Latest / Ambitious Podcast / EP.63: Leveraging LinkedIn For Your Business w/ Samantha Sloane | The Ambitious Network

Transcript

EP.63: Leveraging LinkedIn For Your Business w/ Samantha Sloane | The Ambitious Network · Ambitious Podcast

• 0:00
  Guys, you get to grow your audience on LinkedIn in your
• 0:03
  sweatpants at home. Like what other pitch do you
• 0:06
  need? When I use the word algorithm
• 0:08
  around LinkedIn, it's not a dirty word.
• 0:10
  That is so unlike any other platform I've ever heard about.
• 0:13
  Why am I clicking on your profile?
• 0:15
  What are you actually providing? Being hyper conscious of the
• 0:19
  comments because it's shown on your profile.
• 0:22
  Your comments are your content. Basically, if you are doing a
• 0:25
  series of looks great exciting exclamation point.
• 0:30
  Oh man. It's all on display.
• 0:32
  I just have never been so excited to be able to grow a
• 0:35
  platform in my pajamas and I don't have to necessarily post
• 0:39
  new created filming content or writing content in order to have
• 0:43
  it grow. Like I feel like there's no
• 0:44
  better opportunity than that. Have you ever seen those videos
• 0:48
  where it's like unsexy products that, you know, work really
• 0:51
  well? Or yes, that's LinkedIn.
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  Are you somebody who has thought about using LinkedIn for your
• 0:57
  business or maybe you are right now and you really want to know
• 1:00
  how to leverage it to take you to the next level?
• 1:02
  If so, today is the episode for you because we are joined by Sam
• 1:06
  Sloan and we are going to be talking all things LinkedIn.
• 1:09
  Today we discussed how to really understand some of the
• 1:12
  misconceptions about LinkedIn as a platform and how you can
• 1:15
  leverage it for your business. We discussed the different ways
• 1:18
  and approaches that you can use to leverage Linkedin's unique
• 1:22
  algorithm to actually help you and your marketing and business
• 1:24
  to scale. We talked about engagement
• 1:26
  strategies and how to grow your network on LinkedIn and your
• 1:30
  reach and impressions without necessarily having to create any
• 1:33
  content. We talk about if you're creating
• 1:35
  content, how to tailor that content, maybe even repurposing
• 1:38
  of the content you have today to be successful on LinkedIn,
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  building your personal brand on LinkedIn, and most importantly,
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  how can you use LinkedIn as a business tool for yourself for
• 1:47
  both hiring as well as generating sales?
• 1:50
  There is literally not a better person to come on and to talk
• 1:53
  about this other than Sam. Sam Sloan is a serial
• 1:56
  entrepreneur, business strategist and founder with a
• 1:58
  track record of scaling businesses across industries.
• 2:01
  With a background in economics and entrepreneurship, she has
• 2:03
  built, grown and exited companies, worked in high growth
• 2:07
  corporate environments, and successfully pitched to top
• 2:09
  venture capital firms. Her journey began in the
• 2:12
  Wellness industry where she built and sold her first
• 2:14
  business. From there, she was recruited to
• 2:16
  Equinox growth team working on expansion strategies before
• 2:19
  transitioning into financial and technical recruiting as an
• 2:22
  Associate Director. Seeing a critical gap in career
• 2:25
  literacy, she launched a career coaching business.
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  She later productized, helping professionals navigate today's
• 2:31
  complex job market. Now, Sam is leveraging her
• 2:34
  experience to build a tech product in the sports data space
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  while running a business consulting firm that helps
• 2:39
  entrepreneurs and executives scale with precision.
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  Her consulting work focuses on sales, marketing, operational
• 2:45
  strategy, and helping businesses remove bottlenecks, optimize
• 2:48
  revenue and scale sustainably. She's been in the trenches
• 2:52
  building, scaling, exiting businesses first hand.
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  With real world experience across industries, Sam
• 2:57
  understands what it takes to turn high touch, founder
• 3:00
  dependent businesses into scalable, profitable companies.
• 3:04
  Through her consulting firm, she has helped business owners to
• 3:06
  move from working inside their business to building something
• 3:08
  that runs without them so they can grow with clarity,
• 3:10
  confidence and control. And in all of this, she has
• 3:13
  leveraged LinkedIn has an incredible asset and tool for
• 3:17
  the way that she's been able to do that.
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  And so she is going to be going over a master class on all
• 3:22
  things LinkedIn today. So without further ado, let's
• 3:25
  get into today's episode. All right, you guys.
• 3:35
  Well, welcome back to Ambitious. I'm really excited for today's
• 3:38
  episode because we are having a conversation that at least I
• 3:42
  feel like I don't see enough on social media or on podcasts.
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  I feel like everybody gives TikTok all of the air time.
• 3:49
  Everyone gives Instagram the air time.
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  And today we are talking all things LinkedIn.
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  As you heard in the intro today I am joined by the incredible
• 3:56
  Samantha Sloan. I am so excited to pick your
• 3:59
  brain because I feel like I was just saying this guys before we
• 4:02
  started recording. It's always when you hear from
• 4:05
  someone who's an expert in a certain platform, they usually
• 4:08
  only market on that platform. So if you're talking to someone
• 4:10
  who's like, I love TikTok, they only market on TikTok or I love
• 4:14
  Instagram, they only market on Instagram.
• 4:16
  But the reason I'm excited for today is because like you have
• 4:18
  literally basically done it all. You've done the podcast, TikTok,
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  Instagram, LinkedIn, and obviously today we're hyper
• 4:25
  focused on LinkedIn, but I think that that's really important
• 4:27
  because it shows to me that like you really have tried
• 4:30
  everything. You're not just saying I love
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  LinkedIn because it's the only place that I that I market,
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  right? It's really that you've tried
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  everything. So for anyone who might be, you
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  know, kind of new to you or to your brand, give them maybe like
• 4:44
  a little bit of a one O 1 of kind of you and your business
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  and kind of how you got to where you are today.
• 4:49
  Yeah, well, I'm so excited to chat with us, with you about
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  this and like nerd out on all things, you know, because here's
• 4:56
  the thing with LinkedIn is it's so easy to nerd out on and it's
• 4:59
  actually so incredibly different than any other platform.
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  And I actually think LinkedIn needs a new marketer.
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  Like maybe that's you, maybe that's me, but I actually think
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  it needs a whole rebrand and pro.
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  I started using LinkedIn, Oh my gosh, 10 plus years ago, and it
• 5:18
  has evolved massively during that time.
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  I used it to build a business in you know, 2013, 2014 15.
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  I then used it for my corporate career and I use it now in the
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  business that I have. And I actually teach people how
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  to use it everyday in both the element of business as well as,
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  you know, kind of up leveling their careers and building their
• 5:41
  personal brand, which they actually go.
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  Hand in hand. Hand in hand.
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  Yeah. Yeah, well, that's fine for me.
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  Like I feel like LinkedIn used to be known as like I, I don't
• 5:53
  know how it's to label, but like it wasn't a cool platform to be
• 5:56
  on. It was considered to be like
• 5:57
  this business, very formal. It was like if you had the most
• 6:01
  formal version of yourself. That's what was being posted on
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  LinkedIn. And I think to your point, it
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  wasn't really, in my opinion, even really seen as like a
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  social platform, even though obviously it has been this
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  entire time. The way that people were using
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  it was not in the social way. And I feel like now, obviously
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  it's changed so much. So like for you, obviously
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  you've been on it for a long time.
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  What are kind of the different changes that you've seen to kind
• 6:26
  of bring it to where it is today?
• 6:28
  Yeah, definitely. So I don't know if you remember
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  that meme from a couple years ago where you'd have like your
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  Instagram photo, your photo and your photo, and they were all
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  completely different. So like it kind of has this
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  facade, but it actually is one of the most high growth
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  platforms that exist because of the way the algorithm works.
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  So obviously, I know we love to not be bound by algorithms and
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  we love to go based off marketing principles, which of
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  course stands true. But this is 1 case where the
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  algorithm actually really works in one's favor.
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  So for anyone who is new to LinkedIn or has dabbled but
• 7:00
  doesn't know how to really fully dive in, the algorithm is
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  actually really working in your favor.
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  And that's some of the main changes that has happened.
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  It really used to be a virtual resume.
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  People would use that in whatever way that they need it.
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  That could be business, that could be marketing, that could
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  be sales prospecting, and now it has become a full-fledged social
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  media platform. So I think what makes LinkedIn
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  so unique is that you can both research and execute.
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  OK. All in one place, which is
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  incredibly powerful and something that you can't do on
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  any other platform that exists. Right now, and like when you say
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  research, what do you mean by that?
• 7:41
  Yeah. So if you're a marketer, if you
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  are sales prospecting, if you're building your business, whether
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  you're solopreneur or you have a team, LinkedIn enables you to
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  get in and get granular and fined.
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  Who are these decision makers? Who do I need to get in contact
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  with? What are their connections?
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  And you can then take all that information and execute.
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  Whereas if we look at a platform run by Meta or Byte Dance or any
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  of those, even some of the subsequent ones that have come
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  out, it's all execution based. And bro, this combination, in my
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  opinion and in my experience, is incredibly powerful.
• 8:18
  Well, like even you saying about the algorithm, like I would be
• 8:21
  curious about that because obviously for me, like, and I
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  know we always have these conversations off the podcast
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  about all this stuff, but I, I nerd it on the, the algorithms
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  because for me it was interesting.
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  Obviously when TikTok came around, because with Instagram,
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  Instagram was very much based off of like, you build this
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  follower base and then those are the people who get seen, who
• 8:39
  basically get presented your content.
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  And then we had TikTok, which kind of threw the whole thing on
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  its head, which said, listen, you can have no following, you
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  can have no commitment, and we're going to push your content
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  out completely based on interest.
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  Obviously, you mark it on TikTok and Instagram.
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  When it comes to like the LinkedIn algorithm, how does
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  that kind of work in comparison to the other two?
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  Or does it kind of fall similar to one of them?
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  Yeah, so it really stands alone. So the LinkedIn algorithm at its
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  core can be really looked at in three main buckets of how they
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  make revenue, right? And so on.
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  A byte dance on a TikTok, on a meta, any of those subsequent
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  platforms threads, It's all about keeping someone on the
• 9:19
  platform, right? That is the goal of the company.
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  How long can we keep someone there?
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  And so on a micro level, that means that each creator needs to
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  create content that keeps someone scrolling or reading a
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  caption. And that's why we dive into
• 9:32
  these really hyper tactical things like a hook or a
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  background or XYZ. Whereas with LinkedIn, you
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  actually have the ability to pop into other people's audiences.
