CAREER-VIEW MIRROR - biographies of colleagues in the automotive and mobility industries.
CAREER-VIEW MIRROR - biographies of colleagues in the automotive and mobility industries.
Side Mirror: LinkedIn for real people with Louise Brogan.
In this episode I'm joined by Louise Brogan.
Louise runs a boutique marketing agency working with entrepreneurs, SME’s and professionals who want to raise their profile through LinkedIn in a genuine and valuable way.
She is an international speaker, and hosts the LinkedIn with Louise Podcast and YouTube channel.
For the past three years, Louise has been a Small Business Britain Champion, in the top 100 Small Businesses in the UK and the top 100 female entrepreneurs. In 2019, Louise was invited to attend No 10 Downing Street to represent small business and was invited in 2022 to meet King Charles at Buckingham Palace at a reception honouring Small Business contributions to the UK economy.
In our conversation we talk about how to get the most out of LinkedIn, whether we are small business owners or corporate employees.
It was a wonderful opportunity for me to ask many of the questions that I had about the platform and to get such helpful, step by step guidance from Louise.
I'm delighted to be able to share Louise's insights with you along with links to all the amazing free resources Louise provides below.
Contact Louise:
LinkedIn: Louise Brogan
Website: https://louisebrogan.com/
Youtube: www.youtube.com/c/linkedinwithlouise
Instagram: www.instagram.com/louisebrogan_
About Andy
I'm an experienced business leader and a passionate developer of people in the automotive finance industry, internationally.
During over twenty years, I have played a key role in developing businesses including Alphabet UK, BMW Corporate Finance UK, BMW Financial Services Singapore, BMW Financial Services New Zealand and Tesla Financial Services UK.
At the same time, I have coached individuals and delivered leadership development programmes in 17 countries across Asia, Europe and North America.
I started Aquilae in 2016 to enable “Fulfilling Performance” in the mobility industry, internationally.
Learn more about Fulfilling Performance
Check out Release the handbrake! The Fulfilling Performance Hub.
Connect with Andy
LinkedIn: Andy Follows
Email: cvm@aquilae.co.uk
Join a guided peer mentoring team: Aquilae Academy
Thank you to our sponsors:
ASKE Consulting
Email: hello@askeconsulting.co.uk
Aquilae
Email: cvm@aquilae.co.uk
Episode Directory on Instagram @careerviewmirror
If you enjoy listening to our guests career stories, please follow CAREER-VIEW MIRROR in your podcast app.
Episode recorded on 15 July, 2024.
I am sitting in lovely Siesta Key Florida.
Sherene Redelinghuys:I'm coming from Bangkok in Thailand,
Daniel van Treeck:Prague in the Czech Republic.
Osman Abdelmoneim:Cairo in Egypt,
Holger Drott:Auckland, New Zealand,
Shannon Faulkner:London, England.
Andy Follows:Welcome to CAREER-VIEW MIRROR, the automotive podcast that goes behind the scenes with key players in the industry looking back over their careers so far, sharing insights to help you with your own journey. I'm your host, Andy Follows Hello, listeners, and welcome to this Side Mirror episode of CAREER-VIEW MIRROR. If you're a regular listener, thank you and welcome back, you'll be aware that most of our episodes feature interviews with people with a link to the automotive industry who kindly share their life and career journeys with us. We celebrate their careers, listen to their stories and learn from their experiences. From time to time. We also publish these Side Mirror episodes to introduce concepts, tools and experts to help you enable Fulfilling Performance. In this episode, I'm joined by Louise Brogan. Louise runs a boutique marketing agency working with entrepreneurs SMEs and professionals who want to raise their profile through LinkedIn in a genuine and valuable way. Louise is an international speaker and hosts the LinkedIn with Louise podcast and YouTube channel. For the past three years, Louise has been a small business Britain champion in the top 100 small businesses in the UK and the top 100 female entrepreneurs. In 2019 Louise was invited to attend number 10 Downing Street to represent small business and was invited in 2022 to meet King Charles at Buckingham Palace at a reception honoring Small Business contributions to the UK economy. In our conversation, we talked about how to get the most out of LinkedIn whether we're small business owners or corporate employees. It was a wonderful opportunity for me to ask many of the questions that I had about the platform and to get such helpful step by step guidance from Louise. I'm delighted to be able to share Louise's insights with you and we'll put links to all the amazing free resources Louise provides in the show notes to this episode. If you're listening for the first time Hello, I'm Andy Follows I help business owners and executives to enable Fulfilling Performance for themselves and those they lead and care about. Fulfilling Performance is an outcome when we get to use as much of our talent, intelligence, creativity, Capability and resourcefulness as possible. We perform at a high level and experience fulfillment from doing so that energizes us to be great partners, parents and human beings. If that sounds interesting, I invite you to check out our sister publication Release the Handbrake, the Fulfilling Performance hub on substack. The web address is Andyfollows.substack.com, or use the link in the show notes to this episode. Hello, Louise, and welcome. And where are you coming to us from today?
Louise Brogan:Hi, Andy. So I am coming to you from just outside Belfast in Northern Ireland.
Andy Follows:Oh, I think you might be my first guest I've had from Northern Ireland. So you've extremely welcome. And I'm excited for our conversation. LinkedIn is growing in importance for business owners, but also for professionals in corporate. So I'm really looking forward to having a conversation about how we can use it best and to our advantage. And you're hugely well qualified to have that conversation with. So I'm very grateful. Thank you very much for joining me
Louise Brogan:Thanks for the invite.
Andy Follows:So shall we start with just saying a little bit about what you do you have this wonderful business that helps people perform better on LinkedIn. So just tell me how you come to be in that line of work and what you do.
Louise Brogan:So I did a degree in geography, went backpacking around the world, fell into an IT role when I came back because I met somebody when I was backpacking who worked as an IT contractor and I thought this sounds like a fabulous thing. You can work for three months and travel for three months, I thought oh, I'd like to do that. Fell into an IT graduate role, realized I needed a qualification in IT, did a master's in computers. And then I started working as a software engineer, and then as an IT project manager in the health service. So that was my pretty, you know, ordinary career path. All looked really good. I enjoyed what I was doing, had great boss, etc, etc. Then I had my kids and my employers decided that either I went full time in order to progress up the career ladder. Or if I wanted to stay, I went part time when I had my first baby, if I wanted to remain part time, then that was the end of the line for me in terms of ambitious career moves. So that was not going to work for me, Andy. And I thought, well, I need to figure out my own path here. And initially, my first business was a craft shop.
Andy Follows:Okay, before we I want to find out about the craft shop, but I'm just thinking already I'm spotting some intentionalism about this, you identified through meeting your friend backpacking that hang on, there's an opportunity here to work for three months and then travel for three months. So that was a big compelling vision, if you like of a lifestyle, right? What do I need to do to make that happen? I need to get a master's in computers. So already, there's a deliberateness about this intentionality, yes, that I'm appreciating. And then that classic example, which we keep hearing of the short sightedness of organizations, unfortunately, in how they treat women, and what it does, it forces women out of the business because someone like you, who's going to choose a path and find a way to make things happen, is not going to be able to just sit around and accept the parameters of a short sighted organization. So you'll leave and do something different. So you thought and I'm hearing now a serial entrepreneur story coming along. So you started you thought, Okay, the first way I'm going to do that is through a craft shop.
