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15 June 2026

Ep. 91: What Does Good B2B Selling Look Like in 2026? Randy Petway of LinkedIn Sales Solutions Explains

Ep. 91: What Does Good B2B Selling Look Like in 2026? Randy Petway of LinkedIn Sales Solutions Explains

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EPISODE GUESTS

Randy Petway is Senior Director and Head of Global Accounts across EMEA and LATAM at LinkedIn Sales Solutions.

He has spent seven years at LinkedIn and has extensive experience in strategic enterprise sales, global account growth and leading sales organisations. Earlier in his career, Randy worked on Wall Street before moving into B2B growth and revenue roles.


His current focus is helping large organisations improve how they identify, engage and build relationships with the people involved in complex B2B buying decisions.

SHOW NOTES

Key Topics Discussed:

  • What good B2B selling actually looks like in 2026

  • Why high-volume outbound sales playbooks are losing effectiveness

  • How larger B2B buying committees are changing sales strategy

  • Why relevance and quality matter more than activity volume

  • How social selling on LinkedIn should work in practice

  • The role of customer data and buying signals in B2B prospecting

  • Why claiming to have cracked the LinkedIn algorithm misses the point

  • Where AI-generated content helps sales teams and where it simply creates more noise

Episode Summary:

This episode gets into B2B selling, and why many of the tactics sales teams have relied on for years are becoming less effective. Randy Petway, Senior Director and Head of Global Accounts EMEA & LATAM at LinkedIn Sales Solutions, joins Justin Hanna to discuss how buyer behaviour, bigger buying committees, better access to information and platforms such as LinkedIn are changing the job of the B2B seller.

Randy's view of good B2B selling is deliberately simple: have meaningful conversations with the people who matter.

The difficulty is that there are now more of those people.

Buying committees are growing, more stakeholders can influence or block a deal, and a generic message that works for one contact may be irrelevant to somebody else involved in the decision. That makes relevance, research and quality increasingly important parts of a B2B sales strategy.


Why is volume-led B2B sales becoming less effective?

One of the central tensions in the episode is the difference between activity and effectiveness.

Businesses like measurable targets. Sales leaders can easily track calls made, emails sent, prospects contacted and leads worked. What is harder to put on a dashboard is whether those interactions were relevant, well timed or actually useful to the buyer.

That can lead sales teams towards volume because volume is easy to prove.

Randy argues that B2B selling is ultimately a quality game. Sending more outreach does not automatically create more meaningful customer conversations, particularly when buyers already have access to huge amounts of information before a salesperson ever speaks to them.

For fintechs, payment providers, SaaS companies and other complex B2B businesses, that distinction matters. Deals often involve commercial, product, technical, compliance and leadership stakeholders. Repeating the same message across that group is unlikely to move a complicated buying decision forward.


How does social selling on LinkedIn fit into B2B sales?

Social selling is much broader than posting regularly or sending connection requests.

Randy describes the strongest sellers as consistently present around the customers and businesses they want to work with. That could mean following a company's updates, paying attention to what individuals are discussing, engaging with useful content and contributing something relevant to the conversation.

The important part is consistency.

A seller who appears only when they have something to pitch is approaching LinkedIn very differently from someone who has spent months understanding the customer's priorities and building familiarity.

That is particularly relevant for B2B prospecting where sales cycles are long and buyers may be researching suppliers well before they formally enter a buying process.


Why do data quality and buying signals matter?

Modern B2B buyers are increasingly informed before a sales conversation starts.

That changes what they expect from sellers.

If a business has announced an expansion, appointed a new leader, launched a product or changed its strategy, the customer already knows that. A salesperson turning up without that context immediately has less to contribute.

Good customer data therefore becomes part of good selling. It helps sales teams understand what is happening inside an account, recognise relevant buying signals and start conversations from a position of insight rather than discovery that could have been done beforehand.

For payments and fintech businesses selling into merchants, platforms, banks or enterprise customers, this can be particularly important. The commercial opportunity often sits inside a wider business change rather than an isolated request for a new supplier.


Can anyone really crack the LinkedIn algorithm?

Randy is sceptical of claims that there is a repeatable formula for beating the LinkedIn algorithm.

