Matt Clark — Chief Igniter at The Virtual Edge how to gain two to 5 high quality LinkedIn leads a day!

on Monday night. As we do each and every Monday at this time, it is time for what's involved. Man, do I have a guest for you tonight. And you know that we love to talk about all things entrepreneurial, motivational, inspirational. Well, I think it ticks all of the boxes. From a company called the Virtual Edge, let's say a very warm welcome to you, Matt Clark. - Thank you for having me on, David. I'm excited to be here. - Okay, so let's start off. I've always asked my guests, let's give us a little bit of a background format, Clark, but I think this time we need to give a bit of context. So you run a company called Virtual Edge. - That's right, the Virtual Edge, yeah. - Okay, so are we gonna give away that much? Because you do something that I found absolutely fascinating. And you made some claims, which I looked at and I said, I don't know, I don't know if this can happen. I don't know if it is. So let's start off and tell me a bit about young Matt Clark. I mean, how did you sort of, you know, grow up and how did you end up getting into a business called the Virtual Edge? - So I mean, do you want the short version or the long version? - No, we got an hour, you know. - Yeah, okay, cool, we'll do bits and pieces.

But you know, I think like I'm an entrepreneur and I didn't realize that until recently actually and understanding what an entrepreneur is and really looking for opportunities and taking the ones that are good. Sometimes you don't take the good ones. Sometimes it happens to your detriment. And I'm sure we've all got stories like that. - School fees, I was told. - School fees, yeah, yeah, that's school fees that you never pay to a school, but yeah. So really where I started out, you know, I finished my trick. My first job was working as a waiter and just working tables, working for commission only. And, you know, when I say commission, I mean tips. And that's kind of really where it all started. So, you know, from there, I just, my parents wanted me to study and I was like, that's not gonna happen. I hated school, are you kidding me? I can't study. - I can relate. - Yep, yep, yep. So I said, now I'm gonna go to the UK and I'm gonna go do a gap year over there. And what happened was that I would actually save money. I would spend half of my money working as a waiter and then I'd save it. So I had put the money I save in my right pocket and the money I spend in my left pocket. And after a couple of months, I had about 20,000 rounds saved up in a roll in my cupboard.

And, you know, like any teenager, or maybe not anyone, but I was a little bit naughty growing up and we used to drink quite a bit and I landed up crashing my dad's car and then his girlfriend's car. And so my dad kind of went into the cupboard and took the money and just like, he bought the ticket and he's like, listen, it's time for you to go now. Okay, just go and do something. So I got over there and I started working for an organization doing door-to-door sales and selling gas and electric. And it was life changing. You know, for me, I really, I learned how to sell. - But I mean, you go selling gas and electric and for South Africans, we don't often understand what that is, but they are different service providers. So everybody's vying for the same sort of street of business. - Huge competition. I mean, there were days where there were seven different companies knocking on the same doors. So by the time you get to the door, you're the seventh person. You can only imagine the colorful language that people used to use when you opened it. - Or just two words, one of them being off, okay. - Yeah, yeah. I mean, I've had dogs released on me. I've been chased down the road. I've had people try and hit me.

I mean, you name it, it's happening. But, you grew a thick skin. Learned how to sell. Learned how to turn those nose into a yes. And we got fantastic training from there. And you know, the one thing I didn't like about the UK was the weather and the people didn't grab my attention. So I wanted to move back to South Africa. And when I did, I worked for one of my dad's friends on commission only and that wasn't a, it was cool, but it wasn't my thing, you know. And the guy I used to work for in the UK phoned me up one day. I remember it was a Tuesday afternoon. He said, Matt, I've just done, I've opened up something here in South Africa. I want you to come and work. Come and see me. I've got to show you this opportunity. Phoned me on the Tuesday, saw him on the Wednesday, quit on the Thursday, moved to Cape Town and started selling PABX telephone systems door to door. - Yeah. - And we were very successful. And you know, in 2008, when a lot of businesses were closing down, we were growing, we were expanding, you know. There was one month where we did 400 PABX sales. - Good Lord, that's a large amount. - Yeah, so we were growing offices. And so from there we had a multitude of different things.

