Paul: 0:29

Good afternoon. Welcome to another episode of MarketPulse Pros and Pioneers podcast. I'm joined today by one of our earlier guests in the series, Chris Reeve. Chris, lovely to have you back again.

Chris: 0:41

Thank you so much for having me, Paul.

Paul: 0:43

And today's episode is a bit of a deep dive, right? It's a special edition of the MarketPulse podcast because we speak to a lot of Exciting and interesting people and we we love to talk to our marketing experts who've got a deep knowledge. And the feedback I had from the first episode with Chris was absolutely unreal. I loved it. it, it, it's nice to get that kind of engaging conversation from people who are blown away by the passion that you have for the social media side of digital marketing. And what we wanted to discuss on this episode was blowing the lid off LinkedIn, right? This is neither of us trying to be LinkedIn coaches or trainers or any of those things, but looking at it from the perspective of there are still as you point out before the show, Chris, a ton of people who are itching to find business on LinkedIn, but don't have the first clue on how to start and are probably, if I'm fair, petrified. By the, if somebody was to come across my profile first as they were starting out on LinkedIn, they'd be mortified at how much content I put out. And I don't want people to think that's normal. I'm not normal. Without further ado let's get under the, let's get under the bones of this.

Paul (2): 1:52

Chris, for somebody who has never posted on LinkedIn, what should they be thinking about to get themselves moving forward?

Chris: 2:02

I think it's a great starting question, Paul, and I'm sure later on, we'll go into the mindset side of things, which is huge when it comes to LinkedIn, especially video content for LinkedIn, which we're doing a deep dive on today. I think it is important, though, to add that a little bit. If you've not posted before, it's okay because it's something crazy like 85 percent of LinkedIn users are LinkedIn lurkers, what I've coined, and it's then really important to understand that actually just by doing something, you're already going to be better than the majority of not only your peers, but your competition. So just be all right with the fact that you've not done anything just yet. And I think I just really wanted to hammer home the why and the importance of this pool to open up. LinkedIn right now. is Facebook in 2011. right now is what Facebook was in 2011, right? And what that means is it's easier to grow your page now than it ever has been before. And the medium and the creative and the tool that you use to achieve that is LinkedIn Video. Many of you would have already seen, if you haven't clocked it already, I'd be quite surprised, but if you haven't, you go on your Facebook page, LinkedIn app now, and you scroll down, you'll notice that there is a new vertical video feed in LinkedIn. It appears horizontally, and then you click on it, and then it opens up full page, and it looks like TikTok, right? So the guys at LinkedIn have realized, God damn, we're losing so much attention to TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts. We need this, right? This is classic social media platform moves. Now, this is just even more of a reason why you have to be trying, testing, failing, with your video content, especially if you're a key person of influence for your sector. And actually, regardless of even if you deem yourself a key person of influence for your sector or not, you must make advantage of this opportunity now please start now. Because I know for a fact that so many people will not listen to this. And then in five years time, they'll be like, damn, I wish I listened to that Chris Reeve guy on the MarketPulse podcast. Cause he told me to take advantage of the ridiculous organic reach, which for those that don't understand means without putting paid Budget behind it. The organic reach on LinkedIn now is only second to TikTok, right? But TikTok's pushing your content in front of all sorts of random people, right? Whereas your LinkedIn reach, this is the one for you to delve into. So I just wanted to kick off the conversation, Paul. Without torpedoing your question with

Paul: 4:30

Yeah,

Chris: 4:30

you

Paul: 4:31

cause, video. I don't want to do video. I can't even post on LinkedIn yet. What's going on? It's true though, right?

Chris: 4:37

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it is. So many people are challenged by that. But I promise you with the reps, if you liken it to, if any of your audience gym goes or fitness goes, they'll understand the power of repetition, doing the reps, hitting that publish button. And I promise you the benefits of that are absolutely huge, regardless of what you're talking about. I'm seeing a real shift, Paul, on LinkedIn from this corporate, polished, let's be honest, quite boring world to personable, authentic inspiring. And that comes from people doing video content about their personal beliefs, their personal values, their personal challenges, their personal story, not necessarily what the business is doing. So even for the people that have got, and I wouldn't necessarily say writer's block, I'd say video block. This is even more of a reason why you need to start this as soon as possible.

