When was the last time you updated your LinkedIn profile? If the answer is the last time you went for a new job or maybe even not at all, then listen in to how you can fix this and win more opportunities for business growth.
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 LinkedIn Profiles for Business Growth
00:49 Why LinkedIn Profiles Matter
04:49 Creating a Strong First Impression
08:14 Crafting an Engaging About Section
09:41 Showcasing Experience and Skills
12:44 Building Trust and Credibility
15:47 Beware LinkedIn AI Tools
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 #LinkedInProfile #LinkedInForBusiness
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If your LinkedIn profile was written with the intention of securing a new role,
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and you haven't changed it since or you haven't completed it fully you could be
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missing out on business opportunities.
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In today's episode, we're going to be fixing that.
00:00:32
G'day listeners.
00:00:33
It is coach Michelle J Raymond back again.
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I hope you've enjoyed using the R.A.T.E framework to boost your impressions on LinkedIn.
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If you missed last week's episode, I recommend that you go back and play catch ups because it
00:00:46
was a cracker and I've got so much good feedback.
00:00:49
But today's episode, we're going to be talking all about LinkedIn profiles.
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Why am I talking about LinkedIn profiles?
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Because all roads on LinkedIn lead back there.
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Whether you are connecting with someone, whether you're creating content, whether you're
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sending direct messages, what do we all do?
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We go and stalk each other, professionally, of course, and check out more details.
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When we land on a LinkedIn profile, the first impressions really matter.
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So making sure that we've got this updated and driving the reader towards opportunities
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to work with you, that is super important.
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What else matters when we're social selling on LinkedIn?
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Trust and credibility are cornerstones of our whole strategy.
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So having a profile that best reflects you and is up to date is a really
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great way that we can do this.
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The third thing that we need to be mindful of is that we want to make sure
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that as many sets of eyes as possible are viewing your LinkedIn profile.
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And the way that we do this is to make sure that it's optimised for the reader, but also
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optimised for the LinkedIn search engine.
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Otherwise, the search engine will recommend competitors in your industry
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that have put more time into updating this.
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I've been working with you know, lots of business leaders across the world
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to update their LinkedIn profiles.
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And interestingly, the before shot, when I have a look at it and I'm kind of sitting there and
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I'm very underwhelmed at best, then I have a one hour conversation with them and ask them so many
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questions about their career, their experience, what they're trying to achieve in the business.
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The contrast is like night and day.
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It is mind blowing that the before shot, I would be lucky to give them an entry level job.
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The after, recognises them as industry leaders.
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Today's episode is going to be completely actionable.
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Get ready and grab your pens because these are the practical things that I want you to take a look
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at so that we can improve your first impressions.
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First impressions are lasting impressions.
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Okay, listeners, the first section that we're going to pay attention to is those
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parts of the LinkedIn profile that create the best first impression possible.
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Now I'm going to start with your LinkedIn profile photo.
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It is absolutely crucial that if I was to have a look at that photo and then jump on a zoom
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call or meet you face to face, that I'm not scratching my head, wondering if it's you.
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I want you where possible to be looking straight ahead into the camera and a smile.
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So why is this important?
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Because it makes you friendly, approachable, and trustworthy.
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This is the kind of people that others want to do business with.
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So current photo and don't have it that you're too far back.
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We want you to be up close and taking up roughly 70 percent of the circle.
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Why is that important?
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Because most of us are looking at LinkedIn on mobile devices up to around 80 percent
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is the most recent stats that I've read.
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I know with my old lady eyes these days, it's getting harder and
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harder to see those small things.
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Branded backgrounds, ie colours behind the photo can also be helpful.
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Branded backgrounds allow people to not just scroll and look for your face, but also
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recognise the colours in the background.
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The second piece of the puzzle that I want you to make sure creates a great first
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impression is your LinkedIn headline.
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And you are more than just your job title.
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What else can you include in that section that gives me some insights into who you are, what
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you do and what happens if I work with you.
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Think about keywords you want to be discovered for if someone else's to read it again, immediately
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they can identify they're in the right place.
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Why do I start with photo and headline first, quite simply, they follow you everywhere on
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LinkedIn, whether you're commenting, whether you're posting, direct message, you're attending
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an audio event, these two things show up.
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The next thing that we're going to take a look at is what I call your billboard.
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You have a personal billboard on LinkedIn, also known as your cover image.
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Some people call it your LinkedIn banner.
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But think about it as the opportunity that if someone was cruising on by taking a quick look at
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your profile, you want them to get an immediate message from you that they can take away.
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If you think about driving down the road and billboards on the side of the road,
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they have really limited information on them, but often big punchy messages.
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So that's why my advice to you listeners is try and limit the text to maybe five keywords.
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Don't try and stuff too much information on there because otherwise the person
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that arrives there has been bombarded.
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They don't know where to look.
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And remember, there's so much other information.
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Make this count as the best first impression for your business that you can.
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Now the next thing that we're going to have a look at, and this one is the one that I think most
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undersells the clients that I've ever worked with.
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And even when I'm looking around on LinkedIn and that is the about section.
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It is the opportunity for you to create a narrative around who you are, what you stand
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for, the products you offer, the values that you have, and really if someone's landed on your
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profile this is where you can reel them in and get them closer to wanting to work with you.
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The other way works just as much as if you've neglected it and it only
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talks about you and your achievements then people can be turned off by that.
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LinkedIn for business is different.
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We are now using this space, not to talk about all about me.
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It is now, how do you solve the problems and challenges that other
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people have out in the world?
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This comes back to our positioning, messaging and branding, the things we need to get right
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before we start writing these About sections.