We, you know, we worked on and off for the company for a while. I mean, at 18 years old, knocking doors, I was making between, you know, 80 and 150 grand a month. - Geez. - Yeah. - That wasn't bad. - Yeah. So I wish someone taught me how to save and invest it better. (laughing) - You should have been listening to the show. - I know, right? I know. So from there, we kind of evolved. And the guy that I was working for, we landed up getting into business together. So him, myself, and another partner. And we grew our own business. Had a Samsung dealership selling PABX copiers and CCTV. Grew it large. I mean, we had 40 staff members. We had office in Joburg, office in Cape Town. And it was going really well. But I found that I wanted something different. You know, it was, it was taking up, it was very time intensive, emotional intensive. And, you know, salespeople are a lot of responsibility. And then, you know, I'm putting it nicely there, obviously. (laughing) - But like radio presenters, very high maintenance. (laughing) - Well, technicians were even more high maintenance, right? They'd crash cars and lose cell phones and stuff would go missing. And, you know, lots of fun. So I really wanted something different.

I wanted to own my own time. I wanted to be able to travel when I wanted. I wanted to be able to work when I wanted. When multiple currencies live this laptop lifestyle. - Yeah, the whole digital nomad thing. - Not have so much responsibility as well, but be able to fund what I'm doing. And so I sold my shares in the business and, you know, I'm sure most people can relate. The values of the business actually landed up becoming more about money than, you know, delivering something great. And that didn't work for me. So I moved. So what happened was that when I started this online business, I started picking up clients from around the world, but then I went from working, you know, eight hour days to working from six in the morning till two o'clock the next morning. - Yes, I found that. You know, that was one of the, who started that off the whole, like four hour, eight hour-- - St. Ferris, four hour work week. - Yeah, he lied. (laughing) Or maybe when you get to a certain level, I don't know, but I found myself working stupid times now. - Yeah, well, what I've learned from that is that in order to live that kind of lifestyle, you've got to have systems and processes in place. And entrepreneurs are notoriously bad at creating systems.

And, you know, you look at the difference between a large organization and a corporate and a small business owner. The difference is the systems. They've got processes, they've got standard operating procedures, they've got systems in place, and that allows them to scale and to grow bigger. - And as a small entrepreneur, small business, we spend most of our time at the call face, kind of trying to just make everything happen. You know, marketing, that'll be me. Sales, yes, that'll be me. - Admin, technology, you know, IT assistant. I can't miss you name it. - Cooking bottle washer. - 100%. - Okay, so you're working these long hours, but then you wanted to live the nomad lifestyle, sold the shares, and then started Virtual Edge. - I started the Virtual Edge, but, you know, it took us a while to actually get some traction. And it actually took a pretty significant life event for me to change what I was doing. I got really sick. I was diagnosed with Crohn's disease. And I went from 82 kilograms down to 59 in a space of two months. I was like skin and bones. And I landed up in hospital a couple of times, and at one stage, you know, they weren't really sure if I was gonna make it. And I had some amazing people around me, and, you know, my business partner now, you know, he's one of my favorite people in my life, because when things were really bad, we weren't even working together at the time.

We were kind of, he was consulting to me, and he kind of just came in and visited me in the hospital, and he was like, "Dude, just don't worry about anything. "I'll take care of all the clients and everything, "until you're ready to get back at it." - You know how strange it is, though, that you mentioned that you had Crohn's disease, because another internet marketer of note, and you're an internet fan, you might know, he's got a company called Feed the Wolf. Gar's name is Ian Stanley. Huge copywriter, same story. Also got Crohn's disease. I wonder if it's an entrepreneurial thing, because I feel like I'm losing out now. I just got diabetes, I mean, really. - Well, I think the moral is that it can happen to anybody. And I think people forget is that everybody's got a story. You know, no matter how successful they are, whether you're successful, whether you're not successful, whether you're poor, everyone's got a story. Everyone's got something that they're going through in life. And that kind of made me realize is that, you know, people don't move, people don't make changes in their lives 'cause they want something a bit better. Generally, when big life changes happen, it's because something has happened where it now becomes a do-or-die situation.

