Crafting a Powerful LinkedIn Routine: B2B Expert Michelle J Raymond's 15-Minute Strategy

TRANSCRIPT

Michelle J Raymond: [00:00:00] Hello everyone and welcome to The Good for Business Show. I'm your host, Michelle J Raymond, and this week I am also the guest. That's right. I'm doing this show all by myself because this is a topic that I am really passionate about because when I'm working with clients, the number one thing that they always come back to me with is, "Michelle, yeah, we get LinkedIn's important, but how are we meant to fit it in? "

I get it, like I'm a small business owner, I wear about 50 different hats every day. I'm chopping and changing and trying to fit things in and often when we are busy, we wanna prioritise our customers. And that's the number one goal to look after them.

But how do we make sure that we've got customers in the future? We have to set time aside to make sure that we're looking for new business. Now I've worked in B2B sales for 20 years, and around eight years ago I learnt about LinkedIn. I came onto LinkedIn purely and simply because I was an Account Manager starting in a new job in [00:01:00] a new industry. I had been given like this list of 50 customers spread around Australia. A country of the size of America, so spread geography. Then also Sydney traffic. Let's be clear. It's no fun. And then, they say, Michelle, go out and visit everybody. And I'm like, How do I do this?

It's physically impossible in the space of one month and the second month it just gets worse. And as time goes on, it gets worse and worse and worse. So I develop systems to become really effective at spending my time on LinkedIn. Now I wanna be really clear for those of you who know me and follow my content, that does not happen in 15 minutes a day.

I can assure you I spend a lot longer on there, some may say 24 7, but ultimately I'm on there because I'm looking after my clients' Pages. I'm looking after my own content. I'm researching, I'm learning. For you, if you are time poor and the attraction to this topic today of spending 15 minutes a [00:02:00] day on LinkedIn, really called you because you want to know, then you are gonna have to be really, really focused.

Now, how do we get focused? That's what I'm gonna step you through today. I am gonna tell you the things that will make a difference, the things that you need to keep an eye on, and make sure that you are doing them. Now, if you are relying on the home feed, you know the feed that shows up straight down the middle of the page when you log onto LinkedIn, I can guarantee you that is the least effective way that I can give you to stay across what you need to do on LinkedIn. It is designed to distract you. It is designed to keep us on there for as long as possible. Why? Well, it's easy. Every time you spend more time on there, LinkedIn shows you more ads. They make money from the ads that you see, so they have a vested interest in keeping you sidetracked.

I, on the other hand, have a vested interest in keeping you [00:03:00] focused. So here's what we're gonna do today. I'm gonna go through those steps one by one, and I want you to, either write this down or come back and watch the replay, or listen to the podcast and I want you to really take some notes, because if you are out to achieve things on LinkedIn, again, it's not going to happen by accident.

If you want to save time, you have to be focused, and I'm gonna say that over and over and over again. Now let's have a look at where we're gonna start. So the number one thing that I find with people when I start to work with them, so they call me into their business. I might meet with the marketing team. Sometimes it's a business owner. And they're busy on LinkedIn, right? They're spending time and they're getting nowhere. They've been doing it for a while and thinking, I know I should be on LinkedIn, but nothing's happening. Why aren't I getting new business? Now? I go back to the number one rule that I always start with, What is [00:04:00] your business goal?

Why are you on LinkedIn in the first place? Now, this may sound like a really crazy thing for me to say, but most people just say, "Well, Michelle, we know we should be". And I say, Okay, yep, I agree. It's the number one B2B platform, most trusted platform. It's where business is done. No arguments from me, but when I say to them, Why are you on there?

What are your business goals? That's when I get silence. Now, if you are a business that is busy being busy and you haven't taken a moment to go and write some goals, then this is your time to make a note. Put some time in your calendar. Because we need to have clarity, right? So when I talk about business goals, they can be all kinds of different things.

 Some kinds of examples for you. You could be wanting to increase brand awareness, you might wanna generate more leads. [00:05:00] I mean, who doesn't want more business? You might also be looking to attract top talent because you're having a talent crisis. The Great Reshuffle, The Great Resignation. All of these kind of things are impacting the employees and workforce that are out there.

