Building a Niche and Standing Out on LinkedIn with Karen Tisdell the LinkedIn Profile Writing Expert | Ep. 176 | Business Podcast

Summary

An early adopter of LinkedIn, Karen Tisdell recognised the platform’s potential when working as a recruiter.

Foreseeing the importance of how business leaders are perceived online, Karen began her LinkedIn profile writing business.

A decade later she is ranked as one of the top eight independent LinkedIn trainers across Asia Pacific, and has facilitated training for sales teams in some of the biggest companies in Australia, while writing profiles for small business owners and start-ups.

Karen and I talk about how she started her business and then she drops a ton of high percentage tips (HPT’s) to help you master your LinkedIn profile.

Links in this episode

Karen Tisdell

Hello friends,

Karen:

Welcome to the Edge.

Karen:

Today we’re talking with Karen Tisdale who is an expert linked in profile description writer, she started her career as a recruiter using the linkedin platform and realized how important it is to have an on point profile description, she quit the recruiting firm and started her own business in this episode.

Karen:

We talk about what it was like for her to start her own business and she really opens up and shares some really touching moments about inspiration and what has kept her going along the way until she really found her stride and carved out a niche.

Karen:

She’s one of the most sought after profile writers on linkedin out there.

Karen:

You’re going to love this episode about how she started the business and then later we talk about tips and tricks that you can implement so that you can attract the type of people that you want to your personal or business profile, Karen Tis oh, here we go, welcome to the Edge podcast, your weekly playbook about the inner game of building a successful business, making you a happier, healthier and richer business owner and here’s your host, Brandon White.

Karen:

Hi Karen, Hello, how are you?

Karen:

Great to see you.

Karen:

Good to see you.

Karen:

Your hair looks really good today, I woke up with good hair today, so thank you so much for accommodating, it’s great to be on your podcast and we’re talking to on a day where I have good hair here in Wintry Sydney Australia, is it winter there?

Karen:

It’s winter here, I know how weird is that, What is that?

Karen:

You know that on the other side of the world, we are very different weather.

Karen:

I mean it makes sense scientifically, but it just feels strange, doesn’t it?

Karen:

Yeah, it does.

Brandon:

What is winter in Sydney Australia meet now?

Brandon:

That’s a great question.

Karen:

In Sydney, It means that we have lows of 11-14°, so it’s not very cold I suppose by global standards, but our houses are not built for cold.

Brandon:

So I’m feeling it a bit.

Karen:

How long does it last?

Brandon:

Probably only get really about three months of really cold weather.

Karen:

So that’s 12°C. Yes, Celsius.

Karen:

Yeah, I I got, you know, I’m not I don’t have that, I can’t do the math on that.

Brandon:

I think that’s 53 degrees.

Karen:

That’s like half moon bay California, whether it’s not.

Brandon:

But look, I can sympathize with you because I understand that it can feel really chilly.

Brandon:

And when you’re used to the hot, your warmer weather or son, it does get really chilly.

Karen:

So, I grew up on the other side of Australia.

Karen:

So I grew up on Perth Western Australia.

Karen:

And so that’s where it’s really hot.

Brandon:

It really is very warm in Perth Western Australia to the point where in summer you’re looking at 40 44 degrees 44 degrees Celsius in summer.

Brandon:

So it’s crazy hot like Dubai type hot, hot hot Anyhoo?

Karen:

Moving on, How are you going?

Brandon:

How’s everything for you today?

Karen:

I’m doing good, but I do want to tell you something that’s going to be a little weird.

Brandon:

But how do you do that?

Karen:

You know where the Kimberley is?

Karen:

If you grew up in Western North Syria, the Kimberly’s?

Karen:

Yes, absolutely beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.

Karen:

Part of Australia, stunning.

Karen:

Our foundation, did a movie on the Kimberley and I need to send that to you.

Brandon:

Oh, you should.

Karen:

Yes.

Karen:

My husband actually was lucky enough to work up near the Kimberly’s.

Karen:

So, so he knows the area very well, incredible.

Karen:

I called it the oldest art gallery in the entire world because of the rock artwork that is, there is absolutely incredible and geographically it’s beautiful.

Karen:

But yes, the are made of Australians, like just beautiful part work.

Brandon:

I’m going to send you that after we record our episode, but today we are talking about linked in profiles.

Karen:

I feel like you’re maybe the absolute expert that I have ever seen on this, because you have such a very descriptive niche that you’ve carved out on what you do and how important it is.

Karen:

But before we talk about that, how did you find your way to being a linkedin profile expert?

Karen:

I, my backgrounds recruitment.

Brandon:

So I had 14 years in recruitment selling people and when Lincoln started in 2005, our ceo at the time at Janet McCloud Organization I was working for, burst into the, into the room have a Friday meeting all of us.

Karen:

And he burst in his like there’s this platform called linked in and you can find anybody and he was so enthusiastic about it and I just you know this this man luke Hennington so amazing if he said to it, I was like I’m going to get on it.

Brandon:

So I started using linkedin in 2000 and five.

Brandon:

Now I was actually a bit of a slow learner took me a couple of years to realize that I could reverse engineer my success by not just hunting for talent but hunting for people that could be my potential clients.

Karen:

So I realized this is like an address book or a roller dex.

Karen:

Do you remember a roller dex Brandon?

Karen:

You know where you put all your cards in.

Karen:

It’s like that on steroids.

Karen:

So I started using it to find clients and I smashed my sales targets.

Karen:

I went on maternity leave In 2008, late 2008, early 2009 and the GFC had hit and a lot of people are being made redundant and everybody kept saying to me can you write my resume and help me with getting a job?

Karen:

You know you’ve got so many years in recruitment, you love writing, you know you’re you’re good at resumes and I was like yeah, resumes are great but you really need to be on linked in because it’s it’s not enough to have a great resume so I don’t write resumes anymore at all ever but that’s much further down the funnel.

Karen:

It’s who you know, that makes the biggest difference in terms of your professional success and it’s who knows you, that depends on whether you’re attracting clients, investors, all those sorts of things, you can do so much capital raising just on linkedin.

Karen:

And so I started my business writing linked in profiles and it was just because I was on maternity leave and I thought I’m just going to do this until I go back to recruitment and here I am, 12 years later, still writing profiles and writing, but I love people, you know, I dreamed as a child of writing autobiographies, I didn’t want to be a biography writer.

Karen:

I wanted to actually sit in somebody’s shoes and pretend to be them and write a book and that’s what I wanted to do as a child.

Karen:

And how hilarious is it that how funny is it here?

Karen:

About 48 years of age writing linked in profile.

Brandon:

So, I’m kind of like a ghost autobiography writer in mini version.

Brandon:

So you you have stayed and what do you when you were Well, at one point, did you decide during maternity leave that you were done with this other career and you were going out on your own, like, was there a day when you said, okay, I can make enough money or were you like, this is way better than going into the office.

Brandon:

I mean, and reporting to a boss or how did that moment happened, That’s a top question and nobody has ever asked me that.

Brandon:

I think it actually happened the moment I was talking to somebody about collecting their information to write their linkedin profile.

Brandon:

It was at that moment that I just thought I feel excited about this in a way that I haven’t felt since I first started in recruitment, those early few years of recruitment and I always loved what I did, but in those early few years in the honeymoon phase of recruitment, you know, in the early 1990s, you know, you’re probably not old enough to remember that, but it was such a big thing and I just loved what I was doing and I just thought, oh my gosh, I’m in flow here, like I just love this.

Brandon:

And that night I just thought I can shape a business that works around my Children, you know, I’m not a natural entrepreneur, I didn’t dream of owning my own business, but when I just that night laid in my bed and was just reflecting on the work that I had done that day and I just thought the person, the cons, you know, and I didn’t go into it with rosy colored glasses, I think a lot of people open their own business thinking, you know, I’ll have a business that will work around my family, it’ll do this, it will do that and it will be all mine.

Brandon:

So I had that.

Brandon:

But I also thought I don’t have an M.

Brandon:

B.

Brandon:

A.

Brandon:

Unlike my husband, you know, I don’t I don’t know the first thing about running a business.

Brandon:

You know, I come from a long line of people who have always been, you go and work for somebody else, but I just thought this is not going to be easy.

Brandon:

I don’t even know what questions to ask, but we’re in the age of the internet, right?

Brandon:

You can listen to podcasts like this, you can learn things.

Brandon:

And the wonderful thing about linked in is you can also search out for people who know things that you don’t know and you can say, hey, you know we’re connected.

Brandon:

I’ve supported your post for a while.

Karen:

I’m just really struggling with this.

Karen:

Have you had some time to jump on a call and help me out.