Louise Brogan:Yes, not because I was only good at crafts. My sister is really good at crafts. And I thought, Oh, we could do something with this. Because we started in my first maternity leave, this is this shows you the kind of personality I am, I had this beautiful brand new baby. And I thought what else can I do while I'm on my maternity leave. And so my sister and I started doing local card making classes and I thought we could sell supplies for this. I had a market stall and everything in Belfast in St. George's Market, and a website selling craft supplies. I then opened a shop, I didn't leave my job at this point, I still working in the health service. I'm squeezing in about a six year window here. By the time I had my third baby, when he was born, I opened a shop about a month later, a bricks and mortar shop while also working for my job. And I didn't leave that job for two years. And the story there is the shop was brilliant for learning. And brilliant for learning what I was not good at. So the shop didn't really make any money. And when I'd gone back to work, after my third maternity leave, I was working nine till two, leaving my office going down the road to the shop to take over from the staff I had in the shop to keep the shop opened, picking up the kids from nursery. And then in the evening doing the social media for the shop. It was exhausting. And I don't know how I did it. When I look back now. And somebody came out from our local councils, we have a lot of support for entrepreneurs in Northern Ireland. Somebody came out from the local council and sat down with me to go over the figures and said, Louise, you're putting so much work into everything. But you're not actually making any money at this. She said however, if you're open to suggestion, she says you seem to know what you're doing on social media. And this Andy was 2012 2013. And nobody really understood how social media worked for business. So she said, if you could get out of this shop, I think you could help other small businesses with Facebook pages. So the first person I went to was the girl who did the Pilates classes locally. And I said to her, how do you feel about social media? And she says, Oh, terrified. And I said, What if I set up a Facebook page for you for your Pilates classes, you know, to test it out and see how it worked? And she said yeah, absolutely. Like I was doing it for free. Why would she say no. And I was able to get out of the lease of my shop, which was amazing. And over the next two years, I built up a social media management business supporting small business owners by doing their Facebook and eventually their Instagram and Twitter accounts for them in the evenings while still working in that project management role. But there was a tipping point, there's a couple of things happened. I didn't take any money out of the business while I was working in my job and my goal was to replace my salary. And then I came across a very, what's the word? obstreperous stubborn, unpleasant person in my job? Who made things so awkward for me that I remember ringing my husband after a particularly awful meeting. And I was just saying that, you know, this happened, this happened, this happened and he said, Louise, the business is working. You can see it's working, just just quit quit your job. So I did, andy I literally quit my job I think that week, obviously had to work out my notice. But it was amazing because now that I knew I was quitting, everything else started to happen. The first company that hired me to do training on social media was my employer. Like literally the week after, and then I applied for a small small business Britain are an organization in the UK that support small businesses. And I applied to be one of their top 100 small businesses in 2017. And I got it and I got invited to 10 Downing Street. And I remember so clearly, walking past my old employers HQ in the centre of Belfast, and just that grin on my face thinking, well, if I'd stayed with you, I would never have been invited to number 10. And that's kind of how the business, the social media business began.
Andy Follows:Excellent. Congratulations on making that move. So the three months on three months traveling, did that ever happen? Or
Louise Brogan:we did actually go away for a year before we got married. And we went to Southeast Asia and Australia and America. And then we came back, and we got married in September, and the plan was, let's go to China. Let's work for six months. And let's go to China because I had done a sponsored bike ride in Beijing for a MENCAP, a mental health charity. So our plan was, we're going to go to China, and we're going to travel and work. And then I got pregnant. So I was not going to go to China with a tiny baby in 2005, so no, it didn't happen. Actually.
Andy Follows:It was nevertheless the catalyst that set you off on a certain path, which you're still benefiting from now. How did you then make the transition once you'd set up your 2017, you apply for the top 100 small businesses and you you win that and become part of that. And then how did you transition from doing people's Facebook pages and so on into actually LinkedIn specialization.
Louise Brogan:So around 2016 17, I started to look outside of Northern Ireland, for business, because I needed to grow the business. I didn't want to just run local companies Facebook pages, I wanted more than that. And I went to London for it was like one of those, it was either small business Britain or enterprise nation, I went along to one of their events in London. And at that, I met other people who did what I did. And I went to a conference in London called newpreneur, which I met so many other people I'm still connected to, they ran that for three years, but they don't do it anymore. And it just opened up this whole world of people online, who were also building businesses online. And I ended up actually becoming a Facebook accredited trainer. Through that first trip to London, somebody I met introduced me to this program called, she means business. And I was a Facebook and Instagram accredited trainer. But because I was doing all social media, I needed to know about all the social media platforms. And I kind of realized that when I spent time on LinkedIn, it turned into business much faster than it did on the other platforms. At the same time, with the whole moving outside of Northern Ireland, I started to invest in coaching. And I worked with a couple of English coaches initially. And then I listened to a podcast. And this is where my love of podcasting came from, as well. I listened to a podcast by an American lady called Natalie. And she just She's published over 500 episodes of that podcast, and I listened to it religiously, every Thursday morning, I'd go out with the dog and listen to this podcast. And I thought, this is the person I want to work with. And I ended up working with her in 2018. And she suggested to me that I niche down to one social media platform. And I thought, Well, Facebook and Instagram is great. But there's so many people who are Facebook and Instagram experts. Nobody's really touching LinkedIn. And companies want to know by LinkedIn. I remember speaking at a, like a middle management conference thing at my local council. And they asked me to come along talk about social media. And I talked about Facebook and Instagram and Twitter, and LinkedIn very briefly, because I didn't know a lot about it to be quite honest. And that was all the questions were about LinkedIn. It was all people in suits, from businesses, from manufacturing companies from all sorts of more corporate companies. And all they wanted to ask was LinkedIn and I thought, I don't really know I can't answer these questions. So I knew that there was appetite for it. There was a huge gap in the market back then. Nowadays, so many people call themselves LinkedIn consultants and trainers. And you know, and they are and they're grand, but back then there wasn't very many because it wasn't seen as cool or sexy to be a LinkedIn trainer. And so that's I thought right let's see, let's see. And like with everything, Andy, I test things out, I don't I don't make split decisions and just go all in on something. I thought, let's focus on this and see what happens. And pretty quickly, it became obvious that this was going to be my niche, because I got asked, I mean, so many things happened. I got asked for LinkedIn training workshops. I also applied to be a speaker. I spoke at three conferences in 2019, two in London and one in America, about LinkedIn, and you don't get invited to speak at a conference. like that, if you are a generalist, if you're a specialist, yes you do. You get invited to speak on podcasts because you're a specialist not because you're a generalist. And I also started to write for Social Media Examiner, which is the world's biggest social media training organization, they run Social Media Marketing World in San Diego. And I became one of their LinkedIn writers. So everything just aligned. And I was able to say, I'm not doing the other social media platforms, it did take me ages to give up the other ones. I didn't advertise them. But I did work, I work with somebody and I ran there, I actually ran their political campaign for them to get elected. And that client, I didn't let go with that client for ages because I really enjoyed working with them. They weren't paying anywhere near my normal prices. But I did politics A level and I'm passionate about politics. So I kind of kept that. And that was the final one that I let go off to say I am no longer doing other social media.