Paul: 5:31

Content block. I think, I was talking with a good friend of mine, Heidi Medina, on the show last week, and Heidi was talking about the power of Just being more human in conversations on LinkedIn. So we had a good conversation about how you reach people through direct messages, how you stop sounding so salesy and pitchy and just think about the thought that would you say this to someone in real life? Cause if you wouldn't, why would you say it on social media at all? And why is LinkedIn any different? And we seem to have this huge gap between LinkedIn and all the other social platforms. And I think there is one, if I'm fair, because LinkedIn is the only one that I like. Everything else is horrible. It's full of trolls and horrible people and negativity and like I, I'm sorry for anybody who loves Facebook and I just, it drains me, right? So LinkedIn is my home. I love LinkedIn and I have a fab audience and network, but it is, to your point none of the days when you needed to be a dinosaur, Who just posted photos of themselves at a conference. Here's what I ate at the conference. Here's what we ate on the nighttime meal. Here's a photo of the awards on the stage. Here that's all great and well. I am not saying don't post that stuff because you should be applauding, those social events. But there's so much more to you. Share beyond that, right? Dig deep and show some vulnerability. And I think the key message for me for LinkedIn for 2024 is, Think about how you'd lead a team in person. If you're a leader, most people are, who are on LinkedIn. You've led a team in real life. How would you lead those people? And how have you done that? What stories would you share with them in real life? Treat LinkedIn very similar. Fair?

Chris: 7:07

fair, Paul. And to further validate that, and I will positively challenge you or disagree with you in other words, if appropriate, but that is totally right. The more you are the better, more impactful and more people, your content will reach, right? It's the most important thing. People are still living in this world of, they need to read a script. It needs to be robotic. They need to say every detail. And actually. I can first hand tell you on behalf of myself and also my clients who are not just local, but national and international, and the more relaxed, the more as if you were just having a conversation with perhaps a family member or a really close friend, the more real, the more you, the more, dare I say, informal you are. The more impactful, more believable, and more trustworthy your content is. And the whole point of social is to speed up the process between prospect and client, prospect and customer. And you can do that. By increasing trust using LinkedIn and the number one piece of content, and I'm not just saying this because I'm on a podcast with you, Paul, I promise you, is video because we are, I'm going to rant now, we are in this AI, fake, dodgy, robot y world where people are using chatGPT and like that is it. Like they're just throwing out copy based content and again, it's okay, you've got to start somewhere. I get that, but that's why the real winners, the real people that are absolutely smashing it right now, are going more them, they're being more authentic, they're being vulnerable, they're not reading off scripts, and scripts are okay, but just try and present it in a relaxed fashion, and I can promise you it will pay off. The other thing, of course, is that, Paul as well, which so many people don't know, I'm not sure if I've I'm just taking over your podcast now, mate. People don't realize that you can send video messages, right? Rather than text based messages, when you're trying to connect with new partners, affiliates, clients, forge new relationships, send a personalized video message. You will increase your response rates. They will go absolutely through the roof. Or you can continue to just get chatGPT to type out some generic content and fling it around and machine gun it. I promise you, if you try that today, I can make us, I can make a stonewall guarantee that your response rates will increase hugely.

