5 Ways IT Businesses Leak Money on LinkedIn

:: 00:00:00

Speaker 1

If you're a business owner and you think LinkedIn is still a place that you primarily go to to post jobs and recruit people and share your profile like it's a resume you sitting on a lot of money because LinkedIn is hands down the best platform for B2B sales. It was literally built to do business. They have an entire section of LinkedIn Sales Navigator that is designed to help you find your target market and sell them stuff using LinkedIn.

:: 00:27:15

Speaker 1

And since: 2020

:: 00:47:18

Speaker 1

Right? So the first place that we are going to start when it comes to turning LinkedIn into a client acquisition system for you, is your profile, your profile, your personal profile? Yes. Yours. Not the company profile. Yours as the CEO is the landing page, the website, the funnel. It is virtually everything that you need to get the attention of your audience and capture that and turn it into opportunities.

:: 01:09:18

Speaker 1

Now first the profile picture. Now I like to say you should have a professional profile picture, but you know, I'm a dude to tanked up on my profile. Be that as it may, what I would recommend is taking a step back, thinking about who your audience is, and just making sure that you have a good, high quality photo that is welcoming enough that if somebody sees it, they say, hey, that person's not a creep, or that person looks like an asshole.

:: 01:32:00

Speaker 1

So get something that is somewhat engaging, catches attention clear, professionally done, high quality, all that stuff. The next thing you're gonna look at is the banner behind the profile picture. The banner is your billboard, right? And you don't want to clutter it with 27 different pictures. You don't want to clutter it with a bunch of text. You want it to say something simple.

:: 01:49:11

Speaker 1

Think about if you had a billboard for your business, what would it be? What is something that is going to clarify who you work with and what you do right? Like when I see that as your ideal client, I should go, oh, they solve that problem for that market. Something simple, something straightforward, and something on brand. You should have some basic brand guidelines, something that is going to be on brand and aligned with all the other content that we're going to see.

:: 02:12:24

Speaker 1

Then the third thing is going to be the headline. Now, I think the headline is probably the most underutilized and least leveraged part of the profile. And that's because most people just say CEO at XYZ IT company, right. And that's fine. Like you're trying to build some authority, you're trying to build some credibility. You're trying to say, hey, I'm, I'm, I'm a founder.

:: 02:31:26

Speaker 1

I'm a CEO of a good company. I get that, but what CEO of XYZ company doesn't do is tell me, what market do you work with? What market do you work in, what kind of IT services do you do? Who is a good ideal client for you? What kind of problems do you may go away? What kind of pains do you make?

:: 02:47:12

Speaker 1

Go away when you use the headline more strategically, you can actually get the headline to do some of the selling for you, which is going to be really important later when we talk about some of the ways that you can interact, you want something that says this is the audience that I work with. This is the problem that I tend to solve.

:: 03:02:22

Speaker 1

These are the pains that I'm good at making. Go away a tried and true formula is I help such and such market solve whatever problem or accomplish whatever goal, right? So you and you can be straightforward about it. You can say, I help small businesses in Miami solve it challenges and reduce network costs. I feel like whatever that is, like you're the you're the tech person.

:: 03:22:06

Speaker 1

You should know your market. You should know what sets you apart, what differentiates you, what makes you good at what you do, what problem that you solve for your market. And because of that, it's already done some of the selling for you. Now, the reason I think that the headline is so important is it is the thing next to your profile picture.

:: 03:37:15

Speaker 1

It is the thing everybody sees. If you comment on somebody else's post, they're going to see a picture. And I'm going to see a headline, which means everybody that sees that comment is going to know who you work with and what you do. If it just says CEO of random IT company name, and it's not even super clear who you are or where you are, or what you do or what problems you solve, it's a missed opportunity, particularly if you're going to get your profile engaged on LinkedIn and you're going to be connecting with other people and things like that.

:: 04:05:27

Speaker 1

Below the headline, you've got two options that you can use to push people to your website or push people to your funnels. And the two options that you have kind of the same, like they're the same feature within LinkedIn, but you get a choice on whether you want to use a custom link that you get to change the tech stuff.

:: 04:20:20

Speaker 1

So you can actually write the copy, and there's a limited number of characters that you can use, or you can use a custom button, a custom button you're going to pick from pre-selected CTAs and copy that. LinkedIn has basically picked for you the one advantage to the custom link is obviously that you can write your own copy, right?

