How do you sell more on LinkedIn when posting content alone isn't working? First recorded for The Futur Podcast, Chris Do interviews Michelle J Raymond and they look into the business side of LinkedIn.
Today's episode is sponsored by Metricool. Make sure to register for a FREE Metricool account today. Use Code MICHELLE30 to try any Premium Plan FREE for 30 days. https://i.mtr.cool/NEDXVZ
Key moments in this episode:
00:00 Introduction to a Milestone Podcast Episode
00:38 Flipping the Script: Michelle Gets Interviewed
04:17 The Journey to LinkedIn Success
07:55 Understanding the Resistance to LinkedIn
10:24 Effective LinkedIn Strategies for Businesses
28:01 The Power of Company Pages on LinkedIn
33:30 The Power of Two: A Personal Story
34:39 Employer Branding and Staff Turnover
35:54 Engaging Employees on LinkedIn
36:50 Overcoming LinkedIn Intimidation
41:04 Creating Effective Company Page Content
43:51 Thought Leadership and Originality
56:55 The Future of LinkedIn and Social Media
Connect with Chris Do on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/thechrisdo/
ABOUT MICHELLE J RAYMOND
Michelle J Raymond is an international LinkedIn™️ B2B Growth Coach. To continue the conversation, connect with Michelle on LinkedIn™️ and let her know you are part of the community of podcast listeners.
Connect with Michelle J Raymond on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/michellejraymond/
B2B Growth Co offers LinkedIn™️ Training for teams to build personal and business brands and a LinkedIn™️ Profile Recharge service for Founders/CEOs.
Book a free intro call to learn more - https://calendly.com/michelle-j-raymond/book-an-intro-call-15mins
Social Media for B2B Growth Podcast is a fully accessible podcast. Audio, Video, Transcript and guest details are available on our podcast website - https://socialmediaforb2bgrowthpodcast.com/
Subscribe to our YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/@MichelleJRaymond
#LinkedIn #LinkedInForBusiness #Branding
00:00:00
Michelle J Raymond: Podcast bucket list moment ticked off.
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I had the incredible opportunity to sit down with Chris Do on his, The Futur podcast,
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and we dug deep into B2B branding, making your business stand out and so much more.
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It's been one of my biggest highlights in 2024.
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And now it's your chance to listen in.
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G'day everyone.
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It is coach Michelle J Raymond, and this episode is going to be a little
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bit different to some of our previous episodes where I interview other people.
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You're going to hear this script flipped around and I'm being interviewed
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by the one and only Chris Do.
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Now, this was a special moment for me because I have wanted to talk
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to Chris for over two years now.
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He was one of the very first names that I wrote down when I started my
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podcast that I wanted to interview.
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And thanks to a connection of mine and friend Ilya, he made it
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happen and I jumped at the chance.
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And this conversation was everything that I wished it would be.
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And at the time of recording, there was over 15, 000 people have already watched the YouTube video.
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I've watched it a couple of times.
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I have to confess, and it really is that good.
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I'm just going to put it out there.
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It is a fantastic conversation, a practical conversation, that is going to help a
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lot of people get more out of LinkedIn.
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So the episode is a little longer than usual, but stick around to the end.
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Cause my favorite part, which makes me laugh.
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Is right there at the very end and Chris gives me some advice about what I should do if LinkedIn
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implodes and I no longer have a business.
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And I really hope that doesn't happen, but it's pretty funny.
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I'm really grateful that Chris has let me repurpose the content onto this podcast, so I
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can share it with you listeners, so my request is if you enjoy it as much as what I have and
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other people have let me know they have as well, please share it with your audience, do a post on
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LinkedIn, tag a friend, whatever you need to do.
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I would love to spread the messages within this podcast as far and wide as we can.
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We are going to get straight into this conversation after a quick
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word about our sponsors, Metricool.
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Now let's get into the fun part.
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Chris Do: Michelle, thank you very much for jumping on the podcast with me.
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How are you doing?
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Michelle J Raymond: I am doing fabulous and a G'Day from Sydney to all of your listeners that
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might be joining from anywhere in the world.
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Chris Do: And for people who don't know who you are, can you please introduce yourself and And
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tell us a little bit of your background story.
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Michelle J Raymond: Sure.
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So I'm Michelle J Raymond and the J is there just so you can find me on LinkedIn searches.
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It's not to make me sound smarter, which is what somebody asked me one day.
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I'm based here in Sydney, as I said, and I'm a LinkedIn specialist that trains businesses
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on how to get active on the platform.
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I've spent 20 years in B2B space in account management roles, sales roles.
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In the manufacturing industry, and it was always dirty and, you know, a bit nasty around the edges,
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but I was fascinated with how things get made.
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And I still am to this day.
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And you might be thinking like, what is account managing and, you know,
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manufacturing got to do with LinkedIn?
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And how am I here?
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Well, around 10 years ago, I started a new job in the chemical industry.
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So I used to sell raw materials and ingredients that go into beauty products.
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And I turned up at a new job in a new industry.
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And I just got my job through LinkedIn.
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Pretty common story back around then.
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What happened was my boss gave me a customer list of 80 clients.
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So I was spread around Australia.
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So picture that it's the same size as the U S with 10, 000 different
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ingredients to sell and said, go and sell.
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And I was like, I don't know how this maths adds up, but I can't be everywhere.
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It's just physically impossible.
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And so I'd been messing around with creating some content on LinkedIn.
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And I said to him, do you mind if I do this for this job?
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And he goes, why not?
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What's, what's LinkedIn?
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I was like, Oh, you know, where you get your jobs through.
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And he's like, yeah.
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And is it free?
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And I was like, I think so.
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And he said to me, I don't care.
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Just go and sell.
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And so off I went and figured out if you build an amazing community strategically
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on LinkedIn, and then you create content, that's a value to that community.
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Boy, did those sales come through.
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And so I am unashamedly come from a sales background, but I, when I set up my own
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business, uh, in, you know, four years ago, I really had to get across personal branding,
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quick, smart, and branding for my business as well, because shout out to any marketers
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that has had the sales team take credit.
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For all of their work and the sales team takes all the glory for the sale.
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I didn't realize the power of branding and marketing.
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So I just want to shout out to any marketers that might be feeling like
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the sales team doesn't appreciate you.
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I can honestly
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Chris Do: say I do now.
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That's a great story.
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So you've been doing content on LinkedIn for as long as I've been doing content on YouTube.
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So I'm super excited to talk to you.
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One point of distinction here, if I heard you correctly.
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You, you help businesses get on to LinkedIn, right?
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Michelle J Raymond: Typically, Chris, it's those people that say.
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We know we should be on LinkedIn, but, and, you know, they've identified that all of
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their target audience is on the platform.
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That's where the decision makers are hanging out, but they've been hesitant,
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especially in the business to business space.
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It really is just getting started now, which is crazy to think that, you know, the B2C and
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e commerce, they've been online for 15, 20 years, but in business to business, it's not.
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It is literally just getting started, which it's mind blowing for me.
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Chris Do: Okay.
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There's a lot for me to try to figure out with you.
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These businesses who know they should be on there know that this is potentially the most
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concentration of entrepreneurs and businesses who are looking to work with people, to hire
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people, the fact that they're not there.
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The psychology of what these businesses are going through.
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What is the, what's causing resistance or friction for them?
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Why they don't do it.
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Michelle J Raymond: I think we have to rewind to a time before there
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was that thing called the internet.
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And I have been selling for long enough to remember those times.
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And if you go back to that time, the whole way that business was done was people like me in
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account management roles would go around and build relationships one on one with customers.
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And it was all about the little black book.
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It was all about keeping secrets.
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You didn't want your competitors to know who you were working with, what you were
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selling them, what price you were doing.
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And then if we fast forward, so that's where success came from.
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Fast forward now, You've got information at your fingertips at a rate that just is mind blowing.
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But what hasn't happened is the culture of selling hasn't caught up.
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We've still got the same old KPIs, you know, customer visits, how many calls do you have?
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Like these kinds of things.
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And ultimately what's happening is people still want to keep everything a secret.
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Now in an online world and selling online, we're asking them to throw that all out of the window.
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And now start to share everything with everybody.
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You can see people that have been in that business often in senior
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leadership positions are just going.
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Are you guys nuts?
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There's no way we want to tell people, except now they've realized that some of
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their competitors have got the jump on them.
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And we're back at that point now where it's like, well, if you don't go
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now, you're going to get left behind.
