In this episode of the Social Selling Show, Will and Daniel go through the exact steps you need to take to make your LinkedIn profile stand out, generate inbound sales leads, and add trust to your buyers.
Featured on this episode:
Resources:
- Canva.com – a free online graphic design software
- Fiverr.com – an online freelance service marketplace
- Will and Dan’s LinkedIn Profiles
Transcript:
Will Barron:
Welcome to the social selling show with myself Will Baron and the king of social selling Daniel Disney. Daniel, how’s it going, sir?
Daniel Disney:
It’s going good, Will. Excited to be back for episode two.
Will Barron:
Episode two. And this one is, there’s going to be a lot of bang for buck on this one. So I feel like we’re going to cover LinkedIn profile. I feel like once you get it right once and tell me if I’m wrong, I feel [hesitating 00:00:22] as I say this, we don’t need to update it all that often. It’s not like the new content strategies and new this and video messages and all this kind of stuff. Am I fair in saying that once we get the gist of all it in profile, right we’ve done a lot of the hard work up front.
Daniel Disney:
No you really are right. It’s one of those things not like content you’re sharing every day, messages you’re sending every day with your profile, but little tweaks every so often. Because there will be things that are relevant to update it with once you’ve done the bulk of it, that will be at a set [area 00:00:49] and stay for the long term. And it will have a big impact. So yeah, I’m excited to dig into that today.
The Point of Having a LinkedIn Profile, No Matter Your Area of Expertise · [01:14]
Will Barron:
Okay, cool. So let’s start with the end in mind here. What is the, this is a stupid open ended question and there’s a point to it though. So I don’t want to put words in your mouth, what is the point of a LinkedIn profile? Considering that five years ago, you’d use it to get recruiters on board to get new jobs it was essentially a CV online. What is the point of a LinkedIn profile today as we record in 2021?
Daniel Disney:
I mean, the point is whatever you need to get from it. So if you need to get a job, then that’s your goal. And your goal is to use it to impress recruiters and hiring managers etc. If and this is the social selling show, if your goal is to sell if your goal is to generate customers, inbound leads sales then obviously the end is your customer. It’s them, your prospects and customers they are the people you want to make it relevant for. And that is what most people don’t do. And we’ll cover the how and the why. But a lot of them are focused on them as the individuals, the salesperson, and their profiles are not written in a way that’s supposed to be attractive to the prospect and customer.
Having s Buyer Facing LinkedIn Profile · [02:31]
Will Barron:
And how does that look practically? Because my profile, we could do this actually, I don’t know if you can pull up my profile on your screen. Well maybe we’ll go through that later on in the show. Because mine’s not great. I had Viveka von Rosen on the salesman podcast. This was a couple of years ago now. And she just hammered me the state of my LinkedIn profile. So I did some updates then, but I’ve certainly not done any updates since then. So perhaps we can use that as a case study later on. But yeah, what does it mean to have a buyer facing profile? Is it very literally we’re creating content for buyers and we’re sharing it on there, and we’re not ranting and raving about how effective we are at selling? Is that how the picture is painted here?
Daniel Disney:
Yeah, I mean, it’s, and this is where it can be difficult for salespeople because you almost have to adopt the mindset of a marketing executive when designing a profile. You’re trying to write it in a way, like a company will build a website. You want your prospects and customers to read through it and be interested in talking to you. So you were right, one of the most common mistakes salespeople make. And it’s understandable. Because if you’re trying to get a sales job, you want to boast about your success as a salesperson, you want to boast about your numbers, how great and successful you are.
“On LinkedIn, you want to word it not about how great you are at selling, but how great you are at helping.” – Daniel Disney · [03:30]
Daniel Disney:
But obviously, if that’s a prospect to a customer reading it is going to have the completely opposite effect. That’s like going around and just jumping onto prospects and saying, I’m a great salesperson do you want to talk to me. Because they’re going to run a mile. And that’s what’s happening on LinkedIn. So you want to word it not about how great you are at selling, but how great you are at helping, how you can help people, what you can help them with, what you can help them achieve, how you’ve helped other similar people to them. And obviously, most importantly how can they get in touch with you if they’re interested.
Daniel Disney:
You want to make it all about them and focusing very much on the solution, the problems that you solve and what is in it for them, not what is in it for you. They don’t care that you hit president’s club, they don’t care how much over quota that you achieved. They care about what you can do for them.
Why you Need to Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile with the Industry-Relevant Keywords · [03:59]
Will Barron:
Yeah, as you say that I don’t think I’ve got anything on my LinkedIn profile that allows people to contact me other than via LinkedIn. Maybe my email and the office number should be on there. So we’ll come on to that in a second. But is there anything we need to cover? For example, keywords or anything that is top of mind Daniel, before we get into what’s actually on the profile itself and we just quickly run through them all?
Daniel Disney:
Yeah, no, we can obviously break down all of the key components. Keyword optimization is crucial. So people are using LinkedIn as a search engine. They are searching for keywords when they buy, when they’re interested, when they’re curious or learning. Now, if those keywords aren’t in your profile, then your profile is not going to show up. And your competitors may be showing up instead of you. I did some training for a company a couple of years ago, and one of the biggest keywords in their industry was an apprenticeship provider in the UK. And at the time trailblazers was the key word that was the key sort of method of delivery yet none of them had that in their profile.
Daniel Disney:
So that’s probably the most common word their prospects and customers would have been searching because a lot of them were looking for help in that area, none of their profiles would have shown up in that search because it wasn’t in there. So having those keywords relevant to your prospects in your industry, within your profile, within your summary or your headline can have a huge impact on whether your profiles, your team’s profiles appear in searches.
Will Barron:
So how in depth do we need to go in this? We won’t dwell on the keyword point too much because I’m sure it’ll crop as we go through the rest of the profile that we’re going to look at. Humbly, I am quite sophisticated with SEO and keyword research with regards to Google, YouTube and places like that. Do we need that level of marketer knowledge on keywords? Or is it just the obvious if we’re in sales training, we should probably mention sales trainer throughout the profile. How in depth do we need to go with this?
Daniel Disney:
This is where sales and marketing can and should work closely together. I mean, you’re right Will you don’t need to go massively in depth with it. I think a lot of salespeople with some good common sense would know. And if you write your profile the way we’re kind of going to describe in this episode which is focused on your customer, you’re going to fill it with most of the keywords anyway.
Daniel Disney:
Once you start focusing on them solutions, the problems, etc, you’re going to start filling it with those keywords. But work with your marketing department, because they will should have in depth knowledge of industry relevant keywords from an SEO perspective and that might be able to help. So there are a lot of ways in which sales and marketing could come together to really get the most out of it.
Why Your Employer Should Not Have Access to Your Personal LinkedIn Account? · [06:52]
Will Barron:
Okay. And I will ask you this, I know this is almost interview ask this conversation so far, just because you’re, for the audience listening Daniel’s knowledge of this is so vastly superior to mine. And I want to talk as much from Daniel for both myself and you guys listening as well. And so one final question on this before we get to the sections of the LinkedIn profile. Who owns the LinkedIn profile?
