From Corporate to Consulting – How to Leverage LinkedIn for Your Transition

GGGR 294 – Final

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Karen
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Yankovich, hello, hello, and welcome to the good girls get rich Podcast. I’m Karen Yankovich.
I’m the host of this shebang, and I am excited to be here today with this topic. This is a an
important topic. I actually was surprised I haven’t talked about this, if at least not in a really
long time, because it’s such a huge part of the work that I do, and that is, how do you leverage
LinkedIn for the transition to your next chapter? Right? Many of the people, many of the women
that I speak to, are moving from corporate to consulting, and as such, they need a plan, right?
They need a plan. And there’s so much we can be doing to prepare for this, right? We don’t
have to, just like, quit our jobs and jump in and do all the things. Then there’s so much we can
be doing to prepare for this. And you know, the beautiful thing about this is most people, most
women, most men, most people, they come to this transition in their lives and their careers
with all this expertise, right? Like you’ve been doing this stuff for so long, it’s the experience
you feel like you don’t have as a consultant, like you’ve been in corporate. So we’re going to
talk a little bit about that. This is something that I have a personal story about a personal
connection. I, you know, I remember when I made this transition myself. And I, you know, I’ve
done I’ve done it like, you know, as a mom for kids, I had a couple of of transitions when my
kids were young, right? I was working, and then I left, and then I went back to work, and, you
know, so I did a few of those things. That’s not really what I’m talking about here. I’m talking
about, you know, once my kids were grown, I went back into a regular paycheck job and
worked there and then created this business. Boy, did I put in a lot of hours. Created this
business while I was still there, because I needed to know that I had an income on the other
side of it, right? Like I just didn’t have the ability to just say, okay, and today, I’m just going to
quit my job and do this so and the last job that I had, I had so much flexibility and so many
days off and great benefits and a good paycheck, like it was, it was a hard decision, but I knew
it was the right decision, because, you know, even with all the time off I had, I was using all my
vacation time up by, you know, the middle of the year, right? So, so I knew it was time to do it.
And
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those years, those last year or two, when I was doing it, you know, I the benefit that I had was
that the company that I worked for didn’t care what I was doing outside of office hours, right?
So I was able to show up and start to be visible and start to create content and start to create
my business. On the side, I was speaking at, you know, posting about like I would take vacation
days to go speak at conferences, you know, and they were cool with that. So not everybody has
that benefit, right? So I want, I want to just say, going in that I get that, and I think that there’s
still a way for you to be able to do both, okay, and those last few months before you actually,
you know, pull the trigger, are nuts, right? You’re putting so many hours in, or I was putting so
many hours in. So you may be doing the same thing I did. Not the way I wanted to run my
business forever, but I knew that for that period of time. That’s what I needed to do. And this is
so important, especially on the you know, I mean, I’m recording this. It’s, it’s going out in q4
2024
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you know, we’re a few years on the other side of the pandemic, where so many women, maybe
they went, maybe went back to what you’re doing before the pandemic. Maybe you’re now
being told you have to go back to the office. We’re hearing a lot about that in the second half of
2024 right? Some of these big companies are saying, now it’s time to go back to the office. So
maybe that’s your catalyst to say, I’m just not ready to go back to the office five days. Or I just
don’t want to go back to the office five days. Is there an alternative? I’m here to say, yes, there
is. Yes, there is. So this is and LinkedIn is the critical tool to create your thought leader brand
and attract the high value clients so that you can not miss a beat with your income. Okay, so
the first thing you need to think about when you’re doing this is understand that you got to shift
your mindset a little bit. Anybody surprised to hear me talking about mindset in this, right? It’s
just such an important part of the work that I do, because it’s, it’s, if you’re not shifting your
mindset, you’re never going to get where you want to go with this, right? So, you know, as we
see this growing trend of women in corporate moving to consulting, they’re doing it for
flexibility, they’re doing it for more autonomy. They’re doing it to create impact on your own
terms, right? You have to, you can understand that. You have to shift your mindset a little bit.
