because one of the things that I do regularly is video email. And I’m surprised it hasn’t, you know, become more popular. It’s popular in the USA, but not quite so much in the UK and Ireland. And, one of the things that I tell a lot of my clients is, look, if you’re in a competitive situation, you know, why don’t you be that person that sends your prospect or client a video email, instead of blank text on a white background because, you know, things like this, and the technology is so readily available to us and nobody’s really doing it. It’s going to set you far better apart from anyone else. And so it’s just there to be taken, and the opportunities are there right then and to be in sales now is probably the best time ever to be in sales, even during this lockdown. It’s a huge opportunity.

Philipa Farley:  Yeah. And again, Mike, I really really hope that people connect with you and get in touch and get some of your enthusiasm first hand, because I know that it has made a big difference to me personally, and quite a few people in my professional network and personal network. You’ve been an amazing assistance in great times of need sometimes and thank you for that. Can I end with one last question here, because I know your time is very precious. And thank you for spending the hour with us. We really do appreciate it. One piece of advice to potential clients of yours.

Mike Roberts:  So my advice would be: Don’t worry about things like email encryption, and, you know, ways of automating your business processes. It doesn’t have to be, you know, long winded IT, technical discussions. Myself and there are others out there. You know, we are humans and we can have a one to one conversation with you and make it easy for you. Just don’t worry about it and just, you know, speak to the right people.

Philipa Farley:  Yeah, take action, I think it is a good one. And any potential advice to you potential, or any advice to potential clients have those for your LinkedIn101?

Mike Roberts:  I would say: Don’t be afraid of social media, especially LinkedIn, it’s there for you to have to create content. It’s about you and your personal brand, not necessarily your company. People are on there to learn about you, not your company.

Philipa Farley:  And that’s a really good piece of advice, Mike, because I think we kind of step into this professional sort of persona. We’re trying to align. I’m speaking personally here, like, my message with what we’re doing with a company. We’re actually like, you have a unique personality that needs to come out. So that’s a fantastic piece of advice. Is there anything else you’d like to say? You know, any, any, any contact places you prefer? Obviously, LinkedIn, you know, you’re there. Do you have a Twitter account? Are you on Facebook? Where can people find you?

Mike Roberts:  So they can find me on LinkedIn. They can also find me on Twitter, which is where I post more things about social media and ideas for posting that’s @frammamike. And they’re the best places to contact me. And the other little piece of advice, which I’ve just realised I could have said before, is when you are posting on platforms like LinkedIn, always put yourself in the mind of your client or customer. Just think about what it is that they would like to see if you were in their shoes. That’s probably a really strong piece of advice.

Philipa Farley:  Yeah, that’s fantastic. So thanks so much, Mike for joining us. We’ll obviously share the things that you’ve spoken about in the post that will go along with the link to this podcast. And we’ll put it up on social media so people can contact you easily. Really, really thank you. Your presence in social media is a delight, and it’s fresh and I love connecting and chatting. Thank you.

Mike Roberts:  No, thank you as well. I really, really appreciate the opportunity.

Philipa Farley:  We hope you enjoyed that episode of the GDPR series. If you do, please subscribe. Find us on social media. We’d love to have a chat.