Connecting the Dots on LinkedIn

Still trying to connect the dots on LinkedIn to make it work for you? LinkedIn can be as simple (or complex) as you want it to be. 🧐

Knowing exactly what to do on LinkedIn can take your business from “doing okay” to a sales funnel bursting with people who WANT what you have to sell and RESPECT you as an expert.

When you get crystal clear about your intention for LinkedIn, the resources you have available, and define what would make LinkedIn a success for you, it’s really simple to create an effective LinkedIn strategy.

In this Mondays with Mindi episode, we discuss how everything you do on LinkedIn should lead you closer to doing more good business with more good people, plus how you can start only doing the things that matter on LinkedIn!

Trying to do all the things on LinkedIn, like you would on another social media channel, is costing you business opportunities, high-quality leads, and business revenue. Plain and simple.

The “be everywhere” approach with just ONE of those being LinkedIn is a complete waste.

Think you can just cross-post content here and get results because you’re consistently posting?

 You’re either HERE on LinkedIn investing the appropriate time, resources and energy.

Or, you should just set up a decent LinkedIn profile and go hang out on Instagram, TikTok or Facebook.

**Yes, sarcasm intended.

Too many people think they can dabble on LinkedIn and get the results of a power user. 

That’s not how it works. You cannot just “pay $ to play” on LinkedIn. For your LinkedIn efforts to generate ROI, you need to actually BELIEVE LinkedIn is your most valuable lead generating asset and ACT as if using LinkedIn effectively will generate business revenue.

What actually happens if you don’t connect the dots on LinkedIn:

• You will waste thousands of $ on paid advertising on other social channels, when your target audience may not even WANT to see anything business related

• Spend a TON of time setting up the wrong type of sales funnel for your company - using what the online experts recommend which is more inbound marketing, less outbound outreach, and lots of ad spend to get “cold traffic”

• Amass the wrong types of people in your LinkedIn network - those who “like” your stuff but do not want to buy from you

...but don’t worry, we’ll talk about a better way. When you use LinkedIn as a true expert and build the right professional relationships here, you only need to connect a few dots to make it work for you without wasting your time, money and energy. 

Why LinkedIn Dabbling Doesn’t Work

A number of business leaders, subject matter experts and career professionals interested in strengthening their personal brand whom I talk to, are confused with where to invest their time and resources because they’re told they need to “be everywhere” and “just cross-post to LinkedIn through an automation tool” or “just hire a VA to do your social.”

The problem is, trying to be on just ONE platform effectively can be tricky enough.

Learning how algorithms work, figuring out if you need to have paid ads, trying to build an audience, knowing what sparks engagement, the language to use, the hashtags that work.

It’s different on every platform.

So, how do you choose which ONE platform you need to do well?

Where does your target audience mingle online WHILE ALSO being in the mindset to do business? 

Think about that for a moment.

We go to Instagram to be entertained or inspired. 

We go to Facebook to keep up with friends, family, and our favorite groups. 

We go to YouTube when we have a question.

NONE of these places are geared specifically towards BUSINESS or PROFESSIONAL GROWTH.

If you have an audience filled with consumers, you do have more platforms to choose from when it comes to social media options.

If you’re in the B2B space or a career professional… you’ve got ONE. It’s called LinkedIn.

Love it. Hate it. Not sure what you think about it.

If you’re avoiding LinkedIn because you’re unsure, you’re overwhelmed, or you’ve tried it before and it didn’t work like you hoped… you’re not alone.

But, you do need to realize it’s a simple matter of connecting the dots - that could take your business from “doing okay” to a sales pipeline bursting with people who WANT what you have to sell and actually LIKE you as a person. Go figure.

For example, a podcast production agency owner focused on business owners and leaders who want a podcast came with the problem of having an AWESOME service where he could easily help his clients create their podcast, produce episodes, and get great guests for the show. 

The problem was that nobody knew him on LinkedIn, he had a LinkedIn profile that looked borderline spammy with a pitchy headline and poor headshot, and he was not convinced that LinkedIn would actually work for him because he heard it had gotten so spammy.

We dialed in his target audience (discovering that they were VERY active on LinkedIn), fixed up that profile, did a test of sending out some tailored LinkedIn messages to see if his audience wanted to chat.

BOOM! His message immediately resonated, and he ended up booking out his calendar nearly two months in advance from reaching out to only 10 people per week. 

More than a year later, he still doesn’t need to go outside LinkedIn to fill his sales pipeline. He has as many prospects as he can handle - with no end in sight to the prospect pool.

So what really happened here?

Belief happened first. Testing happened next. Results spoke for themselves.

You Can Connect the Dots on LinkedIn

When you CHOOSE to prioritize LinkedIn by learning how to connect the dots, that’s when the magic happens.

It’s not about spending hours a day trying to scrounge up LinkedIn posts to comment on, rather it’s about providing value and showing up consistently over weeks and months.

Every week, I do coaching calls with clients who tell me they learn more about how they can use LinkedIn during a single 60-minute session together than they have been able to figure out going through multiple courses or following a number of LinkedIn experts.

Why is that? When you get crystal clear about your intention for LinkedIn, the resources you have available, and define what would make LinkedIn a success for you, it’s really simple from that point to create an effective LinkedIn approach.

Too many of my peers make LinkedIn feel so complicated that you need the equivalent of a Masters degree in Social Selling to make it effective, but you can hire them for a few thousand dollars a month to do it for you, of course.

Using LinkedIn for your company, your business, or your career means that you are here with a very clear objective in mind. 

Think about it like this - it’s EXACTLY how we go about building a successful business or a standout career. We create offers and services, build a clientele or customer base, and overdeliver on expectations - we do this over and over again - until we get a process that works, with margins we love.

