679 - The LinkedIn Secret Filling Tech Business Owners' Calendars with Donald Kelly
Why you should listen
- Donald runs one of the top B2B sales podcasts in the world, heard in over 155 countries, and breaks down the exact LinkedIn-first sequence he uses to turn cold prospects into booked calls without paid ads or cold spam.
- Learn the three-step system Donald uses to move a prospect from stranger to conversation: engage on their content, send a personalised connection request tied to something specific about them, then bridge to a short email that speaks to real pain, not surface pain.
- Get Donald's follow-up sequence that replaces the lazy "bumping this up" email with relevance-based touches your prospect actually wants to reply to, plus the exact tools (Hunter.io, Sales Navigator, Apollo) he uses to find verified business emails.
Tired of sending LinkedIn messages into a black hole and wondering why your outbound never converts? In this episode, I talk with Donald C. Kelly, founder of The Sales Evangelists and one of the most recognised B2B sales voices in the world. Most tech business owners default to pitching before earning attention, and it is the reason their pipeline stays empty. Donald walks through the exact sequence he uses to break through the noise, earn engagement, and turn it into a real conversation, without faking friendship or copying the spray-and-pray playbook every SDR is running. If you sell on LinkedIn and the results are not matching the effort, this one shows you where the gap is.
Key Highlights
- Real pain versus surface pain: Why "we help you get more leads" fails every time and what to say instead when your prospect already has leads.
- The personalised connection request that actually works: The specific format Donald uses, and why generic "we share mutual connections" notes kill your acceptance rate.
- The bridging email: How to connect a LinkedIn engagement to a short email that earns a yes or no reply, without sounding like a salesperson.
- The follow-up sequence without the lazy bump: The four-email structure that keeps relevance high and stops you sliding to the bottom of the inbox.
- Using a podcast as a pipeline tool: Why getting on other people's shows (and running your own) is one of the most underutilised trust-building channels available to tech business owners.
About Donald Kelly
Donald C. Kelly is the founder of The Sales Evangelist and host of one of the longest-running B2B sales podcasts in the world, with nearly 2,000 episodes heard across 155+ countries. A LinkedIn Top Voice in Sales and three-time Salesforce Top Influencer, he helps SMB and mid-market sales teams build LinkedIn-led outbound systems that turn cold prospects into booked calls. He is the author of Sell It Like a Mango and based in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Resources and Links
- thesalesevangelist.com
- Donald's LinkedIn profile
- Donald's free prospecting tool
- Hunter.io
- Apollo.io
- SNOV.io
- ZoomInfo
- Gemini Nano Banana
- Base44
- Previous episode: 678 - 81% of Partners Will Grow Below the Industry Rate
- Check out more episodes of the Paul Higgins Podcast
- Subscribe to our YouTube channel: @PaulHigginsMentoring
- Join our newsletter
- Suggested resources
