15 Years on LinkedIn - What I Wish I'd Known Earlier

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I got an email from LinkedIn this week that was congratulating me on reaching a 15 year milestone.

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That's right listeners, I have been on LinkedIn for 15 years.

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What's that journey been like?

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More importantly, what can you learn from my journey so that you don't

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make the same mistakes that I had?

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I'm going to share in today's episode, the things that I wish I'd known, both as an

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employee creator and a business owner trying to grow their business using LinkedIn.

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Maybe you're just starting out, this is going to fast track your success.

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Maybe you can relate to parts of this journey if you've had an account for a long time and

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haven't been really getting the most out of it.

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No matter where you are in your journey, there's going to be something for

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everyone in here, but yeah, 15 years.

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Can't believe I made it this far.

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It is crazy to think about.

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My journey started on LinkedIn in 2009 is when I set up my LinkedIn profile

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and I was trying to remember why.

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And the answer came to me when I went in and downloaded the archive of my connections,

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which you can do if you go into settings on LinkedIn, and it will give you a list

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of everybody that you're connected with.

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And it's sorted in date order and if you go all the way back to the beginning, who

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did I discover was my very first connection that was none other than drum roll my mum.

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That's right listeners, I got started on LinkedIn because of my mum.

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Now I'm probably certain that there are lots of people out there that have a similar story.

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And to be honest, I don't know why I did it.

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Because if I look at the connections list, I connected with about 20 people around that time.

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I had my mum, I had one of my good friends.

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I have my partner, Lil, and that's about it.

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There wasn't too much more to it around that time.

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I pretty much just connected with a few people that I knew, and then I basically left LinkedIn

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to gather some dust for the next three years.

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So the first lesson that I've learned in my 15 years on LinkedIn is it's

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consistent action and persistency over the longterm that gets you the best results.

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So if you have got a LinkedIn profile and it's just gathering dust like mine did for three years,

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then dust it off and time to get back in the game because you will never regret taking these actions

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to build an amazing community, especially if you are using social media to grow your business.

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These days, things are much harder than what it was back in the beginning.

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LinkedIn was nowhere near as crowded.

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We don't have the restrictions that we have on us now, with like things like connection limits.

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There's no time like today to get started.

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Like that saying goes best time to plant a tree 20 years ago, second best time is today.

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And that applies to LinkedIn as well.

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So 2009 got started, bit of a false start.

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So fast forward to 2012.

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And after that big gap, I got active, which having a look at my profile aligns with

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when I was going for a particular job.

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So I have a feeling that I updated it for that.

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Nothing more to it, but went on a bit of a connecting spree with people that worked

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in the industry that I was in at that time.

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No real signs of content or anything along those lines, hadn't discovered the power of that yet.

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When did I discover the power of creating content and building community?

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Fast forward now to 2015.

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I just started my new job.

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I got that job using LinkedIn, which is how we all saw LinkedIn back then, 10

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years ago, it was a job seekers platform.

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And so I turn up at my new job and it's a new industry.

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I have no existing customers that I've ever worked with before.

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So I'm right in that deep end.

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My boss comes to me he says, Michelle, here's your customer list.

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80 customers spread around Australia, which is the same size as the US

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10, 000 ingredients that I couldn't even pronounce, had no idea what they did.

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I didn't have a chemistry background and I couldn't even pronounce them.

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And not knowing anyone and knowing what Sydney traffic's like.

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So think LA traffic, you just, it takes forever to get anywhere.

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And I thought, how else can I reach all of my customer base without having

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to drive around or fly into state and, do all of those kinds of crazy things.

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And I thought, Hey, I saw some people that create content on LinkedIn.

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Maybe I can post about the products that we sell.

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So I asked my boss at the time, do you mind if I do this?

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And he just basically looked at me blankly and asked me, was it free?

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Which to which I replied, yes, I think so.

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And he said, I don't care.

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Just go and sell.

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And off I went and yes, I was lucky that when I got started on LinkedIn, I was an employee.

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If you're an employee and think that's a bad thing, it's absolutely not because you can try a

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lot more and still get paid at the end of the day.

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So to me, it never felt risky or scary.

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I knew that I was going to get paid regardless, which was a kind of nice place to experiment

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and get to learn the rules of the LinkedIn game.

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I knew that I was going to get paid regardless, which was a kind of nice place to experiment

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and get to learn the rules of the LinkedIn game.

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I discovered very quickly that if you just post about products and you don't build a community,

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you're effectively talking to yourself.

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So I had to think to myself, okay, where will I start building this community?

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And this lesson that I think everybody should learn is start off with those people

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closest to you, your existing customers are a really great place to start.

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So existing customers, and then start working your way out.

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Having that right balance between the right kind of content and the right community was the

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way that I could fast track myself to success.

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And 10 years ago, nobody else on LinkedIn was really speaking in that space.

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And so it was nice because I could also be naive.

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I didn't know marketing.

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I didn't know branding.

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I didn't know that there were people out there talking about LinkedIn best practices.

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I was a hundred percent focused on creating content that was in service

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of my customers and my audience.

