Gift biz on wrapped episode 167.
This is my profile,
but it's about you.
My prospect Attention gifters bakers,
crafters, and makers pursuing your dream can be fun.
Whether you have an established business or looking to start one.
Now you are in the right place.
This is gift to biz unwrapped,
helping you turn your skill into a flourishing business.
Join us for an episode,
packed full of invaluable guidance,
resources, and the support you need to grow.
Your gift biz here is your host gift biz gal,
Sue moon Heights.
I am so thrilled to reintroduce you to Vivica Von Rosen.
If this name sounds familiar to you,
she was on the show back in August of 2016.
So it's that long ago.
I think so.
And before I go any further,
because we're such good friends and you're friends with my audience
and all,
I better introduce you.
First Vivica Von Rosen is the co-founder of vinaigrette.
So the largest provider of full spectrum,
digital sales transformation solutions known as the LinkedIn expert.
She's also the author of the bestselling book,
LinkedIn marketing,
an hour a day,
and LinkedIn 101 ways to rock your personal brand.
She's a regular contributor to Forbes,
Inc entrepreneur selling power and the social media examiner Vivica.
Thank you for coming and welcome to the show.
Absolutely. My pleasure.
Thank You.
So you and I were together just a couple of weeks
ago in Fort Collins,
your hometown,
and we were talking a little bit about some of the
changes on LinkedIn.
So I'm super excited to get into that because I'm thinking
a lot of us haven't thought about LinkedIn.
It hasn't really been on our radar very much lately,
and I think it needs to be,
so we're going to get into that,
but beforehand,
since the last time you were here,
a lot has changed for you.
You have formed a whole new company,
so let's start there.
What is this all about?
Yeah. So in the desire to come together as opposed to
work against five or four of my competitors and I,
five of us decided to come together and kind of build
this big social selling company,
instead of always like going after the same deals and sometimes
losing out to each other and sometimes losing out to other
people and in order to kind of coalesce our brain trust,
we got together and created Venn.
So almost a year ago.
Exactly. Actually,
Oh, it's only a year a year.
Yep. Wow.
So that's really interesting because you don't often think of just
merging together with a competitor.
Everyone had to be pretty open to that option.
Yeah. There were definitely some considerations when we first started talking
about this,
how it happened.
We had all a bunch of us,
not just the current partners,
but a bunch of other LinkedIn experts and social selling experts
had come together and thought about creating an online membership community
on teaching and training on LinkedIn.
But there was no one really who wanted to step up
and take the helm,
take the lead because we're all very busy in our own
businesses. And when that fell apart a little bit,
Mario Martinez who's now our CEO reached out to a few
of us and said,
Hey, what about creating a company together?
And since we all knew each other and had literally been
spending one hour a week for the past year,
talking to each other,
we had enough trust.
I think built by that point to look into this possibility.
It was a huge gut check too.
I kept checking in to my intuition,
like, is this the right move?
Because I have done partnerships before and they've never worked.
Oh really?
So you were probably really skeptical,
super skeptical.
And it really is just all about the gut check and
all about do the work,
do the background work,
hire a lawyer.
If you need to look at the paperwork,
but always trust your intuition 100%,
even when my mind was going,
Oh, I'm not so sure about this.
My gut was just affirm.
Yes. And even when some difficulties arose,
every time I checked in on my gut,
it was affirm.
Yes. And so now I'm ever so grateful that we've moved
forward because it's been great.
It's been really,
really, really good Intuition is really important because I think it's
just the universe who is sending us signals that saying this
isn't just the right thing for you,
or it's not really what you're going to love to do
in the end either.
Yeah, exactly.
It sounds To me like the whole,
like what you've created with VIN Grasso is better than you
all as individual parts.
So do each of you bring something different to the table?
It's interesting.
Yes, of course.
All of us bring something a little bit different where really
the alignment between sales and marketing.
And so we've got a marketing division of which Bernie Borgias
is kind of head while he's our chief marketing officer.
And then I play a little bit into that arena too,
with all the personal branding that I do and all the
speaking that I do.
So I'm the chief visibility officer mainly they couldn't find another
chief position for me.
So visibility.
That sounds good.
So Bernie and I are kind of the marketing side of
things. And then I cross over into the sales side of
things where we have Mario Martinez.
Who's our CEO,
Kurt Schaefer,
who's our chief sales officer and then Brynne Tillman.
Who's our chief learning officer.
And so it's been really great because Mario and Kurt are
just expert sales men.
And I've learned a lot from them.
I have played much more in the entrepreneurial space and then
Brenda's a good crossover between entrepreneurial and B2B enterprise size company.
So we really kind of can cover all different aspects from
B2C to B2B,
from entrepreneur solo preneur up to 500 person sales team.
So it's really exciting to be able to do that where
I, I really wouldn't have been as confident in that offer
back 18 months ago.