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  And so if you were to, let's say, comment, if you were to
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  make your own piece of content, which kind of builds the facet
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  of depending on you or comfort level, right?
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  And if you're commenting and if you want to go all in, maybe
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  you're making your own content. But if someone, let's say you
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  make a piece of content, I then like it.
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  Not like now get shared with my entire audience.
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  OK. So you have the ability to
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  basically tap into people's audiences in a way that does not
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  happen on any other platform whatsoever.
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  Got it. So just simply by, even if you
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  weren't creating any content on LinkedIn, but just even going
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  and engaging with people's things on LinkedIn, that alone
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  would have the ability to grow your community.
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  That's right, That's right. I have a full, it's, it's very
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  micro, but a full commenting strategy because a lot of people
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  are not comfortable, especially if it's associated with, you
• 10:44
  know, a brand. Maybe you're not comfortable
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  putting that first piece of content out there.
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  But because you're used to used to TikTok and now it's more
• 10:52
  written or now it's, you know, people you haven't talked to in
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  a while. So this is a great way to build
• 10:58
  that and still be able to tap out of people's audiences.
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  And like for something like that, that is like, obviously
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  you guys hear me talk on episodes about like the
• 11:05
  principles versus the tactic and obviously commenting it would be
• 11:08
  like one of those tactics, the principal being engaging.
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  How much time are we talking about?
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  Because I remember like back in the OG Instagram days, it would
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  be like you spend an hour in the morning engaging or like 30
• 11:19
  minutes before the post, 30 minutes after the post.
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  Like if someone is wanting to dabble in LinkedIn, how much
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  time would you dedicated to something like that to kind of
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  see momentum with it? Yeah, I would say probably
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  anywhere between 1/2 hour to 45 minutes per day because it's
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  also about finding the people whose audiences you actually
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  want to tap into. OK, so being really intentional
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  with those that you're engaging with to ensure that their
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  audiences are the audience you want to discover you.
• 11:48
  That's right. Got it.
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  And everyone is on LinkedIn, LinkedIn level playing field.
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  You can find CEOs, you can find investors, you can find Angel
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  and bus, you can find everyone on LinkedIn.
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  And instead of dropping straight into their DMS, which can feel
• 12:05
  really uncomfortable for both you and them, you can comment.
• 12:08
  You can start to engage with their with their content in a
• 12:11
  really thoughtful way. And of course, that's a
• 12:13
  prerequisite. It has to be thoughtful, right?
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  It can't be a great post. Love this.
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  Which by the way, just as APSA should not be having on any
• 12:21
  platform, if that's your engagement strategy, we need a
• 12:24
  new approach that should not be having anywhere.
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  OK? So obviously we're talking about
• 12:29
  the people that are on LinkedIn and everybody's on LinkedIn.
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  And so I think a natural curiosity that people have is
• 12:35
  like B to B businesses like yourself.
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  Obviously you have, you know, different legs to your business.
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  For myself, obviously working B to B, what if someone's B to C?
• 12:44
  Because I think obviously most people being B to B businesses
• 12:47
  are like great, LinkedIn is a place that you can absolutely
• 12:49
  leverage. But what if someone's trying to
• 12:51
  go direct to consumer? Do you think that there is a
• 12:55
  opportunity there for them or they better off to put their
• 12:58
  energy somewhere else? So I actually think direct to
• 13:01
  consumer is better than B to B. So I touched on this earlier,
• 13:05
  but LinkedIn has three different revenue streams.
• 13:07
  You have LinkedIn recruiter, which is specifically for
• 13:10
  hiring, and that could be, you know, a couple $1000 per
• 13:14
  recruiter per month, right? That's a massive revenue
• 13:17
  generator. You then have sales navigator,
• 13:19
  which is B to B or B to C, which gets you access to all sorts of
• 13:24
  analytics behind a potential customer.
• 13:26
  And then you have ads, right? And so those are the main three
• 13:29
  ways that LinkedIn makes money. So through personal branding,
• 13:33
  you are able to get directly in front of consumers, right?
• 13:36
  Because when someone is using LinkedIn, they are in a
• 13:39
  different mindset than when they are on Instagram or when they're
• 13:43
  doing their, you know, doom scroll on TikTok at night and
• 13:47
  saving videos and sharing it with friends are a completely
• 13:50
  different mindset. And that's really important to
• 13:52
  to touch into and to also humanize a brand which you can
• 13:56
  do really easily with direct to consumer.
• 13:58
  Right. And I, I mentioned that because
• 14:01
  I think that the number one thing I hear in general is
• 14:03
  social media is like my ideal client's not there.
• 14:06
  Yeah. And like people say that about
• 14:07
  all different platforms, right? Some people say that about
• 14:09
  Instagram, some about TikTok. But I think the important thing
• 14:12
  that I just want to highlight of what you said is like people use
• 14:15
  it differently. I think people are on all these
• 14:18
  social media platforms, but it's really just the actual mindset
• 14:21
  or the psychology of the behavior you have when you're on
• 14:24
  one platform versus the other. Like you're saying scrolling
• 14:27
  TikTok at night, not going to happen with LinkedIn.
• 14:29
  So it's also, I think when for a marketer or a business, when
• 14:33
  you're going in to leverage that platform, going in with the kind
• 14:37
  of pre expectation of how the consumer is consuming it.
• 14:41
  Because the expectation of how something performs on TikTok is
• 14:44
  not obviously going to be the same as what's going to happen
• 14:47
  on LinkedIn. And I'm curious because, you
• 14:49
  know, obviously you've used all these platforms for somebody
• 14:54
  who's like, OK, I feel like I have to be everywhere.
• 14:56
  Like I'm supposed to be on Instagram, I'm supposed to be on
• 14:57
  TikTok, I'm supposed to be, you know, potentially now on
• 14:59
  LinkedIn. And it's really leverageable for
• 15:01
  me with your business and obviously all the, you know,
• 15:05
  brand community that you've built and you've built a big
• 15:07
  brand on all these different platforms.
• 15:10
  How do you kind of leverage these platforms and kind of
• 15:13
  decide what you put where or how you behave in certain places?
• 15:17
  Yeah, OK. I think that's such a great
• 15:19
  question because we are told to be everywhere, all in one place
• 15:22
  and it can feel extremely spread thin.
• 15:26
  And going back to what we talked about, the consumer behavior is
• 15:29
  different on LinkedIn. So the content, it cannot be the
• 15:33
  same. It can be a variation.
• 15:34
  It can be a variation of a theme or a marketing pillar, but it
• 15:37
  cannot be the same. And in a way, we do have to kind
• 15:40
  of put some baits out in the water and test.
• 15:44
  But you know, when I'm using LinkedIn, I'm really thinking
• 15:46
  about this is not just a brand. This is me and people know that.
• 15:51
  And a lot of people know me in real life from plankton as well.
• 15:55
  And I, I will say that I, I do believe from psychological
• 15:58
  standpoint that LinkedIn elicits a different behavior because it
• 16:03
  is someone's full name, someone's a work background,
• 16:06
  someone's business. It's not the same behavior As
• 16:09
  for sure on TikTok and you're. Not hiding behind a handle
• 16:13
  you're not. Yeah, which allows you, when you
• 16:16
  build connection, it's genuine connection.
• 16:20
  It isn't liking for the sake of coming in like it, you know,
• 16:23
  someone liking something on your page, right?
• 16:26
  You're able to actually storytelling, you're able to
• 16:29
  actually connect and build that personal brand, which is huge,
• 16:33
  and engage with others in a really thoughtful way.
• 16:37
  Yeah, because I think obviously you're spot on.
• 16:41
  Like with TikTok, you can post something and you've got half
• 16:44
  the world who you've never met before and you have no idea who
• 16:46
  they are liking an engagement content, right?
• 16:48
  So it's very much obviously a visibility play, but there's no
• 16:52
  there's no human element to it really, because you've got so
• 16:54
  many users who don't even have an icon, let alone, you know,
• 16:57
  have any personal name connected to anything.
• 16:59
  And then you've got Instagram, which I think is probably the
• 17:02
  next tier of personalization. It's a little bit more about the
• 17:04
  person. But again, that's also assuming
• 17:06
  you are a personal brand. Still very much can hide behind
• 17:08
  a handle, But you're spot on in the sense of like your LinkedIn
• 17:13
  is really the most. Personal.
• 17:15
  Professional snapshot of any platform that you're ever going
• 17:18
  to showcase yourself on. Yeah, yeah.
• 17:21
  And it, and it gives you so many ways to connect with someone,
• 17:25
  right? Because you can literally look
• 17:26
  at their background, you can look at their location, you can
• 17:30
  look at their education. And you can use that as a way to
• 17:33
  connect with them in a way that no other platform allows you to.
• 17:38
  True. Well, none of that information
• 17:40
  is available. The only thing that you can use
• 17:42
  is the basis to know something about someone is their content,
• 17:45
  which half the time isn't real anyway.
• 17:46
  Exactly right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 17:50
  And I feel like hey. More for that reason, because it
• 17:53
  it is, it is real. Yeah.
• 17:56
  Well, I think as you said to the word, the finger case coming
• 17:58
  through for me is like resume. And I think if you're a business
• 18:02
  and you're wanting to showcase, like a lot of businesses
• 18:05
  obviously say like, I want to showcase my authority.
• 18:08
  And I would say of any platform to be able to showcase that,
• 18:11
  LinkedIn would be the way to do it.
• 18:13
  Because it really is, to your point, showcasing all of your
• 18:17
  highlight reel in an intentional way, in a structured way that's
• 18:20
  built into the way the platform operates, right?
• 18:23
  But I feel like that's only possible if someone actually
• 18:26
  knows how to optimize what their profile says.
• 18:29
  And as someone, I will admit, guys like, I'm not, I'm not,
• 18:32
  which is why Sam is here. I am not talking from a high
• 18:35
  horse. I am not somebody who leverages
• 18:36
  LinkedIn deeply for their business, but I will say like
• 18:40
  one of the first things I remember when I started my
• 18:41
  business was that I optimize the profile even if I'm not going to
• 18:44
  use the platform. I was like, I can't have the
• 18:46
  profile be something people land on that's just an instant downer
• 18:51
  when they discover me. And so I, I just, I was like,
• 18:53
  it's one of the first things I had to fix was like, I can't
• 18:55
  have people requesting connections and then finding
• 18:58
  this profile that's blank. No way.