Karen:

Really happy to quid pro quo maybe I could write some content for you or help you improve your profile.

Karen:

So I knew it wasn’t gonna be easy, but I think it was day one.

Karen:

I just thought this is it for me.

Karen:

Did you tell you what happened when you told your husband?

Karen:

He wasn’t happy?

Brandon:

I know, I know, and he’s so entrepreneurial, but he was like, but it’s not guaranteed income.

Brandon:

You know, actually I think he was really excited in the early days, but then as we got on he was like, you know, there was some weeks where I had lots of money and there was some weeks where I didn’t and he just really struggled as an engineer.

Brandon:

So I know, you know, a lot of technical people, I think a lot of your clients and listeners perhaps are quite technical people.

Brandon:

And so he loved the idea of having a regular income.

Brandon:

You know, he was like, you know, but what do you mean you don’t know how much money you’re gonna make next month?

Brandon:

Not like, I don’t know.

Brandon:

So you just really, really struggled with that actually.

Brandon:

And I think I’m this may sound a bit harsh, but I think it’s sort of treated my body my business a little bit like it was a hobby and you know, it wasn’t until he suffered his own first for all redundancy.

Brandon:

And he was like, oh my gosh, you know like we’ve got all these bills.

Brandon:

I’m like, honey, that’s all right.

Brandon:

I got this.

Brandon:

He’s like, sorry, what do you have any idea how much I am?

Brandon:

So um you know, it’s been an evolution for us.

Brandon:

And did he, has he come, I don’t mean come around, I’m sure he’s been supportive of the reason I ask these questions because it really gets down.

Brandon:

You know, we were, we can talk about what you do and we want to learn all of that and help our listeners improve what they do, but really as a business owner, what I say is that you talk about your team and when I generally ask that question, people will start telling me about their HR person and about their finance person and about their accountant and I find it interesting is a terrible word.

Brandon:

It’s just it’s a terrible dumb word.

Karen:

But I find it curious because my experience has been without the home team meaning the one that’s in your home.

Brandon:

It is very hard to build, it is hard to build a business if everything is going right.

Brandon:

So when you have, when you start out and you don’t have the support system or at least some belief then I think it makes it incredibly hard.

Brandon:

Oh my gosh, he was so wise.

Brandon:

I did not have a home team.

Brandon:

My husband was not supportive.

Brandon:

I have a new website as of sort of 78 weeks ago.

Brandon:

This is not a plug but I have a new website and and I said to my husband so many times, have you had a look at my new website, the website I’ve spent so long working on, He’s like no, why would I look at your website so he’s not interested in my business.

Karen:

He struggled you know, he doesn’t like social media, but can you believe it?

Karen:

I married a man, I hear my deeply obsessed with linkedin think it’s the answer to everything and he doesn’t like social media so he is not my home team and also my extended family, you know, my mom and my dad thought I was absolutely crazy though.

Karen:

Like you’ve been so successful in the corporate world, why would you not go and work in the corporate world?

Karen:

You’ve been very successful at selling people, you’re good at sales, you’re obsessed with sales psychology and marketing.

Karen:

Why would you go and open your own business?

Karen:

Writing linked in profiles?

Karen:

You know like yes, we know you like writing but you know, you’ve got a journal for that, you know, they just, I didn’t have anybody in my home team so especially, you know, for the first, I would say probably about the first nine years, I think it’s only been the last three years my husband’s gone, you know, wow, this is actually pretty good.

Karen:

Like I like, I like the money, you know, So I think it’s only been recently, but I think it’s just really important for all those listening that are thinking, oh my gosh, that’s me often.

Karen:

The people who love us, the most of the people who want to save us from ourselves, they think, oh, but the risks are so huge and you’re so invested in this and your business becomes your baby and that’s very threatening to a lot of people around us and nobody talks about it.

Karen:

It was like of course I’ve got a great home team and truth is a lot of people don’t, but you’ve really got to celebrate your successes and I think having a business that’s a service business?

Karen:

I really do.

Karen:

And I know that self esteem should come from within and our our, I’ve heard all of that, but for me, I actually looked at my clients for validation, I’m only as good as the last profile I’ve written.

Karen:

So when my clients say to me, wow, that is amazing.

Karen:

You know, I have a client the other day who we wrote his profile, he started leaving voice messages for his clients on linked in when they are potential prospects.

Karen:

When he connected with them, he’s now got A proposal out, which is going to earn him 2,030,000 if he can pull it off, that’s all attributed to linked in.

Karen:

So it’s stories like that, that I I just hold on to, you know, and I kind of pat myself on the back, you know, I think you’ve got to celebrate the small wins, don’t you think I do?

Karen:

You seem so happy and for not having that support.

Karen:

So how how do you, how have you managed if I can ask your relationship because that can be, I mean, first of all, it sounds like you just had a baby, not just yesterday, but when you decided this 12 years ago, so you’re going through this, you’re getting all of this and it’s not, I don’t think you’re you’re unique, but I think the story is a story that we hear often, which is, you know, you’ve got all this stuff.

Brandon:

You quit your corporate job, your home team, so to speak, isn’t supportive.

Brandon:

What does it feel like in the morning in the kitchen?

Brandon:

My husband.

Brandon:

Such an unusual man.

Brandon:

So in the morning, every, every morning I have to seek him out.

Brandon:

He’s usually in his man cave in his office.

Brandon:

You know, I work surrounded by my Children when I’m not on a podcast or webinar.

Brandon:

And so I’m in the middle of the house and he works in a cave and I have to go and seek him out.

Brandon:

You know, he will like sort of scurry into the kitchen and scurry out really quickly lest anybody actually speak to him.

Brandon:

You know, I have to seek him out say, Morning honey, how are you going reminding that I contacted the hello is really important.

Brandon:

And so I think, yeah, I think we’ve been through tough times, but I just think it’s so important to understand that not everybody is the same as us.

Brandon:

You know, I’m a writer, but unusually for a writer, I’m an extrovert.

Brandon:

I love people, I crave people.

Brandon:

I crave connection.

Brandon:

I suppose I craved validation.

Brandon:

So this has been a challenge for me, but I get the validation from my clients and so it hasn’t been easy, but I think it’s just understanding that he’s just a very different person to me.

Brandon:

He internalizes his emotions, they’re there, but they’re very deep, he hates the idea of social media hates the idea of being out there and he loves the idea of a regular income and everything on a spreadsheet, it’s very predictable and there’s a plan for everything.

Brandon:

I quite like the messy chaos of running your own business of going, okay, I’ve got to do marketing and then I’ve got to do this and then I’ve got to do my accounts and I like that there’s all these different moving parts.

Brandon:

He loves cocks that worked perfectly, you know, so it’s just seeing that everybody is different.

Karen:

And I think that’s what also makes me a great profile writer and I am sure it’s what makes many of your listeners great service providers is that it’s not about us, it’s about meeting our clients where they’re at, not where we’re at.

Karen:

Well, I love that you used the and I’m grateful for you sharing and open up because not, not an easy thing to always talk about, but you’re super, super happy and positive.

Karen:

So I feel like you have a good outlook on all this and I think that finding validation from your customers is a really good way to get energy and candidly if your customers aren’t loving you whether your service provider or you have a product, then you probably have a problem and you have one of two problems.

Karen:

First problem is you don’t have feedback because you’re too scared to put your thing out there and that didn’t sound good, but your product or service out there and and you haven’t done it or two is what you’re putting out there is wrong or not meeting the market needs.

Karen:

So I appreciate you sharing that.

Karen:

And clearly it’s worked for you.

Karen:

I mean I like to to talk about that part of the journey because I think that making that leap, especially for people who come from the corporate world is incredibly hard.

Karen:

I mean incredibly hard to go from this every, I don’t know, in Australia and the United States, every people get paid every two weeks and it’s like this this check that you can, I don’t say count on, but it’s coming where I say in an entrepreneurship world, even if you have a successful business, you eat what you kill.

Karen:

And I mean, I mean it really is that it’s that simple, you either sell something or you don’t and if you don’t, I don’t know, you don’t pay the mortgage at the end of the month and that’s really terrifying for a lot of people, you know, and that’s where I think as well, I’ve been very lucky, I have my husband is that buffer but at the same time, you know, in that, you know, he’s he’s got his income.

Karen:

So I’m like, okay, so worse comes to worse, he’s paying for the roof over our heads, like he can do that, you know, but at the same time I’m very accountable.

Karen:

So if I don’t bring in the money, he’s unhappy with me.

Karen:

So what happens professionally impacts personally?

Karen:

So there’s that pressure.

Karen:

But I think when you own your own business, you have to learn to love the pressure.