Interesting. So in your intro,
what we say is full spectrum,
digital sales transformation solutions.
Yes, exactly.
What does that mean?
This is another reason why we all came together.
I mean,
certainly Brynn and myself were very much in the LinkedIn expertise
realm as we still are.
But the fact is LinkedIn training is a little bit limited.
And so then we're like,
okay, we're LinkedIn and social selling experts,
but social selling is still a little bit limited and people
don't understand how it applies.
And certainly sales teams think social selling is still more of
a marketing function,
but of course it is about the alignment between sales and
marketing. So it was digital sales transformation allows us to pull
in all the different aspects of being in the digital realm
and being able to create these inbound engagements as well as
more old-school outbound engagement,
pulling in tools like LinkedIn and Twitter and social video.
And I guess to some extent,
although we haven't played a lot in this arena,
Facebook and Instagram and blogging and content for sales.
So it really pulls and wraps it all together into this
really lovely offer.
So digital sales transformation is about all that.
It's about the whole ecosphere of digital sales strategies and abilities
and marketing and everything that comes with that.
Right. I'm glad you clarify it because when social media overall,
all the different platforms started becoming popular.
Gosh, I don't know.
Was it 10 years ago?
12. I mean,
I don't know exactly when anymore,
but I think a lot of people felt like,
okay, that replaces everything else we've always done,
right? This is now the single solution.
So I'm not going to go networking anymore.
I'm not going to do print anymore.
Maybe I don't have to sell the way we used to
anymore. Facebook is the solution or each individual platform is the
solution, right?
Sometimes we still are going that direction today.
If we're on social media,
why aren't sales just calming?
Oh, well that means social media doesn't work when really it's
just one part of the whole package.
Indeed. It's not saying.
And I think this is where I'm learning a lot from
Kurt and Mario and Brin.
It's not saying listen,
sales guys or entrepreneurs,
but listen,
sales guys and gals,
forget everything you've ever known.
We're going to teach you a new way.
It's yes.
Bring everything you've ever known about networking,
about building relationships,
about becoming the trusted advisor about finding those coaches within your
name, to count all of those things that are so key
to sales about your CRM system,
all those things that are so key sales and going,
okay, let's take all of that skill set and let's wrap
it into these new platforms,
which will simply make your job easier if you use them
the right way,
right? It'll make it so much easier for you to warm
up those relationships,
to stay top of mind,
to position yourself as an expert and a trusted advisor within
your industry or within your company to give you another option.
Other than the use sales car type pressury salesy stuff,
where it all comes down to price,
not value.
So that's where I think having these new partners has made
it easier for me to give the value proposition as opposed
to just competing.
And it coming down to price.
When the goal Still the same,
whether you are getting your business,
just the word about your business out into the world for
the first time,
or whether you're already developed business,
but you have more product.
And now you're looking at scaling.
So everything else is just a tool.
It's a way to get to your ultimate goal.
That's exactly right.
These are just tools that we're giving you.
And that's really about mindset,
skill set,
tool set,
and then aligning at all between sales and marketing.
That's literally Mission statement.
And I shared with you,
and I want to share with the audience here too,
something interesting that happened with somebody who's part of my membership
group maker's MBA.
And that was,
she was combining different platforms together to reach her goal.
And I'm just going to make this comment because it brings
us nicely into LinkedIn,
which is really what I want to focus on.
Cause you know,
Vivica, the people that we're working with are creators.
They make something and they're getting their art out into the
world. They want to share the beauty of what they create
with other people in their business.
Right? So they're monetizing.
Yeah, of course,
exactly. So based on the product,
cause this isn't right for all products,
but based on this particular person's product,
she was interested in getting into corporate business.
And so interestingly enough,
I was so proud of her.
She identified on Instagram that there was a new position filled
in one of her target corporate accounts.
So this was a prospect,
a corporate prospect,
right. She found that out on Instagram.
And then she transitioned that over and said,
I wonder what else I can learn about this person now
that I know their name,
let me check their LinkedIn profile.
Well, wouldn't,
you know,
she looks her up on LinkedIn gets a lot of background
information, asks her to connect.
This is the LinkedIn that we know already.
Right, right.
Exactly. Asked her to Connect she accepts,
cut the story to the end.
Now they have a meeting and she's going to get to
start establishing a relationship with her and potentially down the road,
be able to land that corporate account.
All of these are tools and you piece them together based
on what your need is,
what your goal is Exactly.
Right. And so a lot of people listening to this podcast
and a lot of people in your community are probably like,
well, LinkedIn is just B to B,
but just like your member is she I'm assuming she,
she saw the possibility in the B2B world.
And so that's LinkedIn is more of a B2B platform than
say Instagram or Facebook.
But like you said,
use all the tools at hand because you can still make
those strategic relationships.
You can still find partners.
You can still find vendors.
There's still a huge opportunity on LinkedIn for you.
