Finding Your Own Path on LinkedIn. Staying True to You with John Lacey

TRANSCRIPT

Michelle J Raymond: [00:00:00] Welcome everybody to the LinkedIn for B2B Growth Show. I'm your host, Michelle J Raymond, and I'm joined by a friend of the show, John Lacey. Welcome.

John Lacey: Thank you so much for having me.

Michelle J Raymond: I'm excited. Now, John, I asked you on this show, especially because I wanted to find a guest that does not have the words LinkedIn trainer, coach, consultant, or anything like that in their title. And was out of that circle to get a real and honest perspective about what it's like to get started on LinkedIn, what you've learned, what the journey's been like.

Can you tell people just a little bit about how you got started on LinkedIn before I dive into some of the other questions that I might have for you?

John Lacey: Sure. So I think for me, like a lot of people, LinkedIn was a place that I signed up to many years ago and I dumped my resume there and I totally forgot about it for probably 10 years. And then a couple of years ago, and again, I say that [00:01:00] advisedly, I have no great sense of time these days, but a couple of years ago, I thought, this might be worth exploring.

It might be an opportunity for me to go in and actually dig a little bit deeper and see what people are doing.

And I guess, obviously we've experienced the global pandemic. And at that time I was a face to face Information Technology teacher as part of Australia's vocational education training sector and I literally would lug laptops around to different locations and teach people face to face.

And of course that sort of dried up over the course of a week. And after that time, I was very fortunate in the sense that I had some contacts and I had a new job shortly after where I was working from home. But I guess in that moment I was very conscious of the fact that basically nobody knew who I was or what I was capable of.

So I thought LinkedIn might be a great place to work on a bit of personal branding. But I guess the other thing too is because I am no longer teaching, that was an itch I really wanted to scratch.

And in some ways, and I'm happy to [00:02:00] dig deeper into this, but the thing that got me really excited was Creator Mode. And it's been an interesting journey because I wanted to go live. I've subsequently fallen in love with the newsletter capability and I've explored that quite a lot. I'm sure there are many things that I've done wrong, and I'm sure we've discussed those in the past, but I'm happy to unpack some of that more today with you.

Michelle J Raymond: I appreciate your willingness to unpack this because what's happening at the moment is I am seeing an influx of new people to the platform, especially in the B2B space. Traditionally, they haven't worried about it, but you're right when COVID happened. We had lockdowns globally in various formats for various lengths of time.

And here in Australia, one of the longest and a lot of those traditional things that we did and the habits that we had were just thrown out the window overnight. For me coming from the account manager background, it was the same thing.

Once upon a time, you go knocking on doors, Hey, buy my stuff. We're most amazing. And that all got stopped. No more trade shows, no more events. And so [00:03:00] LinkedIn became the kind of place to be. And I think fast forward, it's still part of that place.

But it's not something I don't think that you can just come and switch it on, know what's going on, know what to do intuitively, and just get on with things.

And I wanted to have this conversation about what it's like to start because we know that the stats are something, close 97 percent plus people will basically log on, have a look around and then disappear again. They're not active on the platform in any way, shape, or form. And that's something that I would love to change.

So we understand now why you, you know, maybe wanted to get active on LinkedIn after having your profile sitting around. And I'm sure lots of listeners are saying, yep, that's me. But how did you approach getting started? So you say, yep, I'm going to get active on LinkedIn. Are you an all in kind of person?

Are you jumping in or is it slowly, surely? Like how did you do that?

John Lacey: It's funny. My [00:04:00] personality is such that sometimes I will just go all in. I'll go big or go home. But as I've grown older, I've come to appreciate that's just a really good way to burn out.

And I guess if I look at my experience on LinkedIn specifically, probably about two years ago, I started casually posting, and a lot of the times, it was just a link to an article that related to the industry, or just a useful YouTube video, and I'd write a couple of lines of text about it, and I'd just share that, and then occasionally, I would make my own tutorial videos, and I'd share those, and do different things.