• 19:01
  So profile there. Obviously, as you said, this is
• 19:04
  a really good opportunity for us to showcase skill set,
• 19:06
  expertise, authority. I feel like many of us know how
• 19:11
  to whip up an Instagram bio when it comes to building out a
• 19:14
  LinkedIn profile. I would say for most people it
• 19:17
  feels probably pretty foreign. Where does someone even start to
• 19:21
  optimize their LinkedIn page? Yeah, OK.
• 19:25
  I. And I know you have a resource
• 19:26
  on this by the way, so I wanted to also give shout out if people
• 19:29
  need to deep dive into this. I'm pretty sure you have a
• 19:30
  resource on this. I do absolutely yes.
• 19:33
  And I'm, and I'm happy to help anyone, you know, because this
• 19:36
  is the theme throughout today's podcast, right?
• 19:38
  It's it's so incredibly different than if someone is
• 19:40
  coming from any other social media platform.
• 19:42
  It's going to feel foreign and it's going to feel a little bit
• 19:44
  raw, if we're being honest, because it is not curated.
• 19:48
  It is your background, that's what it is, right?
• 19:51
  And some people say, yeah, that's fantastic.
• 19:54
  I can't wait. And some people say, oh, I don't
• 19:55
  love that, you know, and that's just the the fact of the matter.
• 19:59
  But in terms of, and this is where, you know, really nerd
• 20:01
  out. But in terms of profile
• 20:03
  optimization, again, we want to go back to think about how does
• 20:08
  LinkedIn operate, right? And the reason I'm harping a
• 20:10
  little bit on the algorithm is because the algorithm really
• 20:13
  doesn't change the way that meta or byte dances algorithm.
• 20:17
  Is changing consistently. So when I use the word algorithm
• 20:21
  around LinkedIn, it's not a dirty word, right?
• 20:24
  It is, it's actually a really empowering thing.
• 20:27
  So I. Love that because on every other
• 20:29
  platform when we hear the word algorithm, we're like, if
• 20:31
  there's another update, I'm out of here.
• 20:34
  That's actually very, very, very nice to hear.
• 20:38
  Yeah, no, exactly. It's pretty tried and true.
• 20:40
  And so, you know, one of the main things to think about is
• 20:43
  there are so many people on LinkedIn and a lot of people,
• 20:47
  and I don't have the stat on this, of course, but only use it
• 20:50
  when they need something. So they only use it when they
• 20:53
  need a job or they need to find an alumni or they're, you know,
• 20:56
  sales prospecting. And So what happens is there's a
• 20:59
  lot of people who may fit a certain criteria, right?
• 21:02
  Let's say you're a business owner and you're looking to
• 21:04
  connect with other people. But the main issue there is that
• 21:07
  person may not be active and there's no way to know that if
• 21:11
  they're active or not. And so one of the main
• 21:13
  components of Linkedin's algorithm is your activity.
• 21:16
  And how do they find out what that is, right?
• 21:19
  It's not just about logging in, but it's also about what are you
• 21:21
  doing? So if you, for example, are
• 21:23
  updating anything around your profile, it could be your
• 21:26
  picture, it could be your background, it could be creating
• 21:28
  content, it could be commenting, it could be editing components
• 21:32
  of your profile. All of that is going to
• 21:34
  instantly tell their algorithm, yes, this person is actually
• 21:37
  active and yes, I should put on to the appropriate people.
• 21:42
  Got it. So that's one really important
• 21:43
  thing to think about. In other words, it's not a set
• 21:46
  it and forget it type of thing, right?
• 21:48
  And then two, we think about when someone's searching,
• 21:51
  there's a little square that pops up that basically has your
• 21:54
  profile picture, your name, and your headline.
• 21:58
  So the profile picture, the name in the headline is going to be
• 22:01
  your three key components. If you do nothing, do those
• 22:03
  three things. So the headline itself, really
• 22:06
  the profile picture, obviously whatever feels most comfortable
• 22:10
  to someone else, what they should do.
• 22:11
  It should only be the person in the proto family photos now,
• 22:15
  like group photos here, but just you know, that person typically
• 22:19
  chest up is great because you can actually see someone's face,
• 22:22
  especially when you're searching.
• 22:24
  But with the headline, right, we typically want to go three main
• 22:27
  things. It's what is your unique value
• 22:29
  proposition? What do you do really well that
• 22:30
  someone else can't do or doesn't do ideally?
• 22:34
  What industry are you in, if that's relevant?
• 22:37
  And then you know, you can share something that's, you know, a
• 22:40
  key accomplishment about yourself.
• 22:42
  And that key accomplishment can rotate, of course, over time.
• 22:45
  I think the thing that's coming through for me is you only get
• 22:49
  as much out of it as you put into it. 100%, which is 100%.
• 22:54
  For most people, not what they want to hear, right?
• 22:56
  Which is like the classic thing of like if you think about
• 22:58
  getting fit, like you only get as fit as much as you go to the
• 22:59
  gym. So I think it's one of those, I
• 23:03
  think one of the beliefs and obviously you know this with we
• 23:05
  talk about content stuff all the time with content, so many
• 23:09
  people want to set it and forget it.
• 23:12
  And I think what LinkedIn based off what you're saying is kind
• 23:16
  of asking of people, is this idea of like just mass
• 23:19
  repurposing or just like copy paste basically of content and
• 23:23
  like just literally have it scheduled to go out and you have
• 23:25
  nothing to do with anything really, while contents going out
• 23:29
  and it will show you how things going out.
• 23:31
  Really, the basis of true success is going to come from
• 23:34
  connection and honestly pouring into LinkedIn.
• 23:38
  The more you do so, the more you get out of it. 100 percent, 100%
• 23:43
  and and it gives back tenfold truly because again, the
• 23:46
  insights that you gain around an individual is beyond compare and
• 23:53
  and you're building true contacts, not just followers.
• 23:57
  Got it. OK, now obviously my natural
• 24:00
  inclination is to say, because you've literally, I, I want to
• 24:04
  say at this point, you've audited hundreds of LinkedIn, So
• 24:07
  at least at least at this point at least.
• 24:10
  And so obviously you've seen it all.
• 24:13
  What are the mistakes you see when you land on someone's page
• 24:17
  like her face like that, she's like, OK, how long do I have?
• 24:21
  Right? I'm wondering like if you're
• 24:23
  because obviously with your background in looking literally
• 24:29
  at so many Linkedins to be able to assess individuals for hire
• 24:32
  for all these different reasons, you've seen a lot.
• 24:35
  And so if you're looking at a LinkedIn page, what are you
• 24:38
  seeing that you're like, no, this either doesn't give me what
• 24:41
  I need or it's just like to you like a red flag if you are a
• 24:44
  mistake that you really think people need to be aware of so
• 24:47
  that they maybe don't make that same mistake or aren't right
• 24:49
  now. Yes, OK, I love this question
• 24:52
  because it's not just about pulling apart someone's profile
• 24:56
  is actually about saying, hey, that XYZ behavior is actually
• 25:00
  stunting what I know you want to do.
• 25:02
  So as of this question, I'm going to break it up into three
• 25:05
  main components, right? The first is going to be the
• 25:07
  headline because that's who you're going to show up when
• 25:09
  someone first searches you. And like I said, the name of the
• 25:13
  picture, the headline. And so with the headline, people
• 25:15
  tend to lean into self descriptors, self label.
• 25:18
  And so when you self label and there is no context, I move on.
• 25:23
  OK, right, we don't. What would be an example of self
• 25:26
  labeling for someone listening? Yeah, So it could be like All
• 25:30
  Star team leader. It could be like, OK, like, you
• 25:35
  know, obviously, but you see things like this on LinkedIn.
• 25:37
  That's a little bit cheeky, right?
• 25:38
  But it could be something like any, any sort of soft skill,
• 25:43
  right? If you have a soft skill in your
• 25:45
  headline, remove it because we need to understand, if you're a
• 25:50
  business owner, what are you actually providing?
• 25:55
  What are you actually giving to someone?
• 25:56
  Why am I clicking on your profile?
• 25:59
  So if we have a bunch of adjectives, if we have a bunch
• 26:01
  of soft skills in a profile, really what that does is dilute
• 26:06
  the core skill that someone has. Got it.
• 26:09
  Got. It great.
• 26:10
  So if you have, let's say business makeover and then you
• 26:14
  have your location and then you have data-driven and then you
• 26:17
  haven't, right? I have no idea what that does.
• 26:21
  And I think that's really what we want to know is as as the
• 26:25
  consumer, what do you do? What do you truly do right?
• 26:30
  Not self starter, not driven, what do you do right?
• 26:35
  And it feels counterintuitive because we think, well, I want
• 26:38
  to stand out and there's so many other businesses and how do I
• 26:41
  stand out? But again without context.
• 26:45
  So you kind of you have to be able to pull an aspect of a
• 26:49
  conclusion from the headline in your opinion alone before
• 26:53
  continuing. Oh for sure, I should know
• 26:55
  exactly what I get right? The LinkedIn process of finding
• 26:59
  someone, clicking on their profile, scrolling through their
• 27:01
  profile is almost identical to a sales page.
• 27:04
  So I need to understand what is it that I'm getting into and why
• 27:08
  am I continuing to scroll? Got it, Got it.
• 27:12
  Right, so that would be core component #1 #2 would of course
• 27:16
  be your background, right? So if you either don't have your
• 27:18
  background filled out, if it's, it's chronological on LinkedIn.
• 27:21
  So if that's not filled out, if there's huge gaps, of course
• 27:25
  someone's going to wonder what happened and who is this person
• 27:29
  really? And do they really care?
• 27:30
  And is this just a passive profile, right, which may cause
• 27:33
  someone to not interact with you because they, well, it's not
• 27:36
  even active anyway. And then the final, and this is
• 27:39
  really interesting is being hyper conscious of the comments
• 27:44
  or any sort of engagement that you make because it's shown on
• 27:47
  your profile, which again is unlike any other platform.
• 27:51
  So if you are doing a series of looks great exciting exclamation
• 27:58
  point. Man.
• 28:00
  It's all on display, right? Yeah, I'm just thinking about
• 28:04
  those people. Obviously you guys know these
• 28:05
  people do this on social media. Love this.
• 28:08
  Totally. So resonate.
• 28:09
  Love this. Imagine all that showing in a
• 28:12
  feed list format on your own profile.
• 28:15
  It's all the same. OK, OK, So that and honestly,
• 28:22
  I've also seen people commiserate on LinkedIn and
• 28:26
  again, that goes on that little section of your profile.