:: 04:35:27

Speaker 1

Like you can write what you want that CTA to be. So instead of visit website or sign up for newsletter, you can actually write what you want it to say. And that's an advantage. The advantage to the button is that the button actually goes with you throughout the whole platform. Meaning, if you comment on some of these posts and you say something relevant and you're engaging and people are scrolling through, they can see your profile, they can see your headline, and they can see the button, right?

:: 05:00:28

Speaker 1

So they can actually click on that CTA from anywhere on the platform. Whereas the custom link they have to click on from your profile. So I stick with the button just because it follows me around the platform. It gives people more opportunities to click on that. The main thing is you want to make sure that you're turning that CTA on and that you're sending people to some type of funnel asset, something that they can opt into after clicking on that.

:: 05:22:28

Speaker 1

Because if I get the connection request and then I see that you're in my market and I see that you have you solve a problem that I actually have right now, I okay, I want to learn a little bit more. I click on your profile, the billboard in the background, the banner that actually confirms it. Right. So that's great.

:: 05:38:23

Speaker 1

Right below that is the CTA. Like that's the invitation to have me take some type of action. So when I click on it, what you want to do is be able to capture some type of opt in or contact information or something. So you've got those things at the top of the profile as you move down. Depending on how your profile set up and whether you're on creator mode or not, which is, you know, video for for some other time, you're going to have an about section, a featured section and a service a section.

:: 06:03:05

Speaker 1

Okay, about section is not your life story. The about section is not just a bland, boring, you know, company. Copy and paste. A really good about section is going to weave in a little bit of a founder story, like why you started your business, why you love working with the market that you love, and the problems that you help them solve.

:: 06:22:13

Speaker 1

So it's a good sales letter, right? That's what the about section is. It's just intended to tell people that have gotten that far on your profile that there is confirmation that you are who they think you are so far. Right. Like if you just think about this from a user standpoint and you go, okay, I'm kind of interested, or at least I'm curious.

:: 06:39:01

Speaker 1

And then I start working through what is the about section need to say to ensure that I keep scrolling and start taking some action after seeing your profile now, some people will tell you, you know you want to, you want to weave in keywords and you will do all the stuff I don't like. I don't think it's that big of a deal.

:: 06:51:28

Speaker 1

And we get a lot of traffic from from LinkedIn. But I'm also not an SEO expert. What I find is more relevant than stuffing things with shitty keywords is telling a good story, telling people about you and about the business in a way that they actually give a shit about. So writing it from their perspective. Now, one thing you can do that helps search on LinkedIn is add in the top skills.

:: 07:12:10

Speaker 1

Like in the about section. You have the ability to put in your top skills, put it in the top skills that you think people would be searching for on LinkedIn. If somebody went there and said, I need it. Services, what are they going to cite like? Is it something around networking? Is it something around it? Look for those in the top skills, try to get them as relevant as possible and plug them in, because that I know does influence the search.

:: 07:32:12

Speaker 1

And make sure your profile more accessible to people. And then you've got a service section that's the opportunity to literally just tell people the services that you offer. So you want to turn that section on and you want to clarify what are the services that you actually offer. Let them know what you offer. Let them know what's unique about your offer.

:: 07:49:04

Speaker 1

ecent thumbnail like have you: 2550

:: 08:06:00

Speaker 1

I've got the 360 sales audit, our deep dive into two sales processes. I've got fractional sales management and then I've got our SDR, sales champions community. Those are the three most popular offers that we have. And then underneath that I've got a simple, you know, statement that just ties it together. Like we help it businesses and MSPs transform sales into their superpower.

:: 08:23:15

Speaker 1

Right. And then, you know, a couple sentences after that, but this is your showcase okay. So tell people what you offer. Then you've got the featured section. Now what you don't want to do is load previous posts up in your featured section or anything that's not relevant. I look at the featured section as the place that we're really asking people to opt in at two points at the top of the funnel or at the middle of the funnel.

:: 08:44:04

Speaker 1

And what I mean by that is at the very top of the funnel. It's kind of like a stranger, right? I don't really know you. So I offer something as a lead magnet to get people to opt in. That then allows me the opportunity to educate them and continue communicating with them and nurture them into potential opportunities down the road.