Paul: 9:29

It's funny that you mention that because literally before the summer holidays, so back in beginning of July, late June, I had a bit of a competition cause somebody, somebody said to me like, Oh, direct messages on LinkedIn they don't work for lead generation anymore. You've got to send thousands in order to think. And I picked four people over the course of a week. Granted, a lot of people want to reach more, far more than four people, right? But this is the way people, right? Your pipeline, your sales pipeline thought process is broken, right? If that's the way you think you need to go. And Todd Caponi, we had on the show before, he's a big believer in this, in that we build our pipelines around assuming we're not going to reach. 75%, 80 percent of the people that we reach out to. So we've got to have that volume in the first place, but if we're going to reach out to that volume, we can't personalize that. We can't do it manually. So we have to automate that. And that automation then creates the lack of connection, which creates the conversion rate that we see. It's a self fulfilling prophecy. Spit it on its head. I made four outreach messages to four separate people, four very different industries, three different countries, all four of them booked a meeting with me within a week.

Chris: 10:37

That's

Paul: 10:38

And I spent 30 seconds on each message.

Chris: 10:40

Really?

Paul: 10:41

seconds.

Chris: 10:42

Wow. Amazing.

Paul: 10:43

I have a lot of practice. I do a lot of this. I do know what works and what doesn't. But I was also just looking at their profile. It was very simple. When I looked at their profiles, there was a natural connection there. I use that connection, create the message, Oh, I see that you know this person, who I know very well. Or, I see that you're interested in this, and I'm very passionate about that. But you've got to be genuine about those things. I've tried to do the fake thing. It comes unstuck very quickly. Because you can't talk in depth about it.

Chris: 11:15

yeah, I'm so with you, Paul, it pays to go above and beyond and people are trying to cut corners, right? And it's okay as a phase one, but. It will pay huge dividends if you create a personalized video that message that takes you 30 seconds. But if you want to win the business, that is the way to go. And I know that was a tangent, video messages on Prime Messages. You can send voice notes as well, which are also powerful. They're not as powerful as video though, Paul, but they're still a good phase one for people to just get, get practicing with. Apologies to overtake there, but I just really wanted to say to people, even if they don't want to post something publicly, start using video content of yourself being authentic at your desk, wherever you are in the world and sending it to your partners, your affiliates, your clients, your colleagues, and your response rates will be exceptional.

Paul: 12:06

So let's play a game, right? I'm, this is not SAW. You're not going to wake up strapped to a, no, let's not go there. So we are right. Let's assume that I'm, sat on LinkedIn. I've been part of LinkedIn for a while. I've now started my own business. I want to reach people. I see people being successful on LinkedIn. I'm a bit jealous. I don't have a clue where to start. And, I want to s my business just launch my business I'm really excited about. I want to share with them all of the amazing things that I do. Where do I start, Chris?

Chris: 13:01

Pick up this instrument. You might be familiar with it. You go to the camera function, You press record and you say, hi, my name's Chris Reeve. I'm delighted to say that I have launched my business and I thought I would introduce to you all for the first time via video. I'm a little bit nervous on this platform, LinkedIn. Here are the problems that we solve X, Y, Z. If you are also struggling with those challenges, drop me a private message and I'll happily help you anytime. Thanks for listening. And I'll see you in the comments. Stop.

Paul: 13:33

like a pro.

Chris: 13:34

Publish.

Paul: 13:35

Drop that mic. Don't do

Chris: 13:37

And I know that comes with the reps, Paul. I don't I know that doesn't come naturally for people. But that's how chilled, that's how informal it can be. And people will eat that content up for breakfast. In actual fact, Paul, I'm really jealous. of the advantage that people that haven't started yet have got when they first start. It's like when you announce the fact that you've joined a business on your LinkedIn. Boom! Huge engagement. Your first video. Boom! Because LinkedIn will value that you've shared a video, so therefore they'll expose you to so many more people. So that's how I'd start, Paul. And the next thing I'd do, Once I've just started and got going, having that mindset of execution of perfection, which I know we touched on in our last podcast, is then I would implement and develop and constantly tweak and change and optimize. Sorry to throw loads of fluffy marketing phrases at you there in words. A top line strategy, a weekly content plan. Here's what I'm going to post on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. You don't need to sign up to a scheduling tool. You could even use LinkedIn's. Some people still didn't realize that, that this little clock button exists, but before they go to post pool, right? So then you can post content when your target market are more likely to be online, which little tip for you here is not on the half an hour or on the hour, because that's when meetings start and finish. It's probably not during the hours of nine till five to begin with. Because they're busy working, obviously, but what do they do in the morning when they're eating their breakfast, when they're reading the newspaper, flicking through their iPad with their cup of coffee, they're on LinkedIn because they're worried about what they're going to bring to the organization that day. What are they doing on a Sunday night? Once they put the kids to bed and they've made the family meal, they're going on LinkedIn. So think about the timing of things as well. And then once you've got that strategy and you stick to it and you do the reps, Over time, it's like a snowball going down a hill, Paul, which I always say to people, right? And it gets bigger and bigger and bigger. The more content you post over time, you can literally schedule this content a year in advance if you want to as a phase one. It's not difficult now to use an AI tool such as chatGPT that, you

