What are you waiting for? Get on LinkedIn and start growing your business!
You don’t need to be on every social site out there because let’s admit, it can be overwhelming. You need to be spending your time doing what you were born to do. Staying in your zone of genius.
And that is running your business!
But on the other hand, marketing is necessary to grow your business right?
I want you to be getting the biggest return in the shortest amount of time, and the perfect way to do that is through LinkedIn!
Follow these few steps on LinkedIn and you’ll be on your way to business success!
[Tweet “Follow these few steps on LinkedIn and you’ll be on your way to business success! “]
Have a Great Profile
It is essential to anything you do on LinkedIn. If there are holes in your profile, no picture, no business link, you can’t expect it to make money for you!
There are 3 things you need to do when you start updating your profile and I can tell you all about them here. Go ahead and complete your profile with these 3 basic tips, it only takes a few minutes!
Stay Visible with Regular Updates
Let’s be honest, if you’re not on consistently or leave LinkedIn for days or weeks at a time, people forget about you!
Keep sharing business updates; keep connecting with people; keep engaging in your LinkedIn groups. People will notice and eventually will want to know more.
Connect with Everyone you Meet!
I can’t express enough how important this is! You may meet some of the most valuable connections in the world, but if you can’t get in contact with them afterwards, it’s pointless!
You may get a business card, which is great! But they only have their phone and email, that’s risky. They can either ignore your call, forget to call you back, or your email can get lost in the inbox!
Go ahead and connect with them immediately after meeting! You will have their profile forever and you’ll stay present in their feed; aka, top of mind!
Follow Up
This goes hand-in-hand with connecting with everyone you meet! Having a consistent outreach not only keeps you top of mind, but shows your connections you care!
It could be as simple as asking how that project they were working on is going! Make some notes, keep track of what they’re doing and check in every now and then.
This is all VERY easy to do! Takes about 20 minutes a day and you’ll see MASSIVE changes in your business! Want some help? Join the LinkedUp Revolution and get 21 days FREE of in depth Linkedin training!
“Karen, I attended (insert big marketing influencer name here) live event, I follow (insert more influencer names) and (more influencer names). I bought Infusionsoft which I’m trying to figure out and I have given TONS of talks and I have SO much content.”
If you know me at all, you know what my next question is. “So ______, what’s the plan for growing your email list? Getting people into your program? Are you regularly blogging and growing your list?”
Do you recognize yourself in this conversation? Your head is spinning, your wheels are turning, your days are BOOKED solid, but you can’t seem to get down to the actual planning and execution? I hear this quite a bit. I do it myself! I’ve got about 40 thousand hours of podcasts downloaded on my IPhone I’ve yet to listen to.
We’re so lucky to be entrepreneurs in 2017! There’s so much amazing free and low cost advice for us to start and run our businesses.
At some point, if you’re going to stay out of a cubicle, you’ve got to put some of that advice into action.
Consistently.
[Tweet “5 Actions to keep you out of the cubicle!”]
Let’s boil this down to five powerful actions.
Consistently produce content. Blog, Podcast, YouTube, I don’t care what it is. It needs to be timely, it needs to be relevant, and it needs to be consistent.
Consistently share that content with your email list. You don’t have to write extravagant newsletters every week! Just take the topic from your content, make a sexy subject line, add a few lines from the content, and link to it. Instant marketing email.
Consistently GROW your email list. All those people you speak to? Make it really easy to get them on your email list. Social Media? Use it to grow your email list. Talking to people at the grocery store? Tell them about your free PDF. Consistently.
Consistent outreach. Here’s where Linkedin comes in. (You knew I was going there, right?) Don’t just grow your followers, talk to them! Reach out to 5 people per day on LinkedIn and then come back to me in a few months and tell me all about your new Mercedes Benz.
Consistent measuring. How many new email subscribers did you get in April? How many opened the emails? How many clicked on the emails? How many converted to paying customers?
There’s so much more. We can follow a ton of influencers, we can purchase a ton of tools, we can buy a ton of programs. If we want to BE on par with those influencers, be peers with the most influential people in our industry, we need to plan and implement. Consistently.