 How do you make your business stand out for the crowd? Now, for other businesses, you might be a small business, a micro business or solopreneur, call it what you want, but you might actually be just saying, Look, Michelle, I'm on LinkedIn 'cause I want more people to discover my business. So ticking that brand awareness.

I don't have money and big budgets to spend on ads. I don't have the resources to hire a team to be everywhere and do business development. So I need to use LinkedIn just like you did Michelle, back in the day to reach more people at scale. Right? And this is where we start to save some time. I want you to take the time to write down what your business goals [00:06:00] is, and with that, what do you want to happen? When do you want it to happen by? Then we have to break it down. The next step is to align it to our LinkedIn strategy. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to stop and I want you to think -how am I going to achieve this?

How much time? I'm gonna work on 15 minutes a day. If you can give me more time than that, we can bring timelines forward, right? So that's the trade off. 15 minutes will get you done, but it will take 6 to 12 months for you to build a brand and probably see some impact. Now, the more that you do, that timeline comes forward.

So for those of you who say to me, Oh, I can't fit it in, I don't have time. I'm going to call rubbish on that. We have all collectively, or maybe it's just me being guilty, we have all watched so much Netflix, we scroll mindlessly. So I'm gonna say instead of doing that, let's take some [00:07:00] action on growing your business.

 If you do this and you can get it from 15 minutes on, that's great, but again, I don't want you buried on LinkedIn and not focusing on growing your business. That's the last thing that we do. Once you've got your business goals and have them really clearly defined, you have to work out who your target audience is.

Now, that might sound really obvious, but again, it's another step that people cross over and forget and just rush into trying to create posts. Are you one of those people? Are you the one that's putting content out, putting content out, putting content out, and not getting people reach out to connect. Not getting people booking meetings with you?

If you're that person, this next five minutes is definitely going to be for you. What is happening is you don't have a clearly defined target audience. [00:08:00] Now, how do we define them? For some people it's gonna be demographics. So demographics would include things like ages, geographies, things along those lines where you can put people or businesses into a category.

 It might be a business that's a 100 to 250 employees. You might wanna only deal with solopreneurs. But the more that you can have that clear, what happens is that's gonna come and help us later on when we get to creating content. Again, can you see, we're not even on LinkedIn yet, we're doing the prep work off LinkedIn, so that you can save time when you're actually on the platform. Now my target audience is a little bit different. They don't necessarily fit into one demographic, I don't have a preference whether I work with males or females. I don't have a geography that I work with. I work globally thanks to the powers of Zoom.[00:09:00]

 So for me that doesn't really kind of guide me. I work with businesses of all sizes So, let's have a look, what does drive me towards a particular client? My clients, I discovered after some time, this did not happen overnight. This has taken me two and a half years to get to this point.

So if you're just starting out and you're not really sure, don't worry. It's not set in stone. My clients, I discovered were those that were purpose driven, and what I mean by that is when you invest money with a coach of any kind, you wanna get a return, and those people are driven to do something out in the world.

Now, I don't particularly care what that thing is. That being driven could be related to growing your own business because you wanna support your family. That could be that you want to save the environment. It could be you wanna raise awareness and funds for a particular outcome.

You might wanna be like me, [00:10:00] world domination, and that's fine as well. I don't pick the goals, but I want you to be the kind of person that's driven to get to them. The second kind of thing that I love is, you have to be innovative. And for me, what does that mean? Sometimes when I'm training people, I need them to challenge their own way of thinking.

I need them to be open to challenging the other things that they may read and see on LinkedIn. I go around things a little different, and that requires somebody that's open-minded. And again, they probably fall into ambitious as well as purpose driven. It's that drive to get somewhere. So when I go looking on LinkedIn, I'm not necessarily looking for businesses of particular sizes. I'm looking for businesses that are out to do something in the world.

 I want you to think about, if you don't know who your ideal client is, I'll give you a handy tip where you can find them. Go back and have a look at the clients that you've [00:11:00] worked with. What did they all have in common? If you can find the common thread between all of them, chances are your content resonates with them and you probably enjoy working with them as well.

