Using LinkedIn to Grow Your Business

It's about conversations. It's about people. So you start by being yourself, and then you'll resonate with people who are real. There's a lot of not real people out there, right? Like, I'm not talking about fake profiles, I'm talking about people who are there. But again, they're putting on a persona, right? So, but if you're really raw and yourself, you will connect with other people. And then you'll have real conversations about real stuff.

This is The Entrepreneur School Ppodcast where we believe you can run a thriving business and still make your family a priority. This show is all about supporting you the emerging or early stage Entrepreneur on your journey from solopreneur to CEO, while wearing all of the other hats in your life. My name is Kelly Sinclair, and I'm a brand and marketing strategist who started a business with two kids under 3am, a corporate PR girl turned entrepreneur after I learned the hard way that life is too short to waste doing things that burn you out. On this show, you'll hear inspiring stories from other business owners on their journey, and learn strategies to help you grow a profitable business, while making it all fit into the life that you want. Welcome to Entrepreneur School.

Welcome to Entrepreneur School. Sophie, I'm super excited to dive into all the things about LinkedIn with you today.

Yes, I'm excited to Thanks for having me. Absolutely.

So we like to go straight into the juice here. We don't make people wait for the goods on the Entrepreneur School Podcast. So my first question to all my guests is, what is the best advice that you would give yourself, if you were back at the beginning of your business?

I would tell myself to dig a bit deeper to understand what I really, really want. I say this, because I think we're all like conditioned a lot by expectations around us. And sometimes we even internalize that and, you know, try to do things that match a certain image. And I think with age, you kind of learned to peel the layers and get closer to the center of what really, really makes you passionate. And I think the sooner you can get to that, the better it is, of course.

I 100% agree. And that's, that's so in alignment with everything that I do with respect to brand, awareness, brand clarity, it's I talked about this on some earlier episodes of the podcast, where we talk about how to figure out your why because you need something that helps guide you through the challenging parts as well. Right?

Yes, exactly. Yeah. And you know, on LinkedIn, it's Sorry, I'm jumping into it, because it's really one of the first things that I work on with people is really understand what it is that you offer. But like, why? Because once you get to the why you can figure out the words and the how and the who, but why are you so passionate about it? And once you dig into that you really can connect with people, which is the name of the game?

Mmm, so tell me yours, then what? What's your why? What are you passionate about? And why?

Yeah, well, you know, I'm, I always grew up around international people, I'm sort of international, my blood, my half French and half Pakistani. So to my parents who are traveling through everything I've always been about people connecting, and seeing my parents were so so different from their culture, their upbringing, their nature, personality, and then bridging right connecting and, and always seeing the connection with new people. So that's my passion is connecting people. And that's what I do with LinkedIn. And I help others to learn how to connect connect the dots between people, but also with ideas and, you know, new thoughts, new perspectives. So yeah, that's my why.

That's, that's awesome. Let's talk about LinkedIn for sure. Because it's kind of a funny one. For me, it's the platform I always ignore that I forget to use that I know that I should be using. But as a marketer, something that I always tell people is, you know, make sure that wherever you are spending your time and energy is a place where your clients also are so maybe we could start there around how to know if your clients are on LinkedIn, and some tips around how to use it.

Yeah, exactly. So yeah, it's super important. Obviously, you don't want to be spending time on a platform your clients are not so the first thing is if you have clients where even like one or two even if you're just starting, ask them where they find their information. Right. So if you have, you know, two clients or 10? Clients? Ask them? If none of them are on LinkedIn, you know, pause for a second and say, Okay, maybe LinkedIn later, right? It depends who were your audiences. If you don't have an audience at all, then you need to, like, describe for yourself who you think your audience would be, right? And then find a few people like that. And even if they're not your clients, ask them all the questions what you need to do market research anyway, right for your business. So ask them, Where do you hang out. And if you find that some of them are on LinkedIn, then that's definitely a place to be.

Yeah, LinkedIn is a cool platform, because it's kind of more of that, like, online networking and relationship focused and less about like, posting Perfect pictures and creating content and stuff like that.

Yeah, it's you do create content, but it's really content that is helping you to bridge that gap in knowledge or awareness or understanding in your audience. So my audience is solopreneurs, who are on a mission. And so it's really important for them to spread their message. And LinkedIn is a perfect platform for that, because spreading your message, helping raise awareness of a certain issue that you want to help address. And really connecting with people who you know, are your audience. Now, there's another thing that's important to know is sometimes your audience may not be on LinkedIn. But there may be people you want to do partnerships, joint ventures kind of things with, and they may be on LinkedIn. So it's important to keep that in mind. And I guess you would really only look at that once you're a little bit more established in business. But once you have a business going, you want to start thinking about what are some other places that might people might hang out? And it might be with some of the service providers or influencers who are on LinkedIn. So, you know, keep that in mind as you think through this.

