Episode 255: New Year’s LinkedIn Profile Review

Bob Woods  0:29  

Welcome sales and marketing peeps, sales and marketing peeps to making sales social live coming to you from the social sales like virtual studios. I’m Bob Woods of social sales link and in the CO-hosts and bird dogs seat with me that’s probably not right is fellow SSL’r and LinkedIn and social selling strategy trainer and coach. She is also known as the LinkedIn whisperer. Brynne Tillman. Sup Brynne, how are you doing? 

Brynne Tillman  0:59

Hey, Bob, I’m also doing bird dog seats. Where does that come from?

Bob Woods  1:10

That’s the person who I think is with you and who kind of spots things?

Brynne Tillman  1:14  

Oh, okay, when you’re hunting birds.

Bob Woods  1:20  

Yeah, when you’re hunting birds, although I think it applies to like, that’s word started.

Brynne Tillman  1:27  

With the origin was. 

Bob Woods  1:30  

Yeah, okay. Right. Yeah. No, you’re.

Brynne Tillman  1:35  

You know what? My mute isn’t working. And I thought I’m muted, And my dog was barking. But I heard you. And it didn’t work. So you heard me say “We’re live”, Welcome to the week before the holidays.

Bob Woods  1:55  

Exactly, exactly everybody is like here, but they’re kind of nine. And as the week goes on, they’re gonna kind of not be here more and more as things go along. So that’s fine. And that’s actually what we’re going to be kind of talking about, because 2024 is almost here. 

If you’re with us live right now, you definitely know that. If you’re listening to us on the podcast, you’re probably wondering, what are they talking about? It’s already 2024. So this is definitely going to be in January for that. So no worries about that. You’re not lost, it’s just recorded. So among many, many, many other things.

Brynne Tillman  2:32  

Okay, Go ahead, you’re all over the place. This is like squirrel day. So I’m gonna back up. And I’m gonna let you talk, guys. 

Bob Woods  2:41  

Well, yeah, because Brynne is actually not, she’s aware of the general topic. But I told her ahead of time that I’m going to go in a specific direction, she doesn’t know where it’s going, because I want her initial reaction to this. So she doesn’t know what’s going on, except for the fact that she knows that we’re talking about looking at your LinkedIn profile for 2024. So we are going to be talking about specific elements like we always do, but I didn’t want one of those, you know, if in your profile, you need to have your headline, you need to do boo, boo, boo, boo, boo, because we talked about that. 

And I’m bored with talking about that. So instead, what we’re going to do is, I’m going to make a suggestion about a specific mindset that you need to have beyond the resume to resource thing. So I’m going to suggest that before you do anything, that you really need to dial in to the problems that your customers and prospects are facing because I’m betting that they might have changed completely, they probably have either changed completely, or had been altered since the last time you looked at your profile. And your current profile isn’t addressing those problems. What do you think about that, Brynne?

Brynne Tillman  4:06

Well, first, can you hear me? 

Bob Woods  4:08

Yes, I can hear you. 

Brynne Tillman  4:10

Okay, because I’m having mute problems. 

Bob Woods  4:13

Uh oh.

Brynne Tillman  4:14

But I think that’s a brilliant way to start. Right. What are your clients your prospects going through right now? One thing I learned from David Newman, a long time ago, and we love him over it. 

Bob Woods  4:32

Yes, absolutely..Do it with an MBA.

Brynne Tillman  4:34

Do an MBA, do it everything? One of the things I learned from him I’m going to say 12,13,14 years ago, is take a deep dive into what your prospects need before they know they need you.

Bob Woods  4:53

Yep. 100%

Brynne Tillman  4:54

Right. So what are they doing? What are they googling? What are they reading? What are they consuming at a step or two before they will need your products and services? Because that is where we need to start influencing. So I love this. What are the challenges of your customers? And before you write your profile? Know this. I think it’s great, Bob.