 Start there and then you can refine it over time. When I first started, as most people do, I was desperate just to work with anyone and it didn't work for me. It didn't work for them. We got mixed results. Sometimes it worked out, sometimes it didn't. But ultimately, when the two are aligned, you save more time because you are focused.

 We are now focused on what our goal is, and we're also focused on who we wanna work with. Now that we've got that written down, and I want you to write it down so you never forget who it is that you're trying to attract, as the case is with social selling this. The third thing that we're gonna do is you are going to get friends with the LinkedIn search [00:12:00] bar.

Everything that I teach people only relies on the free features of LinkedIn. You don't need a premium account, you don't need a Sales Navigator account. You can get a long way for most businesses just by using that search bar. The search bar also allows you to directly target those people that you've identified.

You can use filters in the search bar. Filters that can target a particular company. So if I dream about working with company X, Y, Z, then I can go in, type that in the search bar, and my recommendation is to connect with as many people from that company as possible. Now you're gonna start with the target audience, and then you'll work your way out into other departments.

And you might think, Michelle, why would I bother? The reason is you do not know who knows who within that business. Who's closely connected, who might have lunch together, who [00:13:00] had fun at last year's Christmas party together, but they work in different departments. When one of those people, any of those people presses like, or comments on your content, their colleagues are going to see it. Don't get too narrow focused. If you have a dream client in mind on LinkedIn and this is the kind of thing that people would refer to as account based marketing. If you've got 10 dream clients that you've just written down as part of your goals, then you are gonna connect with as many of those and you're gonna nurture those particular relationships.

That also means that when companies outside of that 10 pop up, they're not going to be where you are spending your time, because you identified the top 10, it's your job to keep on track.

The search bar also has other filters like geography. If I was only selling to Australian based businesses, it does not make sense for me to spend my time reaching out to connect with those that are overseas. [00:14:00] Absolute waste of time. We are not here to collect numbers. If you are here on LinkedIn to grow your business, it's not about making the numbers of connections grow and grow and grow. All that will happen is you'll waste your time on things that aren't gonna give you a return on your investment of that time.

 You can also see your first degree or second degree or third degree connections. What are those things? A first degree connection is someone that you are connected with them, it's a two-way street. They see your content. You see their content. That's a first degree connection.

A second degree connection means you are not connected with that person, but somebody you know is. One degree of separation. That's exactly what the second degree connection is. Now, I tend to focus on these people more when I'm reaching out to connect, and here's why I think you should too.

A second [00:15:00] degree connection, as I said, has a person that you both know in common and a cool way to use that is sometimes you can reach out to that person you have in common and say," Hey, I'm really looking to connect with Joe and Joe is, one of your connections. Can you introduce me or tell me a little bit more, because I'm looking to develop business at that company ."

It's so much easier if that person may turn around and say, yeah of course they're one of my mates. I can certainly do an intro. That warm introduction. Makes it so much easier for you to actually start a relationship. That's why whenever you see a little second next to somebody's name when you're on the feed, that actually means that it's somebody that you both share a common connection.

The follow button, which a lot of people have on their profiles now when they switch on Creator Mode, makes it really tricky if you don't go and find the connect button.[00:16:00] LinkedIn wants people to embrace LinkedIn Creators and become influencers, and it will promote that service to you. It's not right for everybody. If you are not out to be a LinkedIn influencer of any kind or Creator, I want you to turn creator mode off. I want that connect button again. I want it to be that two-way relationship.

The search bar also allows you to use hashtags, so topics of interests that are related to your business, where conversations are already happening, is a really fast way for you to identify your ideal clients.

They've already expressed an interest. How easy is that? That's what I love. From there you can go through, add your comments, and then we're going to, spot those people that align with our values and then we can identify that that's somebody that you wanna bring [00:17:00] into your community. So the search bar has so many other ways that you can use it.

For most people though again, keep it simple on LinkedIn. LinkedIn does not need to be complicated. It does not need to be fancy. Use the search bar. It is so powerful. Do not rely on the home feed.