Andy Follows:So how many years is it since you've started focusing on LinkedIn?
Louise Brogan:I would say it was started 2019 I went all in on LinkedIn.
Andy Follows:Right. So coming up five years, and just give us some idea of what that looks like now in terms of your business, you're you've got a successful YouTube channel, for example, just tell me how into LinkedIn you are now and how successful it is.
Louise Brogan:Yeah, so the core business is that we do LinkedIn content for our clients. So companies hire us because they don't have the time, the knowledge or frankly, want to do LinkedIn, but they know they need to be on there. So they are happy to outsource to us. Now it's not that they outsource and forget about it, we work together, it's very much a working together partnership, and I am a lifelong learner, I love working out new things. I like to learn what's happening. I think that's why podcasts are so good, because you keep really, what's new, what's happening, what's happening next. And video is our core offering now for LinkedIn. Because there's multiple reasons but, it sounds funny, because a lot people are like it's not easy. The way I do video with clients makes it easy for them. They show up on video on LinkedIn, and their peers are like, it's amazing what you do on LinkedIn with your regular videos, and it's how we operate behind the scenes. So I will record a one hour video with a client each month and we take that video recording and we create short video clips to post on LinkedIn. We take the transcript and we write posts from it and articles and newsletters and we repurpose the life out of that one hour video, all the client does is show up for that one hour. It's not even an hour, sometimes it can be 40 minutes, I interview them. I'm not in the video, at the end result, it's literally just them on screen talking to me. So the person watching on LinkedIn feels like they're talking to them because they are literally talking to me. So that's our main core offering. We also do LinkedIn training, which I love. I love doing training and workshops with people, I do those one to one. And I do them with organizations and companies. And I read a lot as well as listening to podcasts. And my business is based on the built to sale book, which talks about having a productized service. So my productised service whether you train with me one to one, or I do a workshop with your team, it is 2 90 minute sessions. In the first 90 minutes, we go through your entire LinkedIn profile, we rewrite it together. In the second 90 minutes, I show you everything you need to know to be able to get started creating content, networking, sharing on LinkedIn and getting leads into your business. And I have been doing that for five years. It's all about trying to scale and grow your business and bringing other people in to do what you do. And I don't see how anyone could do what I do in terms of that training piece. Because it literally comes out of my head. It's not written down how I operate. But also I really love doing it. It's not something I want to hand over to other people to do within my business. So there is there's a whole piece about what size do you want your business to be and how big do you want to be etc, etc. So we do the content done for you. We do the training and consultancy. And then I love creating stuff. I have a LinkedIn newsletter, which I got consistent at because I want to write a book about how to use LinkedIn. And the best way for me to do that to hold myself accountable to writing the book I discovered was writing it as a newsletter on LinkedIn every Sunday morning. So the core of my book is all my newsletters that are on LinkedIn already. I record my podcast, I do it. I enjoy it, but doesn't really drive my business forward. Driving my business forward is actually being on other people's podcasts. And then the YouTube channel because I am now doing content done for you with my team. I have a team of writers and people who make the graphics but I'm doing the content done for you service. I'm doing the training and consultancy. I'm still doing my podcast. And now I have this YouTube channel, which is my passion project, which I absolutely love. And I'm writing a book, so I'm still quite a busy person.
Andy Follows:But your YouTube channel, this passion project is not insignificant. Is it? How many subscribers?
Louise Brogan:No it's not, it's amazing. I am so passionate about it. I now have over 50,000 subscribers, can I tell you a little bit of a story about how the YouTube channel came into being
Andy Follows:please do.
Louise Brogan:So in the pandemic, I was so lucky to have a core little group of I call them my English mastermind because everyone else lives in England. There's five of us, me three guys and an amazing Australian lady who lives in Newcastle, England. And we had put together a mastermind at the end of 2019, maybe January 2020. And it was a lifesaver when lockdown happened because we were on talking to each other every week. It was amazing. But two of the guys on that are YouTube experts who speak at YouTube conferences globally, one runs a video marketing company one runs YouTube channels. Basically you can go on watch movies on the Internet through his YouTube channel. And in one of our meetings, I just popped up and said guys, I got an email from YouTube to say I have a video with 10,000 views. And they said oh didn't know you had a YouTube channel, Louise and I said Neither did I. So back when I was doing all the Facebook stuff, I'd like 2015 2016 I had stuck up a few videos about Facebook, on YouTube. I just forgot about them. I think it was like how to share your blog post on the Facebook. And this video had been quietly in the background just growing people watching it. And so Tom and Luke said to me, you know, Louise, you should think about YouTube for your LinkedIn business. I was like, Oh, I don't know about YouTube. And I thought we all are locked down. And I'm in my office, my three teenagers are working away on our school was sending them home all the work, they were working on their work, my husband was working in the other room I'm like, Oh, what am I gonna do with myself? Well walk around the garden building up my steps. Okay, let's have a go at this YouTube thing. So I started to play with it. And people started to watch it. But also, our prices are not cheap to work with us. So the one to one training that I do is $2,000. So that's about 1600 pounds in today's exchange rate. So a lot of people would come to me and say, oh, I need help with LinkedIn, Louise, but I haven't really got started yet. And I would say oh, okay, that's not a problem. Here's loads of videos, you can go and watch. And I would send people over to YouTube. And it became a resource in my business. Because I don't like saying to somebody, oh, well, sorry, you can't afford it, cheerio. Somewhere that every time someone said that, to me, I'm like, Oh, well here, go go watch these videos, I also started to get a lot of people who are using LinkedIn, in their professional career. And our content done for you is mainly for companies. It's for businesses. And it's a very different way to use LinkedIn. So and I have worked with people who are in their professional career and want help optimizing their profile. And I do do that work. But it's a very different look and feel to if you're using it to build your business how we approach it. So a lot of the videos I started to do for people in their careers, like how to upload your resume onto LinkedIn is one is such a popular video. It's crazy. It's not something I would ever do with my clients because they're not looking for a job. And I started to get a lot of people coming from countries like India, who are watching these videos and say how helpful they were. So I like to give back a little bit Andy you know, I like to I like to support people in other countries. You know, we like to we sponsor a woman every year through the Women for Women International to upskill. And I feel like it when you're earning good money personally, I want to give back to other people. So I love the fact that there are people out there who will never in a million years pay what I charge, but they are getting so much value out of the content that I'm putting on YouTube. And that's where that's why it is a passion project. I love it. I love the comments that I get. Now that I've got 50,000 subscribers. I've had a tiny number of complainers. The biggest complaints I have and I get I'm talking like count on one hand, is when I first started because I had no idea what I was doing. I used to type and it's literally like, like a tonne of elephants in the room because I type really loudly. I learned to type at school and I was a touch typist, and I really hit the keyboards, and a couple of guys said, you know, I can't watch this video your typing has to loud.