Even if you are heavily engaged in the B to C
world. Yeah.
It starts out with LinkedIn as people,
right. You're entering your account.
You're sharing who you are as a person.
And I think it did start out totally focused.
More corporate.
Oh sure.
And honestly,
which of course,
it's so much more than that now.
Well, and we're going to get into that and yeah,
that's Good stuff because I want to learn about this too,
as we're talking,
but I think it's person to person.
So what I had just shared was a good example of
the transition,
the platforms making.
And I know that there's so,
so much more,
let's dive into that.
Let's talk about how the platforms changed.
And I think maybe we should start.
I have told you how much I love your newsletters.
And I know now that the visual,
like if we haven't gone and looked at our account for
awhile, there are some things we need to fix up there.
Right? Yeah.
LinkedIn has again,
but this time they didn't do it right before I released
the latest book.
So thank you,
LinkedIn. Of course,
LinkedIn is making another big change to it's user in our
face. And as far as the look of the profile is
concerned. So what's happened is the above the fold.
And right now it's only really the above the fold area,
but the background image has changed a little bit.
The top of the fold,
where your header is and your experience and your contact info,
all of that has shifted a little bit.
And what I like about that is the old user interface,
which by the way,
I still have it's you in the middle,
it's your information in the middle?
I think on a subconscious level,
it makes people think like my LinkedIn profile is all about
me. What I like about the new profile is your image
and your contact,
your photo and your professional headline.
And then your contact information is no longer centered.
It's off to the left a little bit.
So that,
I mean on a subconscious level,
I think it's like,
okay, wait,
this is my profile,
but it's about you,
my prospect and how can I help you at what can
I do for you?
So it's less centered on me and more on you,
which I don't know if that was LinkedIn's intent or not.
That's what I like to think because of course your LinkedIn
profile absolutely needs to be your personal brand and you absolutely
want to pull in your company's branding into that personal brand.
And that helps to build credibility.
But in the end,
your LinkedIn profile is there to let your prospects know what
can do for them,
unless you're actually looking for a job and then ignore what
I'm saying right now.
But unless you're looking for a job,
why would you have your LinkedIn profile,
be your resume?
Why wouldn't you focus on your prospects,
your buyer persona and what their needs are.
And one of my partners,
Brynne Tillman,
she says,
you need to switch your LinkedIn profile from a resume to
a resource.
This is a difference,
right? Yeah.
It's huge.
Because when we,
I first started with LinkedIn,
it was all about job searching.
Exactly, Exactly.
And yes,
if you're looking for a job which most of the people
listening to this podcast probably are not,
then sure you can leave it as a resume.
Now having said that you still need to focus on your
potential employers.
So you still want to make it more about what you
can do for them,
as opposed to just a pure resume on what you want
to achieve.
But most definitely for the creators,
listening to this podcast,
we most definitely want to focus on what are the people
who are going into business with you,
whether they're consumer,
a strategic partner,
a vendor,
what are they going to get out of this relationship with
you? How is dealing with you?
How has engaging with you going to make their life better?
And if you can use your headline to reflect that,
if you can use your summary section to reflect that if
you can use your media to reflect that,
then you've got a lot better chance that you're going to
convert that connection into an actual conversation and potentially into a
new customer or a client.
Absolutely. And something that comes to mind to me too,
again, to relate it back to our audience is if you
say to yourself,
I'm not really looking for corporate business.
And I get the fact that maybe a customer or a
customer would probably more go to my Facebook page.
However, if you are someone who's looking at wholesale,
then wholesalers would potentially come to your account because they want
to know more about that soap you make.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah. And so when You're talking then the benefits Vivica,
it's like,
okay, why are your soaps?
We'll just go with that.
As an example,
better than others,
they could be choosing,
what is it that you do as a business that you
provide as a business that's different.
So those then I think you're saying would be the things
that you would put front and center.
Yes, exactly what makes you different.
And then the other thing is a lot of folks in
your community probably do attend a fair amount of trade shows
and conferences and things like that.
And so you also have a real opportunity to create this
kind of helpful,
useful profile that increases positive sentiment so that when you reach
out to maybe you find out someone's,
which we can talk about,
there's a new feature on this,
which is actually really cool.
Maybe you find out who's going to be at that trade
show with you other vendors.
And you're like,
you know what,
let's talk about how we can create maybe a business together,
how we can help each other out.
And so you can actually use LinkedIn to book a meeting
with someone at a conference that you're both going to be
at anyway,
Is that the feature that you were referring to?
Shall we get to it now so we can get,
yeah. So that would be pre-conference.
So that would be actually somehow finding out who's going to
be at that conference,
who the other vendors are,
who the participants are,
if there's a list or if you can kind of figure
it out from looking at the website and that would be
actively inviting those people to connect in,
then sending a calendar or some potential times that you all
could meet,
but no,
the newest feature is called find nearby.
