Ep.72/ From Banking to Media to Startups & How to Leverage “Social Selling”: Ali Levitan
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Are you doing “social selling”? Ever made a huge pivot or dream of it? Master networker Ali Levitan shifted from investment banking to TV to being a global growth executive driving multi-million B2B revenue deals. We're talking about the importance of social selling which means leveraging content to directly grow leads. Plus she shares her journey into thought leadership and building her personal brand through her podcast and LinkedIn executive interview series ‘Boss.’Ali offers awesome advice on career and life success and the importance of following your passions.
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Ever feel like you sold out for the corporate benefits?
My guest Ali Levitan talks about her corporate career and how she shifted from investment banking to TV to her own business. We're talking about the importance of social selling and if you’re not doing it why you should be. It's the business strategy behind posting content to generate leads directly.
Ali also shares her journey into thought leadership too. She's been building her personal brand very successfully. She has an executive series, a podcast and LinkedIn video series called Boss and Ali offers awesome advice on career and life success and the importance of following your passions.
In this episode you will learn:
The power of social selling for lead generation.
Identifying your superpower and investing in meaningful relationships.
Knowing where to find your revenue.
Quotes from our guest:
“Identify your superpowers, pursue your passions, invest in meaningful relationships and keep your network strong.”
“Make your clients heroes”
“I sold out for the wine & sushi.”
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Connect with Ali on LinkedIn
Kim (00:02):
Are you using social selling? And if you're not, you should be. It's the business strategy behind posting content to generate leads directly. Global Growth. Executive Ali Levitan will share how you can leverage social to get leads from a business perspective and how you can make your clients the heroes of the story strategically. Plus, she'll share how she went from banking to TV into business. Welcome to the Exit interview with Kim Rittberg. Do you work for yourself and want to supercharge your business while still having fun? Well, this is your go-to podcast, part MBA, Part Cheer Squad. Every week I'll be joined by top business owners who share the secrets to their success. After I found myself working during childbirth true story, I quit my executive media job to bet on myself fighting the fear and imposter syndrome to eventually earn six awards and in-demand speaking career and features in Fast Company and Business Insider. Now I'm here to celebrate all you rock stars betting on yourself, and I want to help you win. Tune in every Wednesday to hear from remarkable founders and don't miss our Solo Friday episodes, A treasure trove of video and podcasting mini masterclasses with me. Exit the grind, enter success on your own terms. Don't forget to subscribe today and grab my free video tips at my website, kimrittberg.com.
(01:27):
Today I'm chatting with Ali Levitan, who I have known for decades. She went to Wharton, which is the business part of my alma mater pen. I was in liberal arts. Clearly, Ali has had and is having an amazing career, really high level business success. She has a strategic media tech and global growth executive driving multimillion dollar B two B deals. She's worked at Fortune 500 companies and startups. Today we're talking about the importance of social selling, leveraging content to directly grow leads including B two B and other. And she shares her journey into thought leadership too. She's been building her personal brand very successfully. She has an executive series, a podcast and LinkedIn video series called Boss and Ali offers awesome advice on career and life success and the importance of following your passions. I especially love a few of these snippets that I wrote down and put a little star next to be brave, not perfect, and this nugget.
(02:21):
Identify your superpowers, pursue your passions, invest in meaningful relationships, and keep your network strong. Alright, I'm so excited to have Ali Levitan here with us. She is a strategic global growth executive with 20 years of experience in driving multimillion dollar B two B revenue deals, business impact innovation, and R O I as startups General Assembly sold to Adecco for $413 million and Fortune 500 companies. Ali brings a vast and powerful executive network of key decision makers, strategic consultative advice to C-Suite leadership and success in developing, executing and negotiating innovative seven figure deals. Master Networker, I can totally attest to that connector, social selling strategist, collaborator, and MarTech, executive thought leader, creator and host of Boss, which has had 500,000 organic impressions and over 75 executive interviews. It's an executive interview series on LinkedIn and a high growth podcast. You can listen up Spotify, apple, all those places. She joined Ad Predictive as E V P, business development and growth in April 22 to help companies lead with consumer intelligence insights. And on a personal note, she's a proud mom of two with Jake and Sophia, ages eight and five. Ali, thank you for being here.
Ali (03:30):
Wow, Kim, that is quite an intro. I hope I can live up to that.