The more useful focus is the audience.

Are you contributing something relevant? Are you consistently visible to the right people? Does what you publish demonstrate expertise or give somebody a reason to engage?

Trying to reverse-engineer an algorithm can distract from those fundamentals.

The same principle applies to AI-generated content. AI can make researching, drafting and producing content faster, but more output does not necessarily create better output. Without an interesting idea or useful point of view, automation can simply produce more noise.


FAQ

What is social selling?

Social selling is the use of professional and social networks to build familiarity, credibility and relationships with potential customers before and during a buying process.

In the episode, Randy's approach centres on consistently being present around your target audience, understanding what matters to them and contributing something useful instead of appearing only when you want to make a sale.


How do you do social selling effectively?

Effective social selling starts with consistency and relevance. Follow the organisations and people you want to work with, understand what they are discussing, engage where you can genuinely add value and use those signals to make future sales conversations more informed.

There is no single posting or outreach routine that every seller needs to follow. What matters is developing a consistent way of staying close to the people and companies that matter to your pipeline.


The big takeaway: good B2B selling increasingly comes down to relevance, useful information and meaningful conversations rather than simply increasing outbound volume. For sales leaders, fintechs, payment providers and B2B platforms, that means understanding buyers earlier and showing up with a point of view that is specific to their situation. Get that right, and sales activity becomes more credible and commercially useful. Get it wrong, and more outreach can simply create more noise.

MEET THE HOSTS

Grant Evans

Co-Host and Co-Founder of The Payments Shed Podcast

Grant Evans

Grant Evans is a leading voice in the fintech industry and the creator of the widely followed ‘The Payments Shed Newsletter’. With more than 15 years experience shaping commercial strategy and driving partnership growth, he is recognised for turning complex topics such as embedded payments, BNPL, unified commerce, and open banking into clear, actionable insights that resonate with global audiences. Named a LinkedIn Top Voice in both 2024 and 2025, Grant has built a community of over 27,000 engaged professionals, merchants, and innovators who look to him for commentary on the trends redefining global commerce. A sought-after speaker and panelist, his thought leadership is regularly featured in financial services publications and at flagship industry events including Money 20/20, FTT Fintech and the Global RegTech Summit.

Justin Hanna

Co-Host and Co-Founder of The Payments Shed Podcast

Justin Hanna

Justin Hanna was recently named the #1 Head of Sales Top Voice by the National Sales Conference for good reason: he’s redefining what sales leadership looks like in the modern era. With deep B2B sales experience and a people-first approach, Justin earns trust through insight and practical strategy, not tired tactics. A respected voice in payments, he’s also built a 22,000-strong LinkedIn following by making complex topics relatable and actionable. His influence has been recognised widely: a LinkedIn Top Payment Systems Voice (2024), one of the top 30 voices shaping the future of payments, banking, and fintech (2025), and celebrated by the National Sales Conference as the #1 Head of Sales Top Voice. Known for challenging the status quo, Justin’s unfiltered take on leadership, culture, and growth resonates because it’s honest, and his ability to lead with both expertise and empathy has made him one of the most influential sales voices today.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to The Payments Shed Podcast, the weekly podcast that dives into the big topics, trends and people shaping the worlds of payments, fintech and business leadership with your two co-hosts, myself, Grant Evans, and Justin Hanna.

Host:

Welcome back to The Payments Shed Podcast. Today we are joined by Randy Petway, Head of Global Accounts, EMEA and LATAM at LinkedIn.

Randy, thank you so much for coming in today. One I've been looking forward to for a long time. Tell us a bit more about yourself and about the business.

Randy Petway:

Thank you. First of all, thank you for having me. Super excited to be here.

As you mentioned, I work for LinkedIn. I've been there for seven years, currently leading EMEA and LATAM Global Accounts.

It's kind of fit my entire career journey. I spent the beginning of my career, the first five or so years, on Wall Street. But after that, I've always worked in B2B growth and revenue. A number of different roles within that, but always focused on how do we drive growth? How do we accelerate outcomes in a B2B environment?

So that's been the focus of my career.