- Yeah, it stops you dead in your tracks, doesn't it? - Stop smoking, lose weight, you name it, right? Get out of a bad relationship. It's got to a point where now enough is enough. - Yeah, the pain is too much. - The pain is too much. But that's the same thing in marketing. So I made a decision from there. I was like, I'm not working so long. I'm not working the same hours. I'm not working with the customers that I don't like. Okay, just because they pay me. - I've been there. - We've all done it. - I know that feeling. - We've all done it 'cause we've needed money and we've taken on people we don't like. And when they're done, we're like, thank the Lord that's over. - Yeah. - Okay. And I just changed. I said, I'm going to exercise every day. I'm going to eat properly. I'm going to take on a personal trainer. And now I'm completely on the opposite side. I'm more healthy than what I was before. Don't get me wrong. I still enjoy a cup of glass of wine and some whiskey and some good tequila. Oh yes, he's talking my language. He's a tequila man. Listen, so we're going to come back and talk about virtual edge because I know everybody's now on the edge of this. He's saying, so why David?

Why did you bring Matt in? When we come back, we'll let you know exactly why I brought Matt in. It is what's involved. What's involved it is, my special guest in studio. Do we call you the CEO? COO? - The chief igniter. - Chief igniter at the virtual edge, Matt Clark. Just make a note of this because you're going to want to use this, okay? You can WhatsApp us on 084-822-0938. That's 084-822-0938. Or you can SMS us as well, 41348. Remember SMS is charged at 150. If any of Matt's mates are listening, if you'd like to tell us any dodgy stories about his youth, happy to hear those as well. So there we go, covered all the bases. The reason I say you're going to need these numbers is, we're going to get into the meat and potatoes of the whole thing now. You started the virtual edge. What does the virtual edge do? - So we help entrepreneurs get two to five high value leads per day from LinkedIn without paying for ads. - You see, this is what hooked me. Two to five high value leads a day. - Yes. - Okay, on LinkedIn. - Without paying for ads. - The stuffy old people's place that was like. - The recruiting platform, right? People who weren't cool enough for Facebook went there, and if you were looking for a job.

- Yep, that's the one, same one. - And what you said, and I've got to tell you, I've been around, I spend all day in this virtual world, all day, every day, and the first time I saw it, I kind of looked at it and went, no. And then, I don't know what kept on drawing me back to this, and I wanted to find out more about it, and I was like, but why LinkedIn? I've accepted, I'm too old for Instagram, okay? One day, somebody told me to slide into their DM, and I nearly smacked them for me. Okay, so I've accepted that, okay? And I don't know if any of my clients would be there, because probably not. Twitter, okay, yeah, I can find the odd thing to tweet about. Facebook, yeah, I've got my business Facebook pages there, what's involved is there. I've got the website, I built a beautiful website. All by myself, first one ever. Built it, nobody came. Wasn't like in the movies at all. And I did, I had a LinkedIn profile, and I've got it made to mind. He owns the sales institute, and he was like, you must get yourself on LinkedIn and sort it out. You need a profile that says what you do. So, a couple of weeks ago, I did, okay? I even changed the picture to make the picture, the picture behind my face look all sexy and pretty.

- Yep. - Yeah, still nothing, hey? So how can you turn around and say two to five high value leads a day? - So I think this is, you've brought up such a good point, is that there's so much out there in terms of social media. There's Facebook, there's LinkedIn, there's Instagram, there's YouTube, there's Twitter. It's like, what do you actually do and where do you start? And for most of them, you need so much technological skills to be able to do that, and marketing skills, and copywriting skills, and video skills. And that's what differentiates LinkedIn, is because you don't need any of that. Here's the thing, you thought that LinkedIn, you said to me LinkedIn is this thing for old people and for old timers and that. - You put your CV on there and hope somebody will offer you a job. - Exactly, so let me reframe this for you. LinkedIn is the world's largest professional network, with over 600 million members on it, most of them being professionals. Now, if you think about it like that, how many networking events do you go to, and when you go to these networking events, how many great contacts do you get that you then follow up with and things happen? - Yeah, me, not so much. That's a lot of the reason I'm on radio.

I love people, I just don't wanna have to deal with them all the time, so you know. But yeah, I'm not one for pressing the flesh and going to cocktail parties. So now you're saying I can sit at home? - You can virtually knock doors, which is what I did. And here's the thing, what I loved about door-to-door sales, and most people, when I tell them that, generally what I find is some of the most successful CEOs, when I say door-to-door sales, they're like, yeah, that's what we love because they did it and they made a lot of money doing it, and it's got them all the skills. 95% of people look at door-to-door sales and they hate it. But what I loved about it was that I could go into a business, I could speak to the business owner and get a decision right there and then. And that's the thing that I love about LinkedIn, is that you can skip straight past the gatekeeper. You don't have to be any expert marketer, you don't have to be able to write copies, shoot videos, any of that. You can go and find and connect with your ideal client no matter where they are in the world and have a one-to-one conversation with them without leaving your house. Very often, I'm at home in my undies and I'm on my phone 30 minutes a day generating leads and the business moves forward.