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Like all of those internet deniers back then that stuck with, you know, the advertising in
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the phone book, you know, where are they now?
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They, they disappear.
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And so, you know, often with these kinds of industries, they don't have
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a lot of repeat business, a lot of ongoing business, a lot of history.
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But it's like, what's happening now that these new players are coming into the market and,
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you know, they're just getting caught out.
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Chris Do: I'm glad you brought that perspective to the conversation that what has worked in the past
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historically is the thing that's actually keeping you from taking advantage of the next paradigm.
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There's definitely a shift here that's gone on, not only from a technological
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point of view, but how we communicate.
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Ways of thinking it used to be.
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It's about secrets, trade secrets, and protecting IP, certain processes, non disclosures.
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And today in the age, in time of social media and social currency, it's all about
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transparency and the relationship, the stickiness of your brand and your communication style
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and building community who seeks you out.
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So you're not so much chasing them.
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And that's okay.
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That's perfect.
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I think you gave us the right kind of context for us to understand why the kinds of people that we
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typically talk to the LinkedIn experts are really trying to help solopreneurs, solo operators.
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So I'd like for us to focus more on the business component to draw a sharper distinction
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between the kind of expertise that you have.
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I'm going to ask this in a very selfish way.
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And maybe you can, maybe this is a way for us to get into our conversation together.
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I've been very fortunate to get a decent size following on LinkedIn.
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And I'm also very fortunate to have the kind of engagement and community that I have.
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I've not been able to be very effective at converting those people.
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And I'd love to get your insight on this in any which way you think this is
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going to be a productive conversation.
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Michelle J Raymond: Yeah, look, and that is a pretty common question that I get asked,
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you know, and I love that you've shared that because I think people, when they're
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starting out on LinkedIn, Also, uh, faced with this mountain of, hang on a minute.
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I'm active on the platform.
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I'm putting in all of this effort and I'm not getting any return on that investment.
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And I actually think that the problem that's happened on LinkedIn.
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And it's a bit of a controversial opinion here.
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And I'm just going to put it out there is that there is this under current
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of don't be salesy on LinkedIn.
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And I'm not sure where it started and I'm not going to point the finger at anybody.
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But what I think happened was we got so focused on being of service of
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people, which I'm absolutely on board.
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Right?
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So just to put it out there, sales for me is problem solving and helping people.
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That's all it is for me.
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But what I think happened was we're so busy sharing knowledge and empowering others and,
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you know, being of service that we forget to talk about what we do, the problems we
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solve and how our business exists literally to solve problems for other people.
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Like businesses exist so that you can get paid to make problems go away.
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I think we've just made sales a dirty word.
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And I think it's to do with there's so many bad DMS, like I, as we discussed just before, you have
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an inbox full of spam DMS that are directed at products that you probably have no interest in.
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You've never expressed a need for it.
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You can't even understand why they're even targeting you because
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it is just this mass numbers.
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Spray and pray approach, which is just awful.
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I, you know, I'm not someone that advocates for anything along those lines.
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I think we forgot the strategy for the business on why we're there.
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And it's not a bad thing to talk about what you do and the problems that you
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solve and it's all great to be helpful.
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I love being helpful.
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It's part of my brand.
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It's my, you know, it's why I love your content so much, but there's also
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a piece of it's okay to be helpful.
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Salesy, as people say.
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I
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Chris Do: understand that we get to play because we're paid at some point.
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And so if we want to continue to play and be of service to people, we've
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got to make sure we pay some bills.
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Are there specific strategies?
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Cause I am one of those people.
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I'm I'll, I'll throw myself out there.
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I tell people your content sucks.
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Your content isn't highly engaged.
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No one shows up to yourself because it's so pretty much like following the advertising model.
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And you're pitching to me nonstop on your content.
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And I keep telling people, maybe the first thing you need to do show up for the people, do, do
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something that feels like an act of generosity, and then eventually you can ask them for the sale.
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So let's say I'm in that space.
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Like I just went and pulled up my analytics here.
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Are you a big analytics person?
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Michelle J Raymond: I wouldn't say so.
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I love looking at the demographics part of analytics, but the numbers, because
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they're so far out of our control and quite often they tell a pretty bad story.
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Um, for a lot of people, I think they put them off from just being persistent.
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So I'm on the fence is where I'd say with analytics.
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Chris Do: If you've ever looked at analytics, you'll know 10 times more than I, because I was
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recently chatting with somebody from LinkedIn and I'm like, okay, let me pull up my analytics.
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Cause I didn't even know what we're talking about.
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So I'm going to share some analytics with you.
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It's not to say it's good or bad, but I want you to listen to analytics and then say,
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okay, Chris, I see some problems already in feel free to say whatever you want.
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Okay.
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So I pulled it up here on LinkedIn.
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I'm looking at my thing.
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It says 334, 000 post impressions in the last seven days, which is
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up 110 percent cause I've been.
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A little bit more consistent.
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It says 36, 000 profile views in the last 90 days.
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8, 500 search appearances in the previous week.
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Those sound like really good numbers to me, but this is not reflective of any sales that
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we're doing in terms of like real dollars in our bank account or prospects that are qualified.
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What am I not doing or what should I be doing or whatever it is?
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What, what are your, what's your perspective on this?
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Michelle J Raymond: Absolutely.
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There would be people listening to this, myself included, that would dream
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about having high numbers like that.
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You know, the reality is for a lot of people.
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They're lucky to get a thousand impressions in total for the week.
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And so relying on posting content alone, I think is where people come unstuck.
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Your way of doing business and who you are and what you've set up is a little bit different
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to the everyday business that's out there.
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I would fit you more in the influencer category, which is completely different
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to a normal everyday business.
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So I'm going to talk to the marketers that might be out there, um, or business
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owners that are looking at this, but I think there's an element of.
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You know, I call it what goes around comes around.
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It's what my Nan taught me.
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And some of that is what do you do outside of your content?
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Do you have a strategy for actually reaching out and connecting with those in your target audience
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and nurturing those, you know, social selling for me is finding the right people, connecting
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with them and nurturing those relationships.
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So when they're ready to buy.
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You are the first person or brand that they think of.
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Now, a lot of people think the strategy on LinkedIn is content alone.
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And they keep saying to me, Michelle, like, how do you have so much success?
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And I'm like.
00:16:12
Because it's the things you can't see.
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Yes, I post content on two company pages and my personal profile pretty much daily,
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every week for as long as you can remember, what you can't see is how thoughtful I am.
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I might see an opportunity for someone that has nothing to do with me.
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I've got nothing in it for me, but I will connect to people and say,
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Hey, you should have a look at this.
00:16:35
And so.
00:16:35
You know, it's about using the search bar.
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I would put, you know, a lot of dollars on a bet that most people don't use the search
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bar as part of their LinkedIn strategy.
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It is the most underrated feature that's there.
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Why?
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Because they're too busy scrolling and you have to keep in mind that when people are scrolling,
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LinkedIn's job is to keep you distracted.
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They're very good at it.
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So you.
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Have more ads go past your eyes, you know, ultimately that's how
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they're making a ton of money.
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Your job, however, is to put the blinkers on, try and get out of that
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home feed and get back into a strategy.
00:17:12
What's the game plan?
00:17:13
Who are you targeting, Chris?
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So that would be my first question.
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Who's your dream customers that you would love to work with?
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Because if you can tell me that.
00:17:20
I can tell you how I can give you a LinkedIn strategy to find those people connect with
00:17:25
them and then go in through that process.
00:17:28
But most people don't even have a dream customer that they're trying to target in the first place.
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So they're just kind of going all over the place on LinkedIn and then end up exhausted.
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LinkedIn doesn't work for them and moving on to the next platform where they
00:17:42
have probably the same problem as well.
00:17:44
Chris Do: Can I tell you what I think our dream customer is?
00:17:46
And we continue down this rabbit hole.
00:17:48
You're the first person I've had on to talk about LinkedIn, who's even mentioned the search bar.
00:17:51
So already this is kind of interesting as you can tell audience, hang in there.
00:17:55
We're going to get to some gold.
00:17:56
I feel, I feel like the metal detector is going beep, beep.
00:17:59
I think there's something going on here.
00:18:01
Everybody, my dream customer is pretty straightforward.
00:18:03
I understand who they are.
00:18:05
They're a creative entrepreneur.
00:18:06
And when I say creative, I don't mean you draw or you paint, you're a professionally trained service
00:18:11
provider and you're solving a problem and you're usually creating bespoke solutions for people.
00:18:16
It's not a productized business.