• 28:30
  So you can use that to your advantage and say actually if
• 28:33
  someone lands on my profile, if I'm leaving genuinely thoughtful
• 28:36
  comments and little micro pieces of thought leadership, great.
• 28:41
  I'm now able to sell myself without actually posting
• 28:44
  content. OK.
• 28:47
  So those are the three core buckets, I'd say.
• 28:49
  So really, which is kind of exciting for anyone listening in
• 28:52
  my opinion at least, cuz I feel like any social platform that we
• 28:55
  hear about, we're like immediately you got to start
• 28:57
  posting like yesterday and you're like, great.
• 28:59
  But really what you're saying is even if someone's like, I'm not
• 29:02
  super sold that I want to start putting content out on LinkedIn
• 29:05
  yet, you feel like even with removing the aspect of content,
• 29:09
  just with the engagement alone, there's a good potential of
• 29:12
  growth of that? 100% OK, sometimes even better,
• 29:16
  sometimes even better than posting your own content,
• 29:20
  especially if you're not 100% sold or comfortable.
• 29:23
  I think commenting can actually be better because it's twofold,
• 29:26
  right? On one hand, it goes on your own
• 29:28
  profile, these little micro pieces of thought leadership.
• 29:30
  On the other hand, if I comment on your post that now gets
• 29:34
  blasted out to your audience and someone else in the audience,
• 29:38
  whoever you know maybe likes that or engages with it, Before
• 29:41
  you know it I'm all over and I didn't post one thing.
• 29:44
  Yeah, I just so unlike any other platform I've ever heard about.
• 29:47
  Like that's just not something that's no feature that I've
• 29:50
  heard of. And like I nerd out on this
• 29:52
  stuff. It is not something I've heard
• 29:53
  of with any platform. So it's really guys, you get to
• 29:56
  grow your audience on LinkedIn in your sweatpants at home.
• 30:00
  Like what other pitch do you need?
• 30:02
  What other cell do you need? OK, but let's talk about those
• 30:06
  like yourself who are like, I am committed if I feel like this
• 30:12
  platform's going to do something for me.
• 30:13
  And obviously we saw a little, there was the initial surge of
• 30:16
  people who did this on TikTok. They just went ham and started
• 30:18
  posting content. And then there was a slow burn
• 30:20
  afterwards of people who were like, oh, this really is going
• 30:22
  to do something now I'll make content.
• 30:24
  So if someone's listening and they're thinking, OK, I
• 30:29
  obviously there's an opportunity here with LinkedIn, maybe I
• 30:31
  should consider putting content out on it.
• 30:34
  Where do we even start with the content side?
• 30:36
  Because as you said, every platform has every single
• 30:38
  different thing. And I, I hear a lot of, in my
• 30:41
  opinion, misconceptions, which is like, you know, LinkedIn is
• 30:44
  only articles. It's tons of writing.
• 30:47
  And this belief that the video content that someone might be
• 30:50
  doing somewhere else won't have any place on LinkedIn, which
• 30:53
  I've recently learned is actually completely the opposite
• 30:56
  in the sense of, you know, insane engagement around video.
• 30:59
  So for someone who might be like, OK, I've decided I'm
• 31:03
  making content on LinkedIn, where the heck do they start?
• 31:05
  What do they need to know when it comes to content on LinkedIn
• 31:08
  as a social outlet for their marketing?
• 31:10
  Yeah, yeah, for sure. OK.
• 31:12
  So in terms of an overarching theme, I would say any type of
• 31:16
  teasing content doesn't do well. So what typically performs on
• 31:21
  Instagram does not perform well at all on LinkedIn because
• 31:27
  again, people are going there for answers, to learn to
• 31:30
  connect. And so anything that's a little
• 31:32
  too teasy is not going to work, right?
• 31:35
  And that's really just an overarching theme.
• 31:37
  But what's similar is to TikTok, the level of information that
• 31:42
  you can get from a post and direct honesty, the form may
• 31:47
  just be a little bit different. So you can post written, right?
• 31:51
  So article form, you can do a carousel.
• 31:54
  If you do a carousel, it actually has to be posted in
• 31:56
  APDF, which is a funny little niche, right?
• 32:00
  Shift it to a PDF video and then what a lot of people do is text
• 32:04
  with a picture, which is going to perform a lot better than
• 32:07
  solo text. And so oh girl, give me give.
• 32:14
  Me, the handbook, whatever you got, 'cause I feel like the
• 32:17
  number one thing, at least I feel, is when someone's like,
• 32:19
  yeah, you know, you gotta post, gotta post reels.
• 32:21
  You're like what kind of reel? Talking reel, roll reel, Like
• 32:24
  whatever you got, girl. I'm here for it.
• 32:25
  Yeah, cool. So, so I'll start with the
• 32:28
  written right 'cause I think people find that to be in some
• 32:31
  way really easy, especially for storytelling.
• 32:33
  So what's cool about LinkedIn is basically you have 3 lines of
• 32:36
  space before the preview ends. And So what performs quite well
• 32:42
  I find is you have a hook, you have a space, and then you have
• 32:47
  like a sub hook and then you go into the copy or you go into the
• 32:52
  PDF that you update it or you go into the video.
• 32:55
  But either way, those 3 lines are really, really crucial.
• 32:59
  So that's on a very granular tactical level I would say.
• 33:03
  Of course, video is performing really, really well, but I
• 33:06
  wouldn't just copy anything from TikTok, although it's so
• 33:09
  tempting to do that and I see people do it all the time.
• 33:12
  Yeah, it just. It just doesn't perform the same
• 33:16
  way because any like is public, any like is going to say
• 33:21
  Samantha Sloane liked Blank and it's going to get pushed out to
• 33:23
  other people. So if someone is saying
• 33:25
  something a little too spicy, agree, that's not going to get
• 33:29
  the same level of engagement. Which is interesting because on
• 33:31
  something like say like a TikTok, the more agitating
• 33:36
  aggressive sometimes like direct you are on messaging the better
• 33:40
  it performs. So you would actually say less
• 33:44
  aggressive or agitational type media on LinkedIn actually
• 33:47
  sometimes can be better? Yeah, for sure.
• 33:50
  OK. It's really about giving,
• 33:52
  giving, giving information. And that doesn't mean hyper
• 33:54
  education, but it does mean when someone walks away, they need to
• 33:58
  be better off, OK. Because to our point earlier,
• 34:05
  it's not about your followers, It's about the first two hours
• 34:08
  of engagement. And so those two hours are
• 34:11
  really, really crucial. So if you have a series of
• 34:13
  people who are saying I really didn't get anything from that,
• 34:17
  it's not going to be pushed out. OK, so on the note of time then,
• 34:22
  does that also mean in turn that post time does matter?
• 34:27
  It does. Post matters for sure.
• 34:29
  OK. Cuz I feel like you hear a lot
• 34:31
  of that on platforms of like, you know, the post time doesn't
• 34:33
  matter and then you're like, does it matter?
• 34:34
  Does it not matter? But obviously if we're looking
• 34:36
  at engagement in the first two hours, getting something
• 34:39
  scheduled out at midnight and putting it out so you get
• 34:42
  something up, it's probably not the approach you're going to
• 34:45
  want to take with LinkedIn. No, no, because those first two
• 34:48
  hours are going to be, no matter how great the content is, those
• 34:50
  first two hours are probably going to be got it quiet.
• 34:54
  OK, OK, OK, so I want to take a quick little brief interruption
• 34:58
  from today's episode to let you know about something really
• 35:01
  exciting. And I want to 1st preface, there
• 35:03
  is nothing here that I have to sell you.
• 35:04
  This is about something that is entirely free that I think would
• 35:07
  be a massive support for you if you are someone who's loving all
• 35:11
  things Ambitious podcast. So we have created an absolutely
• 35:15
  incredible community that is called the Ambitious Network.
• 35:18
  This is really a place where coaching and masterminds meet
• 35:21
  high level networking of other women who were just like you.
• 35:24
  So a little bit of what you can anticipate, this is a place for
• 35:27
  you to grow, to connect, and ultimately to get the support
• 35:29
  that you need to elevate your business.
• 35:31
  And so some of the things you can anticipate inside #1 live
• 35:34
  Hot Seat Coaching. This is literally live coaching
• 35:37
  in the way that I would do inside of our masterminds, our
• 35:39
  different offers only inside of this community, entirely free.
• 35:43
  You'll also get the opportunity to get access to exclusive
• 35:45
  giveaways that are not available anywhere else.
• 35:47
  So these are things like giveaways of different books and
• 35:50
  resources that I'm obsessed with that have really helped me in my
• 35:54
  journey of business, but also things on a larger scale, like
• 35:57
  some of which have been six months of private coaching type
• 36:00
  of giveaways. So all of this to be said,
• 36:02
  massive, massive amount of resources being given inside and
• 36:05
  also trainings and resources, tools of frameworks and
• 36:09
  downloads and worksheets and master classes that are going to
• 36:12
  be things that will really help to take you and your business to
• 36:15
  the next level. Now, it's also not just about
• 36:17
  me. I have an incredible network and
• 36:19
  a community of other entrepreneurs who also want to
• 36:21
  give back to you if you've loved their interviews and their
• 36:24
  discussions on the Ambitious podcast.
• 36:26
  So we have guests that are also providing resources in the
• 36:29
  community that will only be available inside the ambitious
• 36:32
  network. But there's also the networking
• 36:34
  aspect. And this is a place for you to
• 36:35
  not Only Connect with other women about what's going on in
• 36:38
  your business, what's currently working or not working in
• 36:41
  today's current market. It's a place to share wins, but
• 36:43
  it's also a place to connect with me and get my feedback and
• 36:46
  support for you and your business.
• 36:49
  Now all of that to be said, this is a, as I said, mastermind
• 36:53
  meets networking. And I really have created this
• 36:55
  as a community that I want to be something you've never gotten
• 36:58
  anywhere else. It's not this low ticket
• 37:00
  membership that you feel like you're paying for.
• 37:02
  You know, this graveyard of resources that the person has
• 37:05
  they don't know what to do with. And it's also not that Facebook
• 37:07
  group that you're inside of that you feel like you get tons of
• 37:10
  notifications, but you don't really want anything that's
• 37:12
  inside of it. It all feels surface level.
• 37:14
  We want to give you the ability to have mastermind meets high
• 37:18
  level networking all in one place.
• 37:19
  And the ambitious network is where you're going to find that.