I love that. I think that's kind of what's the word I'm looking for. It's like a secret tip to think about, like getting clients is a great way to grow your business by getting partners and affiliates and people who you can work with together where you have either complementary services or you're sharing audience. That's a fantastic growth strategy. I love that you brought that up.

Yeah.

So can you give our listeners maybe like, something that you find? absolutely mind blowing ly simple, but that blows their minds as far as how to use LinkedIn. You're like, oh, isn't that so obvious? Aren't we all doing that? And then your clients go, Whoa, that was crazy. That made such a difference.

Yeah. So that's, it's hard to, you know, I have to think about that for a second. But if you like, Okay, you could start using LinkedIn without even having a profile. Like, that's the first step is having a profile, right. But you could also kind of look at LinkedIn without a profile and just or just your name or something. But I would say, put in a few search words in the search bar, like few words in the search bar of topics that interest you, you know, or would interest your client, and start seeing all the content that comes and see what interests you. I think the the best way to go into a platform like LinkedIn is to find what interests you, because otherwise, like, you're going to do all these steps and processes to get into it. But what if you don't like it? Right? So really explore it with these key words of things that interests you, and then see what you find and start, you know, commenting, you're gonna need a profile for that, but commenting and engaging and see if you enjoy the conversations, and I think you will.

Yes, and at maybe what do you think some of the people's biggest fears are around using LinkedIn?

Yeah, some of the things that I've heard come again come up again and again is the think that it's a very formal platform. And they're afraid of making a mistake and looking unprofessional. And honestly, I'm not sure that I would see what kind of mistake you could make. That would be that bad. Other than some obvious ones, like you know, I don't know insulting people or some ridiculous you know, making an offensive comment, right? You know, something you do anyway, but it's not like you can really make mistakes that much. So You know, the worst that can happen is you don't have the impact that you want, or you don't make the connections you want. And you need to learn, which is how I'm in business. Right? Like to learn how to do it properly, but there's nothing really bad that you could do. So that's a myth.

Yes. So yes, thank you, you're totally supporting my my philosophy, my like, mantra of what is the worst that can happen? Right now? Is this an opportunity for you to put yourself out there for you to share something or to make a connection, and you never know, what is going to come from the thing that you do? That's something that we talk about a lot here, which is like, the messy actions and the simple little things that you can do that are externally facing that could have huge impact. Sometimes it's like, oh, you know, you went to an event, and then you met this person who introduced you to someone who turned out to be a high ticket client for you.

Right? Right. It can be really convoluted the way you get to your clients sometimes,

Yes, exactly. It's that it's that game of if I never did this, then I never would have that.

Exactly.

I'm gonna to trace it back to like the origin. And sometimes it's like, if I didn't post on LinkedIn, that person wouldn't have seen me. And I would have never insert amazing epic mind blowing result here.

Right? Exactly. You know, there's another thing you can do, as soon as you have even the most bare bones profile is going to connect with everybody. You know, that is something that simple, and you know, people who, you know, they don't care how beautiful your profile is, you know them and so they're immediately going to accept, and through that, you will get connected. So you'll be a first degree connection, as it's called in LinkedIn, with them. But then you will also be second degree connected to all the people they're connected with. And so all of a sudden, you'll have access to all these second degree connections. And if you connect with, I don't know, 10 people, 100 people, then you'll have all the second degree like 1000s of them, it, it grows exponentially, very, very quickly. And so do that. And you never know who those secondary they might your dream clients might be. They're in the second degree connections.

Yeah. So the platform really starts promoting you, right away, as soon as you have connections.

Yeah. As soon as somebody like if you post, like a three line, little post about something, and all your friends, right that you've connected with like it, then all of their connections will see it. So that's how you start to build it.

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Yeah, so I, to me, LinkedIn is really where you can have thoughtful conversations about the content of your work. So not to say that you wouldn't post sometimes, you know, like, I'm at this concert or whatever, but that's not the majority. The majority is about the work the mission, you know, people's pain points and solutions and things like that. And I find that you're able to do that on LinkedIn in a way that's much I don't know deeper, more authentic than you would on Facebook or Instagram or some of the others now, I don't spend time on Instagram or Facebook so I don't want to you know, really talk about it that much, but From what I've seen, the conversations are not as deep. You know, it's a lot of shallow stuff or very visual, you know, So LinkedIn is, yeah, you have some visuals, but it's not about the visuals, you know? Yeah, it's really only supportive of a message.

Yeah, some more more about Yeah, I'd love to hear more about your perspective on content, because I know that's something that my audience struggles with, it's something that kind of is an expectation, when you start a business, one of the first things you do is well, now I have to create content, and go and put myself in all these places, so people can find me. Well, what kind of content are you making for LinkedIn?