Will Barron:
So you mentioned working with marketing then. Clearly it would be useful from a sales leadership perspective to have everyone with the same messaging on the profiles if they’re all in the same organisation selling similar or the same products. Is it really owned by the individual? Or how much sway does a sales management and sales leadership and marketing have over our own profiles? Should we allow them to have that sway and the influence over them?
Daniel Disney:
That is probably one of the best questions you could ask. Certainly impressed. In my opinion, and honestly I see so many people with different opinions on this. From my perspective, it’s owned by the individual but actually my preference and my recommendation is for a company to have a level of uniformity in the profiles, where they all do look similar. But what I would really argue is that doesn’t restrict or hinder the potential success that an individual can have that doesn’t stop you shining as an individual, you can still be just as successful.
Daniel Disney:
But you’ll be able to achieve so much more, I think as an individual and as a company. So yes, it is owned by you, it should be owned by you, you should have the password, you should have it connected to your email and to be able to change it. It is your LinkedIn profile. But whilst you’re working for a company, if you want to use it, to generate sales to generate business, then you need to connect it with the wider business. But we’ll touch on that with some of the key areas.
Will Barron:
Yeah. And maybe you agree, but I’ll go one step further in it. You should violently control your own LinkedIn profile from the perspective of it’s an asset that you own. LinkedIn wasn’t really what it is now when I worked in medical device sales, I went from one medicalized company to their biggest competitor. They both own, it’s like 49% of the market share, they both own in endoscopy camera systems. And if I had a big audience on LinkedIn selling to surgeons in one, I would have definitely took it to the other and I would have talked about it in an interview, I would have used it as leverage to get the job.
Will Barron:
So I would never give anyone my password other than perhaps, I don’t know, terms of conditions. I might be getting in trouble here. But I might give it to my team to post content or do different things on it. But other than that, I certainly wouldn’t give it to my boss or someone within the marketing team within my organisation. It’s your own asset, you’re going to put effort into it, you’re probably going to be doing work out of office hours, whether it’s creating content, commenting, sharing, building your own profile. And so don’t let anyone bully you into anything other than kind of you own it as its own asset.
The Dos and Don’ts of Choosing Your LinkedIn Username · [09:30]
Will Barron:
So with that Daniel for the listeners who are after some quick LinkedIn profile tips, I think this is the easiest part of a profile to cover. Should our name just be our name or is it the opportunity to stuff keywords in there, add icons, smiley faces, what should we be doing with our names on LinkedIn in that specific part of the profile?
Daniel Disney:
So the reality is, and different LinkedIn trainers and experts each have different ways they like to push. The reality is there is little difference in the different variations. So you can just have your name. You can have your name followed by something about what it is you do. So it could be Daniel Disney, social selling trainer. You can have your name and an emoji, you can have an emoji and then your name. The impact that that has compared to others is really minimal. I tend to stick with just my name. I try all the emoji before my name merely for the fact of spam messaging. So when you put an emoji before your name on your LinkedIn profile, all those automated sort of spam messaging platforms, they just say, “Hi, emoji.” And you can tell where the message is coming from.
Will Barron:
That’s hilarious.
Daniel Disney:
[inaudible 00:10:37] human being. Really and honestly the amount of messages was quite shocking.
Will Barron:
So I get loads of automated messages more for the salesman podcast, people trying to get on as a guest in there. I get so many automated messages saying, “Hello, the salesman. We would love to come on your podcast.” It’s so obvious, but that’s hilarious. I’m just looking at your profile now. And I’ll link mine and Daniel’s profiles in the show notes to this episode. You’ve just got clearly, you’ve just got your name, I’ve clearly got my name as well.
The Linkedin Algorithm Explained and How to Make it Work for You · [11:08]
Will Barron:
So I’m assuming that within the… You should probably explain what comes up when people search. And if there’s a ranking algorithm and what affects the algorithm. Because that’s what we’re trying to play against with some of the stuff isn’t it?
Daniel Disney:
No, you’re right. So the keywords in terms of appearing on a search, there’s a few things that influence searching on LinkedIn, obviously keywords in your profile, and there’s a couple of areas you can have it. You can have in your headline. So underneath your name, which is your job title, essentially. There’s a little bit more land there to populate than just having Daniel Disney author, Daniel Disney speaker, whatever. Will Baron podcast host. You’ve got a bit of space to put a bit more information in. So you can tick off a few keywords in that.
Daniel Disney:
But then you’ve also got your summary section, which again, most people will have a single paragraph in. There’s quite a lot of space there, which you can fill in with 99% of the most relevant keywords. If those keywords are in those areas, then when people are searching any of those words, your profile is going to show up. Now what you can do to help appear higher up in the ranking, and I know we’ll cover this on a future episode. That’s where personal brand and content comes into it.
Daniel Disney:
So if you’re pumping out good content that’s getting good engagement, all these things are going to help you appear higher up the list because you’re relevant, you’re active, and you’re clearly giving value to drive such good engagement. So content is also be contributed to that. But within your profile, it’s having those keywords, again, in the headline or within the summary section.
Daniel Explains How the LinkedIn Algorithm Rewards Content That Provides the Best Possible Value · [12:34]
Will Barron:
Sure. Should we think of LinkedIn as again, this sounds stupid to say, but as a business. In that they’re going to reward people who complete the profile, who have engagement, who are creating content that the platform thrives on. Does LinkedIn reward those individuals more so than just someone who’s somewhat famous who never posts?
“The ones that are out there, trying and putting out good value are the ones that are going to get the most support from LinkedIn as a platform.” – Daniel Disney · [13:20]
Daniel Disney:
No, massively it really will. I mean, LinkedIn’s goal is to deliver a great user experience. So if you’re looking for LinkedIn profile tips for sales you have to align that with the service that LinkedIn wants to provide. So anything that’s going to be delivering good value to the audience, that’s what they’re going to push, which is why the algorithm is constantly changing to reward the content that’s providing the best possible value. So yes, absolutely, the people that are investing time in it, that are going out and giving aren’t just spamming or re-sharing terrible content. The ones that are out there, trying and putting out good value are the ones that are going to get the most support from LinkedIn as a platform.
Will Barron:
Perfect. Okay, so we’ve got our name, we can add stuff, we don’t have to add stuff. Now, this top banner, I’m just comparing your top banner versus my top banner. So you’ve got your book in there, you’ve got the branding, the [kink 00:13:32] of social selling, you’ve also got a second picture of yourself. And I’m taking notes here as I go through his WhatsApp. And you’ve got your email address on there to be contacted.
Will Barron:
Now, I’ve just got a picture of Sam, the salesman, one of our illustrated characters and a bit of branding. Do we need all the elements you put in your top? Is it called something this top logo? Does have a name, as opposed to me calling at the top kind of head hero image?