Again, And it's funny, I'm probably going to say creator mode 1, 500 times during the course of this interview, but, because I knew I needed 150 connections to even turn that on in the first place, I was just begging anybody I knew to connect with me.

Which I don't think was a particularly great strategy, but I was just so enthusiastic to get my hands on the ability to live stream because that was the thing that was really interesting to me at that time. I, I guess in some ways it was posting, it was getting comfortable with the fact that [00:05:00] Maybe one or two people might comment or interact and just being okay with that.

But I think for me, and we'll talk about this more but it's, I'm a really habitual person. So if I can set up some good habits, if I know that I'm doing a particular thing, like putting out a newsletter on a Wednesday every week I can plan my life around that kind of thing.

And I guess for most people, I would encourage them to just start small and think about doing something consistently because we live in this weird world full of marketers that are like you do this one thing and you'll go viral and that's really unlikely to be true but also even if you do go viral how are you going to capitalize on that sudden fame? Like do you have systems set up in place? Do you have Things for people to buy or share or whatever?

So I think it's really important to think about your own personal goals. And again, it's for me, it's quite nebulous because it is like I'm not looking for a job right now and I'm not selling anything. It's really just making sure that people are aware of [00:06:00] the kinds of things I'm capable of. And I just really want to share that information with the world.

Michelle J Raymond: And I'm so grateful for you sharing that because your information on live streaming, especially through your newsletter, I'm on record in many different places, how they're two of my favorite things that I always catch up on. I'll make sure those details are in the show notes because yeah, I think seeing you as a creator, try these new things and I'm going to throw it out there.

And you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like over time, you're more and more coming out of your shell and owning your space. Was it intimidating when you first get out there? Is there lots of loud extroverts all over the place? And that can be, one piece of LinkedIn.

There's people throwing advice every which way, sometimes conflicting advice. Was that like an issue for you getting started or were you just I'm on a mission, I want to do this, I'm blocking it all out.

John Lacey: It's funny, in some ways, I think there are two aspects of my life on LinkedIn, and I [00:07:00] do one of them much better than the other, and for me I'm really happy to just put my head down and make the content and share the content, but there's also the networking piece, which I'm probably less good at, if I'm being honest.

I often follow when I probably want to connect, but I just don't feel confident enough to make that ask or figure out what I'm going to say in an invite. I see a lot of posts that I don't really agree with, and I guess my realization about life in general is that arguing with people online is not a good use of my time. So I usually nod and smile and keep scrolling past that stuff.

 And you and I have probably discussed this in the past too, but lately so many people that I previously loved and adored have made their entire personality about AI tools. And it's just, it's not something I touch with a barge pole, and I'm trying to find a polite way of just being, I like you, but I can't really support this aspect of your work. There is that.

I guess culturally on LinkedIn, and I don't think this is as true these days, but it might be in some places, but certainly when [00:08:00] I started really getting involved in it in recent years, there was a lot of a lot of storytelling, a lot of really moralistic storytelling where you were told quite explicitly at the end what the moral of the story was.

And sometimes these things would be so weird and Out of left center. Like it would just be like, I stubbed my toe and this is what it taught me about thought leadership. And I just looked at all those things and they were so weird to me and I think in a lot of ways, I'm a very practical person, so I just want to learn stuff and I want to show you how to do stuff.

And even though it's, in a lot of ways, a personal branding exercise, I don't really talk about myself, and again, that's probably part of the introvert thing. I'm so happy to talk about anything I know and I'm passionate about, but I don't really want to tell you about what I got up to over the weekend, or post a lot of selfies, even though Anecdotally, it seems like those things can do quite well on this platform.

So yeah, it was just getting a sense of the different people on LinkedIn. And in some ways, my goal on LinkedIn is just to be a real person [00:09:00] connecting with other real people. Because there are some actual literal bots and fake accounts. But there are also just some people with some very weird ideas.

For me it's mostly about the relationships and I just want to know people that I can trust and I find reliable and they're not going to come out with some crazy conspiracy theory in the next week.