:: 09:00:12

Speaker 1

So as of right now, we have a a sales toolbox, and it's got templates and resources and guides and spreadsheets and it's just it's a whole bunch of different resources that I've created for IT businesses. And I plug them in, you know, as I, as I go. So that's our top of funnel, right. That's if you're like, who's who's this dude?

:: 09:17:24

Speaker 1

I'm not really sure that seems like something I want access to. So let me click on it and opt in with my email address. And then there's other people who maybe already kind of know you, right? Like if you created content, which we'll talk about, but if you've created content, they've read some of it or they've been, you know, connected to you for a while, or maybe they know some mutual connections or something.

:: 09:35:25

Speaker 1

And those people may just opt straight into a newsletter, right? Instead of like coming on top of the following may say, you know what, I just want to hear from you more often. So let me just do that. Now. There may be other ways to leverage it, but the point is, you want to have a very specific ask that gives people the opportunity to opt in to your marketing ecosystems, that you can continue to communicate with them and engage them off of the platform.

:: 09:58:01

Speaker 1

You now have more control back in your hands, because if I write a post on LinkedIn, LinkedIn controls who sees that? If I write an email to my list, I control who sees that? So we have different touch points here to try to move people into our ecosystem so that we can continue that conversation. So make sure you've got something good in your featured section for people to opt into.

:: 10:16:25

Speaker 1

And then you scroll down a little bit and you've got experience and experiences. What people are going to look at to basically check your credit credibility. Right. They're going to look and be like, hey, has this person been in it for three months or is this person been in it for 20 years? Right? Or has this company existed for three days, or has this company existed for 13 years?

:: 10:35:15

Speaker 1

So people are going to scroll down. They're going to look at that. Now, most people write that section the way that they would a resume, right. Like they say, hey, I was program manager or project manager over here, and I did X, y, Z. And I was like, network engineer, I did x, y, z. But unless you're looking for a job, that's not really going to help you.

:: 10:51:08

Speaker 1

So what I would recommend you do is you want each description for your experience to tell me why I care. How does this make me feel better about hiring you to be my IT provider? How does this clarify whether I'm the right person for your company? How does this compel me to want to take action and perhaps get on a call with you and your team?

:: 11:10:24

Speaker 1

I look at these and I say, if you're primarily writing about the problems that they have, the pains that those problems are causing them, the mistakes that they're potentially making, trying to do things on their own or not using you if that's what you're using in the descriptions and even in the about and everywhere else on the profile, you're going to be in good shape.

:: 11:27:09

Speaker 1

We just really want to make sure that the descriptions that you've got in the experience section are tailored to help me, as your prospect, understand how you can help me solve my problems, and help me understand why I would bother wanting to do business with you or reaching out to you. That would then take me to the company page and on the company page.

:: 11:44:05

Speaker 1

I keep it simple because candidly, LinkedIn's going to give your personal profile 100 times more traffic than it's ever going to give you your company profile, because I want your company profile to pay for it. So you get a lot more organic reach on your personal profile. But even so, you want a good company profile set up. It should be clean, should be orderly.

:: 12:00:11

Speaker 1

I'm not going to go through each section on there, but just make sure that there's a picture and a logo in the profile picture of the company, because that's going to show up in your experience and it just looks much more professional. Make sure that you've got, you know, on brands banner, make sure that you're taking the messaging from your personal profile and incorporating it into the company profile, and make sure that all of your company profile messaging and the text in the copy is marketing, right?

:: 12:23:21

Speaker 1

Like it's not just explanation, it's not just dry information, it is a marketing opportunity. Is an opportunity for you to tell people why they should do business with you. Because I look at a lot of company profiles in the company pages, and it's just really bland and it's really dry and it's just a missed opportunity. So just think about it in terms of writing copy for your website or for a funnel or for anything else.

:: 12:44:17

Speaker 1

Try to actually make it more about them, like the prospect, the person that's viewing it, than it is about you. And then also go through and make sure that all the settings, I just go through all the settings on the company page and make sure that you've got the basics plugged in, and you'll be good to go, at least from a starting standpoint.