If I had 15 minutes a day, this was the promise that I shared with everybody. What I would do if I had 15 minutes a day and that's all I could spare, this is what I would do. Number one, always go in and check your connection requests and accept them or reject them based on your own personal goals. My personal preference is I accept anyone that's reached out to connect unless there's some red flags that go off, like they have zero connections and it looks like a false account.

 They're trying to sell blockchain or crypto or any of those gold, any of those [00:18:00] kind of fake-ish looking profiles. If it's not that, I pretty much accept everybody. Make sure that you're doing that on a daily basis. People mostly aren't reaching out to you if there's not something of interest.

Now, of course, we come up against those who have tried to automate relationships and they use software that just sends out invitations to everyone, and I acknowledge that. I also want you to say, Look, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and they're innocent until proven guilty. And then see what happens after they connect.

If at any point those people cause you grief, distract you ,are just a waste of time. Disconnect from them. Be brutal about who you connect with. The same goes on your home feed. If you are seeing content from people that add zero value on the top right hand corner of every [00:19:00] post is three dots. The elipses. Click on that drop down and you'll see unfollow.

That means the connection remains, but you don't have to see content in the feed that you don't enjoy or get value from. When you are connecting with the right people, you're gonna spend a few minutes just accepting those connection request. The next thing that you're gonna do is you're gonna spend some time personalising invites. I'm gonna say five minutes. I want you to connect with five people. How do you do that in a short period of time? Cuz I've only given you five minutes. Again, be targeted around who you wanna find. Use the search bar, and then you can create templates that you use to reach out and connect.

Now, a template is different to just doing a blah, blah message. Tell people why you wanna connect, why you selected them, and what they can expect from you. When you [00:20:00] personalise your invite messages. The good news is, you have a fair chance, probably nine in 10 people will accept it. This is a fast way to grow your community.

But again, notice how, I'm not saying try and use up a hundred per week, which is the limit that LinkedIn gives us. Five targeted quality people is far more valuable than a hundred randoms. The way I do B2B selling, five targeted people that we are then going to nurture those relationships. How are we gonna do that?

I would recommend if you identified an ideal client and you are connected with them via any of those methods that we've discussed. I want you on key people only to go to their profile, look up in the top right hand corner, just underneath the banner. You're going to find a bell and we're gonna go, ding, ding, ding.

We're going to ring that bell. What does it [00:21:00] do? The cool thing is, what it does is it notifies you of all their posts, or if you click it a second time, it will just be all of their top posts. Now you are going to be that person that every time you get notified that they've done a post, guess what your job is?

You are going to comment. Comments are so powerful. Not only does it let them know that you are supporting them, it keeps you top of mind, which is really important with social selling. And then ultimately, you're gonna show up in their network. Now, normally when we work in industries, some of us might have changed jobs. When I worked selling chemicals and raw materials and ingredients, I worked for a couple of different competitors over time, and most of us do. So the chances are that you build up connections that are related within the industry, and so it's a really easy way to go and find those connections.

So the secret way, sometimes I do that. If [00:22:00] you go and find someone in the industry that has a lot of connections, go and have a look at their profile. Click on the number of connections and it will bring up a list. And the easiest way to do, just go through that list. Shh don't tell anyone, but that is the smartest way to find industry related people that are of value.

We've now connected, we're going to do some targeted comments. Spend five minutes. If you are going to invest more time on LinkedIn. I would say commenting is gonna be where you are going to get the biggest rewards. But what do we do after that? What about content? If you are time poor and you've been drawn to this 15 minutes a day conversation, what I want you to do is probably post twice a week. Now twice a week creating content is perfectly okay on the proviso that you are doing all the commenting that [00:23:00] I've recommended on a daily basis.

If you are sitting on the sidelines and you're not engaging with other people, I don't promise you any results at all. You are not going to get noticed. You are not gonna build your brand. You're not gonna stay top of mind, and you are gonna miss out on opportunities. So it is up to you if you want to grow your business and you don't know how to get across the line on LinkedIn and create content, it's time to get real.