• 37:22
  So how you can get inside? If you want to go to the show
• 37:24
  notes beneath, you can click a link to join join us inside the
• 37:27
  ambitious network. And if you also want to connect
• 37:30
  with me on Instagram, I'm also happy to chat with you about it.
• 37:32
  So if you DM me the word ambitious, we'll be sure to chat
• 37:35
  a little bit more about the network for you and give you the
• 37:37
  link to get inside. So all of that to be said, I
• 37:39
  don't want to take any more time away from today's episode.
• 37:42
  So without further ado, let's get back into the show Question
• 37:44
  on video, The video of obviously you help people all the time to
• 37:48
  build personal brands. And with personal brands, one of
• 37:52
  the big things that everyone wonders is like, how much do I
• 37:54
  post that's personal? Where does the personal and
• 37:57
  personal brand have a place on LinkedIn?
• 37:59
  Because obviously we're talking about there's an aspect of
• 38:01
  entertainment, there's an aspect of education, giving people
• 38:03
  insight and wisdom, making them feel like they walked away with
• 38:05
  value from your content. But kind of to your point where
• 38:08
  like it doesn't have to be all education though.
• 38:10
  Do you feel like there's an aspect of like the personal
• 38:13
  brand lens that performs well on LinkedIn or has a place?
• 38:17
  Yes, 100%. It has a really strong place and
• 38:19
  I actually think it is a place that most people would feel
• 38:21
  comfortable with more than on other platforms.
• 38:24
  Because on other platforms you may feel pressure if you're
• 38:26
  building a personal brand to post about your weekends or post
• 38:29
  about your relationship or tag people in it.
• 38:32
  And maybe you're thinking, I'm not sure if I want to share
• 38:34
  that, but I do want people to know me as the business owner.
• 38:36
  I do want people to understand who I am as a professional, as a
• 38:39
  woman, etcetera. And so on.
• 38:42
  LinkedIn, what you can do is really lean into storytelling.
• 38:46
  This could be storytelling about growth, about achievements,
• 38:49
  about life lessons, hard lessons, rapid fire, you know,
• 38:53
  kind of things that you've learned in a way that lets
• 38:57
  someone know you deeply, which I think resonates more.
• 39:01
  I think a lot of people are tired of the hyper curated
• 39:07
  hosts, hyper curated weekends, hyper curated morning routine.
• 39:10
  Here's my agenda for the day. And that has no place on
• 39:14
  LinkedIn, which I am a fan of. Yeah, Yeah.
• 39:17
  Well, I mean, I think also in regards to personal brand, I
• 39:20
  think that there's a misconception generally speaking
• 39:23
  around personal brand that people think being a personal
• 39:26
  brand means you share every aspect and every moment of your
• 39:29
  personal life. That's right.
• 39:31
  And I think one of the most impactful things that I've seen
• 39:35
  regards to personal brand is the fact that it's really personal
• 39:37
  insight. Like for example, if you went to
• 39:41
  a event over the weekend and some personal download that you
• 39:44
  had or personal experience or interaction that you had can be
• 39:46
  just as much personal content as a day in the life vlog could be
• 39:49
  well. Yeah, and I think more so
• 39:51
  because I'm now understanding your thought process, your
• 39:53
  beliefs. What do you stand for?
• 39:55
  What don't you stand for? When I have certain experiences,
• 39:58
  I may start to associate it with that person.
• 40:01
  Whereas I don't remember anyone who posts their agenda or a
• 40:05
  quick snapshot, you know, of a martini and a Caesar salad.
• 40:08
  Although, yeah, love it. I.
• 40:10
  Do it, but I'm not gonna post it right cuz that's not really
• 40:14
  adding any value to anyone. And people wonder sometimes why
• 40:18
  a personal brand is stagnant, and that's typically why.
• 40:21
  Well, in a way, when you think about it, LinkedIn is actually
• 40:24
  then in saying that one of the easiest places to build personal
• 40:27
  brand because you're not having to fill like obviously a lot of
• 40:31
  us have entertainment value on something like an Instagram or a
• 40:33
  TikTok, right? If it's all education, we kind
• 40:36
  of feel like it's stale. We're like, OK, like where's the
• 40:38
  personal? We want that day in the life or
• 40:40
  we want that behind the scenes. But I think to your point, when
• 40:43
  you give insight and wisdom around something and your
• 40:45
  perspective, and I want to just hit on something that Sam said
• 40:48
  there because you guys have heard me talking episodes about
• 40:51
  building brand. And one of the things that she's
• 40:53
  sharing there is like why she believes it to be true or what
• 40:56
  her belief around something is. That's also building belief
• 41:00
  system to the people who consume it.
• 41:01
  So like just sharing a vlog. And again, it's not to say
• 41:04
  there's anything wrong with that style of content, but what this
• 41:07
  means is that every personal ish post that you put on LinkedIn
• 41:10
  really does also have brand building built into that as part
• 41:13
  of it. It does.
• 41:15
  It does, and it does in a way that the majority of people are
• 41:18
  not doing. So there's a huge opportunity
• 41:21
  gap for someone to step in and actually build that connection,
• 41:25
  true connection, right? I feel like I hear that all the
• 41:29
  time. Like I feel like I hear from
• 41:31
  every single mastermind, every peer, feel like there's such,
• 41:35
  there's so much open market that can be taken on LinkedIn when it
• 41:40
  comes to someone who's a really, like you said, like we really
• 41:42
  need a brand to set the stage on LinkedIn.
• 41:45
  There's so much opportunity to post content.
• 41:47
  There's so much opportunity to really set like a different
• 41:49
  narrative when it comes to marketing there.
• 41:51
  Just in your personal perspective, why do you think
• 41:54
  someone hasn't taken that? Like why do you think that
• 41:57
  people, even though they know like we the one-on-one of what
• 42:00
  we know about Instagram or TikTok, there's X amount of
• 42:03
  content, there's X amount of consumers.
• 42:05
  The amount of creators or businesses on LinkedIn that are
• 42:09
  making all of these styles of marketing is very low, but yet
• 42:14
  there's so many people who are consuming.
• 42:16
  So in your opinion, why do you think businesses are resistant
• 42:20
  or maybe if someone like even listening to this is like I've
• 42:23
  heard so many times, got to go on LinkedIn, should be on
• 42:25
  LinkedIn like they're not. What do you perceive to be the
• 42:28
  disconnect versus the other platforms?
• 42:30
  Oh my gosh, what a great question.
• 42:31
  I think it goes back to what we said before that I think
• 42:34
  LinkedIn needs a new marketer. Sorry, where the marketing
• 42:37
  person is, you know what they do, right?
• 42:41
  So ready for this. It was, let's say 2017.
• 42:45
  I was in my corporate role at that time and I had gone to
• 42:50
  LinkedIn, which is in the RC building, and I'd gone to a
• 42:54
  training there and I got invited to a training there.
• 42:56
  And even though I use LinkedIn every single day in my role and
• 43:00
  had used it to build a business prior, I walked away thinking
• 43:05
  something completely different and learned things I never knew.
• 43:08
  So I think there's this massive misconception and I think
• 43:12
  LinkedIn unknowingly has put itself into a, into a box,
• 43:17
  right? When really one of the reasons
• 43:18
  TikTok took off the way that it did is we all craved honesty,
• 43:23
  right? And so someone can flip open a
• 43:24
  camera or their phone and record and we're like, I love that,
• 43:28
  right? And then LinkedIn actually has a
• 43:31
  very, very similar opportunity. We may have to curve it a little
• 43:34
  bit, but it has a very, very similar opportunity.
• 43:38
  It's just not known. You know, that makes sense
• 43:41
  actually, because when TikTok came out, the marketing of the
• 43:45
  TikTok platform was almost more aggressive than the content
• 43:49
  itself, which was like, why you should be on TikTok or how the
• 43:53
  algorithm works or like, if you're a small creator, like
• 43:55
  this is your moment. Like there was so much marketing
• 43:58
  around it. And I feel like in a way,
• 44:02
  LinkedIn has kind of always been there, but not really ever had,
• 44:05
  at least in my opinion, it's moment.
• 44:08
  And I think for people like yourself, the people who are in
• 44:10
  it and, you know, living within that world day-to-day, you know
• 44:13
  what the opportunity is. But yet you see so many people
• 44:16
  not leveraging it because they're not fully up to speed,
• 44:20
  maybe on the true impact it could have on them and their
• 44:22
  business. 100%, you know, have you ever seen those videos where
• 44:27
  it's like unsexy products that, you know, work really well or
• 44:30
  unsexy products? Yes, that's LinkedIn, like in
• 44:35
  the back of your, you know, cabinet.
• 44:38
  It's true, but it works, right? And you're like, damn, I forgot
• 44:40
  about that. You know, that's LinkedIn.
• 44:42
  What I will say though, Kate, is there is a high barrier to entry
• 44:46
  and I think that stops a lot of people.
• 44:49
  Is that like high barrier to entry?
• 44:51
  Whereas on TikTok, yes, there was great marketing, but also
• 44:55
  it's like, oh, I don't want no one knows me here, right?
• 44:59
  If you know me in real life, no you don't.
• 45:01
  And then on LinkedIn it's like, oh, I've actually met all of you
• 45:04
  in real life. Like this is extremely
• 45:06
  uncomfortable for the very country is higher.
• 45:10
  OK. But it's worth it.
• 45:12
  Is everyone listening? It's worth it.
• 45:14
  It's. Like you better go fix your
• 45:16
  LinkedIn profile after you listen to this.
• 45:18
  OK, OK, so now I want to understand obviously like
• 45:21
  everyone's brain is a business owner and obviously yours
• 45:24
  included. I'm sure at moments is like,
• 45:26
  give me sales, give me info on sales, give me the one-on-one of
• 45:29
  what that looks like. And I was just saying to Sam
• 45:32
  guys, before we started recording.
• 45:33
  I've had a conversation with someone literally yesterday
• 45:35
  about LinkedIn and they were like, you know, my, my bone to
• 45:39
  pick with LinkedIn is I just just so much spam selling and
• 45:42
  it's so frustrating. And I feel like it's so hard to
• 45:46
  make connections because there's so many people who are making
• 45:48
  fake connections that to know if someone's actually wanted to
• 45:52
  connect with you, you're never sure.
• 45:54
  Are they just trying to sell you?
• 45:55
  And then even when you think someone's connecting, they kind
• 45:57
  of end up being the person who's telling you.