Paul: 15:51

don't do that natively in LinkedIn because it's awful when you want to reschedule something. It's not user friendly. It's alright for two or three posts, but

Chris: 15:57

No, I didn't

Paul: 15:57

more than a week at a time there, please. Just as a word of warning. I'm

Chris: 16:01

But to begin with, get yourself in that mindset. Schedule content in advance. Don't overthink it. Be ever present. And the last piece of advice I'd say, Paul, on LinkedIn specifically, apart from just please do video now and really take the opportunity, is use the advanced connection tool. For example, You are a business in, and I don't know why I've plucked this name out of thin air, Aberystwyth, right? Search that, Geo, into the search bar. Then what will pop out is all of these different options. First degree connections, second degree connections, third degree connections. And then in the far right hand corner, there's a button called all filters. Tap that, then a column comes down like that. People don't realize it exists. You can put them out, I don't know why that sound effect came out, but it

Paul: 16:47

I like it.

Chris: 16:47

Type in managing director or whoever is the decision maker within your sales pipeline, search, then go and connect with all of those people. Not at once because you'll get a shadow ban, but that's how you go out there. You're proactive rather than reactive. Cause that's the thing I, get really triggered and troubled by all the time. Link doesn't work. Yeah, I post stuff and no one sees it. No one responds to it. No one cares. It's because you're not being proactive. You're just waiting. You're just, you're being reactive. You need to be proactive. So go and use the LinkedIn advanced connection tool, press on all filters, type in the job title of your target market and go and connect with those people and then send them a personalized video message. There's just a few things to get started with, Paul.

Paul: 17:29

It's interesting that you say that, like there is, and I don't if you don't post on LinkedIn already, don't bother looking at this tool, right? But behind the scenes and what few people realize is LinkedIn's scoring you for your behaviors on LinkedIn, and they're trying to understand who you are most like, so they can connect you, represent you to those people, and they're trying to figure out whether you're genuine, real, and trying to engage or not, and they will reward. So there is a Social Selling Index. Sounds like a scary thing, your SSI score. It's largely irrelevant, if I'm fair, right? You're either really bad on it, medium, or you're good on it. That's all you need to know. And yes, with more advanced payment plans for LinkedIn Sales Navigator. So if you can get yourself a bit of a boost with that, it can help. It's damned expensive and it's not necessary. But, the point Chris made is really valuable in that. If you are engaging, if you're sending messages to people who reply to you, you get scored up. If you're sending connection requests to people who connect, you get scored up. If you send a pile of connection requests and nobody accepts, you get scored down. So the goal of the game is, certainly at the beginning, is to only make connections that make sense. But here's the caveat. Most people think that means I just go on and connect with all the people I used to work with. And that's fine as a start point, but then you need to broaden beyond that, right? You definitely need to, and my last point with this, and I know you'll have a viewpoint on this, Chris, is people have this thing in their, be in their bonnet about connecting with exactly the right people all the time. That's not what networking is. That's not what LinkedIn is. You're trying to connect with two types of people. One, it definitely is that sort of person that you've identified that's your target market. You really want to connect with them, have good conversations with them, add value. But there are, like, You don't know a lot of them. You find that they're quite hard to reach. However, I can guarantee that there are people out there that are in central roles to those people, who will know loads of those people. They're the power connectors for you, and you need to meet those power connectors. So always be on the lookout for job titles, agencies, businesses. There are those power connectors that sit between your ideal client and their ideal client. Because if you can build a relationship with somebody like that, you've got a constant access to fresh clients, cause they're already doing the hard work for you. And the more of those you can connect to, you can be the person that's connected to the people who are connected. rather than be the person who's connected to everyone.

