258 – Women on LinkedIn: Building Confidence, Networks, and Successful Futures

Karen Yankovich 0:00
You’re listening to the good girls get rich podcast episode 258.

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 0:23
And low there. I’m your host, Karen Yankovich. And this is episode 258 of the good girls get rich podcast. And we have a unique episode today. You know, a little backstory, when I am looking for topics for this podcast, I’m always looking all over the place, right? Like, what should I talk about? What are people interested in? So for this episode, what I decided to do is I went to chat GPT. And I said, What are the top 10 reasons women don’t use LinkedIn as much as men. And the list of eight Chachi beauty listed 10 reasons. And I was like, I don’t know if I like these topics. And then I said list 10 more and only listed six more. But as I was looking through these things, I thought, wouldn’t it be interesting for an episode instead of picking one of these things, to kind of work through all of these and just kind of, you know, this is just randomly what chat GPT throughout to me. So I feel like I can add my point of view to the answers that it gave me. So that’s what we’re gonna do here today. And bear with me, because some of these I feel like a little BS, some of them I have definitely have an opinion on and others, you know, I agree with and and I think in all cases, maybe you’ll recognize yourself. And maybe you’ll get some tips on how to overcome these challenges so that you’re spending more time on this platform, which is where the money is made. As you move into a new year, this recording is out in October 2023. As we move into 2024, I like to look at this as like the on ramp to our new year, right? Like the q4 is like marketing on ramp, right? So what are the things you need to have in place so that 2024 can be or the upcoming year or frankly, the upcoming 12 months? Doesn’t have to be a calendar year, right? But what do you what can we be doing to make it in this onramp time to make the upcoming year? What we want it to be right. So I think you know, in most cases, and even in my case, to be honest, I was thinking about something today that I was doing. And I’m like, why don’t I do this more on LinkedIn? Right? So even I get caught in these things easy to get caught in the shiny objects of what should I be doing on Facebook or tick tock or Instagram, right. But when I spend more time on LinkedIn, that’s where my business grows. So that’s what I want for you too. So if we’re going to spend more time on LinkedIn in 2024, if we’re going to incorporate it more into our marketing plan, you might have heard me say before we say this 100 times, but when I ask 100 people where their biggest opportunity came from their biggest contract, their biggest sale, their biggest job opportunity. 99% of the time, they tell me referrals, like 99% of the time they tell me referrals yet we don’t spend and LinkedIn is the biggest referral platform on the planet Earth. Okay, but we’re not spending 99% of our marketing time there, right we’re doing we’re still doing like dancing on Tik Tok. So, I’m not saying don’t do that other stuff. I’m saying, let’s use LinkedIn in 2024, or in the upcoming year, whatever that looks like when you’re listening to this in a way that it’s incorporated so that we are not leaving any of this money on the table. If we’re using it 10% of our marketing time, let’s make it 15% or 20%. And maybe add a little bit of our dollars to that or add our marketing dollars to it right? Let’s just increase it and see what happens to our business. What do you say? Alright, so some of the reasons why you might not be using it as much as men. Reason number one, that chat GPT said to me is incomplete or poor profiles. Many women either do not have a LinkedIn profile or possess one that inadequately represents their skills and experiences in this 100%. I agree with many women. First of all, I absolutely agree with the statement that says many women either do not have a LinkedIn profile or possess one that inadequately represents their skills and experiences. I just think we need to do a better job with this. I think it’s hard to do on LinkedIn profile. You know, I’m doing my part, right, we released a very low cost LinkedIn profile training program this year, you can find that at LinkedIn profile training.com. And every single thing we do that is a step above that training, includes we write your LinkedIn profile for you because it is important. And I get, you know, like if our roots are showing, if we haven’t done our hair, we might be hesitant to go out to a party, right? So it’s the same concept here. If you haven’t done your profile properly, you might not be as apt to spend your marketing time on LinkedIn. So take care of this, please, please take care of this today. So that’s off the table and it’s not in our way. Right The second thing under estimation have potential female professionals might feel discouraged if they believe managers or colleagues underestimate their potential on platforms like LinkedIn. And this one kind of is like a burr on my side, right? Because we know this is true. We know women know that very often. Our potential is underestimated. You know, you I’ve spent my, the first 20 years of 30 years of my career in the IT market, and I was often the only woman in a room and I 100%, my potential