This week’s episode of Good Girls Get Rich is brought to you by Uplevel Media CEO and LinkedIn expert, Karen Yankovich. In this episode, Karen shares 3 ways to polish your virtual networking skills.

As COVID-19 has hindered our ability to network in-person, virtual networking is more important now than ever.

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We want to hear your thoughts on this episode! Leave us a message on Speakpipe or email us at info@karenyankovich.com.

About the Episode:

In-person networking is a great way to meet people you’d like to be connected with. But for now, until the COVID-19 pandemic passes, it’s important that you polish your virtual networking skills and keep making connections. Here are three ways to get started:

Improve Your LinkedIn Profile

LinkedIn is THE place to be for virtual networking, and making great connections starts with having a great LinkedIn profile. Take a look. Does your profile make the services you offer clear? Are you taking advantage of the “About” and “Featured” sections? Is your profile picture up to date? Listen to Episode 114 for more details on how to improve your LinkedIn profile.

Look at Your Existing LinkedIn Connections

When people attend in-person networking events, oftentimes they make many great connections, but they fail to follow up with those connections. Sound familiar? Now is the time to look at your existing LinkedIn connections, rediscover those people you meant to follow up with, and get on the phone with them.

Expand Your Network

While we can’t attend in-person events for now, that doesn’t mean you have to stop expanding your network. You still have the power to find new connections who belong to the same groups as you. For example, if you’re a member of a Chamber of Commerce, find people within that group who might be a good connection. Then, reach out to them on LinkedIn by letting them know you’re part of the same group and that you’d like to connect with them.

It’s more important now than ever that you polish your virtual networking skills. And as you start to use those skills, you might just be amazed at how many interesting people you’ll meet.

Episode Spotlights:

  • Where to find everything for this week’s episode: karenyankovich.com/116
  • Introducing this episode’s topic (1:09)
  • The benefit of online networking (3:12)
  • How COVID-19 might change our thinking (3:43)
  • Why you should polish your virtual networking skills (5:29)
  • How to improve your LinkedIn profile (9:09)
  • Look at your existing LinkedIn connections (11:51)
  • Expand your network (16:31)
  • Recap of this episode (19:56)

Resources Mentioned in the Episode:

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Read the Transcript

Karen Yankovich 0:00
You’re listening to the Good Girls Get Rich Podcast episode 116.

Intro 0:06
Welcome to the Good Girls Get Rich Podcast with your host, Karen Yankovich. This is where we embrace how good you are, girl. Stop being the best kept secret in town, learn how to use simple LinkedIn and social media strategies, and make the big bucks.