Karen:

You have to learn to lean into the fear, you have to learn to go, oh my gosh, I’m on a crazy ride and I don’t know what the endgame is going to be.

Brandon:

You know, very few people build a business with the end goal in mind.

Brandon:

You know, I’m now at the age and stage 12 years in where people are saying, you know, Karen, you’re not getting any younger, you’re going to do this forever.

Brandon:

I’m like, yeah, they’re like, you’re not thinking of somehow you could franchise your business or you could sell it or you can do this.

Brandon:

You know, everybody’s sort of now starting to ask me, you know, what’s my exit strategy and so you don’t know what that in game is.

Brandon:

You don’t know what the ride brings.

Brandon:

So it is really interesting and I also think it’s really important that you do seek that validation from your clients and you do, you are deeply invested in what your clients think of your business, but also not that you’re so you still need to be very open, I think to constructive criticism and feedback.

Brandon:

So I read an article years ago and the headline of the article was you need to call your baby ugly and as a mother or business baby ugly or something.

Brandon:

And it was something like that and I was like, well what’s going on about?

Brandon:

And this article spoke about and I can’t remember the name of the author.

Brandon:

But the article spoke about the importance of holding things lightly.

Brandon:

So looking at your business and not seeing it as perfect and complete and not seeing as a reflection of you when my husband says he’s not interested in my business, he’s not saying he’s not interested in me, he’s saying he’s not interested in my business and that difference is important and it’s important in terms of customer interactions as well, because I think it’s really important, just my personal philosophy and I think it’s really helped me is being very invested in having great feedback from my clients and and knowing that they’ve had a great journey but also in that process.

Brandon:

Being willing to call my business baby ugly and saying to them, what could I have done differently and seeking out criticism and not taking it personally understanding that my business is an evolution and it can always be improved.

Brandon:

It can always be changed.

Brandon:

You know, don’t you think as a business coach, do you find the same?

Brandon:

I do.

Brandon:

I do think that I wonder as it relates to your comment.

Karen:

I think I’m thinking about this.

Karen:

You said when your partner doesn’t isn’t interested in the business?

Karen:

It’s not because they’re not interested in you.

Karen:

And I’m trying to process this because my first reaction when you said that Karen was, well, is it like that?

Karen:

That’s a really deep insightful ability that you have and I that you’ve expressed, and I’m just trying to think like, can that be true?

Karen:

It doesn’t feel like it’s true and and a lot of people are like, but but it’s so important to you.

Karen:

Like, you know, you love your business.

Karen:

Like, I love what I do, I’m deeply obsessed with it.

Karen:

You know, my 10 year olds always saying to me, my youngest is always saying, mom, if you had all the money in the world, what would you do?

Karen:

And like, she’s always the whole, would you rather would you would you do this?

Karen:

Like, she’s just going through this phase of constantly if you yeah, constantly asking if this, would you do that?

Karen:

And and I’m like, yeah, I would still do my business.

Karen:

I would still wake up, you know, and I would actually, I probably shouldn’t put this out to the universe, but I’d actually hate to win a huge amount of money because I love what I do, and it gives me purpose and it really is my my mission.

Karen:

And I do love it.

Karen:

So if I had so much money that I didn’t need to work, that would not be great for me because I love what I do and I would do it if I had all the money in the world, but just because I love, it doesn’t mean that he has to love it.

Karen:

You know, so it’s about separating.

Karen:

Yeah.

Karen:

Meeting people where they’re at standing in their shoes and going, they’re very different from me.

Karen:

You know, I’m saying to him once, you know, I feel like you’re not very interested in me and he said, look actually not very interested in people.

Karen:

Mm hmm That’s an engineer.

Karen:

I mean that’s fair.

Karen:

Give him a spreadsheet.

Karen:

Give him a drone.

Karen:

You can pull apart and put back together.

Karen:

You know, that’s what he’s interested in.

Karen:

Well, I mean at least you, you can be honest.

Karen:

I think there was a lot to what you said to about if you had all the money in the world, what would you do in purpose?

Brandon:

I think that that it is as an entrepreneur or business owner, you really believe that there’s this windfall money and it’s going to solve all these problems and this is, that sounds so cliche and it’s easy to say right Because if you’ve done it and you can say it afterwards when you experience it And I did experience it when I sold my first business and that was yeah, I was so excited and I remember kept hitting return because they were told me they were wiring the money and I kept hitting refresh on the browser and I was like, I’m on the phone.

Brandon:

I’m like, it’s not there.

Brandon:

You’re not getting this stuff at turnovers and documents.

Brandon:

I was like, not there, it’s not there and the next second it’s there and there was a moment of absolute joy and then I hung up the fellas, I got it.

Brandon:

Thanks to spend fun.

Brandon:

I mean really?

Brandon:

That was it.

Brandon:

And then five minutes later I’m like, huh, Well I just lost where I just sold my entire, I’ve been doing this for so long.

Brandon:

You don’t think like now what?

Brandon:

You’re right, I mean, and now you love strive.

Brandon:

You’ve got to love the strive and you’ve got to love the struggle when you run your own business and when there is no struggle and there’s all that money.

Brandon:

I just can’t imagine it.

Brandon:

You’re in a vacuum, right?

Brandon:

How did you feel like you’re in that space or did it only go for five minutes or did you already have a hole?

Brandon:

I know what I’m going to do next.

Brandon:

It’s going to be a podcast.

Brandon:

It’s going to be all these products and services.

Brandon:

Did you have an idea?

Brandon:

Well, I thought that was going to take a break and that was going to fulfill it was going to ride my bike.

Brandon:

But I think it’s one of those, it’s, I think what I will say is the money can always be nice and, and, and it does have some luxury, but it does take away a piece.

Brandon:

I’m not saying you can’t do it again because I kept on going and there’s people who made way more money than I ever made and still have done it because it’s this internal drive.

Brandon:

But there is something to say to be said for positive pressure in the sense that if I don’t do it then the mortgage doesn’t get paid and there’s this, it’s just a little bit.

Brandon:

But I think the most important thing, the most important purpose, the most important thing that I take away from art.

Brandon:

This part of the discussion is any human regardless of how much money you make, whatever you do.

Karen:

Or even if you’re a full time mom or a full time dad or whatever you are, you got to have purpose.

Karen:

Mm And I’ve always said if someone doesn’t care if you don’t get out of the bed in the morning or not, you better have figured yourself out because is going to be a lonely road.

Karen:

Yeah.

Karen:

So I think you know, I really appreciate you sharing that.

Karen:

Let’s talk about your business as you’ve grown your business in 12 years.

Karen:

Have you hired anybody or do you like being a solar solar premiere or how how does that work?

Karen:

That’s a really great question.

Karen:

I have had a couple of part timers over the years, I did work with a business coach for a while and had this idea of Franchising my business where other people could go and build great networks on, linked in and they could funnel clients to me.

Karen:

So they would, but it would be a franchise, I could write the profiles, give it back to them, they could go through the process of helping their client upload it and stuff like that.

Karen:

And I was happened to talk about it with another business coach actually who I was a client of mine at the time, and I just said, you know, I should be Franchising and doing all of this stuff.

Karen:

And the person said, is that what you want to really want, scale to really want to have lots of employees?

Karen:

I was under the miss apprehension that your business was a lifestyle business and I was like, oh my gosh, it is a lifestyle business, it is meant to work around my kids, it is meant to be something that I love that pays me well, but it is actually, you know, I really don’t want and should not be a business where I’m working sort of 60 plus hours a week, that’s not actually what I got into this for.

Karen:

So it’s a real slap in the face or I just went, oh my gosh, what do I actually really enjoy?

Karen:

And I did the, I don’t know if you’ve ever done it, if you just put into google gallup strengths exercise and I had done the gallup strength exercise as part of a different cohort thing and I just looked at what my strengths are and I just thought, you know, my strengths and interests and not actually managing people.

Brandon:

I’m not actually after an empire.

Karen:

And so that’s where I made a firm decision five years ago that I would not have an employee, I’m not saying never, but I just, it’s not something I really aspire to and nor is it something I really enjoy.

Brandon:

And instead I’ve got a whole load of freelances.

Brandon:

So I have Va’s in the Philippines and I have different people have a person here in Sydney, in Australia who does all my PowerPoint presentations from my training.

Brandon:

So I have different people who are on their side hustle and they helped me with bits that I’m not good at because I believe in playing to your strengths.

Brandon:

I love the client side, I love the writing side, hate the accounting and I struggled to even dress myself.

Brandon:

And so because my service includes the graphics, of having a great linked in background and making a profile photo look really pretty by putting a frame around it matches that background banner.

Brandon:

I’m not interested in aesthetics.