Daniel Disney:
It’s referred to the LinkedIn banner. The [inaudible 00:14:01] background as sometimes referred to but yeah, your LinkedIn banner. I’ve looked at yours as well, yours is really good. What a lot of people have in my experience, either they have nothing or they have a really bizarre image just an image, just an image in itself, almost like a stock photo. If I look back five, six, seven years when I started using LinkedIn properly, if you upgraded to Sales Navigator, you would be given a sort of access to a load of files of pre designed stock images that you could use for your LinkedIn background image.
“The first two things they will look at 99% of the time are your profile photo and your LinkedIn banner. And what you want to try and do is plant some seeds.” – Daniel Disney · [14:42]
Daniel Disney:
What’s changed now is your banner, your background has become almost like a personal billboard. So it’s one of the first things they’re going to see. The first two things they will look at 99% of the time are your profile photo and your LinkedIn banner. And what you want to try and do is plant some seeds. So what I recommend to people and what I’ve sort of designed mine around is you want them to look at it and get an idea of what it is you do, what it is you offer.
Daniel Disney:
What it is you provide. You want it to be minimal. You don’t want it to be overwhelming. But just to have, in a simple way possible, maybe a picture of your product picture of your company’s logo, and then maybe a tagline, something a bit of a mission statement. Something that people are going to read, and they’ll understand that as they can, what it is you do. So they get a nice look at your photo, they get a look at that background, and they start to get an idea of what it is you provide.
Will Barron:
Sure. And it’s an opportunity to add a bit of polish to this, and raise the perceived production values of what you do. I’m just looking at a few, I won’t name any names, just two it popped up in the top corner here as I was on your profile Daniel. And there’s a lot of really terrible images. So I would feel like if I was looking at you, as a sales trainer versus this unnamed individual who is on my tab next to you, immediately, I just think Daniels cares about what he’s doing.
Will Barron:
There’s more effort that’s been made, it’s more polished, there’s a stronger brand, it’s very clear what you do. You teach LinkedIn and social selling. And if I want to contact you immediately, there’s an email address on there as well. And you’ve got a beautiful smile. So you’re clearly a charmer. And even just the T-shirt you own and you got the T-shirt on. It’s just hounding that message home over and over and over.
Daniel Disney:
It’s yeah, trying to be consistent with it. There are two key options that I recommend when it comes to your banner. I used to create mine myself for the last few years on Canva, canva.com. I’m not sure if we can link that in the episode. Free to use, completely free to use. It has LinkedIn banner templates that you can drag and drop, add text, add images, I mean, I’m no graphic designer, if I can use it, I think anyone can, really simple. My current banner I actually had it professionally designed.
“Your LinkedIn profile is like your digital presence.” – Daniel Disney · [17:04]
Daniel Disney:
So I’m now seeing there’s several companies that have come up over the last year and a bit that provide professional LinkedIn banner creation services. And reasonably priced, I think it is an investment, it’s like, I always like to look at it, your LinkedIn profile is like, it’s your digital presence. So I would go out and have gone out many times and spent tonnes of money on suits, and shirts, and ties.
Daniel Disney:
We all spend a lot of money when we’re out selling in the real world to look physically smart. And it’s applying that same principle to our digital presence, which is your LinkedIn profile. And sometimes putting a bit of money into a professional banner, a professional photo, can make a huge difference, as you’ve just pointed out when you compare it to others. Does help make it stand out. So there are companies that can do it professionally for you and just help elevate it to that next level.
How to Create a Professional LinkedIn Profile Photo · [17:44]
Will Barron:
Perfect. It’s clear that it’s professionally done. You’d either be a graphic designer, or it’s been done operationally. Fair enough. Right. So we’ve got the banner, we’ve got the image. I feel like the image is common sense, right? It shouldn’t be you down the pub or doing things on toward that you might regret someone else seeing. Is there anything else we need to cover with the main image that you’ve got on LinkedIn?
Daniel Disney:
Will, I wish it was common sense you would be surprised at how many bad images I mean, I was talking to someone just last week and I looked at their profile photo and it was the greatest nightclub photo from goodness knows how long ago, that was their LinkedIn profile photo. And they were in professional b2b sales. So yes, you’re right, it is common sense, but still not something that everyone’s applying. Again, two bits of advice that I’d give on this one, ideally, get it professionally done.
Daniel Disney:
There are photographers out there that do professional headshots for social media for LinkedIn as a key service. And again, not huge amounts of money in comparison to the value it gives. Obviously, we’re living in unique times at the moment. So you can do a decent job at home. Most of us have good cameras on our smartphones, you want just a plain background, well lit natural lighting if possible, and then get someone to take shoulders and above a headshot. If you don’t have a good, bright, plain coloured background. You can take the photo anywhere. I used fiverr.com to cut out my photo and then you just apply it to a plain colour. It just makes your profile stand out significantly.
Personal Branding and Daniel’s Decision to Have a Red Background on his Profile · [19:11]
Will Barron:
So I pondered on this and I guess inadvertently did it. But I’ve got a red background on my profile. And LinkedIn most of the branding on the site itself is blue, light blue, dark blues and greys. Did you purposefully go with a red so you do stand out in the feed? Is that something that I’ve seen. I noticed you and I noticed my own posts because that red do pop on the pages. It was a conscious decision to go with a background that pops on the platform itself?
Daniel Disney:
No, it was red because that’s what my branding is. That’s what my background is. Obviously that’s what the T-shirt is. So the red was more around my brand. But if I give you probably one of the best examples of LinkedIn and profiles done is gone and gone have the purple background images that their team have and then they have the same purple behind the profile photos as well. And so anytime you see that purple behind the photo, you know it’s gone. So my advice is whatever colour is on brand to the business, any colour is going to stand out more than either white or a cluttered background.
Will Barron:
I’m just looking out. Not everybody has that shaded duotone purple pink background. And people who don’t have it, it looks odd that they don’t have it because so many people do. I know HubSpot as well, they do a good job with a very, the HubSpot orange background that stands out. And the branding on that is very strong. I guess if you work for a company for like Gong, or HubSpot, or whoever that has very strong branding, then you should double down on that because you’re getting a little bit of brand equity from the organisation that you’re working for. And that can perhaps add a little bit of trust at distance as well. Okay.
How to Write a Killer LinkedIn Header that Gets You Noticed · [20:50]
Will Barron:
We’re going to be here for like three hours by the time we get through all of this. This is so much more in depth than I thought the evening had pondered. Okay, so let’s go on to, so we’ve covered the title, the hero image, the profile picture, the name, this header block of text now Daniel. This is something that I always read. I might not even get to your about the section, or the activity experiences or anything else. But I’ll always read that top section of header text. So what needs to go in here? Should we be getting a marketing team to do some of this? Because essentially marketing copyright. Should we be leaning into them and their expertise for this? How do we go about putting this text together?
Daniel Disney:
Again, very little difference. There are a few variations that you’ll commonly see. And there is minimal difference between each of them. I’ve seen people with each sort of style of it, do very well on LinkedIn. So we’re talking small differences, what I would recommend that you do what aligns best to you and your brand, your voice, your tone, etc. So you can have your job title, that is fine. There are people that just have their position and they’re very successful on LinkedIn.