was underestimated. You know, until I opened my mouth, my potential was underestimated. So, you know, I’ve lived this. So I get, and I’m not the only one, I absolutely know that I am not the only one that has lived this, the only woman that has lived this. So if you’re feeling like the people that surround you, your managers, your colleagues, your co workers, even your clients, your other people in your coaching programs, people that might you may be marketing to, right? If you feel that they underestimate your potential, I’m going to say to that eff them, okay, like, just be you show up, show up big. And let’s, you know, absolutely slay that underestimation because it’s there. But you know what, like, let’s, let’s acknowledge that it’s there. And let’s say, Okay, I’m not letting that hold me back. Right, like, so what do I need to do to overcome that? I’m here to support you with that every step of the way, by the way. Okay. The third answer that Chad GPT gave me to my question is job application qualifications, women tend to apply for jobs only if they feel they meet 100% of the qualifications, which could limit their engagement on job focused platforms. Also 100% True, there are studies that show if there’s a list of 10 qualifications for a job, men will apply to it, if they have four of those qualifications, women need all 10 before they’ll even apply. And you might have had conversations with your friends about this, oh, I can’t apply for that job. Because you know, I’m not qualified. Well, okay. So what if you’re better qualified? What if you’re just generally better qualified, if you’re going to absolutely against delay that job kill that job? And you know, the people that have the can check the boxes of the qualifications? might not do as good a job at that job as you would? Right? How many opportunities? Are we losing out on? How much money are we leaving on the table? Because we do not feel qualified? Again, I didn’t I typically speak to entrepreneurial women. And I did not specify that in my chat. GPT prompt I probably should have. But I think that having this conversation generally serves us better for this conversation. So I left it. So even if you’re not looking for a job, that same qualifications issue might come up if you’re looking to get clients, right, you know, I heard somebody say one time and it was a guy, by the way, you might feel like a fifth grader, but to a third grader, you’re a big deal, right? So even if you don’t feel like the most qualified person in the world, if you’re qualified more than the person that’s coming to you for help, we can still support them. So let’s find those people on LinkedIn. And stop worrying about our qualifications. Okay, we know we can handle this work. And so number four, bias in work environments, women might need to fulfill more qualifications to be hired due to certain biases, potentially differing them from job seeking platforms. Again, we’ve all experienced this, most women have experienced this, okay, is bias and work environments stopping us from using LinkedIn more? I don’t know, I’ve never really thought about that. But maybe, maybe, right, do you? Like, I’d love to know what you think about this. By the way, if you go to the website page for this, if you go to Karen yankovich.com/ 258, you’ll see the show notes, and there’ll be a link there for SpeakPipe. I’d love to know what you think about these, pick one, pick three, pick old, all of them. And let me know what your thoughts are on this. Leave me a voice message, I will respond to every single one of them personally, maybe we’ll even do a follow up episode to this based on those right? I actually like that idea. So leave me your name and stuff. And we can maybe even showcase some of you in that follow up episode. But what do you think about that bias and work environments, women might need to fulfill more qualifications to be hired due to certain biases, potentially deferring them, or deterring them from job seeking platforms? If that’s happening to you, like, again, let’s get over that. How do we get over that? Right? Fundamentally, the work that I do is to hold your hand as you step over that line, right? That’s fundamentally what we do here and our she’s linked up programs, and if it’s bias and work environments, that’s preventing you from using LinkedIn as much as you as you maybe should. Let’s get over that. Okay. The fifth topic is website navigation. And the quote here is some users irrespective of gender find LinkedIn interface difficult to navigate. I find that BS frankly, I don’t know why it’s even here because it’s saying irrespective of gender, so I’m not even sure why it’s listed here. And again, it’s Chachi PT. We know it’s not perfect, right? But I just thought it was such a great talking I’m pleased to start the conversation. So website navigation really come on, let’s get over that. If you can’t figure out how to get around LinkedIn, book a call my calendar, I’ll help you. Okay, number six, professional networking perception. LinkedIn, primarily brands itself as a professional networking site, which might not align with everyone’s intention or preferences. Okay? That may be true. But if you don’t understand the power of networking, as you’re building your brand, and you’re building your business, that’s something you need to do some work on, do some journaling, do some visualization, do