Katie Flamman 00:00:00:

Hello, and welcome to storytelling for Business, the podcast that helps you build meaningful relationships with your customers. How? By telling them stories they want to hear. I'm Katie Flamman. I'm a voiceover artist. I record scripts for businesses all the time. And as you've probably guessed by now, I'm fascinated by this topic. And today we're looking at how you can use social media storytelling to connect with clients and lasso leads.

If you're serious about this storytelling for business, business being visible on social media is a no brainer. But you need to pick your platform. If you're one of the cool kids, not me, it's TikTok. If you're all about the visuals, it's insta. If you're in the trades, it could be Facebook. If you're into conspiracy theories, then obviously it's X or Twitter or X, Twitter. But LinkedIn, for a lot of people, LinkedIn is the stuffy one, the scary one. Today's guest, Lea Turner, is a LinkedIn expert, and she's neither of those things.

Well, she can be a bit fierce, but only if you're fake, sleazy, or unprofessional. In just four years, Lea Turner has grown a massive network of more than 150,000 people by simply posting on LinkedIn. She shares a huge amount of free, helpful tips, as well as many personal stories, and her LinkedIn training business is super successful as a result. She's created a business community of which I'm a member. She's a sought after speaker and a single mum. Lea Turner, welcome to the podcast.

Lea Turner 00:01:35:

Thank you so much for having me. That was quite an intro.

Katie Flamman 00:01:38:

Well, you've got quite a lot going on, haven't you? But I've got two questions. But I think I'm going to start with why LinkedIn out of all of those other platforms?

Lea Turner 00:01:50:

Originally because I had a business that focused on working for building construction professionals, lawyers, medical professionals, building surveyors. So that's where they were. And I had no marketing budget and they were my clients for my original business when I first started using LinkedIn. So I thought, well, I've never really used it. I've had a profile since 2012, but I never, yeah, I never logged in. I never looked at it. I didn't even have the app on my phone because it wasn't something I ever considered.

And it wasn't until I got one of those emails that said, oh, three people have looked at your profile or something. And I was like, oh, I haven't really thought about this. Maybe I'll have a quick look at it. Then I did and went, good God, this is boring. This is not for me. But I didn't really have much choice. It was kind of one of those you need to. I wasn't struggling for clients.

I had a lot of clients. They were like, word of mouth clients that I'd had for. I ran the business for nine years, so I didn't have a struggle. But I wanted to grow the business. I was sick of being poor and not barely making ends meet at the end of the month. So I wanted to grow. I wanted to take on some associates to help me, and I wanted to work less hours. So LinkedIn was kind of like those people weren't hanging out on Facebook and they weren't hanging out on Instagram.

And I thought, well, if I can get noticed by them on LinkedIn, which I did, that went very well to start with. At the very beginning, it didn't because I was being stuffy and awkward.

Katie Flamman 00:03:31:

What was your first post? Can you remember?

Lea Turner 00:03:34:

Yeah. It's funny because I took a photo of it to do as a post tomorrow. Someone sent it to me in a frame. It says, with 13 years experience working in the construction industry and seven years experience in the medical sector, as well as a myriad of other areas of experience gained over my years as a transcriber, I am now seeking to diversify and expand my client base. It goes on like that. And it had eight sympathy likes and two comments from old bosses.

Katie Flamman 00:04:01:

That is. That's what a lot of people think LinkedIn is. It's a cv, isn't it? And I am now seeking to diversify. I mean, you don't talk like that anymore, Lea, do you?

Lea Turner 00:04:11:

I never talk like that, ever. That's not me at all. So, yeah, it's very embarrassing to look back and go, my God, what was I doing? But we all start somewhere.

Katie Flamman 00:04:22:

Exactly. And I think that's the beauty of what you do, because you are you. And we bang on about authenticity quite a lot on this podcast about be your true, authentic self, but you're authentic with a capital A. Do you think that that is really the key to your success?

Lea Turner 00:04:43:

I think it has a lot to do with it. I think if we're being really real. I hit LinkedIn at a time when people needed to hear real voices because I started getting popularity on there about six months before COVID hit. And I really had gotten into my stride by the time Covid did sort of take hold of the world. And I was very honest about how life was for me during that and the fear that I felt and how it was affecting my business. And I talked about life as a solo parent and all sorts of things. But I think that and the fact that I was unexpected in the space because people don't have. Traditionally, they're not tattooed from the neck to the toes.