Brandon:

You know, I said, I struggled to address myself.

Brandon:

I have to ask my 10 year old with these colors go, I don’t know, you know, I’m nor am I interested.

Brandon:

So my husband does all the soft furnishings around the house.

Brandon:

So all the pictures on the wall, that’s all his stuff.

Karen:

So, you know, I just don’t, I’m not good at that.

Karen:

So I think it’s really important to be honest with yourself as a business owner on what your strengths are and what your interests are and what they’re not, make sure you’ve got somebody else that can fill that gap.

Brandon:

But for me, I don’t want employees, I like freelancers, so that also removes that pressure as well, so that if I want to take january off, I often take january’s off, it’s our summer here, school holidays go for 4.5 weeks.

Karen:

So I will typically down tools for about three, sometimes the total of four weeks.

Karen:

And so I’m still working every day, but I instead of writing blogs during that time, so I write blogs that I then published through the year and I’m just doing writing work that I want to do for my business and I’m just saying no to a client appointments through january typically, and so I can down tools and in doing so I haven’t still got that whole pressure of I’ve got employees to pay, so that’s just me, that’s that’s what I do.

Karen:

So I try to keep it to a certain limit right?

Karen:

I think that’s great and it was advice, it’s like you’ve I’m sitting here listening to you thinking how did you get so good at working on yourself?

Karen:

Like have you been to a Tony Robbins, I’m only halfway joking here, I mean this is really hard stuff, I mean awareness of yourself, accepting yourself knowing what you want in your business.

Karen:

It sounds like you had some coaches and things but I feel like there’s just this I don’t know you you really figured this out in knowing who you are, what you want, why you want it and it’s made you happier.

Karen:

Probably healthier and likely richer.

Karen:

Yes, I all of that and I just I really believe I think it’s the process of writing profiles so I certainly was not like this 15 years ago I suppose I’ve always been a bit intense and always interested in self improvement and being the best I could be.

Karen:

I dreamed of being an autobiography writer.

Karen:

I also dreamed of being a psychologist but my mess was too bad.

Karen:

So so I’ve always been a bit intense but when I started writing profiles I started running profiles.

Karen:

Originally not just for business owners, some of my clients were business owners but in the early years going back to 2009 2010 2011 Lincoln was a job seekers platform And I was writing profiles for people.

Karen:

I remember this one chap and he was in his late 40s which seemed quite ultimate at the time and he said to me I have a terrible secret that I’m going to tell you.

Karen:

I haven’t told my wife my Children don’t know, nobody knows this, I hate what I do.

Karen:

I said what do you mean?

Karen:

You hate what you do?

Karen:

He said hate financial services.

Karen:

I don’t believe in it, I don’t like it.

Karen:

I hate it.

Karen:

Like your profile says all through your linked in profile, it says financial services, you need to stop talking about what it is you hate.

Karen:

And so I just I mean, that’s just one of millions of instances, thousands, not millions.

Karen:

Where I’ve worked with clients and I realized that this self knowledge, their self understanding didn’t hit them early enough.

Karen:

They didn’t seek out self understanding and then shape their business or shape their career around it.

Karen:

They just let their career or their business just take them on a ride and before you know it, they are a franchise owner and they’ve got hundreds of employees and they’re absolutely miserable.

Karen:

And I’ve seen that, I’ve seen that and they’ve come to me and said, you know, in the, in the course of where I’m writing, they’re linked in profile because I dig deep, you know, what’s your motivation?

Karen:

What are your values?

Karen:

You know, because your linked in profile needs to show who you are in a way that connects people really authentically.

Karen:

It shouldn’t be a brag a thon of all of your achievements.

Karen:

Your linked in profile really needs to talk about your values and why you do what you do, because I love my accountant because he’s interested in tax and I’m not so you need to show that passion and it needs to be authentic.

Karen:

So when I’m talking with my clients and I’m, I’m unearthing what parts of their business they love what type of clients they love dealing with so that we can really niche because you would know that, you know, what is it you say that the riches are in the niches, you know, you really need to be really clear on who you serve and what you do and why you do it and if you don’t, you end up miserable.

Brandon:

So I’ve just made such a huge effort to really stop and constantly assess at the end of every profile.

Brandon:

Was that the sort of client I want, is that the sort of service I want to do?

Karen:

And it’s certainly not being that I was born wise or understood all of this stuff.

Karen:

One of the reasons why I got a new website is because it took me so long to work out what I was even doing.

Karen:

I was writing linked in profiles, but I’ve also been sought after a lot to do, linked in training and linked in speaking for which I’m really grateful, you know, one too many is fantastic, but this has chased me, I haven’t chased it.

Karen:

And so I was thinking, oh, you know, and I was got an award for being one of the eighth best linked in trainers across asia pacific and so I thought, you know, well I’m linked in trainer and also do a lot of linked in coaching, so I sort of thought, well, I’ve got linked in coaching and all this and I thought, no, actually, you know, it took me nine years to figure out, I don’t really want to do linked in coaching, wanna do linked in coaching after the linkedin profile writing, I don’t want to decouple it, I don’t want to, you know, so it’s taken me a while to sort of work, how what’s the pond that I play in?

Karen:

Do I want to be known as a linked in trainer or is that really very much secondary thing?

Karen:

So, I’ve had to search myself to make sure that I’m putting out there into the world what it is I want to attract, which is linked in profile writing.

Karen:

The training is very much a secondary thing and the coaching, I won’t do coaching people say, I don’t want to profile written, I don’t want Lincoln training, I just want coaching.

Karen:

Like these are the other people you can call because for me it’s that’s all part of my service, you either pay all of this, we have stuff for free, but it all comes back, I think knowing yourself is, and I’m sure your listeners agree or they wouldn’t be listening to your podcast because I think you dive deep in this often, don’t you?

Karen:

Brandon it is about knowing who you are, if you don’t do the self work business is going to struggle, I feel, yeah, I think you’re totally right.

Karen:

I’m sitting here listening to you and I think even after you do it several times, it’s still hard.

Karen:

I will tell you tell you that.

Karen:

I think we screwed up this entire podcast.

Karen:

Not this episode some time.

Karen:

No, but but it’s taken me 14, 15, 18 months.

Karen:

This is the second name we’ve had.

Karen:

I thought I didn’t say anything to you earlier, but since you opened the door and we can talk about it because your experience is very much like my experience and that you said, oh you do coaching.

Karen:

Well, I really don’t do as much coaching anymore because what I realized was much like you actually like writing.

Karen:

Yeah.

Karen:

And and we were selling of course we were on how to write a business plan.

Karen:

That’s not, I was like, that’s not that’s not what I want to do.

Karen:

I want to write a newsletter that for you, Karen, for me, for people who are successful business owners that want to be happier.

Karen:

Healthier and richer and the money you do make you learn how to invest and you get real information.

Karen:

What I mean, real information.

Karen:

We we do email blasts and we do a B testing.

Karen:

How do you do that?

Karen:

Or reveal something from linkedin where we’re doing this.

Karen:

It’s not a hack.

Karen:

It’s it’s a technique right?

Karen:

Where you can do X, Y.

Brandon:

Z.

Brandon:

And reveal that so that you could use that in your business.

Brandon:

That’s really where my passion resided.

Brandon:

I don’t I don’t really want to sell courses.

Brandon:

I mean I want to sell courses.

Brandon:

I want people to benefit from my knowledge that can propel them much like you.

Brandon:

But I don’t want to do that part of it.

Brandon:

I want to write a newsletter.

Brandon:

That’s what we did.

Brandon:

So I don’t even know if we’ll have the name change, but we’re changing our name again, we’re changing our name to edge, moving away from building business success secrets.

Brandon:

And the reason I’m saying this isn’t isn’t self promotion or anything like that.

Brandon:

Other then really to say and build on what you just said, which is it takes contrary to the online marketers who I’m saying this lovingly will tell you that you can get to the to your why and this that and the other in six minutes.

Brandon:

And they got the process.

Brandon:

It takes a really long time.

Brandon:

It takes a really long time.

Brandon:

Yeah.

Brandon:

All those digital marketers are like, you know, yeah, you do this and you’ll make so much money and you’ll be so successful and so happy.

Brandon:

It’s actually quite a process, isn’t it?

Brandon:

And so your business you actually you like the doing rather than as you said, you don’t want to be there selling training courses, you want to be helping people by actually doing it for them.

Brandon:

Is that right?

Brandon:

Yeah.

Brandon:

And I like writing much like you.

Brandon:

Like I like after we get down this episode, I got to finish the the letter letter from the editor.

Karen:

And and I got to have to write the investing column on.

Karen:

I say what I invested in that month and why and what the theory is.