Chris: 20:10

That's amazing, Paul. And actually, I think some of that is phase two for some people, which is totally cool, by the way, if you know that stuff and you can do that stuff and it's within your ability and your schedule and your capacity, please do that stuff. But what I find really interesting is the stigma around accepting connection requests from anyone, right? And I, sadly, for my first year and a bit on LinkedIn, which was a number of years ago now, as you might be able to tell from my hairline, I was only accepting connection requests. I was only accepting connection requests from people that I'd met face to face and I'd shaken their hands in networking situations, right? Then I opened the floodgates. I did what you've said there, Paul. So I accepted anyone and everyone because you never know who that person is connected with, who they could lead on to. And I think the other thing to consider, not only with your video content, but obviously this accepting connections, going to connect with other people thing is that a key person of influence for their sector, Paul. They need to think about future proofing their business too, right? And I would say, as a Phase 1 before Phase 2, I'd rather you opened up the floodgates and accepted anyone than you just kept it as, I know these 50 people and I'm only gonna connect and engage with them, right? Some really good stuff in there, Paul. And I think that people need to know that bit as well, that it's okay to just start by accepting and connecting With anyone because you never know who that person's going to be connected with.

Paul: 21:42

Yeah, I'd say with experience, there's a happy medium in that, If somebody opens with a blatant, what we call a pitch slap, they're getting blocked. Like I don't even have the conversation. I used to get annoyed with it. I don't get annoyed anymore. Like I've had people, we were talking with Heidi last week who she was getting messages, dear sir or madam. Wow, you haven't even done that much refinement? Okay. I get hi, dear. Yeah, you're gone. I'm not anyone's dear, not even my wife's dear. But there is, so I think there are limits. And, but also, think about when you're getting those connection messages, what works for you? Like, when you do get a message where you accept, what have they been, what did they say to make you accept? Because the more you can pay attention to that's something that you should be thinking about replicating. And, I'll be honest, I never send a message with my connection requests. Chris is

Chris: 22:34

I don't either.

Paul: 22:35

cause I just think that the only real people, cause I used to do this, the only real people that put a connection request message in are sales people trying to pull the wool over your eyes a little bit, or,

Chris: 22:45

it doesn't matter. Paul, I've got to come in here. Sorry to interrupt you, mate. This is a big issue, right? There's a massive misunderstanding with this. Regardless of what you say and how you say it, if you're sending a message with your connection request, that person is going to suspect that Because people have bastardized it, sorry to swear, they're going to just suspect that you are selling them something. Do it organically. Connect with someone, leave them alone. Let them see your content. Let them come into your network naturally and authentically, then message them. But when you message them with that personalized video message that we've spoken about before, make it all about them. Look at what they've posted about recently. Look at what their business is passionate about. Look at their business values. Make it all about them. And critically, as you say, Paul, do not Show up and throw up. Do not try and book an appointment with that first message, regardless of whether it's a connection request or it's your first message without that connection request. So they've accepted it. Then you send the message, make it all about them. Don't make it about you. Don't sharp and throw up. Don't make it all about them. And I promise you your LinkedIn game will massively improve.