:: 12:57:27

Speaker 1

All right. The next thing I want to talk about is a content strategy. Now here's the thing. I have generated more than 5 million views impressions on my content absolutely organically, that is, without spending a dime on paid ads. That is what my organic content has done. That's 5 million views that I have gotten for free. Now, it's not entirely free because I used my time obviously to create the content, but how much would you pay for 5 million impressions?

:: 13:22:28

Speaker 1

That is the power of a really good content strategy. Now, what's a good content strategy? I can tell you. Well, it's not a really boring, bland corporate message that says nothing and does nothing. Like, if you're going to do that, it's better off to just not post anything. What it's not is asking AI to write me ten posts about it, right?

:: 13:42:17

Speaker 1

Like it's not sitting down and saying hey, I'm an AI to comprehend such such, please write me ten posts on LinkedIn is going to spit out garbage. In fact, I can scroll through LinkedIn and I can tell you I for over a year and a half, I've been testing different different AI bots and getting it customized and I have hundreds of posts for this to to reference and leverage, and it's still kicked out garbage.

:: 14:04:10

Speaker 1

Now we've gotten it, you know, finely tuned over the last few months. But I'm telling you, it takes a ton of work to get AI and GPT to get you good content. It's going to create content that doesn't move the needle, doesn't build a followership, doesn't build engagement with your prospects, doesn't create any attention. It doesn't create any awareness of the thing that you want to do, which is sell your stuff.

:: 14:23:16

Speaker 1

LinkedIn's not going to share it. It's not going to go anywhere, which means you're just posting into the ether and it's useless, a waste of time. I can tell you what else doesn't work like a boring corporate strategy, because at the end of the day, that probably equates to what GPT is going to kick you out. So what would I do instead?

:: 14:38:02

Speaker 1

Well, I'd start figuring out how to create good content. Like what is content that's actually getting seen? What are other people in the space doing that's actually getting traction? How are other people getting a real engagement and building real audiences and creating more awareness around their services and around their company and around their brand? And how exactly are they doing that?

:: 14:57:05

Speaker 1

And I can tell you what works a lot what works good storytelling, relevant and timely pieces based on current events. You know, if there was just a massive breach or there was a, you know, a big news event around it, or around tech or around network, if there's media that's, that's happening that you can you can jump on.

:: 15:14:16

Speaker 1

The one thing I've done relatively well over the past couple of years is take personal stories and personal experiences and personal perspectives on, on business and tie that into business content that I post on LinkedIn. I generally tie that back to some type of lesson, some type of problem, some type of pain. Another thing that works really well is education.

:: 15:33:29

Speaker 1

They give away information that other people charge for. If you start giving away like legitimate, relevant tech tips and give people a reason to follow you, give people a reason to engage and you actually demonstrate, hey, I know what I'm talking about, and I give away a lot of value. That's how you start to build trust. That's how you start to build rapport.

:: 15:51:16

Speaker 1

That's how you start to let content nurture your audience. From who is this new connection to? Oh, I see what they do. Oh, he or she seems like a, you know, decent CEO. But if you're just cranking out mass content that's not personalized, it's not storytelling, it's not valuable. It's not educational, it's not good, then don't expected to do much for you.

:: 16:11:19

Speaker 1

Does that mean you have to be a full time career? No. Like we crank out a lot of content, but I've systematized this over years. When do we work with people? Oftentimes one post a week, one good post a week will outperform seven shitty posts for a week. All it takes is one good post to get the engagement and the visibility that you want on your content.

:: 16:32:09

Speaker 1

And as more people create content because of AI and all these other things, the content has to get better to stand out. It has to get better. In order for the algorithm to say this is worth sharing. So less about quantity and more about quality. Although there is an element of consistency that I need to make that rhyme, but it does.

:: 16:50:24

Speaker 1

If you can only get one good post out a week, then do one good post. But just do it every week and try to set up some system on the back end that makes it a little bit easier for you. Now the content piece is actually really important because people will see that when they get to your profile, right?

:: 17:02:21

Speaker 1

And they'll start going through your content. There's an old rule, the, the eight hour rule. And it was if people consume eight hours of your content, the close rate is going to be over 80% if they ever get on a call with you, because 30 pre-sold, right? They already kind of know you. They already kind of know your company.