Kim (03:34):
Yeah, I know, right? We'll see. Just kidding. So I've known Ally for many years. We both went to the University of Pennsylvania, Ali, I've known her for many years and followed her really interesting career. And one of the reasons I wanted to have Ali on is truly she is a master networker connector. She's really driven by that. A lot of people talk about leading with the give the offer, what are you giving before you take? And Ali's really an expert in that. So Ali, I would love to hear from you. Talk to me about networking and social selling. First of all, I want to talk about what does it mean social selling? What does that mean to social sell?
Ali (04:08):
Wow. Well first of all, Kim, hi. Hi love. Congrats on your amazing podcast. I'm so thrilled to be here. I love how we've extended this friendship through all these years and social selling. It's one of those, well, it's really interesting. So let me pull back a little bit. It was, I don't know, seven years ago probably when I was at ga, when our head of sales came or head of sales strategy came in and realized that I was working with my team to post all this thought leadership on LinkedIn and come up with our case studies and our client testimonials and our quotes and putting together events and thought leadership. And it was something that just kind of came naturally to me and it was really exciting and empowering and inspiring to highlight my clients, highlight my team, highlight the successes. What I didn't realize was what I was actually doing was putting things out content into the world that was actually driving business outcomes and business deals.
(05:05):
And so there's a stat which I think I'd shared a little earlier that really sticks with me. It was put together by research that was done by both LinkedIn and Edelman and it was around 62% of C-suite leaders. Note that thought leadership led them directly to do business with a company. And so if you think about that, that informs all sorts of strategies and it became really fun and a little bit like a game for me in terms of what content resonated. And what I found fascinating was things that were a little more personal or had something to do with an event that I was putting on or had to do with my kids when I posted those on Fridays, I would get all of these likes and impressions and comments and it would be from people who not only are my friends and business colleagues, but people who I was doing existing business with or wanted to do business with.
(06:00):
And so for instance, one big media executive, I remember I was trying to close this big deal, it made sense for her company, it was solving big problems. It was something we really wanted to do, but that person was on vacation and I didn't want to just send a note being like, okay. And she ended up liking it, engaging with it, and calming it. And so you become top of mind for people when you show up when they need things that you can solve for because it's again, how are you solving people's problems? What are those mission critical things that they're trying to do? And let's only do business together if it makes sense. And if I can help you,
Kim (06:36):
It's so funny because I have clients and I work with them on being better on camera, but also the video strategy. And I explain to people, I'm like, it's not just making content. You're putting it up there. It puts you to your point top of mind and people are thinking of you, people who had not thought of you possibly in years, maybe months, maybe 10 years and they come back around. But I love that you come from more of a business side of it with these are the stats, this is the real. And by the way, Ali mentioned what we were talking about before. She means literally before we hit record, she gave me that stat. And I think to that point is for me, it's so great to hear the business stats behind it because I'll tell people, put on the content like you will see deals closing, you will see potential deals opening from LinkedIn. I have a client that's a healthcare communications consultant and I taught their team. I was like strategic commenting, strategic posting on LinkedIn. It's not just content, it is a strategy, it's a business strategy, but it's really helpful to hear about social selling and how it works and the data behind it.
Ali (07:37):
And I didn't know that it was called that. Yes, me neither. And now there's been a bunch of research. I actually put together a presentation back at that firm and actually did that presentation when I was consulting for a bunch of companies. And it's like the little steps of just being a little bit more comfortable to share who you are, what you're focused on, what articles you find interesting. And that's how Boss, my podcast series and executive interview series kind of came about organically and naturally. I like talking to people.
Kim (08:06):
It's so cool to see what you built. I think a lot of people are like, oh, I started this thing and I did two episodes and I let it go. Talk to me about Boss, how you started it, what it is and what's your goal with it. What do you want someone to take away from each episode of Boss?
Ali (08:20):
Yeah, so let's pull it back again for a sec. So it was August of 2020 I think as we bought our first house. We now live in Westchester. We were in Hoboken and it was at that time early Covid days when my global team and global role like many others after being there for over six years was actually eliminated at ga. It had been an incredible six years along with most of my longtime colleagues. And I really needed to take a minute to both teach my kids school, but also then had that open mind space to be creative and be innovative. And it was during that me time, which was so critical that I was consulting, but I was also like how do I create something that's creative and innovative? And I've always had this business side of myself as well as this creative side of myself.