Bob Woods  5:20

Also note that they’ve changed, they have probably changed. And I think that that’s probably the bigger issue here is that people are going “Oh, yeah, my profile does all that.” Does your profile really do all that? Especially nowadays? I mean, because things have changed tremendously in 2023. And going into 2024, I bet. I mean, because I just looked at mine, and just with some of the things that we’re doing internally here at social sales link, I’m gonna have to change my profile somewhat because of this. 

And that’s how all of this got started, is because we’re going to be doing some new things. And you know, because we do know the problems and the situations, and it’s like, my profile, really, it doesn’t talk about this stuff right now. So you really need to go into it with that type of lens. Because I guarantee you that if you don’t go into it with that type of lens about the changes, you’re just going to look at it and go on, “It’s fine. It’s not that big of a deal.” Go into it with the thought of what are my peeps facing now? And what do I need to change or to improve?

So that my profile, and then by extension of your content, and everything else? All of that flows from this, but specifically with the profile? Are your customers and prospects when they land on it? Are they going to resonate with what their problems are right now? Because they’ve changed.

Brynne Tillman  6:47

I love that. I mean, this touches us, personally, it’ social sales link. Right? 

Bob Woods  6:53

Yeah. 100%

Brynne Tillman  6:54

So one of the things in our all hands on deck meeting this morning, Bob, you said, you know, we need to start to truly put out the message, that we have a strong focus on helping AI with LinkedIn and social selling with content creation with right, so that shift in our profile has to happen. I mean, I know I think I say LinkedIn and Chat GPT. 

But the levels that you’re diving into, and that we’re going to be providing is solving a problem that was not in the marketplace last year. If last December, we were saying we’re gonna have a huge focus on AI and LinkedIn and social selling people be like, “AI, what do you mean, a huge focus on this, What are you talking about?” Right. But this year, that is the number one curiosity question challenge that our prospects are facing. So I love this direction, Bob.

Bob Woods  8:09  

Absolutely, absolutely. And, you know, and, and sometimes, so obviously, we’re rolling out new services to adjust to this. But even if you’re not rolling out new services, I guarantee you that what you have right now, you can still address the new challenges, or the adjusted challenges, however you want to put it that your customers and your prospects are facing, you know, reframe that, because even though your internal stuff may not have changed, they have changed. So you have to change your content, and especially your profile to address those changes.

Brynne Tillman  8:51  

All right, we have some work to do.

Bob Woods  8:53  

Yeah, we do. We all do. And, and by we, it’s 100%. And including us, which is why I was so glad that we were going, we had already slated and promised to talk about profiles. And like I said before, I did want to go in and go, “Okay, make sure that your headline addresses BOO, BOO, BOO, BOO, BOO, BOO,” we really need to take this with a much more strategic focus, especially because there’s been just so many changes in almost any industry, you need to address those with within the landscape. So let’s talk about how to top a fold, Brynne.

Brynne Tillman  9:29  

So the top of the fold is like the top of a newspaper, right? This is gonna grab your attention and get them interested in it so it’s funny you just said “I don’t want to talk about doo,doo,doo, But we’re going to talk about doo,doo,doo.”

Bob Woods  9:42  

It is that adjustment type.

Brynne Tillman  9:43  

Yeah, we have to start.with a deeper strategy, right, like if the point is we don’t want to just go into a headline without that deeper knowledge of what we’re truly bringing to our clients. So once we have that, and by the way, a lot of stuff social listening, a lot of social asking, maybe.

Bob Woods  10:03  

Social asking is the other thing that I wanted to bring up? You’re gonna ask.

Brynne Tillman  10:08  

Yeah, like in a poll, what is their number one challenge concern happening in 2024. If you’re a realtor, it’s very different than it was two years ago. Right? Like every, all of these things. And even if you think they haven’t changed, they’ve changed. So the top of the fold needs to change with you. Now, the biggest change I would say is the banner, which should be changed all the time. Anyway, this is great real estate, to help you track traffic where you want to draw them in whether it’s just through your brand recognition with a logo, or you have an event coming up, and you use it like a billboard. 