whatever it is you do, talk to your coach, talk to your, you know, talk to your therapist, talk to your know, your mastermind, people, right? We need to be doing better networking, you know, that we heard all the time. It’s not what you know, it’s who you know, you’re the some of the people you surround yourself with. And then we don’t network, right? We need to network we need great, amazing, incredible people in our life. And this is where it happens. LinkedIn is where this professional networking happens, right? LinkedIn, primarily brands itself as a professional networking site. So if networking gives you the heebie jeebies, you know, I’m not asking you to go from 10% of your marketing time to 90%, your marketing time ago, I’m asking you from 10 to 20. Okay, and maybe maybe part of that is, you know, really embracing the concept of networking for 2024, or the upcoming year, right? Maybe that’s what that looks like. And that, again, one conversation, one great conversation with somebody that you didn’t even believe could be in your world. It could change everything for you and for your business, right. But you have to have those conversations to get there. Alright, number seven ambition bias. There’s a misconception that women are less ambitious, which could impact their inclination to use a platform centered around career progression. So here’s the thing, chat GPT, if I can call you out a little bit? If it’s a misconception, why are you listing it here? Because if we are, if women are, are as ambitious as men, then why would it impact our inclination to use a platform centered around career progression? Right? So like, there’s a part of me that almost sees gender bias in these answers, right? Like ambition bias, there’s a misconception that women are less ambitious, which could impact their inclination to use a platform centered around career progression. I don’t know that kind of just that whole statement kind of annoys me. I do think women are ambitious, as ambitious as men. I think the disconnect is not around the ambition, it’s around the energy, our ambitions, we tend to have amazing ambitions. And let’s get real, we can think bigger, I think we can think bigger. But it’s our energy that doesn’t match our ambitions. Right. And that’s where we need to that’s where we’ve got some work to do. So maybe, maybe it’s actually not a myth and misconception that women are as ambitious, maybe women are not as ambitious, maybe we don’t look at it and say, I want to be the CEO, maybe, you know, I don’t know, maybe we need to do a better job of dreaming bigger, right?

You know, let me take a minute here. And just kind of tell you a little bit about our she sent up program, you know, this program has evolved greatly over the years. And it’s evolved to the point right now where our goal is to help you dream big. Get people on your calendar, like we talked, like I mentioned earlier, like the most amazing people that you can network with, so that you can achieve these big dreams. And this is happening for our women. First thing that happens when you join us is we, we you and I get to have a call where we have some real clarity on what that big dream is. And let me tell you something, this if I had to pick a superpower, this is my superpower is helping you understand how you can create a big fat, juicy content, you know, offering for whatever it is that you do. And then from there, our team writes your LinkedIn profile for you. Right, because we talked about earlier that profile, incomplete profile it gets in our way, we don’t want that to happen. Either, we will write your profile for you. And then from there, we have a very simple system that we teach, to help you put calls on your calendar consistently. We do this in a way that a year surrounded by other women that are just amazing. I wake up every single morning, so grateful for the amazing women I get to have in my life. And sometimes, you know, I got a message from somebody yesterday that said, thank you so much for believing in me. Like it breaks my heart a little bit. I’m happy to be the person that’s believing in them. But I also breaks my heart a little bit. There’s so many women that don’t have people in their life that believe in them. So this is what we do. This is what surrounds the work that we do. LinkedIn and PR the strategies we teach. But fundamentally, what we’re helping you do is step into your next chapter and a strong powerful way for more impact, influence and income. So if you want to know what that looks like, I would love to see your name on the calendar, Karen yankovich.com/call get you to the calendar, grab a spot on the calendar and we can chat and see if maybe this upcoming year is the year that you are going to change everything for yourself. Right Karen yankovich.com/call it no obligation calls these are just calls to get a sense of if it’s a fit. If I first of all, if it’s if the strategies I teach I think are a fit To support you, and then beyond that, if I think it’s the right time for you, and if I think it’s a fit to work together, and, and then if you, you’ve got to think it’s a fit for you as well. And if we both agreed to fit, we’ll talk about what it looks like to get you some help. Either way, you’re gonna get a lot of value from that call. So I’d love to see your name on the calendar. All right, back to our list. The eighth thing on the list, which