Karen:

And I’ve been decent at doing it over a few decades because you’ve got to know that.

Karen:

And as business owners, we make the money and then no one ever teaches you how to invest the money.

Karen:

What they teach you is is that you should make all the money, but then you actually should invest it in other things so that you’re making money while you’re still making money and, you know, dad, that’s what I wanted to pass on.

Brandon:

So my point in saying that is really like you learned is you’ve got to work through this and you’ve got to decide what you’re going to do and be good at.

Karen:

I love when I first learned about you and I did some research because I wanted to make sure that I’ll make sure for her listeners.

Karen:

I’m just going to be open that we have real people doing real things that are delivering real value and have real experience.

Karen:

It’s very hard for me to get my head around.

Karen:

I’m a little bit older, but I’m not saying that young really young people don’t do amazing things.

Karen:

I’ve I’ve talked to.

Karen:

Young people have done amazing things, but at some level, there’s no there’s no there’s no replacement for experience.

Karen:

Mhm Yes, yeah, I love that you did all of the research on me.

Karen:

I love that you were like, you know, are you sure you’re the right guest for me?

Karen:

Like, I love, I love that you love that, but that leads me nicely to another thing that I love about linked in is, you know, in my own journey, particularly around, sort of making sure that I, because I didn’t want to have a messy website where you couldn’t really work out what my offering was like, oh, maybe I just want Lincoln coaching and training and I’m like, no, I don’t want to do the coaching, so sort of picking my niche and and defining what it is I want to do and just something that I’ve done all the way along, but just sort of, going on, learning what to say no to creating a website, A great website costs a lot of money.

Brandon:

What I have loved about linked in Is that right from day one I can create my linked in profile and I can write it to attract a certain work and then I can wake up the next day and then go, actually, I changed my mind, I don’t want to call it this, I want to call it that I don’t want to be doing lots of this, I want to do is be doing a bit more of that.

Brandon:

So I love that you can change And if you’ll forgive the cliche Edward pivot on linkedin it creatively, you can constantly tweak and tinker your profile to see what clients you’re attracting to you.

Brandon:

So, an example of this is I’m really lucky to be all booked out now with a linked in profile writing clients for the next two months.

Brandon:

Can you believe that maybe I’ve got a pricing issue actually.

Karen:

I mean, I love you, basically g I was a little shocked to be honest, not not because you in your thing in your profile, it goes through this stuff and you’re like, here’s my price.

Karen:

Yes.

Brandon:

Which I think is brilliant.

Brandon:

Like there’s no, I don’t waste anybody’s time.

Brandon:

So if I’m not, you know, if you’re not up for this baby, I’ve got free stuff, you know, and we don’t need to have that 10 minute conversation, you know?

Brandon:

So putting it all out on the table and just saying, you know, this is what it is.

Brandon:

I do, you know, so that people can self select because I think that your content on linked in your content tells your profile cells.

Brandon:

So if people are interested in you enough to be reading through your profile and they’re clicking on your experience section, they I feel they’ve earned the right to sort of go, well this is the products services, These are the fears, this is how you can contact me and this is the process you can buy from me and if you don’t give all that information, people are thinking, wow, this looks really interesting.

Brandon:

This person can solve my problems.

Brandon:

I can’t see how to contact them.

Brandon:

I can’t see what the next steps are.

Brandon:

My tummy’s rumbling, I’ve got to go pick up my dry cleaning, always there’s somebody at the door, you know, and before you know, they’ve moved on to the next show anything.

Brandon:

So I believe in just giving lots and lots of information so that decisions can be made so much quicker.

Brandon:

You know, we live in an information age, people can google anything.

Brandon:

So I think give everything up front, but I love that on linked in.

Brandon:

Unlike on a website, every time I go and tinker with my website, I’m invariably breaking some sort of code.

Brandon:

I’ve got to go back to the website design and go hell, what have I done?

Brandon:

So I love that on linkedin.

Brandon:

You can just tweak it and change it.

Brandon:

So for the listeners today and we’re thinking, oh my gosh, you know, I really haven’t paid much attention to my linkedin profile.

Brandon:

I must outsource it or I must write it myself and I’ll get it perfect.

Brandon:

And then I’ll uploaded, I would urge you just start today yourself, just tinker, it just changed little bits here and there.

Brandon:

You know, just change your headline, Professional headline that sits underneath your name to talk to the problems you solve, make sure you’ve got a background banner.

Brandon:

That’s a visual image of what you do and the problems yourself and what that outcome looks like.

Brandon:

Make sure you’ve got an about section, using the featured section, you’ve got some details in your experience section.

Brandon:

Have you?

Brandon:

Contact details everywhere?

Brandon:

You don’t have to have your price everywhere, but I just think we want to make it as easy as possible for people to make an informed decision because we’ve got so much competing for our attention.

Brandon:

Don’t you think our lives are so much busier than our parents were our grandparents lives?

Brandon:

I don’t disagree with you.

Brandon:

I think you’ve changed even for me, the idea that the linked in is it’s your sales page.

Karen:

I mean it’s not they call it a profile.

Karen:

So you get this thing in your head, you’re like, oh, this is my profile.

Karen:

But what it really is, I think is what you’re saying is it’s really your sales page and you’re missing the opportunity, is that right?

Karen:

It is.

Karen:

So your sales page.

Karen:

So many people, they upload their resume to their linked in profile or they did that way back when, you know, 2000 and 10, 2000 and 12, 2000 and 14, you know, they uploaded their resume, did they’re linked in profile because they thought this is a job seeking site now, they’re here um that lots of people are getting business from linkedin that facebook in terms of marketing and advertising is too expensive and too hard and nobody’s wanting to look to buy from people on facebook.

Karen:

You know that that time has been and gone and you’ve got to pay so much money to get just a little bit attraction and it’s not always the right people, but I can create content on linked in that doesn’t cost me a cent that showcases my expertise.

Karen:

That pulls attention to my profile and I can see who’s looked to my profile and I can see, yes, that person lives in my city.

Karen:

Yes, that person is my ideal client type.

Karen:

Something you can on facebook, you can’t see you go, yeah, okay, I can see they’re married to bob but you know, I can’t see how much money they make.

Karen:

I can’t see if they were my ideal client type, but you can see all that information on Lincoln so you can reach out and say hi, I noticed you looked at my profile, you know, would you like to connect?

Karen:

You can flatten the path to purchase.

Karen:

It’s very much your sales page.

Karen:

And unlike her resume or even unlike her website is on linked in, you can see who knows people that you know, so your clients are most likely to do business with you if you are already connected to a lot of people that they know.

Karen:

So I always say to my clients, once we’ve written the profile we’re going through that coaching stuff which is, you know, I’m saying make sure that you’re not going straight to the person that you most want to do business with, make sure that you’re connecting with the people who know people that you want to do business with.

Karen:

So if your ideal prospect is somebody who works at a top law firm and they’re one of the biggest three law firms in your city and that’s how you want to do business with, connect first with a small author law firms.

Karen:

Because by the time you reach out and you connect with that person who works at the top law firm, who’s the, you know, the Ceo or the principal or whatever, like the chief partner, you want them to have a feeling that oh my gosh, this person is connected to everybody.

Karen:

I know they’re doing business with everybody.

Karen:

I know, why am I not doing business with them.

Karen:

So I’m thinking you can see who knows people that you know, you can see all of their work history and as I said earlier, you know, it needs to also showcase why you do what you do and it needs to talk to your values because when you’re looking at a website, you know, it’s really talking about your products and if it has a mission statement on their people are typically sort of rolling their eyes like going, oh yeah, here we go.

Karen:

It’s just another box, you tick is to have a little mission statement up there.

Karen:

But when you’re reading somebody’s personal linked in profile, that’s where you’re going.

Karen:

I can see who they know and I can see what they stand for and I can see whether they’re my kind of person or not.

Karen:

Do you take S.

Karen:

C.

Karen:

O.

Karen:

I’m calling it?

Karen:

S SEO.

Karen:

Search engine optimization is really lengthen optimization.

Karen:

Do you take that into account when you, I’m curious if you take that into account or you believe at this juncture, it’s more important to write that cohesive copy.

Karen:

Such a top question and such an important question.

Karen:

Do you write for a Ceo or do you write so that it’s beautifully written.

Karen:

It’s a bit of both.

Karen:

So I am always looking at the web site, answer the public, you know the website and asked the public where you can actually go, okay, well what are your, who is your ideal clients, what’s the problems you solve and what do your clients care about?

Karen:

What’s their pain, what’s their problem and what sort of words would they be putting into google to solve their pain.