In fact, this is on my list of what to do in my activities on LinkedIn this year, because I don’t have so many events, and rarely are we updating our banners to reflect that. So what I’m saying normally, we, it’s very important to me that we practice what we teach. So as I’m teaching this, I’m also going to start to practice it. I used to do it more. And then I think I kind of got a little lazy. And I think what we have to do, and by the way, with Canva these days, it’s so easy to do this guys. 

And if you don’t have the talent or time or resources to do it, how fun Upwork or Fiver.com for 10 bucks, you get a really powerful branded background banner. And if you can find someone there to reach out to us, I’m sure we can do it for 10 bucks. Well, we can help you actually come to one of our our br guests to coaching and we can help you there. So actually, we could do it for free. If you come on in, just go to socialsaleslink.com/events. Our next one, if you’re live, our next one is this Thursday, December 21. 

If you’re listening to this podcast, or replay, it is once a month. So if you go to socialsaleslink.com/events and scroll down, you could bring your profile questions, including banners, and we can help you with that. So also top of the fold is your photo, your headline. Net, and there’s now a ton of other things like services that you provide and links if you have premium links to a website or book a call. There’s so much now in the top of the fold. But you’ve got to take advantage of it.

Bob Woods  12:43  

Yep, yep. So the next section that we’re going to hit on really quick is your bounce section, especially because the way that we do the above sections, one of the very first things that you’re addressing are the challenges that your customers and your prospects are facing. So you talk about just a prime place to identify that you know what they’re facing, and then build the rest of the about section around that. 

If you have an old concern up there, that someone comes in and looks at it and goes either again, well, that’s a concern. But I’m really concerned about x if you don’t have that in there, or if they’re even like, “Oh, I’m not concerned about that anymore, I’m concerned much more about x” If you don’t know what that x is, and if you’re not promoting that they’re gone. Absolutely gone. 

Brynne Tillman  13:33  

Yeah, so what is your advice? I mean, look, I love profiles, I did profiles for years, and years and years. But for the last two years, Bob, you’ve done at least three or four profiles a week for our clients. So tell me what you’ve seen is most successful, I’m throwing the question back to you.

Bob Woods  13:52  

No, that’s fine. I mean, just knowing and being able to state, you know, you know, as, as a professional who does X, you, you’re you’re probably and this is just off the top of my head. So of course I’m going to stumble with it. But you know, as a professional as X, you may be facing problems with why, you know, I mean, because you do two things there. Number one, you’re identifying your audience of prospects, by saying that as a professional and X, whatever x is for you, you know, solve for x as I say, and then and then your problems with you know, you may be having problems with another X or whatever. 

That’s really where you get to show that you are in tune with, what it is they’re facing, and hopefully why they’re even at your profile in the first place. So you really need to do that starting with the headline may be the banner that depending on what you do with the banner, but you really start that with the headline and then that flows down to the about section. You really need to tell them that you know what their problem is and you do that by identifying it. And which is why this whole thing that got me started on I guess this is a rant now about, you know about truly knowing what their problem is. 

And also recognizing internally at least, that their concerns have probably changed. And you can even address that a little bit more in in the about section, you know, you you may have had this problem, but now this problem is much more paramount that way, you can also show a little bit of depth there too. But definitely let them know that you know why they’re there. Because they have this monumental problem that’s probably different from what their problem used to be.

Brynne Tillman  15:45  

Yeah, and then what do you recommend you do is insight. So a lot of people providing value to them experience you by bringing the value of some of the pushback we get, and I have my thoughts. I’m curious about yours, as well, I don’t want to give it all away. I don’t want you to know, they have to talk to me to get insights. What are your thoughts around how to overcome that question that we get a lot of objections to ? 

Bob Woods  16:19  

Yeah, yes. So I think that that’s really simple. Because number one, you don’t have to give away the candy store. You know, you can provide a couple of like, really top level insights to where the only thing that it’s really doing is getting them to start thinking differently about their situation. And you can do that without going through step one, step two, step three, step four, just have a simple declarative statement up there, that gets them thinking a little differently about their situation.