- Okay, how did you figure this out? - A lot of trial and error. A lot of trial and error. So we went through the process of becoming Facebook marketing partners and Google AdWords partners. I went through all of that. Before I'd even got into this, I hadn't opened up a computer for years. So we weren't getting the results. And typically our clients, the customers they were looking for weren't selling bottles of water and to direct to the consumer. They were selling high value products and services, right? So physical products and services. And we would go into LinkedIn and just go test it out and go look for it and connect with people, start conversations, start having conversations and then people started asking for meetings. And then we were doing it for our business and we're like, "Hey, this is pretty cool. I'm sure that other people might need this help." So we started helping some of our clients do it one-on-one. And then it got to a point whereby the time, you know, the cost time benefit wasn't working where we couldn't do any more one-on-one. So we decided, okay, we're gonna have to create an online course that people can go through and then they can do it in scale. So really what we did was that we figured something out through trial and error.

We spent money on courses, gone through all the certifications, been through all that. And the simplest thing was lying right in front of me in my face. - Because I've looked at all of that Facebook stuff, the Google AdWords, the Google AdWords partners and all the Google education stuff. And sometimes it feels like my head's about to explode. - Well, we were going through it and like we were buying courses and, you know, the problem is there's so much out there that you get overwhelmed, right? - Absolutely, shiny objects all over the place. - Yeah, and like I'm the worst. Like I'm a salesperson and I love to buy stuff, right? So it showed me some shiny stuff and I wanna buy it, right? My business partner has got no hair because of me, right? So he pulled it all out. But we bought all these courses and we're listening to all these gurus. And some of the, I wasn't technical, right? And some of these things were so technical and complicated. I was like, well, this is not making sense to me. And worst of all, some of them were contradicting each other. And so it's like, you don't know what to use. And then even worse of that was it's all based in America. So what works there doesn't even work in South Africa, you know?

So I had to find a different way. I find a different way. Now where is my business partner? Like he is the Facebook ads dude and he runs all the ads and everything like that. For me, I wanna go and build connections. I wanna go and build relationships. Building relationships is one of my highest values. So that's what I wanna do. Connect with people one-on-one and get them involved in a conversation and take that conversation to the next level. - But this is, and I often say this, even in the training that I do, that we do, is we are all salespeople. We have to be. - We have to be, yes. Snap. (laughing) - Preach. (laughing) But, and you're saying, I still, I don't know. I mean, I'll post rubbish and nonsense on Facebook and I'll talk to people and I'll comment and I'll like over here. But LinkedIn has always seen stuffy and a bit murky and gray and a bit stuffed, shirty and... So you reckon you do this, okay? And suddenly you figured out that by doing this, you were not only able to generate leads for your business, but it became your primary focus. And you turned it into a course. And now, how many courses do you have? Because I saw where I first came across, it was through somebody else, we know, and it was actually from an event you did this past weekend.

- Yes. - When I saw that, I mean, I first saw the, do you have two different versions of the website? Or is it just the one? - There's one version, yeah. - Okay, and it quotes in US dollars. When you go and look at it, don't get scared, okay? We've got good news for you. - Yes. - But it did scare me, okay? - Yeah, 100%. - I said lots and lots of four letter words when I saw it. And then I was like, okay, but obviously he's another yank and he's not based here inside, and yet you are. You're here inside, in Joburg. - Live and in the flesh. - Yeah, okay. So tell me about these courses. - So, you know, we run online courses. Initially we were helping people do it one on one, but it didn't, we weren't getting the best benefit. So we decided to take a step back and say, well, what are the exact steps that you need to go through? So like anything in life, right? If you wanna do, everything that you want in life has got a formula to it, right? And especially in business, right? There's things that you need to do in order to get success. So we kind of just took what we were doing and that was being really successful and we broke it down step by step. In actual fact, you wanna know how we came up with a course.