I live here in London, but as you can tell from the accent, I'm not a native Londoner. I spent the majority of my life and my career in the New York metropolitan area. I grew up just outside of Philadelphia in the US.

Host:

Amazing. Now, B2B sales, I'm not sure if it's a buzzword at the minute, but it's going through a pretty big shift.

Let's start a little bit there. It has changed, and not everyone agrees on how it's changed. From your perspective, what does good B2B selling actually look like in 2026?

Randy Petway:

There's a pretty simple term that I use, and I do want to highlight that just because something's simple doesn't mean it's easy, but simple nonetheless.

I think B2B sales very much comes down to having meaningful conversations with people who matter.

I think the best B2B salespeople are also very consultative. I think that's the essence of B2B sales.

But to your point, even with that simple statement, things have changed considerably in recent times.

Host:

We talk about the people aspect. There's always that old cliché that people buy from people.

Do you think there are outdated playbooks that people are clinging on to now that maybe used to work, but don't work so much in this day and age?

Randy Petway:

I do.

Going back to that notion I just mentioned, if we accept the premise that B2B sales is about having meaningful conversations with the people who matter, there are two dynamics that have changed considerably, and I think have made a number of playbooks outdated.

One is that the number of people who matter is growing. Buying committees are getting bigger. The number of people who can say no to deals is getting bigger, so you have to interact with more people.

But if we recall the other side of the equation, it's having meaningful conversations.

Now that conversation needs to be different almost for each one of the stakeholders that you might encounter with a customer or an opportunity.

So this idea that we can have a one-size-fits-all playbook goes out of the window.

The idea of a spray-and-pray model where you go in, take a very generic message and a generic approach, target everyone, cross your fingers and hope that you get a response, those playbooks just aren't feasible in today's market.

Host:

We're still seeing businesses rely heavily on volume of outbound though, right?

Randy Petway:

Absolutely.

If I'm being critical of the industry, I'm also being critical of myself at times.

I think a lot of that comes from the fact that if you talk to any business leader right now, myself included, most of us will lead with, "We make data-driven decisions. We run a data-driven business."

That's a mantra you see across all industries and all types of companies.

That's valid. I believe in that. I come from a data background both academically and professionally, and that's very important to me.

However, I think that creates a tendency towards measurables, and the easiest thing to measure is quantity, not quality.

What that leads to is focusing on volume.

How many outreaches did we do? How many leads have we gone after?

That's not really the right question to be asking, but it is the easiest one to answer.

Host:

Absolutely. And you can walk into a meeting with your leader and say, "See, look at the great work I did. I went after these thousand things."

Randy Petway:

Yeah. It's not really going to get us the outcome we want.

Host:

Yeah, but I can point to it and we can both agree that we set a number target and we went after that.

Randy Petway:

Exactly. Volume is easier to measure. Quantity is. Quality isn't.

But this is a quality game.

Host:

It's quite interesting. There'll be many listeners that would have had targets as salespeople, and when you don't hit those targets, your first defence is, "But look how many people I've tried to win."

Again, it's very easy to point at those numbers. But when you're not hitting your actuals, what separates the people that are doing it well on LinkedIn versus those that are not doing it so well?

Randy Petway:

I think persistence and consistency.

When I say persistence, I'm not just talking about the old sales mantra, "Try hard and try harder."

Persistence in terms of being where people are consistently.

If you think just within the LinkedIn ecosystem, without going anywhere else, and people do have other touchpoints they need to be aware of, but even within LinkedIn, if we're talking about being present with your target audience and being consistently present, you're talking about monitoring their company page.

You're talking about monitoring their feed, engaging with their content, getting them to engage with your content, commenting and inviting.

All of these different touchpoints.

The best sellers are there for the entirety of that lifecycle. They don't just show up at the end when there's something to sell. They don't just show up occasionally when someone posts.

There's a consistent rhythm to being engaged when you have something valuable to say.

Going back to quantity versus quality, if you don't have something valuable to say, don't say anything.

Although you can ask a smart question. That could be the thing to say.

I think that's what the best people are doing, and they have a routine that they follow.

I don't think it's important to be prescriptive about what the routine is. I've seen people break down their day: this is the time I do outreach, this is the time I comment. That's one approach, but there are many approaches.

