Standing Out on LinkedIn Isn't Actually That Hard (Here's How)

Most of us were taught that being different was a bad thing, but on LinkedIn

it's a secret to winning business.

So in today's episode, let's talk about finding your different.

G'Day everyone.

I'm Coach Michelle J Raymond, your trusted advisor for building your

brand and your business on LinkedIn.

In this week's episode, we're gonna be talking about standing

out on LinkedIn, and for some of you that is gonna make you cringe.

For others, you might be tempted to switch podcasts.

Please don't do that.

Stick around because I promise you this is the secret to success on LinkedIn.

This is how we grow our businesses.

And the thing is, this has been playing around on my mind.

I've been grappling with this myself, and it all started when I was getting

my presentation ready for Uplift Live and Social Media Marketing World.

And there's a slide in there where I challenged the audience to dare to be

different and I didn't realise that would be the slide that would really

capture the attention of people.

That pretty much most of the feedback that's been coming through, it's all been

about that slide, which is really crazy.

I challenge them to dare to be different with their company pages.

I've been doing the same with myself, like struggling with what makes me different.

Why am I any different to any of the other thousands of LinkedIn trainers are

out there, and why should you pick me?

Why would anyone wanna work with me over some of my competitors?

And it's a really important question and one that I have answered in

the past, but I'm looking at it again through a fresh set of eyes.

Before we go into how you can figure out what makes you stand out, I don't wanna

skip over the part where I appreciate that this is really difficult for some people.

We are taught don't rock the boat, don't stand out.

It can be cultural.

I was working with my Swedish clients and telling them, yeah, we're gonna

rewrite your LinkedIn profile and show the industry how you stand out.

And then I learned that culturally that's not what they do.

Which was a really interesting thing for me to learn.

Here in Australia, we call it the Tall Poppy Syndrome.

If I look back to me growing up as a young girl who had a short haircut, always,

then I often got the, you look like a boy.

And it's something that has, plagued me throughout my life, having

these types of conversations.

Being different doesn't always equate to being special,

unique, and positive things.

You may have your own version of this.

In fact, I would go as far as saying that everybody has their own version

of why they don't wanna be different.

But the problem is when we play it safe and blend in on LinkedIn, then

we miss out on opportunities, and that is why it's really important.

A special distinction here is I'm not asking you to be the loudest.

I'm not asking you to be the craziest.

I'm not even asking you to go full extrovert.

There are many other ways that we can do it, and in today's episode, I'm gonna

step you through this and I'm gonna give you a simple and practical framework to

follow so you can discover your different.

So if that sounds good to you, let's dive in.

Why does being different even matter at all?

The fact is on LinkedIn with over a billion members, there

are lots of good experts.

There are lots of people with lots of experience.

We are spoiled for choice.

When people are on the platform, remember they are scrolling

that home feed super fast.

And if we are trying to get the attention of B2B buyers, we have

to give them a reason to notice us.

Otherwise people keep on scrolling and that's a bad thing.

That is how opportunities disappear.

For those of you who create content for brands through the company

page, it is no different for you.

I know that when I go and do company page audits with page admins, the first

thing that I do is have a look at the industry, go to the key competitors,

and nine times outta ten I'm gonna say the content looks exactly the same.

It might have different branding colours, but at the end of the day,

you all talk about the same stuff in the same way, using the same tone,

and everybody is on the same level.

Standing out is not just pay attention to me.

Standing out is about how can you have a place in that viewer's brain

for the next time when they want to recall you, they can recall the

right person or the right business.

That is why we are doing this.

For those of you who are going, you know what?

I don't really know what makes me different.

I get it.

I think it's hard for us to discover these things ourselves.

After this quick word from our podcast sponsors Metricool, I'm gonna share

the five questions that you can use to discover what makes you different.

Let's start with question number one, and question number one is, what do

people consistently compliment me on?

Think about it.

What do you often receive compliments on when you are working with clients.

What are the words that people come back to you and say,?

One of the cheats way to discover what this is go to your LinkedIn

profile and have a look at the recommendations and see is there

a common theme that comes through?

When I look at mine, there are words like energy, high energy.

Michelle always delivers with lots of excitement and

enthusiasm, and that's contagious.

That comes up in a lot of my recommendations.

There's also a theme where people say, I break down complex ideas into easy to

understand and practical applications.

That came across multiple different recommendations that I've received.

If you don't have any recommendations on LinkedIn, send out requests and ask people

that you've worked with to leave you one.

Or if you've got testimonials on your website, exactly the same process.

Go and have a look and see is there a recurring theme.

If you download these from LinkedIn, you can get your archive

and all of your recommendations.

You could put that into ChatGPT and ask it to look for these common themes.

Let it do the work for you.

This is one of the cool ways that we can use ChatGPT.

Understanding what people constantly compliment you on also allows you

to get insights into what part of your job you're really good at.

And quite often it's gonna line up with the part of your

job that you love the most.

So go back, take a look and see if you can answer question one.

What do people consistently compliment me on?

Let's move to question two.

Where do I break the rules in my industry without even thinking about it?

I'll say it again.

Where do I break the rules in my industry without even thinking about it?

Oh, this is probably my favorite one.

'cause I think this is a big part of what makes me different and this

is how I stood out originally when everybody else said, don't worry about

company pages and I was like, whoa, you can't cut off 50% of LinkedIn.

And so this is a big piece of going against what most people

would teach through their training.

I talk about the Power of Two.

How do you get your company brand and personal brands of either yourself

or your employees working together?

And that's despite most people out on the platform saying it's a waste of time.

Now, it's absolutely not.

You as a listener to this podcast, know how passionate I am.

But in your industry, you will have your version of this as well.