Tell me in the comments below, what one consistent action are you going to commit to do today? If you need help with this, come join my LinkedIn group and lets chat!
I’ve been around the marketing block for a long time. In fact, I started my career at a phone company! Yup, New Jersey Bell. That name alone should hint at how long I’ve been doing this.
When I worked for New Jersey Bell, I was involved in helping business make decisions about the money they spent on yellow page advertising. I saw small businesses, plumbers, body shops, retail stores–ALL spending thousands of dollars per MONTH. Remember flipping through a phone book (a phone book?!) and seeing all of those “AAA Alarm Companies” wanting to be first in the alphabet? Did you know that placement equated to thousands of dollars per month (in 1980’s dollars!)
Time and time again, those same businesses are unable to see the correlation between a plain marketing budget and a marketing budget for digital marketing. It drives me CRAZY because it doesn’t have to be so difficult. In fact, I’ve spent years working to make it not just LESS difficult, but to make it PLAIN and SIMPLE.
You do NOT need a $10K per month budget today for digital marketing, but you do need some kind of budget. No matter how good you are at what you do, you’ll be out of business fast if you’re a “best kept secret” with little exposure. Digital marketing can prevent that from being your outcome.
Don’t believe me yet? Listen to some of these statistics.
95% of online adults most likely follow a brand via social networking
71% of consumers who have had a good social media service experience with a brand are likely to recommend it to others
There are 1.65 billion active mobile social accounts globally, with 1 million new active mobile social users added every day.
[Tweet “Stop Marketing Like it’s 1999! #GetSeenBeHeard”]
New times bring new trends and new ways to reach your target audience. THIS is why your competitors are seeing massive success. They’re moving with the times, planning, and budgeting for visibility in the ways that deliver results. More visibility leads to more customers, more customers leads to more profits.
Here are a few of many considerations that you might want to budget for (depending on your market):
Facebook post boost
Full blown Facebook ad campaign
Social media assistant support
LinkedIn premium
Social media scheduling tools
Professional headshots
Or are you still trying to figure out exactly how to spend your marketing money and what approach will work best for your business? I can help. Join my free Facebook group, Get Seen Be Heard, and come chat. Ask questions, talk social media strategy, and spark game-changing ideas for upping your business’ success surrounded by a community of like-minded (not to mention, incredibly friendly) professionals. I’ll talk to you soon!
You’re growing your business. You’ve identified your ideal client avatar (ICA). LinkedIn is the tool to help you fill your growing business network with your ICA. And yes, you can get them to send YOU a LinkedIn connection request!
Last week I showed you how to proactively grow your LinkedIn network full of your ICA.
This week, I’m going to show you how to get your ideal client to connect with YOU on Linkedin! Three simple steps. You’ve got this! Here we go.
[Tweet “Imagine a steady stream of LinkedIn connection requests from your ideal client!”]
Step 1: Do the profile work.
It starts with a great profile. I can’t stress this part enough. You MUST show up in a big way. You MUST be clear about who you are, who you help, and how you help them. We’ll be driving traffic to your profile, so your profile has to be captivating. It’s easier than it sounds!
Scan your LinkedIn profile. Is it consistent? Are you using the same “keywords” over and over? Ask a few friends! You want to be sure that you’re positioned as an expert, and that your profile is “client facing”, meaning, it’s about how you help your ICA, not just about YOU.
Step 2: Identify LinkedIn Groups that your ideal client may be a part of.
You can be a part of 100 groups on LinkedIn. One Hundred! Let’s look at this strategically.
What groups would your ideal client be a part of?
Do you support your ideal client geographically? One of my favorite LinkedIn secret strategies is using local networking groups! Let’s say you’re a Realtor. I’m in New Jersey, so I’d be searching for and joining “New Jersey Networking Group” “North Jersey Networking Group”, you get the picture. Join a few!
Maybe you support online entrepreneurs. Look for digital marketing groups! Dig deep. You’ll be surprised at how many niche groups there are.
There are two things you’ll want to take a look at before you join.