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So it's roughly 2, 600 character spaces.
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If yours is light on or you're missing information, then it's time to go back
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and spend some time on this section.
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Imagine you've created a great first impression.
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The next thing that a visitor to your LinkedIn profile might be assessing it
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for, is your experience and your expertise.
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And this is where the work experience section and the skills section, and making
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sure that again, this information is up to date, fully complete, and maximises the
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space that we've got within these fields.
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Quite often, I see just job titles and no other information.
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Remember that the LinkedIn search algorithm is assessing you against your
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competitors in this section as well.
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And if you haven't gone to the effort to complete this, and there's no keywords in there and your
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competitor has then they will get put forward.
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And they are opportunities you might be missing out on right now.
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So this is really critical that you go through and update this.
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I've been surprised when I've been working with my clients that upon a little bit of digging
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on my behalf, all of a sudden I realised these people are literally saving the planet, changing
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industries, creating new technologies, and you just would not get any of that if you landed on
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their profile before I started working with them.
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So is your profile the same way?
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If you are kind of sitting here nodding in agreement going, yeah, I haven't really
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updated it we want to make sure you come across as the expert that you are in your field.
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Once you've updated your work experience section.
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It's important to note that you can now add skills to each of those work experience sections.
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You'll also notice if you scroll down on your profile, that there is an
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entire section dedicated to skills.
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This allows you to add up to 100 skills.
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Think about what are the five key skills that you want to be known for
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and make sure you go and add it into the various places that you can on LinkedIn.
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Once you've added the skills on LinkedIn, it's important to try and
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get some endorsements for those skills.
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Nobody on LinkedIn is sitting around twiddling their thumbs thinking,
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Oh, I'm a little bit bored today.
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How about I go to Michelle J Raymond's LinkedIn profile, scroll all the way down to
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the bottom and endorse her for her skills.
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The only way that you will get endorsed for these skills on your LinkedIn profile
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is to ask the people that you work with.
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That could be your manager, that could be your colleagues.
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It could be your clients past and present.
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The more endorsements you can get the better so that if someone lands on your LinkedIn profile and
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they're scrolling and doing a bit of research, the more likely they are to see that as a good thing.
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Let's go into the third section.
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And talk about how we build credibility and trust on our LinkedIn profile.
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And there's so many different ways that we can do this, but I'm going to focus on a couple.
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And one of them is building on kind of the previous conversation we had about
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skills, but getting recommendations from other people, that backs up the claims that
00:13:05
you've made in other areas of your profile.
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So if you scroll all the way down to the bottom of your LinkedIn profile,
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you'll find the recommendation section.
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For some of you, if you've never given one or received one, it will be missing
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and you will need to go through and work out how to add that section.
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If you get stuck, message me on LinkedIn and I will teach you how.
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But ultimately recommendations are more social proof that other people have said, yes, you can
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do those things that you've described in your Work Experience, your About section, your headline.
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All of these things are now backed up by third parties and social proof is really powerful.
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If you haven't had any within the last year, your job is to go and get two current ones.
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And you will need to go and request those from people.
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Another cool area, which you can add social proof and build up this trust and credibility
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is the featured section on your profile.
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Now, unlike the recommendations, this sits up towards the top.
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Sometimes it moves around ,but ultimately think about what are either
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links or media or posts or graphics.
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What are some things that you could put up there that would build up
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credibility and trust in working with you.
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For some people, it might be, you've been a speaker at an event.
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For some people you got published in papers.
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For others it might be that you had a post that performed really well
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and resonated on your subject matter.
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These are all different ways that you can do it.
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There's no right or wrong.
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But I do want you to be proud of some of the things that you've done and really
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direct how you want people to think of you.
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And I think being proud of your achievements is fundamentally one of the things that is missing
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on LinkedIn, because we've been told, don't be braggy, don't do this, linkedIn's cringe seems to
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be the latest kind of thing that I keep hearing.
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It's not bragging if you've actually delivered those results, it's not conceited.
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It is not you trying to make yourself sound better than other people.
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It is just purely a reflection of who you are in the offline world, becoming
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who you are in your LinkedIn profile.
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Nothing more, nothing less.
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There you have it listeners.
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You have a long list of actions that you can take to really upgrade your profile to make sure
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that it is a profile that drives business growth.
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If you have a premium account on LinkedIn, I know that they are recommending a lot of
00:16:02
AI suggestions to help you update and write these sections that we've gone through today.
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My humble advice is, to date, I have never seen results come out of those AI
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suggestions that are worthy of actually keeping on your LinkedIn profile.
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Given that the tools aren't great.
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If you don't want to write about yourself, just remember, I'm here to help.
00:16:25
It is a service that we offer at B2B Growth Co.
00:16:28
I love writing LinkedIn profiles.
00:16:30
I never thought that I would say that, but there is something magical around when I
00:16:36
get all of those pieces of the puzzle in the right place and have a profile that reflects
00:16:41
exactly who you are and no longer undersells you and it speaks to your audience and drives
00:16:47
you towards your business goals that I love.
00:16:50
If that sounds like something that you would like to take up as an option, the details are in the
00:16:55
show notes on how you can book a call with me.
00:16:58
Before I wrap up today's episode, I just wanted to say thank you to all of the listeners who send me
00:17:03
messages and let me know that this podcast helps.
00:17:06
I genuinely love it.
00:17:08
If this is making a difference or you've got an idea for a podcast episode that I haven't covered
00:17:13
as yet, I'm always open to ideas and suggestions.
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So until next week, happy updating.
00:17:19
Cheers.
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