00:18:18
You're probably us base or in a country where there's good arbitrage and currency
00:18:23
exchange, because we price via the U S dollar.
00:18:26
So if you're in a country where the exchange is horrible, it's, you're probably not a customer.
00:18:29
You've been in business for three to five years at MIT at a minimum.
00:18:33
You have a couple of people on your team.
00:18:35
So you're under 10 people, but you're definitely not over 30 because we don't solve those
00:18:39
kinds of problems and you're in business.
00:18:41
So you've made somewhere between a couple hundred thousand dollars a year to possibly two and a
00:18:45
half million dollars, but you're looking to grow.
00:18:48
You found out a lot of success early on, and now you're hitting that
00:18:51
plateau and you need business help.
00:18:54
And that's, I think where we come in and we serve that market.
00:18:56
Michelle J Raymond: Yeah, absolutely.
00:18:57
So with all of those things in mind, things like, you know, that they're in the U S
00:19:01
predominantly, that doesn't mean you can't serve anyone else, but then we can narrow it down.
00:19:06
And if you go to the search bar, you can use keywords, you could type in a target client.
00:19:11
You could, um, Narrow that geography down to actually, we know that we have more success
00:19:17
with local entrepreneurs in LA, for instance, and you know, you'll probably find more than
00:19:23
enough results to keep you busy in that.
00:19:26
Then strategically move on to the next area.
00:19:28
So there are filters for finding those, you know, kind of geography areas.
00:19:34
You can then go into industries.
00:19:36
You might realize that most of them are working in marketing services.
00:19:40
You might actually find that you've got a particular niche for people coming from
00:19:44
manufacturing, like I did, but start to think about if you were to look at where most of
00:19:49
your inquiries have come from with these new clients that have reached out from other
00:19:53
platforms, what did they all have in common, like, That you could use the search filters.
00:19:58
So location, industries, you can see sizes of the company.
00:20:02
You could go and find those target companies as such.
00:20:06
You could put business sizes like this, all kinds of different ways you can do this.
00:20:09
And this is for free, right?
00:20:11
You don't need LinkedIn sales navigator.
00:20:13
I'm not a fan of LinkedIn sales navigator for most people.
00:20:17
Why?
00:20:18
It's like giving a Ferrari to a learner driver.
00:20:21
It is super powerful.
00:20:22
There's nothing wrong with the actual product.
00:20:23
It is a brilliant product.
00:20:25
It's just not the right product for most people starting out that don't even have a sales process.
00:20:30
The search bar is a much more user friendly version of that.
00:20:34
A paired back version that you can really focus on.
00:20:37
What am I looking for?
00:20:39
Now, the more that you can refine that, and quite often what happens is you teach By
00:20:45
connecting with a few people strategically, because it's going to give you a list.
00:20:49
And then what happens is it will start to think, Oh, how about you connect with
00:20:54
this person based on your recent searches.
00:20:57
We think you might like this.
00:20:59
And so there's other ways that LinkedIn wants to support you.
00:21:02
Why go back to their motivation.
00:21:05
The more that you love hanging out on LinkedIn and it delivers results,
00:21:09
the more you watch ads, right?
00:21:10
So they want you to be successful.
00:21:12
They want you to find the right answers.
00:21:14
And quite often it's finding the first one or two people.
00:21:18
And that could be someone that's like a micro influencer.
00:21:20
That's got everybody hanging out with them.
00:21:23
So find a much smaller creator.
00:21:24
That's like the, the mini Chris Doe of your ideal client in that industry and go and see
00:21:29
who's hanging out with them and hang out there.
00:21:32
And it just becomes so much easier.
00:21:34
Chris Do: Okay.
00:21:35
So as I'm searching for my ideal customer, eventually I'm going to hit paydirt.
00:21:39
And once I find that LinkedIn is already trained to make other suggestions and recommendations,
00:21:45
there, there are more people like that around here, and now that I found this person,
00:21:49
what is the next step that I need to do?
00:21:51
Michelle J Raymond: I think the next thing is just to take a look and
00:21:53
show up and support that person.
00:21:55
You know, often a cold DM or a random connection request from someone you don't know.
00:22:01
Most people are sitting there with their arms crossed, stay the heck away from me because
00:22:06
they're getting bombarded all day, every day.
00:22:08
And so from that perspective, if we just slow this process down, right, there's no rush in
00:22:14
trying to build these relationships, which I think is also another mistake that people make.
00:22:18
They think, find them, connect with them, sell to them, bang, bang, bang, bang.
00:22:22
Oh, they didn't buy from me.
00:22:23
And I think most selling that I've done in my career, it took 18 months, sometimes longer,
00:22:29
give or take, you know, up to five years.
00:22:31
So, you know, there's no need to try and just wham, bam, thank you, ma'am.
00:22:35
You know, it's like, just slow down.
00:22:37
So go and support their content.
00:22:39
If they're creating, send them a personalized connection message to say,
00:22:44
why do you want to connect with them?
00:22:46
And I often say, I'm trying to build my community of say, Sydney marketing managers, you know,
00:22:51
Here's what you can expect from my content.
00:22:54
Uh, don't worry.
00:22:55
You won't receive a spam message if we connect, you know, because I have a job title or a
00:22:59
headline on LinkedIn that people get a bit nervous about and I want to put them at ease, right?
00:23:04
I want them to know why I come and I'm waving my little white flag.
00:23:08
I come in peace and I'm just coming with curiosity.
00:23:13
I want to know more about them.
00:23:15
You can't sell a product to someone that has no need, doesn't want to buy, And
00:23:21
there's no point trying to sell to them.
00:23:22
But if you come into those direct messages after connecting, you know, park the sales
00:23:27
side over on the bench for a moment and just think, what can I learn about this person?
00:23:32
It takes the pressure off you and God, it makes a different experience to them because
00:23:37
they literally are now no longer going.
00:23:40
Oh my God, I've got to duck and weave because this person's trying to get me.
00:23:43
No, nothing feels worse than someone trying to get you on LinkedIn.
00:23:47
So slowing things down, just go in with curiosity makes a huge difference.
00:23:52
Chris Do: Okay, Michelle, I'm jaded.
00:23:54
I think, because when people say, I just want to connect, I promise you, I'm not
00:23:58
going to spam you or sell you anything.
00:24:00
I actually know they are going to sell me something eventually.
00:24:02
So I'm like, uh, I don't really want to get into this conversation right now and I can
00:24:06
tell like the way they ask questions like Chris, what are you working on right now?
00:24:10
I'm like, I know where this is going.
00:24:11
You're prospecting me right now I don't know you from adam and i'm not really that interested
00:24:16
in this So do you think that that's a pretty typical reaction or is it because I get bombed
00:24:21
so much and relentlessly like every day?
00:24:23
It's just in my inbox I
00:24:26
Michelle J Raymond: think it's absolutely the experience of most people on LinkedIn every day.
00:24:31
So as the good guys of LinkedIn trying to do things different, you have to be
00:24:35
aware and mindful of that, whether it's someone like yourself or it's a C suite
00:24:40
decision maker, or it's a, anyone that's got founder or business owner in their title.
00:24:45
Typically gets absolutely targeted by lazy people that aren't willing to do the work.
00:24:53
And so you have to be mindful of that.
00:24:55
And you can't just say, Hey, I'm not going to spam you and then go and do it because
00:24:59
you know, you've broken that digital trust, which once you break that, I don't believe
00:25:03
you can ever recover from that position.
00:25:05
And this is where it's, I've always scratched my head about these people that are trying
00:25:09
to connect with a thousand people, burning 999 relationships to try and get one.
00:25:16
And I'm like, what is going on here?
00:25:18
Now, keeping that in mind, what can you do?
00:25:22
Show up, be of service, be of value, and just keep chipping away at these things.
00:25:28
And I would say in fairness to those that are looking for quick wins on
00:25:32
LinkedIn, I don't think they exist.
00:25:35
You might get lucky by being active.
00:25:37
But realistically take time, quite often businesses don't have time to take.
00:25:43
And this is where I think sometimes that urgency comes across where they think more is better,
00:25:47
but I would actually say, like, come back down and write a list of 10 accounts that you wish
00:25:52
you could work with and see what you can do with those first, follow up the connection messages.
00:25:57
If someone accepts, you know, see if you can ask them a question.
00:26:00
So my secret is someone connects with the message.
00:26:04
Then trying to get one question to ask them about them.
00:26:09
Don't be the person at the party that spends their whole time talking
00:26:11
about themselves, because guess what?