• 45:59
  So obviously as a business for somebody who's wanting to
• 46:03
  generate sales or leverage LinkedIn to make sales, it
• 46:07
  obviously all of us want to build connections with those in
• 46:09
  our audience. But how do we use LinkedIn as a
• 46:12
  tool in your opinion, or maybe for yourself or the businesses
• 46:15
  that you're involved with? Yeah.
• 46:17
  How do you see leveraging LinkedIn as a tool for a
• 46:20
  business to generate more sales? OK, I love this.
• 46:23
  Gloves off. Let's dive in.
• 46:25
  Yeah. So, OK, there's a concept called
• 46:30
  social capital. And so with this concept, let's
• 46:34
  think about an ATMI. Can't go to the ATM that not
• 46:37
  only do I not have a bank account with, but there's no
• 46:39
  money, right? Or maybe I have a bank account
• 46:42
  and there's still no money. And I'm thinking, well, I'm
• 46:43
  going to pull out money. Well, no, you're not.
• 46:46
  The same goes for human connection.
• 46:48
  I cannot knock on your virtual door and ask you for something.
• 46:52
  Right, some people will call this.
• 46:53
  The law of reciprocity and to an extent it is I am a firm
• 46:57
  believer in building social capital.
• 46:59
  And so there's different variations of this that you hear
• 47:02
  right You hear Gary Vee talk about the you know, give, give,
• 47:05
  give, ask. Somebody talks about it as well
• 47:09
  and it's not about giving to the point that you feel that you've
• 47:16
  overextended yourself, right? Because as a business owner,
• 47:19
  we're not Gary Vee and we're not Alex Formosi.
• 47:21
  We don't. That's right.
• 47:23
  And so those lessons, although valuable, are not typically
• 47:26
  applicable at this level, right? Even if you're a 789 figure
• 47:31
  business owner, still it there's a lot of.
• 47:33
  You're still a technically, I know that sounds crazy to say
• 47:36
  guys, but you're still even at that stage of baby business in
• 47:38
  comparison to large business. But yeah.
• 47:40
  Exactly, right. Yeah.
• 47:42
  And so social capital is something I harp on every single
• 47:45
  day and it's something that I live by as well, right?
• 47:47
  Is I want to build social capital with someone, customer
• 47:51
  or not, client or not, before I ask anything.
• 47:55
  And that is a key mistake that I see people making is that they
• 47:59
  go right in for the ask. Sometimes that's ads doing that.
• 48:02
  Sometimes it's, you know, kind of pseudo networking where it's
• 48:06
  just immediately asking for something that's not networking.
• 48:08
  And sometimes it is using sales navigator like we talked about
• 48:11
  before, you have all this great detail on this person and you
• 48:14
  jump right in in a way that's going to make them say, whoa,
• 48:17
  what was that? You know, right, because there's
• 48:21
  a virtual door. This is someone's home.
• 48:24
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 48:25
  Building social capital is the best possible thing that you can
• 48:27
  do. So really like you might
• 48:29
  recommend then using sales navigator more from the lens of
• 48:32
  creating connections and conversations with people, not
• 48:35
  going in from the lens of, hey, I'm going to go slide into the
• 48:39
  DMS of equivalent of 40 people today.
• 48:43
  That's right, because it doesn't work.
• 48:45
  Yeah, I mean, it doesn't work anywhere.
• 48:47
  Also, by the way, if this is the first time you're hearing that,
• 48:49
  this is also me letting you know it doesn't work anywhere.
• 48:51
  And I, I think, you know, a curiosity that I have is people,
• 48:57
  obviously we know, go from something like a TikTok to an
• 48:59
  Instagram. Do you ever find for LinkedIn
• 49:02
  that you see people leaving LinkedIn to see you elsewhere?
• 49:05
  Yes. Oh, for sure.
• 49:07
  OK. Yeah, first floor.
• 49:08
  And so LinkedIn has a cool feature called featured section
• 49:12
  and you can post more than three, but three are going to
• 49:16
  show up. So you could have, for example,
• 49:18
  you know, if you have an investor deck, if you have a
• 49:20
  sales deck, a pitch deck, if you have a, you know, book a call
• 49:23
  with me. If you have any sort of free
• 49:25
  download, you can put that there.
• 49:26
  You can also redirect people from there as well.
• 49:29
  OK. Yeah.
• 49:30
  So I want to because I have some questions for some of our other
• 49:33
  scaling entrepreneurs about hiring, which I know you know
• 49:36
  all of the about which I want to pick your brain about about
• 49:39
  LinkedIn. But I'm thinking for the person
• 49:41
  who's listening, the blueprint if you were going to get started
• 49:44
  would be you need to 1st go optimize your profile.
• 49:48
  So it's not like just the high school you went to and you have
• 49:50
  no other info that's please. Second, obviously fixing, as you
• 49:54
  said, like the header, the photo and those core components you
• 49:57
  spoke about starting with engaging, thoughtful things, not
• 50:00
  love. This totally resonate and the
• 50:02
  two word answers that may be progressing into making content
• 50:06
  and keeping the same marketing principles that you're doing
• 50:09
  elsewhere, but changing the modality of how you actually or
• 50:11
  the medium of how you express that through the platform to
• 50:14
  tailor it to its different functions.
• 50:16
  Yeah, that's right. And that's why when you talk
• 50:19
  about marketing principles versus tactics or versus
• 50:23
  platform specific, that's, you know, we're seeing this at play
• 50:27
  in real life right now. Yeah, it's the marketing
• 50:29
  principle. It's not, you know, the candor
• 50:32
  graphic. Right, which I think for most
• 50:34
  people and understandable is frustrating because they're
• 50:38
  thinking I have no time to work in the business, right?
• 50:40
  And now I'm having to make custom content for LinkedIn, but
• 50:44
  then also like TikTok doesn't want me reposting from anywhere,
• 50:47
  but then Link or Instagram doesn't want me reposting from
• 50:49
  anywhere. And I will say, like, I do think
• 50:52
  this idea of like repurposing really needs to be repurposing
• 50:56
  the idea or repurposing an aspect of the media, but not
• 51:01
  literally copy pasting. Because I as to your point
• 51:04
  earlier, I've seen a lot of even my peers really, yeah, I just
• 51:07
  want to get on LinkedIn. So I started putting content
• 51:09
  out. We'll come to find out it's
• 51:10
  basically all just their Tik Toks copy pasted onto LinkedIn.
• 51:14
  And so while yes, they're on the platform, it's not necessarily
• 51:18
  doing anything for them because it's not really tailoring itself
• 51:20
  like the language that LinkedIn wants you to speak.
• 51:23
  Yeah, exactly. And LinkedIn has so many cool
• 51:26
  features, right? Like I, I know I've talked a lot
• 51:28
  about commenting, but even with commenting, I have gotten into
• 51:32
  full-fledged conversations with people, genuine conversations in
• 51:36
  the comments, which even comments I think sometimes have
• 51:38
  a a stigma to them of yeah. Right.
• 51:43
  Yeah, you know, and sometimes it's a fun read, you know, in a
• 51:46
  news article or something. But I mean, I've had full blown
• 51:49
  conversations with people and then we'll take it offline and
• 51:52
  we'll go and see LinkedIn emails or maybe we'll, you know,
• 51:55
  exchange or whatever. And that's so incredibly
• 51:58
  powerful. And then of course, that
• 51:59
  conversation is visible to my audience, their audience, anyone
• 52:04
  who liked it, it goes to that person's audience.
• 52:06
  And so, you know, imagine you and I having a conversation
• 52:10
  that's, you know, we're nerding out on data or something and
• 52:12
  then boom, everyone can see it. It's like, well, there you go,
• 52:16
  that's content right there. Right.
• 52:18
  Your comments are your content, basically.
• 52:21
  Yeah, Yeah, I love it. I just have never been so
• 52:24
  excited to be able to grow a platform in my pajamas and I
• 52:28
  don't have to necessarily post new created filming content or
• 52:32
  writing content in order to have it grow.
• 52:34
  Like I feel like there's no better opportunity than that now
• 52:38
  on a totally different kind of pivot.
• 52:40
  We've talked obviously about your profile, your content,
• 52:44
  engagement, sales. Obviously, as you know, part of
• 52:48
  businesses is hiring. And I know for myself, I've
• 52:51
  definitely leveraged LinkedIn as an opportunity for us to be able
• 52:54
  to market our business for some of the hires that we've had.
• 52:58
  And a. Common question that I get when
• 53:02
  I'm working with scaling entrepreneurs is like, where do
• 53:04
  I find good people? Like where do I, where do I find
• 53:06
  good help? And obviously with all of your
• 53:09
  background and maybe you can give people a snapshot kind of
• 53:12
  before you dive into this, but I'm wondering how can we
• 53:16
  leverage LinkedIn in a way that's not as a social platform?
• 53:19
  So I'm thinking for hiring really qualified talent, do you
• 53:22
  think that it's the place that people could be looking or
• 53:24
  things they might want to consider?
• 53:26
  Because in my personal experience, we did one of our
• 53:29
  most recent actually marketing, funny enough, marketing
• 53:31
  positions on LinkedIn and we got really great applications coming
• 53:36
  in. Of all the people that I got
• 53:38
  pushed out to on LinkedIn. And I know previous to that
• 53:40
  everyone's like, no, you know, there's LinkedIn, but I would do
• 53:42
  indeed, or I would do like one of those core platforms and go
• 53:45
  there. If someone's wanting to hire and
• 53:48
  considering using LinkedIn to hire or start to build out their
• 53:51
  team, what do they need to consider about leveraging
• 53:55
  LinkedIn as a tool for that? For sure OK so yeah, quick
• 53:58
  background is my corporate career was very much around
• 54:02
  hiring and head hunting. So I worked as a head hunter for
• 54:07
  some top tech companies, some of which we've talked about today,
• 54:10
  IE Meta, you know, we're we're clients of mine.
• 54:13
  And so my entire job was going out and finding talent during
• 54:18
  those years when I had that role.
• 54:20
  And there's so much talent, right?
• 54:22
  There's no shortage of talent. There's no shortage of people
• 54:24
  saying, hey, look what I can do for you.
• 54:26
  Give me a shot, right? And as a business owner or as
• 54:29
  anyone hiring, you know, what we need to normalize is the level
• 54:33
  of risk, right? That happens when someone hires.
• 54:37
  It is expensive both from a monetary sense, from a time
• 54:40
  sense, and also that's your business that you're exposing to
• 54:43
  this person and vice versa. And so, you know, when hiring,
• 54:47
  there's a couple different ways to go about it.
• 54:49
  You can network your way to hiring, right?