Michelle J Raymond: Can't always promise that, but there's certainly a big element of fake accounts on LinkedIn or fake engagement. And this is my chance to reinforce with new listeners and new people on LinkedIn that not all that shimmers is gold. Quite often what we have is people that are part of engagement pods.

Now, what are they? That's where people pay other people to like and comment. And quite often it's tools these days. It's not even real humans. They are paying bots for the privilege of commenting on their posts. So if you jump on and your numbers are low because you're just getting started and you have a look at maybe some other creators and their numbers are through the roof, Don't even believe that.

I just want to put this out there as the [00:10:00] reminder, because people don't know these things exist. Was there something particularly that was really strange or intimidating that stands out for you when you first got started?

John Lacey: I guess in some ways there were certain mental blocks I had to get over personally. I used to, when I started with LinkedIn, Creator Mode and LinkedIn Live specifically, I would schedule these shows every weekend, and nobody would turn up, and I was very philosophical about that. I was like, it's very early, nobody knows who I am, this is a good opportunity for me to practice and get some reps in.

But the thing that I could have been doing, that I just, I wasn't comfortable yet, with doing, was doing was actually inviting my connections to attend these events. And I remember the first time I did that and I probably only invited five or six people, but because they'd never received an invite in this way, they actually reached out to me personally and said, Oh, I'm so sorry, I'm doing blah, blah, blah.

And I thought I didn't really need that kind of reaction. But it's really important. I think a lot of creators can be [00:11:00] deeply self-conscious, but the truth is the algorithms aren't usually working in your favor. You have to be really unsubtle in the way that you promote the things you do.

And, I do the video and live streaming show with my co-host, Sam Proof. I wrote a newsletter, article about that earlier in the week to promote the fact that it's upcoming. And I also schedule it on LinkedIn sort of several days before the newsletter article. And that's in addition to all other things that I do on other social media platforms, just to keep pushing it.

And the thing is, the more I push it, the more people show up. And that sounds so obvious, but for me to internalize that actually did take some time, some practice and just being okay with the fact that, because I, I guess on some level I was really worried about annoying people, but now I'm like if I'm not for you, like this is what I do literally every week.

So if this is not for you, we might as well just disconnect now and move on with our lives. But I guess the other thing is, they can accept or they can reject. It's not a drama. It's it's a mouse click. Really

Michelle J Raymond: And it means nothing. It just means that they didn't want to attend that event. It's nothing personal. And [00:12:00] I see that when I'm encouraging people with Company Page invites, for instance. Same thing, send them out every month. And they're like, Whoa, no, I can't do that.

Or if I want people to send a direct message or a comment, like all of these things are related, which is why when I'm training people, now we talk about mindset. In the LinkedIn Branding Book, the whole first section is dedicated to mindset. Why? Because we go into these funky places when it comes to taking action on the platform.

And on LinkedIn, especially, I find people are really confident. Say I've had conversations this week about confident over on Instagram, really active, creating content, great community. Talk about coming over onto LinkedIn, freak out the professional platform. They think people are judging them, peers, competitors, colleagues, all this kind of stuff.

And LinkedIn becomes this place of I've got to be a LinkedIn version of myself and people get into some weird head spaces around that.

So on LinkedIn I'm curious because I found when I [00:13:00] became, I guess, a LinkedIn trainer, and had my own business. I started to move in some different circles. So I'd gone from being a creator in the beauty industry and promoting ingredients for beauty products. And I had no idea what I was doing. And being naive, it was amazing because I put no pressure on myself.

I was like, I'm just going to have some fun with this. I'm going to try a few things and lo and behold, what do you know? After five years of doing all of that and building an amazing community, it was great. Move into my own business. And we go back to the drawing board and I go how do I do this as a LinkedIn trainer?

Like people are looking to me. And so my circle became very much a whole bunch of other LinkedIn trainers, because I thought if I just see what they're doing, then maybe I can make sure that I'm checking these boxes. And then what happened was I found out that there were all of these rules we'll call them, or maybe LinkedIn etiquette is a nicer word.