You can take that corporate mindset with you, right? We talked about this a couple episodes
ago, where, what if you applied your corporate mindset to your current role as an
entrepreneur? Right?
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Right now we’re flipping that a little bit, but
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I want you to remember that while we might be shifting the mindset a little bit to the mindset
of an entrepreneur, we are, we’re bringing with us to this next chapter the skills that you
developed in corporate your leadership skills, your project management skills, your business
strategy skills, right? These are incredibly valuable in consulting. You You know, LinkedIn can
help you showcase those skills even while you are still at your corporate job, because you’re
doing those things now, right? So you can, you can start to craft your LinkedIn profile less like a
resume, if you’re, you know, and if you, if your LinkedIn profile looks like a resume, you need to
shift it to have it showing up as up the brand of you, right? So you want to have your LinkedIn
profile looking less like a resume and and understand that this is the first step, stepping into
publicly showcasing your expertise, showcasing your skills in this beautiful way allows you to
start that take the first step down the path to turning that corporate experience right into a
thriving, profitable consulting business. So how do you do that? How do you do that, right?
Well, you know, I’m going to give you a couple little LinkedIn tips here. These are not things you
haven’t heard from me. You haven’t heard from me before, if you’ve been a listener to this
show. But I want to make sure that this is self containing this episode, so you have all the
things you’ve got to optimize your headline and your about section, right? You’ve got to do
that. You want to. You want to craft a headline that tells people who you are, who you help, and
how you help them. Remember, these are things you’re still doing in corporate, right? You are,
you are not saying, I, you know, am the Director of Operations. You’re saying, I help my team
do this, this and this, right? I make sure that the company has a smooth running blah, blah,
blah, right? So these can be optimized in your headline, in your summary, now, but you want to
only use the things that speak directly to the kinds of consulting you want to be doing. Okay?
We’re not making things up. This is all true. But you know, if you do, if part of your role is an HR
role, and that’s not something you’re bringing with you to your consulting business, don’t talk
about it on your LinkedIn profile. It’s okay, right? Just talk about the things that you’re bringing
with you to your consulting business, right? You want to have in your as you’re taking this down
to your about section, remember, this is about you, right? So tell us a story. Highlight your
niche. If you have a niche, highlight that niche, right? You want people to read this and go, Oh,
this is who I need to talk to, right? And if it’s too broad, they’re not going to see that. So you
want to highlight your niche. You want to speak directly to the next or the first consulting client
you want to get. You want them to look at this, so that they look at this and go, Oh, wow, I need
this. So you can literally say things in there, you know? So I’ll use this sentence of like, I help,
you know, I’ve used this a lot. I’ve helped women over 50 create enough wealth to retire at 60,
right? Like, that’s an example of a sentence
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you you can say exactly that, but you can also say things like, you can also tell us a story about
it. You can also say, like, Oh my gosh. I remember when I worked with my client, Mary. And
when I got the LinkedIn update that Mary, you know, left her corporate job and stepped into the
entrepreneur role, right, I wanted to, you know, like I sent her flowers, like I was so excited for
her, right? Like, that’s what I want to see from you. It’s not just about the facts, it’s about the
energy, the emotion and the story behind the facts, right? So if Does that make sense? So you
want to then take that same story based, action based, focused, niche, focused
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profile updating down to your experience section, right? Reposition your corporate experience
from the time you worked at McDonald’s when you were a teenager, to where you are today, to
focus on your consulting offering, to focus on the offering you’re taking with you into the next
chapter. And I’m calling it a consulting offering, but it could be coaching. It could be many
things, right? You could maybe looking to build a speaking career, right? So insert whatever
you’re doing into when I say consulting, right? And you want to, you know, like for, you know,
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again, if you were doing HR in one of those roles, you don’t need to talk about that, but, if, but
you can talk about how. Again, I’ll use this episode as an example. If I helped people in HR, you
know, if I don’t have to talk about the benefit packages I helped negotiate, right? I can talk
about how I loved helping women build their careers and grow and get promoted, right? You
can talk about that, if that’s it just did you see what I’m talking about here? You don’t have to
talk about the things you’re not doing, but you can still talk about the HR you did three jobs
ago, but position it so that you’re you’re build.