Karen Yankovich 0:24
Hello there. I’m your host, Karen Yankovich. And this is Episode 116 of the Good Girls Get Rich Podcast. And this podcast is brought to you by Uplevel Media where we teach simple relationship and heart-based LinkedIn marketing, LinkedIn being the tool to building relationships with people that can change your business, your career, your life, your bank account forever, the perfect people. I don’t want you to have to talk to hundreds of people that are not valuable. I want you to learn how to be really micro targeted. Really get on the phone with people that can change so much in your business. So much in your life, heart-based marketing, right? Digital marketing with the human touch. That’s what we teach here at Karen Yankovich Land and Uplevel Media. So it’s been an interesting few months here, as I’m recording this, it is April 2020. And been self-quarantined in my house for a month now. And things have shifted a lot. And I’m going to talk a lot today on this show about what I’m talking about. A lot of it is my opinion. And you know, may or may not be what happens, but I want you to think about it. Because what we’re going to teach you on the show today, this is definitely a teaching episode is going to be valuable to you whether or not you know, what I think is going on, you know, kind of really happens. And again, this is not doom and gloom at all. I think this is really positive for us. Because I think what’s happened is, you know, not being able to leave our houses and go to networking events, go to conferences, I hate it. I love talking to people I love meeting people in person, but What it’s what this has made me do is kind of really refocus. I mean, I teach this stuff, you guys. So, you know, the fact that I’m saying this is kind of crazy, but it reminded me even more. So how important it is to be building actual relationships. Because here’s what happens. Let’s say you get in the car, and you drive to a networking event, which hopefully we’ll be doing again, real soon. Hopefully, if you’re listening to this episode in 2021, you’re thinking back and going, “Oh, my gosh, I’m so glad we’re over all of that now.” Right? You know, you go to a networking event, and I love that I’ve met some great people. I’ve made a lot of good friends, right? I spoke to somebody yesterday, who was a client who said, “I love this particular organization I belong to but it’s just a lot of people like me that like hanging out.” And I love that too. But that’s not business for me, right? So when you go to a networking event, often you meet people that are you love, and they’re not necessarily great business connections, but you love them and you build relationships with them. So but you know, you wouldn’t be going to the networking events, if you didn’t have a business goal in the first place, you have to talk to a lot of people to find the people that are the valuable people, the people that could really bring change in value to your business. Now, we don’t have to do that anymore. Right? Now we can cherry pick through the people that we say, you know what I’d like to get on the phone with these people. Because you know, we’re not walking into a room, we’re kind of looking at our screen and going right who’s valuable? Here’s what I think the reality is, as I’m recording this, it is, you know, the second or third week of April 2020. And we just don’t know they’re still talking about when the economy reopens. I think that, you know, I have no nothing to say about any of that. None of that is my area of expertise. But what I do think is even if we wake up tomorrow morning, and fairy dust sprinkled all over the country, and COVID-19 is gone, and the risk is gone. And we’re completely covered. You know, we know that that things have changed, which I obviously is not gonna happen, but let’s just say that happen even if that happens. And tomorrow, I think we’re going to think differently about the events we go to, at least for a while. And when I say for a while, I think maybe for a year, right? So for example, if there’s a conference that you’ve been thinking about going to, you might think, stop and say, You know what, I think I’m going to skip the 2020 one and go to the 2021 one, right? Because maybe you’re like, I, you know, if I don’t have to get on a plane, if I don’t have to stay in a hotel room, maybe I just won’t for a while, even if I can write even if the economy is reopened, I think that it’s gonna be a slow progression, to getting back to the things that are not as necessary as the things that are, right? So obviously, there’s things that are necessary to get the economy going, but you know, will you be as quick to book a hotel room for an event that’s an hour and a half away that then you might have before? You might say, “You know what, I can drive home and sleep in my own bed where there’s no germs,” right? Now, this might be germaphobe Karen talking here. So maybe You don’t think that way and maybe that won’t happen. But here’s the thing, I think it’s possible that it does happen. I think that hopefully business we get back to business soon, and the economy starts to thrive, and our businesses and our bank accounts are thriving. But even when that happens, I think it’s another progression to get back to the not mandatory stuff, right? The the the in person networking, and you guys, I love my chamber of commerce, peeps, I love all of the talk, I love having a microphone in front of a room, I just think that we’re going to that’s going to be a little bit slower to come back to where it was before, because we’re going to be maybe making choices to do a little, you know, a little modified social distancing, at least for an extended period of time. So that’s not a i’m not i’m not talking about that, like it’s a bad thing at all. I just think that that’s possible. And if so, I think it’s even more important right now to be polishing our virtual networking skills, because I don’t think that has to change Your business, I think it’s just going to change the way you network for a while. So what I want to talk about today is polishing up your virtual networking skills so that you continue can continue to build relationships