I'm a 38 year old woman with tattoos pretty much everywhere visible and some places that aren't usually visible. I've got piercings, three nose rings, lip piercing, like massive stretched ears with gauged ears. So I'm not what people expect in the professional world. And that made me stand out. And then, because that was accompanied by good writing, I'm naturally a good writer. I've read obsessively since I was able to read, which was when I was about four, and I never stopped devouring books. And it's helped me to become a good and confident writer. And I think those two things coupled together, and I'm not embarrassed to be me.

And that's something that I don't feel the need to pretend to be somebody else so that other people like me. I'm very comfortable with not being liked. It doesn't bother me because I stopped trying to be liked by everyone when I was about 14 and realised that actually, half of the people that I want to like me, I don't even like. So why do I care? And I think, yeah, those things together meant that I was comfortable being real and sod the people that don't like me. And that helped a huge amount, because people felt that they could relate to the different parts of my story, whether they were parents, whether they secretly hid their tattoos when they were at work, whether they loved to travel, whether they were running a small business. There was all the different aspects of who I am that different people connected with, and I talked about most of them.

Katie Flamman 00:07:10:

I think that's really interesting because I know you have a bigger team now, but you're essentially a one person business. And if you run a small business, chances are you are front and centre. You do the marketing, you do the accounts, you do the bookkeeping, you write everything. And if you're not prepared to sort of show up and be real, then people aren't necessarily going to connect with you. And you talked about people relating to different parts of your story. And do you think that's why you've got such kind of, like, such a broad appeal, so many followers?

Lea Turner 00:07:46:

Yeah, I think that definitely helps, because not everybody that follows me is going to relate to all the different aspects of the parts of me that I talk about, and I'm very careful with what I share. Like, I don't say everything, but I say enough that people feel like they know everything.

Katie Flamman 00:08:02:

Where's that line? For some people, the line is in a really different place. Like, oh, my gosh, I don't want to talk about my family, or I wouldn't want to talk about where I grew up or experiences I had. You're a mum. Where's your kind of personal cut off? Have you got one?

Lea Turner 00:08:22:

Yeah, absolutely. For safety purposes, I don't talk about my specific location. So even when I bought a house, I didn't share a picture of me in front of the house because I was like, I wouldn't ever do that. I don't talk about my family beyond my son, so you won't see me posting about my sister, and I haven't shared photos of my mum or my sister's children because that's not for me to do and because it's a big network of people and you don't know who's watching. I don't talk about my relationships ever. So my dating life, my love life is absolutely out of bounds. So people never know. They know that I'm not married.

That's about it. I don't talk about whether I'm single, whether I'm. That's for me, that's only for me and the person that I'm in a relationship with. And that's something that's really important to me. My boundaries have changed. So what I was comfortable with talking about at first, there are things that I've talked about since I never would have imagined I would be comfortable talking about mental health or my own experiences with that. And actually, I've almost felt a sense of duty over time when I've seen other people talk about it to use the platform that I have to be honest with people. And, I mean, it gives me that vulnerability hangover that Brene Brown talks about.

Makes me feel like bugs are crawling on my skin. But the positive outpouring from people that say, thank you so much for opening up about that, that's really made me think about stuff. I wouldn't have imagined that I would be comfortable talking about that. And I wouldn't say probably that I am comfortable, but I know the positive impact talking about those things have and that's enough for me to push myself. And I don't do it very often because it results in a lot of conversations being started with people. Because if I talk about my mental health, it's like open the floodgates for people to send me all sorts of stories that I don't necessarily. So I never talk about my mental health. If it's poor, I don't talk about it when it's poor, I will talk about it. When I'm in a place where I'm strong enough to talk about it. There are boundaries, and I think there's parts of my past that I never talk about. There's things that happened in my younger years, experiences that I've had, and I don't see any merit in talking about those. But when I see that if I talk about something, there's going to be a potentially good impact either for my business or for my community, then I'm drawn to talking about it.

Katie Flamman 00:10:55:

I think that. Sorry to interrupt you. I think that is completely what you're so fabulous about, because everything you post is going to have a good impact. Literally everything you post, whether you're giving tips or whether you're sharing some experience. And that I think. I think that's your secret sauce. Whether it's conscious or not, it's always posted with the audience in mind. I mean, I admire you for it, Lea.:

It's brilliant. I'm going to ask you some kind of sneaky top tips for LinkedIn things, because people are going to want to know. They're going to be very cross with me. If I've had you on this podcast, and I haven't, mined you, for LinkedIn secrets, so quick fire. What's the biggest mistake people make on LinkedIn, do you think?