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The story that’s elevating you to the point where, when you step out as a consultant and you
ask people for 10,000 or 50,000 or $100,000 they’re like, yes, here’s my credit card, right?
Because you’ve done your job of positioning yourself, right? That’s Do you understand? Does
that make sense? There’s other sections on LinkedIn you can use, for example, and I don’t want
to get too deep into your LinkedIn profile here, but use the featured section for credibility,
right? If there’s case studies that you’ve worked on or or maybe a project you worked on for
your company that you’re proud of, right? Add that if you have thought leadership articles, if
you’ve been published or key media mentions, or put all that in your featured section, because
this builds your credibility and showcases your authority now, right before, during and after
your move from corporate to consulting. Okay, what’s next? What’s next? Well, here’s what’s
next. Start to build your network. Start to build a strong network. Connect with the kinds of
people, like potential partners, like potential clients, like industry influencers, start to connect
with them now. And you know, hopefully, you know by now, certainly, if you’ve listened to other
episodes in this that I am not ever going to ask you to connect with 100 people a week. I do
absolutely think that’s unnecessary. You want to build a strong, solid, researched network
that’s going to be a value to you as you’re stepping into and through your next chapter. Okay,
so be intentional about who you’re connecting with, right? Be intentional about who you’re
connecting with and why you’re connecting with them. And continually, this is such an
important piece of this. Okay, continually build that network, your network drives your net
worth. Have you heard that? Right? Your network drives your net worth? That is absolutely true. We are, you know, we’re not talking about that in this episode, but in our shoes linked up
programs. We are. We are very much focused on building magnetic marketing. I want your next
consulting client to reach out to you, and that happens when you’re intentionally and
consistently building a strong network of of warm connections, no cold pitching ever, please. All
right, enough, enough. I don’t need to get on my soapbox about that, but then you want to
engage your network, right? You want to actually, like, I don’t want you to connect with
anybody on LinkedIn that you’re not actually looking to get on the phone with, or get on a zoom
call with, or meet for coffee, right? I want you to actually network with your network. Okay?
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You know, networking with, again, this is why it’s so important, that it’s targeted, right?
Thinking about like, you know, if you’re as old as me, and you’ve been around for a couple
decades doing this, you maybe remember the gatekeeper, right? You couldn’t get to the person
you wanted to in a company until you got through the gatekeeper. There’s no such thing as
gatekeepers anymore, right? We can go on LinkedIn straight to the CEOs of the company. So I
want you to think big when you’re building your network. There’s, you know, again, I don’t want
you to cold pitch them, but there’s ways and strategies. And again, these are all things we work
at in our shoes, linked up program, so that we can make this magnetic and so that people are
like, yes, I want to get on the phone with you, right? Your profile does a lot of that heavy lifting. We write your profile for you when we work with you, and you building your network so that
you can actually network with them, okay? And this is, this is where you bring Authenticity and
credibility to this. And when I ask, I can if I ask 1000 people, but let’s just go with 10. If I asked
10 people, where did you get your biggest and latest client from, nine out of 10 times they say
a referral, right? A referral, not a Facebook ad, not, you know, a referral, so and referrals. Who
doesn’t want referrals? So let’s build our network so we can get more referrals, right? And this
is how we get that authentically and organically, and that’s how we strengthen our magnet to
have that magnetic marketing strategy, right? And you know, engaging your network by
outreach is one thing, but remember too, when you are
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posting on LinkedIn, right? And again, even if you are still at your corporate job and collecting
your paycheck, you can still be posting on LinkedIn about things that are happening in your
industry and engaging in conversations that other people are having on LinkedIn about things
happening in your industry, right? Engage, engage, engage. Don’t forget about
recommendations. Start writing recommendations for people you work with now, people you’ve
collaborated with, people that have been on projects with you. Hopefully they’re going to
maybe write some back for you. You want to, you want to start to be an accumulator of
recommendations. If, on behalf of your company, you’ve spoken at an event as the organizer,
to write you a recommendation. If you have people on your team that you’ve worked with,
write them recommendations, I bet a couple of them are going to write you a recommendation
back, right? So focus, though, on the previous colleagues or the corporate contracts or the
contacts, or the kinds of things that are the that are focused, that are going to help you with
the consulting services you’re looking to offer, or that you are now offering. Right again, keep it
really targeted and niched, if you can.