And they're often unwritten rules. And an example that I would use is sending connection requests, making sure you personalize messages. Now, [00:14:00] I personally don't care if someone sends me a personalized message or not. I'm like you press connect. I connect or not based on what I choose, based on my values or based on looking at your profile.

And I don't care if you don't personalize it. I do, if that's where the conversation ends and we don't, have anything else afterwards. But did you, or have you noticed anything like that, that have popped up for you? Or are you immune to that? Cause you're not in those circles?

John Lacey: It's a really interesting question and I think there, there are a lot of things that I just do differently. And I've got to be honest, a lot of the stuff I do probably goes against a lot of LinkedIn traditional advice. And I don't mean that in a bad way, but I don't comment as much as I should, I don't connect.

I follow so many more people than I connect and I don't even always go back and connect with people who are following me which is something I just need to work on. But I guess, we talk about the culture of LinkedIn and the need to be this professional version of ourselves. There's a lot of, Bravado, there's a lot of ego. There's a lot [00:15:00] of weird hot takes and you've got to work out how you're going to negotiate all of that.

I think in some ways I tend to like to observe and the thing we know about all of the internet is that lurkers are everywhere and they are noticing things even if they never comment or they never like. And it's funny how often people that have never interacted with anything I've done online will casually slip into conversation something about a show I've done or a post that I made six months ago and I'll be like clearly people are seeing this, whether they actually respond to it or not.

You spoke about engagement pods. And to be honest, I don't lose any sleep over any of that. I don't really care if you're doing that or not doing that. What I want to know is the thing you're sharing useful with me. Are you basically being civil and polite and friendly to me?

But I have noticed that there are people, friendships are built on this platform and there are a lot of little groups that I would love to be a part of but I'm just, I'm at the edge and you know, it's funny when I interviewed you on [00:16:00] my podcast I actually left that on my LinkedIn profile for the longest time, and I was just like, I'm a real person.

Michelle J Raymond, who is much more popular and well known, can vouch for me. Please, this is my social proof. And it's funny, there, there were a number of people, and again, I think there might have even been recommendations from you to other people, but I did have people that I'd been following for the longest time suddenly comment on pieces of content.

And I guess, you've really got to take a long term approach with all of this, and there is, we talk about consistency all the time, but there's just a body of work that leads to trust, and the more you put yourself out there, the more sort of little points people have to enter your world, but also, the more used to seeing and hearing you they are.

And it's funny, I listen to an obscene amount of audio podcasts, and there have been times when I've listened to people who I thought were a bit strange. I wasn't really convinced they knew what they were talking about. And you have to be a little bit careful listening to that content anyway, [00:17:00] because it is such an intimate thing to have them in your ear.

And you listen to any number of episodes, and suddenly they become part of your life, whether they know you or not. There is that element as well. I think for me, and it's, I don't know that it's a rule or a convention, but there is just so much ego to negotiate and a lot of the time I'll just sidestep it and I'll go, this is all a bit too hard and weird for me, so I'll just keep on scrolling.

Michelle J Raymond: Now, John Lacey, this is your official endorsement by Michelle J Raymond for whatever that means to you and to our listeners. John Lacey is the real deal.

And I don't even know how our orbits, cross paths, but I'm very grateful that it did because I have not found someone that is more kind, more helpful and goes above and beyond with any question I have to do with LinkedIn lives, equipment, tech, you name it, you are the person that will drop what you're doing and answer it in a heartbeat.

And, that's the kind of quality that I rate in a person. That's who I try to be. So I think it's that birds of a feather flock [00:18:00] together kind of thing. And I think for me, it's that when I see someone that's a real deal that's starting out, I love to be able to help them, start out, lift up and let other people in my community know, Hey, and I think there's an element when you start to build up your own community, your own, I guess personal brand is another word for it.

But when you do that, I think it's important to reach back and help other people because it is not easy to get to a point like this. It takes time, like John said, it is something that your mental space, it can get out of control sometimes.