And it does exactly that when you're at a conference,
you turn on your mobile app.
So this is only available in mobile right now,
which makes sense.
And you go to your network,
there's a little,
it's kind of in the top,
in the middle.
There's a little thing that says find nearby and you can
turn it on and you can turn it on just to
be on nine to five every day of the week.
You can turn it on to be just on that day.
You could turn it on to be on for the next
three days.
So LinkedIn really developed this feature,
I think with conferences and trade shows in mind.
But what it does is it's a beacon technology.
So it uses Bluetooth and wifi and location services and all
of that stuff that happens on your mobile phone.
And it'll actually reach out and look around and see who
else has that feature turned on and then say,
Hey, Michelle is nearby.
And so now you've got a real opportunity to reach out
to Michelle and say,
Hey, LinkedIn told me that you're nearby hashtag creepy cool technology.
But I see that we have a long,
common, do you want to meet for coffee?
Someone I did a video on this and someone said,
so it's like Tinder for LinkedIn.
And I'm like,
yeah, but without the like creepy dating context,
swipe, right.
Swipe left,
Honestly. I mean,
it's a really great option,
both of these,
the booking and the find nearby,
because if you're able to connect,
I mean,
how often is it that you get in the same environment
with some of these people that you really you're,
maybe not at the point,
you just want to meet them at first.
Right? And so it's just a,
Hey, I've been thinking,
love your business would love to just come say hi,
shake your hand,
introduce myself period.
That could then lead to a up conversation later.
Exactly. I mean,
what it all comes down to.
And it's so interesting.
And I think we could speak at least for another hour
on this topic,
but here we are using all of these social media tools
that make us more connected.
And yet we're not doing very well at actually having real
human to human or face to face relationships.
And so I think this is LinkedIn's way of saying,
okay, it's great that you've got this huge network.
Now how about making some real friends?
Right. I'm thinking to myself that this is an opportunity because
so many people aren't using LinkedIn in this way,
that if you were,
you would stand out,
Really stand out.
Now of course,
thank you for bringing that up.
It's a relatively new feature.
Most people still don't know about it.
And so it's not actually going to work very well until
people even know it's there and go home.
What does this button do?
You know,
turn it on.
It's not going to work for me.
Speaking here in my basement office on top of my mountain.
Well, actually I might pick a balance,
but I'm not going to pick up a lot of connections.
It really does have to be either at a conference trade
show in an office building or even in a crowded area.
It gets real creepy when you start thinking about,
well, how about as I'm walking to my hotel room?
Like maybe I don't want this on.
Yeah. You want to turn it off then?
Yeah. There's definitely some creepy aspects to it,
But I think it's a great thing to check out because
if still there only a few people using it,
one of those people on there might be golden for you.
That's exactly right.
And you're out there spreading the word.
So, you know,
it'd be all high level businesses maybe who have them turned
on because they know exactly.
Right. Okay.
So what else about the profile or the page just visually,
is there anything else that's changed that we should be aware
of? Yeah.
So again,
and this is all above the fold,
but currently your summary section is only showing like two and
a half lines of text,
which is not a lot of real estate because you want
people to click on that,
see more,
show, more link.
You want to be able to utilize that area to,
like I said,
really focus on your USP and what makes you different from
everybody else,
but more importantly,
what you can do for them.
But of course,
two lines is not going to do that.
So you absolutely need to get people to click on that
show more.
So with the new summary section,
you actually have the ability to,
well, it's three lines,
but Hey,
three lines is better than two and it actually makes a
big difference.
I know I was playing around with mine,
but again,
it's just to get that call to action,
to get people,
to click on the show more.
And then once they do the other cool thing is with
the old user interface,
two pieces of media would show.
So with the idea that we want to move people,
or rather we want to move your profile from a resume
to a resource,
if you can upload some media testimonials,
a product demonstration interview,
whatever that looks like.
If you can add those resources,
that media to your profile,
the more you can add the better.
So just some really small shifts,
but that could actually have a pretty large outcome on people
spending time with your profile and getting to know you through
your profile.
Are you saying then that we should totally ditch the resume
portion? Or should we just let it drop lower and maybe
consolidate it some?
Or what do we do if we haven't touched our LinkedIn
account forever,
I'm raising my hand in guilt.
Do you just Wipe that clean and start over?
Or do you leave some history there?
Yeah, you can And leave some history,
but I would,
so a couple things that I would change.
Right? So for those of you,
who've got basically a resume up there,
first of all,
make sure that you've got that background image uploaded and knowing
that your pictures off to the left.
So don't have any important information off to them.
When you say background,
you're talking about the banner image on the top,
right. Banner image at the top.
Exactly. Okay.
So basically what you have on Facebook with a little bit
of manipulation,
the LinkedIn is 1,584
by 396 pixels it's skinnier,
but similar in shape to Facebook.