is very similar to the first thing on the list, it says profile pressure. There’s a perception that individuals are judged based on the sophistication of their LinkedIn profiles, which may deter some from creating or updating one back to the same answer for number one day, let’s get this off your plate. Let’s do this, right, like, if nothing if you get nothing else from this episode, please, let’s get your profile done. And a lot of people you might be thinking, Well, I think my profile is pretty good. And maybe it is. But is it really magnetic? Is it bringing people to you? Or do you feel like you got to spam people to get business? If you’re not feeling like it’s magnetic, and it’s keyword rich? And it’s speaking to your exact right person? Again, grab a call on the calendar. All right, number nine, gender disparity in certain industries, certain industries with a male dominated workforce might have a higher male presence on LinkedIn. Sure, that’s true. But I don’t understand why I don’t I don’t think I think this is kind of a BS answer to this question. Because obviously, there’s certain industries that have a women a female dominated workforce, right? So that workforce might have a higher female presence on LinkedIn. So it doesn’t answer the question as to why more women, more men are on wet on late spending time on LinkedIn than women. So I kind of feel like that’s a BS answer. And number 10. privacy concerns, some women might be cautious about sharing personal information and professional details publicly. This is what I hear a lot about. In fact, very often, when I when we have these calls with people,

we look at your LinkedIn profile. And if I’m not and connected with you already, I’m like, you know, I can’t see your picture. I’m like, wait, what? Right like you sometimes we don’t even know the privacy settings we have on our LinkedIn profile. And the reality is, if LinkedIn is the number one content hub on in the world, if it is the number one networking business networking site in the world, then take your the bag off your head, okay? And show up and make it all public. And just don’t put anything on there that you’re worried about. Right? If and I am saying this like, because I think that they’re not wrong about this that many women are cautious about sharing personal information. So then don’t share anything you don’t want to share. Right? Like double check, what email address Do you have out there, double check what information you have on there. And then let’s take the bag off our heads and show up and shine a light on who we are so that we can be connecting with people at the highest level. All right, so I said that was the first time and I said there’s a few that I didn’t love. So I asked for 10 more, and it gave me six more. So let me go through these six last six quickly. The 11th one, I guess is men use LinkedIn more than women with statistics from January 20 to 2022, showing that 57.2% of users were men and 42.8 were female. So all this is really doing is corroborating the fact that men use LinkedIn more than women. And my my goal on this planet is to change that. Right? One woman at a time. Number 12 women may perceive platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest is more appealing or sexy compared to LinkedIn. Well, this is another one that kind of gets my goat if that’s the saying anymore. What’s sexy is having a lot of money in the bank. Like that’s what sexy, what sexy is being able to go to the mall and buy whatever you want. What sexy is to be able to buy a first class ticket on an aeroplane. Right? Not Pinterest, right? So if this is your perception, please, let’s get over this. Okay, this is where, again, let’s just level it up, level it up. Alright, number three are 13 Subtle societal messages might make women feel that they are too much too strong or too loud, causing them to be less assertive or visible in professional settings like LinkedIn. This is a big one. This is one that I definitely understand. And I probably have experienced what we’ve all probably experienced. Right. But, you know, if you go back to Episode One of this podcast, Karen yankovich.com/ 001, you’re going to hear me talk about the fact that I you know, went to school in the 70s and, and 80s. And women and in the early 70s and late 60s women, you know, women should be seen and not heard. What is it when girls are sugar and spice and everything nice. Right? So I had a lot to unlearn to be where I ought to be sitting here right now with a microphone in my hand, right? I had a lot to unlearn. And those societal messages are not gone. There’s, I mean, if not, if the pandemic taught us anything, it’s how the gender roles are still so ensconced in our in our society. And, you know, too much too strong, too loud. Who cares? I’m gonna go back to who cares, right when you’re sitting in your first class seat on the airplane. You know, let people tell you, you’re too much too strong or too loud. I don’t think you necessarily need to be assertive, but I do think you need to be visible. Okay, I do think you need to be more visible and assertive. You know, listen, I guess I’m gonna say this, I guess it’s the way you define assertive. Right? You can, I’m going to, I’m going to challenge you to look at this, if this is something that you resonated with, when I read it, and I definitely did, I’m going to challenge myself and challenge