LinkedIn Expert Reveals How To Make Your Business Brand STAND OUT w/ Michelle J. Raymond

PID chat GPT would you please write me five LinkedIn posts with lots of Rocket emojis and overused words when so many people are doing the same thing that's why content doesn't work I'm going to ask this in a very selfish way is there more that we need to know about company Pages yeah can we stop creating crap content on company Pages please the problem that's happened on LinkedIn there is this undercurrent of don't be salesy we got so focused on being of service of people that we for get to talk about what we do it's mindblowing for me I have talked to Richard Moore I've talked to Y me and Alec and I've actually did a second episode with him which was pretty much fire and to my surprise the LinkedIn content does really well Elsewhere on podcast and also on YouTube so I'm just happy to have a different voice in the LinkedIn Creator space Michelle thank you very much for jumping on the podcast with me how are you doing I am doing fabulous and a good day from Sydney to all of your listeners might be joining from anywhere in the world and for people who don't know who you are can you please introduce yourself and and tell us a little bit of your background story for sure so I'm Michelle J Raymond and the J is there just so you can find me on LinkedIn searches it's not to make me sound smarter which is what somebody asked me one day I'm based here in Sydney as I said and I'm a LinkedIn specialist that trains businesses on how to get active on the platform I've spent 20 years in B2B space in account management roles sales roles in the manufacturing industry and it was always dirty and you know a bit nasty around the edges but I was fascinated with how things get made and I still am to this day and you might be thinking like what is account managing and you know manufacturing got to do with LinkedIn and how am I here well around 10 years ago I started a new job in the chemical industry so I used to sell raw materials and ingredients that go into beauty products and I turned up at a new job in a new industry and I just got my job through Linkedin pretty common story back around then what happened was my boss gave me a customer list of 80 clients that were spread around Australia so picture that the same size as the US with 10,000 different ingredients to sell and said go and sell and I was like I don't know how this math adds up but I can't be everywhere it's just physically impossible and so I'd been messing around with creating some content on LinkedIn and I said to him do you mind if I do this for this job and he goes what's what's LinkedIn I was like oh you know where you get your jobs through and he's like yeah and is it free and I was like I think so and he said to me I don't care just go and sell and so off I went and figured out if you build an amazing Community strategically on LinkedIn and then you create content that's of value to that Community boy did those sales come through and so I am unashamedly come from a sales background but I when I set up my own business uh in you know four years ago I really had to get a Cross Personal branding quickmart and branding for my business as well because shout out to any marketers that has had the sales team take credit for all of their work and the sales team takes all the glory for the sale I didn't realize the power of branding and marketing so I I just want to shout out to any marketers that have might be feeling like the sales team doesn't appreciate you I can honestly say I do now it's a great story so you've been doing content on LinkedIn for as long as I've been doing content on YouTube so I'm super excited to talk to you one point of Distinction here if I heard you correctly you you help businesses get on to LinkedIn right typically Chris it's those people that say we know we should be on LinkedIn but and you know they've identified that all of their target audience is on the platform that's where the decision makers are hanging out but they've been hesitant especially in the businesso business space it really is just getting started now which is crazy to think that you know the betc and e-commerce they've been online for 15 20 years but in business to business it is literally just getting started which I it's mind-blowing for me okay there's a lot for me to try to figure out with you these businesses who know they should be on there know that this is potentially the most concentration of entrepreneurs and businesses who are looking to work with people to hire people the fact that they're not there the psychology of what these businesses are going through what is the what's causing resistance or friction for them why they don't do it I think we have to rewind to a time before there was that thing called the internet and I have been selling for long enough to remember those times and if you go back to that time the whole way that business was done was people like me in account management roles would go around and build relationships one-on-one with customers and it was all about the little black book it was all about keeping secrets you didn't want your competitors to know who you were working with what you were selling them what price you were doing and then if we fast forward so that's where success came from fast forward now you've got information at your fingertips at a rate that just is mindblowing but what hasn't happened is the culture of selling hasn't caught up we've still got the same old kpis you know customer visits how many calls you have like these kinds of things and ultimately what's happening is people still want to keep everything as secret now in an online world and selling online we're asking them to throw that all out of the window and now start to share everything with everybody you can see people that have been in that business often in senior leadership positions are just going are you guys nuts there's no way we want to tell people except now they've realized that some of their competitors have got the jump on them and we're back at that point now where it's like well if you don't go now you're going to get left behind like all of those internet deniers back then that stuck with you know the advertising in the phone book you know where are they now they they disappear and so you know often with these kind of Industries they don't have a lot of repeat business a lot of ongoing business a lot of history but it's like what's happening now that these new players are coming into the market and you know they're just getting caught out I'm glad you brought that perspective to the conversation that what has worked in the past historically is the thing that's actually keeping you from taking advantage of the the next Paradigm there's definitely a shift here that's G gone on not only from a technological point of view but how we communicate ways of thinking it used to be it's about Secrets Trade Secrets and protecting IP certain processes non-disclosures and today in the age in in time of social media and social currency it's all about transparency and the relationship the stickiness of your brand and your communication style and building Community who seeks you out so you're not so much chasing them and that's okay that's that's perfect I think you gave it the right kind of context for us to understand why the kinds of people that we typically talk to the LinkedIn experts are really trying to help solopreneurs solo operators so I'd like for us to focus more on the business component to draw a sharper distinction between the kind of expertise that you have I'm going to ask this in a very selfish way and and maybe you can maybe this is the way for us to get into our conversation together I've been very fortunate to get a decent sized following on Linked In and I'm also very fortunate to have the kind of Engagement and community