• 54:52
  You can go to someone and poach them and say, listen, I love
• 54:56
  your background. I saw your portfolio XYZ, right?
• 54:59
  I am the queen of poaching people.
• 55:01
  I do that a lot. That's one option.
• 55:04
  Another option is you can pay to post a role.
• 55:08
  Now doing that to get back to the algorithm to when you pay to
• 55:13
  post A roll, what LinkedIn promises you is we're not just
• 55:16
  giving you qualified candidates and talent.
• 55:19
  We're also giving you people who are active, IE why you have to,
• 55:23
  you know, be active on the, on the, the profile, right?
• 55:27
  You know, so I would say when hiring, you want to think about
• 55:31
  obviously, what are your immediate needs and also what is
• 55:34
  the inherent risk of whatever specific position you're hiring
• 55:37
  for. And when you're looking at a
• 55:39
  profile, that profile needs to at first glance say, yes, this
• 55:43
  person can do the role. And then the interview itself is
• 55:47
  really about to what extent can this person do the role?
• 55:51
  OK, I feel like we're going to have to have you come back for a
• 55:54
  whole other hiring episode. My brain's firing over here.
• 55:57
  And I guys she knows, so she could do a 5 hour master class
• 56:01
  for you at least. There's so much to unpack when
• 56:04
  it comes to the hiring side. And obviously, like, I know
• 56:08
  that's its own can of worms. Like there's just so much to
• 56:11
  unpack there for sure. But I think, you know, obviously
• 56:16
  listening to this, there's someone who may be not posting
• 56:19
  on LinkedIn at all and they're not leveraging it maybe in any
• 56:23
  way within their marketing strategy right now.
• 56:26
  And they're listening and OK, this seems pretty approachable.
• 56:29
  It seems like it's obviously leverageable.
• 56:31
  It's got great opportunity for me.
• 56:34
  If someone's kind of considering posting on it, where do they
• 56:38
  start in the sense of maybe perspective about growth?
• 56:43
  Because one of the things that I know when people are going onto
• 56:46
  social platforms is they start and they get immediately
• 56:49
  frustrated. It's not growing fast enough,
• 56:51
  right? And obviously, as you spoke
• 56:54
  about, there's a bunch of different ways to grow your
• 56:55
  community. But when we're wanting to grow
• 56:58
  on LinkedIn, what does that look like?
• 57:00
  Because I know obviously something like TikTok, you can
• 57:03
  have something go viral and before you know it, you've got,
• 57:07
  you know, 20,000 followers that just added to your community.
• 57:10
  How does community building happen on LinkedIn versus the
• 57:13
  other platforms? Because obviously you build
• 57:14
  community on all of them. What have you seen as an
• 57:17
  expectation? Someone who's new to the
• 57:19
  platform might want to have about building community on
• 57:21
  LinkedIn. Yeah, I, I would say the first
• 57:25
  mindset shift would be that people expect more of you than
• 57:30
  simply putting out content. So the idea of a quote UN quote
• 57:33
  follower, it does exist on LinkedIn.
• 57:36
  You have connections and you have followers, and those are
• 57:39
  two different things, although they can be the same thing.
• 57:43
  We're technically two different things, right?
• 57:45
  And so there are countless ways in which you can put out
• 57:50
  content. You can actually make posts, You
• 57:52
  can do the commenting thing like we talked about.
• 57:54
  You can create a newsletter as well that gets blasted to
• 57:57
  everyone, and that's actually done through LinkedIn.
• 58:00
  And then you can also write expert articles and contribute
• 58:03
  to articles. And it's actually a whole thing.
• 58:05
  And there's badges and there's gamification.
• 58:08
  So there's all different points of entry.
• 58:10
  Yeah, which is more granular. So that kind of to the side, the
• 58:14
  prerequisite is that you go in and it's a two way relationship,
• 58:19
  which also goes back to the social capital.
• 58:21
  There's one take away from this. It's optimizer headline and
• 58:25
  build social capital because that's really where the value
• 58:29
  is. People are not there to be your
• 58:32
  quote UN quote follower. For someone who's listening, who
• 58:35
  maybe doesn't know the difference between like first
• 58:37
  connection, second connections or anything connection versus
• 58:40
  followers, what's like the one O 1 of the difference for that?
• 58:43
  Like are you looking to build a following or you looking to
• 58:46
  build connections in your opinion on LinkedIn or both?
• 58:49
  I would say both and so the functionality of LinkedIn is
• 58:53
  that if I come across your profile and I hit connect, I
• 58:55
  have an option to send you a message, which in and of itself
• 58:58
  is great. So it's not a blind follow.
• 59:00
  I mean, and you have to accept the connection, whereas they
• 59:03
  follow you is me saying, well, I'm going to follow their
• 59:07
  content, but you don't have to actually accept it, right?
• 59:11
  And so it's a little bit more passive.
• 59:13
  Whereas yes, if I click on your profile, I say I want to make a
• 59:17
  connection. I say, hey, I've listened to
• 59:18
  your podcast. I really love it.
• 59:20
  Would love to be connected on LinkedIn, maybe chat further.
• 59:23
  I also have a follower, which is kind of funny there.
• 59:26
  So first connection is very active.
• 59:29
  Second connection would be someone that, you know, that
• 59:33
  could potentially be in my realm as well, right?
• 59:36
  We have common connections. And then third connection is we
• 59:39
  don't know each other at all. OK, in my head, while I know
• 59:44
  it's not the same, I'm thinking of it as like first, second and
• 59:46
  third cousins. You barely know your third
• 59:48
  cousins, very estranged, don't have a great liberal
• 59:52
  relationship. And then you've got your first
• 59:53
  cousins and 2nd cousins. Like that's I'm obviously seeing
• 59:57
  seeing it as the level of proximity to you is the level of
• 1:00:01
  connection closeness. And the following thing I think
• 1:00:04
  is actually interesting because I find this is actually a
• 1:00:06
  parallel on TikTok. I.
• 1:00:09
  I'm shocked still to this day of how many people's content I
• 1:00:12
  consume who I don't follow. So like I'm thinking for
• 1:00:15
  LinkedIn, how many people might follow your content but not
• 1:00:18
  actually be connected to you? Like I think it's, it's very
• 1:00:22
  typical of a lot of platforms that if you have access to the
• 1:00:24
  content and like, that's kind of the main thing you might be
• 1:00:26
  there for. Do you encourage people to
• 1:00:29
  invite people to connect or are you OK keeping them in the
• 1:00:32
  follower bucket? I think typically people go for
• 1:00:35
  connection and then it's subsequently the way that the
• 1:00:39
  platform works. It subsequently puts you as a
• 1:00:41
  follower. So you would have to actively
• 1:00:43
  seek out a different path to solely follow someone, which
• 1:00:46
  most people don't do. OK.
• 1:00:49
  OK. So it's going to mainly
• 1:00:51
  dominantly be connections that way.
• 1:00:53
  Yeah, yeah. It's your best friend.
• 1:00:55
  It's your friend of a friend and then the person that you don't
• 1:00:59
  know. OK, yeah, something that is
• 1:01:02
  sitting in the back of my head today that I was like, I have to
• 1:01:04
  ask is curation because everyone and their mom wants to know what
• 1:01:09
  is the etiquette? Like we've got TikTok where you
• 1:01:13
  are potentially like in bed with pimple patches on, recording a
• 1:01:16
  video and you don't care at all about it.
• 1:01:18
  And I love that for them. On the flip side, you've also
• 1:01:21
  got Instagram, which can be a little bit of both.
• 1:01:23
  You can have very unfiltered content raw don't really care
• 1:01:26
  about the curation of how it presents.
• 1:01:28
  And obviously you have some people brand wise who are very
• 1:01:30
  curated. Does curation have a place on
• 1:01:34
  LinkedIn when it comes to media and imagery?
• 1:01:37
  Maybe obviously the message you want to make sure lands when it
• 1:01:40
  comes to the media of LinkedIn. Do you feel it needs to be
• 1:01:43
  curated? No, OK, No, I don't.
• 1:01:47
  But I wouldn't say anything overly polarizing.
• 1:01:52
  I wouldn't use profanity. I wouldn't.
• 1:01:55
  But I wouldn't do that on Instagram either, you know?
• 1:01:58
  So it just depends on what someone's personal brand is and
• 1:02:01
  like how they like to communicate.
• 1:02:03
  But that kind of stuff is going to get flagged and taken down.
• 1:02:07
  So that's just something to consider.
• 1:02:09
  Not that there's anything wrong with that, right?
• 1:02:11
  But sometimes, you know, on TikTok, for example, it's like
• 1:02:13
  it's just a filter. It's just a stream of
• 1:02:15
  consciousness, but people really want to understand.
• 1:02:18
  So something I love doing is I'll post about a podcast and
• 1:02:21
  I'll debrief a podcast that I really like.
• 1:02:24
  And I noticed other people do that as well, which is where I
• 1:02:26
  learned to do it. And that's a great way to
• 1:02:30
  connect and have some level of creation because it's actually
• 1:02:33
  someone else's brand that you're dipping into and then sharing
• 1:02:36
  your unique perspective. On it.
• 1:02:38
  So it's almost in a way as you say that like that kind of is
• 1:02:41
  like the trend bucket on LinkedIn.
• 1:02:43
  Yeah. Like the trend is really seeing
• 1:02:45
  what you're, what you're finding other people in your industry
• 1:02:48
  are posting that's performing well and then duplicating that
• 1:02:50
  style of content in your own way.
• 1:02:53
  Yeah, exactly. And it's very much about it's
• 1:02:56
  not education in the sense of here are four steps to do X.
• 1:03:00
  It's it's education in the sense of this was a major take away
• 1:03:04
  for me and I want to share it with you.
• 1:03:06
  Maybe you have a different take away, maybe you have the same
• 1:03:08
  take away, which I personally like, you know, much better and
• 1:03:13
  it builds authority, but in a more authentic way.
• 1:03:15
  OK. There's so much, there's so
• 1:03:19
  much, there's so much. OK, I know obviously you have
• 1:03:25
  cuz like, guys, if you Sam is on TikTok, she's on Instagram,
• 1:03:28
  she's obviously on LinkedIn, like she's literally everywhere.
• 1:03:31
  She's got a podcast of her own. If someone is wanting to kind of
• 1:03:35
  obviously when we listen to a podcast a lot, it's a lot of
• 1:03:37
  conversation, a lot of different tips.
• 1:03:39
  If someone wants to have these tips kind of consolidated, I
• 1:03:42
  know you have like free resources that you have
• 1:03:44
  available for people to download.