(09:14):
When we were at Wharton, I was probably the only student carrying around a tripod and a video camera taking pass fail film classes during my finance classes. That was just who I always was. And so it was really exciting to have this time where I had wanted to create a podcast at General Assembly. It actually worked with my friend Candace who was in a big role there. And the two of us had put together the outline and then it just was never against our mission critical business goals or priorities. And it just became this like, well, we don't have time for that. That's not going to necessarily drive direct results, but in this moment I could do that. It was so exciting to ask a few of my close clients and friends to say yes. And so I think I got my executive friends at Bloomberg to say, yes, my friend who's a C E O of Donna Karen's company to say yes, I got my friend who was the head of Guardian to say yes as well as a few others.
(10:08):
And so by asking people for only 15 to 20 minutes of their time doing on Zoom, so making it really simple, really easy and editing it myself so I know how to talent book. I used to run VH one News so I can book people. I have a great network people, I love people connecting, connecting, connecting and make it simple. And then I needed to learn how to edit. That was the big thing because I didn't know how to edit at the time. I reached out to some former VH one news people, they told me that they would help me, but their eight year old cousin could figure this out in 10 minutes. And so they're like, you need to just learn iMovie, learned it myself. And now fast forward to now, and I'm actually using Descrip, which is an AI editor. I feel like I'm cheating sometimes because I really know how to edit.
(10:50):
But I also have this amazing ability to now just cut out word docs and do it really, really quickly. And so Boss for what it is, it is an executive interview series. It started on LinkedIn now as you mentioned, this amazing high-growth podcast that helps other people learn network and pay it forward, wanted to keep it simple. And I got great advice. Originally it wasn't going to be a podcast, I thought that was your point. You do one or two. It's really hard. It's not consistent. LinkedIn had been semi consistent for me, but the editing tools, the AI ability and then talking to people about how to actually put it up there and keep it consistent has just been something I've been really interested in over the last, I dunno, two months. I think it's only been a podcast for two months, which is insane.
Kim (11:36):
But it's interesting what you were talking about, about taking those steps. I recommend to people, basically when you start doing content, don't overwhelm yourself. If you're going to do one thing, great, do your one thing. You can always go back and create more from it. I think obviously if you have the tools and the time when you're making something, squeeze all the juice from that orange. So if you're making a video, sure, make a podcast. Sure. Make shortcuts for Instagram, LinkedIn, wherever, newsletter. But I think that if you have a lot of content in your library, you could always turn into something later. So even if you don't have the time at that moment, you never missed it. It's not like if you're not doing timely news-based content. Okay. Talk to me about, so you studied in Wharton in undergrad at Penn, you studied in Wharton business school, then you went into tv and then you kind of came back to the business side. How did you decide to go left to go right to go left?
Ali (12:31):
Yeah, it was all windy. So as you mentioned, I started at Penn. I'd always been creative or thoughtful about those two sides of my brain. So I was an investment banker first, which is crazy. I sold out for the wine and the sushi. It was 2001, and I did that at Sal Mc Barney for a year. But I also quickly realized that especially during nine 11, I was working downtown in New York City that life is way too short to be doing something that you don't love. And so I very quickly made the pivot into 12 plus years at Viacom, which is a very long time.
Kim (13:05):
And by the way, Ali, Ali and I, back in the day, I would run into her at a red carpet. We would both be behind this, these producers interviewing people on a red carpet about their movie or their music album. Anyway, I just thought that was funny because here we are, 17 years later or something like that. Our
Ali (13:21):
Worlds are so small and it goes back to being creative and starting new things because Beach One News existed, but Beach One News and Red Carpet did not exist when I decided to take on that role. And so realizing again, what was the business problem that we were trying to solve, we didn't have enough footage that was cleared of red carpets and celebrities for a lot of our shows, nor were we getting those really interesting real time events. And so I started a red carpet department. It was so fun. We got credentialed everywhere. We built this thing. I started running into You, we did deals with the Oscars and more, and we were then able to monetize it too, which again goes back to you see what's going on, you come up with a new idea, you get creative, and then you build on top of that. And I spent a lot of time in that VH one news, red carpet associate producing, coordinating, producing role where I learned how to edit and do all of those things. But then I was think the only person who ever successfully transitioned from the production and the creative side to the business side.
Kim (14:31):
So that's what I was going to ask. So you went from investment banking, a business undergrad degree investment banking to tv, and then you shifted in TV to the business side?
Ali (14:38):
Yes, and that was because even on the production side, sales realized that I could then help them scale some of these creative solutions to advertisers. So Las Vegas Tourism Board was really interested in doing stuff with us. I was taping stuff in Vegas, why don't we package this up? And then it just became very easy and made a lot of sense for me to come and help lead that on the integrated marketing and ad sell side.