I don't care who you are, I don't care how long you've been doing it, we all have our own version of things, which want to hold us back, keep us safe, protect us and keep us small. And so if you can help someone else, level up, I think that's a cool thing to be able to do, but it's also one of my favorite things to do.

So John, I will make sure I make this clip. You can throw it somewhere. You can play it to yourself, [00:19:00] whatever will help because I think you're just brilliant. And I think more people should know about you.

And I will have you back on the show so we can geek out about live streaming. Cause that is also, one of your, one of your many areas of expertise. Like I said, I've learned so much from you. But for those people that want to get started creating content on LinkedIn, John, what are some tips you might offer to help them get started?

John Lacey: I have a bit of a personal theory about the universe, and that is that there are two basic types of people. The first are really inspired by big, hairy, audacious goals. And the bigger and grander and more exciting it is, the more motivated they become. And they may never actually reach that goal, but they'll make enough progress towards that goal that the exercise will feel worthwhile.

And I gotta tell you, I'm not in that category of people. If I do that, I get overwhelmed, I start envisaging how great it could be, and then at some point I go, I literally can't do that. So I'm just going to give up and procrastinate forever. What I find personally quite useful is to think [00:20:00] about the smallest piece of action that you can take on a consistent basis and maybe commit to doing one thing per week.

And once you develop that skill , you can sort of work towards, building upon that and doing more things. So for me I started out with the LinkedIn Live, and it's a different show to the one I do now, but essentially I do a show every Saturday, sort of Sydney time and I also do a newsletter, and anything else I can do on top of that is great, but those are the two sort of non negotiables.

And I think the other thing that's worth keeping in mind is, It's really important to be quite philosophical about what you're doing and putting out there.

I know it can be really lovely to get some reinforcements and positive affirmation on the basis of your content, but I don't want you to obsess over the numbers and I don't want you to feel like your personal success is tied to the success or failure of the last thing you posted.

In some ways, once you've posted it, once you've shared it, once you've interacted with your [00:21:00] people, you really need to put your head down and move on to the next thing that you're going to share.

I guess in terms of LinkedIn specifically, there are all kinds of post types. And if you have creator mode on, you have access to a few other things. Again, the general advice, and maybe Michelle can speak about this in a second, is Don't turn that on too early. Don't do what I did and just wait until you've got exactly 150 connections and throw it on.

Because you do have this sort of disconnect between followers and connections. And the great thing about connections is that you can actually invite them to things. Whereas followers will see what they've opted in to see.

But LinkedIn specifically I really love the, and it's funny I think I mentioned that LinkedIn Live was the thing that got me interested in creator mode, but I really love the newsletters. I have three separate LinkedIn newsletters now. And the thing that's great about the newsletters, and again, because I'm a bit of a web design development guy, it's the one place on the entire platform that you can use semantic HTML.

And that is just that is the building block of the web, and we don't [00:22:00] really need to get into what that is, but for us, it's the ability to add images, it's the ability to add links, it's the ability to use real bold and italic text and not the fake Unicode stuff that people use in LinkedIn posts, which is an accessibility nightmare and it presses my button so much. I'm forever talking about it.

But the great thing about the articles, all the newsletters is you also have the ability to embed your YouTube videos. You can go and grab the Spotify link to a particular podcast episode and embed that as well. And for the newsletters themselves, people actually opt into that. So when people connect with you, they're prompted to, to sign up to those. And if they do, then they'll get notifications.

And I, I don't know if this is, if this is a fair thing for me to say, but I feel like my Organic reach on LinkedIn is pretty low, but if I can invite people to the LinkedIn lives, and I know lots of people have already subscribed to the newsletters, that's where I'll put a lot of my energy in because I'm pretty sure people are seeing that.

And sometimes I'll even go back in and comment on those things [00:23:00] and just let them know about other things that maybe the newsfeed has been less gracious in sharing with them.

So those are a few things. But again, There are so many lurkers out there on the internet, and the Nielsen Norman Group have this thing, and I'm going to probably butcher the title, but let me try anyway.