There needs to be a routine to ensure that you have this persistence and consistency.

Host:

I heard someone once say LinkedIn is a 24/7 conference.

Randy Petway:

That's good. I've never heard that, but that's a good way to look at it.

Host:

I think it's a really good way of looking at it because you could have your ICPs, future ICPs, future investors, future employees, colleagues, whoever it may be, seeing what you're talking about.

You mentioned showing up and being consistent. It's a really good way of future-proofing potential conversations, not just trying to win a customer right now.

People go on LinkedIn for a few things, in my opinion. It's to be educated, to be entertained or to find a new role.

If you're able to tick one or two of those boxes as an individual or a business, then something's right.

You mentioned commenting on people's posts. There are a lot of people who go there and comment purely about selling.

Do you think this is the tools we're using, or do you think it's more of a mindset shift in how we turn up on LinkedIn?

Randy Petway:

I think the tools we have available to us today are better than they've ever been, and tomorrow they will be better than they are today.

The tools are important because they help us do things at scale. They help us do things better and faster.

But the mindset shift, to me, is the most important part.

If you have the wrong mindset or you're targeting the wrong things, all the tools are going to do is help you get to that wrong result in a bigger and worse way.

The mindset shift is: how do I need to show up as a human being?

The great thing about technology is it solves a lot of problems for us. As I said, it allows us to do things faster and better, but it also leaves us wanting human connection in a different and more important way.

Those of us who can show up for that and use the tools to enhance that engagement, I think that's where the success is.

But that is a fundamental mindset shift.

Host:

Especially in the sales world, because there are more people that can do, or claim to do, what any business does today.

You mix that along with more AI, more companies, more salespeople and people wanting to buy less than ever before, it makes it quite difficult for anybody in the commercial world to be liked, to be trusted and then actually be bought from.

Randy Petway:

The trust part is so important.

Any misstep that you have in the sorts of things we're talking about, not being consistent, not being authentic, leading with tools rather than the human aspect, not understanding your customer's business, not understanding your stakeholder's role within the context of that business, those are all things that will erode trust.

We talk about brand, and a lot of people misconstrue that. They use the influencer concept of brand.

But no, brand comes down to trust and what am I known for?

That's the mindset shift that I think has to happen.

Host:

Nice. You mentioned before around data. How much is poor data quietly killing pipeline performance?

Randy Petway:

It is undermining the overall effort on so many levels.

As an example, if I turn up to a meeting and I'm unaware of the fact that my customer has just undergone a 10% headcount reduction, if that's relevant to what I'm selling, or if I'm unaware that they've changed roles, announced a new strategy, announced a new market they're going into or a new product, that's almost unforgivable in today's world because everyone expects you to know.

Ten or 15 years ago, a lot of this information wasn't readily available. There was almost a forgiveness of not knowing. The objective was to get to know.

But now there's an expectation, and a reasonable expectation, that you come to the table knowing more.

If your underlying data doesn't support getting good information, which in turn doesn't support giving good insights, how can you possibly be a good partner? How can you possibly be trusted? How can you possibly be credible?

A lack of good data undermines everything.

Host:

I remember one of my first roles was getting Google Alerts on my top customers, thinking that was the best way to get an in. That's all you had at the time.

Whereas now, like you mentioned, there's data everywhere on anybody you're trying to sell to.

You should be able to turn up to a meeting and know not just as much as the people in the room, but as much as what the rest of the world would know about them.

Randy Petway:

Absolutely.

And when you don't know, you should know enough to be able to ask smart questions because I think that's another high-value thing that people underestimate.

It's not just being able to articulate what you know, but also being able to ask intelligent questions.

Host:

Do you think most businesses are set up to actually capture and use that data properly?

Randy Petway:

It's interesting. I think there are two parts to that question.

Today, most companies are in a better position than they've ever been with some of the core systems around data, CRM, marketing systems, et cetera.

Not that there aren't huge opportunities for improvement, but most have invested and got to those points.

That's one side of the equation.

The other side that I think is causing a tremendous amount of pain is that, in most cases, the way those systems were built and implemented was in silos.