But having that banner,
that background image that really reflects your brand,
your company underneath that of course is your name.
So put your name in there.
Don't put anything other than your last name and the last
name field,
by the way,
you'll see some people do that.
It actually goes against LinkedIn's end user agreement.
And I know this because the first profile I ever created
on LinkedIn was like restricted to the point where I had
to delete it and start over.
Oh gee.
Yeah. So don't put anything other than your last name and
the last name field now underneath that is your professional headline,
which most people have as CEO of ABC company or founder
of product X.
And that doesn't really tell people who you are,
what you do,
but most importantly,
who you serve.
So you've got 120 characters to really expand upon that.
Right now it's 120 characters,
not words.
So it's not very much,
but it is something right.
And so letting people know who you are,
what you do,
who you serve above and beyond.
I'm a CEO of ABC Corp when they might not even
know what ABC Corp is.
And then above and beyond that,
you've got the summary section.
And so that's really,
it's 2000 characters where you've got that opportunity to address people's
points of pain.
If that's what you do and how you solve them or
address people's desires,
needs and wants and how you fulfill them.
And so if you are a creative,
you could start with a question that people tend to ask
you, whether it's is your soap hyperallergenic to where can I
buy it,
but really answering those questions and then moving into why you're
different from everybody else,
your unique selling proposition,
why you're different from everybody else,
why people would want to work with you?
What are some of the benefits that you bring,
whether it's to the individual or to the corporation adding that
media, if you just do that,
which is all above the fold,
then yes.
If you want to leave the rest of it,
your experience section as your experience section,
that's fine.
Now I would say,
if you're going to change above the full,
do you mind has changed below the full two and I
would go into your experience and expand upon it.
Cause you have 2000 characters in each experience,
section two,
to really describe a little bit more about what you did
in the past and why that makes you good at who
you are and what you do today.
And then of course you can add media there as well.
I like that.
So what you're suggesting is instead of just saying,
I worked at such and such a company from this time
to this time is also include,
this is the value that I now bring to the table
because of my time at that company and then go into
what it was.
Something like that.
Exactly. Ooh,
that's good.
That's good.
Okay. So that's Inexperience.
How far back should you go?
What if you've had,
I mean like,
you don't want necessarily where you worked in high school,
right? Unless it leads to a story of where you,
You are today.
That's exactly right.
Really. As long as it's relevant,
of course,
if you're looking for a job,
it needs to be more aligned with your resume as we
said, but yeah,
as a business owner,
just go back,
not just to where things are relevant to what you're doing
today, because that could have been like yesterday.
Like I started my business yesterday,
so I only have one thing on LinkedIn don't do that.
But any experience that really reflects your skillset,
it doesn't have to be in your industry,
but your skillset.
So as an example,
I still have the business.
I owned back in 1998,
right? Jupiter tack room.
I have the working as a professor at the university that
I worked at back in.
I'm not going to tell you how long ago that was.
Oh, we can just look LinkedIn Vivica.
Yes. Yes.
You can selling cars because now while you might think I'm
like add when it comes to businesses,
it all had to do with speaking,
with training,
with selling,
with marketing.
So no matter what I did,
I was always in one of those positions.
So what I tell people is any skill that you learned
that you're still using today.
And I don't care if it was selling cars or speaking
to a room full of bored teenagers or running a enterprise
size company.
And now you started your own sub company.
You learned skills and you want to build upon and unpack
those skills in your description section so that it doesn't look
like you have career add so that if people take the
time to read through your LinkedIn profile and quite frankly like
0.00, zero,
zero, 1% of the community will.
But if people take the time to read through your LinkedIn
profile, they can actually begin to see the path you took
to where you are today.
Even if it seems at just looking at the company names
or just looking at the titles that it's really discordant.
And I would say that Interested in looking at you,
they might skim through,
yes. I kind of forgotten.
Are you able to edit,
make things Boulder,
a talent,
all that kind of thing as you go through?
No, not anymore.
Well, you can capitalize right.
Capitalized. Right?
So you can do some very topical formatting like capitalization.
You can add bullets,
you can add emojis and things like that,
but yeah.
Be careful with that.
Know your audience,
right? So if you are B to C and you are
just looking for the one-off purchaser,
that emojis might be perfectly aligned with your brand and go
for it.
If you're looking for corporate sponsorship,
if you're looking to move in and connect with event planners
or corporate event planners or CMOs or whatever,
just know your audience,
are they going to be turned off or on by emojis
and then just kind of let that guide you.
Right? Good point.
You've made a wonderful transition Vivica to connections.
So we've talked about setting everything up.
Let me just circle back and make sure is there anything
else we need to know just as we go and re
review the account or have we covered everything I could talk
for hours and hours and hours,
but that's what we have our bootcamp for.
So taking the few tips that I've given you or given
your audience will definitely help them to transform their profile.