that I have I've not been able to be very effective at converting those people into customers and I'd love to get your Insight on this in any which way you think this is going to be a productive conversation yeah look and that is a pretty common question that I get asked you know and I love that you've shared that because I think people when they're starting out on LinkedIn also are faced with this mountain of hang on a minute I'm active on the platform I'm putting in all of this effort and I'm not getting any return on that investment and I actually think that the problem that's happened on LinkedIn and it's a bit of a controversial opinion here and I'm just going to put it out there is that there is this under current of don't be salesy on LinkedIn and I'm not sure where it started and I'm not going to point the finger at anybody but what I think happened was we got so focused on being of service of people which I'm absolutely on board right so just to put it out there sales for me is problem solving and helping people that's all it is for me me but what I think happened was we're so busy sharing knowledge and empowering others and you know being of service that we forget to talk about what we do the problems we solve and how our business exists literally to solve problems for other people like businesses exist so that you can get paid to make problems go away but I think we've just made sales a dirty word and I think it's to do with there's so many bad DMs like I as we discussed just before you have an inbox full of spam DMS that are directed at products that you probably have no interest in you've never expressed a need for you can't even understand why they're even targeting you CU it is just this Mass numbers spray and prey approach which is just awful I you know I'm not someone that advocates for anything along those lines I think we forgot the strategy for the business and why we're there and it's not a bad thing to talk about what you do and the problems that you solve and it's all great to be helpful I love being helpful it's part of my brand it's my you know it's why I love your content so much but there's also a piece of it's okay to be salesy as people say I understand that we get to play because we're paid at some point and so if we want to continue to play and be of service to people we got to make sure we pay some bills are there specific strategies because I am one of those people I'm I'll I'll throw myself out there I tell people your content sucks your content isn't highly engaged no one shows up to yourself because it's so pretty much like following the advertising model and you're pitching to me nonstop on your content and I keep telling people maybe the first thing you need to do is show up for the people do do something that feels like an act of generosity and then eventually you can ask them for the sale so let's say I'm in that space like I just went and pulled up my analytics here are you a big analytics person I wouldn't say so I I love looking at the demographics part of analytics but the numbers because they're so far out of our control and quite often they tell a pretty bad story um for a lot of people I think they put them off from just being persistent so I'm on the fence is where I'd say with analytics if you've ever looked at analytics you'll know 10 times more than I because I was recently chatting with somebody from LinkedIn and I'm like okay let me pull up my analytics because I didn't even know what we're talking about so I'm going to share some analytics with you it's not to say it's good or bad but I want you to listen to analytics and then say okay Chris I see some problems already and feel free to say whatever you want okay so I pulled it up here on LinkedIn I'm looking at my thing it says 334,000 posst impressions in the last 7 days which is up 110% because I've been a little bit more consistent it says 36,000 profile views in the last 90 days 8,500 search appearances in the previous week those sound like really good numbers to me but this is not reflective of any sales that we're doing in terms of like real dollars in our bank account or prospects that are qualified what am I not doing or what should I be doing or whatever it is what what are what are what's your perspective on this absolutely there would be people listening to this myself included that would dream about having high numbers like that you know the reality is for a lot of people they're lucky to get a thousand impressions in total for the week and so relying on posting content alone I think is where people come unstuck your way of doing business and who you are and what you've set up is a little bit different to the everyday business that's out out there I would fit you more in the influencer category which is completely different to a normal everyday business so I'm going to talk to the marketers that might be out there um or business owners that are looking at this but I think there's an element of you know I call it what goes around comes around it's what my nan taught me and some of that is what do you do outside of your content do you have a strategy for actually reaching out and connecting with those in your target audience and nurturing those you know social selling for me is is finding the right people connecting with them and nurturing those relationships so when they're ready to buy you are the first personal brand that they think of now a lot of people think the strategy on LinkedIn is content alone and they keep saying to me Michelle like how do you have so much success and I'm like because it's the things you can't see yes I post content on two company pages and my personal profile pretty much daily every week for as long as you can remember what you can't see is how thoughtful I am I might see an opportunity for someone that has nothing to do with me I've got nothing in it for me but I will connect to people and say hey you should have a look at this and so you know it's about using the search bar I would put you know a lot of dollars on a bet that most people don't use the search bar as part of their LinkedIn strategy it is the most underrated feature that's there why because they're too busy scrolling and you have to keep in mind that when people are scrolling linkedin's job is to keep you distracted they're very good at it so you have more ads go past your eyes you know ultimately that's how they're making a ton of money your job however is to put the blinkers on try and get out of that home feed and get back into a strategy what's the game plan who are you targeting Chris so that would be my first question who's your dream customers that you would love to work with because if you can tell me that I can tell you how I can give you a LinkedIn strategy to find those people connect with them and then go in through that process but most people don't even have a dream customer that they're trying to Target in the first place so they're just kind of going all over the place on LinkedIn and then end up exhausted end up saying LinkedIn doesn't work for them and moving on to the next platform where they have probably the same problem as well can I tell you what I think our Dream customer is and we continue done this Rabbit Hole you're the first person I've had on to talk about LinkedIn who's even mentioned the search bar so already this is kind of interesting as you can tell audience hang in there we're going to get to some gold I feel I feel like the metal detector is going beep beep I think there's something going on here everybody my dream customer is pretty straightforward I understand who they are they're a creative entrepreneur and when I say creative I don't mean you draw or you paint you're a professionally trained service provider and you're solving a problem and you're usually creating bespoke solutions for people it's not a productized business you're