The pain we're feeling right now is data living in all of these different silos, when the reality of work is that you need all of these things talking to each other and connected so that I can have a holistic view.

You hear "single pane of glass" as a recurring thread, or a "360-degree view". That's so important today.

That's the gap we have at the moment with data.

Again, that's not to say that all of the core systems can't improve. There will always be that opportunity.

But the big gap right now is these walled gardens and individual silos that the data is sitting in.

Host:

Challenges become opportunities. Where does the opportunity come when you are getting it right?

Randy Petway:

Again, just going back to what I was saying earlier, you show up in a completely different way.

Differentiation is so hard right now because everyone has tremendous access to a lot of different information. Everyone has the ability to iterate on things much faster than they did before.

So how do you stand out in the crowd?

Depending on the market you're in, it could be a crowd of two, but you still have to stand out. Or it could be a crowd of a hundred.

How do I stand out and differentiate myself?

That's the opportunity.

When I look at certain sales disciplines we can implement, and when I look at technology, there's an opportunity to make big leaps very quickly.

Host:

What's the real cost of getting this wrong? Is it that your competitors will get it right?

Randy Petway:

Yes, but it's a couple of things.

It's that your competitors will get it right, but it's also all the other potential costs.

In this current climate, I think the bigger cost is losing out on an opportunity because a customer decides to do nothing or delay doing anything.

So many times it's because of how you've shown up.

I'll give you an example.

We had an initiative we were running internally and we knew there was a particular piece of technology, a solution, that we wanted to use.

We had the vendor come in. We had already made up our mind that we were going to buy from them. It was just a question of how much and when.

We'd already made up our mind that this was the right solution for us and it was going to be transformational internally.

We didn't share that with them, but we knew this to be the case.

What happened was the way they showed up, the lack of curiosity, the lack of points of view, the clear agenda, and I don't mean that negatively, but the mindset of, "I'm going to come in and demo these things and I'm not going to listen to the room about where they want to go."

I could observe this happening amongst my team. The air was being let out of the room and the ambition.

We still went with that vendor, but the project happened two years later than it would have happened otherwise.

The person who would have been the best champion and really driven it forward more or less lost interest, all coming out of that meeting.

They genuinely snatched defeat from the jaws of victory because of the way they showed up.

Playing that out, because that initiative started two years late, that was two years of lost bookings and revenue that the vendor would have had.

At the end of those two years, what should have been a discussion about how we roll this out to the entirety of the business was still a conversation about how we continue to roll it out in our line of business.

So it's not just the competitors. It's this caution that everyone has that delays deals.

That's the other risk you have and, in today's climate, I think that's the bigger risk.

Host:

I think that goes back to the decision-making unit.

I've heard you mention before that decision-making teams are bigger now than ever before. Yes, you have internal champions, but very rarely is it one person who says, "Yeah, that looks good. Let's go."

Whether it's finance, treasury, tech, ops or account management, so many more people are now involved in business decisions.

From a salesperson's perspective, that makes it more difficult when you're doing outbound, because who are you doing outbound to if there's more than one internal advocate of your product?

You need to be saying the right thing to the right person.

One thing I was taught years ago was: do you understand the KPIs of the person you're selling to?

Randy Petway:

Yeah, I think it's a huge piece.

Host:

Do you think we're seeing a real shift from outbound-led sales to inbound or discovery-led?

Randy Petway:

I think we need to see the shift. I think we're starting to see the shift. I don't think we are where we need to be.

One of the realities that we're finding, and third-party research, our research and experience have borne this out, is that customers are showing up to the conversation far more informed than they were in the past.

They've done 60% of the job you used to do in terms of understanding your product, understanding who your customers are, understanding the use cases, the value proposition and probably the pricing, if that's somewhat accessible.

They're showing up more informed.

When you think about that, there was an exercise they went through to get informed. So how do you insert yourself into that exercise?

That's not just traditional outbound marketing.

I think that's the reality we're working in, and I don't see what would change that.

Actually, I do see what would change it: getting to 80% rather than 60%. I don't see it going backwards.

Host:

Interesting. It's something we've spoken about in the past with colleagues.