:: 17:18:18

Speaker 1

They already basically are ready to buy because you've educated them and built trust with them and built rapport with them throughout this whole content journey. Right. So the content helps do that. So people get your profile, they start going through your content, they go, okay, and they they binge your content. The next piece that you want to look at to turn LinkedIn into a client acquisition system for you, is having an outbound or a connection strategy with new connections in your market.

:: 17:43:15

Speaker 1

So define your target market, right? Like what is what is the market that you serve as a geographic? Is it a particular vertical? Is it a particular, you know, type of type of business or something like that? Use LinkedIn to find a sales navigator has some incredible search criteria that you can go through and pinpoint a pretty damn good list.

:: 17:59:04

Speaker 1

So go build that list, right? Like you can you can build that list and sales Navigator and then start reaching out to five new connections in your market per day. Because if you reach out to five new connections per day, what's going to happen is 2 or 3 of them are going to accept. And by the way, don't put a message in the invitation.

:: 18:17:11

Speaker 1

I know it sounds counterintuitive. We've tested this over and over and over and over again, and no message in the connection requests gets higher response rates for whatever reason. Feel free to test it on your own. But I would start with no message, because that's what the data says. When you start doing this consistently, what you're going to find is with a really well optimized profile.

:: 18:35:24

Speaker 1

Because remember, at this point you've got a good profile, you've got a good headline, you've got a good banner, you've got your you've got your CTAs, you've got your, you know, your about your services, your featured section. So you've got a really good profile. When you're reaching out to your target market, there's going to be some small number of people that you just hit at the right place at the right time, right.

:: 18:54:07

Speaker 1

Like they look at that go looking for a new IT provider right now. Interesting that you should reach out and they will reach out to you and they'll say, okay, now that's a small number. Some slightly larger number may require like a conversation to turn into an opportunity. Right. So they see your profile, they connect. But they're like, you know, things aren't broken just yet.

:: 19:12:17

Speaker 1

And you know, I don't love our IT company, but I'm not ready to switch. But yeah, I'll accept the connection request. And you just start a conversation. You're at the sell like you're not this this is not where you get spammy. This is not where you get to salesy, because this is where your profile does some of the heavy lifting for you.

:: 19:27:01

Speaker 1

Right? Like this is why we've done the work that we've done to have that in place. You connect with somebody. Hey, thanks for connecting. Thanks for linking in. Great to connect. Look at their profile, find something interesting, ask a question like in all DMs, like, as if you're ever, like, doing any prospecting in DMs and everything with a question.

:: 19:45:09

Speaker 1

Ask a question to get a conversation started. Don't ask them to book a call. Don't ask them to buy IT services. Don't ask them if they're in the market or if they love their current provider. Ask them a question like you would ask somebody if you walked into a networking room, right? If you walked into a professional networking room with a bunch of business owners, you bumped into somebody.

:: 20:03:06

Speaker 1

You said, oh, hey, what do you do? Like, nice to meet you. You're here to to network. I'm here to network. That's what LinkedIn is. It's a big networking event with a lot of business people, and we all have something to sell somebody. Right? Like, so that's always like kind of in the back of our mind, but have just a normal human conversation.

:: 20:17:20

Speaker 1

So some number of people may turn into an opportunity by just starting the conversation. A larger number of people are not going to be ready to buy now, but as a result of being connected to you and as a result of you having a optimized profile, and as a result of you creating some decent content, what will happen is they will start to see your content.

:: 20:37:17

Speaker 1

Your content will start to nurture people through the funnel for you, and over time, those things will turn into opportunities. And now there's one little bonus tip in this. When you're talking to somebody in DMs, LinkedIn says, hey, these two people know each other. I should show this person that person's content because we see it in the DMs.

:: 20:57:09

Speaker 1

LinkedIn's content algorithm is tied to the direct messages algorithm. The more active you are with somebody in the DMs, the more LinkedIn is going to show your content to them. And this is where it starts to pull together. I'm going to do a little bit of outbound in connection requests, not overly salesy. I've got a little bit of content rolling.

:: 21:15:21

Speaker 1

I've got a good well optimized profile. Now it's going to start to come together and create some traffic for me, which leads me to stop overlooking the really easy conversations that you can start. LinkedIn is the only platform that shows you who's viewed your profile. You can see who is viewed your profile. So when you're publishing content and you're doing connection requests and you're starting conversations and you're starting to get some awareness, so you're starting to get some visibility, you can start to see who's actually visiting your profile.