probably us-based or in a country where there's good Arbitrage and currency exchange because we price via the US dollar so if you're in a country where the exchange is horrible it's you're probably not a customer you've been in business for 3 to 5 years that at a minimum you have a couple of people on your team so you're under 10 people but you're definitely not over 30 because we don't solve those kinds of problems and you're in business so you've made somewhere between a couple hundred, a year to possibly $2 and5 millionar but you're looking to grow you found out a lot of success early on and now you're hitting that plateau and you need business help and that's I I think where we come in and we serve that market yeah absolutely so with all of those things in mind things like you know that they're in the US predominantly that doesn't mean you can't serve anyone else but then we can narrow it down and if you go to the search bar you can use keywords you could type in a Target client you could um narrow that geography down to actually we know that we have more success with local entrepreneurs in La for instance and you know you'll probably find more than enough results to keep you busy in that then strategically move on to the next area so there are filters for finding those you know kind of geography areas you can then go into Industries you might realize that most of them are working in marketing Services you might actually find that you've got a particular Niche for people coming from manufacturing like I did but start to think about if you were to look at where most of your inquiries have come from with these new clients that have reached out from other platforms what did they all have in common that you could use the search filters so location Industries you can see sizes of the company you could go and find those Target companies as such uh you could put business sizes like there's all kinds of different ways you can do this and this is for free right you don't need LinkedIn sales Navigator I'm not a fan of LinkedIn sales navigator for most people why it's like giving a Ferrari to a learner driver it is super powerful there's nothing wrong with the actual product it is a brilliant product it's just not the right product for most people starting out that don't even have a sales process the search bar is a much more userfriendly version of that a paired back version that you can really focus on what am I looking for now the more that you can refine that and quite often what happens is you teach the LinkedIn search algorithm by connecting with a few people strategically because it's going to give you a list and then what happens is it will start to think oh how about you connect with this person based on your recent searches we think you might like this and so there's other ways that LinkedIn wants to support you why go back to their motivation the more that you love hanging out on LinkedIn and it delivers results the more you watch ads right so they want you to be successful they want you to find the right answers and quite often it's finding the first one or two people and that could be someone that's like a micro influencer that's got everybody hanging out with them so find a much smaller cre that's like the the mini Cristo of your ideal client in that industry and go and see who's hanging out with them and hang out there and it just becomes so much easier okay so as I'm searching for my ideal customer eventually I'm going to hit pay dirt and once I find that LinkedIn is already trained to make other suggestions and recommendations there there are more people like that around here and now that I found this person what is the next step that I need to do I think the next thing is just to take a look and show up and support that person you know often a cold DM or a random connection request from someone you don't know most people are sitting there with their arms crossed stay the heck away from me because they're getting bombarded all day every day and so from that perspective if we just slow this process down right there's no rush in trying to build these relationships which I think is also another mistake that people make they think find them connect with them sell to them bang bang bang bang oh they didn't buy from me and I think most selling that I've done in my career took 18 months sometimes longer give or take you know up to 5 years so you know there's no need to try and just wham bam thank you ma'am you know it's like just slow down so go and support their content if they're creating send them a personalized connection message to say why do you want to connect with them and I often say I'm trying to build my community of say Sydney marketing managers here's what you can expect from my content uh don't worry you won't receive a Spam message if we connect you know because I have a job title or a headline on LinkedIn that people get a bit nervous about and I want to put them at ease right I want them to know why I come and I'm waving my little white flag I come in peace and I'm just coming with curiosity I want to know more about them you can't sell a product to someone that has no need doesn't want to buy and there's no point trying to sell to them but if you come into those direct messages after connecting you know Park the Sal side over on the bench for a moment and just think what can I learn about this person it takes the pressure off you and God it makes a different experience to them because they literally are now no longer going oh my god I've got to duck and weave because this person's trying to get me nothing feels worse than someone trying to get you on LinkedIn so slowing things down just going with curiosity makes a huge difference okay Michelle I'm jaded I think because when people say I just want to connect I promise you I'm not going to spam you or sell you anything I actually know they are going to sell me something eventually so I'm like uh I don't really want to get into this conversation right now and I can tell like the way they ask questions like Chris what are you working on right now I'm like I know where this is going you're prospecting me right now I don't know you from Adam and I'm not really that interested in this so do you think that that's a pretty typical reaction or is it because I get bombed so much and relentlessly like every day it just in my inbox everywhere I go I think it's absolutely the experience of most people on LinkedIn every day so as the good guys of LinkedIn trying to do things different you have to be aware and mindful of that whether it's someone like yourself or it's a seite decision maker or it's a anyone that's got founder or business owner in their title typically gets absolutely targeted by lazy people that aren't willing to do the work and so you have to be mindful of that and you can't just say hey I'm not going to spam you and then go and do it because you know you've broken that digital trust which once you break that I don't believe you can ever recover from that position and this is where it's I've always scratched my head about these people that are trying to connect with a thousand people burning 999 relationships to try and get one meeting and I'm like what is going on here now keeping that in mind what can you do show up be of service be of value and just keep chipping away at these things and I would say In fairness to those that are looking for quick wins on LinkedIn I don't think they exist you might get lucky by being active but realistically take time quite often businesses don't have time to take and this is where I think sometimes that urgency comes across where they think more is better but I would actually say like come back down and write a list of 10 accounts that you wish you could work with and see what you can do with those first follow up the connection messages if someone accepts you know see if