Karen:

And so I’m doing a bit of research around you ask the public and all sorts of different things that will help me to get an idea of what the pain points for that audience is.

Karen:

So I’m collating information, not on what the competitors are saying, but on what the client’s your ideal clients are asking for, what are they searching for and I’m trying to capture as many of those keywords through your profile as possible, but I will teach and not put in some key words, that would improve your ranking on SEO because linkedIN profiles are google ranked and also on linked in in the search bar, at the very top of the profile, top top of linked in, there’s a search bar where people think, oh, that’s just researching names, you can actually put keywords in there and you can search by names, you can search by companies, you can search by content and so, having the right keywords will determine how your relevancy ranks.

Karen:

So it’s important to have the right keywords, but it’s more important that people are connecting on that human to human level.

Karen:

So if you write just for SEO you’ve just got a whole load of words and it doesn’t feel compelling and it doesn’t feel engaging.

Karen:

And I believe in an attention economy that if you’re right to be engaging and your right with your audience in mind, not with you in mind, a lot of people think that they’re their audience and they’re not, you don’t write a profile to impress you, you write a profile to impress your clients that answers those clients questions, then it’s you know, that’s really what converts people, is that engaging copy?

Brandon:

So it’s a very long answer, wasn’t it?

Karen:

So I say yes, I pay attention to both, but I would earn more on the side of keep it engaged and keep it compelling, you know, I appreciate that in the early days I was actually like you, one of the first cohorts to join linkedin.

Karen:

I still get occasionally Reid Hoffman or think reads still does it sends out this email to the original co hurt.

Karen:

I don’t know what that number is.

Karen:

1st 100,000 or whatever that that is.

Brandon:

And I’ve seen, you know, in the early years I was like, yeah, I’m just gonna put on my resume.

Karen:

Then I started to realize that there’s business value in it in the sense writing a profile for your business is important.

Karen:

You pointed out to me an email when I reached out to you that my picture isn’t went on down this list tonight.

Karen:

It’s like I can’t, I can’t deal with this camera right now.

Karen:

I’m just trying to I’m trying, I’m trying to get this podcast going but I saved it and it’s open on my desktop right here because I got to fix all these things that you said.

Karen:

But you’ve been on linkedin for 12 years now.

Karen:

Are you concerned?

Karen:

You and I are old enough to have seen cycles of the internet and platforms like you, you, I believe accurately described what facebook is getting to a point where it’s been so exploited by marketers that it’s become less effective, more expensive and less effective in driving.

Karen:

They’re still, I think some certain niches that work there, but it’s been, it’s tough, there’s, there’s a lot of ads and people are burned out from it and the shift, I don’t think the masses have figured out linkedin.

Karen:

But Microsoft bought linkedin that changes some things.

Karen:

Are you worried at all that it becomes for lack of a better word exploited?

Karen:

Like do we still have five years of and uh authenticity for lack of a better word.

Karen:

You know, I don’t know what the right word is but these platforms have a tendency to cycle in and out.

Karen:

Yeah, they do have a tendency to cycle in and out and I’m not too sure what you mean by authenticity, authenticity might not be the right word, but it becomes a platform, authenticity is wrong word.

Karen:

That’s not, let’s just use facebook and hopefully you can help me get to where I’m thinking maybe it’s my engineer brain like your husband not communicating.

Karen:

My wife’s like you gotta say what you mean.

Brandon:

You can’t just say it to yourself.

Brandon:

And then I think that we all know what you’re talking about.

Brandon:

We don’t break it into little words for us.

Brandon:

It’s not trustworthy, right facebook.

Brandon:

You don’t trust as much anymore.

Brandon:

There’s a lot of junk, there’s a lot of spam, There’s a lot of fake marketing and it’s very clear that it’s being monetized like and you don’t own it, it owns like it changed, there was a point when it changed and that point was probably when Mark Zuckerberg changed the incentive to the people that managed the wall from engagement to revenue.

Brandon:

I look back on the history that was the tipping point.

Brandon:

I don’t think that’s happened on linkedin and I guess the better word is what Lincoln is still trusted.

Brandon:

Do we still have runway for the use of linkedin as a platform to be trustworthy to do all these types of client attraction and things like that.

Brandon:

Yes.

Brandon:

Yes.

Brandon:

Yes.

Brandon:

Yes.

Karen:

I think that’s a really important question and it has reflecting on that and um watching the wonderful netflix, it’s not quite a documentary.

Karen:

I’m not too sure what you call it called the social dilemma, worried about social media addiction.

Karen:

You know my Children are at 10 and 12 and you know I see how you know my 12 year old her phone is like a magnet stuck to a hand.

Karen:

You know I have to kind of have to prise it off her.

Karen:

I’m going to get out of wrench.

Brandon:

It’s a bit tricky sometimes and I wonder where Lincoln is going.

Brandon:

I do believe that they are deliberately differentiating themselves from facebook in terms of being a very trusted platform and also differentiating themselves from twitter because if there’s any problem any other social media that is used by people on linkedin, it typically is twitter.

Brandon:

So that would be its biggest competitor in terms of connecting and communicating with people.

Brandon:

But on twitter, people don’t have to put in, they don’t even have to use their real name on linkedin.

Brandon:

You do, it’s in the user terms you have to use your real name.

Brandon:

So and you can be kicked off in your account can be suspended if your name is, if you’re not who you say you are or if you put in extra words in your name field and so it is really trying to differentiate itself as a trusted medium where twitter people can hide behind it.

Brandon:

What concerns me is that linked in is really excited and interested in all of the marketers that are flooding to linked in and the people who come to linked in from facebook, who are going, I’ve advertised on facebook, here’s my facebook revenue advertising budget.

Brandon:

I’ll just give that advertising budget to linked in and so it’s made, it should have run at a loss in 2020 Lincoln should have And it didn’t, it’s revenue was up I think by 27%.

Brandon:

But perhaps I’ve got that stat wrong, I’m not good at numbers and so it made a lot more revenue than it planned to and it’s seen a growth in advertising and I’m worried that the feed which used to be called the news feed and now it’s just known as the linked in feed.

Brandon:

I’m worried that that will become populated with efforts and I’m worried that it will not be a place where people will be putting up advice and tips and news, but instead people will be putting up look at me posts and they will be appetizing and as a result of all of those people doing that less and less people ironically will be looking at the news feed.

Brandon:

So as more people get to it.

Brandon:

So what I’m teaching people is the importance of direct messaging people.

Brandon:

You cannot just turn up on linkedin, have a great profile and create content.

Brandon:

I don’t think that this is a place that just because it’s the free platform to publish content that you should get on your soapbox initiative advertise because we’ve all got a muscle memory, those of us who are over the age of 30 I’ve got a muscle memory of advertise advertise advertise, I must promote, promote, promote nobody wants appetizing, They want content that really adds value.

Brandon:

They want you to give away free information.

Brandon:

There is no secret source.

Brandon:

Don’t kid yourself.

Brandon:

Everybody Can find out anything if you spend enough time on the Internet and you’ve got the intellect to know how to read through it.

Karen:

They may not have and will not have that 10,000 hours of experience.

Karen:

So they won’t do it as well as you will do it, but they can find out lots of information.

Karen:

So just give away lots of content, lots of ideas in terms of information.

Karen:

So I’m very much preaching that but I’m also saying to people it’s not about just being creating content and actually, if you are a highly introverted, a lot of my clients from technical business is a huge amount of them.

Karen:

It’s interesting that not just did I marry an engineer, but mr my clients come from an engineering background or quite a technical background.

Karen:

A lot of them don’t want to contribute to the noise.

Karen:

I show them how to create content in a way that’s not about them, it’s about their audience, but I don’t give them a hard time if they’re not constantly creating content, I do give them a hard time if they’re not using direct messages because I think that’s where linked in Will continue in 10, 15 years time to be a place that you can make money.

Karen:

And I think that actually we’re only touching the very tip of that iceberg in terms of how you can make money by how you communicate with people in direct messages and that’s not about connecting with somebody and then just pitch slapping them straight away.

Karen:

You know, you just want to be constantly selling, selling, selling and direct messages instead.

Karen:

It’s a very slow burn.

Brandon:

It’s about building relationships really slowly and not just writing people a message on linkedin, but getting out your phone and having a mobile, your linked in up on your phone and sending people a voice message, sending them a video so that it can’t be automated so that it feels real, so that it feels personal and I think in a world of hybrid communications where we’re all yearning for connection, we’re more connected than ever before.

Brandon:

But every individual is lonelier.

Brandon:

Statistically loneliness is massively increasing.

Brandon:

Were yearning for human connection.

Brandon:

So that direct messages I think is going to keep linked in very solvent.