Kim (15:06):
How much of your business degree, your undergrad business degree came in handy?
Ali (15:10):
Wow, that's a deep question. I don't know. I think that negotiations and some of the business classes and just mindset at Penn probably helped. And probably the idea of business in general or understanding what business is always had me chasing being on the side of revenue a little bit. I also think if you're at a firm, knowing where the revenue is and being somewhat tied to it is very helpful from a scaling business is but also somewhat of a job security and ownership perspective, a hundred
Kim (15:49):
Percent. I think that that's something that I learned as I went from TV to digital. Digital video is extremely volatile and I started to realize over time the branded content, wherever the money is, they're more secure. If there's money coming in, there's more secure, there's bigger budgets. Basically when people need to cut, they cut first from the areas that are optional that don't bring in money, that don't drive revenue. So I love that point. Talk to me about what are the tips and lessons you would impart to someone doing their own thing, launching a side hustle, a passion project, but with the goal to develop business?
Ali (16:24):
Yeah, that's great question. I think first you have to make sure that you find companies that are open to you doing those side hustles, right? And so the startup world has been extremely exciting to me over the last 10 plus years having been at General Assembly, which was amazing and scaled kindred. Now at Add Predictive, there's something special about companies that allow you to create a little bit of flexibility for yourself, for your schedule, for your kids, but also for your side hustles. And so having an understanding of that going in I think is really critical. There's certain firms that you join them and you can't be on a corporate board if that's something that you have interest in, so you need to do your homework before joining those companies. I remember there was a job that I was exploring and I was talking about my LinkedIn series, and if that was going to be something that I had to stop, I can't take that job versus most of the companies, including all the ones that I work at, seeing that as a major benefit from an executive relationship perspective and keeping that network open and being a thought leader and the value of that versus the time suck potentially of that.
(17:37):
And because I can do it in my own timeframe, it's something that's not cutting a ton of time. I think from an additional advice perspective, it's like something my mom said when I was leaving banking too, which was follow your dreams, be creative. Where my dad, when I was leaving investment banking and going into media, he's like, I don't know anybody in media. And I'm like, you didn't know anybody in my current job. It doesn't matter. I can figure this out. And so just being really confident that if you are following things that you are passionate about and that you like what you're doing, that it's going to work out with a lot of hustle, with a little bit of luck, with a lot of support from your friends and family. And then be brave, not Perfect. It's a book that I read written by the founder of Girls Who Code.
(18:23):
I need to interview for Boss too. I need to interview her. She's on my list. I have a word in, but I think it's something that I think about with my kids as well because we were brought up to be perfect. We, we applied to Ivy League colleges. We beat ourselves up if we weren't hitting the things or the goals and what we thought was important. Whereas I remember at a few jobs ago, I would get emails from people who were C-suite leaders and they had a ton of spelling errors in it or it was really short and how can they do that? But it's like they're being quick and they're being effective. And if you can kind of let go a little bit from analyzing if an email that you just sent had one or maybe two very natural typos in it and not freaking out, I think that's really, really critical to just doing more, being more successful and driving success. And that's hard to let go.
Kim (19:19):
Definitely. I feel like I, because one of my early jobs was in news, and if basically you put a typo on screen, millions of people would see it and you would be in the executive's office being yelled at. That's basically how it would go. You had a typo, you made a mistake, you're in trouble. And so I think that on top of us being trained to be nice, be perfect, cross all our T's and dot all of our i's there, it wasn't an expectation in the type of job that I had that you had. So I think unlearning that is important that in the sake of success and efficiency, not every single thing is perfect. And that's okay. I had a question about Boss, so I would love to know how has Boss the video series now podcast, how has it helped you with business development and sales?
Ali (19:59):
It's a good question. Well, one, it's not why I do it, right? I do it because I actually truly enjoy being creative. And I think that comes through. I truly enjoy catching up with people and finding out their story and hearing what they've learned, the inspiration they can give to others. Some of the stuff that we're talking about right now, this is stuff that I wish that I had in my twenties and didn't necessarily. And so putting that out there and getting this top level talent, again, I don't think I've mentioned it before, but this is people like Carla Hassan who's now the CMO of JPMorgan Chase. This is the c e O of Dress for Success, the head of sales at N B C U. I recently interviewed the head of partnerships at TikTok, who was one of the first top five employees in the us, the head of hr, one of the seasoned HR leaders at Google.