I think it's the 99 1 Rule of Online Participation Inequality for Online Communities. And the idea is basically that in any online community, 90 percent of your people are just lurking. They might look at things, but they're never commenting, they're never liking. 9 percent of people will comment and 1 percent will actively create content to share on the platform.

If you're in Any of that 10%, you're already doing better than most of the other people on the planet. Take some comfort in that, and, just be prepared that this is a long term project, and you'll need to keep trying and keep going. And I guess the final thought, and I feel like I've shared so much already but, especially if you're going live and you're going on [00:24:00] camera and you're in front of a microphone, that can be really intimidating.

The thing that I've told myself is that every time I go live, I'm building a presentation muscle. And that's literally the name of my podcast, Build a Presentation Muscle. And for me, it's much more about building my own personal presentation skills and my comfort on camera than the success or failure of that particular live or that particular video.

There are a few things to unpack, but this is clearly a subject I'm rather excited about.

Michelle J Raymond: And I love that you're excited about it. You're exactly why I wanted you on the show for this exact reason. And I know that there might be some listeners that are thinking. He started with LinkedIn live and I have to say LinkedIn live is my favorite format of content. Always has been.

And it started out of pure fear that I couldn't make a five minute video about myself for a digital marketing course. But I've practiced every single week the same way. And now I get to speak on international stages. So don't diss LinkedIn lives. They are a great place to [00:25:00] practice, to find your feet, to improve your speaking at whatever rate.

Like I've just been doing it for a long time now, but I found I loved it because people never expected me to be perfect. When I try and make pre recorded videos with scripts and things like that, it just goes pear shaped. I'm not quite there yet. But LinkedIn lives are my place to have some fun and enjoy it. And of course, I'm a huge fan of newsletters as well, as you know.

But I'm going to ask you one thing. So content's one piece of the puzzle. People are another piece. How did you find your people on the platform? So we get past that initial stage where we're maybe connecting with big followers or, along that advice, but how do you find the people that you most resonate with to be part of your community?

John Lacey: I feel like I'm still learning to do this well, but I just go into LinkedIn search and look for specific topics and software that I use. And I guess what's been interesting to me is that I find a lot of kindred spirits that are doing very similar things in their own [00:26:00] fields and their own parts of the world.

And in some ways, That's really lovely because we already understand things. I don't have to make the case for anything. We just understand each other. We know this stuff is cool. And again, as someone who's making no money out of any of this, I'm literally here to share you the cool stuff that I've figured out how to do and that might be useful for you, whether that's personally or professionally.

But I, I guess, you know, you find these people across the world. And it's wonderful that I'm connecting with people outside of my geographical location and we just find things that we have in common and there's an element of following and connecting and there's commenting and potentially DMs as well.

I guess in some ways. And it's funny because I tell people I'm an introvert and they're like, but you're talking in front of a camera, like all the time. How is that possible? And for me, it's, and I'm probably not qualified to speak on behalf of all introvert kinds, but for me, I'm happy to talk about anything I know about, but I don't want to talk about myself. Don't ask me how my weekend was. I have nothing [00:27:00] interesting to, to share with you.

And I don't think, unless you know me well, that You really care to hear the detail of that anyway. So there is that and it's definitely something I need to work on and get a little bit better at, but there are so many great people on this platform that are doing different things with video, with live, podcasting, content creation generally.

And it's funny, I think in some ways it can be really tempting to see other people as your competition and be fearful of that. But for me, I'm not taking anybody's business because I'm not taking anybody's money. So I think in some ways that's been quite helpful too.

Once you find these people, are there opportunities to connect with them, to collaborate? I've been going on more shows lately to talk to different people and I'm hoping to bring some more people into my programs as well.

It's really wonderful, but I think in some ways I want to always be referring back to the video and the content creation and the podcasting and the things I do. I've been in LinkedIn audio events and people have said, Oh, go follow John, he's awesome. And they do but they don't really have any idea [00:28:00] why they're there, or who I am, or what I do.