00:26:14
Nobody's interested.
00:26:16
Like they couldn't care less.
00:26:18
And I think you have to realize that.
00:26:20
And maybe it's because I've been in sales for so long.
00:26:22
Like it is literally no one cares.
00:26:25
They do care.
00:26:27
If you've got a solution to a problem that they have, then they're interested.
00:26:31
And that may not be today.
00:26:32
But it may be later.
00:26:33
So just questions like, you know, what's your favorite part about your
00:26:37
job is often a question that I ask them.
00:26:40
What do you like least?
00:26:41
Uh, what do you, you know, sometimes they reach out to me.
00:26:43
It's like, what's the hardest part of LinkedIn for you?
00:26:46
Not here's what I can sell you.
00:26:47
Here's my training program.
00:26:48
Here's how I work with businesses.
00:26:50
None of that even gets into the conversation until I can really understand what is a problem
00:26:56
that you have that I can help you solve.
00:26:58
And if there's no problem, there's no sale.
00:27:01
It's, you know, coming back to that again.
00:27:03
Chris Do: I like this idea that you need to be of service and if there's no problem for you
00:27:07
to solve, don't go chasing down that thing.
00:27:09
I also like that you're saying just focus on 10 people right now.
00:27:12
Don't try to do this in bulk or in mass because it usually doesn't work.
00:27:15
Get to know some folks, ask smart, open ended questions, get to know the person, don't talk
00:27:19
about yourself because no one's that interested in you but maybe your mom and dad, if that.
00:27:23
Okay, so if I reach out and they start engaging, I find the problem, I kind
00:27:27
of know what to do at this point.
00:27:29
So I, I think there are so many conversations we've had on our channel about this part.
00:27:34
I think you kind of gave me something to think about.
00:27:36
Is there a different strategy that you have in terms of helping businesses to grow?
00:27:39
Because it sounds like a lot of this is social prospecting, showing up, being
00:27:44
of service, maybe commenting on their posts, adding some kind of values that
00:27:48
you're not coming in, blindsiding them.
00:27:49
Or maybe there's already a connection that's, that's already there that
00:27:52
you don't have to work that hard for.
00:27:53
And then to do that hard work.
00:27:55
And to start to engage with them in, in the, in the DMs.
00:27:58
Is there something else that we need to do or to be aware of?
00:28:01
Michelle J Raymond: A lot of people may not know, but I'm also known as the company pages queen.
00:28:06
And I'm pretty sure that nobody else that's been on your show will
00:28:08
talk about company pages like I do.
00:28:11
I could probably hear.
00:28:12
The groans or the, you know, see the eye rolls of some people going,
00:28:16
Oh no, company pages on LinkedIn.
00:28:18
Are we really going there?
00:28:20
Yes, we're really going there.
00:28:22
And I want to talk about them a little bit differently to how you may have done it.
00:28:26
So we're not talking old school where it's just PR comms messages going out all about
00:28:31
the business, all about here's our latest, you know, hire or fire or turnover or whatever,
00:28:36
these kinds of, you know, poor content.
00:28:39
I want to talk about something that I call page advocacy.
00:28:42
And so this is for people who are managing company pages on LinkedIn right now.
00:28:48
Everybody talks about employee advocacy.
00:28:51
How can you get employees to start posting content, talking about the business
00:28:56
and generating opportunities that way?
00:28:58
Like, you know, they're a dime a dozen right now, but what I want to talk about
00:29:02
is you can actually use your company page.
00:29:05
To set those employees up for success.
00:29:08
Now for your listeners, it might be the employee and the business owner.
00:29:12
It's a one on one relationship and they are the one and same thing.
00:29:16
That's exactly how I got started.
00:29:18
And I managed to use my company page to build up the Michelle J.
00:29:22
Raymond brand faster than I could do by myself alone, even though nobody
00:29:27
knew my company, it was brand new.
00:29:29
Because on LinkedIn, Chris, the amazing thing about company pages, especially for small
00:29:34
businesses is that you get the same features, the same space, the same functions, and this
00:29:41
isn't about, do we get the same reach on posts between company page and profile, right?
00:29:46
Put that to the side.
00:29:47
Absolutely not.
00:29:48
Of course, I'm not here to change anyone's mind on that.
00:29:51
But if, when Michelle J.
00:29:53
Raymond posts, there's always this company brand that shows up and supports it.
00:29:58
And you start connecting those two brands together.
00:30:01
I now appear a much bigger business.
00:30:03
A more legitimate business.
00:30:05
I've now got the power of not just my personal brand, but also the company brand.
00:30:10
And the two of them working together is that one plus one equals three.
00:30:14
There's a real synergy between getting them to work together.
00:30:17
And people get so focused on, Hey, it's all about how the posts perform.
00:30:22
And if you just park that for a moment and go, yep, I'm not here to tell you anything different.
00:30:27
But how else can you use that company brand to be the booster and really put
00:30:32
the spotlight on you or your employees.
00:30:35
And so things like company pages can comment on posts, company pages can repost employee posts.
00:30:42
And if you're the employee, you're the business owner, you're the consultant, it's fine.
00:30:46
Do that.
00:30:47
You are only going to help build that personal brand.
00:30:49
And so I want people to look at it as.
00:30:52
How can I use this other side of LinkedIn to support building the personal brands
00:30:58
of my employees or myself and, you know, looking at it from a fresh perspective.
00:31:03
You know, this is the thing that people cut that side of LinkedIn off because
00:31:06
they just look at post impressions.
00:31:08
But page advocacy, I think is a shortcut to really giving you that step up when
00:31:14
your competitors aren't doing that.
00:31:16
Chris Do: Fascinating.
00:31:17
You're right about reaching engagement on company pages.
00:31:19
I tell people it's dead.
00:31:20
Don't even bother because you're not going to get the kind of impression.
00:31:23
But you're talking about like, this is the way, weirdly, you boost each other
00:31:28
and you kind of create the impression that there's a lot more going on here.
00:31:32
Now I have a practical question.
00:31:33
I have other kinds of concerns here and hopefully you can address them, which is.
00:31:37
Do you write in two different voices?
00:31:39
Does the company write a certain way and then Michelle writes a different way?
00:31:42
And so if even though you're writing both posts, do you dawn a different voice or persona?
00:31:46
Michelle J Raymond: Look, they're pretty similar, but there is a slight difference.
00:31:50
You know, maybe on the company page it's a bit more third person, but the company
00:31:53
page is Michelle j Raymond's biggest fan, you know, like, so you'll check out the
00:31:57
post on B2B Growth Co is my company page.
00:32:00
And you'll see Michelle J.
00:32:01
Raymond says this.
00:32:02
So I tag myself.
00:32:04
So if anyone comes across there and happens to discover my company page, because
00:32:07
if you have a look at your analytics on your page, it will show up in searches.
00:32:11
And the thing that I want you to keep in mind is if somebody was to Google your business
00:32:16
name, your LinkedIn company page, if you have one is going to be in the first few results.
00:32:21
Why?
00:32:21
Because LinkedIn is a trusted platform.
00:32:23
We can piggyback off their reputation.
00:32:26
Now, if someone comes across onto LinkedIn and finds a company page, Is it going to be a ghost
00:32:31
town, which is a poor reflection on who you are as a brand, or is it going to be something that
00:32:37
rolls out the red carpet, welcomes them in, and it's really clear they're in the right place?
00:32:41
And I've worked with people in, you know, close to 20 countries around the world now.
00:32:46
I don't want to give them a reason to not trust me as a small business owner.
00:32:51
I want them to know that I'm the real deal.
00:32:53
This isn't just a hobby for me.
00:32:55
It's not just something I do on the side.
00:32:57
And so by having a legit company page that just ticks over, I'm not
00:33:01
putting as much effort into it.
00:33:03
But it is just reminding people, Hey, Michelle J.
00:33:06
Raymond said this, and I've got two opportunities to show up now.
00:33:09
And so I don't know how people land on my page or my profile or how they find me.
00:33:15
It can be in all kinds of funny ways, but I want to make sure that they get the best impression.
00:33:20
I know you're on team branding.
00:33:22
I know branding is important to you and you know, the power of it.
00:33:25
Just think if you've got two brands working together, in this case, two's better than one.
00:33:30
Chris Do: This is a short question, but.
00:33:31
Is this part of your, the power of two?
00:33:34
Yes, it is the part of the
00:33:35
Michelle J Raymond: power of two.