Brandon:

And I think that’s a long term where the money will be.

Brandon:

I’m deeply worried about how that the theme might become In 5, 10 years time.

Brandon:

How Well, one thing I’m interested in your opinion on, I think just to expand on is that you can’t, well you can do it, anybody can do whatever they want.

Brandon:

But I don’t think it works well.

Brandon:

There’s a lot of movement towards automating with parts, these messages.

Brandon:

And I, my experience, and I’m interested in what you have many more clients across the platform.

Brandon:

My experience is, is that there is absolutely no replacement for you doing the work.

Brandon:

And the answer that I get from people is, I’m a Ceo, I’m a founder.

Brandon:

I don’t have time.

Brandon:

I can’t do this.

Brandon:

And my answer is then you’re probably, you know, you’ve got to build things a brick at a time and the personalization in today’s age to build on what you said, I think is really important.

Brandon:

I actually didn’t know that you could send a video direct message, but that’s awesome.

Brandon:

I mean, I think and people will, I’m sure I’m interested, people say to you, well, Karen, I, you know, I don’t have time to do 29 32nd Videos This Week, and I think if you don’t do 29 or whatever, the number is personalized videos, then your response rates are going to be ridiculously low and people aren’t going to take you seriously.

Brandon:

So how do you feel about that?

Brandon:

It’s not a magic.

Brandon:

You’ve got to build relationships over time.

Brandon:

You can’t, I saw a meme the other day and it was the difference between linkedin messages or these messages that some of these bots are giving people and it had a guy just walk up to a random person on the on the street and was like, hey, how are you dave you want to buy my product and if it doesn’t work there, why do you think it’s gonna work like that online?

Brandon:

So it’s fair to say like, you are really great at what you do and helping people write this profile, but they’re going to have to put in some work too.

Brandon:

They are, But I disagree when you said, I respectfully disagree when you said, you know, if you don’t do 29 as an example messages a week, then you’re not going to be taken seriously.

Brandon:

I disagree on that.

Brandon:

I instead, the way I phrase it with my clients is the more you put into it, the more you’ll get out of it now.

Brandon:

There are some activities on linked in where you can feel like you’re achieving a lot and you were doing what Lincoln wants you to do and it feels great and you think you’re doing really well and it’s not going to make you any money.

Brandon:

So let’s look at what’s going to make your money, let’s look at where you should concentrate your efforts and let’s find a way of creating a I’m a big fan of KPs, I think it comes from my time in recruitment, so I’m a big fan of habits.

Brandon:

You know, if you can’t do 29 messages a week, can you do nine, Can you do nine once a week or just five?

Brandon:

Now you won’t get as much out of it, but it won’t impact your credibility.

Karen:

The people who do see which will not be as many and the people who you do form relationships, which will not be as many, you will form real relationships with them.

Karen:

So the more you put into it, the more you get out of it.

Karen:

I loved your metaphor about bricks.

Karen:

My saying that I say constantly is relationships built one sentence at a time.

Karen:

Now there are some things you can outsource not automate do not automate many people don’t realize that automation is actually in breach of Lincoln’s terms and it can and will result in your account being suspended at some point in the future.

Brandon:

Some people plead ignorance and they just keep doing it until their accounts suspended, then they have to work really hard to try and get your account back from linked in and it’s not guaranteed you will get your account back.

Brandon:

Some accounts are shut down and Lincoln’s never restarted them up because of automation, so don’t ever automate, but you could say for instance, I uh I do get asked to do Lincoln speaking and training and so if I’m speaking at a really big summit or a really big event and it’s for um I spoke for county last year and so it’s a technology community and I found a hollow to people who were sales managers of technology organizations who are within my network And they were at a certain level.

Brandon:

So there were self directors really in technology organizations, they were here in Australia and I found a list of, you know, I think it’s something like about 850 people or something who sort of fitted into that category that I was connected to got a fairly sizeable network And I said to my villa which is also in breach of Lincoln’s terms, but harder to pick up automation is easy for Lincoln to pick up via isn’t.

Brandon:

And I said to my via, this is the message that I want you to send 850 of these people.

Brandon:

And so my vagina, so I had written it, it was my words and it mentioned I’m going to be speaking at this event, it’s a free event or actually it was a paid event, but the just the lunchtime slot I was in where it was a panel with four of us that’s going to be free so you can come, you can register here, you know, and so I sent that out to 8 58 100 she sent that out to 850 people and many of those came back and said, Karen thank you for thinking of me and she did not take over that conversation, I did I step in and said oh I’m glad you can make it or you know it’s great that you love con tears events, you know, so So I believe relationships built one sentence at a time there are some things you can outsource to aviva but leaving a 21 2nd voice message for somebody that is quicker than outsourcing to Aviva probably even quicker than automation.

Brandon:

You know you can leave those messages and they feel so super super super personal and we need personalization, you can’t outsource everything to a V.

Brandon:

A.

Brandon:

You can’t outsource those personalized invitations to connect to a V.

Brandon:

A.

Brandon:

Because you know what if she’s or he is sending a message to somebody that’s really a client of yours saying hi you know we both work in similar industries.

Brandon:

I see we’ve got you know 200 connections in common and a city in common.

Brandon:

Hope we can connect and your client goes being invited to connect like I was a stranger bomb.

Brandon:

You’ve just heard that person and you’ve lost credibility.

Brandon:

So I think you’ve got to be very careful in terms of your messages and make sure they are personal and be careful where you spend your time.

Brandon:

You know, I I have to say, you know, for for any of those listeners who are thinking Karen sounds really interesting.

Brandon:

I’ll reach out, connect with her.

Brandon:

I actually Brandon and I can’t remember if I mentioned to you actually don’t connect with people outside of Australasia.

Brandon:

So some asian countries that are within out my time zone and Australia.

Karen:

I connect with your US listeners who are listening to this.

Karen:

They send me an invite to connect.

Karen:

I’m sorry I won’t accept their invitation to connect.

Karen:

You’re welcome to follow me.

Karen:

But it doesn’t serve my business and it doesn’t develop liver and are only on my time to collect thousands and thousands of connections that are all over the world when I don’t work across all over the world only work across Asia pacific.

Karen:

So it’s about because of the time zone differences.

Karen:

It’s just too tricky.

Karen:

And you and I have got a 14 hour time difference.

Karen:

So it’s really so it’s really important for all of your listeners to think what is going to deliver return on investment in my time.

Karen:

Don’t connect with millions of people connect with people who you can do business with or they are likely to know somebody who they can do business with.

Karen:

Don’t comment on every single post in your newsfeed comment on the posts in your news feed that are likely to be seen by your ideal clients.

Karen:

So put your time where you can deliver money and nobody ever went wrong with being helpful or personalizing the messages.

Karen:

So how what can you walk through the process of how someone worked with you?

Karen:

Because you said you generally don’t work with people outside of Australia asian pacific because of the times.

Karen:

Is that, Do you make exceptions?

Karen:

12 is how do you work with people?

Karen:

Does does the process require, you know, you’re doing such a personal thing because what you’re really writing is a brand store, I got so many things in my head that you’ve said, I’d like to know how that process goes.

Karen:

And I was thinking as you were talking, there’s a bigger strategy that that a company as an owner, you could even pay to have your employees have your service because the S.

Karen:

E.

Karen:

O.

Karen:

Quality of that is enormous.

Brandon:

Right?

Brandon:

So it could be part of your marketing almost because of this page is coming up in google which is driving people to the company etcetera.

Karen:

And you could have this strategy.

Karen:

So that was like three part question.

Karen:

Sorry.

Brandon:

Yeah.

Karen:

Just to take up on that last part because I think that’s going to add the most value to listeners.

Karen:

And is more interesting I think to your listeners than in terms of how I do my business is your employees are absolutely brand assets.

Karen:

Oh my gosh, thank you for saying that.

Karen:

And so many organizations are waking up to this, you know, O and M halyard a merc, you know the life sciences company Merck.

Brandon:

So I’ve worked with Mark Herron, Australia, nZ actually Australia and new Zealand and we have facilitated, facilitated webinars with them that are all around employee advocacy showing and you don’t have to engage a linked in trainer to do this or you’d probably get better resource if you do, but you don’t have to, you could just simply create a background banner for your employees that’s got the company logo in it and it’s a visual representation of what the business does create a background banner.

Karen:

Make sure you’ve got a company page, you can create a company page if you haven’t already by clicking on the work tab all the way at the bottom.

Karen:

You’ve got company, create a company page.

Karen:

It’s just a color by numbers and give all of your employees as part of their induction package that background banner.

Karen:

Show them where the link to the company pages and make sure that they type it properly so that the company logo appears in their experience section and give your employees the option of uploading a description of the company in their experience section.