Andy Follows:Let me take a moment to tell you about our sponsor. This episode is brought to you by ASKE Consulting who are experts in executive search, resourcing solutions and talent management across all sectors of the automotive industry in the UK and Europe. I've known them for almost 20 years and I can think of no more fitting sponsor for Career-view Mirror, they're the business we go to at Aquilae when we're looking for talent for our clients and for projects that we're working on. ASKE was founded by Andrew McMillan, whose own automotive career includes board level positions with car brands and leasing companies. All ASKE consultants have extensive client side experience, which means they bring valuable insight and perspective for both their employer and candidate customers. My earliest experience of working with Andrew was back in 2004, when he helped me hire regional managers from my leasing Sales Team at Alphabet. More recently, when Aquilae was helping a US client to establish a car subscription business. ASKE Consulting was alongside as helping us to develop our people strategy, and to identify and bring on board suitable talent. Clients we've referred to ASKE have had an equally positive experience. Andrew and the team at ASKE are genuinely interested in the long term outcomes for you and the people they place with you. They even offer the reassurance of a two year performance guarantee, which means they have skin in the game when working with you. If you're keen to secure the most talented and high potential people to accelerate your business and gain competitive advantage, do get in touch with them and let them know I sent you. You can email Andrew the team at Hello@askeconsulting.co.uk or check out their website for more details and more client feedback at www.askeconsulting.co.uk. ASKE is spelt ASKE. You'll find these contact details in the show notes for this episode. Okay, let's get back to our episode. So how many people are actually on LinkedIn?
Louise Brogan:Well over 1 billion people have accounts for LinkedIn. How many people use LinkedIn? That's a very, very different story. And then how many people actually post on LinkedIn is a completely different story. So there's a billion account holders, there are a lot of dormant accounts. I think the number of people who are looking at LinkedIn on a monthly basis is probably more around 200 to 300 million people, which is still enormous. Yeah, 60 million companies have LinkedIn pages. I do know that stat, because I speak about LinkedIn for companies specifically. I also know that pre pandemic, it was around 300 to 400 million accounts. So LinkedIn blew up during the pandemic. And that was because all of these people in corporates and especially in sales, were no longer able to go out and network and meet people in person a call in and see their prospects or go to conferences. And they needed to go somewhere to drive the sales in the business and to have the conversations. So they went to the platform that is trusted by most people because it is a tight ship LinkedIn. You don't tend to find ignorance or rudeness, you know, that kind of stuff on LinkedIn on the whole, and it's owned by Microsoft lots of people don't realize. So Microsoft own LinkedIn.
Andy Follows:I didn't know that. No.
Louise Brogan:Yeah, so they bought it well before the pandemic, and they are heavily invested in it, which is also why there's so much AI on LinkedIn, because you may or may not and also know that Microsoft are heavily invested in chat GPT. Okay, so I think they own 50% of the company behind chat GPT. And there are so many AI features on LinkedIn. But it's changing a lot, because a lot of the features are only available to people when they start to pay for premium services. And the premium services are coming at us thick and fast on LinkedIn.
Andy Follows:Okay, let's Sorry, I just want to because there's a few questions already, from what you've just said, if you don't mind. Let's go back to the salesperson because you brought up the salespeople during COVID, who couldn't connect. I mean, that's a great use case, isn't it for LinkedIn? So if that's me, if I am a salesperson, how should I go about using LinkedIn?
Louise Brogan:Ok, so if you think of LinkedIn as being like an in person conference, this is my favorite analogy about LinkedIn
Andy Follows:I've heard you say this, and I think it's fabulous.
Louise Brogan:Yep so I'm a sales person. So I'm in charge I'm Head of Sales for an EV battery company. Okay. And I want to go to where my EV battery colleagues are, where the people are, who want to learn about EV batteries and where I'm going to hear most from the experts on what's new in EV batteries. So if we take this off the internet, that is going to be a conference about EV. When you're going to that conference, I am going there as a salesperson, so I'm going to dress appropriately. If you think of LinkedIn, as being the conference, dressing appropriately, is optimizing your LinkedIn profile. So when I look at your profile, you look like a professional person that I would want to have a conversation with. So make sure your profile is up to date. And your photograph is a clear head and shoulders shot. So that if I did meet you in person, I'd actually recognize you for a start. So before you even go to the conference, you prepare, who's going to be speaking? Who do I want to connect with? What am I going to say to people, when I meet them, you prepare everything in advance, and the same thing with LinkedIn. So you prepare your profile and you decide if I'm going to use this platform LinkedIn, who am I going to connect with? Who do I want to find on there? And what am I going to say? Because you are a professional, and you want to build your career in sales. I suggest when you go to the conference, or when you go to LinkedIn, you focus on talking about the area that you work in, you don't start talking about your holidays, you could talk about books that inspire you. But you know, remember, this is your professional network. So you go to the conference, you're dressed appropriately, you walk in the door, and you see people that you already know. Or you've arranged to meet them ahead of time. You walk up to that person and you catch up with them. And they say, Oh, I'm hosting a workshop later. Do you want to come you say, oh, yeah, cuz I like what you talk about in that. So come along to that. On LinkedIn, as you go to your LinkedIn newsfeed and you see posts from people you already know who you're talking about EV batteries or the latest thing in the EV world and you comment underneath their posts. You don't see Bob, who you know from EV Battery Company A across the room wave at him and walk on, which is the equivalent of doing the thumbs up emoji button reaction button on his post, okay, you have a conversation with him if you are keen to build your career and sales. Then you'll meet somebody new. So you go into the room where there's a speaker. So on LinkedIn, this is it could be let's use Marcus Sheridan, because he's and he talks about sales. So this is a guy on LinkedIn and you, you follow him because he's somebody who works in your industry. And you read his posts or you watch his videos, this is you at the conference going in and hearing this person speak on stage. And the person sitting next to you, you turn to them. And you say, Well, I'm not really sure if I agree with that, or what did you think about that, or you might have a chance to speak to Marcus after his talk and you ask him things. On LinkedIn, this is your comment section, you engage with those people. The other people who are in that comment section are also interested in EV batteries slash sales. These are the people you want to connect with. And the next time you go to the conference, you catch up. There's Bob again. Hey, Bob, how's it going? Did you get that deal done? Have you seen this new thing that's coming along? It's all about building relationships. At the conference, you go for a coffee after you've seen Marcus speak on stage and you meet somebody brand new in the coffee queue. What do you do, Andy? You don't stand there, buy your coffee and walk off and stand on your own scrolling on your phone, I hope. You speak to the person in the coffee queue. Did you just say see you that? Did I see you there? What do you think oh, what do you do? And you ask people about themselves. You don't go here's my business card. Here's our three things we're selling in EV batteries bye, you know, you build relationships, you meet people and you connect with them. You have conversations.
Andy Follows:So that business card that here's my business card here are the three things we're doing bye that is the equivalent of sending someone a direct message to their LinkedIn that just says those things without making any effort to connect.
Louise Brogan:You get them all the time. Hi Louise, you look like the perfect person for our MBA program. Here's all the information about it. Would you like to speak? No, I don't know who you are.
Andy Follows:Exactly. I think this is a really helpful paradigm or way to view LinkedIn this analogy if you like, just like a conference because it really helps. Yeah, helps people feel more comfortable with it. I used to have I'll admit I'll confess I used to have you know a negative reaction. I just feel really uncomfortable going through LinkedIn, all of the self promotion going on, as I saw it didn't sit comfortably with me. But when you position it like that as a conference and how to behave, it really makes it more acceptable, palatable and navigable.