00:33:36
It came probably from another side of things, because Chris, you may not know it, but
00:33:42
once upon a time I stole 5, 000 followers from the company that I worked for, this
00:33:47
is a scenario that plays out every day in businesses and you think about it, so I shared
00:33:52
that I got started on LinkedIn because of the job that I had in the chemicals industry.
00:33:57
I built the world's most amazing community built around beauty and personal care, and it literally
00:34:04
hit 5, 000 followers and it was super niche.
00:34:07
I didn't know any better.
00:34:09
I was just connecting with people that would be interested, which makes sense in hindsight,
00:34:13
but ultimately I then eventually changed jobs.
00:34:17
The company that I worked for while I was setting that all up and it was under my personal account.
00:34:23
I eventually left.
00:34:25
They had nobody else in the business, creating content, nothing on the company page, and
00:34:30
ultimately the whole community went with me into my next job, where I started talking about
00:34:35
these products are the most amazing ingredients.
00:34:37
And so they got left with nothing.
00:34:39
And so if you think about it, there's staff turnover in businesses everywhere, right?
00:34:43
That's just a fact of life.
00:34:45
So what do you do when they leave?
00:34:47
So if you've got the hero, that's got a really great community in your
00:34:50
business, what happens if they leave?
00:34:52
What happens to your brand?
00:34:53
And the other part of it is how do you attract the best of the best to come and work for your brand?
00:34:58
So there's a couple of different angles and having people poke around.
00:35:03
Cause when you apply for jobs through LinkedIn, you go to the company page, you have
00:35:06
a look around, what are you going to find?
00:35:08
So if you want the best of the best to work for you, there's one angle.
00:35:11
So that's employer branding, and that can be important.
00:35:14
But also what happens is when people and staff turn over and as the younger
00:35:19
generations turn over jobs more frequently, what are you left with in the business?
00:35:23
And so this is what I want people to have a look about, and this is why
00:35:26
it's definitely the power of two.
00:35:28
Chris Do: There's a lesson to learn on both sides of this, which is.
00:35:31
You're not going to have your job forever.
00:35:33
You might leave or you might get fired.
00:35:35
They might cut back their staff So if you build up your personal brand Some of those people will
00:35:40
follow you but this is a cautionary tale for businesses who don't mind their corporate page and
00:35:46
they just People are coming and going and all of a sudden they're like, Hey, all our leads dried up.
00:35:49
What happened?
00:35:50
It's because you gave them nothing else to engage with and it goes dead.
00:35:54
We don't have that many people working for us.
00:35:56
But I find that many of my staff don't like being on social media.
00:36:02
It's not a regular habit or routine for them.
00:36:05
And especially to be on LinkedIn.
00:36:07
So we have fairly low engagement for my own team.
00:36:11
Because if we took everything that you talked about, the power of two, Which I like.
00:36:14
And then you multiply that across eight employees.
00:36:17
That's the power of, I don't know, 64.
00:36:20
I don't know what it is.
00:36:21
How do you deal with that?
00:36:22
Is that a company policy thing?
00:36:23
Is this a culture thing?
00:36:24
What's going on there?
00:36:25
Michelle J Raymond: That's a human nature thing.
00:36:27
You know, there's so many online studies that show basically nine out of 10
00:36:32
people never ever want to, in an online community, show that they're available.
00:36:37
Especially on LinkedIn, I think you probably within your staff, out of those people, you
00:36:41
might have some people that are really great at TikTok or maybe Instagram, or they've, you know,
00:36:46
been established on Facebook for a long time.
00:36:48
And these kinds of things are very common.
00:36:50
LinkedIn is intimidating.
00:36:52
It's a platform that scares people.
00:36:54
I don't care whether you're a CEO that's had 50 years of experience and leading massive
00:36:59
corporations or someone that's starting out fresh out of college or university.
00:37:04
Everywhere in between, most people do not want to be active on LinkedIn.
00:37:08
And this is where page advocacy can really come into play here.
00:37:12
Because I've found that with the teams that I work with and the businesses that
00:37:16
I work with quite often, you can get those people to create some great content
00:37:21
that can go out under the company page.
00:37:24
They're happy as long as it doesn't have their name on it.
00:37:26
Right.
00:37:26
And so you can literally start people from there.
00:37:30
Okay.
00:37:30
Get comfortable, get, you know, you can hide behind the company logo and put
00:37:35
your work out there and get them feeling much more comfortable and relaxed.
00:37:40
I would say that everybody within the business is on a spectrum and having someone that's, you know,
00:37:45
And you make sure that they have a proper context, and you make sure that they're topless, you know,
00:37:47
the right amount and like content regulation.
00:37:47
A team of people that is confident to create content regularly.
00:37:48
That's the one out of 10, you know, and you should really, you know, nurture that
00:37:53
person and look after them and appreciate and acknowledge them because they are the unicorn.
00:37:59
And so w what do you do with the rest of the team?
00:38:01
Will you ask them?
00:38:02
can they take baby steps first.
00:38:04
So I often during training would say, if you're one of those people that is currently
00:38:09
affectionately known as a LinkedIn lurker, i.
00:38:11
e.
00:38:11
you log in, take a look around, don't click on any buttons and then disappear.
00:38:16
All I ask you to do is see if it's okay.
00:38:19
If you will like a post from one of your teammates or the company page.
00:38:23
Start with the baby step.
00:38:24
And when you're comfortable with that, maybe you'll move up to hitting repost, right?
00:38:29
And repost from an algorithm perspective is not great, right?
00:38:33
It's not really going to make that much difference to anything, but it's that step and that
00:38:38
action, that's that giant leap for some people.
00:38:41
Like it really is.
00:38:42
When you have empathy for the people that work for you, then you really
00:38:45
understand that that's a big deal.
00:38:48
And then you go and you appreciate them as a business leader.
00:38:51
You have to go and acknowledge that that person did that and that you create that safe space
00:38:56
for them to then take the next step, which might be leaving a comment on the company page post.
00:39:01
And, you know, I know that there's so much bagging out on LinkedIn, you know, don't
00:39:06
go and reshare the company blog or, you know, You know, that's, that's bad practice.
00:39:10
And I think, yes, if we're just talking about the world from a LinkedIn algorithm perspective,
00:39:16
but we live in a much bigger world than that.
00:39:18
And I think it's really important just to acknowledge that that could be a really
00:39:22
huge step for somebody in your team.
00:39:23
So taking that next little baby step and then compounding on that and going on to the next one.
00:39:29
Where they're at in a year could be that they're comfortable in putting one post out a week.
00:39:34
And so just meeting them where they're at with empathy and just going, what do you need?
00:39:40
Cause quite often people don't actually know how to use LinkedIn.
00:39:43
They, they pretend they do.
00:39:44
Cause it seems like everybody else does.
00:39:46
And so, you know, having conversations with them and trying to discover.
00:39:51
What would make it worth it for you as an individual, for me to
00:39:55
help you build your personal brand.
00:39:57
And when you connect it to them, because a lot of people, Chris, this is what
00:40:01
happens in their brain, they go, if I do a post, what will people think?
00:40:06
It's all been said before.
00:40:08
They're judging me.
00:40:08
They might laugh at me.
00:40:09
I'm dumb.
00:40:11
English is my second language.
00:40:12
Like the list of fears goes on in people's heads.
00:40:15
If I stuff this up, am I going to lose my job?
00:40:19
That might mean in the U S I'm going to lose my healthcare benefits.
00:40:24
I'm going to lose my house.
00:40:26
I'm going to lose my car.
00:40:27
I'm not going to be able to do my holiday.
00:40:29
And so that's, what's going on for people.
00:40:31
Cause it, it really is tied to their income, which is.
00:40:34
Yeah.
00:40:34
Super scary.
00:40:35
Can we just put that out there?
00:40:37
It's super scary for people.
00:40:39
This is why I kind of bring this up.
00:40:40
Just have some empathy that it is scary and see what can you do for
00:40:44
them to help them take that next step.
00:40:46
Chris Do: We kind of covered this idea that you can post on the page.
00:40:48
You can engage with your own self.
00:40:51
The voice can even be very similar.
00:40:53
Like it's like a very close cousin, first cousin, and it's all okay.
00:40:56
And you give each other credibility, engagement, and it's a wonderful thing.
00:41:00
Is there more that we need to know about company pages?
00:41:04
Michelle J Raymond: Yeah, can we stop creating crap content on company pages, please?
00:41:09
Please!
00:41:09
Okay.
00:41:10
This is a public service announcement.
00:41:12
I'm just, I've got my, I've got my shot to say company page content has been horrific, right?