Daniel Disney:
These aren’t the things that have the biggest impact on your success with social selling, but they can have an impact on the perception of you. So you can have your job title, that is fine, you can have the helping people achieve style where you focus on how you help and the solutions, the problems that you solve. Again, in the past, this was sort of seen as a way of being a salesperson, but not seen as a salesperson. 99% of people now will look at those profiles and know instantly that you’re a salesperson. So it’s not some sort of secret way of [inaudible 00:22:33] Trojan horse, helping people achieve x with y. But it’s still good, it helps people understand what it is you offer.
Daniel Disney:
And then the final one you see a lot of the time and you’ll see on my profile is the bullet point style, where it’s broken up into keywords. Now, for me that works well because I provide so many different things. So it really depends on what it is you offer. But I’ve used all three of those over the years.
The Benefits of Building Social Proof on LinkedIn · [23:02]
Will Barron:
Sure. That makes sense. And for the audience listening, Daniel says LinkedIn and social selling author and then an emoji of some books, keynote speaker, an emoji of a microphone, trainer, a waving emoji, founder and owner of The Daily Sales, LinkedIn most popular page for salespeople. So I see you’ve added a level of social proof to that as well, because this something that maybe we’ll get onto this or we can touch right now perhaps. Anyone can write entrepreneur, top salesperson, this and that. But when you add owner of the Daily Sales, LinkedIn is most popular page of sales people, immediately you’re separated from all of these other individuals who are offering over services. Is that something that we should be trying to think about doing ourselves if we can?
“If you’re going to make a claim about something, make sure you can back it up.” – Daniel Disney · [23:52]
Daniel Disney:
Yeah. Social proofs really valuable. It’s finding that right balance of being boastful or making claims that might not be true. So if you’re going to make a claim about something, make sure you can back it up. And again, focus it on the customer first before focusing on your achievements. So the text behind it is obviously focused on other people that’s just there to add a bit of social proof. And it’ll be the same in your summary. And obviously the same in your recommendations, which we’ll get to, hopefully, if we can cover it all in this episode. But yeah, social proof does help people like to know that they can trust you. And that helps.
Will Barron:
And just in the moment, we can split this into episode two A and B if we need to, if we get on too long. So underneath this, I see I’ve never pondered on this. This is how much attention I pay on LinkedIn when I should be paying more. You’ve got a section that says providing services, public speaking, executive coaching and training. How recent is that? Because I’ve also got it on my page. But I don’t remember ever filling it out.
Daniel Disney:
I think this was last year it came out. It’s a very new feature.
Expounding on LinkedIn’s New Services Feature · [25:40]
Will Barron:
So I’m just clicking right now, see all details. Cool. So as a salesperson specifically, what are the options for adds. Is there an option for adds? I don’t know, I feel like if we do anything over them, we say we work in sales in this section we kind of bull shitting a little bit if we’re turn around and say, adds incredible value to this or this or does executive coaching to our customers. Is this section relevant for salespeople? Or is this more for entrepreneurs and small business owners?
Daniel Disney:
I mean, I can’t recall the entire list of options that are there. If you go through that list, and there are services that apply to what it is you do, then absolutely put that in. But it may not be applicable to all sales people. So don’t stress, this isn’t something that’s going to suddenly increase your inbound leads. I get a few leads from it.
Daniel Disney:
But then what I offer is very much apt to that from a sales person selling software or medical devices, whatever it may be, then it is probably unlikely there’s going to be something relevant that you can put in from the providing services perspective. But don’t worry, plenty of other ways within your profile you’re going to be able to leverage that. It’s a nice little feature, but certainly not one that’s going to have a huge, huge impact.
Will Barron:
Sure, I’m just going for it now. Type in sales, it says real estate, lead generation, business analytics, so maybe not as relevant for b2b sales people. On my own it says, allegedly, I provide training, corporate training, executive coaching, marketing, consulting and business supernova. I don’t offer any of them they all need to come off. So that’s that.
How to Write a Dazzling ‘About Section’ on LinkedIn · [26:14]
Will Barron:
Next one, I feel from how you introduce section earlier on, this is incredibly important for us. This is our about section. So I’m just going to pull up mine, I’m going to pull up yours, and I’m going to give that a glance over the difference. Immediately yours is five times longer than mine, clearly laid out. How can I help you, there’s titles here, so what needs to go in this about section?
Daniel Disney:
So it is. They are three areas I would recommend all of the people watching listening to this photo, background image and summary. Those are your key focus areas. Obviously, there’s all the other areas that are important. But those are the three that sets up the list. So your about section, your summary section is a huge opportunity. Now Will I have seen yours, you’ve got almost like a couple of paragraphs. Sort of a minimal summary, which a lot of people have is a lot of landscape, as you can kind of see in mine.
Daniel Disney:
And it’s an opportunity again, to take people on that journey. Who do you help? How do you help them? What do you help them achieve? What problems do you solve? Who else have you helped? And obviously, how can they get in touch with you, as you mentioned, a lot of people don’t put their contact details on there. And it’s quite tricky to find how to connect with someone which not many prospects are going to be that desperate to get in touch with you. But would love to think like that, they’re not going to be that desperate, they’re going to make all that effort as much as [sad 00:27:30] as it sounds.
Daniel Disney:
So having something at the bottom of your summary section that says, if you’d like an informal chat about any of the above, here is my email address, my phone number, send me a LinkedIn messages, here’s a link to my website. All these sort of options gives a lot more people the opportunity, the confidence and ability to get in touch. So take them on that process. Just focus it on them. Who do you help, I help VPs of marketing, sales teams, companies of these sizes, VPs of sales.
Daniel Disney:
It’s almost like a qualification checklist. You want to take people on a journey, whereby the end of it they’re either going to think, no, that’s not relevant for me. And that’s fine, because we want to qualify people out. But then you’re also going to get people that ticking boxes, oh, yeah, I’m a VP of marketing, great, I help them solve this problem. I have that problem. Here are some companies that I’ve helped, I know those companies. They’re going to get to the bottom of it. Okay, actually, this is quite relevant to me, I’m going to connect with this person, I’m going to follow this person, I’m going to check out their content and their read more of their profile. That’s the sort of journey you want to take your prospects on and having that within your summary. It’s the biggest area you’ve got in your profile to answer those questions and provide that value.
Will Barron:
You’ve said multiple times now, so I’m going to go back and assess my first record and add some content on. The option to add other contact details for you. Because I know if, maybe I wanted to to get in touch with yourself Daniel, I went on your LinkedIn profile, I probably don’t want to send you a LinkedIn message. Because you’re probably getting hounded by LinkedIn messages, I probably want to either drop you an email or pick up the phone.