It was kind of a fun story. - Yes. - We were sitting in Los Angeles in November, 2017, and we just attended like a high level mastermind. And we were sitting there and we were struggling with our business 'cause we were doing a lot of done for you work in the marketing space and we weren't growing and we were really just at a point of like saturation and like frustration, you know? And we came up with a bit of an idea. So I did a post on Facebook and this is one of the things that we teach is how to put the right target, how to put the right message in front of the right people at the right time. 'Cause that's really what marketing is. - Yes, indeed. - Okay. So what we did is we did a post, okay? We'd just been to a big event. There were about 2,500 business owners. I was at it last year as well, actually landed up speaking at this event this time. And that all just come from a business growth event. So I posted into this group. I said, guys, in the spirit of giving back, I wanna help you out as entrepreneurs. We're busy putting together some online courses and I wanna know what you wanna most learn. I'll give it away to the first couple of people for free. So if an entrepreneur is listening, this is actually a strategy that you can use in your business.

And then I said to them, so there's three things that I can teach. What do you wanna learn? How to get leads from Facebook, how to implement systems so you can grow your business without everything relying on you, or how to get high quality clients from LinkedIn without paying for ads. And then I put a quote underneath it by a guy by the name of Frank Kern. And I said, you know Frank Kern, right? - Oh, yes. - So I said, if you want to make something, if you wanna sound, if you wanna make something, if you wanna be smart, make it complicated. If you wanna help people, make it simple. And we had over 245 comments on that one post. We generated $70,000 in one week. - You see now, this is the thing, $70,000. - It's like a million bucks. - Okay, and then now we had to deliver, right? So we quickly rushed home and I formulated this course. We put all the bullet points together. We formulated the course. And there's actually a pretty cool story from this as well. And so we shot the first version of the course. I remember I was sitting inside my kitchen area, shooting this first version of the course. My girlfriend was sitting on the couch and she actually came up to me the next day. She's like, babe, babe, babe, I've got something amazing to tell you.

I was like, what? She's like, so you know, you were shooting your course last night. I was like, yeah. She's like, I was listening to it. And now I've got 12 meetings booked. I was like, what? - Yeah. - She's like, yeah, I listened to that. I was like, yeah, I can do that. That sounds easy. And she did it. She came back a week later. She turned those 12 appointments. She'd seen five of them. She got three more referrals. And she turned that into 250,000 rand a month in new business. And she's in IT networking and cabling. I'm chatting to the chief igniter of the virtual edge, Matt Clark. When we come back, we'll see if we can do it. We're gonna do this. We're gonna take the leap. Are you gonna like rip into my face by my LinkedIn profile? - Yeah, let's pull your LinkedIn profile up. Let's pull it apart. Teach some people some stuff and get you fixed. - Fantastic. When we back, we will do exactly that. What's involved? My special guest in studio, chief igniter of the virtual edge. It's Matt Clark. And okay, so I agreed. And as a radio presenter with a massive ego, it's really odd for me to say this, but I'm going, okay, so I got a profile on LinkedIn. Have a look, okay? Rip into it. Tell me what is, okay, let's start.

Is there anything good? If you are on LinkedIn, or if you plan on getting onto LinkedIn, listen, I'm gonna see if I can't get Matt to give away a couple of secrets now, and maybe something a little extra later on, okay? So stay close. Right, have a look. - So I think, yeah, let's do something fun. And I think for the listeners out there, if anyone's listening, and you've got your phone in front of you, go into LinkedIn and Google David Watts, okay? And not Google. Go into LinkedIn and search for David Watts, and let's do this together, right? - I have a face for radio and a voice for print media. So they told me I had to have a picture of myself there. I'm horrified. - So no one cares what you look like. - Oh, okay, good. - This is the best part about it, right? - Fantastic. - And this is like the trap of the entrepreneurs, is that we think that people actually care what we look like, and what our company does, and what our branding looks like. No one cares. No one cares. - So all of the fancy stuff, I mean. - Spend lots of money, build your own website. Yeah, no one cares. That's just like the harsh reality here, okay? And I see this all the time, 'cause people come to me and they're like, we need more leads.

I'm busy building my websites. I'm like, why? Okay, you don't need a website if you're on LinkedIn, okay? So let's take a look at your profile. So there's a couple of things that we've got here, and there's actually 10 things that you need to do on your LinkedIn profile to turn it into an all-star profile. So you've got some of the things here, but let's actually pull them apart because there's a way that's gonna get you results, and there's a way that is just gonna make you look pretty. - Well, I can tell you, my inbox or my messages are weird. Does it have a message thing? I don't know. Nothing has happened. - Okay, so let's pull this apart, right? So let's focus on one, two, three, four key things that we can do right now. - Four key things, right. - Four key things. So number one is the banner, right, that you've got in the background. Now, you've got something that looks like the universe or a neural network. - Neural network, that's me. I'm very clever like that. - Okay, so me too, apparently, right? - You're gonna say nobody cares. - No one cares, right? (laughing) So the question is, right, we've got to build this thing. You see, the mistake that most people make is that their LinkedIn profile is written as a CV, right?