with people that maybe you did before in person, and you’re doing more now virtually. Okay, so I want to talk a little bit about that on the show today. So if you love this show, you know what I want, right? You know, I want you to take a screenshot and share this with your social media tell your social media audience, that you’re listening to this episode, and that they should listen also. Okay, tag me, I’m @karenyankovich. And I will share it with my audience and that’s how we lift each other up, right? We want to lift each other up especially in these trying times, a rising tide lifts all boats, right, so let’s rise the tide together. How you can help me is by sharing this episode, a screenshot of it with your audience. I will then help you by sharing your post with my audience, getting us both some visibility right so cool. The shownotes and all the links we talked about in this episode, you can find at karenyankovich.com/116. That’s where you can also leave us a review and audio review in Speakpipe. Of course, you could leave a review, wherever you’re listening, that helps us, again, get more visibility for the podcast, but also, you know, dive in a little bit because we’ll know a little bit about what topics we’re getting good feedback on. And we could do more of that, right. So by all means, we love your feedback. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to the show. Leave us a review on Speakpipe where the links in the show notes, and let’s dive in. So whether or not you agree with me, I don’t care if you’re with me or not. Like, that’s not that’s just what kind of what I’m thinking. It’s still gonna benefit you to polish your virtual networking skills because I think we’re seeing the power of it now. Right? We’re seeing the power of getting on the phone with people in a very strategic way. I have done I have had conversations in the past few weeks with people I’ve known for years. people I’ve met at networking events. In fact, I met I spoke to someone yesterday about, you know, that I’ve met for years at networking events. And one of the things he said to me was, you know, I go to all of these events, but maybe I’m going to too many events because I’m not doing this. I’m not taking enough time to dive deeper into the relationships with the people that I meet at those events. Right? Can you relate to that? Can you relate to that? I’ve known this guy for years, this is the first time we actually had a Zoom call, and you know what, we’re gonna work together. I know, I can help him bring some profit to his business, and he’s gonna help me do some really cool things in my business. So why don’t we have this conversation a year ago? I don’t know. Right? I mean, I like I said, I teach this stuff. But I also need to, you know, be more consistent about implementing it my own business. So if you can relate to that if you can relate to going to events, and then not really seeing the benefit of that event, because you didn’t dive deep enough into some of the relationships with people you might have met there. Then this episode, is for you. So the first thing I want to talk about and you know, this is going to be LinkedIn focus, because let’s get real, this is me here that’s talking about this. The first thing I want to talk about is your LinkedIn profile, I want you to take another look at your LinkedIn profile. And just, you know, especially if you are still offer it well, especially if you do offer services virtually, make sure that that’s very clear in your profile, because people now are looking for that. If you help other businesses, run their business virtually put that in your profile, make sure that your profile like this is your profile is a living breathing thing, you can change it all the time. And if in a few months, that’s not valuable anymore, it doesn’t matter anymore, that you offer virtual services, then you can change it again. But at this moment in time, I want you to make sure that you’re adding into your profile that you offer virtual services. If you do, maybe you’ve you know pivoted to offering virtual services, then put that in there right, but update your profile. Make sure because now more than ever, people are checking you out online. And you have the opportunity to tell the world what you want them to know about you. But that starts with your LinkedIn profile. You know, I’ve got a ton of resources to help you with this. We do a weekly live workshop, freelinkedInworkshop.com. We dive into profile, among other things there. So check that out. If you want my help. We’re doing it live again for the spring of 2020. Who knows what we’ll what we’ll do after that, but Eddie, no matter when you go to that link, you will find our latest workshop on there. But right now, we’re doing this we’re helping you create your virtual presence and do some virtual net, you know, polish your virtual networking skills. So to do that, make sure that your picture is there because we want you know, as we’ve seen from doing, in my case, an uncountable number of Zoom calls in the last couple of weeks. You know, it helps, it helps to have a face to go with the profile. So make sure you have a great profile picture. Make sure you have a header image that also bring some life to your LinkedIn profile. Make sure you’re using things like using the featured section, which is an amazing new section on LinkedIn, make sure you’re using that section, make sure you have an About section that is compelling. And that tells me a story about you. And that makes me want to read it. Okay, take some time to create a great LinkedIn profile. This will make you stand out from the crowd. And this virtual world is pretty crowded right now. Right? So we want you to stand out from the crowd. So take some time to polish your profile. You know, you can also join me in my facebook group, which is karenyankovich.com/facebookgroup. It is a LinkedIn tips Facebook group, you can pop your profile in there and we can give you feedback on it right? So I can help you with this. But this is the time to take some time to create a great profile. Do it Do it your home, you sit in front of a computer, take some time to create a great LinkedIn profile. The next