you to look at the way you define the word assertive, right? I’m looking at the word assertive. And it’s like, is that a bad thing? Right. Is that a? I think, like, I thought it was right. Like my initial reaction was assertive was not a positive word. Well, what if it was assertive just means like, standing up for yourself and showing up for yourself and showing up for your community and showing up for people, it doesn’t necessarily have to mean, elbowing your way to the front of the crowd, right? So redefine this, because it’s probably something that you’re not going to, it’s not going to happen overnight, right, you’re gonna have to continue to come back to this, if, if it’s something you resonate with, you can’t undo many, many years of societal, you know, societal training in your body or societal messages in your body. Just because you decided to write it’s gonna take some time, you know, you’re going to revert back to it. So it’s something that you might have to work on, continually. And maybe it’s something that you want to take a journal on after this episode. All right, number 14, a gender bias exists in certain work environments, which might result in women feeling the need to meet more qualifications than their male counterparts before applying for jobs or even promoting themselves as on a professional platform. And I definitely can get this remember, like the decades that I grew up in, I definitely get this. I hope that it’s not, it doesn’t continue to be true. But I think that it, it does continue to be true. So I’m watching the show called Lessons in chemistry. Have you seen it? At the time I’m recording this, I think I just watched episode three last night. And here’s a woman who’s a brilliant chemist, a brilliant granted, this is in the 70s. I know, the 60s, I think, maybe even late 50s. So we’re not there anymore. Okay. So I don’t want to say I don’t want to be speaking as ever, but I want to talk about it, and then talk about how I don’t think some of it has not changed. So lessons in chemistry is about a woman who is a brilliant chemist, but because she’s a woman, nobody will give her what she deserves. If you watch if you I mean, like I have experienced some of the things that I’ve that I see that show it is a little triggering sometimes, right? If you watch this show, you know, in there’s a there’s a I don’t want to give away if you haven’t watched the show, and I want to give it away. But basically, she’s a brilliant chemist, and she’s relegated to glorified secretary, because she’s a woman. And they make no bones about it in the 60s in the 50s and 60s and 70s. no bones about the fact that she’s a woman and not deserving of this. And you know, there’s some stuff that happens in episode three that like, make your and she stands up for herself, by the way. And again, I’m only on Episode Three, two, I don’t know where it’s gonna go. But that’s what this one is talking about the society, the gender bias that exists in certain work environments. I wish I could sit here and tell you that that was not the case anymore. I remember specifically. But two years ago, I owned I was the president of a company and I was sitting with, we had like a informal board of directors. And we were like salespeople, and we were going out to do some, we had some projects on the table. And we were doing like a brainstorming thing. And we had like, some of the stuff had to get like typed up. And it was sitting in the meeting. It was me and like three or three guys. And I finally like grabbed a laptop and just started typing it all up. And then I looked up and said, I need every one of you to forget that I can type this fast. Because I just I’m like, You know what it was like somebody had to do it. So I just did it. But I remember thinking, This is insane. I am the president of this company. And they all sat there, like waiting for me to type up the notes of this. Right. And I did it because it needed to get done at that moment. But this was like in the 2000s. Yeah, this was in the maybe the late 90s. But the early 2000s. This was not that long ago. Right. So So I say this because I do I wish I could tell you that I think it was completely gone. It’s not. Alright, I’m gonna rambling now. Number 15. intimidation is a significant reason why many women choose not to negotiate their salaries, which may correlate with less assertive networking or self promotion on LinkedIn? Again, I wish this wasn’t true. It probably is. Right? It probably is. We’re intimidated. We don’t feel like we have all the qualifications. We don’t know that we can necessarily stand up for ourselves. Right? This woman in lessons in chemistry was certainly not letting herself be intimidated. There were certain things she had to accept, that she didn’t want to accept. But she did not let herself be intimidated by these things. It was just a fact. Right? So you know, again, this is why I do the work I do if you if this resonates with you, book a call on my calendar because I want this to change for you. And by the way, when you take control of your brand, you’re taking control of your own destiny. Right. And there’s less reason to be intimidated. You’re in less situations where intimidation is even an issue. All right, the 16th and last thing on my list here are on the lat. The list that Chad GPT gave me is the platform’s primary audience consists of b2b users where 