you can ask them a question so my secret is someone connects with the message than trying to get one question to ask them about them don't be the person at the party that spends their whole time talking about themselves because guess what nobody's interested like they couldn't care less and I think you have to realize that and maybe it's because I've been in sales for so long like it is literally no one cares they do care if you've got a solution to a problem that they have then they're interested and that may not be today but it may be later so just questions like you know what's your favorite part about your job is often a question that I ask them what do you like least uh what do you you know sometimes they reach out to me it's like what's the hardest part of LinkedIn for you not here's what I can sell you here's my training program here's how I work with businesses none of that even gets into the conversation until I can really understand what is a problem that you have that I can help you solve and if there's no problem there's no sale like it it you know coming back to that again I like this idea that you you need to be of service and if there's no problem for you to solve don't go chasing down that thing I also like that you're saying just focus on 10 people right now don't try to do this in bulk or in mask because it usually doesn't work get to know some folks ask smart open-ended questions get to know the person don't talk about yourself cuz no one's that interested in you but maybe your mom and dad if that okay okay so if I reach out and they start engaging I find the problem I kind of know what to do at this point so I I think there are so many conversations we've had on our Channel about this part I think you kind of gave me something to think about is there a different strategy that you have in terms of helping businesses to grow because it sounds like a lot of this is social prospecting showing up being of service maybe commenting on their post adding some kind of Valu that you're not coming in blindsiding them or maybe there's already a connection that's that's already there that you don't have to work that hard for and then to do that hard work and to start to engage with them in in the in the DMS is there something else that we need to do to be aware of a lot of people may not know but I'm also known as the company Pages Queen and I'm pretty sure that nobody else that's been on your show will talk about company Pages like I do I could probably hear the groans or the you know see the eye rolls of some people going oh no company pages on LinkedIn are we really going there yes we're really going there and I want to talk about them a little bit differently to how you may have done it so we're not talking old school where it's just PR coms messages going out all about the business all about here's our latest you know hire or fire or turnover or whatever these kinds of you know poor content I want to talk about something that I call Page advocacy and so this is for people who are managing company pages on LinkedIn right now everybody talks about employee advocacy how can you get employees to start posting content talking about the business and generating opportunities that way like you know there are dime a dozen right now but what I want to talk about is you can actually use your company page to set those employees up for Success now for your listeners it might be the employee and the business owner it's a one-on-one relationship and they are the one and same thing that's exactly how I got started and I managed to use my company page to build up the Michelle J Raymond brand faster than I could do by myself alone even though nobody knew my company it was brand new because on LinkedIn Chris the amazing thing about company Pages especially for small businesses is that you get the same features the same space the same functions and this isn't about do we get the same reach on posts between company page and profile right put that to the side absolutely not of course I'm not here to change anyone's mind on that but if when Michelle J Raymond post there's always this company brand that shows up and supports it and you start connecting those two Brands together I now appear a much bigger business a more legitimate business I've now got the power of not just my personal brand but also the company brand and the two of them working together is that 1 + 1al 3 there's a real Synergy between getting them to work together and people get so focused on hey it's all about how the posts perform and if you just park that for moment and go yep I'm not here to tell you anything different but how else can you use that company brand to be the booster and really put the spotlight on you or your employees and so things like company Pages can comment on posts company Pages can repost employee posts and if you're the employee you're the business owner you're the consultant it's fine do that you are only going to help build that personal brand and so I want people to look at it as how can I use this other side of LinkedIn to support building the personal brands of my employees or myself and you know looking at it from a fresh perspective you know this is the thing that people cut that side of LinkedIn off because they just look at post Impressions but page advocacy I think is a a shortcut to really giving you that step up when your competitors aren't doing that fascinating you're right about reaching engagement on company pages I tell people it's dead don't even bother because you're not going to get the kind of impression you're talking about like this is the way weirdly you boost each other and you kind of create the impression that there's a lot more going on here now I have a practical question I have other kind of concerns here and hopefully you can address them which is do you write in two different voices does the company write a certain way and then Michelle writes a different way and so if even though you're writing both posts do you Dawn a different voice or Persona look they're pretty similar but there is a slight difference you know maybe on the company page it's a bit more third person but the company page is Michelle J Raymond's biggest fan you know like so you'll check out the post on B2B growth Co is my company page and you'll see Michelle J Raymond says this so I tag myself so if anyone comes across there and happens to discover my company page because if you have a look at your analytics on your page it will show up in searches and the thing that I want you to keep in mind is if somebody was to Google your business name your LinkedIn company page if you have one is going to be in the first few results why because linkedin's a trusted platform we can piggy back off their reputation now if someone comes across onto LinkedIn and finds your company page is it going to be a ghost town which is a poor reflection on who you are as a brand or is it going to be something that rolls out the red carpet welcomes them in and it's really clear they're in the right place and I've worked with people in you know close to 20 countries around the world now I don't want to give them a reason to not trust me as a small business owner I want them to know that I'm the real deal this isn't just a hobby for me it's not just something I do on the side and so by having a legit company page that just ticks over I'm not putting as much effort into it but it is just reminding people hey Michelle J Raymond said this and I've got two opportunities to show up now and so I don't know how people land on my page or my profile or how they find me it can be in all kinds of funny ways but I want to make sure that they get the best impression and I know you're on team branding I know branding is important to to you and you know the power of it just think if you've got two Brands working together in this case Two Is