Lea Turner 00:11:43:

Standing in the shadows and not getting involved, that's probably the worst. Like having their profile picture accidentally set to private and they never actually comment or post anything. They never use their profile. There's nothing on their profile or it was written ten years ago and they've never looked at it. Even having a great profile and never really posting anything, you can still get business just from commenting in the right places. So I think the biggest problem for people is having a profile and not making use of it and not actually getting involved in the conversations. So many people say to me, my clients are all people that lurk. They never engage.

And then they'll just pop up one day and say, I've been following you for years. It's like, so why not get involved in the conversations? You wouldn't go to a networking party and stand in the corner and not talk to anyone. So why do you do that on LinkedIn? It's such a strange thing to me. So I think that's the biggest mistake I see people making is just not getting involved.

Katie Flamman 00:12:41:

How do people turn their profile picture to public?

Lea Turner 00:12:44:

So if they go to their profile and click on the photo and then make sure it's set in the bottom left hand corner, it will say public. I think it's public that it says and all members, but ideally, like public. And that means that everybody can see you. But I've yet to go on a webinar where. And I've said to people, go and check. And they're all like, yeah, no, it's fine, it's public, go and check. And at least half a dozen of them will go, oh, my God. I was set to private and I had no idea.

Katie Flamman 00:13:12:

Because you can see your photo yourself, can't you just, you don't know what other people are seeing.

Lea Turner 00:13:16:

So your connections can see it as well. But your second degree connections, people who you've got connections in common with, they will just see a grey circle.

Katie Flamman 00:13:24:

And there's nothing more engaging than a grey circle.

Lea Turner 00:13:28:

No one wants to connect with people that don't have a face. So it just means that people won't be reaching out to connect with you or likely to accept your connection requests. So yeah, you're just shooting yourself in the foot. So go and check because LinkedIn, they'll randomly change it sometimes and they'll change the settings. And I think that happened to a lot of people and they didn't realise that the setting had changed. The amount of times people pop up in my comments and I'm like, do you know your profile photo is not showing? They go, no, I had no idea.

Katie Flamman 00:13:53:

Okay, so get involved. Sort your photo out. Anything else?

Lea Turner 00:13:57:

Talking at people. I think that's a key one because so often people will just post like a bulletin update or here's some information, like they're getting on the stage at a networking event and just talking and then they leave. Networking is a two way thing. You need to stay and have conversations. You need to make people feel welcome to be involved in those conversations. So when you see posts that actually include people, ask them a question, ask for advice, ask for opinions, ask for their own personal experiences. That starts conversation with people, and then you've got comments, and then you can reply to the comments. You can build relationships with people in those comment sections.

Have a little bit of a laugh and a joke with people, because it's all a little bit more relaxed in the comments. That's where I've built the majority of my community is the comment sections of my posts, because I've opened conversations and invited people to be part of those conversations, and I've stayed to have them with them, and I see it all the time. People just post something, talking at their audience, like, here's this really interesting thing, blah blah, blah. I'm so excited to announce, blah, blah. This is not a two way thing. This is just you talking at me and then wandering off. They go, oh, I didn't get any engagement. Like, yeah, are you really surprised? Here's why.

And they go, oh, you're right. People forget when they're on LinkedIn to act like people and to replicate what they would do in a real life networking environment in order to build relationships. If you treat LinkedIn like it's a real life networking event and engage with people and interact with people like you would if they were standing in front of you. Personable, friendly, a bit fun, silly sometimes you will build relationships ten times faster.

Katie Flamman 00:15:44:

That's brilliant advice. Treat it like it's like a real life thing. Love it. So I want to ask you about Hope4. You are an ambassador for Hope4 which is a charity working to end human trafficking in Europe's poorest country, Moldova. And they do lots of other things as well. How did you get involved with that and their work?

Lea Turner 00:16:05:

Well, Chris will kill me if I don't correct you. I'm actually on the board of directors now.

Katie Flamman 00:16:09:

Sorry, on the board of directors of Hope4 my apologies.