Louise Brogan:And you know, the goal Andy is for you and me to be the speaker on the stage, for you and me to post something on LinkedIn, or post a video and for people in the audience to have conversations underneath that with you and with the other people in the network. And I spoke at a few conferences this year, but I went to a small Women's Conference in Bournemouth in March. And I loved it, because the speakers on stage were so interesting, and they were sharing stuff that I could take away and use. They didn't stand up there and tell me their life story, and just self promote, and then try and get me to sell something. So think about that. On LinkedIn, the way we work with clients and the way I try to create content on LinkedIn, it's What can I share today that's going to help my audience. There's another book, I do love reading Will it help the boat go faster? I don't know if that's the name of the book, but it's about the Olympic rowing team, you know one little thing will help the boat go faster. Can you create content that helps other people. So if you are in the EV battery world, and you've decided my rule on LinkedIn is to help people understand why they should move to getting an electric car, you're not going to stand and say, you know, here's why our cars are amazing, and you should buy them. But what about here's the benefits of having an electric car, here are three ways to get a longer, longer distances in your car, share helpful advice to people and people love that and they engage with you. And they see you start to become the thought leader in your space. Because when we talked about the numbers on LinkedIn, the truth of the matter is about 3% of people on LinkedIn, post anything. So it is super easy to be seen as an expert in your field because nobody else is really doing it.
Andy Follows:Right. And how do I sort of curate my field if you like, and you've touched on this in terms of, but say, you've got to got into LinkedIn years ago, but without any real intentionality or strategy or understanding how it works even So you ended up with this smorgasbord of people popping up in your newsfeed. And you might want to think right actually I need to be more intentional about I want to create the conference that Louise referred to this should be more like walking into a conference. So what's a good way to go about tidying that up?
Louise Brogan:So, systematically, when you're on LinkedIn, start to unfollow people who are not talking about the area that you want to talk about. Don't disconnect from them. Because let's go back to the job that I had that I left 11 years ago. I'm not going to remove myself from that network of people. But I'm not going to follow their content, because I'm not really interested in the inner workings of IT within the health service. However, because those people worked with me, and they know the kind of person I am the kind of professional I am. If I unfollow them, they will still see what I post. I just won't see what they post. So they might be following me and seeing my content. And then they're at a barbecue or a business breakfast, and someone says, oh, we need to do something about our LinkedIn. And they'll say Jennifer will say, Oh, Louise Brogan talks about that. Have you not seen her? She's on LinkedIn, go and check her out. So don't disconnect unless someone is being actually abusive or ignorant or sharing stuff that offends you unfollow them, and you won't see what they're sharing. But they still may see what you're sharing. I say May, Andy because not everyone sees what you post anyway. The second thing to start doing is be intentional about leaving comments under people's posts that you do want to see more of and engage more of. So for example, if we go back to our sales person, if they want to be seen as an expert, or raise their profile in the EV battery industry, then I suggest they are posting comments on people within that industry that they're connected to, or they may not be connected to, but leaving comments under those posts. And LinkedIn then knows that that's what they want to see and therefore serves them up more posts like that, and more posts from the people that they're engaging with. So it doesn't take very long to teach LinkedIn what you want to see it and you'll start to curate a newsfeed of people that are interesting to you, people who are interested in what you're doing thought leaders, that kind of stuff. And you get suggested posts, and then LinkedIn will say, are you interested in this content? You say yes or no. So they know what to serve you next. And to be honest, all social media works the same way. YouTube even works the same way. If you go to YouTube, and you watch a video about the Paris Olympics, and you're watching the I don't know the dressage, then you're going to serve loads of videos about dressage for the next few weeks to see if you're still interested in that. And LinkedIn is the same, you start to comment on EV battery content. It'll say, Oh, are you? Are you interested in this EV battery person, and suggest people to so curate the news feed that you want to see, don't disconnect from people in your past business life because you still want to be seen by them
Andy Follows:Yeah, so don't be too thorough with your cleaning up, stay connected, yes, but stop following them. And we all need a network and you still want to be doing this. It's still valuable to be tidying up your LinkedIn newsfeed enriching it with people who in the real world, you'd love to be connected with at the conference. Don't be one of the 97% be in the 3%. Or even that, presumably, a larger number, who actually comment without posting? Or are we talking about cuz posting is when you originate something and you stick that up there. So more people are commenting. But I'm imagining some people are even a little bit shy to comment. And hopefully by you describing that conference scene where of course, in the coffee queue, you would say, What did you make of the last speaker, wouldn't you?
Louise Brogan:Yeah, you know, Andy I think the biggest fear people have is about putting themselves out there. I hear this every week. These are the people that I work with, they say, It frightens me, I'm fearful, you know, I'm worried, what are people going to think about me, etc, etc. And I think early on in my business, maybe I thought, well, what have I got to lose? I need to build this business up. And I remember thinking, what's the worst that can happen? Is someone going to actually come out of this webcam? And hit me in the face? Well, it never happened. But you know, you tiptoe into the scene, you get used to the water. Right.
Andy Follows:I love that. So entering a comment is tiptoeing into the sea. Yeah, just checking the temperature. Yes. So we mentioned you mentioned the spam, don't be a spammer? What is the better way to do that? If there's somebody out there, and I think I'd love to build a connection with that person, is it follow them, comment on their posts, get into their peripheral vision, if you like, or their peripheral awareness, let them get to know you for a little while before you hit them with something direct?
Louise Brogan:Yes, and I would say as well, LinkedIn is not an overnight success thing, you have to put the work in, the closest I can think of to me, because I'm not I'm not building a career looking for professional jobs. But one of my goals was to be a podcast guest. And I did this really successfully. I didn't pitch myself to podcasters, I actually listened to their podcasts, and I respond to their social media posts about their podcasts, so I would follow them. And then when they put up a post about the podcast that came out that week, I had actually listened to it. And I would leave a comment about what I thought about it. And so few people do that,
Andy Follows:I was gonna say, I bet they loved you.
Louise Brogan:They absolutely loved me. And I think in terms of if you have a ideal job that you'd like to get to, maybe you've always wanted to work at this particular company, go to their company page on LinkedIn. And number one, follow them, then look and see who works in that company. Did any of them go to the same university as you? Does any of them look like someone who's at the same level as you, reach out and connect with that person, but to get noticed by the company as well, nobody comments on company page posts. It is so flippin easy to get noticed by an organization by commenting on their content on LinkedIn, or share something to your network from that, but look and see who works at that company. And if they went to the same school as you or maybe there's a person who looks like maybe they are somebody you could connect with based on their job title, go and look at their LinkedIn profile, read their LinkedIn profile. What have they written in their about section? Is there anything there you can connect over? Connect with them and just literally say, you know, I'm really interested in you know, and I thought it'd be really good to add you to my network here on LinkedIn. I'm interested to see you know, what kind of stuff you're sharing. It's not stalkerish or anything. That's the other thing people think oh, but how can I connect with them? This this is a professional network. It's professional. You're supposed to connect with you People, you go to the conference and you see somebody across the room and you think, Ah, I think that's the person in charge of that new project they've just been signed to, you've got to pull on your big boy pants and go over there and introduce yourself Andy. Come on, you can do it. I'm cheering
Andy Follows:I love it. Absolutely super. So what you've you on. just given us that is, let's not be scared, what's the worst thing that can happen, no one's gonna come out of the screen and punch you. However, don't just scream at people through their DMS, don't try and kiss them on the first date type of thing. Look for areas of real common interest and pick up on those and without a view to selling them anything, necessarily, this is about can I build a connection with this person. And if the objective is to build the connection, then I can be successful at that I might not sell anything, if if I'm meant to sell something to this person. If this person wants something I have, then we'll get to that in due course. But the bit I can be in control of is doing a good job of building a connection. That's my first task. Okay.