Everything you do on LinkedIn should lead you closer to doing more good business with more good people.

It’s not spamming. 

It’s not about clever automation.

It’s not about pitch-slapping people via LinkedIn messages.

It IS about using a proven system and processes that ACTUALLY work on LinkedIn right now.

Now I want to go back to the story I told earlier, what I didn’t tell you about that podcast agency owner, he doesn’t spend more than 10-15 minutes per day on LinkedIn. Why? Because we NAILED his processes and systems.

Now, how do you figure out how to connect the dots for yourself on LinkedIn?

3 Questions to Build a Simple LinkedIn Strategy

If you’re not already convinced, I want to share with you three questions that can help you determine how to connect the dots on LinkedIn to either grow your business or build your personal brand as an expert.

#1 - Is your target audience consumers or professionals?

As I mentioned before, if they are other professionals, leaders, CEOs, and executives - LinkedIn is most likely the ONE channel where they actually have a profile, are somewhat active, and can be reached.

Trying to target a CEO on Facebook with an ad? Good luck.

Reaching out to that same CEO with a personalized InMail and a great connection invitation? 

Your chances of getting through are MUCH higher, even if they do have an executive assistant checking their LinkedIn messages for them. 

...that’s the thing, they DO have a gatekeeper paying attention on LinkedIn, but do you think they’d let their VA into their personal Facebook account?

That is a rhetorical question. 

#2 - Do you need to build professional relationships?

Short Answer: Yes. No matter whether or not your audience is primarily consumers or professionals, you are going to be doing business or collaborating with other business owners, leaders, vendors, or clients.

We all have heard about the “know, like, and trust” factor in getting people to either purchase what we’re offering (if we’re in sales or business) or choose to hire us over another candidate (if we’re in a job seeking scenario.)

If you are in the B2B space, it’s essential for your potential customers to talk to a real-life human during the sales process, which means they are not going to buy without connecting to YOU along with any other related people on your team.

If you tend to push people towards a “free discovery call” or default to “let’s hop on for a quick chat” - LinkedIn is a great fit because when you have genuine conversations in LinkedIn DMs, calendar links are quite often exchanged.

On that note, I would not recommend handing out your calendar link too freely, as that can be perceived as desperate or that you’re struggling. If you do hand out your calendar link, be sure that the call is about doing business together. 

On the other hand, if you are accustomed to pushing people towards a landing page or video to learn more about you, and it’s a lower-priced product (less than a few hundred dollars) that they can easily purchase without thinking twice… then LinkedIn might not be the best fit for THESE customers. 

BUT, if you’re like many other entrepreneurs and business owners I know, you likely have a premium offering or upsell where your high-ticket clients want to work with YOU directly. These clients are the types of people you’d want to reach out to directly on LinkedIn.

If you’re a sales person trying to get through to decision makers, you probably already are using LinkedIn, but I’ve come across very few who do it well. It’s a tricky balance and tough when you have any type of “sales-related” word in your title. You’ve got to get clever.

Think about your sales process and how you sell. How much of YOU is part of that sale? The more of YOU that’s necessary, the more valuable LinkedIn as a lead generation source will be.

And not to gloss over those of you looking for your next opportunity or job on LinkedIn, relationships with the right people are critically important even if you are not actively job seeking. When the time comes that you want to leapfrog into a new position, you’re going to need to have established all the right relationships months (if not years) in advance.

#3 - Which dots do you need to connect on LinkedIn?

To be clear, I’m NOT trying to sell you on ANY of my services here. 

This is a question that you need to answer for yourself because getting into LinkedIn trying to put together a mix-match of tactics is going to result in you wasting your time.

You need to decide if LinkedIn is the right channel for you, and then realize it’s going to take some education, some time to learn the ropes, some processes, and some resources (like a good VA) to help you manage some of the moving parts.

Many of my clients manage their end-to-end LinkedIn program themselves because we design a good checklist, while others prefer to delegate parts to a virtual assistant or team member when they finalize their LinkedIn process and feel confident it’s working.

I’ve mentioned this before, but I always recommend to my coaching clients and students that they do a simple 90-day experiment where they define what “going all in” on LinkedIn looks like for them. Then, they set up a simple “going all in” LinkedIn plan or checklist to test their hypothesis.

The beauty of this approach is that once you get your LinkedIn process up-and-going (usually takes only a few weeks), you can make an educated decision on how you are going to invest in LinkedIn moving forward.

Worst case, you decide LinkedIn is not for you. Then, you’ve spent 90 days getting your LinkedIn profile looking amazing, creating content you can use other places, and learning exactly how to do cold outreach in a way that doesn’t feel spammy. 

Best case, you figure out a LinkedIn system that actually leads to business revenue, a “social” channel that you can point to next year and say “LinkedIn opportunities made me X dollars for Y investment.” Good return?

Connect the dots first, and then commit to taking action for a specific time frame.

Such a fun topic today! It’s a bit less tactical, but I think the mindset behind how we use LinkedIn is where the magic happens for our businesses and personal brands.

To follow up on our discussion today, I have a really fun private podcast that airs today, that will help you connect the dots if you’ve been trying to put together your strategy to create a successful business or if you’ve been on the fence about leaving your 9-to-5 and want to start a side hustle. 

My online business mentor, Amy Porterfield, just released the first episode in her new private podcast series, “My (Brutally Honest) Road To Business Success And The Blueprint I Would Follow Today.” I’ll be tuning in, too!

I’ll see you next week on Mondays with Mindi - where we will have a really exciting discussion about taking action to grow our businesses using LinkedIn! In the meantime, feel free to add your questions or comments below.