Your business will not exist if you do not do this. The best piece of advice that I can give people, to save time is to invest in training. Why am I good at what I did? I'm a good trainer because I've spent eight years researching on LinkedIn, creating content on a daily basis, made every single mistake you can imagine, built a powerful community that I learn from. If you want to spend your time learning about your clients and not learning about LinkedIn, [00:24:00] training is the only answer. I'm planting that seed, not for me, but for you, right? Because it's you that said you want your business to grow.

And I am here to help you do that. Anywhere where you can get involved in conversations that's commenting, responding to comments on your posts, jump onto those and here's a trick to keep a conversation going. If you want to get more comments on your post, there's two things that you can do and both involve asking a question.

Finish your post with a question, and that invites other people into your comments and conversation. When you finish with a sentence, handy tip, you are talking at people. You don't want me to come and join in with you, but if you ask a question, then I'm going to respond to that too many people and post with statements and it's like, mm-hmm. . That's really nice, Michelle, but [00:25:00] okay, I'll keep scrolling. The same thing goes when they write a comment on your post. No more. Thanks for that. You know, no more couple of word responses. I want you to get smart. I want you to invest this time that we're putting aside for LinkedIn and ask them another question, a follow up question.

Why did you think this? Have you seen this? You know, just like we do off the platform. I always talk about creating your Digital Twin on LinkedIn. Nothing we do on LinkedIn is different to what you would do in everyday life. So ask more questions. That shows you're interested, that starts conversations and of course it keeps the algorithm happy. But building community starts with conversations.

The last thing that I wanna share today, if you are a person that is looking to save time, here's what you are going to do. You are going to [00:26:00] need to build a system to repurpose your content. Now, that could be as simple as you keep a Word document or some kind of format like that where you keep a track of all of your posts, what you wrote, so you can copy and paste them later. You can also have a system that takes a long form content.

 For instance, I'm gonna tell you my system, every week I do a LinkedIn Live just like I'm doing today. I turn that into the podcast that some people will be listening to. I then take snippets out of it, a shorter video clips. I can then turn those into audiograms also, which is just sound over a graphic. I can also get the transcript and turn the words into a post. I can turn them into sliders. So if you are someone that got a whole bunch of blogs written for your website, that's a really great place to start because you can copy smaller [00:27:00] chunks and turn them into smaller posts.

Now with this, what I want you to do is make sure that structured around the kinds of posts that you are doing. I talk about my 3-2-1 content strategy. Three posts are "good to know". These are the you know your stuff. You know what's going on in your industry, you know what's impacting things on the macro level.

Two posts are going to be what am I gonna feel about your business? What do you care about? Show me behind the scenes. And one post is going to be the products and services you sell, so the "good to buy" section. If you keep your content mixed and spinning around in that ratio, so 3, 2, 1, then you will generate more business.

We have covered a lot of ground, but I just want to go over these things one more time. Business goals, ultimately, [00:28:00] that's what drives our LinkedIn strategy. Two get really clear on your target audience. Three, become friends with the search bar. Four, you're going to connect, comment, and drive conversations. And five, you're going to be the repurposing guru.

That is what I would do if I had 15 minutes a day to spend on LinkedIn. Everybody can find 15 minutes if it's important to them. If you are starting out, the exciting thing that I've got to tell you is that I am co-author of The LinkedIn Branding Book, which I've written with my LinkedIn bestie, Michelle Griffin.

 We have written The LinkedIn Branding Book, which will release on the 18th of November in Australia, 17th of November in the US, which just also happens to be my birthday and if you want to celebrate my birthday with me, then I would love it if you could buy a copy of that book. That will teach you what to do on a more [00:29:00] in depth scale to build your personal and business brand on LinkedIn.

I'm really proud of it. It is lots of stories, lessons we learnt, actionable tips, and there's a whole other podcast that it relates into where we expand our thoughts so you get to really dive deep at your own leisure. Thank you to everybody that's listened in today. I am going to be joined next week by AJ Wilcox, who, if I am known as the company page guru around the world, he is the LinkedIn ads guru, and I can't wait to have a conversation with him to really get to the bottom of what's happening with LinkedIn ads and how they work in with the organic work that we do on company pages.

So thank you everybody. Until next week. Cheers