Louise Brogan:Your next task. This is a strategic helper, if I have five key people that I want to do business with, and they have accepted my LinkedIn connection request, and I'm promising Louise, I'm not going to spam them. What you can do though, once they accept your connection request, go to their profile. And on the introductory card, which is the bit at the top that has your name and your headline. On the right hand side, once you connect with somebody, you will see a little bell. If you click the bell, Andy, you will be notified every time that person posts on LinkedIn. So you go to LinkedIn in a couple of days time. And Andy has posted something, it shows up in your notifications. So you go to Andy's post, and you read what he said, and you leave a comment underneath. So you're not having to check has this person posted or not? So that's called the notifications bell. And the first question, people always come back at me and say, Louise, I don't have a notifications bell on my profile. No, you can't see your own, you can only see it on people you are connected to. And that is more strategic way of staying top of mind for that person, connect with them, engage with their content, but also get away nudge from LinkedIn to say when that person's posted something
Andy Follows:So I can ring their bell of someone. And then this is me focusing on that connection. This is going to be one of my priority connections that I'm going to invest in. In the coming days and weeks, I'm going to be commenting, at what point when I might think I'm actually going to send this person a message then
Louise Brogan:Oh sorry, whenever you connect with them, you should send them a message, not a sales message. Just a message, you know, in the coffee queue, what would you say to me? Hey, Louise, I love what you said there about EV batteries. So the other thing is LinkedIn has limited the number of free messages you can send when you connect with somebody if you haven't got a premium account, to five a month, which is crazy. But my what my get around for that is if I send you a connection request without a message, or a personalized invite, and you accept then I send you a message and say, Oh, thanks so much for accepting. It's great to connect with you, I see we both belong to the Milton Keynes Chamber of Commerce or whatever, there is and little steps here. So they come back and say, Oh, thanks so much, Louise. Actually, I saw one of your videos on YouTube. Then I go back to say, Oh, brilliant, I hope it was helpful. Do you remember which one it was? And they come back and they say, Oh, how to build your company page on LinkedIn? And then I'll say, Oh, great. I'm glad you found it useful, you know, you are you build your company page on LinkedIn. happy to chat if you want more information, because that is a warm lead. I'm not going to jump in there and say, or watch the video on company pages. Oh, I run training on that. Do you want to talk to me about hiring me for training, no no conversation conversation conversation, where I am a bit more direct or intentional is and this is probably more of the entrepreneur business listeners is I have decided I've planted a flag in the sand. I like to experiment and test things out. I'm doing a free webinar every two weeks at the minute. So I've done three and I'm doing my next one in a couple of weeks time. And with that it's an easy invite to say if someone connects with me and says hi Louise fine, you know, blah, blah, blah. And I say oh, I've got a I've got a free webinar next Thursday. Would you be interested in hearing about it? Again, I don't say I have a free webinar next Wednesday. Here's the link sign up. I think I learned this from the American coaches I've worked with Andy it's you ask permission from people. Would you be interested in hearing more about it? If they say yes then you say well look, here's here's the details. And also you could do that if your company has developed like a white paper, or if you have a book, and someone connects with you and says, Oh, I love what you said about XYZ and you say, Oh, thanks so much. Well, I actually have a podcast about that. Would you like like me to send you the link? You know, just simple conversations.
Andy Follows:I love this. You're not overstepping any marks, or they can ignore your if they want? Or they can say yes, then you can point them in the direction.
Louise Brogan:Yes. From the recipient point of view as well. So if you're receiving this kind of thing, because I do speak on people's podcasts and stuff, and I get a lot of people connect with me and send a wee message. And then I'll say something like, Oh, I love what you said about XYZ. Oh, shall we book a coffee chat? And I'm thinking, No, I don't have time to have coffee chats with people, I don't know, I don't really know you yet. But instead of running away and disconnecting from them, I just say, thanks so much. I don't really have the capacity for that at the moment. But it's really good to be connected, you know. So you can also gently push people away.
Andy Follows:Yeah. You mentioned sort of the difference between premium LinkedIn and free LinkedIn, is there a sort of size of business? Or is there a usage case for LinkedIn where it suddenly becomes important that you have the premium features? And how much are we talking about for that sort of thing?
Louise Brogan:Well, I just cancelled my company page premium subscription this morning. So I can tell you how much is that £65 plus vat a month. So there's so many different layers of premium there is premium career, which I don't know too much about. Andy, I'll be honest, I haven't investigated that there's premium business, which is about£45 a month. There are some people who are grandfathered in at the initial price they signed up at, there is Sales Navigator, which is I'm flipping into dollars here. I don't know why. But it's $79 a month. That's like a whole different platform that sits on top of LinkedIn. But if we look at premium business account, which is this standard one that people would upgrade their personal profiles onto, when do you get it, you don't need it until you are driving lots of interesting business through LinkedIn. The key things that I use it for is you can I book an appointment with me directly from my LinkedIn profile. Also, all of my LinkedIn posts, at the top of every single one of my posts, it says book an appointment underneath my name. And that's a premium feature, which is very nice. That links through to my inquiry form, they have a new integration with Calendly. If people are using Calendly, to book an appointment through Calendly, you can also say visit my portfolio, visit my website to find out more about us, there's lots of different options. The other thing that I find it useful for is you can see who has viewed your profile. And that is useful if you want to follow up on leads. So say we've been at a conference in May. We're now in July, and the person you had a conversation with about the new EV battery that you're selling, is looking at your profile. And not only that somebody else in their company is looking at your profile, well jump into that straightaway. Because they're interested in what you're doing. And I don't mean like send them a link to book a call with you. I mean go back to your messages and send them a message saying, Hey, Andy, there was it's a while since we chatted over EV batteries at the conference in May, how's things. And then I don't know other people who work in my field things like this. But quite often I just say, Hey, Andy, I saw you're looking at my profile is there anything I can help wit? Sometimes, you know, sometimes you have got to go for the sale as well.