If someone comes to your website and you get an inbound lead, everyone gives the marketing team a clap on the back. This is nothing against marketing people, by the way.

Your first question shouldn't be celebrating the website. You should be thinking: how did they find us?

Most times, they've done a lot of their research and now they're ready to speak to a salesperson.

Randy Petway:

Yeah.

Host:

They're not coming to you to say, "Can you tell me more about how you can help me?"

They're saying, "I've heard about you. Tell me more."

Do we then think that's how people talk about ICPs discovering you as a business? Why are so many businesses still struggling to make that shift?

I've had conversations with marketing people in old roles where it has very much been SEO-driven. Now I've definitely seen a shift, even this year, of actually, let's get video content out there.

Randy Petway:

Video, just as an example, we built an experience centre, which you're aware of, here in London.

When we built it, we built a video centre. The idea was that we would be able to have it as a drop-in centre. I could pop in and do a video, or we could have formal scheduled events.

Video has grown so much that we've outgrown the use case. There is no more opportunity for drop-in because it's fully booked.

Those sorts of things are dynamics that are changing at such a pace and people need to be aware of.

The other element is that I still think a lot of organisations, and we've been guilty of this, still aren't thinking persona-based.

I think that's an important part of the equation.

Going back to what we were saying about more stakeholders, each one of them having different interests, different perspectives on value, what the value proposition is for them, KPIs and all of those things.

Just like the idea of your ideal customer profile, we still don't know all the personas. We're not catering to all of them properly.

As budgets are shrinking and we have less headcount to do these things, we need to broaden our aperture and really be experts for each one of those personas.

I don't think we do a great job of doing that.

Host:

I'm definitely seeing more businesses push product people onto video content because they feel like product speaking to product is a lot easier than salespeople speaking to product.

It comes back to people not necessarily trusting salespeople until they feel like they know them, like we mentioned before.

From an outbound perspective, when we look at content, brand and consistency, do you think they're all of the above when it comes to helping businesses?

Randy Petway:

Yes, but not necessarily all having equal weight.

I think the consistency part is the biggest part, and it impacts the others.

Consistency is in your brand as well.

Again, if we take my proposition that brand is trust and reputation, what am I known for? What am I a subject matter expert in? Am I consistently portraying that and conveying that in any number of outlets that I go through, whether that be LinkedIn or elsewhere?

I think consistency is probably the top one.

Consistency in how I show up, when I show up and where I show up.

Then that all creates almost a funnel into the other components.

Host:

Do you think AI has had an impact on the way that people want to come across, like they show up on the LinkedIn platform?

You see it every day, LinkedIn comments. You go to read them and you know it's maybe not the person that's talking.

Randy Petway:

It's super interesting because I would say as AI has got better, and I look at some of the dialogue and read some of the comments on the LinkedIn platform and other platforms as well, there are as many people accusing a piece of content of being AI-generated and being right about it as there are people accusing them and being wrong about it.

That makes the job even more difficult.

I've sat down, authentically crafted this myself, and people are looking at it and saying, "Obviously that's AI."

Host:

You can be good, but don't be too good.

Randy Petway:

Exactly.

AI is definitely influencing this.

There are a couple of different elements.

There's purely AI-generated content, and that's creating noise.

It's also increasing the frequency at which people post content.

Frequency and consistency are good, but you have to have something interesting, important and valuable to say.

Just because I can say something every 10 minutes doesn't mean I should say something every 10 minutes.

That's definitely something I'm seeing.

I think AI is, and will continue to be, one of the great assets that we have available to us.

But again, it can get you to bad results faster than you would otherwise.

Host:

Which makes it difficult for buyers to see the wood for the trees when there's a lot out there and you're trying to think, "What am I looking for here?" because everyone's throwing an answer at me.

Coming back to algorithms, who better to talk about LinkedIn algorithms than LinkedIn yourselves?

We see it every day. There's always someone posting about whether there's a problem with the algorithm.

What are the myths? How do you think LinkedIn is treating the algorithm now compared to what it was in 2016?

Randy Petway:

One part of this is just the way that LinkedIn has changed in those 10 years.