00:41:18
It literally looks like an ad, smells like an ad, feels like an ad, and
00:41:23
nobody needs more ads in their life.
00:41:25
And I know you and I can probably agree on that one that we're not coming onto social.
00:41:30
I think, you know, you wrote something, we're not coming onto social to see an ad and the
00:41:34
same goes with your company page content.
00:41:36
And so for me, it's all about having the right balance and keeping it
00:41:40
in service of your ideal client.
00:41:42
Talking about those problems.
00:41:43
Again, we're coming back to that.
00:41:44
How do you solve somebody else's problems and putting yourself in their shoes?
00:41:50
And so I use a framework called rate for company page posts, which is.
00:41:55
Number one is the R, is it relevant?
00:41:57
Like, can we stop just posting content because we want to say something?
00:42:02
It's time to get into your buyer's mind and have a look around what makes, what are they looking for?
00:42:07
What information do they want?
00:42:09
And so starting with that.
00:42:10
A is all about authentic.
00:42:13
And I don't mean it in the overused kind of term, but I mean, as in not the polished version
00:42:19
of company page posts that we get, Chris, like the ones where everything's perfect, it's over
00:42:24
corporatized and branding is coming out of everywhere and you get the stock images, like
00:42:30
no one needs more stock images in their life.
00:42:32
If I could stamp out one thing for company page content, it would be stock images.
00:42:37
Right?
00:42:37
So.
00:42:38
T is all about thought leadership.
00:42:40
What is it that you can teach someone else that they can learn about anything that's going to
00:42:46
move the needle in their business that maybe your competitors haven't, what's a new approach?
00:42:52
What can you see trending?
00:42:54
What are the legal changes that might impact them?
00:42:56
Like really get out in front and not just copy what everybody else is saying.
00:43:00
And then the last one is E, E is for empathy.
00:43:03
You've heard me say that a lot during this, uh, episode today.
00:43:07
And it's about putting yourself in somebody else's shoes.
00:43:12
And I think that's where company page content comes unstuck the most is because it's so focused
00:43:17
on the business and trying to make the business sound good, that we forget that we're there
00:43:21
to try and make the person on the other side.
00:43:24
Sound good.
00:43:24
And the more you do that, when they sit down and they've actually got a problem that your
00:43:28
business solves, that they're doing all that research over time, you're on the short list.
00:43:33
Cause we know if you make that top three short list, you're in with a chance.
00:43:37
But if you're not, because you're too busy talking about yourself, then,
00:43:41
you know, that opportunity is gone.
00:43:43
Chris Do: I like that.
00:43:44
There's a simple acronym here for us to follow.
00:43:46
It's called the RATE, relevant.
00:43:48
Authentic thought leadership, and then empathy.
00:43:51
The word thought leadership is sometimes confusing for folks, and I think it's
00:43:55
probably the one that's least understood.
00:43:57
Can you, can you expand that and break that apart for us?
00:44:00
What does that really mean, thought leadership?
00:44:02
Michelle J Raymond: Yeah, it absolutely, I think is the buzzword on LinkedIn of 2024.
00:44:07
I mean, 2021 was all personal branding, but I think 2024 is thought leadership.
00:44:12
And you know, everyone's got their own definition of this.
00:44:15
And I, it's so.
00:44:16
It's funny because in my mind, I've got a friend of mine, Ashley Foss, and she always
00:44:21
just goes, Michelle, have thoughts, be a leader.
00:44:24
And you know, it really is at its fundamental level, that simple.
00:44:27
And so have thoughts.
00:44:29
What's that for me?
00:44:30
It's something about originality.
00:44:32
It is something about finding a unique twist on something that might be
00:44:37
a common problem in your industry.
00:44:39
How does your business solve it differently to what maybe your competitors do?
00:44:44
Like, give me a reason to choose A over B.
00:44:48
There's not too many real monopolies out there.
00:44:50
Like there's so many, you know, businesses that really offer the same products and services.
00:44:55
What makes you different and how do you approach these problems different?
00:44:59
And I think as well, um, you know, in a world of AI, like it's not being the
00:45:04
clone of what everybody else is doing.
00:45:07
What are the experts in your business?
00:45:10
sharing that other people can learn from, you know, and solving those headaches
00:45:15
that keep people on the other side up at night, that's what they're looking for.
00:45:19
So unique ways thought leadership helps them confidently make buying decisions.
00:45:25
That leadership part for me is your brand.
00:45:28
It's not just individuals.
00:45:29
Your brand can actually be an industry leader in that space.
00:45:33
And again, that comes from just not copying what everybody else is saying.
00:45:37
Like it's sometimes going out first.
00:45:39
It is sometimes going contrarian to what everybody else is saying.
00:45:43
You know, the, the herd's going this way and you're prepared to die on that
00:45:48
hill and stand by yourself over here.
00:45:50
And I think brands need to do that more often.
00:45:53
I think they're play it pretty safe.
00:45:54
Um, you probably know more about this than what I do with the clients that you work with.
00:45:58
But I think there's an element of, you have to be okay.
00:46:02
to challenge the norm, and I would love to see more of that.
00:46:05
Chris Do: Well, I think if you're saying everything that everyone's saying, then
00:46:08
what's the point of listening to you?
00:46:10
If you start opening up with platitudes, these kind of empty statements, there are these
00:46:14
truisms, everybody knows it's true and good.
00:46:18
Why would anyone care?
00:46:19
So you kind of have to zig or zag when everyone else is going one direction.
00:46:25
To say something that's different, to have a perspective or point of view.
00:46:28
I understand that.
00:46:29
People are a little scared about that kind of stuff.
00:46:31
Do you, do you often work with clients where they say, Michelle, sounds good.
00:46:35
I'm intellectually right there with you, but I'm not sure I have a contrarian point of view.
00:46:41
What do we do then?
00:46:43
Michelle J Raymond: Yeah.
00:46:43
Or any personality in their content at all, really most brands are
00:46:48
pretty bland at the end of the day.
00:46:50
Um, it is quite risky in their mind, trying to find the balance between.
00:46:55
Corporate guidelines and having great social content that really stands out and, you
00:47:02
know, is different to their competitors.
00:47:04
And quite often when they do that competitor analysis, they look around
00:47:07
and go, well, everybody is doing this.
00:47:09
I'm going to do that too.
00:47:10
Maybe my own slight flavor of it, but it's not really going to be that different.
00:47:14
And there is a risk.
00:47:16
That it feels like when you're trying to do things different, it is scary for a lot of businesses
00:47:22
to go, but everybody else is doing it this way.
00:47:24
I don't want to be the one that stands out.
00:47:27
And I think you have to connect that the greater risk to the business is that you blend in.
00:47:33
And it's really hard.
00:47:34
I know the biggest thing that I struggled with when I first started in my own business was the
00:47:39
concept of building a niche, you know, like, and it's something that feels so counter intuitive.
00:47:45
And even to this day, to me, it's something that I probably struggle with is that by Being
00:47:52
one thing to such a specific audience and being the obvious choice to them felt like I
00:47:57
could never work with anyone else ever again.
00:48:00
And so that happened to me.
00:48:01
Like I was the company pages queen.
00:48:03
Everybody in the world knew me for company pages, but I was like, I write really amazing
00:48:08
profiles or I can do social selling training and I can do all of these other things, but I had
00:48:12
to separate what I'm known for and what I do.
00:48:15
And this is where having two brands really helped me because B2B Growth Co could do all the
00:48:20
services and talk about that a little bit more.
00:48:23
And I could be known for, you know, company pages and all the other things that I do.
00:48:27
So it does feel counterintuitive to go out on your own and think that you're You're in no man's land,
00:48:34
but the fact is it is like a giant big game of where's Waldo on LinkedIn and you have to find the
00:48:41
thing that makes you be the Waldo that stands out.
00:48:44
And too many people are the crowd, you know, ultimately that's what's going on for
00:48:49
businesses, especially I think the biggest risk that they've got going into 2025.
00:48:55
Is being bland and playing it safe and those that are prepared to do a little bit of, you know,
00:49:02
trials, you know, you don't have to go crazy.
00:49:04
I'm not saying throw it all out the window, use your branding guidelines as the
00:49:09
guardrails, you know, for some people it might be just try a meme, you know, like
00:49:14
try some other content format out there.
00:49:16
Just to see how it plays with your audience and being brave to try it once.
00:49:21
It's not going to blow up your brand trying something once.
00:49:23
It's that experimenting mindset that I think really makes the biggest difference.