Brandon:

Now, of course, people can click on the company page, they can click on the logo in order to find out more about the company, but you can grow brand footprint so much more If when everybody looks at your employees say you’ve only got 15 employees, every one of your employees had a background banner Had linked correctly to your company page, 60% of all website views come from social media, that’s a really old hubspot stat from 2018.

Brandon:

So 60% of all website views, so makes sense to have one and have an experience section You know, which maybe has got again got the, you know, maybe a 1-300 number or a phone number and you know, inquiries at or something, you know, if you did that, you’d expand brand footprint so much more.

Brandon:

So all the best companies are doing that.

Brandon:

And I think it’s a really important thing to do.

Brandon:

I also think it’s really important that clients do get specific in terms of who they do business with and who they don’t and have a connection strategy around that encourage your employees to connect to your clients and to cross pollinate.

Brandon:

And so by cross pollinate, what I mean is when I’m working with accounting firms are making sure that the accountants are connecting with each other’s contacts on linkedin.

Brandon:

So once a week every week and you can’t mandate this because people own their linked in profile.

Brandon:

So it’s only got to be actively encouraged if you look great, the company looks great because great companies are made up of good people.

Brandon:

So we’re going to invest time in helping you look good and good people, no great people.

Brandon:

And let’s cross pollinate.

Brandon:

So you’ve all got as many connections as possible that has the right connections.

Brandon:

So let’s have a once a week or once a month meeting where we’re all going to sit down and look at the clients where we get the most business from and make sure that we’ve got a couple of contacts in that company because I had a client of mine who early, Early mid 2020 lost a massive training deal.

Brandon:

He was looking forward to speaking at one of our big banks and the person that he had sold that to who said Yes, yes, we’re definitely going to get you to speak and we’re going to be paying you $25,000 to run these work.

Brandon:

But I guess it’s not that big.

Brandon:

$25,000 to be delivering a couple of workshops that person went.

Brandon:

And in five seconds less than five seconds I showed him how to find other people who worked at the bank in that same division.

Brandon:

So he’s got other new contacts that you can say I was already down the process of this.

Brandon:

Are you interested and he managed to recover that business.

Brandon:

So make sure that your cross pollinating and your sales team or your accountants, lawyers, whatever engineers, make sure that they’re connected to each other’s contacts as well, because that can really help, especially if you’ve got different parts of your business, you know that you’re facilitating introductions and don’t just connect with everybody and pick your pond, you know, playing your neath.

Brandon:

Did that answer those questions or did I miss 1?

Brandon:

You’ve dropped so many pieces of gold today that someone can have made a long episode Summary?

Brandon:

I have no there’s no rules here.

Brandon:

We could go, we could go 60 minutes, we could go three hours.

Brandon:

It’s whatever it takes, its uh we’re just talking.

Brandon:

So, you know, I don’t know, sometimes drinking coffee with people goes longer than you thought, What would be 3?

Brandon:

We’ve covered so much and seriously you you’ve really been generous to drop, I mean, someone can listen to this episode and if you’re listening you should replay it and take this because this really is one is if you hire professional, it’s going to cost you some money to his afterwards.

Brandon:

You implement this stuff, it’s free.

Brandon:

I mean, it’s your time, but you don’t have to have website hosting.

Brandon:

I mean, this is all free, it’s there, you got to create a banner, but you can upload the banner and and all this stuff and do it on Fiverr.

Brandon:

Absolutely.

Brandon:

I mean, this is this is crazy.

Brandon:

What would be your top three tips for business owners to take advantage of Lincoln.

Brandon:

My top three would be, make sure you have a company page and that you’ve encouraged your employees to connect correctly to the right company page.

Brandon:

And I’m including, this is one tip with that company page.

Brandon:

Make sure that you’ve got multiple company administrators for the company page.

Brandon:

Don’t just say to the office Junior, you know, look, you’re really good at social media, Go create a company page and then we’ll do that.

Brandon:

Make sure that you are also an administrator of that company page.

Brandon:

Because I’ve worked with a lot of large Corporates that have had the Office Junior create a company page and then the Office Junior ends up leaving the company and nobody can get access into the company page.

Brandon:

Make sure you have multiple Yeah, it’s a really big problem.

Brandon:

Make sure you have multiple administrators to the company page.

Brandon:

I also think the background banner, it’s such, it’s prime real estate.

Brandon:

Why would you not create something that’s got a logo in it and maybe a website address?

Brandon:

It won’t be a clickable link or at least a visual representation of what your business does.

Brandon:

If the company name is not descriptive to have a background banner.

Brandon:

My 3rd piece of advice, it’s not really a linked in tip.

Brandon:

I linked in tip would be what I wanted to say is just back yourself, hold onto those winds and seek feedback all the time.

Karen:

Just number three, you can, I leave that as number three because you know, you got that out of me and it’s something that I, I don’t think I’ve ever really talked about before I on any podcast and I think it’s so important that we each celebrate our winds and and yet also seek constructive feedback.

Karen:

Well, you just gave validation to me as, as a host by saying, I got it out of you.

Karen:

I had a I had another guest who said before before, I don’t know, she sent an email says, I’m ready for your zinger questions Brandon because I listened to some episodes and you throw in some singers.

Karen:

I don’t think I asked zingers, I just think I want to really understand people and I’m interested genuinely in that story and I think, look, I’m all for glamorizing, being an entrepreneur, business owner or whatever you want to call because it’s a cool job, Let’s let’s be honest, it’s a cool job.

Karen:

I mean, I love it, I love it, I love it.

Karen:

I know here am I say, please, I hope I never win lots of money, I shouldn’t really say.

Karen:

But yeah, I love it.

Karen:

I had lots of money.

Karen:

I’d still be doing it.

Karen:

Yeah, I mean it’s a, it’s a super cool job, but there’s a lot to it.

Karen:

It’s not as simple as I’ve got a great idea, I’m just gonna do it and you know, I congratulate you, not a lot of people honestly can carve out a niche in this in a very specific niche and make the bet and I think it’s scary because but knowing who you are and what you do and what you offer, you’re a testament to say, Yeah, it’s gonna be scary and you’re going to feel like you’re, you know, you could try to write profiles for facebook linkedin, instagram, twitter, whatever other always get approached by dating people, So that’s a good one.

Karen:

Yeah, I can’t even remember who they are, but I I you know, if but I have been approached by dating websites and said we would love to have you on our dating website, writing profiles for people who are dating and you know, we kind of don’t care about the cost and I’ve gone, no, because it’s not, you’ve got to learn, you’ve got to back yourself what you say no to leads to more success.

Karen:

You know, it’s it feels so counterintuitive to be saying no to work, that’s money coming in.

Karen:

But I believe it leaves two more riches the riches are in the niches.

Karen:

Isn’t that what you say?

Karen:

I love that, So say no more.

Karen:

That’s what happened for you and really thank you for taking time out of your, your day, it’s your day ahead and really opening it up and it’s hard to be vulnerable and share those things, I truly believe that that helps other people understand that what they’re feeling, they’re not alone and that it gives them, I know it did me and it still does in those trying times of frustration, anxiety and just being scared that there is a light at the other end of the tunnel.

Karen:

So thank you Karen for really sharing and sharing these incredible tips, I was like oh I gotta take notes, but then I figured I could just replay it so I got a ton of work to do because of it.

Karen:

So thank you so much, Karen, thank you, it’s been a real pleasure and I love, I love how you, you get the stories that nobody else gets because you dive deep.

Karen:

I love that because I think people need to know that they’re not alone in this entrepreneurial journey.

Karen:

You know where people might, oh making it look easy and it’s not, but tune into podcasts like this and you know, rate and subscribe share it with your friends because everybody needs to know that you know, it’s not an easy journey but it is the best journey.

Karen:

So I don’t want to forget one thing before we go, Karen, where can people find you?

Karen:

Oh you can check out my new website which is www.

Karen:

Karen Tisdale, which is everybody knows how to spell Karen right?

Karen:

Unfortunately with all those Karen memes, Tisdale is T.

Karen:

I.

Karen:

S for sugar D.

Karen:

E double L pistol dot com.

Karen:

Please check it out.

Karen:

Of course, you can also find me on linkedin Karen pistol and just click the follow button and if you’re in Australia reach out and connect.

Karen:

Perfect.

Karen:

We will put your link in the show notes.

Karen:

If you’re listening, you can click on that and thanks again Karen.

Karen:

This has been awesome.

Karen:

Thank you Brandon.

Karen:

Thanks for being generous with your time and joining us for this episode of the edge.

Karen:

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Karen:

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Brandon:

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