Why you Need to Give Your Prospect Several Contact Options on LinkedIn · [29:06]
Will Barron:
And I see you’ve got your email address on here numerous times. So you’re giving the buyer the opportunity to communicate in the way they want to communicate, right? Is that is that what we need to drill into our own heads? LinkedIn might not like this, LinkedIn might want you to communicate via the platform, so they can mine all that data to throw ads at everybody. But for the buyers perspective, we want to make it seamless for them to reach out to us. Don’t we?
Daniel Disney:
You want to give them as many options as possible because people have different preferences. Now the funny thing is because I’ve tried this in so many different ways over the years, but I’ve had it where I didn’t put in my profile to send me a LinkedIn message. I didn’t put that option in there, even though it’s obviously there. I didn’t put it in writing.
Daniel Disney:
And then the moment I put it in writing, I get an influx of LinkedIn messages. So giving people a permission, but also variety. Some people prefer to send you a LinkedIn message that’s fine. Some people prefer to communicate via email, some prefer via phone. So the more options you give, the wider the audience you’re able to reach.
How Often Should You Update Your LinkedIn Profile? · [30:16]
Will Barron:
Yeah. That makes total sense. And going back to my own. I’ve just not updated it in like, probably four years, three years, probably since I spoke to Viveka, last time on the show. So how often do we need to update this? Should we just have it in the back of our mind when certain big changes we update it? Or do we need to stay top of mind. And do we need like yearly training from someone like yourself, Daniel to stay on top of all these changes that we need to make to our profile?
Daniel Disney:
You do need to keep up to date with it. I mean, an yearly training might be a bit of a step too far, certainly just on the on the profile. But my advice would be hopefully, everyone who’s watching this now learns quite a lot, go and invest a bit of time updating your profile. Now if you do a proper full update from A to Z, from top to bottom, then that should last you a couple of years. What I would recommend is on a quarterly basis, just having a quick check, maybe you’ve won some new customers that you want to add into your summary section. Because they’re good names, they’re relevant and it’s worth mentioning.
Daniel Disney:
Maybe you’ve got a new product that you want to add in to your summary. Maybe there are new recommendations you want to add to your profile, maybe the websites had a rebrand and you want to update your banner. There might be lots of little things you want to do. But at least on a quarterly basis, just keep an eye, look at your competitors profiles, look at other people in the industries profiles, just keep your ear to the ground and make sure you’re making your profile stand out in the industry because it will change on a semi frequent basis.
Daniel Disney:
But you wouldn’t need to do a full refresh. I would say anywhere between 12, 18, maybe 24 months, you might want to then give it a nice refresh. But going back to the Gong example. And even mine hasn’t changed massively over the last few years. You know, the Gong style won’t need to change unless Gong changes or someone moves on to a different role beyond that, that branding, that layout has the opportunity to last for several years.
Will Barron:
Perfect. Okay, so you now have a section that I deleted because it can’t be [inaudible 00:32:05] adding more stuff to it and updating it. You have a huge, a surprisingly big featured section where you’ve got a YouTube video, I think this is a link to your masterclass and then you have a contact page. Jesus, then you’ve got a page of testimonials, then there’s an author page, I don’t think there’s even more beyond this.
What is the LinkedIn Featured Section and How to Get the Most Out of It · [32:26]
Will Barron:
So what do we need to be included in this featured section. And as I see this on your profile, it takes up so much real estate and the so many images there, which were struggling to fit images over the emojis in other parts of the profile. This seems like a quite an impactful section to get people clicking, to get people to go that one step deeper than just reading a few paragraphs about yourself.
Daniel Disney:
Yeah, it’s a really great part of the profile. Now obviously, one thing to be clear, I am the product that I sell, which is very different for a lot of sales people out there that are selling a specific product or service. So it’s a bit different from me, where obviously, I will have videos of me, photos, and so forth. If you’re a sales person selling a product, this is your opportunity, again, to collaborate with marketing, and start to put in some customer testimonials.
Daniel Disney:
You could have a couple of case studies in there, maybe a core company video, maybe you record a quick one minute video and put it in that featured section. Again, think about the psychology of the prospect or customer viewing your profile, they’ve hopefully had a good impression with your photo, your banner, they’ve been engaged by your headline and your summary section. So when they get to that featured, the ones that have made it through the funnel will want to learn more, and they will start to scroll and look at some of those.
“Having good on-brand consistent messaging is only going to help amplify that you can be trusted, that you’re credible.” – Daniel Disney · [33:45]
Daniel Disney:
And some will watch the video, some will read the testimonials, the case studies. So having good on brand consistent messaging, that’s only going to help amplify, that you can be trusted, that you’re credible, that obviously you’ve got happy customers. And that can bring to life, as you said visually what it is you do and how you help. Then that can really work well for your profile. But this is again, another great opportunity for marketing to work in. Because you want to have good polished, quality content going into that featured section, which can sometimes be done much better by the marketing department. Who will have all the testimonials case studies, that tends to come from them.
Will Barron:
Sure. And just as I go back to medical device sales here, I’ve still got them on my computer now. Loads of pictures of the end of training sessions where we’d get the group together in the operating room, and we get a big cheesy photo of us all. And it was never used for anything. But now in hindsight, not that I’ll be going back to medical device sales hopefully, everything would have to go to complete just caulk for that to happen Daniel.
Will Barron:
But if I did, I’ve got almost assets there that could be repurposed on here. And a photo doesn’t age that much, especially when we’re all wearing scrubs, as opposed to anything that might change in fashion or anything like that. So I could easily throw a bunch of pictures on here. I don’t have any videos but within a few weeks of working again in a medical device job, I’d probably be doing training where I could get some videos, even some testimonials from goodbyes and go customers.
Will Barron:
Seems like even in b2b. Sales there’s plenty of content that we could with just a little bit of effort put in here and make it much more of a multimedia lead profile as opposed to just the text. Because when people deliver it in text. Some people would love to watch a video. I know a lot of our listeners, and the listeners of this show, more people will listen to this than ever watch it on video. And so we’ve got to give people the format they want to consume, right?
Daniel Disney:
Absolutely. And you’re right Will. We all sit on assets of potential content could be photos, it could be testimonials, it could be recommendations, that will appear a bit further down in our profile. There are tonnes of great content that we sort of sit on or, again, the marketing department the business sits on that can be used. And that featured section just brings it to life, it just brings it to the sort of front of mind, is it that perfect spot right below your summary where you’ve taken them on that journey, showing them how you can help and who you help.
“No one’s going to waste time reading your profile if they’re not interested in you, or what it is you can offer.” – Daniel Disney · [36:15]
Daniel Disney:
So when they get to it, the people that are going to get that far down your profile are going to be relatively qualified prospects, because if they’re not interested they would have gone. No one’s going to waste time reading your profile if they’re not interested in you, or what it is you can offer. So if they’ve made it that far, you’ve got a pretty decent level of qualified potential prospect. So you want to make sure that what sits in your feature section is going to help continue their interest as they then work further down your profile.