00:49:28
Chris Do: I have to say this.
00:49:29
When you said memes, it doesn't bring a smile to my face.
00:49:32
There's something so foolproof, almost like effortless is to share a dumb meme.
00:49:38
Because it lets people know that you have a sense of humor and the weird sense of humor you have,
00:49:43
because there's many different kinds of memes.
00:49:45
I like to share dad jokes, which may makes my children cringe.
00:49:49
And it's like, deal with it.
00:49:50
And they're like, oh, dad, facepalm, you know, but, and my community
00:49:54
is like, yeah, because I'm a dad.
00:49:56
I'm 52.
00:49:57
It's this is kind of what makes me laugh.
00:49:59
And it's so bad.
00:49:59
It's good.
00:50:00
Michelle J Raymond: And it's that relatability, but it's also we're humans.
00:50:04
Yeah.
00:50:04
And it's a social platform at the end of the day when we're going on there.
00:50:09
To be entertained, educated, inspired.
00:50:11
These are the, not just sold out all day, every day.
00:50:15
And again, if you're prepared to try something different and for some people it might
00:50:19
be, you're an amazing graphic designer.
00:50:21
That is not my skills.
00:50:22
I'm here to confess Chris, like, but the funny thing is.
00:50:26
The worst my designs are, cause you know, I'm just like Photoshop and me or anything along those
00:50:31
lines, we're not friends, but they're so bad.
00:50:34
They're good.
00:50:34
You know, like they're so bad that they get attention because people are laughing
00:50:39
at Michelle, why did you use a smiley face photo in that, you know, you're
00:50:42
standing in a prison cell lineup, you know?
00:50:44
Like, and so.
00:50:45
It gets the attention.
00:50:47
And so I discovered that by accident and then I've repeated it a few times and it
00:50:51
helped, you know, the team at dream data or a company that absolutely nailed the memes.
00:50:57
Like, you know, they're, they're found the formula of what works for their
00:51:00
audience and they skyrocket, but it's not that they're doing it every day.
00:51:05
They're backing up product demos, they're backing up their stuff, you know, like it's
00:51:10
a whole part of a system and a playbook that they've created, but the memes are
00:51:14
definitely what gets them the most attention.
00:51:16
So much so I got to go to their office in Copenhagen and, you know, they've got copies
00:51:22
of the post that performed so amazing.
00:51:24
They're in photo frames up on the wall, like, you know, they've become artwork in the office.
00:51:28
That's how successful they've been.
00:51:30
But I think it's that trial and error mindset that one post won't break a brand
00:51:35
and just you've got to give it a go.
00:51:38
And so, yeah, it's easier said than done.
00:51:41
I appreciate that people have a lot of reporting structures in a lot of
00:51:44
business that they've got to keep happy.
00:51:46
And it could be like a little, just, you know, for me, one little thing that I did,
00:51:50
all of my photos are happy, smiley faces, Michelle, bright colors, my branding's bright
00:51:54
pink, bright blues, you know, all digitally optimized to show up great on a screen.
00:52:00
But sometimes I'll do a sad face and a black and white photo.
00:52:03
And that immediately captures people's attention because it's different.
00:52:07
So breaking those patterns could be your way of doing something different.
00:52:13
And so, you know, it doesn't always have to be, you know, something massive.
00:52:16
It can be little things that you can try, but it's the trial and error that's most important.
00:52:20
Chris Do: I know that you've already kind of covered this, my whole flipping the switch.
00:52:23
And it's not about you, it's about them and serving and being of service to
00:52:27
people and having deep empathy for the kinds of things you're going through.
00:52:30
And you can make your content much more interesting.
00:52:32
I'm all on board with that.
00:52:33
That's my whole thing anyways.
00:52:35
Is there anything else that we might be missing here from this kind of
00:52:37
perspective of how businesses can.
00:52:40
Utilize LinkedIn, get content going and activating certain things that
00:52:44
we're not really thinking about.
00:52:45
Is there anything else you want to share with us?
00:52:46
Michelle J Raymond: There's something that I'm pretty passionate about, especially
00:52:48
with company pages at the moment is, and it probably applies to personal content
00:52:53
just as much if I think about it now.
00:52:55
But ultimately.
00:52:56
I want people to stop and think, how will this feel to the person on the
00:53:02
other side when this lands with them?
00:53:04
And I would talk about it in a way of what's the energy that you're sending out with it.
00:53:08
If it is a tick and flick, we've done our quota for this week.
00:53:12
The person on the other side feels that and when they feel that they're like, this isn't for me.
00:53:18
It feels icky.
00:53:19
It feels like you've just been slimed on.
00:53:21
I want people to stop and think, okay, if I took the pressure off to do more posts, cause
00:53:25
everything seems to be focused on numbers.
00:53:28
If I took that back and went, what is one good post that I could do that I'm going to put
00:53:32
some effort into and really make sure it's in service of the person on the other side.
00:53:36
I'm going to get into their shoes and figure out what posts could I create that
00:53:40
would make a difference to that person.
00:53:42
If I created content from that space and being in service feels a lot different to someone
00:53:47
going, Oh, hey, chat GPT, could you please write me five LinkedIn posts with lots of
00:53:52
rocket emojis and overused words, and we're just going to make sure we hit five for the week.
00:53:57
That's why content doesn't work.
00:53:59
And it especially doesn't work right now when so many people are doing the same thing.
00:54:04
And again, coming back to what you said, zig when they zag or vice versa.
00:54:09
And it's, I just want you to think about what does it feel like for the person on the other side to
00:54:15
have that content land in front of their eyes.
00:54:18
And if you wouldn't stop for it, I don't care about your branding and your corporate guidelines.
00:54:22
If you wouldn't stop for it, stop complaining about your impressions and your reach and your
00:54:27
engagement when your target audience doesn't.
00:54:31
And you know, a bit of tough love here, but you can bang on about your corporate guidelines
00:54:37
And then you don't get to whinge about how things aren't working out on a social platform.
00:54:41
So, because I think quite often it's to tick the box to get it done.
00:54:47
And not to be in service of the person that you want to help.
00:54:49
And it's, it sounds like it's an easy change, but it really changes a culture
00:54:55
within a marketing team or the person responsible for creating content to shift.
00:54:59
It's not about you.
00:55:00
No one cares, right?
00:55:02
No one cares.
00:55:03
It's about them.
00:55:04
And so getting back to when did you start making it about you and not about them and
00:55:10
especially on company branded content, but I think these days with AI, it's definitely
00:55:15
seeped across into there and we're going for.
00:55:19
Volume like it's, and that's, you know, It's just horrendous.
00:55:23
It's like, I'm looking at LinkedIn, my feed right now going, what happened?
00:55:27
Like, this is not the LinkedIn that I love.
00:55:30
I love unique thoughts.
00:55:32
I love people that challenge things.
00:55:34
I love people that come at things from a different angle.
00:55:37
That's what I'm looking for.
00:55:39
I'm not looking to just get a post that just regurgitates something.
00:55:43
Like, can we say no to regurgitating?
00:55:45
Maybe that's what I don't like.
00:55:46
Chris Do: There's a lot of that going on though.
00:55:48
It's not just on LinkedIn.
00:55:49
It's all through social media because original thought is actually hard to come by.
00:55:54
And people like shortcuts.
00:55:55
They like to see, Oh, this is the shiny object of the month of the day, the soup du jour.
00:55:59
And they grab that and then they just put it on something else.
00:56:02
That's it.
00:56:02
They might change it ever so slightly in in a way social media works like that because it's
00:56:07
the sharing and proliferation of ideas But then if you're sharing other people's content
00:56:11
and other people's ideas It begs the question.
00:56:14
What are your ideas?
00:56:15
Why should I follow you?
00:56:17
Why should I give up some of my time in my social feed?
00:56:20
For the things that you're going to save you're just going to repurpose and regurgitate other
00:56:24
people's content now, michelle You said things that are fairly free Logical, I understand it.
00:56:31
There's a lot of people who are not going to be able to follow this.
00:56:34
They continue to put out ad based things that are insensitive to the audience.
00:56:38
They have low empathy for them.
00:56:40
And we kind of have to just ask the question, when do you want to change this relationship or
00:56:45
this dynamic that you have with your community?
00:56:47
And when you decide that, re listen to this episode again, because you have
00:56:51
to have an open mind to it, right?
00:56:53
I got to ask you one more question before we run out of time here.
00:56:55
You were talking about certain trend lines that you see.