Better Than One this is a short question but is this part of your the power of two yes it is the part of the power of two it came probably from another side of things because Chris you may not know it but once upon a time I stole 5,000 followers from the company that I worked for this is a scenario that plays out every day in businesses and you think about it so I shared that I got started Ed on LinkedIn because of the job that I had in the chemicals industry I built the world's most amazing Community built around Beauty and personal care and it literally hit 5,000 followers and it was super Niche I I didn't know any better I was just connecting with people that would be interested which makes sense in hindsight But ultimately I then eventually changed jobs the company that I worked for while I was setting that all up and it was under my personal account I eventually left they had nobody else in the business creating content nothing on the company page and ultimately the whole Community went with me into my next job where I started talking about these products are the most amazing ingredients and so they got left with nothing and so if you think about it there's staff turnover in businesses everywhere right that's just a fact of life so what do you do when they leave so if you've got the hero that's got a really great community in your business what happens if they leave what happens to your brand and the other part of it is how do you attract the best of the best to come and work for your brand so there's a couple of different angles and having people poke around because when you apply for jobs through Linkedin you go to the company page you have a look around what are you going to find so if you want the best of the best to work for you there's one angle so that's employer branding and that can be important but also what happens is when people and staff turn over and as the younger Generations turn over jobs more frequently what are you left with in the business and so this is what I want people to have a look about and this is why it's definitely the power of two there's a lesson to learn on both sides of this which is you you're not going to have your job forever you might leave or you might get fired they might cut back their staff so if you build up your personal brand some of those people will follow you but this is a cautionary tale for businesses who don't mind their corporate page and they just people are coming in going and all of a sudden like hey all our leads dried up what happened it's because you gave them nothing else to to engage with and it goes dead we don't have that many people working for us but I find that many of my staff don't like being on social media it's not a regular habit routine for them and especially to be on LinkedIn so we have fairly low engagement for for my own team because if we took everything that you talked about the power of two which I like and then you multiply that across eight employees that's a power I don't know 64 I don't know what it is how do you deal with that is that a company policy policy thing is this a culture thing what's going on there that's a human nature thing you know there's so many online studies that show basically nine out of 10 people never ever want to in an online community show that they're available especially on LinkedIn I think you probably within your staff out of those people you might have some people that are really great at Tik Tok or maybe Instagram or they've you know been established on Facebook for a long time and these kind of things are very common LinkedIn is intimidating it's a platform that scares people I don't care whether you're a CEO that's had 50 years of experience and leading massive corporations or someone that's starting out fresh out of college or university everywhere in between most people do not want to be active on LinkedIn and this is where page advocacy can really come into play here because I found that with the teams that I work with and the businesses that I work with quite often you can get those people to create some great content that can go out under the page they're happy as long as it doesn't have their name on it right and so you can literally start people from there okay get comfortable get you know you can hide behind the company logo and put your work out there and get them feeling much more comfortable and relaxed I would say that everybody within the business is on a spectrum and having someone that's confident to create content regularly that's the one out of 10 you know and you should really you know nurture that person and look after them and appreciate and acknowledge them because they are the unicorn and so what do you do with the rest of the team well you ask them can they take baby steps first so I often during training would say if you're one of those people that is currently effectly known as a LinkedIn lurker I.E you log in take a look around don't click on any buttons and then disappear all I ask you to do is see if it's okay if you will like a post from one of your teammates or the company page start with the baby step and when you're comfortable with that maybe you'll move up to hitting repost right and repost from an algorithm perspective is not great right it it's not really going to make that much difference to anything but it's that step and that action that's that giant leap for some people like it really is when you have empathy for the people that work for you then you really understand that that's a big deal and then you go and you appreciate them as a business leader you have to go and acknowledge that that person did that and that you create that safe space for them to then take the next step which might be leaving a comment on the company page post and you know I know that there's so much bagging out on LinkedIn you know don't go and reshare the company blog or you know that's that's bad practice and I think yes if we're just talking about the world from a LinkedIn algorithm perspective but we live in a much bigger world than that and I think it's really important just to acknowledge that that could be a really huge step for somebody in your team so taking that next little baby step and then compounding on that and going on to the next one where they're at in a year could be that they're comfortable in putting one post out a week and so just meeting them where they're at with empathy and just going what do you need cuz quite often people don't actually know how to use LinkedIn they they pretend they do cuz it seems like everybody else does and so you know having conversations with them and trying to discover what would make it worth it for you as an individual for me to help you build your personal brand and when you connect it to them because a lot of people C this is what happens in their brain they go if I do a post what will people think it's all been said before they're judging me they might laugh at me I'm dumb English is my second language like the list of fears goes on in people's heads if I stuff this up am I going to lose my job that might mean in the US I'm going to you lose my Healthcare benefits I'm going to lose my house I'm going to lose my car I'm not going to be able to do my holiday and so that's what's going on for people CU it it really is tied to their income which is super scary can we just put that out there it's super scary for people this is why I kind of bring this up just have some empathy that it is scary and see what can you do for them to help them take that next step we kind of covered this idea that you can post on the page you can engage with your own self the voice can even be very similar like it's a very close cousin first cousin and it's all okay and you give each other credibility engagement and it's a wonderful thing is there more that we need to know about company Pages yeah can we stop creating crap