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And then, of course, how do we get.
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Our clients, right? Like, the fun part. How do we actually, I think it’s all the fun part, but how do
we get our clients right? So you want to have you want to do that outreach, you want to
personalize your connection request, you want to invite people out for coffee. You want to
maybe, you know, there’s so many different ways. There’s so many different ways you can
engage to land these contracts. You don’t want to be pitching people like I literally, and I’m
sure maybe you’ve gotten this too. I literally get things that say, Hey, I looked at your profile,
and I think you’re our ideal client, so we should work with you. Here’s a link to buy our stuff.
Like, What? What? Like? What’s that about? I don’t like. Please stop pitching people your stuff.
Right? Have collaboration conversations if you’ve done the networking piece, right, right? If
you’ve done a good job in strategically researching the people you want to connect with, and
you’ve done that engaging, and you’ve done all of the things we’ve talked about in the last five
minutes. This next part is easy because it just follows. The business just follows. I have
absolutely gotten clients that have seen me engage in a conversation on LinkedIn, did not know
who I was, right, checked out my profile. I did my job of making sure my profile spoke to that
person directly, right, even though I didn’t know the person yet, and booked a call on my
calendar because I made that really easy to do, and enrolled in high ticket offerings that I have.
It has happened to me. It has it happens for my clients. It can happen to you, right? So you
want to, you want to be doing those things and not sitting back and waiting for that to happen,
right? But, you know, and there’s some key strategies that we would help you with if we were
working together directly, but and understand that you want to personalize these messages,
personalize these follow up messages, and engage with them on a human to human basis, and
that’s where the business will that’s where the business will follow. You want to even leverage
like LinkedIn groups. I know that they’re they feel a little bit like a complete wasteland, but you
know there’s if your potential clients are hanging out there. You may want to not just drive by
post, like drop a post in and run but maybe look to see some groups that you think maybe your
ideal clients are hanging out in and
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gage on their posts right? Like they’re going to see that. They’re not going to see if you post in
the group and talk about your offerings, your product services, but they’re going to see if you
engage on their posts, right? So go into groups that you know, niche specific LinkedIn groups,
and engage on their content. Right? Engage, engage, engage. And then, of course, continue to
showcase your expertise with your content and articles. If you want to write an articles, and
you know, continue to build like I want you to build a brand as a thought leader, okay, that is
how we land business in 2024 2025 okay. That is how this is happening. All the things we used
to do. Many of those are not working anymore. What is still working is people buy from people
they know, like and trust, and that’s where they put and they’re looking for more high touch
more high touch contracts. They’re not really looking they’ve got a hard drive full of training.
They’re not really looking for your group training program where they’ve got a hard drive full of
training. They want you right so showcase why you are the right person. Showcase build your
build that thought leader brand on LinkedIn, and build your authority. Okay? And there’s ways
to do that with the kinds of content you create. If somebody comes across you somewhere,
right and then goes to check you out, and there is no articles that you’ve written, there are no
podcasts you’ve been interviewed on or created, or anything they don’t you’re not giving them
something to hang on to, to say, to take that next step with you, right? So you’ve got to be
creating articles and content. I know that I’ve dumped a ton of stuff on you in this, you know,
15 minute episode, right? This is me talking 100 miles an hour here, but you can listen to it
again. You can take lots of notes. We’ve got show notes too that we can, that you know, that
you can refer back to.
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And of course, we’re here to help you, right? So I would love for you to let’s recap this a minute.
Let’s just recap this a second. If you are looking to build to leave corporate and step into
consulting, right, the first thing you need to do is remember that there’s a big mindset shift
here. You are no longer an employee, and you need to start to step into your role as a thought
leader, and this might be one of the biggest transitions you’re making, is what’s up here, right?