00:56:59
I'm not one to pay much attention to trends.
00:57:01
And you're like in 2021, you're like, it's all about the personal brand.
00:57:06
Uh, then you said 2024 is about, what did you, what'd you say 2024 was about?
00:57:09
Michelle J Raymond: All about thought leadership.
00:57:11
It's the year of thought leadership.
00:57:13
Chris Do: Okay.
00:57:13
Well, let's look into your crystal ball.
00:57:15
What is 2025 all about?
00:57:18
What are you seeing there?
00:57:20
Michelle J Raymond: I see two sides.
00:57:21
The dark side of me looks at next year, and I'm scared that we're going to end up in
00:57:27
mountains and mountains more of carbon copies, clones, unoriginal content, templated content
00:57:36
that's faster and easier to do than ever.
00:57:39
I'm sure as the generative AI tools become smarter, as more and
00:57:44
more people create apps for that.
00:57:46
That there will be people that will flock towards that, which makes standing out
00:57:51
online much more difficult going into 2025.
00:57:54
I think as we're coming into the end of this year on LinkedIn, especially most people are probably
00:57:59
experiencing pretty big drop in numbers right now.
00:58:02
But when we look at what LinkedIn came out last year and said, what they want
00:58:07
to reward, so I'm going to, I'm going to stick with this and hope that it plays out.
00:58:11
Is the LinkedIn algorithm is geared towards rewarding knowledge and advice, right?
00:58:17
So I think those people who come back and separate themselves as being in service of their
00:58:23
community and offering that to their audience are the ones that are going to find their space.
00:58:31
Now, what they say, as far as the algorithm goes, is that we're talking about knowledge and advice.
00:58:38
So having that target audience in mind, always come back to who are you
00:58:43
actually targeting on LinkedIn, right?
00:58:45
Always come back to that.
00:58:46
How, what is the audience that you're in service of?
00:58:49
They want to talk about one topic.
00:58:51
So try to stay on your topic.
00:58:53
It doesn't mean you can't have multiple topics within your brand, but.
00:58:56
You know, an audience that wants to talk about your topic and generate conversations.
00:59:01
Chris, I really hope that we move from just, it's not just posting to its conversations
00:59:07
that build community and community, I hope becomes a buzzword next year.
00:59:12
I hope that there's a focus that moves to this, both for brands and
00:59:16
for individuals, because community is the thing that outplays any algorithm.
00:59:21
When you build relationships that.
00:59:24
Uh, collaborative that you can then build referral partners that you can, you know,
00:59:28
then have other people selling on your behalf, basically it's how I ended up here because
00:59:34
Ilya shout out to him was a stand for me in asking you, could I, you know, come onto this
00:59:40
podcast and that's the real power of LinkedIn.
00:59:44
Those partnerships.
00:59:46
It's where you can get business growth.
00:59:49
It's where you get opportunities, whether it's maybe you want to be a speaker, maybe you want
00:59:53
to be on a board, maybe you need a new position.
00:59:56
All of these things come from relationship building.
00:59:59
And so I have my fingers crossed that it's the latter, not the former that plays out.
01:00:05
Um, but I, I'm not sure, but I'm certainly going to be fighting for
01:00:09
Chris Do: it.
01:00:09
You may have influenced a few people.
01:00:11
So we'll make sure that we're going to timestamp this today.
01:00:15
We're having this conversation.
01:00:17
It's October 9th, 2024.
01:00:19
So let's see what happens in 12 months time.
01:00:22
We can look back on this moment and say, Oh, she was right.
01:00:24
Or she was concerned and it went down the dark path or we, we avoided a potential disaster.
01:00:30
There are a lot of cookie cutter.
01:00:34
AI chat responses to to posts and it it annoys me a little bit I'm appreciative of the engagement,
01:00:39
but at the same time it's fake engagement and i'm trying to find the real people So I can
01:00:43
answer them and sometimes i'm fooled for a beat.
01:00:46
I'm like, is that really a person?
01:00:47
No, it's not and then I just like i'm kind of annoyed by it.
01:00:50
So i'm hoping that the algorithm gods that they are Understand this and can shift The dynamic
01:00:56
to counterbalance the amount of content is proliferating by faceless, thoughtless machines.
01:01:03
We saw that on Instagram, the CEO had said, you know what?
01:01:07
We're going to weight content a little bit differently.
01:01:09
If you reshare someone's post, you're going to get less and less traffic.
01:01:12
We're going to give the first person, the originator thought more of the
01:01:16
traffic so that it feels like it's more motivating for you to go and create that.
01:01:21
Because if somebody just.
01:01:22
Grabs your thing and puts it somewhere else they get as much traffic as you do It
01:01:25
doesn't feel like you're you're going to want to make more content and without those
01:01:29
people There's nothing for us to share.
01:01:31
It's been a pleasure talking to you michelle I appreciate you taking a look at a little bit of
01:01:35
some of the problems I have in sharing with us a completely different perspective on how to use
01:01:40
linkedin for businesses in the b2b space and your
01:01:53
Michelle J Raymond: It is my absolute pleasure and I, I hope that this inspires some, you
01:01:57
know, somebody out there to really look at what they're doing and say, what could I change up?
01:02:02
Because.
01:02:03
You know that your content's not working when you're not getting leads in the door.
01:02:07
It is that simple.
01:02:08
So if you're someone that's struggling to get leads, you've got nothing to lose
01:02:11
by trying this and everything to gain.
01:02:13
Chris Do: If people want to find out more about you, where should they go?
01:02:16
Michelle J Raymond: Well, no surprises, but you'll find me over on LinkedIn.
01:02:18
Michelle J.
01:02:19
Raymond is where you'd find me.
01:02:20
Please let me know that you listen to this podcast.
01:02:23
I would love to, you know, connect with more listeners and just You know, I've got
01:02:27
content going out every day that will help you get through the challenges that will
01:02:31
inevitably come with LinkedIn, because I think it's going to get harder going into 2025.
01:02:37
So if I can help anyone out, by all means, reach out.
01:02:40
Chris Do: I just want to say this before I go away, that if.
01:02:42
LinkedIn implodes and you no longer find that it's a place you want to play.
01:02:46
I believe you have a second career in voiceover talent.
01:02:49
It's something you might want to look into.
01:02:50
A very soothing, calming voice.
01:02:52
Even when you said some like, here's shots fired.
01:02:54
I'm like, it's still pretty soothing.
01:02:56
It's like a bullet coated in Teflon.
01:02:58
It's gonna just go right through the body.
01:03:00
And it's all good.
01:03:00
Michelle J Raymond: Oh my god, I love it.
01:03:02
I, I'm going to take that soundbite and I'm going to remind myself my voice is calming.
01:03:07
My voice can help people.
01:03:09
Maybe I could start doing some, uh, wake up good morning messages to people.
01:03:13
You are amazing.
01:03:14
You are smart.
01:03:15
Rise and shine.
01:03:19
Chris Do: I think you should do what, uh, Matthew McConaughey does.
01:03:23
He has a good night bedtime storage to help you fall asleep.
01:03:26
Sleep, it's a mindfulness thing.
01:03:28
He has a very soothing voice and he found something.
01:03:30
Michelle J Raymond: I just want to say thanks again for your kindness to the
01:03:33
people that you help because, you know, the reason that you have been on my bucket list
01:03:39
to have this conversation is because I'm absolutely drawn to the way that you give.
01:03:43
So willingly to your community.
01:03:45
And I know that that's possibly not your natural space as an introvert to be surrounded by so
01:03:51
many people and giving all the time, but I just want to acknowledge you as a good human.
01:03:55
And I think the world needs more good humans.
01:03:56
So thank you for being you.
01:03:58
Chris Do: Oh, thank you.
01:03:59
And on that note, everybody that wraps our conversation and we will include links to
01:04:04
Michelle's social media accounts and anything else she wants to share with us, be sure you
01:04:08
check the description, or if you're watching us on YouTube, in the description below.
01:04:13
That's it for me.
01:04:13
See you guys next time.
01:04:14
Michelle J Raymond: There you go.
01:04:15
That is the funny part that made me laugh right at the end.
01:04:18
So I have no intentions of changing careers because right now I've got the opportunity to
01:04:25
tick off another podcast bucket list guest next week, and that is the one and only Ann Handley.
01:04:32
And I can't wait to have this conversation and share it with you all.
01:04:36
We are on fire.
01:04:37
Please subscribe to the podcast so you do not miss out on the upcoming episodes.
01:04:43
So until next week, cheers.
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