content on company Pages please please this is a public service announcement I'm just I've got my I've got my shot to say company page content has been horrific right it literally looks like an ad smells like an ad feels like an ad and and nobody needs more ads in their life and I know you and I can probably agree on that one that we're not coming on to social I think you know you wrote something we're not coming on to social to see an ad and the same goes with your company page content and so for me it's all about having the right balance and keeping it in service of your ideal client talking about those problems again we're coming back to that how do you solve somebody else's problems and putting yourself in their shoes and so I use a framework called rate for page post which is number one is the art is it relevant like can we stop just posting content because we want to say something it's time to get into your buyer's mind and have a look around what makes what are they looking for what information do they want and so starting with that a is all about authentic and I don't mean it in the overuse kind of term but I mean as in not the polished version of company page post that we get Chris like the ones where everything's perfect it's overc corporatized and branding is coming out of everywhere and you get the stock images like no one needs more stock images in their life if I could Stamp Out one thing for company page content it would be stock images right so tea is all about thought leadership what is it that you can teach someone else that they can learn about anything that's going to move the needle in their business that maybe your competitors haven't what's a new approach what can you see trending what are the legal changes that might impact them like really get out in front and not just copy what everybody else is saying and then the last one is e e is for empathy you you've heard me say that a lot during this uh episode today and it's about putting yourself in somebody else's shoes and I think that's where company page content comes unstuck the most is because it's so focused on the business and trying to make the business sound good that we forget that we're there to try and make the personal on the other side sound good and the more you do that when they sit down and they've actually got a problem that your business solves that they're doing all that research over time you're on the short list because we know if you make that top three short list you're in with a chance but if you're not because you're too busy talking about yourself then you know that opportunity is gone I like that there's a simple acronym here for us to follow it's called the rate relevant authentic thought leadership and then empathy the word thought leadership is sometimes confusing for folks and I think it's probably the one that's least understood can you can you expand that and break that apart for us what is that really mean thought leadership yeah it it absolutely I think it's the buzzword on LinkedIn of 2024 I mean 2021 was all personal branding but I think 2024 is thought leadership and you know everyone's got their own definition of this and I it's so funny because in my mind I've got a friend of mine Ashley F and she always just goes Michelle have thoughts be a leader and you know it really is at its fundamental level that simple and so have thoughts what's that for me it's something about originality it is something about finding a unique Twist on something that might be a common problem in your industry how does your business solve it differently to what maybe your competitors do like give me a reason to choose A over B there's not too many real monopolies out there like there's so many you know businesses that really offer the same products and services What Makes You Different and how do you approach these problems different and I I think as well um you know in a world of AI like it's not being the clone of what everybody else is doing what are the experts in your business sharing that other people can learn from you know and solving those headaches that keep people on the other side up at night that's what they're looking for so unique ways thought leadership helps them confidently make buying decisions that leadership part for me is your brand it's not just individuals your brand can actually be an industry leader in that space and again that comes from just not copying what everybody else is saying like it's sometimes going out first it is sometimes going contrarian to what everybody else is saying you know the the herd's going this way and you're prepared to die on that hill and stand by yourself over here and I think Brands need to do that more of often I think they play it pretty safe um you probably know more about this than what I do with the clients that you work with but I think there's an element of you have to be okay to challenge the norm and I would love to see more of that well I think if you're saying everything that everyone's saying then what's the point of listening to you if you start opening up with platitudes these kind of empty statements or these truisms everybody know it's it's true and good you're why would anyone care so you kind of have to Zig or zag when everyone else is going One Direction and to say something that's different to have a perspective a point of view I understand that people are a little scared about that kind of stuff do you do you often work with clients where they say Michelle sounds good I'm intellectually right there with you but I'm not sure I have a contrarian point of view what do what do we do then yeah or any personality in their content at all really most brands are pretty bland at the end of the day um it is quite risky in their mind trying to find the balance between corporate guidelines and having great social content that really stands out and you know is different to their competitors and quite often when they do that competitor analysis they look around and go well everybody is doing this I'm going to do that to maybe my own slight flavor of it but it's not really going to be that different and there is a risk that it feels like when you're trying to do things different it it is scary for a lot of businesses to go but everybody else is doing it this way I don't want to be the one that stands out and I think you have to connect that the greater risk to the business is that you blend in and it's really hard I know the biggest thing that I struggled with when I first started in my own business was the concept of building a niche you know like and it's something that feels so counterintuitive and even to this day to me it's something that I probably struggle with is that by being one thing to such a specific audience and being the obvious choice to them felt like I could never work with anyone else ever again and so that happened to me like I was the company Pages Queen everybody in the world knew me for company pages but I was like I write really amazing profiles or I can do social selling training and I can do all of these other things but I had to separate what I'm known for and what I do and this is where having two Brands really helped me cuz B2B growth code could do all the services and talk about that a little bit more and I could be known for you know company pages and all the other things that I do so it does feel counterintuitive to go out on your own and think that you're in no man's land but the fact is it is like a giant big game of where's wo on LinkedIn and you have to find the thing that makes you be the Walo that stands out and too many people are the crowd you know ultimately that's what's going on for businesses especially I think the biggest risk that they've got going into 2025 is being Bland and playing it safe and those that are prepared to do a little bit of you know trial you know you don't have to go crazy