80% of social So media leads in this sector are generated. Now I don’t know what this has to do with men or women. But I’m leaving this one in because this is an important one 80% of social media leads are generated from LinkedIn. And there’s there’s citations for all this stuff. If you don’t know what citations are, let me or the citation for that one is this kinsa.com link. The fact of the matter is, if you’re listening to this and say, Yeah, but Karen, I’m b2c, then I’m going to refer you back to an episode that I did a little while ago. And it’ll be linked in the show notes where I talked about the three types of relationships that you need to be building on LinkedIn, the first type of relationship is who’s your client? Let’s make sure we’re connecting with them. And if you’re b2c, yeah, maybe that’s maybe LinkedIn is that place, maybe it’s not. But the second two types of relationships, which is where I spend 80% to 90%, of my LinkedIn strategy with, and that’s what I teach other people to do, are what other people can you be talking to that can refer business to you. So possible referral partners where those conversations are not, here’s what I do, give me your credit card, those conversations, or here’s what I do, who do you know, even if you have a b2c program, or product or service, that’s a b2b relationship. And LinkedIn is about building relationships. And then the third category is, who are the journalists that you need to be meeting with and building relationships with that is another b2b relationship. So if you hear this statistic that 80% of social media leads in the sector are generated on LinkedIn, and you’re like, in the b2b sector, and you’re like, I’m not b2b and b2c, you are leaving an incredible amount of money on the table. Because the most wealth building categories of those three categories I listed are those second two b2b categories. And it’s simple, it can be simple. And I’m not asking you to do this times a million, and I’m not ever going to ask you to do a cold. And I’m happy to tell you what it looks like to do this and how to get some help doing this, just grab a spot on my calendar, it’s the easiest way to do that. So I’m not going to recap this, because I’m already like way over the time that I typically like to spend on these episodes. But I felt like this was a would be kind of an interesting one to do. And I am going to, I would encourage you to either go to Karen yankovich.com/speakpipe. And leave me a message there or just go to the show notes of this episode, wherever you’re watching it, there’ll be a link to SpeakPipe. I would love to know what you think about this. Because I get enough people respond to this. And this is what I one of the things I like about this the way what I’m talking about right now is it’s a way to make this podcast less about me talking at you, and more me talking with you, which is what I really want to do more of. So if you leave me a message on SpeakPipe, I will respond to your message. And maybe we can make that part of an upcoming episode where I can do a part two of this, and get your thoughts on all of this. And I can showcase you and your business in this episode. So I’d love to know what you think about this. I’d love to know if there’s any of these that stood out for you. And PS, I’d love to know if you have a completely different opinion on it that makes you think that what I said is BS, I want to hear this. I want to hear that, right? Because there’s, there’s no one right way to do this. And I’m so happy to engage these conversations because this is how change happens. Right? This is how change happens. So I want there to be change. I want there to be more wealthy women in the world, women with money change the world. Okay, so let’s get over ourselves and double our the amount of time and money that we’re currently spending on our LinkedIn marketing and our strategies and see what it does for our business. I think you’re going to be amazed not even surprised and you’re going to be freaking amazed. So remember, my mission on planet Earth is to create more wealthy women of influence. If you want to hang out with the incredible women that I get to hang out with in our she’s linked up program. Grab a spot on the calendar at Karen yankovich.com/call. If you listen before, if you love what you hear today, you know I love to hear from you. I talked a little bit about how you can leave us a message. But also leave leave me a review wherever you’re watching this on Apple podcasts or wherever. I’d love for you to take a quick screenshot of this episode and share it on social media. Use the hashtag good girls get rich tag me I’m at Karen Yankovich. And I’ll be sure to share your posts with my audience. And this is how we all get more visibility. Right. I want to help you I want there to be more wealthy women in the world. I am happy to get your profiles in front of my audience but start with you got to share this first so I can do that. Again. Karen yankovich.com/ 258 get you all the links for everything we talked about in this episode. And I really look forward to maybe doing a part two of this so I look forward to hearing your your messages on SpeakPipe I am here with for you. I’m here for you today. I’m here for you tomorrow and I would love to do this together with you. This can be simple. This can be easy. I will be back here again next week with another episode.