Okay. And give biz listeners.
I am going to link the article that Vivica did just
recently talking about the changes and how you can set up
the pixel size for the banner photo.
I think you call it a background image Vivica.
So I'll link that up in the show notes so you
can reference it there.
So let's move on now to now that we understand this
is not a resume site anymore,
right? And I think we all get that.
We can do some things with connections.
We can find out where people are.
We kind of know that top-line only how should we be
using the air quotes,
new LinkedIn,
these days,
Loving what LinkedIn's doing with its messaging feature messenger messaging.
They have to be a little bit different from Facebook.
So they're calling it messaging.
Whereas Facebook calls it messenger.
Honestly, of course they do,
but they pretty much copied Facebook.
So there's some really cool features with the new messaging that
you can take.
Advantage of one is active status.
You can actually see if your connection is logged in and
on LinkedIn right now.
Now understanding they might be logged in on one screen and
working on their email in another screen,
but you can see that.
And so that's really,
really cool because then you can start like a text link
conversation with somebody and then take it to the phone if
you're both free or available.
So it mimics actual conversation.
So I love the active status and that's relatively new.
There's no excuse not to reply to people in messenger anymore
because LinkedIn has predictive text.
So if someone says,
Hey, look,
I'd love to learn more about blah,
blah, blah.
LinkedIn's going to look for certain keywords and it's going to
create some predictive texts.
Now I rarely if ever use it,
I might use the thumbs up.
Sometimes they'll give you the thumbs up option,
but we'll give you predictive texts.
Like, hi,
sure. I'm interested.
Send me the info.
So I can just like literally click on that button.
Hi. Yes.
I'm interested send me the info and it'll populate.
And off we go to the next thing and that used
to be only be available on the mobile app,
but now it's available on the desktop as well.
So that's kind of cool.
So now we have no excuse not to respond to people
in messenger.
They've added emojis or gifs.
I'm sorry,
not emojis that well they've had emojis for while they've had
a gifts now.
Oh No,
that's dangerous.
It is.
And it's the same gift that you find on Facebook.
So there are some,
a highly inappropriate gifts that you probably should not be sharing
on. LinkedIn having said that just like emojis gifts are not
for everybody,
but you'll be able to sense a person's personality.
Or if you actually already know them,
you can absolutely find an appropriate gift.
And in fact,
I had a gift conversation with someone on LinkedIn the other
day that did in fact lead to a phone call.
So use the right way.
Gifts are pretty powerful.
So there's an,
of course you can attach images and small documents or files
and you can attach video links now,
which I like in,
depending on where the video link is and how it's hosted.
It will actually populate a thumbnail,
which with me,
it's always with my mouth open and looking somewhat constipated,
but whatever you can,
it will populate that visual image,
which is pretty cool again,
that used to only work on mobile.
But now it seems to be working sometimes most of the
time on desktop as well.
So just think about your Facebook messaging and LinkedIn can do
most of that.
What I'm really waiting for is for LinkedIn to somehow create
a embedded Skype feature because Microsoft owns LinkedIn,
Microsoft owned Skype.
Why wouldn't you so fingers crossed and we'll see if that
ever happens.
Oh, that would be really good.
You are right.
Wouldn't that be cool and make a lot of sense.
Yeah. So I'm thinking that a lot of our listeners would
be interested in LinkedIn in terms of trying to connect kind
of like the story that I mentioned at the top.
Absolutely. How is the updated or proper way,
if you have a list of people,
whether it's corporate people,
whether it's wholesalers,
you want to approach whoever the list is,
let's say they already know the businesses they're interested in.
Yeah. What is the best way to use LinkedIn?
Yeah. So first of all,
don't do spray and pray.
It's really about creating genuine relationships.
And so if you've got a list don't just upload it
actually look for who are the good prospects for you go
to their profile,
review their profile.
If they're active on LinkedIn,
you can even engage with their content,
with their posts,
with their updates.
And that might build some top of mind awareness and you
go back and invite them to connect and reference something in
their profile reference something that they shared.
You've only got 300 characters,
so you can't go too deep,
but let them know that you've spent the time to get
to know them as it were on LinkedIn.
When you're reaching out,
never use a LinkedIn invitation as a sales pitch.
I've got some really great bad example.
That's never used it as a sales pitch,
always just an opportunity to truly connect with someone and let
them know that you've taken the time to research them when
you do that.
And just as an FYI on LinkedIn,
a lot of people think,
well, I can't personalize my invitation when I use my cell
phone. Like if I'm at a conference and I meet someone
and I want to follow up with them,
I can actually customize that invitation and say,
Hey, we just met at this conference.
You can,
it's just hidden.
I don't know why,
but when you go to someone's profile on your phone,
if you click the three little dots,
there will be an option just beside picture slash name.
There will be a option of customizing or personalizing the invitation.