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And I think that's the most valuable lesson that I learned back then that I hope that you can

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learn today in this episode, because knowing that we are always every action that we take on

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LinkedIn is in service of our audience is very different from Michelle J Raymond, turning up

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on LinkedIn every day and going, I'm so amazing.

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Brag brag, buy my stuff.

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Nobody's interested, that's, nobody just nobody.

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Let's just put it out there.

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Nobody is interested.

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I was lucky because I was one of the first people that acted on this

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and away I was going and I loved it.

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And I built up a global community of around 6, 000 followers.

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And I remember back then I used to sit there later at night on my phone and you could just literally

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connect with hundreds of people all the time.

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And I would just discover them locally, globally, and just thought anyone that's interested

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in this industry, I'm going to connect with them and see what I can learn from them.

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If you don't have a strategy for how you're connecting with people on

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LinkedIn, how you're going to take building a community into your own hands.

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If you're mindlessly scrolling and thinking you're not getting any benefits out of LinkedIn.

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Take the lesson from me.

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The more that you strategically create that, and that means using the search bar, the faster

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the results are going to come through for you.

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I didn't realise at the time just how much of a gift it was that I could learn how

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to build community and learn how to create content without the pressures of worrying

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about where my paycheck was coming from.

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And it wasn't going to prove just how valuable it was until fast forward to

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around March 2020 when I quit my job.

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I quit on the spot for reasons that I won't go into on this episode, but we

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call it the big bang affectionately.

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And I had no plans of quitting my job.

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It happened on the spot.

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And the next day we decided that I wasn't going to work for anyone else again.

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And Lil said to me, just come up with a business and work as hard for us as

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you do for everyone else, it'll be fine.

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And that took me a little while, but I landed on.

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Helping people learn how to use LinkedIn like I'd been doing.

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Especially focused on the industry that I'd come from.

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And if you rewind the clock to March, 2020, that is when, the world just went crazy.

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We had COVID happen.

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We had lockdowns happen here in Australia and in other places around the world.

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Travel got cut off.

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No longer were the traditional selling methods there that we could rely on to grow businesses.

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I think the lesson that everybody needs to learn out of that, and I hope that we never have to

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live through it again, although we may, is that don't start building things on LinkedIn and

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leaving it until the point when you need it.

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I see people maybe get redundant or laid off.

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I've seen people that have a new course coming up or that they want to launch.

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And they leave it up until that last minute.

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And that is not the time that you want to be building things on LinkedIn.

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LinkedIn is slow.

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Things take much longer today than what they did when I started, 10, 15 years ago.

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If you have the goal of promoting new services, promoting a new course, getting

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a new job, aiming for a promotion.

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Start today, do not leave those gaps of time and leave it to the last minute.

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It's the tortoise and the hare, the fable that we know it's the tortoise

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that always wins in that story.

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So now I quit and I've got my own business and I went through this part where I went

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pile everybody in the globe knew me in the industry, everybody on LinkedIn knew me.

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I had an amazing community to back down to the bottom where essentially nobody

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knew me for what I wanted to be known for.

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And this is where I started on my branding journey.

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And I had no idea what branding was.

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And if you are in the same boat and are just starting out in your business,

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Michelle Griffin and I wrote The LinkedIn Branding Book for the people that we were

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when we started out in our businesses.

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It is how to use LinkedIn to build your personal brand and your company brand,

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especially when you're starting out.

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What things do you need to pay attention to?

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And I remember the first year it was so tough.

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Honestly, I know it's not about the likes and comments and engagement, but for me going from

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lots of engagement back down to zero, that hurt.

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I was doubting myself.

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I thought, when is this thing ever going to work?

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And my lesson to you listeners is be patient when you're building a brand, when you're building a

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community, and when you're building relationships that are built on trust, they take time.

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They don't happen overnight.

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So again, this is why giving yourself those long lead times to get things up

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and running and built is so important.

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So even if your products and services aren't a hundred percent ready, maybe your new websites not

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ready, don't leave building everything on LinkedIn to that last minute until that's all done.

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Because there is never a perfect day I've discovered.

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And I had to get used to rebuilding again.

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I guess I have a soft spot for people that are out there that are just starting out on LinkedIn

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and wondering, Oh my God, is this even working?

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The answer is yes.

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You just haven't been doing it for long enough.

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I also realised that when you're on social media platforms, you have access to the

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most amazing experts around the world.

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Which is great in one way, but for me starting out building everything, I found it really tough.

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Because I would compare myself to everybody else.

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And there were LinkedIn trainers that had been doing it for a lot longer than I was.

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And I was looking to them to see what did they do?

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How do they do it?

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And I started to copy them in some ways.

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And what that meant was being professional grown up, Michelle, that told everybody

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how much I knew about LinkedIn.

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I almost sounded like the LinkedIn help desk.

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And it's not a bad thing, but what happened was by the end of the year, the first year

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in 2020, when I was just starting out, I actually thought if this is what it is.

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I don't like this at all.

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I don't think I can do this longterm.

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And I realised that what was missing was the other parts of me that I wasn't showing, I wasn't

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talking to people like I actually care and I do care genuinely about people's business growth.