(20:48):
These are people that when I was like 20 to 30 would've killed to get 15 minutes in a room. From a business development and a social selling perspective, I think there's something important about making your clients heroes, superheroes, champions, about the things that they're trying to solve for in their company that are mission critical to them. There are major pain points and your solutions, whether they're at my current company, around customer intelligence and insights, whether it's at general assembly around upskilling and re-skilling talent, whether it's at Viacom, around helping that brand drive a bigger audience with that movie promotion. There's something around when you're doing those important things and you're driving real results, being able to tell that. And so it's also been fun to highlight some of my existing or former clients within their personal stories that then help them too. There's an interview that I'm airing next week where I said, what can I do for you? And that person said, I'm actually really also looking to fill all these roles. Email me here this. So it's like being able to pay it forward for everyone. And then it naturally, just from a business development and thought leadership perspective and a networking perspective, it just continues to expand my network and allows me to be at big events and in big rooms and at dinners where business just naturally starts to get done. There's
Kim (22:17):
A quote that I
Ali (22:18):
Gave to the Wharton School a few weeks ago. They had asked me for something to put in a website around advice for new graduates, and I wrote it down for you. I thought it was relevant, which is identify your superpowers, pursue your passions, invest in meaningful relationships and keep your network strong as relationships lead to opportunity, growth and revenue. And I think that kind of ties it all up.
Kim (22:43):
Yeah, I love that. That's so great. Where do you see yourself in three years, five years, 10 years?
Ali (22:51):
Oh, that's such a big question. Happy, really, really active in my kids' lives and school. I agreed to be part of the P t A as a class parent for both kids this year and creating things, really building things that I'm passionate about that other people are passionate about. That is connecting people, helping people, solving problems, driving strategic business deals, but just something that gets me excited to get out of bed every day. And because I am an extrovert, which there's a ton of incredible people who are introverts in all different levels of that spectrum, but something for me that involves being near people because that gives me energy. And so anything that continues to feed that understanding of people's stories, people, businesses, and doing something that
Kim (23:46):
Also has
Ali (23:47):
Purpose behind it, but also allows me the flexibility to pick up my kids from things that are important, go to that back to school night. And we've been very privileged to have the luxury of having an au pair who's incredible manuelo, who lives with us right now too. And both kids need to be in the same place at the same time. That is impossible. And so having that flexibility as well, both with passion projects, work, career, family, just continues to be critical. Otherwise, it doesn't work in my life.
Kim (24:20):
Awesome. Anything else you would like to impart to the listeners of the exit interview?
Ali (24:25):
Enjoy. Find things that make you so happy and so passionate and so energized and think about what those things are throughout your day, throughout your job, but be willing to take big risks. It was risky going from a very high income role in investment banking to a production role at Viacom. It was very risky to go from a huge corporate company to multiple startups, but with great risk. And I feel like I'm stealing Spider-Man or somebody right now comes for award and I think that it's worth it and I wish I had done that sometimes earlier in my career.
Kim (25:08):
Awesome. Ali, this is so great to have you on. Like I mentioned before, Ali and I have known each other for years and I feel like certain years we talk a lot and we do a lot of collaboration and others I won't talk her for a year and we're like, we need to catch up. So I'm so excited to always see your face on Boss. It's a great listen. Let everyone know how they can find you and how they can listen to Boss.
Ali (25:26):
Absolutely. So you can find my Boss podcast executive interview series on Apple or Spotify or anywhere you listen by searching for Boss and Ali, that's A L I. You can also follow me on LinkedIn. I'm at the LinkedIn and then Ali, A L I, Jacobs Levitan. And I also have a website that I'm continuing to expand, which is a lot of great updates, things, learnings, and that is www.bossalilevitan.com. I try to reach back out to people whenever I can, and this has just been so much fun.
Kim (25:59):
Yeah, Ali, I'm so excited for you. Thank you so much for joining.
Ali (26:03):
Thanks, Kim.
Kim (26:08):
Thank you for joining us. Don't forget to exit the grind and enter success on your own terms. This is the exit interview with Kim Rittberg. Don't forget to grab my free download, how to Grow Your Business with Amazing video at kimrittberg.com and linked out in the show notes. I love to hear your feedback. Make sure to submit to me what you learned from the show and how you are crushing it on your own terms. Connect with me on Instagram or LinkedIn at Kim Rittberg, R I T T B E R G. And this show is edited by Jillian Grover and produced by Henry Street Media. I'm your host and executive producer, Kim Rittberg.