And so you always want to customize or personalize that invitation
whenever you can and be as transparent as possible without it
being a sales pitch as to why you want to Connect,
You know,
I'm so glad you said that because I've had that situation
where I want to connect through my cell.
And I think I kind of forget how it goes,
but I think it says next or something.
And I always think that that next screen is when I
can customize,
but Nope,
it's already sent It just says invite or Connect.
And so you click on the Connect and you're like,
ah, crap.
Yeah. I still do it myself.
Oops. Yeah,
exactly. I still do it myself.
Now, if you do do that,
you can go back in and then click on the three
dots and personalize it.
So just know you can personalize after the fact that is
really good to know.
Yes you can.
Cause trust me.
Or you can sometimes send a message to them,
especially if you've got a premium account.
So I'll sometimes just go ahead and do that too,
but yeah,
And really the interaction here is truly making a connection that's
right. Not all of a sudden selling your stuff or any
of that.
It's the first step towards a progression of a relationship,
understanding what they do sharing with them,
how you can fill one of their needs,
et cetera,
et cetera.
Exactly. To quote my friend Bob Burg,
which I think was the quote I did last time.
All things being equal,
people do business with people they know like and trust.
So it's just that first step and establishing the no piece
of that.
Nevermind the like the trust piece,
but at least don't come off on the wrong foot to
start. Right?
I mean,
I don't think our audience is different than any audience out
there. The biggest question is how do I get more business,
right? How do I make more sales,
all of that.
And so this LinkedIn then represents a whole nother opportunity that
I don't think the majority of people are using where yes,
you should be out networking and there's other social media,
of course.
And there's still the old fashioned call people up on the
phone. You know,
you never know,
or talk to the person who's in line with you at
Starbucks. Seriously.
You never,
And Hey,
if you've got the fine nearby feature,
there you go.
Exactly. So this is another option that I think a lot
of us haven't tapped into,
which could be gold because you can go check so much
about them.
So you have something to chat about equally as important is
if you have a presentation already with someone that,
you know,
you can go onto the,
your LinkedIn profile and learn more about them.
Yeah, exactly.
And you should,
and you should.
Yeah. I mean,
think of it.
Yeah. It's that awkward first date,
like, especially for people who are meeting face-to-face at a Starbucks
or at a trade show or conference,
if you've never met the person before,
it can be a little off putting,
you know,
you're looking around going,
is that him?
Is that her?
I don't know.
It kind of looks,
I don't know.
And so by reviewing their LinkedIn profile a little bit ahead
of time,
and by the way,
there is a feature on mobile that you can attach your
calendar to LinkedIn.
So it'll actually go,
Hey, this is,
you know,
you've got a meeting with John Smith,
boom. This is what he,
or she looks like essentially.
Oh, that's good.
It depends what photo they've put up.
Right. Well,
and thank you.
Cause we didn't actually talk about photos and I should have,
when we were talking about your profile,
yes. Please make sure that you've got a photo that actually
looks like you because you don't want that disconnect from people
going, Oh,
I think she looks like this and she actually looks like
that. Like that actually detracts from your credibility,
but also you just want them to be able to recognize
you so that you can have a conversation and meet with
them. Right?
No, I think that's wonderful.
So LinkedIn is actually a tool you can use in tandem
with lots of other things that you're doing throughout the day.
That's exactly right.
And we so often forget it again because we've had this
mentality of it being used in a whole different way.
Exactly. Any other comments?
I know that we can talk forever about different features,
but any other overlying big topics that we haven't brought up.
We really haven't talked too much about content.
So we've talked about how to look at other people's content
so that you've got something to talk about when you reach
out to them for the first time or the second or
the third or the fifth time.
But we haven't really talked about your own content,
which could be as simple as sharing an update,
which is like a tweet or a Facebook update or writing
long form posts or doing native video.
We actually could probably do a whole other session on content.
All I would say about that is make sure that you're
sharing some piece of content,
whether it's something you yourself have created or something you've curated
once a day is ideal,
but a couple times a week,
just to show people that you're engaged in,
active on LinkedIn.
And if you're just sharing other people's stuff,
you're on a blog,
you'll usually see the little LinkedIn sharing button.
You can just click on that.
Or if you find a nice infographic,
as long as it's business related in some way,
shape or form,
please note no dancing cats.
Seriously. Yeah.
Actually there's a series at the Monterey.
I think it's the Monterrey.
Oh my God.
It's brilliant.
The Monterey aquarium Monterey Bay aquarium does,
which is a lovely combination of education and entertainment stuff like
that is okay.
But yeah.
Keep it business related if you can.
Sorry. I just almost went down a rabbit hole there.
Keep it business-related if you can.
Yeah. Literally you can go through your own timeline and if
you see something there that you like,
especially if a prospect shared it,
go ahead and comment and share it yourself and boom you're
done for the day.