And occasionally, they'll comment on my post, and I think, Did I leave out some important context? Because they've grasped exactly none of this. It's a work in progress, and you've just gotta put the feelers out and negotiate that sort of thing.

 As an introvert I do need some downtime away from people, and It's been really weird to me in some ways that I'm the person as the introvert that's saying, no, you need real connections. We can't just be having these ChatGPT to ChatGPT discussions without us. Like I know it sounds really lovely to just press a button and sit by the pool for the rest of your life, but it's not really how any of this works and it's not enriching your life. It's not helping anybody else.

So I guess, even getting back to that earlier question, like just be happy to share, who you are and what you do, and do it in your own voice. But we'll try not to get onto that. In a lot of ways I try not to talk about subjects I don't believe in, but AI just annoys me so much that I'm always complaining about it.

So I apologize for that, everybody.

Michelle J Raymond: Don't apologize. We've [00:29:00] all got something that presses our buttons. As I said, mine's engagement pods. It is the one thing that just drives me bananas. So we've all got a thing and I think it's okay to have that thing. And as long as we can all be respectful and share our opinions and voice it and be okay with, both sides of the argument having their own say. Then, that's part of what makes the world go around.

John, as a listener of this show and now as my guest, every show, I always ask for an actionable tip that you'd like to leave someone that might be getting started on LinkedIn. What's one last little tip that you'd love to give them.

John Lacey: I think in some ways it's hacking back to an earlier tip and that's just decide what's the small consistent thing that you can do every week? And maybe decide on Wednesdays I'm going to post something and if you're not a creator, if you haven't developed those skills yet, maybe it's just sharing something that's relevant to your industry or maybe just a photo you took during your travels.

Just share something and do that sort of at the same time, [00:30:00] roughly each week. And, you've got to start somewhere. And the minute you actually post something, like I said before, you're doing so much better than those other 99 percent of the people that are just, just lurking.

Michelle J Raymond: Brilliant advice. It's exactly what I give my clients. It's that 1 percent better every day. Just do what you're doing. Add one more thing the next week. And starting off small, I think is really great advice. One, so you don't get overwhelmed. Two, so you don't burn out and you can do things over the longterm.

So listeners, I am going to make sure that all the details for connecting with John, following along with his LinkedIn lives and newsletter are all in the show notes. I do recommend you go and follow him and learn from this man.

You will not find somebody that actually gives you both sides to the story, good, bad, and what you need to know, because he's done the research. And that's something that I always appreciate. The effort that you put into the content that you put out, John, it is helping someone like me.

I may not pay you, but I can assure you that you make a [00:31:00] difference to the quality of what I'm doing, out there on LinkedIn. So I appreciate you being part of my community.

I appreciate everything that you've shared today. And this is my chance to ask you, will you come back on the show another time so we can talk about LinkedIn live streaming, would that be okay? Can I get you back again?

John Lacey: I would absolutely love that and incidentally we did this great thing on the video and live streaming show where we publicly asked Michelle if she would come on our show and because she did that publicly, we had it embedded in the video.

So that's a tip. If you're trying to get somebody to join you live invite them on a live event so that they can't refute the thing we've already said, but I would be delighted that's definitely my happy place.

Michelle J Raymond: I see you and I come back at you, so I can't wait to have that conversation. We will get that organized because yeah, I'm a huge fan of LinkedIn lives. I love what you do with them. I love how much you're helping people.

So on behalf of the community, which I know this will make you super duper uncomfortable, but thank you for everything that you do and put out there because you make the community better for all of the knowledge that you share, so we appreciate you and on [00:32:00] that note, listeners until next week.

I can't wait for everybody to listen back to this. If you're getting started and just think about what small actions can you take to progress on LinkedIn. And if one of those actions comes up that it's all about updating your LinkedIn profile, I've got a 30 day LinkedIn profile transformation challenge happening over on YouTube.

So come across, you never know what you'll learn.

So until next week, cheers.