thing I want you to think about then is to look at your existing LinkedIn connections. And again, like walking into a room of 100 People were you know, 90 of them are lovely, but not necessarily going to help you with your business. I’m not looking for you to talk to every single one of your LinkedIn connections. What I am looking for you to do is to cherry pick, go through your LinkedIn connections, see who might be somebody that, you know, we’ve been connected for a while, I’d love to hear what this person is doing. Because there might be some opportunities to collaborate. It’s not necessarily selling your services. It’s about who are you connected with, that you might be able to have a conversation with, because maybe they can offer your stuff to their audience, right? Or maybe they would be a good client. Or maybe they could refer you to someone and say, you know, this is not something I’m looking for right now. But I really want to introduce you to my brother, Joe. But here’s the thing, you’re not reaching out to them and saying, hey, buy my stuff. you’re reaching out to them and saying, you know, Hey, Hey, Joe, we’ve been connected on LinkedIn for a couple of years now. We never really took the time to get to know each other. But I was, you know, poking through My LinkedIn network because you know, I feel like this is a good time to really get to know some of the people I’ve been connected with for a while and haven’t really built a relationship with and you’re doing some really cool things. I see you were featured recently in Forbes or I see you’re teaching some virtual classes now, how’s that going for you? I’d love to hear more about that. That’s the kinds of introduction that I want you to an introductory opening that I want you to do with your LinkedIn network, your existing LinkedIn network, so go through if you’re using Sales Navigator and I did will also link to it was a two part series are mainly been a three part series that we did on how to use LinkedIn Sales Navigator, it is by far the best tool I pay for every single year. So it’s a great tool and it allows you to narrow down the search of your first degree connections so that you’re not sitting there paging through them. But I do want you to read the profile. So it is a little bit of like I say tedious, but know that there’s no magic wand. You’ve got to go through it, you’ve got to read their profiles, especially if you want them to get on the phone, I don’t want you to send 10 canned messages to people, that nine of them are going to know it’s candid, not respond to you. So maybe you get one phone call, I want you to send three kids three messages that you have really dove into their profile, and really personalized that message. Because again, you don’t know until you get on the phone with someone if they’re if there’s value. But the more you, you know, the more pre work you do and research you do on these people before you met, reach out to them, the better shot you will have a number one getting them on the phone because you’re personalizing the message. And number two, getting on the phone with people that you know, you’re like, Oh my gosh, this is gonna be amazing. I can’t wait to talk to this person, right? But here’s the thing, you’re not on that first message to them. You’re not saying let’s talk you might if it’s somebody that you’ve known for a long time, but it’s really like I’d love to hear more about that and then if they respond, maybe your next messages Do you have a couple minutes to jump on? The phone or jump on a Zoom call, okay, I wouldn’t make I wouldn’t go straight for the phone call, unless it’s somebody that you know, you know, or that you think will be responsive to that, but put yourself in their place. Yes, you’ve been connected for a couple years. So technically, it’s a warm-ish connection, but they still don’t know you. So I still wouldn’t go straight for the phone call. Because at the end of the day, we’re all on LinkedIn to grow our businesses. But we don’t want to feel like we’re being pitched all the time. So you want to make sure that you genuinely are interested in what they’re doing. Maybe you can truly introduce them to your audience, right? Maybe you’re doing videos, interviews with people now and maybe they there’s a possibility that it’d be a good person here to interview right? Who knows, this is the time to dive deeper into those relationships. And I know, when you see the power of this, you’re gonna keep doing this even six months from now, when maybe the economy is open, but you know, you may be still doing a little bit less in person networking than you might have been a year ago to understand where I was going with that. So you know, you’re at existing LinkedIn network, now’s the time to go through it and see who you may want to get on the phone with. And maybe you just say, here’s what I’m doing. Who do you know? Who do you know, is a great question to ask on LinkedIn? Because you know, listen, we’re not we’re there to network, we’re there to build our business. It’s not like Facebook, or Instagram or Twitter, where it’s part personal and maybe part business, depending on your business, right? LinkedIn, it’s all business. So it’s okay. I mean, it’s not okay to be pitching people all the time. But it’s okay to have a business focus and say, here’s what I’m doing. Who do you know? All right. And then the last piece of this is to think about expanding your network, I would love to see you building your network by 5 to 10 people every single week, and I normally say five people, but now that you’re locked in your house, maybe you could even do 10 I don’t want you to do more than that. Because I’m not looking for you to have this big giant network of people. You don’t do anything with. You know, hopefully, you’ve gotten from this podcast already, that I want you on the phone with people right. So who made You belong to a chamber of commerce. Okay. And again, let’s say there’s 1000 people in the member directory, you’re sitting in front of your computer, ma’am, while you’re catching up on your neck while you’re watching Netflix, right? So So grab your laptop, open up the member directory, and again, cherry pick, if