Is it recently active? If there hasn’t been a post since the turn of the century, pass.
How many people are in the group? I like to see at least 200 and no more than 4000. You want to stand out from the crowd, so let’s control the size of the crowd.
If you go blank on where to find these groups, take a look at a few people you know who you would consider an ideal client. Take a look and see what groups they’re in! Then look at those groups, join a few, and look at the profiles of a few members and see what groups THEY are in.
That’s it! For this step, identify and join. Shoot for 10 groups that you think your ICA is a part of.
Step 3 – Be interested and supportive
Notice, I did not say “pitch your services” or “share your blog posts”
Take a minute to look at a few LinkedIn groups that you’re a part of. Go ahead, I’ll wait. Scroll through the posts. My guess is you’ll see a ton of blog post spamming. People going in to a group, and drop in a link to their recent blog post. With very few likes or comments. Where is the value in dropping in a blog post and leaving? If that’s all you’re doing in LinkedIn groups, you’re wasting your time.
What you’re going to do, because you’re so much savvier than the average online marketer, is go in to those groups you’ve identified and read some of the posts. Open up the blogs and read them. Be the person to like and comment on the posts in the group. Do it in a way that lets them know you actually read the blog. “Hey Steve, I love in the third paragraph where you talk about….., I’m going to try that the next time I ……”
We already know Steve is semi-targeted as your ICA since he’s a member of that group, and now you’ve got Steve’s attention. Steve is going to get a notification, your name is going to be in his email box! There’s a pretty good chance that Steve is going to click on your profile to see who this person is that took the time to read his blog post. What happens next?
Refer to step 1, Steve’s going to be impressed by your profile, and he’s going to send you a connection request.
This is especially true if you are consistently in that group, sharing, liking and commenting.
You’re going to get a steady stream of connection requests from the members of that group
Do this for 15 minutes, every few days, Very little time out of your week.
You’re developing a habit that leads to your ideal client asking to be a part of your network, continuing to fill your business network with a deep base of people who may be interested in buying your products and services. Warm leads.
No more cold calling!
I’m here to support you. If you’re looking at your LinkedIn profile and you’re not sure where to start, I’ve got some free videos to help. Get started today, in a few months when you’re ready to offer that new program/course/service, you’ll be so glad you did.
We’re BUSY with our to-do lists. We’ve got to service our clients. One part of our business is sucking up a lot of our time. Distractibility …. Yup.
I want you to stop. Take a break from your to-do list for a few minutes. And tell me, if I had a magic wand, and could grant you the business of your dreams within 6 months, what would that look like?
Would it look like it does today?
Or do you want to be doing more speaking? Writing that book? Doing more workshops? Go ahead, dream big. Remember, I have a magic wand. Write out your day, how does it unfold? Who are you spending time with?
Now, go on over to LinkedIn. Take a look at your headline. Does it reflect that big goal of yours?
Often, I’m finding it does NOT. I speak to people every day about how to use LinkedIn to build a nice profitable sales funnel, a funnel that brings their business to that big dream place. But almost always I need to convince them to declare it in their headline. Convince them! Craziness.
So if speaking is a goal of yours, declare it. Call yourself a keynote speaker in your headline. Please don’t make things up! But if you’ve ever done a keynote talk, no matter the size of the audience, you’re a keynote speaker. Own it.
Are you a Realtor who is looking to crack a new sales milestone this year? OWN it. Step in to it. Start using the words to describe yourself.
If you’re not sure how to explain what your role is in your big dream business, then spend some time searching the profiles of others that are doing it now. If you need more support, grab my free video series at www.first3things.com. (Hint, video 2 is all about your headline!) Find those keywords, and search. See how the most successful people in your industry are describing themselves
I want you to do the same. Our big dreams CAN be achieved, but they start with US. We have to own it and declare it, and LinkedIn is the place to start. Tell the world how great you are! If not you, then who? It’s not bragging, it’s owning our worth and owning our dreams. This is the first step to achieving. Tell the world what you want them to know about you.
Drop your LinkedIn headline in the comments below, I’d love to cheer you on!
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.AcceptRead More
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