Yeah, so Well, I don't know, your perspective is, but I would say, you know, if you're finding clients through, let's say, in person networking, or other ways, then content, then go for that, right. But you're right, that a lot of the times you do have to develop content. But one thing I would say is, is content doesn't have to be one thing only. Right? So there's many ways of creating content, you can do Facebook Lives, you can do videos, you can do a podcast, right? You can do articles, you can do blog posts. So I think the best way to talk about it is to say, what would you say to a client if they were in front of you? So you would ask them questions? Right? So what are the questions you would ask them, then you can write like a short post on each of those questions? What so for each question, you know, what would you follow up with? Or what are the problems that your clients have? Right? So for each challenge that your clients have? What are some potential solutions? What are some ways of thinking about it? Those are all things that you can, you know, write content about. And then you could have case studies, you know, saying how you've helped some of your clients, you can have testimonials, you can talk about things that are going on out in the world and give you a perspective, right? So there's a lot you can write about, write or talk or

Right. I'm curious. And I'm admitted to you before we got on to record this at like, LinkedIn is always my, oh, I forgot about that. So I should probably repurpose the same content, from something I was, you know, maybe doing on my preferred platform is Instagram, because I just like, you know, the fun visual videos and kind of stuff. But what's the etiquette? Is there like video? Is there a lot of video happening on LinkedIn right now? Or what's really going on over there?

Yeah, yeah. So there's actually quite a bit of video. I mean, I think it is primarily a written content, platform, but there's a lot of video and you can totally do great on LinkedIn, with only video, you have to have a little bit of text to go with it. But now you can have you can post videos, the ideal would be like three, three to four minutes, you wouldn't want to go much longer than that. You also don't want to go below, maybe two minutes, right? Like, that's where there starts to be differences with Facebook and Instagram. But ya know, you can definitely do a lot of video. I think you would want you wouldn't want to take all of your Instagram content and put it on LinkedIn. But you would pick the ones that have that are more focused on content, and, you know, client problems, solutions, helping really helping, you know, putting content that people can use right away, I would say,

Yeah, that's, that's cool. I'm going in my head, Hey, you gotta get back on that platform is charged, you're reusing it and like how, like sharing about the podcasts now and things like that, right. And it's a resource for people. So it's interesting, because I think you can take two perspectives. One is that, oh, I'm intimidated by having to write something and feel like it should be, you know, super profound and thoughtful. And, you know, I'm a thought leader, and that's what I need to put there. Or, I'm not intimidated, because now it doesn't matter if I have this perfect, like grid of beautiful branded photography, that creates, you know, my presence on that platform. So whichever camp you're in, LinkedIn could be for you.

Yeah, and remember how we started like we you, right? They really be you. And so if you bring who you are, what you have to say, to the platform, then that's who you are, it works or it doesn't but it's it is who you are, and, you know, engaging with people on Do what you have to say is what it's all about.

Yeah, I love that you're coming back to that. Because truly like the fears that we have around somebody, judging the content that we're putting out there is not about the content, if we are able to be super connected to our purpose and our why and our mission, it doesn't really matter. What people say, what matters is that you say it, and that people that the right people will have the opportunity to hear it. Yeah, connect with it.

Yeah. And you'll do much better, let's say with a, you know, five line post that's really deeply about what you're thinking, then some very cutesy image that is just, you know, a saying or whatever, you know, so, it, you could have both and have a combination, but it's not necessarily about being polished. It's about being real.

Oh, yeah. That's so good. And that's just it's just so important. Like, in general, when it comes to content, like, I think we tell ourselves that it's harder to be authentic and raw and vulnerable. But isn't it harder to be faith? And yeah, I can fit into some formula.

Yeah. It might be harder to be yourself, but it's so much simpler. Much simpler.

That's the quote. That's the quote that's going out of his hole right there. Know what to self? Oh, wow. It might be harder to be yourself. But it's simpler.

Yeah.

That's so good. That's so good. Sophie, is there anything else that you want to make sure that we we share? I know that you can go on and on for hours about LinkedIn, there's tons of different like, Sure can. Yeah, but what like, what's the number one thing that you want people to know? That would help them? You know, get results faster?

Yeah, like, you know, it's, it's about conversations. It's about people. So you start by being yourself, and then you will resonate with people who are real. There's a lot of not real people out there, right? Like, I'm not talking about fake profiles, talking about people who are there. But again, they're putting on a persona, right? So. But if you're really raw and yourself, you will connect with other people, and then you'll have real conversations about real stuff. And that's really cool.

That goes that goes so far around trust building, the relationship building the trust building, that's how you gain people's trust to be able to for them, right?

Yep. Yeah, exactly.

Absolutely. Thank you so much for being here. Please tell everyone how they can find you and connect with you.

Okay. So you can find me on LinkedIn, you just go in the search bar and type Sophie SOPHIE Lechner LE CH NER, and my profile will pop up. You can find me on by email that SLechner slechner@GCEEmail, I need to change that business.

So we'll make sure to have your contact information in our show notes so that they will just click on it and connect with you and reach out. This has been a wonderful conversation. Thank you so much for sharing.

You're welcome. And, you know, courage to everybody. entrepreneurship can be hard. But being yourself is so precious. So good luck.