business coaches or your industry if insurance agents or your industry if sales organizations are good contacts for you look to see who those people are. You’re not these are people you’re not currently connected to, but you have a warm connection being that you’re both members of the same chamber. So now your connection request to them says, you know, hey, Sally, my name is Karen and I, we’re both members of this Chamber of Commerce. But I don’t know that we’ve ever actually met in a meeting and looks like we’re not going to be meeting at a meeting anytime soon. So I was kind of poking through the member directory to see who I thought you know, I’d like to get to know more. And it looks like you’re really doing some cool things. I’d love to be connected to you here on LinkedIn. That’s it, drop it there. Okay. But again, Sally’s likely to accept that connection request because you gave her a reason to say yes. You’re not just saying, Hey, we have connections in common, right? Or hey, you look like you’re a pretty cool, you’re saying, We’re both members of the chamber, I joined the chamber to meet more people, and you’re somebody that I think I’d really like to meet, but have never made the time. We’ve somehow that’s never happened yet. So let’s start by connecting on LinkedIn. Okay. I can give you 50 examples of other warm networks you can do this with In fact, I did a whole podcast about this. And I’ll share that in the show notes to where you can find other warm networks to do this with. Okay, maybe it is maybe you spoke at a conference. And there were other speakers at the conference. You can say, Hey, you know what, six months ago we were both speakers at this blah, blah, blah conference, and we never actually made time to get to know each other. But now that I’m sitting here with a little bit of extra time on my hands, I came across some of the stuff you were doing or I watched the replay. Play of your talk or something. And it was, you know, really, it was really intriguing. I love that you talk about this and this, I talked about this. And this, I’d love to get to know more about you. Let’s start by connecting here on LinkedIn. Right? Or maybe you weren’t a speaker at the conference, maybe you just went to the conference, you know, these warm connections, real, give people a reason, five to 10 a week, because, again, I want you to ultimately get on the phone with these people. And if you do this to 20 or 30 people a week, you’re not going to be able to, you’re going to overload yourself. And I don’t want that I want this to be simple, consistent, but simple. Okay, so the three things we talked about here are ways that you can polish your virtual networking skills is one, first and foremost, take care of that profile. Because in the next two things we talked about, you’re going to have much more success with those. If you have a profile that positions you as somebody they want to get to know right and that’s on you. That’s on you. Create a great profile. Let me help you join the Facebook group. Watch the webinar. You know, join me for the workshop. All the links are in the show notes. Number two, go through your existing LinkedIn connections. Who is it that you want to get? Pick the top five people you want to get on the phone with this week and customize a message to them. That is gonna that there’s a no brainer, yes on their part. Right. Make sure you’re telling them why you love what they’re doing. Make, you know, don’t be as authentic as you can and genuinely be looking to support them as well. Don’t just be looking for a way that they can give you money. Okay, when you LinkedIn is the place to for the best use of LinkedIn is for those collaborations. You absolutely will meet people that will ultimately hire you, okay, if you do this job if you do this job, right, but start by offering them value. And then the third thing is continue to build that LinkedIn network, but do it with your warm networks. Okay, if you belong to networking groups, look and see are you connected to them all on LinkedIn, maybe it’s even like a bi group or something and there’s six people in there that, yeah, you’ve met but you’ve never been connected to them on LinkedIn. And when you connect with them on LinkedIn, you see that they, you saw something about them you didn’t know before, maybe that’s valuable. I can talk about that forever. And again, I did a whole podcast on that. So I’ll share that here as well. But that is how you start to polish your virtual networking skills. And whether or not you feel comfortable in a month or two months or six months. as comfortable as you did six months ago going to in person events. These are skills that are still going to serve you well because once you see how powerful this is, hopefully you’re going to continue to do this even when you are going out and networking in person because of this, my friends is why I love LinkedIn so much. So for me as much as I hate what got us here. I love the lightbulb that’s going off in so many of my clients heads and so many of my contacts heads about how this really just get on the phone with people thing really works right. So I love that and I can’t wait to see that light bulb for you. I can’t wait To hear how this works for you. So if you love this episode, remember, I’d love for you to take a screenshot of it, share it with everyone, you know, now is the time for everyone to be doing this, right. So share this wide, share it all over the place that helps me you know that I want to help you as well. So I will do everything I can to get you the same visibility. I want you to stay safe and happy and healthy and thrive through all of this and I know that you can. And I hope that you take me up on my offer to help you join the Facebook group happy to look at your profile, they are joining the workshops, share this stuff and let’s lift each other up so that we are thriving as we go through this, this crazy spring of 2020. And when we’re on the other side of it that we still learn, we take with us the lessons that we learned unexpectedly as we are emerging through this event. I will see you back here again next week for another episode of the Good Girls Get Rich Podcast.