• 1:03:46
  Where can they find those if they want to kind of sink their
• 1:03:48
  teeth into learning more about the tactical part of LinkedIn?
• 1:03:52
  Yeah, for sure. So I broke everything down into
• 1:03:54
  a really easy to use guide that goes top to bottom of your
• 1:03:57
  LinkedIn to make it super, super easy so you can implement right
• 1:04:00
  away. And yeah, you can find that
• 1:04:03
  guide on any of my profiles. Amazing, honestly, my style, I
• 1:04:08
  just like slide right into people's DMS and like, I need
• 1:04:09
  that free resource. So if you guys do want, if you
• 1:04:12
  guys do, if you I'm like, Hey, do you have the PDF?
• 1:04:16
  If you guys are also wanting that summary of the LinkedIn
• 1:04:19
  guide, I've seen it, It's epic. I would just message her like a,
• 1:04:22
  you know, a word LinkedIn or something along that line.
• 1:04:24
  Let her know you came from the podcast.
• 1:04:25
  But I, I know this resource popped off on TikTok and so many
• 1:04:30
  people were just absolutely obsessed.
• 1:04:31
  It's been downloaded a lot, hasn't it?
• 1:04:34
  Yeah, it's been downloaded. Over like 21,000 times at this
• 1:04:37
  point. So I mean, yeah, Needless to
• 1:04:39
  say, it's valuable information, which is why I was so excited to
• 1:04:42
  have her on today. Obviously, you know, we'll
• 1:04:45
  definitely have to have you come back because as you guys know,
• 1:04:47
  she has a incredible background around hiring and what to look
• 1:04:51
  for, how to interview, all of the things that you're going to
• 1:04:53
  want to obviously know if you're scaling your business.
• 1:04:55
  But today was so good, covered so much on all things LinkedIn.
• 1:04:59
  If someone wants to connect with you, where is the best place for
• 1:05:01
  them to to reach out and to? Find more.
• 1:05:03
  Yeah, for sure. So as we talked about, I'm on
• 1:05:05
  all the platforms for sure. She is everywhere.
• 1:05:09
  Yeah, and I guess we'll have to drop the usernames because
• 1:05:11
  they're actually three different usernames.
• 1:05:13
  I'm on all. Three, and I'd love to connect
• 1:05:15
  on all three. Amazing.
• 1:05:17
  OK, I'm going to end with one question which has nothing to do
• 1:05:20
  with LinkedIn. I just had a little curveball
• 1:05:23
  and I have not prepped Sam for this at all.
• 1:05:24
  So if you were going to give someone listening to this who's
• 1:05:30
  very ambitious and driven advice on anything that you've learned
• 1:05:34
  in your journey of scaling your businesses, I'm curious what
• 1:05:39
  that would be. And the reason that I ask is I
• 1:05:43
  think that every like you who are listening, obviously listen
• 1:05:46
  to this because you're very pushed, you're pushing hard in
• 1:05:48
  your business and you're working at a lot of things right now and
• 1:05:52
  you know your potential and really want to tap into that.
• 1:05:54
  And one of the things that I have found in my journey is
• 1:05:57
  like, there's what you know, but there's also learning from other
• 1:06:00
  people who've already done it. And for me, obviously I know all
• 1:06:03
  of your success and all the things that you've built.
• 1:06:06
  And that, at least from my perspective, comes with a lot of
• 1:06:09
  built in lessons that get baked in.
• 1:06:12
  So I'm wondering if you want to take a minute, that's OK.
• 1:06:15
  But I'm wondering if you were going to give advice to the
• 1:06:19
  woman listening to this about her scaling her business and
• 1:06:22
  growing her business in whatever season she might be in of that
• 1:06:25
  right now. Is there anything that you'd say
• 1:06:28
  has been your biggest lesson or your advice to her that you
• 1:06:30
  would want to pass along? Oh wow, what a what an amazing
• 1:06:33
  question. I'm like my brain, if I were a
• 1:06:35
  cartoon, would have all be stoppable, you know?
• 1:06:38
  And if you've got like 4 I'll take. 4.
• 1:06:41
  But like obviously if there's, if there's one big one that that
• 1:06:44
  would be amazing. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:06:46
  So there's so many. Listen, I I would say the number
• 1:06:49
  one thing is to not be afraid to network at every stage.
• 1:06:58
  So whether you're thinking about starting a business, you have
• 1:07:00
  started a business, you've sold a business, you're in the thick
• 1:07:03
  of it with the business we with social media have become.
• 1:07:07
  So either I'm putting out content and you're viewing it or
• 1:07:11
  I'm watching your content. And that's just the world that
• 1:07:16
  we live in right now. That's just how it is.
• 1:07:20
  And people are much more receptive than you think.
• 1:07:22
  And if I could talk to my younger self, I would say people
• 1:07:24
  are much more receptive than you think they're going to be.
• 1:07:26
  And then we feel value from you, even in those moments where
• 1:07:30
  maybe you don't think that they do.
• 1:07:32
  And so if it's a, if it's a business owner who's 10 steps
• 1:07:36
  ahead of you, one step ahead of you, 100 steps ahead of you,
• 1:07:39
  network and have genuine conversation versus just
• 1:07:42
  absorbing without context because networking has given me
• 1:07:46
  context that nothing else. No, I mean, and I've read many
• 1:07:51
  books, but like studying business in school, reading the
• 1:07:55
  books, the podcasts, there's no context.
• 1:07:58
  I feel like network has been the basis of basically my entire
• 1:08:03
  career. I'm going to be honest.
• 1:08:04
  Like there's just so many doors that were opened only because of
• 1:08:07
  who I knew. There was supports that I had
• 1:08:11
  only because I asked in the sense of like had the
• 1:08:13
  conversation with the person at the event, got in rooms where I
• 1:08:16
  was really uncomfortable. And I was like, I have no place
• 1:08:18
  being here and I'm like, OK, let's just chat with people and
• 1:08:21
  see and find common ground. But I also think I love that
• 1:08:26
  because I think that also, regardless of stage in business,
• 1:08:30
  I think there's like a deep desire for connection and like
• 1:08:33
  just in general. And I, you know, it was
• 1:08:35
  interesting. I was talking to somebody
• 1:08:36
  yesterday and they said, you know, I saw these two people out
• 1:08:40
  together and I was like, that's amazing.
• 1:08:41
  And she's like, yeah, but one person is like barely A6 figure
• 1:08:44
  earner and the other one's like a multiple 7 figure earner.
• 1:08:46
  I was just shocked. And I was like, why is that
• 1:08:49
  shocking? And it was interesting because
• 1:08:51
  she didn't think that there'd be any reason these two people
• 1:08:54
  would connect. Like, but people just want
• 1:08:55
  connection. They don't care about your
• 1:08:58
  stage. They don't care about the size
• 1:09:00
  of your business. They don't care about all of
• 1:09:02
  these things. I also have found, and I'm sure
• 1:09:05
  you've seen this too, like people who are also very
• 1:09:07
  advanced in business being around someone who's not as
• 1:09:10
  advanced, they actually love to share what they've learned.
• 1:09:15
  So like if someone reaches out to me or someone reaches out to
• 1:09:18
  you and they're like, hey, like I am just at the brand new
• 1:09:20
  beginning stage. Is there any advice you give to
• 1:09:22
  me? I feel like it fills my bucket
• 1:09:24
  more to give advice than it does to ask it from somebody.
• 1:09:28
  Yeah, yeah, for sure. And you'd be surprised how many
• 1:09:32
  people sometimes who are more advanced than you in a certain
• 1:09:35
  way actually want to learn from you.
• 1:09:38
  And so I think there's this notion that networking is very
• 1:09:42
  binary, right? I have a network.
• 1:09:43
  I don't have a network. But actually it's an everyday
• 1:09:46
  thing that you're building. And I used to be that person who
• 1:09:50
  thought, well, I don't have a network.
• 1:09:52
  So how, how can I? Cuz I don't have it.
• 1:09:53
  And I'm like, oh, OK, like the gym, right?
• 1:09:55
  You go everyday and you build it.
• 1:09:57
  And you'd be surprised how deep of relationships you can build
• 1:09:59
  in a really short amount of time.
• 1:10:01
  Yeah, agreed. Agreed.
• 1:10:03
  I have met people who within a month became so integrated in my
• 1:10:09
  life or business or whatever it might be just because you walked
• 1:10:14
  up and had a conversation with them.
• 1:10:15
  And I think that, you know, obviously LinkedIn is one of the
• 1:10:18
  tools you can use to do that, to be able to let go and to network
• 1:10:21
  with people and to connect with people.
• 1:10:23
  But the thing that I think is like if you've listened to any
• 1:10:26
  episode on anyone's podcast about social media, the number
• 1:10:28
  one, your thing you cannot get away from is the fact that like
• 1:10:32
  the basis of the revenue that you want is based off the
• 1:10:34
  relationships you have with your audience, with your peers, with
• 1:10:38
  your clients. Like it does not matter.
• 1:10:39
  And so I think that aspect of like connection relationships
• 1:10:42
  just keeps coming back as it's like common theme that
• 1:10:45
  everyone's like, but there's got to be another way to like mask
• 1:10:48
  create relationships. And like you're saying, like the
• 1:10:50
  thing that impacted you was networking.
• 1:10:52
  Like it really was focusing on relations of the relationships
• 1:10:55
  at the forefront of what you do. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:10:59
  Because you, you know, you can learn, you can meet other
• 1:11:01
  people. You can, of course, make
• 1:11:02
  revenue, make sales, be introduced to people.
• 1:11:06
  But all of that happens through social capital.
• 1:11:09
  Yeah. Love it.
• 1:11:11
  There you have it, you guys, there you have it.
• 1:11:14
  All right, Sam. Well, thank you so much for
• 1:11:15
  today. It was so good.
• 1:11:16
  And I feel like I got a master class in in LinkedIn.
• 1:11:19
  So I feel like I have all of the notes on everything that work
• 1:11:23
  for LinkedIn today. And I think the important thing
• 1:11:25
  guys is to make sure that you tune into Sam's content.
• 1:11:28
  Sam, also very exciting in the next year is going to have some
• 1:11:32
  big developments happening there that I would just say as someone
• 1:11:34
  who knows the behind the curtain of things, I would stay tuned to
• 1:11:37
  if I was you. And with all of that being said,
• 1:11:39
  we will see you guys next week. And as always, you guys stay
• 1:11:42
  ambitious.