I'm not saying throw it all out the window use your branding guidelines as the guard rails but you know for some people it might be just try a meme you know like try some other content format out there just to see how it plays with your audience and being brave to try it once it's not going to blow up your brain brand trying something once it's that experimenting mindset that I think really makes the biggest difference I have to say this when you said memes it does bring a smile to my face there's something so foolproof almost like effortless is to share a dumb meme because it lets people know that you have a sense of humor and the weird sense of humor you have because there's many different kinds of memes I like to share dead Jokes which made makes my children cringe and it's like deal with it like oh Dad face pal you know but and my community is like yeah cuz I'm a dad I'm 52 it's this is kind of what makes me laugh and it's so bad it's good and it's that relatability but it's also we're humans and it's a social platform at the end of the day when we're going on there to be entertained educated inspired these are the not just sold out all day every day and again if you're prepared to try something different and for some people it might be you're an amazing graphic designer that is not my skills I'm here here to confess Chris like but the funny thing is the worst my designs are cuz you know I'm just like photoshopping me or anything along those lines we're not friends but they're so bad they're good you know like they're so bad that they get attention cuz people are laughing at Michelle why did you use a smiley face photo in that you know you're standing in a prison cell lineup you know like and so it gets the attention and so I discovered that by accident and then I've repeated it a few times and it helped you know the team at dream data a company that absolutely nailed the memes like you know they they found the formula of what works for Their audience and they Skyrocket but it's not that they're doing it every day they're backing up product demos they're backing up their stuff you know like it's a whole part of a system and a Playbook that they've created but the memes are definitely what gets them the most attention so much so I got to go to their office in Copenhagen and you know they've got copies of the the post that performs so amazing they're in photo frames up on the wall like you know they've become artwork in the office that's how successful they''re being but I think it's that trial and error mindset that one post won't break a brand and just you've got to give it a go and so yeah it's easier said than done I appreciate that people have a lot of reporting structures in a lot of business that they've got to keep happy and it could be like a little just you know for me one little thing that I did all of my photos are happy smiley face is Michelle bright colors my branding is bright pink bright Blues you know all digitally optimized to show up great on a screen but sometimes I'll do a sad face in a black and white photo and that immediately captures people's attention because it's different so breaking those patterns could be your way of doing something different and so you know it doesn't always have to be you know something massive it can be little things that you can try but it's the trial and error that's most important I know that you've already kind of covered this about whole flipping the switch and it's not about you it's about them and serving and being of service to people and having deep empathy for the kinds of things you're going through and you can make your content much more interesting I'm all on board with that that's my whole thing anyways is there anything else that we might be missing here from this kind of perspective of how businesses can utilize LinkedIn get content going and activating certain things that we're not really thinking about is anything else you want to share with us there's something that I'm pretty passionate about especially with company Pages at the moment is and it probably applies to personal content just as much if I think about it now but ultimately I want people to stop and think how will this feel to the person on the on the other side when this lands with them and I would talk about it in a way of what's the energy that you're sending out with her if it is a tick and flick we've done our quota for this week the person on the other side feels that and when they feel that they're like this isn't for me it feels icky it feels like you've just been slimed on I want people to stop and think okay if I took the pressure off to do more posts cuz everything seems to be focused on numbers if I took that back and went what is one good post that I could do that I'm going to put some effort into and really make sure it's in service of the person on the other side I'm going to get into their shoes and figure out what post could I create that would make a difference to that person if I created content from that space and being in service feels a lot different to someone going oh hey chat GPT could you please write me five LinkedIn posts with lots of Rocket emojis and overused words and we're just going to make sure we hit five for the week that's why content doesn't work and it especially doesn't work right now when so many people are doing the same thing and again coming back to what you said Zig when they zag or vice versa and it's I just want you to think about what does it feel like for the person on the other side to have that content land in front of their eyes and if you wouldn't stop for it I don't care about your branding and your corporate guidelines if you wouldn't stop for it stop complaining about your impressions and your reach and your engagement when your target audience doesn't and you know a bit of tough love here but you can bang on about your corporate guidelines and then you don't get a winge about how things aren't working out on a social platform so because I think quite often it's to tick the box to get it done and not to be in service of the person that you want to help and it it it sounds like it's an easy change but it really changes a culture within a marketing team or the person responsible for creating content to shift it's not about you no one cares right no one cares it's about them and so getting back to when did you start making it about you and not about them and especially on company branded content but I think these days with AI it's definitely seeped across into there and we're going for volume like it's and that's it's just horrendous it's like I'm looking at LinkedIn my feed right now going what happened like this is not the LinkedIn that I love I love unique thoughts I love people that challenge things I love people that come at things from a different angle that's what I'm looking for I'm not looking to just get a post that just regurgitates something like can we say no to regurgitating maybe that's what I don't like there's a lot of that going on though it's not just on LinkedIn it's all through social media because original thought is actually hard to come by and people like shortcuts they like to see oh this is the shiny object of the month of the day the soup toore and they grab that and then they just put it on something else they might change it ever so slightly in in a way social media works like that because it's the sharing and proliferation of ideas but then if you're sharing other people's content and other people's ideas it begs the question what are your ideas why should I follow you why should I give up some of my time and my social feed for the things that you're going to save you're just going to repurpose and regurgitate other people's content now Michelle you said things that are fairly logical I understand it there's a lot of people who are not going to be able to follow this they