Will Barron:
Sure. Now, this is where Daniel, yourself, the king of social selling clearly stands out above myself and I guess, 99% of people on the platform, we get to the activity section. So not just is the a tone of activity. Clearly, you invest a lot of time and capital and effort into LinkedIn, and building your brand and engaging with people on the platform. We also have the follower number.
Will Barron:
So as of recording today, Daniel has just under 72,000 followers, what do I have? I don’t even know. 8,000 that’s actually more than what I thought 8,300 followers on my one. So how important is this for clearly we both run small kind of SME organisations that are personality driven. So that number for us is social proof, it demonstrates our ability to get our message out there.
LinkedIn Brand Credibility: How Having a Strong Audience Enhances Your Social Proof · [27:36]
Will Barron:
There’s other things that perhaps we’re doing with this that a b2b salesperson might not need to think about, worry about, or obsess over, over the cloud which is obviously always nice to have. So with that said, Is there a number of followers that salespeople should probably raise to just so it looks like they’re not just some schmuck who created the profile 10 minutes ago, or a bias, just for giving you the follower number, and perhaps they don’t even care about it.
Daniel Disney:
It does bring a level of social proof. I mean, obviously, for me as a LinkedIn trainer, I should need to have a certain level of audience to prove my credibility as someone who’s been able to be successful and continue to be successful on LinkedIn. So it does help in what I do. As a salesperson, again, having a strong audience does make you look more credible, if you are a salesperson, you’ve got 300 connections, 300 followers, and they’re going to look at someone else who might have 3000, psychologically you’re going to look at those people differently.
Daniel Disney:
Now, that’s not to say, people are vain enough to look at those numbers in themselves. But certainly, if you do all the things around social selling, you will grow an audience naturally anyway. And that is kind of just the proof in the pudding. I mean, Will as an example, you’ve got 8,000 followers on LinkedIn. But if yours was say connected to the metrics of your podcast listeners, your podcast downloads, that numbers going to be much bigger. And obviously, again, that is what then provides that social proof to to you.
“Grow your audience, but do that for the focus of the value and connecting with potential prospects in your industry. Don’t do it just for the sake of a number” – Daniel Disney · [38:55]
Daniel Disney:
So yes, absolutely grow your audience. But do that for the focus of the value and connecting with potential prospects in your industry. Don’t do it just for the sake of a number. If you’re just chasing a number of vanity sake, you’re not going to grow the right audience and it’s not going to provide the right value. So what we can cover in another episode is where we dig into growing your network and a valuable network, then that number will increase. But yeah, do it for the right reasons.
Why it’s Never a Good Idea to Buy LinkedIn Followers or Likes · [39:31]
Will Barron:
Cool. We have a [giant 00:39:23] network down because I’ve never even pondered on that myself. Clearly it’s an algorithm. So there’s a strategy to go about it. Okay. And just to double down on this. I’m assuming it’s never a good idea to buy LinkedIn followers or buy likes, and try and game the algorithm just to kibosh that for the moment.
Daniel Disney:
So as far as I know Will, I’ve never seen any way of buying LinkedIn followers. There may be opportunities out there. None that I know of. I don’t think it’s possible. I think LinkedIn is a little bit more stricter compared to, I know like with Instagram and Twitter, it’s quite easy to buy followers. I don’t think you can on LinkedIn. If you can, if the options are out there, I certainly wouldn’t recommend doing it. Because, again, that’s probably not going to be the right audience.
Daniel Disney:
And if you do things right, it won’t take you long to start growing a decent audience I see people increase their followings, their networks by hundreds, sometimes even 1000s in the space of months. Just do it the right way. Go and give value, do all the things we’ll cover in that episode. And you can grow organically. I’m 100% organic in my audience. And that’s exactly what I’d recommend to others.
What to Include on The Experience Section on LinkedIn – [40:41]
Will Barron:
Perfect. Okay, so there’s not much left to cover now. Oh, there’s quite left to cover. But I feel like we can rattle through some of these. These will be more yes, no, as opposed to strategy. Perhaps I might be wrong. So the experience section, I’ve purposely not included my previous employers on this profile, if anyone’s interested, if you look up… So I don’t know if you’ve noticed Daniel, my actual name is Raymond William Baron. Will is a nickname. So if you go on LinkedIn and search for Raymond William Baron, you can see all my past employers on there. Because I’ve got a LinkedIn profile that I abandoned when I started salesman.org.
Will Barron:
So it’s not like you can uncover that information. But I wanted a fresh start when I created this profile. And so is the benefit for someone like me and perhaps a salesperson who’s changed industries so dramatically that his current customers now wouldn’t recognise companies in the past. Is there any benefit to having a clean break and not including your entire work history? Or is it easier and more seamless, just to include everything like I’m on your profile now, Daniel, And clearly, you’ve got loads of sales manager, area sales manager, regional sales manager, head of sales director, and so on. Should we just include everything? Or is the use cases where it would be useful to have a clean break?
Daniel Disney:
I think there are some special cases. And yours being one of them Will, where having that fresh start can work. Again, you are the brand that shows the brand. And that is quite different to what you were doing and very minimally connected. People aren’t going to look at working with you and need that sort of history to make that decision, they’re going to do it based on everything you’ve achieved. Now, I would personally recommend for most salespeople out there, it probably is worth having your past experience on there, what I would suggest is keep it to a minimum.
Daniel Disney:
A lot of people again, because your profile is designed like a CV, and a lot of people fill it in like a CV, they put all of this information on each of their previous roles. Sometimes there’s even more information in their previous roles than they put into their current position. And it just draws the focus away from what it is you’re doing now. So if you look at mine, it’s literally got the basics of the company I worked within the job title I had there.
Daniel Disney:
I used to have an ideal so to suggest, you could just have a couple of bullet points as to what you achieved there, again, focused on your customers, not what you achieved, but how you helped people etc. You can have a couple of bullet points. But beyond that, keep it to a minimum it doesn’t have a huge impact on sales and prospecting etc. But at least it gives people the opportunity to see what experience and knowledge you might have. It’s going to be a small percentage of people viewing your profile that will make it that far down, and they will actually consume that part of your profile.
Will Barron:
Sure, I guess if you’ve been in one specific industry, like if you’ve been in medical device sales for 10, 15 years, tell me if I’m wrong here, maybe LinkedIn can use the network effect of you’ve worked at these different organisations and people at these different organisations do this, this and this, to perhaps share or curate content. Maybe I don’t know, is that pushing the boat out a bit there?
Daniel Disney:
No, there’s definitely some legs there. Definitely legs there. And it’s one of those things, for a lot of people it’s going to be an individual basis. So if you’re looking at your profile, because some people are selling multiple things to multiple industries, some people have been in lots of different roles in completely different industries in their past. If anyone is watching this and has questions unique to them, pop me a message, pop Will a message.
Will Barron:
Don’t message me, you can message Daniel for sure.