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That is what drives me and I wouldn't share about that.

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I also discovered the power of company pages, but back in 2020, No one else saw them

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for what, how I saw them and all the other LinkedIn trainers thought I was either a little

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bit crazy, maybe a little bit of genius in there, no one could really tell back then.

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And, when you're starting out and you want that respect from your peers.

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It's hard to stand on your own two feet.

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So if you know, in your heart of hearts, that what you do makes a difference for other people,

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then you have to back yourself and keep going.

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And I saw that in 2021, I went through some serious doubts.

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I wanted to throw away my company page niche because I couldn't quite work out

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how all the pieces would come together.

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I've got an amazing community around me that keep me on track and keep me on task.

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And you know how the story goes, I didn't end up throwing it away, but it was something that

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ultimately I'm so glad that I stuck with it.

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So if you are doubting your niche and it feels like if you narrow in too much, that

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you're going to exclude opportunities to grow your business because you're not going

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to show everyone that you can do everything.

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It's not how it works.

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And I think I might do a whole podcast episode on how the power of niching has

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really helped me grow my business because it's not that I can't sell any other services.

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It just means I'm known for one thing.

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And then I have products and services, which piggyback on that reputation.

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And that's probably been the hardest lesson for me.

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So if you get stuck with that, my advice is reach out to me, book an intro call, and we can

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have a chat and we can talk through how I think I might be able to help you get that resolved.

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so fast forward into 2022 and 2023.

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They were pretty cool years, but I was still figuring out my business in the background.

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As time's gone on and I realised the power of branding and positioning and

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messaging and all those other terms that once upon a time were foreign to me.

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I now understand that combined with how good I am at selling, which for me

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is problem solving and helping people.

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The more I combine them, the more powerful it is.

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So I get to show up as me, that word authenticity that we use often when it comes to social media.

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I'm being me, working with the clients that I love.

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I don't have interactions with people that don't share the same values as me.

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And I've built a strategic community with intentions so that I don't have

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to deal with things that I don't like.

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I don't get the wrong people reaching out to me.

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When I'm on sales calls it's much easier because we're almost pretty much done.

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They want to work with me and it's just about finding the right time,

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the right price and the right product.

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So yeah, it's just, I can't tell you that that's been my hardest lesson.

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And I've evolved over four years having my business.

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But it has made such a difference in 2024.

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If you want to listen to where I went with this for Operation Rebrand, I'll put

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the episode details in the show notes so you can go back and see what was it like,

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and why did I choose to do a rebrand?

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Here we are in 2024 and I am absolutely loving what I do.

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I've built an amazing community.

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I work with the best clients and, you know, collaborative partners as well.

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Those people that refer business to me, this is the power of building this community on LinkedIn.

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And I'm going to throw it out there, I'm a two times international

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bestseller due to collaborations.

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I have this podcast, which is successful.

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If you don't know about The LinkedIn Branding Show, it's another podcast that I co host as well.

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And I'm celebrating cause I just monetised my YouTube channel.

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And if you're not subscribed to that @MichelleJRaymond is where you'll find it.

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And if I think about all of this, these opportunities to do things that I never in

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a million years thought I would ever do have all happened because of my time on LinkedIn.

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I've met the best people.

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I have had so many opportunities to sell.

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That's still my favorite part.

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I'm not going to lie.

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I still love that part the most, but just everything that I've been able to achieve.

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And that includes, twice this year being able to speak on international stages on company pages,

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going to Social Media Marketing World in San Diego and the Linked Summit in Denmark, it's

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mind blowing the opportunities that come up.

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I was to summarise the lessons it's important to get started and stay consistent and persistent.

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It's important to work out your brand.

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Who are you?

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Where do you stand?

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Who do you want to work with?

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Who don't you want to work with?

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These kinds of things are really important and if you need some help.

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Buy a copy of The LinkedIn Branding Book, which is on Amazon.

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Again, we wrote that as a gift to those people coming after us who are just starting out, who may

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not also be aware of this, but you're a subject matter expert that when it comes to LinkedIn,

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you're starting to doubt yourself and doubt your expertise, just because you don't understand how

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this social media for business growth thing works.

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If you ever get stuck, please reach out to me.

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That is why B2B Growth Co exists.

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I'm here to help you listeners, not just on this podcast, but, I can work with you

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one on one to really get you unstuck, to stop you from underselling yourself and

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most importantly, grow your business.

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So I'm going to go back to celebrating.

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I think I'll grab myself a Tim Tam and smash one of those down.

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Thank you to everyone that's been a part of my LinkedIn journey.

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As we wrap up the show, I am going to share one quote, which I read a long time ago when

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I was starting out in my business, which really helped me get more out of LinkedIn.

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And that was don't compare your day one with someone else's day 100.

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And for me, that was a game changer because I kept looking at those that were far ahead of

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me and judging my performance based on theirs.

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And that's just not fair.

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And it wasn't doing me any good.

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Doing that to ourselves is not helping at all.

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So if you're just starting out, be kind to yourself until next week.

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Cheers