Man Uses Proposal To Girlfriend To Talk About Sales On LinkedIn, Triggers The Internet

While LinkedIn was initially meant to serve as a social media network for professionals, it has now turned into something more personal, like other platforms. Users share all kinds of stories and posts from a range of topics that aren’t strictly professional. One similar post is going viral across social media where a man shared some B2B lessons he learned from proposing to his girlfriend!

Here are Some B2B Lessons Learnt From a Marriage Proposal

In a viral post on X (formerly Twitter), a user took screenshots of salesman Bryan Shankman’s post. Shankman, who is the owner of SuperSeller per his LinkedIn bio, shared a picture of himself kneeling to propose to his gleefully surprised fiancée. While the image was cute, what followed in the caption became the subject of widespread trolling. 

In the caption, Shankman wrote, “I proposed to my girlfriend this weekend, Here’s what it taught me about B2B sales...” He continued by expressing that key milestones must be met throughout the relationship to ensure a “Closed Won status at the end.”

When explaining the lessons, Shankman compared his now-fiancée to a sales prospect. He shared tips on prospecting, discovery, demo-ing, pricing, negotiations, handling objections and more sharing them as the things he learned from his relationship. 

He concluded the post by comparing the proposal to the signing of a deal. He then compares the relationship to the business saying there is still a lot of work to do with “planning and constant communications to ensure ongoing satisfaction”.

Shankman unfortunately gave away enough material for trolls to work their magic. The user who shared Shankman’s post on Twitter captioned it: “LinkedIn is a disease.” Soon, others went to work by sharing parodies of Shankman’s post, which got progressively more hilarious. One user (@jrkinsella) wrote, “I had to have my dog put to sleep yesterday. Here's what it taught me about being an Angel Investor.”

The trolling did not stop on LinkedIn as well. Several users with professional-looking profiles also jumped on the bandwagon. One tech entrepreneur, who goes by @MoonYiu, wrote an elaborate parody in the comment. “My parents disowned me when I was 2…..Here’s what it taught me about writing LinkedIn posts,” the user titled the parody. 

People even extended Shankman’s post to elaborate on funny future outcomes. One user (@JoshuaBurmeister) extended the parody and wrote, “My girlfriend went with a competitor. Here's what it taught me about customer retention!”

Meanwhile, on Twitter, several users expressed how bad it has gotten on LinkedIn. One user (@pinkboots4ever) said that the platform has literally become like Facebook for people with no work-life balance and are proud of it. The user said the posts regularly blur the line and the user found the particular post to be sad as relationships aren’t transactional. 

Even people on LinkedIn were left confused by Shankman’s post. Several users couldn’t believe that it was an actual post. Some even wondered if it was satire after all. One user (@TrentDraper) asked, “Is this Sattire?”. In the replies, the user wondered if Shankman had a bet with someone to get one of his posts to go viral.