continue to put out ad-based things that are insensitive to the audience they have low empathy for them and we kind of have to just ask the question when do you want to change this relationship or this Dynamic that you have with your community and when you decide that Rel listen to this episode again because you have to have an open mind to it right I got to ask you one more question before we run out of time here you were talking about certain trend lines that you see I'm not one to pay much attention to Trends and you're like in 2021 you're like it's all about the personal brand uh then you said 2024 is about what what did you say 2024 was about all about thought leadership it's the year thought leadership okay well let's look into your crystal ball what is 2025 all about what what are you seeing there I see two sides the dark side of me looks at next year and I'm scared that we're going to end up in mountains and mountains more of carbon copies clones unoriginal content templated content that's faster and easier to do than ever I'm sure as the generative AI tools become smarter as more and more people create apps for that that there will be people that will flock towards that which makes standing out online much more difficult going into 2025 I think as we're coming into the end of this year on LinkedIn especially most people are probably experiencing pretty big drop in numbers right now but when we look at what LinkedIn came out last year and said what they want to reward so I'm going I'm going to stick with this and hope that it plays out is the LinkedIn algorithm is geared towards rewarding knowledge and advice right so I think those people who come back and separate themselves as being in service of their community and offering that to Their audience are the ones that are going to find their space now what they say as far as the algorithm goes is that we're talking about knowledge and advice for one specific audience so having that target audience in mind always come back to who are you actually targeting on LinkedIn right always come back to that how what is the audience that you're in service of they want to talk about one topic so try to stay on your topic doesn't mean you can't have multiple topics within your brand but you know an audience that wants to talk about your topic and generate conversations Chris I really hope that we move from just it's not just posting to its conversations that build community and Community I hope becomes a buzzword next year I hope that there's a focus that moves to this both for Brands and for individuals because Community is the thing that outplays any algorithm when you build relationships that are collaborative that you can then build referral partners that you can you know then have other people selling on your behalf basically it's how I ended up here because Ilia shout out to him was a stand for me in asking you could I you know come on to this podcast and that's the real power of LinkedIn those Partnerships is where you can get business growth it's where you get opportunities whether it's maybe you want to be a speaker maybe you want to be on a board maybe you need a new position all of these things come from relationship building and so I I I have my fingers crossed that it's the ladder not the former that plays out um but I I'm not sure but I'm certainly going to be fighting for it you may have influenced a few people so we'll make sure that we're going to time stamp this today we're having this conversation it's October 9th 2024 so let's see what happens in 12 months time time we can look back on this moment and say oh she was right or she was concerned and it went down the dark path or we we avoided a potential disaster there are a lot of cookie cutter AI chat responses to to post and it it annoys me a little bit I'm appreciative of the engagement but at the same time it's fake engagement and I'm trying to find the real people so I can answer them and sometimes I'm fooled for beat I'm like is that really a person no it's not and then I just like I'm kind of annoyed by it so I'm hoping that the algorithm them gods that they are understand this and can shift the dynamic to counterbalance the amount of content that's proliferating by faceless thoughtless machines we saw that on Instagram the CEO had said you know what we're going to wait content a little bit differently if you reshare someone's post you're going to get less and less traffic we're going to give the first person the originator thought more of the traffic so that it feels like it's more motivating for you to go and create that because if somebody just grabs your thing and puts it somewhere else they get as much traffic as you do it doesn't feel like you're you're going to want to make more content and without those people there's nothing for us to share it's been a pleasure talking to you Michelle I appreciate you taking a look at a little bit of some of the problems I have and sharing with us a completely different perspective on how to use LinkedIn for businesses in the B2B space and your your comfort with sales and realizing there's a business agenda here that we got to take care of otherwise there's no sharing of any kind of content at all appreciate you Michelle thank you it is my absolute pleasure and I I hope that this inspires some you know somebody out there to really look at what they're doing and say what could I change up because you know that your content's not working when you're not getting leads in the door it is that simple so if you're someone that's struggling to get leads you've got nothing to lose by trying this and everything to gain if people want to find out more about you where should they go well no surprises but you'll find me over on LinkedIn Michelle J Raymond is where you'd find me please let me know that you listen to this podcast I would love to you know connect with more listeners and you know I've got content going out every day that will help you get through the challenges that will inevitably come with LinkedIn because I I think it's going to get harder going into 2025 so I can help anyone out by all means reach out I just want to say this before I go away that if LinkedIn implodes and you no longer find that it's place you want to play I believe you have a second career in voiceover Talent something you might want to look into you a very soothing comment voice even when you said some like here shots fired I'm like it's still pretty soothing it's like a bullet Co in Teflon it's going to just go right through the body and it's all good oh my God I love it I I'm going to take that sound bite and I'm going to remind myself my voice is Cal me my voice can help people maybe I could start doing some uh wake up good morning messages to people you are amazing you are smart rise and shine I think you should do what Matthew MCC does he has a good night bedtime stories to help you sleep it's a mindfulness thing he has a very soothing voice and he found something I just want to say thanks again for your kindness to the people that you help because you know the reason that you have been on my bucket list to have this conversation is because I'm absolutely drawn to the way that you give so willingly to your community and I know that that's possibly not your natural space as an introvert to be surrounded by so many people and giving all the time but I just want to acknowledge you as a good human and I think the world needs more good humans so thank you for being you oh thank you and on that note everybody that wraps our conversation and we will include links to Michelle's social media accounts and anything else she wants to share with us be sure you check the description or if you're watching this on YouTube in the description below that's it for me see you guys next time my name is Michelle J Raymond and you're listening to the Future [Music]