In fact,
that might become your practice is just engaging on other people's
content. So you build top of mind awareness with them,
but you can become a good curator of content,
which can also help with the positive sentiment associated with your
name and your brand,
and also help to build that KLT that know like and
trust factor.
Beautiful. And I just want to underline what you just said
here is if you are following someone and there's maybe have
two or three target people that you want to get in
front of,
see what they're posting on LinkedIn,
share it because then they'll see that you've shared it.
Do that a few times first and then invite to Connect
Exactly right.
Oh, very Good.
Very good Vivica.
So much great information.
I think just to summarize for everybody,
gift is listeners let's relook at LinkedIn.
First thing is check your profile.
I know I need to do that.
Give me a day or two don't come over to mine
yet, but I am going to be doing exactly what you
said here.
Vivica looking through changing my cover photo because that's been up
there for ages,
of course,
repositioning everything.
They're relooking at what I've got in all of my whole
page, just to be looking at the whole thing.
And I would encourage all of you to do the same.
And then this fine nearby is option.
Next time you're out and about just turn it on and
see what happens.
Just experiment with it.
Exactly. And not much is going to happen at first because
very few people know about it,
but as they begin to know about it,
it could be a huge opportunity for us.
Yeah. So there's that.
And then messaging start talking with some people they're just re-engaging
with the platform,
I guess I'd say,
because I think a lot of people are like me where
we, you know,
we just put all of that information up there.
It's sitting there Vivica,
you would kill me.
But I mean,
I don't even go look at my messages all the time.
I haven't been thinking about it really.
And I need to Trust me.
And what I tell people is you may have thousands,
if not hundreds of thousands of dollars just sitting in your
inbox, especially if you haven't looked at it in a long
time. Yeah.
So we need to put it back on our radar for
sure. And then connect with people and then pushing through content.
And even if it's somebody else's just sharing it.
Yep. Exactly.
So those are the big five I believe.
Yep. I think so,
too. All right.
Wonderful. All right.
Well, before we close out,
you and I were chatting in the beginning before I pressed
record that you had a quote that has really resonated with
you lately.
And we didn't do a candle this time because we did
that last time.
I want to cancel out a candle.
You want a candle?
Has your candle color changed?
No, I still like the green for prosperity.
Although I'm thinking now I wonder what the color for synergy
is. I'm thinking like a nice maybe purple or I wonder
what is silver?
Maybe? I don't know.
What's a good color for synergy.
Well, synergy could be two colors merging together.
So you could do like orange,
which is red and yellow or purple,
which is red and blue.
Okay. So we've got,
let's see.
Yeah. Red and blue.
Cause we've got girls and boys,
if Congreso so I think purple would be a good color.
Okay. Synergy.
And what is this new quote?
I don't know what I'm dying to hear.
Tell me the quote.
Okay. Yeah.
So, and this goes back to,
and it was funny.
I read it the other day and I was like,
Oh my gosh,
this is kind of reflective of our company.
So this is actually from the eating and it talks about
synergy when two or more elements approach each other in such
a way that the scope of what they can achieve together
far surpasses the total two,
which they could achieve separately.
They are acting in synergy.
It takes synergy,
takes effectiveness of cooperation beyond normal expectation and working together.
The interaction of your spheres of influence can achieve significant deeds.
And I just thought,
Oh my gosh,
this has been Grasso.
Those of us coming together,
experts in our own arena,
coming together in our spheres of influence,
quite literally,
because we all had big spheres of influence,
right? Achieving significant deeds that of course we could not do
alone. So I really liked that quote or that description.
Well, I love that.
Cause I think so often,
especially as entrepreneurs for sitting at home,
trying to build our business,
sometimes we feel like we're weak.
If we say we need help with something or we don't
know something.
And so we keep like struggling and struggling.
When if you just reach out and ask,
you can get so much farther,
faster. Yeah,
exactly. That's the thing.
As entrepreneurs,
as solo printers,
a small business owners,
we have to learn to ask for something and a lot
of times,
and I'm just going to speak for myself.
But as a woman,
sometimes I feel like I have to come across as knowing
everything because I'm already fighting an uphill battle.
And if I ask for help,
I'm the one who gives help.
I can't be the one asking for help,
but we got to get over that because if you are
going to grow,
you do need to ask for help and allow other people
to support you in your movement forward,
which is why these communities are so powerful.
And it's also why podcasts are great,
Indeed. In a way I've been asking for help right now.
And Vivica,
you have shared with us help right on what to do
with LinkedIn.
So it comes full circle.
Yes, exactly.
Thank you.
All right.
Well thank you so,
So much for being here and sharing everything that you have
today. Vivica,
I really,
really appreciate you.
Oh my gosh.
My absolute pleasure.
I'm so glad we were able to get together again and
help each other.
Absolutely. Have a good rest of your day.
Thanks you too.
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