As if you're applying for a job, okay? As a business owner, as an entrepreneur, as a salesperson, as a sales manager, as a sales director, anyone that needs to generate more leads in the business development space, okay? The only thing you should be concerned about, and the only thing you should be putting out there, is what is the biggest problem that you can solve for your ideal client? - So how would you know what your ideal client is? - Good question, great question. We get this all the time, right? So the first thing that you need to do is determine who's your ideal client. Now, on LinkedIn, there are very specific search criteria that you can use. So to keep it simple, I'm gonna focus on four, okay? You write down these four things. The geographical location, the industry that they're in, the job title, and the company head count, okay? Those four criteria to help determine your ideal client. Now, most people will tell me when I ask them that question, they say business owners, or anyone that can pay me money. Well, that's where I was gonna go. If somebody's got money, I wanna be there. - 100%. - Are you saying it's wrong? - Well, remember we had the conversation in the beginning where you get those clients that you hate working with and you take the money 'cause you need it.

- Good point. - Right? So when you say ideal client, you've gotta think about who is that, excuse me, who is that person who you absolutely love working with? That, you know, they pay you your worth. You can't wait to answer their phone call. You can't wait to pick up the call. You love dealing with them and you would do it for free, okay? But they pay you your worth. So think of that person and write down those criteria for that person, okay? That gives you a start and say, I want more of those people. Now, everything that you do, you've got a design for them, okay? So let's do an exercise. Who's your ideal client? - My ideal client would be, I would guess, hmm. - And what business? - Well, any business that employs salespeople because in my other life, I sell a training course called persuasive communication. - Okay, so you wanna teach them how to communicate persuasively so that they can close more business. - Yes. - Right? So now we've gotta go back and say, instead of any business that has salespeople, okay? And if you're starting from the bottom, right? So if you're starting at any point, you know, you actually wanna niche down, right? - Okay, yeah. - Now, the fear that most entrepreneurs have is that if they go to niche, they're like, well, what about everyone else?

- Yes. - But the question comes in, how much of that everyone else are you already getting right now? - Well, none, none, none, really. - So, niche down. - Okay. - So now let's think about this, right? What industry are these people in? What businesses do you wanna deal with in what industry? What industry do you know that if you could get salespeople in that industry, you could almost guarantee them results? - Oh, well, I know radio backwards, but I don't know about radio salespeople. What else do I know? You're putting me on the spot here and I'm getting, let's say, the motor vehicle industry. - Motor vehicle industry, fantastic, okay? So who would you need to speak to at the motor vehicle industry? - I would need to speak to-- - That makes the decision. - Dealer principles. - Dealer principle, okay. So what is their biggest problem? - Their biggest problem is salespeople are not hitting their targets. - So they can't close. - They're not closing enough deals. - Which means? - They're not making money. - Okay, so if they did your course, what results could you help them get? - I could help them close more sales. - How much? - At least by between 10 and 20%. - And in what timeframe?

- With, in a month. - Okay, so? - He says, hopefully nobody's gonna bother bleeding. - So now what we've got, right, is now we've got all the criteria to create what we call your pickup line. So in the first step, what we're gonna talk about is your ideal client, we've got that clearly defined. The second thing is your pickup line. Now most people have got CEO of company that no one cares about. - Yes. - Okay. Your particular case, you've got entrepreneur, communication specialist, and broadcaster, helps people excel through the power of persuasion. So we've got like four different businesses going on there. How do I know how to work with you? But what you could do now is you could say, I help dealer principles increase sales, sales team's sales by 20% in 30 days through persuasion sales techniques.