Andy Follows:So you see someone has checked you out on your profile, and you see more of those if you've paid because I'm on the free version. And I just see one person, maybe or a handful or something. So then you would actually say, Hey, I noticed that you were looking, did you say can I help you with anything? Is there anything I can help you with, as simple as
Louise Brogan:Yeah. It really depends Andy on what we have that previously spoken about me and that person. So maybe they're my ideal client, but I've never I don't know who they are. That's Yeah, super natural, relevant, authentic different. So it depends how much I knew the person already, if I only have one conversation with them. That might be the person I say, you know, can I help with anything? And if I've already had a sales call with this person, or I've met them at an event, and they said we should we think about LinkedIn training at our company, because people literally say this stuff out loud to me. And I'm like, Oh, note to self. And then I say Oh, hi. Hi, Barbara. Are you still thinking about LinkedIn training with your company? Yeah. So it's not a copy and paste people have said to me, can you not give us messages to send? No, because that doesn't sound like you.
Andy Follows:Well that was this a lovely link to one of my questions, which was going to be if you're managing comments content on behalf of someone else, how does that remain authentic? Or how do you create that authenticity? Because I see some posts on LinkedIn. Sometimes you can sort of tell looking at them that they they're a bit generic. So how do you overcome that risk? If you like?
Louise Brogan:It's such a great question. I think that's why I love the video so much, because it actually is the other person's words. So we don't work with hundreds of people on this, we work with at the minute I think we've got seven companies we're working with on this. So when we do the video, I literally take the transcript, and we use the transcript to write the posts. So it is in the words and the language that the And then I'm imagining you would coach those on the personal person is using. And then we send it to the person to get approval, and they might make tweaks or edits to it. We do not log in as anybody else on LinkedIn, because that is against terms. So we do not comment as an individual on LinkedIn, because that goes against terms. And the last thing I want to do is get my business shut down for breaking terms and conditions, which also means I have zero sight of your inbox, I will never see your private messages on LinkedIn, we use a third party called Cloud campaign. And I'll give you a link for that that you can put in the show notes for people, we send a link to our clients, they add their personal profile login to the cloud Campaign software, we have no sight of their password, or even the email they use to log into LinkedIn. We can then post content as them, but we cannot comment as them or see their inboxes. Now company pages is just it's much easier you just get at you get added as a super admin to the company page. And you can post directly on LinkedIn schedule, upload stuff, you can reply as the page to comments, etc, etc. But it's a tight ship. You know, we work really closely with clients, if we're going to comment on the company page and something comes up that I think I'm not exactly sure what they will say about that. I'll just reach out and ask them. So we know that everybody is happy with what's going out there. But yeah the personal content is scheduled using a third party tool, but there's no logins and there's no sight of personal message exchanges. side, you'd coach the profile holder to, if there are comments jump in And I'll nudge them. I do have clients that I work with where we don't write their content for them. But we we have a strategy meeting once a month. And it's about guidance, because a lot of people were like, well, I don't want someone else to write my posts on my personal LinkedIn. And that's fine. I'll suggest well look here, maybe this could be the strategy. And then here's how I'd respond to that. Or why don't you try this, you know. So there's this strategic hand holding piece that I do with some clients as well, which I get a lot from because as I said, like a lot of the people we work with are not completely comfortable with social media, which is why they come to someone like me in the first place. They know they should be on here, they knew what's going to help them grow their business, but it makes them feel a bit sick the thought of it
Andy Follows:I'm sure there are plenty of listeners out there who feel that same way. And I was going to ask you, if I'm not comfortable curating my own content, I don't see myself as a creator, then is there still a way I can participate? And I think you've very clearly answered that. Yes, there is you can come to come to you. And you'll do the heavy lifting. You'll help them create something authentic and genuine that works and is using their own words, their own video, and even people get nervous about video, but it will just be a conversation between you and them that will then end up being a video
Louise Brogan:yes. I'm pretty good at pulling information out of people, which I think is the best way to be for LinkedIn, because so I've got a new client, and they are in the ESG space. And the questions I'm asking them on our onboarding call. And I say sort of clients like this might sound really simplistic to you. But if you want people on LinkedIn to understand what it is you're talking about, then I should be able to understand what you're talking about. And if you think well Louise, it's much more complicated than that. thing is you're going to post that on LinkedIn, no one's going to respond because everybody's going to be a bit baffled.
Andy Follows:It's a good filter, isn't it? Because It's so easy for us to get so caught up and familiar and comfortable with what we know.
Louise Brogan:Yes. And the thing is, Andy, if you can talk about stuff in a way that everybody understands, you want people to engage on your content, right? So if you talk about something in a way that I'm just like, I don't know what he means, so I'm not going to comment and if you talk about something in a way everyone thinks, yeah, I really love that I feel comfortable enough to leave a comment here. I may not be your ideal client. And in fact, most times the people that respond underneath are not your ideal client. However, by getting people to respond underneath, it pushes your posts right in front of all the lurkers, the 97% of people who are scrolling and reading and lurking. And it's putting you front and center right in front of them. And that's what you want. It is very rare for someone to sign up to work with me, having commented on my content on LinkedIn, the people who hire me, are the people who are not comfortable using LinkedIn. That's why they hire me.
Andy Follows:Of course, yeah, yeah,
Louise Brogan:there's a Canadian podcasting coach that her and I comment on each other's stuff all the time. She coaches, my ideal clients. So I want her to comment on my content, so that her network see me, her clients are not posting and commenting on LinkedIn. And also, interestingly, that's why YouTube has been so good for me, as well as being a resource for me to send people to YouTube is where I get found by a lot of people because they don't know how to use LinkedIn. So they go to Google, and they type in how to build your business on LinkedIn. And my videos are coming up and their results.
Andy Follows:Yeah. So if I am comfortable posting, the sort of posts, I should do, make them accessible. Make sure that anybody can understand the point I'm making, because it won't serve me at all if it's too highfaluting and specialist to do that, and then how frequently should I be posting? And should I be mixing things up a bit? How should I be doing that, and I don't want to hope I'm not being greedy here. Because I don't want to share too many secrets. But I'm also very aware that you can share all the knowledge you have all your best stuff. And people still actually need you to come and do it for them or help you do it.
Louise Brogan:Andy everything I teach is on my YouTube channel, you can just go and watch it over there. It's like the book that I'm writing. It's all there in my newsletters
Andy Follows:So you're not afraid to give away your knowledge.
Louise Brogan:No. Definitely not.
Andy Follows:the best stuff is being given away, because you recognize people still want you to help them
Louise Brogan:Because they want me to work with them. So we talked about an EV battery person knew nothing about. We talked about a salesperson. There's a lady I'm working with handholding for what of a better word monthly. And she is coming up Big Pharma. You know, what do I know about Big Pharma nothing, how many of my videos on YouTube or LinkedIn and Big Pharma zero, but she can see that I know what I'm doing on LinkedIn. And she needs help understanding LinkedIn. And that's what we work together on. And as we talk, I'm pulling things out of her to talk about how she can apply her knowledge on LinkedIn. So how often do you post on LinkedIn? Well, I love if people can post twice a week,
Andy Follows:and you would have one of those be a video.
Louise Brogan:Yes, basically that is our package. We do one video a week, and then one written post a week. And then we also write their newsletter for them. Then what I ask of my clients, and not all of them do this is that they go into LinkedIn on the other days, and comment and engage with other people's posts as well
Andy Follows:What am I trying to achieve by the stuff I post? What's the end in mind?