What’s in your head, not necessarily the tasks that I’m giving you, right? Remember that you’ve
got all this expertise that that you’re bringing to this endeavor, right? So you’re going to lean
on that. You don’t have to build your way up, you don’t have to charge $5 until you can charge
$10 you can go straight in for the $500 or the $1,000 an hour. I don’t want your billing by the
hour, but that’s another conversation. But just to you know, just to give you the sense of it, you
can go straight for that. I know that there’s a good chance you’ve seen those people come in. I
know you’ve probably seen some of the corporate contracts, or, I’m sorry, some of the
consulting contracts that the company you previously worked for signed, and you look at them
and going, wait, what? Right, that’s a lot of money. You are now in a position where you can,
you can attract that kind of money to your business and your life and build, you know, build
generational wealth for your family. I believe this is the way to do it, is with these consulting
type opportunities you then want to build. You.
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You then want to set up your LinkedIn profile that speaks to this. You can do that now. This is
the brand of you you’re if you’re doing a lot of this work. Now, start to create a profile that
positions that remember, we’re going to talk about what, what is relevant to what you’re
bringing with you to the next chapter. You don’t have to talk about what’s not relevant.
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Start to create a client, attracting profile. Build your network. Build that strong network so that
you are starting to get those referrals and have those conversations. And then don’t be afraid
to go after the high value contracts and to have those conversations. And if you need to
practice those conversations, then practice those conversations, because these are, this is
important. You need to be able to say. And my fee for this engagement is $50,000 like you say,
please pass the salt. Okay, so, so this, this is how this happens. If this was valuable to you, then
I would love for you to take a quick screen, share of this and share this with your LinkedIn
network or your social media networks, wherever you hang out. Tag me, because I love to be
able to see them, because when you share this post with your network, I and I can see it, then I
can share it with my network. And guess what I’m doing? I’m now giving you more visibility. So
as you step into your next role as a consultant, I’m here to support you with that. We’re
supporting each other. We’re lifting each other up. That’s what we love to see around here,
right? That’s what we love to see around here. If you’re looking for some help with this. If you
have not yet grabbed checked out our LinkedIn quiz, if you go to LinkedIn quiz.com it’s going to
help you. You know, a lot of a lot of the stuff I talked about here today, if there’s any pieces of
things that I mentioned today that made you go like, Oh, I don’t really want to do that, this
LinkedIn quiz is for you because it helps identify your marketing style and helps you create a
process behind all the things we talked about today, right? All the things we talked about today
is the front of the process. The back of the process is, how, what are you going to say? How are
you going to do this? How are you going to find these people? The LinkedIn quiz helps with
that, right? So go to LinkedIn quiz.com
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we have such a robust once you take this quiz, you’re gonna get so much great stuff from us.
And not not you know, you’re not gonna get inundated with stuff, but we’re gonna give you
what to say, what not to say. We I even give you visualization, so that you can start to visualize
how you can step into this role, depending on how you you like to market, right? Because it’s
different for everyone. It’s different for everyone. So LinkedIn quiz.com gets you there. You
know, here’s the deal, this LinkedIn is such a powerful tool, and you know what? More women
are starting to use it? Well, I first started this business. I’m in right now, our shoes linked up
community and our good girls get rich Podcast. I’m not really looking to exclude men. I just
wanted women to feel more included in these strategies. And I think we’re finally starting to
see that. We’re finally starting to see that this is where the money is, this is where the big
ticket clients are. This is where people come to network and do business on a high level. So you
need to be doing this. LinkedIn is such a powerful tool for women that are transitioning from
corporate roles to consulting roles. I want you to take action today, start to build that
consulting brand that you’ve been dreaming of. Understand you can create a life and a
business around big ticket clients. I’m here to support you with that. Our shoes linked up.
Community is here to support you with that. You know, there’s, we’ve got a Facebook group
that is completely free. You can check out the link somewhere on here to join that. It’s
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and you know, take the first step. Start making it happen. Build it. Build a network of people
around you to support you and take action. I will see you back here again next week for
another episode of The Good girls get rich podcast.