- That makes a lot of sense. - Oh, that's sexy, isn't it? - Yeah, but the entrepreneur, the business person inside of me is going, but what about all of those other people? - How many of them have you got? - Well, exactly, but I'm just saying, this is what comes up. - So now you gotta remember is that this is not changing your entire business model. This is what you're focusing on for LinkedIn. But now, imagine if you put in there, like what you've got right now is not generating your business, not generating your leads. It's too broad, okay? So nobody is coming to you. If you try and get everybody, you land up getting nobody, okay? Where if you go, I help dealer principles increase sales with their sales teams by 20% in 30 days through persuasion sales techniques. And you go and start reaching out to dealer principles and posting content about dealer principles. What do you think is gonna happen? - Somebody's going to be interested. - Some dealer principles are gonna be like, "Hey, I wanna increase sales by 20% in 30 days." Sheesh, is that even possible? - Yeah. - That's exactly why I'm on this call right now. - Mm-hmm. - You looked at my pickup line. I help entrepreneurs get two to five high value leads per day from LinkedIn without paying for ads.

And you were like, "Bullsh." - Yeah, yeah, I did exactly that. - I need to talk to this person. And now I'm showing you the steps and now you're like, "Wow, this makes sense." - But yeah, you're right. I did exactly what you're saying. - Okay. - Okay. - Listen, just those numbers again. 41348, SMS is charged at 150. Otherwise, WhatsApp has 0848220938. Lindy goes, "Okay, are there any other courses? And how much does it cost?" We'll get there. Yaku says, "Yeah, okay. Everybody's wanting to know the website and if there's courses." We'll get there. Okay, we'll get there. Dreamer has it that the virtual edge can help you increase your business and get two to five high-value leads per day. And I've been challenging Matt. And so far, he's done it. Somebody's just said... Mandy said, "What will this work for any kind of business?" Somebody else said, "Yeah, another one about the business. If I own a beauty, I'm a beauty therapist." Somebody else said, "Hi, guys. Think you can help me as a real estate agent get more properties for sale in my area." So there we go, Christian. Can it do this? - The answer is yes. And the reason I say that is because LinkedIn is all about branding and networking.

So if you can brand yourself as an expert, if you can brand yourself as an authority, because most of the people are their own best-kept secrets. They don't know how to get their message out. They don't know how to brand themselves in a way that attracts people. So you've got to think about it like this. Most real estate agents are out there doing face-to-face networking. - Yes. - Right? LinkedIn's got 600 million professionals on it. You know, I mean- - And there's a bunch of those 600 million here in South Africa. - A bunch, there's over six and a half million in South Africa and LinkedIn at the moment. - Okay, but now you have been fortunate enough using this exact same model to do business internationally. - Yeah, so we've got clients in 15 countries and that's why on our website, all of it's in dollars. But we've got special pricing for South Africans. - Listen, I think it's only fair, okay? You've looked at my LinkedIn profile and I saw you raising that. I'm gonna challenge you right now. - Yeah. - Here's the challenge. Matt Clark from the Virtual Edge. If I come and do this course, will I then be able to turn around at the end of the day and say, thank you, Matt, I'm getting two to five leads a day?

- Yes. - That's it, okay? - Yeah, and listen- - This is going out live and funny, I'm challenging you now. If I go and we do this, I mean, this is you really putting your money where your mouth is because as the listeners know, I tend to sort of sometimes my mouth works before my brain's in gear. But I'm gonna do this step by step. I'll report on it on Facebook, on the radio, we'll get you back in and then we'll have a look. You happy with that? - So it's $3,000, remember that? I'm just teasing, I'm just teasing. (laughing) I'm just teasing, right? - Okay, now listen, listen, we can make a plan. - And yeah, so that's the thing, I'm happy to do that. I'm happy to put my money where my mouth is. You need to do the same thing and do the work. Very often we've done work like this where we've given the course away and we've given it to people- - And somebody goes, have a nice day and they never do it. - And they never do it, right? - You're an idiot then. - If you commit to the process, I'm happy to bring you on board and you'll be a case study for us and I'd love you to report on your findings as well. - Okay, don't deal. We've now had a virtual handshake across the airwaves and it's going out in podcast format and Matt's gonna get the audio.

So it's gonna be hard this though. I mean, it's not, the hard part is it's like, I was so proud of that little, what I do. And then like in the first three sentences, you're like, no, you suck dude, you suck. Okay, but what can I give the listeners? What are you prepared as the virtual edge to give our listeners? I mean, we didn't finish all of our checkpoints. So some people are sitting there going, you got to number three and you haven't given me the other. What can we give them? - So I've got, if you go onto, we actually put the site together specifically for South Africans is that if you go to www.thevirtualedge.co.za - The virtual edge. - Thevirtualedge.co.za, you can go and download what we call our LinkedIn mini makeover, which will take you through the process, the sort of bullet point process of what we went through tonight. So it's how to get your profile set up correctly, get your pickup line right and start getting branded. And I've put in a lot of free training in there as well. - Is that going to start you on the process? - Definitely. That's a get in the game, get yourself going. Then there's also an hour long training, which will go a little bit deeper in on that. And then for those that are ready, they can then take the next step and come and join us on one of our courses.