Because generally speaking, once they start thinking differently, they also start to open up their minds to other possibilities about solving their problems. The other big thing is, most of the time, when people have this concern, that that bringe is shared, they are not thinking about, okay, it’s going to take these people a lot to overcome this. And most of these people, you know, they may read this stuff, and they may think about it, but then life happens, and they won’t be able to complete it. 

That’s why you need to say, “Hey, I’m the person who can help you out with these, especially if you don’t have time to do them.” Sometimes you just gotta say that if you don’t have time to do this stuff, bring me on, I’ll help you out with it, obviously put it a different way. But that’s the message that you’re trying to bring. I’m the expert, I know what’s going on. Here’s how I can help you alleviate your problem and do it in a way that you know, we work together, you don’t have to do all this stuff on your own, you can be guided by an expert.

Brynne Tillman  17:57  

So you know, I love that I think that all boils down to the job of the about section on LinkedIn, but also the featured in some other sections is to earn the right to get the conversation. And the only way we can earn the right is by providing enough value that gets them by more. So I think your rate, right? You don’t have to give away everything, but you’ve got to give away some awesome tips. You can’t because he can’t give away like air, because what the job of this is for them to say, “Oh my gosh, I got so much from this, I can’t wait to have the conversation.”

Bob Woods  18:39  

Yeah, 100% 100%. And then speaking on the featured section, because that’s what I was gonna go to next. And this is where I started talking a little bit about, you know this, because you probably have to go through some discovery in terms of finding out what their current problem is. So you can start developing content based on that. 

And then you put that content in the featured section, because I guarantee you that with the shift of their concerns that they have. Anything that’s in your featured section right now is probably not addressing those new or adjusted concerns. So find out what the concerns are, you know, through polling or through a LinkedIn post or actually talking to some of your current customers and saying, you know, what’s up now or whatever.

All of those ways and more even just social listening in general to and I think that that’s really important because sometimes people will say stuff in social that they may not tell you personally. So definitely social listening as well. bring all that together, start putting out that content that addresses these concerns, because you’ll obviously get benefits from that as well. But then put that into the featured section.

Brynne Tillman  19:53  

I love that. Love that. So it’s funny I’m seeing comments on my Mobile coming through, but I’m not seeing up here. Let’s see we have.

Bob Woods  20:05  

Jason, we apologize about that. There’s something wrong. 

Brynne Tillman  20:09  

Yeah. Cool little ones. We have some hellos coming in, but I am seeing some other. 

Bob Woods  20:15  

Okay, let’s go ahead and read them then because I don’t have my mobile open right now. So.

Brynne Tillman  20:21  

Okay, so I have one question: What if you have when I read it? And what if we have more than one job? How do we leverage our profile? That wasn’t exactly the words, but that was, I had two jobs. How do I write my profile? That’s really the question.

Bob Woods  20:42  

Yeah, that one’s always a tough one. Why don’t you go ahead and start because I always have several thoughts, and they all collide with one another. 

Brynne Tillman  20:50  

Yeah, I love this. So the first question I always ask is, are they aligned jobs? Do they have anything to do with each other? Is there a common denominator? If the answer is yes, you can build it around solving a common problem for maybe there’s two marketplaces, whatever that might be. But let’s say you say no, one of them is my day job. And one of them I’m an entrepreneur, launching my own company, which is most likely the case, right? That’s often what we say. 

So if that’s the case, I actually had a client do this very, very well, which the headline was, I wear two hats. By day, this was the job. And by evening, it was actually a, like an event planning not exactly planned, but around an event planning job, right. And it got a lot of traction. And she ended up working out of the corporate job, and was able to do that. But the next question that you “Okay, well, that could be confusing.”

Well, is your current job in a business development role? Do you need LinkedIn for the day job? If the answer is no, you can list it as a current position, but build the rest of the profile around the job that you’re selling the word job that you’re using LinkedIn for. So the biggest challenge is when you are selling two very different things to two very different audiences at different times. And in this case, we still recommend that you do both. 