Daniel Disney:
Yeah. That’s fine. Pop me a message and I will help. Everyone’s going to be in a unique situation. And this is one of those areas. Again, the differences are going to have a minimal impact overall, so try not to overthink it, don’t spend too much time in it. Just try and make sure it covers what you want it to cover. And if you’re unsure again yet ping me a message and I’ll help.
Why You Only Need to Add Relevant Education, Licenses, and Certifications on LinkedIn · [44:31]
Will Barron:
Perfect Okay, so let’s rattle through these sections then. You’ve got education, licence and certifications and volunteer experience. This is just to polish us up and make us look more rounded and it is like what we do on a CV, I guess.
Daniel Disney:
Yeah, it is. And it’s got some value. But again, don’t overthink it. Put as much information in as you can that’s relevant about you. Because what LinkedIn will do, is it will show you when that is relevant or connecting to a prospective customer. So LinkedIn has ways of showing you things that you have in common, whether by coincidence, maybe you went to the same school or maybe you’re in the same group. So you have the same volunteering experience, LinkedIn will show you those connections.
Daniel Disney:
So the more you put in, it will help LinkedIn provide value back to you. But again, no huge impact in these areas. It’s one of those ones that when you do the big profile updates, that you want to cover all those key areas, but they’re not things you’ll need to update on a frequent basis unless you’ve got new things to put in.
Do LinkedIn Skills and Endorsements Really Matter? · [45:25]
Will Barron:
Sure. Okay, so two final sections, and then we’ll wrap up the show with these. So skills and endorsements. So again, I’m on your profile Daniel. Social selling 99 plus, keynote speaking, 99 plus, training 99 plus. How much effort have you put into getting those numbers? And how important are they? For me looking at that, that is clear social proof, from my perspective outside looking in that you are somewhat of an expert at the very minimum. Because getting 100 people to do anything is difficult, get 100 people to say, put the thumb up as Daniel Disney, a great keynote speaker, I feel like that has real value.
Daniel Disney:
So I’m going to contradict you a bit. In complete honesty, I have made zero effort to get those. And in my experience, they tend to have zero impact or influence in the process. As it’s quite interesting to see, you say that it’s provided a bit of potential social proof to you. And it will have some level of impact. But here’s the kind of reality around skills and endorsements for most people who use LinkedIn, they kind of know that most of the people giving out endorsements on skills don’t know you. So a lot of the people certainly when I started using LinkedIn that would endorse me for skills before they were things like social selling or speaking, I had no idea who they were.
Daniel Disney:
They didn’t know me, I didn’t know them, they would endorse me for 10 plus skills. And then they’d send me a message saying, “Hey, Dan, I’ve just endorsed you for 10 skills, can you do the same for me?” And LinkedIn kind of didn’t really create a vetting process with skills and endorsements. So the reality is, anyone can endorse you. And so the credibility is pretty low. What I would suggest, what you can control is, obviously, you can see the three that sit there, you can then open it up and see all the other skills that I’ve been endorsed for, you can choose the three that sit at the top.
Daniel Disney:
So I would recommend making those three, the most relevant to you now, hence, why minor social selling, keynote speaking and if I remember what the other one was. Make sure you choose the right three. And once you’ve got those three at the top, people will naturally start to endorse those above your other ones. But don’t worry too much about the number, it will grow over time. But the impact it has overall, from a sales perspective. Again, if someone’s made it that far down your profile, that’s not going to provide a huge impact. What follows next is going to provide 100 times the impact and that recommendation section.
Will Barron:
And before we get to that, just as a case study, I’ve made no effort with this whatsoever. I’ve got podcasting at 95, sales at 91, business strategy at 74. And there’s a turnover is like 70 to 50 odd. So yeah, I take back everything I said over then me personally, looking at your profile, not knowing what you just described, I would have thought that as social proof. Now you’ve just pulled the rug from under the carpet, whatever the saying is to you. You’ve knocked at the table eggs out and ruin that whole charade for me.
How to Write and Ask for LinkedIn Recommendations · [48:27]
Will Barron:
So with that said, because I’m looking at my recommendations versus your recommendations here. You put me to shame Daniel, tell us about recommendations. And because clearly there’s a bit of text that has to go along with this as opposed to just clicking a button. There’s a lot more effort friction, people putting themselves on the line by giving a recommendation out there.
“We live in a review and recommendation world, Will. I’m sure you’ll agree with me. I tend not to buy anything online unless I see positive reviews, especially on Amazon.” – Daniel Disney · [48:45]
Daniel Disney:
Yeah, so we live in a review and recommendation world well Will I’m sure you’ll agree with. I tend not to buy anything online, unless I see positive reviews especially on Amazon. I’m not going to buy anything unless it’s got good reviews. And for most websites out there, I will look for that social proof and it is one of the best features I think LinkedIn put in at the start was a recommendation piece. Because it allows your prospects and customers to hear from the most trustworthy source, which is a happy existing customer of yours.
Daniel Disney:
There is no one more trustworthy than that. So it’s one of the best parts of your profile, but it does take effort. A lot of people don’t just go out and give recommendations for nothing. You do have to ask. So I recommend tying this in with referrals, because these are the two things that a lot of salespeople usually feel uncomfortable asking for quite scared to ask for it. So do them both together. Every time you close a sale, you win a new customer, pick up the phone or send them an email and just say, “Hey, Will we’re really excited to work for you can’t wait to come and train the team. If you get a couple of minutes would you mind just writing me a quick recommendation on my LinkedIn profile? Be more than happy to do the same for you. And also do you know a few people who might also be interested in this?”
Daniel Disney:
You get a recommendation, you get a referral. The reality is, as you know as well as I do, a lot of people are happy to do it. They’re happy to give you a recommendation, to write your recommendation, because it makes them feel good for doing it. And they’re happy to give you referrals. Because again, we love to help we love to give value as part of our sort of human nature. So don’t be scared of it. The recommendation section is a huge asset on your profile, you just need to make a conscious effort. On a regular basis, I’d bake this into your monthly KPIs to try and get a few new recommendations each and every month.
Daniel Disney:
And like we were talking about, it’s an asset. It’s going to continually elevate your profile. The more recommendations you get, is going to make your profile look better. And you can use them as content. So you can take little screenshots, you’ve got many testimonials, many case studies that you can share as posts, that can again really help push out that social proof.
Will Barron:
So I have a, it’s a folder on my desktop, just called testimonials. And every time someone LinkedIn messages me or emails me or whatever it is, sends me a carrier pigeon. I’ll take a screenshot of it, and I’ll just stick it in a folder. What I should be doing is every time that someone says, I love the podcast Will no need reply, thanks for putting out content, I should, especially on LinkedIn, I should just redirect them to the recommendations page and ask them for recommendations. Because that’s what they’ve done inadvertent, isn’t it?
Why Dan and Will Believe that LinkedIn Recommendations will One Day Evolve Into Reviews · [51:48]
Will Barron:
I’ve got eight on here. So thank you, for David, Aaron, Adam, a bunch of people, I made no effort with this. And I feel like you write, maybe this over time will become higher and higher up the LinkedIn profile page, because this is something that’s very difficult to gain. It’s got the individuals face, their headline, and then what they’re saying about you on the side. Do you think LinkedIn would ever get to the point where it would become reviews rather than recommendations? And if you have a really bad experience to someone, you could perhaps call them out on the platform? Do you think that would ever happen?