And so I want you to think where is it that you break the so-called rules that

are out there in your industry without even thinking about it, because you just

believe in this so strongly that it is a part of your makeup, it's a part of

what you do, and you're not out there just to break a rule for the sake of it.

It's just who you are.

So a really powerful question to ask.

Question number three is.

What do I believe deeply that others in my field often ignore or disagree with?

When I was answering these questions for myself and thinking about what do

I disagree with others in the industry who offer potentially similar services.

The big one that stands out is I absolutely disagree with anyone that

promotes automation, engagement pods or solutions that are similar to that.

Like I am here and I will die on that hill to really make sure that people

know that I don't stand for cheating, trying to get around things, growth

hacks, anything along those lines.

That's been coming up for me.

In fact, it drives me so much that my tagline that I discovered, my new tagline,

which is been something I've been working on, I reckon 18 months, trying to find the

right words, is now B2B Growth, No Hacks.

And it was amazing to discover this how I could succinctly talk about what

I do and what makes me different in just four words like that is crazy.

So what else do you disagree with with those in your industry?

Let's have a look at question four.

If my ideal client was choosing between me and five others, what

reason would they have to pick me?

I'll say it again.

If my ideal client was choosing between me and five others, what

reason would they have to pick me?

Avoid the generic.

It's time to really do the work.

Sit down and make time and space for this to figure out what

really makes you different.

And this is harder than you think.

This is one that took some time to sit there and think, what is it?

Coming back to my unique approach to LinkedIn, the Power of Two business

brands and personal brands together.

That is something that nobody else talks about.

That makes me uniquely me.

Having Company Pages and personal brands together.

Coming back again to some of that experience in B2B sales and now B2B

marketing and joining those two together.

Most people you'll discover come from one side or the other, or maybe

they come from a HR background.

A lot of LinkedIn trainers came from the career development space.

Now, that's not me.

My entire focus is about how do you use LinkedIn to grow your B2B.

It is my piece of the puzzle that I just love.

What is it that really would give other people a reason to pick you?

We're gonna go onto number five.

What's one personal trait that you bring into your work that most others don't?

I'll say it again.

What's one personal trait that you bring into your work that most others don't?

I would have to say I bring my heart and empathy.

That is my personal traits that I think I bring into this more

than anyone else in my industry.

I genuinely care that other people are growing their businesses.

I am here to have a real impact because it's like this for me listeners.

The more people that grow their business.

The more people that they employ.

When you are employed, you have money.

When you have money, you have choices, and hopefully you make better choices

and people are happier, healthier.

I wanna live in the best community that I possibly can.

And by community, I don't mean just here locally.

To me, I'm mean the whole world.

Money brings people choices.

So if you wanna know why I care about helping other people grow their business.

That's what it is for me, and that's why I show up on LinkedIn.

I do what I do.

I'm generous with my time.

I'm generous with the things that I give away to others to help them grow.

My YouTube channel, my podcasts, books, like all of these kinds of things are a

reflection of the way my personal trait of empathy and care for others shows

up and makes me better at what I do.

So what is the one personal trait that you bring to your work that most others don't?

They are the five questions listeners that I use to help me get clarity

around what makes me different.

Notice how, as you answer those five questions, none of them said, what

crazy stuff are you gonna do to make people pay attention to you on LinkedIn?

On the flip side, all of those answers are what makes you unique and different.

Once we have the gold, it's time to go across to your LinkedIn profile

and update it with these insights, and we'll do that after this short break.

It's one thing to get all of these gold nuggets and understand what makes us

unique and different to our competitors.

But now it's time to take a look at your LinkedIn profile, or

for those of you doing it for a company page, the same will apply.

What kinds of places can you update with these amazing insights?

Your LinkedIn banner is one of them.

Absolutely.

Take the insights and think, how can I use this as my billboard to share

these insights with my audience?

So if you had to pick five words to describe what makes you

different and unique compared to your competitors, what five would

you use based on these insights?

If you run out of room there, good news is you should come down and

update your LinkedIn headline.

That's the part that's just underneath your photo.

Add some of these words that others have used or you have discovered you

would like to use about yourself.

Make sure that they're in that headline because it follows you everywhere.

When we're offering insights about what makes us unique, we've got

other areas like our Featured section and our About section.

It is worth spending time on your LinkedIn profile to update these areas.

So again, cover image, headline, Featured section About section.

They're a good place to start.

And for those of you who don't have recommendations on your LinkedIn profile.

You've got some homework.

I want you to get two to five current recommendations on your profile.

You might wanna do this first, so you've got the insights from those people writing

recommendations along with the work that you've done to answer the five questions,

and that will just level up your insights.

As promised, I've given you a simple and practical way to get to the bottom of

what makes you uniquely different, how you can stand out on LinkedIn and notice

none of it was about doing crazy stuff.

Oversharing your personal life, pointless selfies, algorithm

hacks, nothing along those lines.

You don't have to go crazy to get noticed.

But you also need to find out a way to distinguish

yourself from your competitors.

This work often isn't easy work.

If you are somebody that discovers while you go through this, Hey,

actually I need some help, then make sure you reach out and talk to me.

I have services like Power Hours or rewriting your LinkedIn profile that I

can help you with this kind of thing.

I work with all kinds of businesses that are in the B2B space, especially if

you are trying to grow using LinkedIn.

So if you're getting stuck, don't just stay stuck.

Reach out and get help.

As we wrap up today's episode, this is a reminder that I love hearing from you

listeners, if you are doing this work and having a breakthrough, reach out

make sure we're connected on LinkedIn.

Let me know that you're a listener to this podcast and how it's impacted

you and your business growth.

Until next week, cheers.