And you could say, “I wear two hats or whatever way you want to do that.” But then you have two very distinctive company pages for each of those companies. And then a lot of the content should start in that company paid. Agent then you so it’s really clear at which brand you’re talking about. Anyway, that’s my thought around that. Do you have anything to add to that?

Bob Woods  23:00  

Yeah, no, I mean, I can’t even Yes, and any of that. I mean, that’s all essentially what I would say, too. I mean, sometimes you can get away with just one, especially if you’re not using the other one for LinkedIn, but most of the people are in the scenario that Brynne kind of wrapped her comment up with. And that’s just you know, chef’s kiss advice there, right there. Wow, exactly.

Brynne Tillman  23:27  

Not too much salt. Not too much salt. 

Bob Woods  23:31  

Not too much salt, not too much pepper and so I guess. Yeah. So just because we’re hitting up a little bit of a time constraint here, I’m only gonna mention skills and recommendations. So skills up if you need, absolutely look at your skills to make sure that they are client facing. So in other words, if you’re an expert at Microsoft Excel, no one out there cares about Microsoft Excel unless you’re looking for a job, but remember again, resume resource, what are the skills that people who are searching for your type of product, service professional.

Whatever, what are they looking for, and also, again, keep an eye to the fact that your skills may have to change a little bit if their problems have changed as well. So definitely keep an eye to that. And then recommendations. This is something that you’re not gonna be able to work on immediately. But as you start to solve the problems that the new or adjusted problems that people have make sure you get recommendations from the recommendations from them.

Specifically stating that they helped with whatever their shift was because whatever their shift was, other people who are looking at you are going through the same shift.

Brynne Tillman  24:59

Shift 

Bob Woods 25:00

Shift, shift change whatever you owe shift TA. Yeah, we don’t. We don’t want an explicit label on this. 

Brynne Tillman  25:15  

Yes, exactly. Exactly. Like not too. 

Bob Woods 25:20

Yeah, that too. Exactly. Yeah.

Brynne Tillman  25:24  

All this is great and important. I know you’re for time, I just got to go back and just throw in, look at your featured section and make sure the content that’s there is relevant, because I and we handle that. And we have all that. And guys, join us for VR guests to coaching where you can bring all your profile questions, if you are alive, are watching this. Now, if you’re listening, it would be now too. 

So that doesn’t make much sense. But if you are here in December, December 21, Thursday, it is our last coaching of the year. So come join us go to socialsaleslink.com/events, scroll down, register, it’s free. We’ll help you with your profile. We’re very, very excited. And that is Thursday, the 21st. If you are listening to this on the podcast, or replay, guess what, if you’re going to socialsaleslink.com/events There will be another one in January. 

And in February, We do once. So join us. We’d love to have you. I brought it in for oh wait, you know what you said something that I wanted to say something about, and then I did it. So I’m gonna go, I know. But I have to do this. Because I was so excited. So you said repeat your candy line that you said in the beginning. It was like you don’t have to give away. Now you don’t have to give away all the candy. 

Bob Woods  26:59  

You don’t have to give away the entire candy store. 

Brynne Tillman  27:05  

Yeah that’s it. Okay, for context, Bob said you don’t have to give away the entire candy store. But if you’re from New Jersey, where you go to the Jersey Shore every year, in front of every single candy store, they’re giving away free fun. Why? When you can taste it, and then you want to go in and buy it. So the content on your About section is free .

Bob Woods  27:32  

Exactly. If I could drop my mic without breaking it and having to pay another couple $100 for a new one. I would do that right now. That’s an excellent, excellent way to look at it. And that is the best way to wrap up this episode. So thanks again for joining us on making sales social live. If you’re with us here on LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, or x, formerly known as Twitter right now, we do this every week. 

So keep an eye out for our live sessions. Listening to us on our podcast. Go ahead and hit that subscribe or follow button if you haven’t done so already. If you want more info about the podcast and of everything that we do socialsaleslink.com/podcast is where you want to go and we do this weekly. We also have our interview series, all of that stuff is on the podcast page. So just go there or just go or continue on your favorite podcast, listening platform, whatever that might be.