Daniel Disney:
It’s interesting, it may happen Will. One of the things I like at the moment, certainly for obvious reasons, is you have to approve a recommendation. So it doesn’t go directly on your profile. It’s not like a Google review, where it goes out there whether it’s good or bad. If someone writes you a bad recommendation, you don’t have to post it. So you’re in control of that. That’s quite an interesting thought as to whether LinkedIn may change it to make it open and honest.
Daniel Disney:
Yeah, it’s hard to imagine there’s going to be pros and cons to that type of approach. But you’re absolutely right, there’s no reason why the profile should be so this glazed, perfect image that you can’t have a place to show either a rating, or an opportunity for people to share negative feedback. But again, those things will happen. So whilst it may not be in the recommendation on your profile, if people aren’t happy with you, they can and sometimes do, just post about it directly to their audience on LinkedIn. Right or wrong, these are some of the realities of what’s happening.
Will Barron:
Sure, maybe that’s an episode in itself, although I don’t know how relevant it is to someone with probably a smaller audience. But I’ve had a couple of scenarios. One, I’ll be polite one person had tried to kick up a force the fact that it’s called the salesman podcast, not the salesperson podcast that was easily dealt with. I just got a bunch of female sales leaders and experts to been on the show, just to comment on the post and it disappeared immediately. Yeah, I don’t know how applicable that is. Email me or Daniel, if you think that’s a sort of… A brand management it’s almost it. Brand security management.
“Everything is very positive on LinkedIn. People don’t write damning things about themselves.” – Daniel Disney · [53:41]
Will Barron:
That’ll become a business in its own right in the future. But how relevant it is on LinkedIn specifically. I’m not sure. Because saying that Daniel, everything is very positive on LinkedIn on your profile anyway. I guess you’re in control of a lot of it. So if you’re going to write something damning about yourself, you’re probably doing it wrong in the first place. But everything is a positive review, a recommendation, a this and that. There is no opportunity to not curate the perfect caricature or avatar of yourself. So we’re crazy if other people, our competitors are building that perfect individual and we’re not.
Daniel Disney:
Yeah, it’s a really good point Will. And it’s one of those reality this is more focused on buyers than it is salespeople, because there’s little you can do you want to make yourself look as good as possible. But for all buyers out there, you really need to make sure you’re doing your homework because everyone’s going to look great on LinkedIn, as everyone does on any social media network. We’ll paint this perfect picture.
Daniel Disney:
We don’t share, I mean, LinkedIn is probably one of the better platforms when it comes to content and personal brands that you see a lot more people being more authentic now and sharing as much failure and struggle as they do successes. Which I think is really good. It’s healthy, it paints a much more balanced and complete picture. But from a buying perspective, when you’re looking through a profile, make sure you do your fact checking. Make sure you do your homework and when it comes to recommendations as an example, you want to look for real recommendations from real relevant credible people.
Daniel Disney:
So if you are the VP of Marketing and you’re looking to buy marketing relevant service, you want to look for recommendations from other VPs in marketing. There’s no point reading recommendations from different sectors, different positions, from different roles that that person has had. Because whilst it may show that they were good in those other positions, that doesn’t necessarily prove that they’re good in this current role. So make sure you’re looking for relevant up to date insights. And just do your homework, do your fact checking, because everyone’s going to look pretty good on LinkedIn.
Differentiating Between The Gold Versus Blue LinkedIn Badges · [55:30]
Will Barron:
So final few things. So I just noticed something else as I was going through the people that you follow, or your interests. Is it make any difference to have a gold LinkedIn badge next to our name versus a blue one? Do you think anyone’s paying attention to that?
Daniel Disney:
No, not too much attention, all I’d recommend and this tees back to the activity section where it shows your following number. With your content, and also the people you follow. Just try and make sure it’s relevant to your industry, to your products, to your service. If it’s too different then it’s just going to dilute your profile, you want to make sure people are reading it and they know who you are, what you do, where you work, what industry you’re in.
Daniel Disney:
So try and make it all align to that, make it as relevant as possible to that central place. So you’ll notice hopefully online, everything’s pretty much aligned to sales, LinkedIn and social selling. It’s not like I’m following some sort of puppy humour page, or sharing dog related content. It’s all focused on that. Otherwise, it would just confuse and dilutes the potential there.
Will Barron:
Sure. Yeah. You don’t want to be selling accounting software and the influencers that you follow are all bikini models, right?
Daniel Disney:
Exactly there Will. Couldn’t have put it better myself.
Will Barron:
You could rapidly delete who I’m following on LinkedIn right now, just to rebalance things. Okay. So I feel like we’ve covered that in depth enough for a audio video show here. Daniel, is there anything else that stands out that we’ve not covered that would be valuable just to tack on to the end of this episode?
Daniel Disney:
No. I think this is a lot more in depth into profiles than I expected. But I’m really glad I think we’ve covered pretty much a lot of the key areas. So listen, watch, go and update your profiles, and I guarantee a lot of you will be able to upgrade your profiles quite significantly. And that’s going to have a huge impact on your ability to become better social sellers.
Will Barron:
Perfect. Well, I feel like we’ll wrap up the show here. We’ve got a couple of audience questions, but we’ll tack them on to another episode in the future, as opposed to this one lasting 15 hours long, so we can keep everyone’s attention for a future episode. So with that Daniel, if you’re happy to wrap up here mate. And if you want to just drop us with any final bombshells on LinkedIn profiles?
Daniel’s Thoughts on Why You Need to Upgrade and Customize Your Linkedin Profile · [57:44]
Daniel Disney:
No, just put the effort in upgrade yours. Remember, it is your digital self. So treat it the same way. Hopefully, if you were customer facing you would make yourself look and present, dress smart, look presentable, look professional. So online, in the digital world, that’s what your LinkedIn profile does. So make sure it provides that same impact, that same impression, make it look as professional and smart as possible. Do everything we’ve covered in this episode. And honestly, you’ll be surprised at how much you’re going to upgrade your profile.
Daniel Disney:
So put the effort in, it might take you 30 minutes, 45 minutes to apply everything that we’ve covered. But that’s going to be time well invested. So go and upgrade those profiles, and drop us a message. I would love to see after you’ve applied some of this, I’d love to see some of your profiles. So ping me a message and maybe in a future episode where we can do some live profile reviews or we could do something like that.
Will Barron:
Yeah, for sure. We could do that. It’d be good to do that actually live on a LinkedIn live or YouTube live as well. Good stuff I’ll wrap up there. Daniel we all appreciate your time. That’s Daniel Disney, the king of social selling. My name is Will Baron, and we’ll speak to you again on next week’s episode of the social selling show.
Daniel Disney:
See you next time.