Louise Brogan:So you want to be seen as a thought leader in your space so that when I'm out and about and someone has a question, I'll say, Oh, you need to speak to Andy about that, that's what he does. Because I see you as the expert in this space. So one of the ladies I worked with is a PowerPoint expert. It's such a brilliant little journey that we've had on together. So we did what I call the LinkedIn VIP sessions together, which is the 2 90 minute one to one sessions. We did her profile, I told her what I thought she should be talking about on LinkedIn, which was how to use PowerPoint for business. She has had so much business out of it. It's been bonkers. She's seen as the expert on PowerPoint, she gets hired by companies to come in and create their whole templates. To work with the people in their organizations you need to go and present how to present using PowerPoint, because it's amazing how badly most people use PowerPoints, for example. So all of her content is about PowerPoint, and she shares all the tips and tricks. And the interesting thing Andy and I see this time and time again with clients I work with is that a lot of people who comment on her stuff are other PowerPoint trainers. And let's not spread this around too many people it's between you and me. If you create a platform for other people who do what you do on LinkedIn, you are seen as the leader and the expert and they are held thing to raise your profile as much as they are their own. So do connect with other people who work in your space.
Andy Follows:Excellent. So really helpful answer to those questions. And this is as relevant if I'm an entrepreneur, or I'm a corporate employee who, particularly in a sales role, where you'd want to reach out and meet people who you might potentially do business with, at some point. If we want to be relevant, you're going to have to be like you a lifelong learner. And the stronger your network is, that's going to be up there with your qualifications and your experience, I see it as one of the pillars, your network is as important as those. So keep building your network and LinkedIn is the place to do that. And as we've heard today, you can do it without having to feel awkward or uncomfortable without being false. You can be authentic, you can be genuine, you can be a human being, you can be yourself, just you happen to be doing it virtually rather than in a physical conference space. So thank you so much for sharing all of your wisdom and hard learnt lessons with us, Louise. So we're going to put in the show notes, your website and your LinkedIn profile, obviously, people can find you and connect. And then there's also something extra you wanted to give the listeners as well, isn't that?
Louise Brogan:Yeah so I have a little guide on the four key ways to approach LinkedIn and helpful tips on what to do on LinkedIn. So it's on Louise brogan.com, forward slash download. Okay,
Andy Follows:so we'll put that in the show notes. And I've just thought there's one other question I didn't ask you. And I would like to because it was relevant to me. There's certainly been a time in my career where I've met people who deliberately did not have a LinkedIn profile, because their perception was that the organization they worked for, saw it that you were actively seeking work. If you were engaging in something like LinkedIn, you clearly weren't committed, loyal, focused, your mind wasn't on the job. Have you come across that?
Louise Brogan:Oh, yes.
Andy Follows:Okay. Is it a risk? Should it or should we be countenancing listeners that hang on if the Culture of your organization is like this, just be a little bit careful before you go all in becoming a thought leader on LinkedIn.
Louise Brogan:So I do think that is changing. The companies that bring me in to train their whole team is usually the marketing manager is tasked with raising the company profile on LinkedIn. And their employees either say, Well, my personal profile is my personal profile. And there may be someone higher up the chain goes, Oh, we teach them all how to use LinkedIn are all going to leave. If you suddenly start showing up on LinkedIn and commenting on you know, recruiters? Yes, of course, it's like, what were they doing
Andy Follows:You look like a great company to work for?
Louise Brogan:I would check in with the marketing team, I look at my own companies LinkedIn company page for a start, the first thing you do is share your company page posts across to your personal network. But the main thing here is do not just repost that post, because there's that's pointless look at what they're saying look what they've written, if it's a good news post, or if it's something about the industry, share it across to your network and write something about it, start a conversation about that post to your network, and just start doing that. But if you work in like a company with like, 20 people, and one of them as the marketing manager, just have a chat with them and say that people are saying, you know, you want to be seen as a thought leader in your space, you should really think about LinkedIn, this is something I'm going to do, they will I'm pretty sure that give you a backing, it's a very outdated way to look at LinkedIn to think Oh, our teams are always start using LinkedIn, they're looking for other jobs, I think that is an old fashioned way to look at things. And maybe that person needs convinced as to why when your employees are active on LinkedIn that actually benefits the company as a whole. Because if their profiles are written properly, there's a connection through to your company page, and people are going to look at your company page, as a result of your employees being active on LinkedIn. So it's about reframing how this looks and maybe the marketing manager should take on that role and say, you know, at the next board meeting or whatever, we think it'd be really great to get some of the team on board with LinkedIn. And here's why. You know, one of the key reasons company pages are being more relevant now Andy is that your future employees are checking out your company on LinkedIn before they even apply for jobs. There are factual statistics around that I don't have to hand but people are looking at your company and who works there before they even consider filling out a job application. So note to any marketing manager listening, try and keep consistent with your company page content, but also I think it's really beneficial to everybody that you get the team on board and posting as well. And to finish on this, just to go back to the conference analogy, if you've taken a stand at the conference, are you not letting your employees talk to anybody there?
Andy Follows:brilliant,
Louise Brogan:or they are standing behind the booth and not allowed to speak, of course not, you've invested in the booth, you've brought the people along, you've spent money on bringing them there, send them out, educate them on what to say, send them out to network and talk to people.
Andy Follows:super. Okay. Thank you again. I've really enjoyed it. I think it's been just genuinely valuable. I think it's fascinating topic, and I'm really pleased to be able to share it with my listeners. And thanks for being so generous with your expertise. Louise
Louise Brogan:absolutely loved it. Andy, thanks so much for inviting me.
Andy Follows:You've been listening to CAREER-VIEW MIRROR with me, Andy Follows. I hope that you enjoyed my conversation with Louise as much as I did. If you'd like more help maximizing the benefits of LinkedIn for yourself, your team or your business, do reach out to Louise and let her know. You'll find her contact details in the show notes to this episode. If you listen to podcasts like Career-view Mirror, I'm guessing that you recognize you can learn from other people. When I'm not recording these conversations with inspiring individuals, you'll find me facilitating guided peer mentoring teams in our Aquilae Academy. We bring together small groups of business owners and senior leaders from non competing organizations and create a virtual environment in which they can get to know and trust each other and share and support each other with their current challenges. If that sounds interesting, email academy@aquilae.co.uk. And we'll send you more details. You'll find that address in the show notes to this episode. Thank you to Louise for joining me to create this episode, thank you to our sponsors, ASKE Consulting and Aquilae. And thank you to the CAREER-VIEW MIRROR team without whom we wouldn't be able to share our guests life and career stories and offer you their expertise. And above all, thank you to you for listening.
Osman Abdelmoneim:No matter how hard you try. No matter how hard working you are, you're never going to be able to do it on your own. It's just not possible. You
Paul Harris:You know, at the end of the day, you're steering your own destiny. So if it's not happening for you, and you're seeing what you want out there, then go out there and connect.
Sherene Redelinghuys:Don't rely on others. You you have to do it yourself. You have to take control.
Rupert Pontin:If you've got an idea if you've got a thought about something that might be successful. If you've got a passion to do something yourself, you just haven't quite got there, do it
Tom Stepanchak:Take a risk. Take a chance stick your neck out what's the worst that can happen? You fall down okay, you pick yourself up and you try again.