Lea Turner 00:16:15:

He'll tell me off if I don't correct you. So when the war broke out in the Ukraine, I'd seen a snippet on the news of a mother and son on the borders in a refugee centre. And the kid was about the same age as my son at the time. And I was devastated seeing what was going on. I try not to watch the news because I find it's all so overwhelmingly bleak all the time that it disables me from just getting on with my own day and being able to function, like crushing anxiety all the time. And I woke up on the Saturday morning, the next day and was like, I want to do something to help. And I've been tossing and turning and having weird dreams all night about if this happened to me and my little boy, and I was WhatsApping one of my friends. I was like, I'm going to do something to help.

I'm going to do a webinar. And I initiated a LinkedIn webinar. It's usually quite expensive to work with me, so I was like, right, well, I'll just charge £30 and I'll do a two hour webinar, and all the proceeds will go to help victims that were coming across the borders and help the Ukrainian people. Anyway, I found out from my friend Chris Wright. He said, you need to speak to Chris Lomas. Chris Lomas is on the ground helping people coming over the border. And I went straight to his profile and saw all of the footage that he was posting, all of the videos. And I was like, I can see the impact they're having.

I can see the work that they're doing. I love this, and I know people will get behind this. So I just messaged him and I was like, I'm going to do a webinar. I'm raising money. I'm going to send it to you. Is that okay? And I was like, I'm hoping to make like a couple of grand. And he was like, oh, my God, that would be amazing. Thank you so much.

And the relationship was born. And then I set up the event and started selling tickets. Literally immediately I just posted on LinkedIn, I was going to do something to help. I'm doing this webinar. If you want tickets, you can buy them here £30. And I roped in five other well known LinkedIn trainers across the world to help me. The tickets started selling like outrageously fast.

Katie Flamman 00:18:14:

This is how I first came across you, Lea, through this event.

Lea Turner 00:18:19:

Oh, wow. Yeah. So the money was flooding in really fast and within 2 hours, because I already had the money in my account. So it was being held in my stripe account because it was coming through Calendly and everything. But I was like, just fine. I've got the money in my business account. They can't wait for this money. And I just sent it straight across.

So within like 2 hours of me messaging Chris, saying, I'm going to send you money, I'd sent him £2000 and then it was like £1000 an hour. And I think within the first week we raised £40,000. We sold over 950 tickets. And then people were making donations as well. And that went, we then did a bit of a PR campaign with what we'd done to get more awareness for Hope4. And I think that was where Bidfood got involved, who donate masses of food for the refugees every month.

Katie Flamman 00:19:06:

That's a British food company, isn't it?

Lea Turner 00:19:09:

Yeah, huge. They provide food for amusement parks and all sorts of places. So it's just gone on and on since then. And then in January, I went out to visit them, to work with them, and I've done parties to raise money for them. I got 30 marketers involved and they wrote 30 articles on different areas of marketing, which we sold. We raised £15,000 just before, while I was in Moldova the first time. And now I've convinced 20 crazy people to climb Kilimanjaro with me to raise more money for them, which is probably my maddest idea.

Katie Flamman 00:19:57:

How's the training going for that? Are you in training? You don't have to answer that.

Lea Turner 00:20:08:

We did a training walk in Wales which was supposed to replicate summit day, and it wasn't up Snowdon. We did one adjacent to Snowdon. It was incredibly steep. And I was absolutely fine. I made it to the top. It was like a four hour walk and then an hour and a half down. And I didn't break a sweat. I was fine.

I was like, I can do this. I think it's more mental than physical because you don't walk very fast up Killi. You go slowly and you walk for like 30 minutes and then rest for 15 minutes and then walk for it. So I'm like, it's fine. It's going to hurt. I think the camping is going to be the hardest thing for me. I'm not a camping kind of girl.

Katie Flamman 00:20:43:

Did you just call it killer, by the way?

Lea Turner 00:20:45:

Sorry, Killi.

Katie Flamman 00:20:48:

Killer.

Lea Turner 00:20:49:

Killer is probably about right.

Katie Flamman 00:20:51:

Yeah, exactly. I should say I interviewed Chris Lomas in season one of the podcast. So if you want to hear Chris's interview about all the other kinds of things that they're doing and all the work, and he bigs up Lea in that interview as well. It's all very brilliant. That's episode four of season one of the podcast, so do check that out. And gosh, Lea, wish you luck. And if people want to sponsor you doing your mountain climb, I'll put all the details in the show notes for this episode.

Katie Flamman 00:21:22:

But you'll probably be climbing Everest by the time the podcast goes out.