Ten years ago, in 2016, LinkedIn was primarily a place where you would have a digital representation of your CV.

That was the foundation.

Then you had some people using it, our members were using it, to make connections with other people, but it was primarily job search, making connections and that sort of thing.

Today, LinkedIn continues to be those things, but it is also what we call a knowledge work marketplace, where people come for information.

That could be information about their craft, their industry, a company or any number of different things.

They're seeking knowledge and they want to do different things with that knowledge.

For some people it's career development. For some people it's, "I want to purchase something." For some people it's, "I want to sell something to someone and I'm looking for the right people."

All of that has shifted.

Layer on top of that, in 2016 video was not a relevant part of the equation at all. It existed, but it wasn't a needle mover.

This was pre-TikTok and pre a number of things.

Our algorithms have had to keep up with that.

The other fundamental thing that's changed is that if you go back even five years ago, the way LinkedIn was designed and the algorithm was designed worked on an assumption that if I post a piece of content, the people who will be interested in that content are in my network.

That's false.

A piece of content probably isn't relevant to everyone in my network, and there are people outside of my network who could be interested in that content.

We've really started to make sure the algorithm captures that fact, that it is the content that people are drawn to, not necessarily or not just the network.

That's been a big shift.

Host:

Do you think other social media platforms have had an impact on the strategy LinkedIn has had to put across its platform?

Randy Petway:

Yes and no.

One aspect of this, the number one mention that you will hear at LinkedIn, and it will come up all the time in every meeting, every product decision and every commercial decision we make, is something called "members first".

There is a very high priority on making sure that everything we do on our platform puts our members first, protecting their data, protecting the integrity of the platform, et cetera.

In that regard, I think we probably treat it differently than at least other social networks are perceived to treat it.

I'm not making a judgement on them, but in terms of perception, I think that ranks higher for us.

That's one side of the equation.

The other is we absolutely have to be mindful of the fact that people's expectations for how they interact in a business environment are often set outside of the business environment.

I brought up TikTok earlier. That was an existential moment for us when we saw how people were drawn to consuming short-form video content.

Even when we launched video, we used to focus more on long-form content.

Then we realised people want bite-sized chunks.

That was a combination of the demographic we were starting to draw in, younger people, but also the experiences people were having outside of LinkedIn.

That completely shifted our video strategy.

There was a post that our new CEO, Dan Shapero, shared with us yesterday, talking to some of our biggest content providers on LinkedIn.

They were making suggestions about how they would like to be able to interact with LinkedIn.

You could tell, without them explicitly saying it, that those expectations they had and what they wanted out of our platform were set by other media platforms they work on.

So that definitely influences us.

Host:

What do you think are the biggest myths you hear about the algorithm and the LinkedIn platform?

Randy Petway:

That people understand the algorithm.

That's probably the biggest myth.

I frequently see people who insist they've cracked the code and therefore you need to do X, Y and Z.

That's part of it.

The other part, and this is unfortunate and not unique to LinkedIn, is there's this almost nefarious view of the algorithm.

First of all, there isn't "the algorithm". It's a platform. It works in a certain way.

But if you were to boil it down and look at the algorithm and all the things that sit behind it, it's really about, at least for us, making sure that we can give members access to the things we think they are most likely to be interested in based on their profile, their behaviours and the content they interact with.

That's the intent of the algorithm. That's really it in a nutshell.

People believe that we're trying to steer people towards certain things or away from certain things.

Host:

People overthink it, right?

Randy Petway:

Completely overthink it.

Host:

Should they concentrate more on good content as opposed to what the algorithm is doing?

Randy Petway:

Absolutely. Focus on good content.

I would almost say for your first six months in particular on the platform, or trying to increase your presence or increase the amount of content you're producing, ignore some of the vanity metrics.

Don't even think about the algorithm.

Think about great content, who you're trying to reach, what would make them interested, what's authentic and how can I be consistent?

The algorithm will sort everything. It will do its thing.

Host:

I think there will be many people who've sat there for hours thinking about a LinkedIn post they want to do.

They'll post it and it will get a couple of likes and not many impressions. They beat themselves up about it.