:: 21:42:05

Speaker 1

Send them a quick message. If they're in your market, send a message, say that is, you checked out my profile. Anything that I can help with. The second place to start really easy conversations is people that send you a connection request. When someone sends you a connection request, are you just accepting it or are accepting it and asking, hey, thanks for connecting.

:: 21:58:24

Speaker 1

Really glad to to have you here and be part of the network. What can I help you with? Like what led you to stop by? Like everything in DMs, by the way, should be really short. Like, really. I mean, like like like a text, right? It's got to be conversational. Another place to start. Easy conversations. If you're creating content as you should be, like when people engage, send them a note.

:: 22:18:11

Speaker 1

Hey, thanks for liking my post. Thanks for commenting. You don't have to. I mean, a lot of the people that are going to be there aren't going to be in your market. So you have to start conversations with people that aren't in your market, but look at the areas that you can like. We have a daily checklist and we say view profile.

:: 22:30:24

Speaker 1

Cool. Inbound connection request. Cool. Anybody that engaged in content, cool. LinkedIn is serving those things up to you on a platter. And they're saying, here are people that you can start conversations with. And then the last area that you can look at LinkedIn to drive more clients, drive more sales, grow your business is incorporating it as part of an omnichannel strategy, and where this works really well as if you are, for example, sending some direct mail as part of a campaign, and then you have an SDR or somebody that's calling behind those mailers or even email.

:: 23:01:29

Speaker 1

You will dramatically increase your contact rate and your conversion rate if you incorporate LinkedIn as part of that strategy. Because if you're SDR or you like within your profile, or if you have your SDR managing your profile, however you set it up, send somebody an email or send somebody a direct mail, and there's a little bit of name recognition.

:: 23:22:05

Speaker 1

And then I see a connection request. I go, okay, oh yeah, I think, I think I might remember and then I get a phone call. There's some familiarity. It is hands down proven that when you touch multiple channels for a campaign, you're going to increase your ROI. So how can I take what I'm doing for marketing and amplify with something very simple, like a LinkedIn connection request?

:: 23:43:24

Speaker 1

And that means simply adding something like a connection request to the campaigns that you're potentially running right now. So if you are running some direct mail campaigns or an email campaign and then you've got a and then you've got an SDR that's calling behind that. Well, when you incorporate LinkedIn with a connection request, you are going to dramatically increase your conversion.

:: 24:05:20

Speaker 1

You're going to dramatically increase your ROI as a result of it. Because the touch points create familiarity. That familiarity is going to help your SDR when they're making that call, it is going to help them get more conversations, and it's going to help give them an extra few seconds to say what they need to say on the phone to help you get maximum return from all your marketing.

:: 24:24:00

Speaker 1

So there you have it. Optimize your profile, set up a company page, implement a good content strategy, start executing a good connection strategy with with new people, and start having the easy conversations the ones that are sitting right in front of you. And if you do those things, I assure you you are going to make more money. You're going to get more ROI on everything else that you're doing and turn LinkedIn into a leads machine.

:: 24:44:18

Speaker 1

And this is to say nothing of automation, which we've used a lot and really efficiently, really effectively on on LinkedIn of paid media or of getting your team together like with, with a coordinated content strategy where you can actually pull together and get more organic reach by working off of one another with the content. Those are advanced, like that's like the 2 or 1 of the three and one of LinkedIn.

:: 25:05:12

Speaker 1

This is the one on one, right. Like these are the foundational steps that you take. And then they're building blocks. Like you just keep stacking on top of each other. And as you've kind of seen they all work off of one another. Right? Like more DMs means more reach on your content, more reaching, and content means more people are viewing your profile.

:: 25:19:29

Speaker 1

So when you start pulling all these levers at the same time, you're going to get good results. I really hope this has been helpful for you, because LinkedIn has been a goldmine for us. Like, we have really tapped into this as a revenue source. And when I'm working with IT companies or I see the MSPs that we do sales audits for and I go, Holy cow, like you're sitting on a goldmine.

:: 25:38:12

Speaker 1

If this has been helpful, go ahead and subscribe to the channel for more business tips, and check out my newsletter and the resources below in the description, because I've got more stuff that might help you get more sales, audios for you. You.