Lea Turner 00:21:26:

No, this is the only mountain I will ever climb. I won't be doing it again. It was just a very mad ADHD moment of, that looks fun, I'll do that. And then 3 hours later going, oh, my God, what have I done? It's an instant regret.

Katie Flamman 00:21:44:

It's going to be fine. It's going to be brilliant. What is your story looking like for the next five years? You've come such a long way in four. I mean, your life is like, unrecognizable now, I'm guessing from what it was before. So what next?

Lea Turner 00:22:00:

I do want to grow my community. That's my biggest thing at the moment, the community, The Holt, that I run, we've got over 320 members in it, and they are the most kind, supportive, giving people, all helping each other, all promoting one another's services to their friends, their community, recruiting one another for projects as well as we've got all the master classes, the LinkedIn clinics, the content prompts, the discounts, all of that. That's whatever, it's the community, it's the support from each other. That's the amazing thing. So I've got a goal to grow that to 500 members within the next six months. And then I want to push to get it to 1000 members and start splitting it down into some slightly smaller communities within it as well, to encourage local meetups. But I really want to grow that. I think bringing in community managers and people that are good vibes, supportive and kind and helpful, that's so magical.

When you're a small business owner, especially when you first start out, you don't have the money to hire all the different services that you need. So having people on hand to give master classes or offer help and advice, that's worth so much money to you. Because I don't have the money to afford to pay a video editor or a copywriter or I didn't at the start. So having people that can show you how in the masterclasses or give you guidance and say, actually that could be done better and get that feedback, it's so valuable. So yeah, I want to grow that because it's so affordable. I'm like, we can scale this big and create micro communities within it and create something really magical or more magical. It's already magical.

Katie Flamman 00:23:45:

Lea Turner, thank you so much for being my guest.

Lea Turner 00:23:48:

Thank you for having me.

Katie Flamman 00:23:49:

Well, from LinkedIn Guru to community founder to charity champion and mountaineer, what an inspiring lady. So what did we learn today? Here are my key takeaways. One, give people a chance to get to know your story, even a little bit of it. Get involved on social media. Lea said the biggest mistake people make on LinkedIn is having a profile and not filling it in or reading other people's content, but not commenting on it. A comment can start a conversation. It's an easy way to share little parts of your story and find like minded people to chat to. Two, everybody has to start somewhere.

Remember Lea's embarrassment at her first ever LinkedIn Post and how boring it was? Well, she's certainly not boring anymore. And not only has she improved what she does, she's owning the journey. She's got that framed print out of her first cringy post to remind her how far she's come. If you're trying something new, it won't be perfect the first time. But be brave, make a start, and trust that you will improve. Three, if you're posting, don't go on about the same thing day after day. Remember, Lea said she's talked about all kinds of things on LinkedIn, being a single mum, running her business, what scared her during COVID even when she's comfortable, more personal things like mental health awareness.

Lea talked about having boundaries too. It's up to you how much of your story you share. Four, be yourself and be honest. Who cares if you're a square and everyone else is a circle? Standing out will get you noticed, and on social media, that is helpful. Make sure your photo is a true reflection of what you look like and that everyone can see it. And make sure what you say makes your beliefs and values clear. Five, now you've got your audience's attention prove you're worthy of keeping it.

Showcase your talent in how you present yourself. Lea is an excellent writer and that shines through in her content. Everyone's time is precious, so make sure the stories you're telling and the content you're producing is high quality and adds value to their day. Such great advice from Lea Turner, and this series just keeps on giving. Coming up in our next episode, literary lessons what playwrights and poets can teach us about storytelling for business.

James McCabe 00:26:30:

So what I do is always take the techniques and the skills and the insights and the lessons from the arts. The professionals are the storytellers, and that's why I always, and only go to them for my lessons and bring them back into the business world.

Katie Flamman 00:26:47:

That's James McCabe, the story doctor. It's a fascinating listen you won't want to miss. So why not grab a cuppa, find a fresh page in your notebook, and dive right in? Now it's ready when you are. Once again, a big thanks to today's guest, Lea Turner. Do check her out on LinkedIn, Instagram, and pretty much everywhere else, too. And if you take a look at the show notes, you'll find contact info for Lea and her membership community, The Holt, as well as the charity she talked about, Hope4. Right, I'm off to tweak my LinkedIn profile. Thanks for listening.

I'm Katie Flamman, and this is storytelling for business. Till next time. Goodbye.