Then they may put a picture of themselves sitting on the train, something completely random, and get lots of impressions.

Why do you think that would be if that person feels they are doing what they think their network wants to see?

Is it luck sometimes, or is it just the way the algorithm is at that time?

Randy Petway:

I think it's a combination of both.

I think it's luck. I think it's what the algorithm is at that time and what you're competing with at a given time.

There may be another topic. It doesn't diminish your topic, but there may be something that's really lighting up elsewhere that's drawing attention.

That competition for eyes isn't just what's on LinkedIn, by the way.

There's only so many things I can look at at one time.

It can be and is all of those things.

The other thing is it's almost like sketch comedy.

If you think about some of the really successful sketch comedy programmes and really think about it, how many of the routines were really blockbusters?

They may throw 10 things out there in a given episode and multiply that across the number of episodes.

There may be a handful of characters or sketches that really resonated and really took off, but we remember the programme as being great.

We forget that it wasn't repeated success after success. It was a handful of things that really took off.

Host:

If somebody was starting to post today on LinkedIn, what should they completely ignore?

Randy Petway:

Ignore all the chatter about the algorithms.

There are many experts out there. Everyone seems to be a LinkedIn expert.

I'm being a bit unfair because when I say to ignore them, there are a lot of good practices that come out of those discussions.

Being consistent with when you post, the fact that the algorithm does benefit if people are interacting with your content, not just reading your content.

There are some best practices, so I'm being a bit unfair and I shouldn't punish that.

But it still comes back to the quality of your content and making sure that you understand the audience you're trying to reach.

Anything, particularly at the beginning, that is a distraction from that, I would say ignore it.

Host:

Do you think people's role titles have an impact on where their post is being seen? I see it when people put their bios.

Randy Petway:

Yes, I do think your level and your title definitely matter.

But going back to something you mentioned earlier about getting product people to represent, people look for different people to deliver different proof points.

Just because I'm a CEO doesn't mean I only want to hear from CEOs because sometimes I'm looking for other proof points.

Those sorts of things really matter.

Your title and your profile influence who's going to come to you for what, but do not underestimate the different types of people who are going to come to you.

Host:

Interesting.

Do hashtags work on LinkedIn?

Randy Petway:

They do. They still have a life.

I wonder if AI and incorporating that into the flows will displace some things or reduce the necessity of hashtags, but they're still valuable. They still work.

Host:

Great news. Everyone can definitely listen to that because it's a thing I see all the time.

Randy, thank you so much for your time.

One last question we have here on the show.

We've covered a lot on B2B selling and how it's evolving.

One question we like to ask is, what is one thing in B2B sales or a LinkedIn trend that you'd happily banish forever?

Your shelf of shame nomination.

Randy Petway:

People having not done their research.

If I could get rid of that, and that's on LinkedIn and outside of LinkedIn.

The amount of outreach I get that would have been relevant for a job I had five years ago, or the number of times I've literally had outreach on LinkedIn from people trying to sell me hiring platforms.

Host:

That comes back to AI maybe, right, and people not doing their research.

It's a really valid point because it then makes it difficult when people are doing their research.

Randy Petway:

It really does.

I hate to say this, but I'm not going to give you a second chance with something like that.

You've kind of burned that bridge at that point because it's shown me that you don't value your own brand.

You don't value the relationship that you're trying to develop with me, or at least you don't value it enough to have invested.

It really isn't a massive investment. It's 10 minutes.

Host:

Perception is such a big piece when you're trying to buy, sell or speak to people.

One thing I was told once is 90% of perception is the truth.

You never want people talking about something where you've not done, like you mentioned, the little bit of analytical work or research before reaching out.

Randy, thank you so much for your time today.

Where can people find out a little bit more about yourself and your work, ensuring they do their research first?

Randy Petway:

Let's see. There's this thing called LinkedIn.

You can search the web for me as well, but you'll find some really bad AI articles I wrote 20 years ago and those sorts of things that I'd just as soon people not read.

But LinkedIn is always a great starting point.

Host:

Amazing, Randy. Thank you so much for your time.

Randy Petway:

Thank you very much.

Host:

Bye-bye.

Randy Petway:

Bye-bye.

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