- Okay, and that course is all online. So you can do the whole thing online. Does it give the information at thevirtualedge.co.za? - Not on that one. It gives the information on thevirtualedge.com. - Virtualedge.com is where the other information is. So you've got the two sites, virtualedge.co.za is the one where you're giving away the little training. And then for more in-depth stuff, you can do it there. Give me some, oh, we're running out of time. Give me some success stories that you've had so far. - So we had one lady in Durban who owns a swimming pool company installing swimming pools in houses and hotels and all the rest. And she had an 800% increase in sales in two months. And she was already doing seven figures. - What? - Yeah. We've had another lady just two weeks ago selling customer experience and design who took, 'cause we don't only focus on the leads and the sales, but also how do you sell them? What you offer, packaging you offer in the right way. That's irresistible. And she got a great lead. And she actually doubled her quote on our suggestion. And she sold it for, instead of 75,000 rand, 150,000 rand in two weeks. We had another guy who sells software services do a 40,000 rand deal in a week.

We've had another guy who's a digital marketer do, what, 15,000 rand a month client over 12 months. So what's that, 150 almost 200,000 rand in a week? - So essentially, if you sort of do this course and do the full version of the course. - Yes. - Essentially, you pay your money and you do the course, you can actually make that back. Plus, plus a lot. - Here's how I look at it, right? - Yeah. - So it starts, the courses start at 10,000 rand for South Africans. You won't find that information on the website, but go onto the website or email us at connect@thevirtualedge.com and we'll have a conversation with you depending on what you need. And we service from the solo premiere and there's payment plans and everything as well that we can work out. We wanna make this thing accessible. - That's what I like. That's what impressed me when I got to talking to you and some of your team is that you are passionate about South Africans and South African business people. - We are South African. We've taken this to another level. So it's not just another online course that you get in good luck. Here's some stats. 80% of people that buy online courses never even look at them again. They spend the money and they don't even look at them again.

So we thought, you know, Wes has got a background of coming from teaching and building courses and implementing the stuff. I'm in sales. And what we did was that we have built a studio at our offices where we get on live. And so when you get involved, you're not just getting an online course, but you get live support from us each and every single week to help get that pickup line clearly defined, to help get your profile set up in the right way, you know, to help get your messages right, your templates right. We've even taken, so check this as part of the course, right. The number one thing people struggle with is, okay, I can connect with people, but what do I say? What's the next step? So we took all of our messages that we've been using for the past three years that has generated over 5 million rand just for our business and millions of dollars for our clients. We've templated all of those messages. And so you can literally go say, I want this outcome, I wanna book strategy sessions, get people on webinars, do interviews, get onto podcasts, get media coverage, and you fill in the blanks and you copy, you paste, and you send it out. So we've taken out all the need to be any kind of marketing expert, technical expert.

It doesn't matter even if you don't have a LinkedIn profile before and you think that this is a good way to go, we'll get you going and we'll get you leads. - All right, I'm gonna do the following. The rest of my social media stuff now, I'm gonna put on pause, okay? Put on pause, the podcast will still go out, and I'm gonna concentrate on LinkedIn. - That's exciting. - And I'm gonna see because-- - Are we gonna sell to dealer principles? - I don't know if I'm gonna sell to dealer principles. You put me on the spot there. I need to think this one through. Matt Clark, thank you so much for coming in tonight and having a chat to me. www.thevirtualedge.co.za for that free training. Otherwise, thevirtualedge.com. If you wanna get hold of Matt and the guys, they are incredibly accessible. It's connect@thevirtualedge.com, hey? - That's it. - Connect@thevirtualedge.com. Matt Clark, we'll see you back here in a couple of weeks' time for a follow-up. - Thank you, David, it's been amazing being here and I hope that everyone got some huge value and just go and get the stuff and go and implement it and see some changes and then come and talk to me. I'm excited to help you. - Do it, we're looking forward to it.