Paul: 23:56

more to the point. If, for a given, you were to connect with somebody and they were to book an appointment on that very first message, which I've never seen happen, by the way, if it was to happen, how qualified as a business leader do you think that they would be? They're not. They're just a shot in the dark and an absolute waste of both people's time. So please don't do that, even if it feels like the only way to go forward.- And you're absolutely right, Chris, I've said this for a long time, let your content do the selling. Let it tell people who you are, we talk about this and we're going to have to Chris, I need to shut up in a minute because we need to draw at the end of the episode. I can't help, but having that one last say is people need to find the enough content about you to align with you. Because they need to, we talk about this a lot, know and trust you. Anybody's been to an in person networking event, you know that's the rules. It's the same thing with social media, and specifically with LinkedIn. That doesn't mean you can't talk about your business. Doesn't mean you can't talk about what you do, how much your services are, and all those sorts of things. You should absolutely be doing that. But what needs to happen is your target audience need to find you and be attracted to your posts. And then a subset of your target audience will align with you as a person and Notice what it is that you do. They'll naturally do it. I've seen people do this running multiple businesses and they never talk about any one of their multiple businesses. They just show up on LinkedIn consistently and people find them, look through their profile and go, Oh, he does that. I need that. I need that. Now I'm going to reach out. I like, I love what he said about that last week. And Stephen Bartlett's Diary of a CEO and more, you can read about this a lot, but people need to know that they align with you. And you become an expert in their eyes. And then when you disagree with them on one thing, and it's usually that's something that you do really well, it causes them cognitive dissonance, causes them pain in their head, because how can I? Believe this person is an expert and infallible, yet they disagree with me on something. There's something wrong here. So either I'm completely wrong and they're not an expert and I know that they are because I've proved it because I've watched all their stuff and I know they're an expert. Or I'm wrong. I need to have a conversation with them and find out if I'm wrong, because if I'm wrong, I can do things differently. And I think that is the key thing that I send to everybody out there is just be that person. You don't need to do any selling. You don't need to be great at sales. You just need to be sociable. It's in the name, right?

Chris: 26:26

Profit. You may as well just be doing a solo podcast, Paul.

Paul: 26:30

Sorry, Chris. But, this is why we wanted to do a deep dive, cause Chris and I got into this offline and we were like so super passionate about, we just want to help people who aren't already active on social media to get to that first point because, that's, yes, that leads into both of our roles eventually, but the point is there are so many people that are missing opportunities on LinkedIn that I wish I could do more to help more people. Can't do any more than I do to give away the secrets and tips. And Chris is exactly the same. You're fantastic in your knowledge on, it goes way beyond my knowledge of LinkedIn even. Oh,

Chris: 27:05

very kind. Just if there's just one takeaway from this conversation, people need to post their first LinkedIn video. That's the point of this podcast. All right. This opportunity is going to go away. Because the more that people do it, the more ads that will appear, and the more LinkedIn will end up like X, like Facebook, etc. This is the evolution, the cycle of all social platforms. Please take advantage of LinkedIn video right now. Please. And if you need any help, you know where myself and Paul are. And I know that you said don't plug me, Chris, but Paul, seriously, is incredible at what he does. He's helped me profoundly with my own podcast and my business process. Oh, someone's ringing me. Let's quickly hang up on them. So there you go. That's Authentic for you.

Paul: 27:53

it's genuine. This is real life, unscripted.

Chris: 27:55

What a way to end.

Paul: 27:56

And we will, for everybody who's watching this, if you've enjoyed this episode, one, if you haven't already heard it, go back and watch Chris's first episode. I will put the link in the podcast notes, in the description notes, if it's on YouTube. So you'll be able to find that, but more importantly, subscribe because we are going to come back and do a round three. We're going to do another special edition in in a little while, I'm not going to give it away yet, in a little while. And we're going to talk about how you get into the right mindset to create the right content and come at things from the right angle to be successful on LinkedIn. And it's the other crucial piece to putting together content with the right mindset makes you win. You've got to believe in it and you've got to see it for yourself. So I'm really excited about sharing that with everyone, Chris. It's going to be a phenomenal conversation. I'm done now. I need a lie down. That's brilliant. I've enjoyed that.

Chris: 28:48

Beautiful. Thank you so much for the opportunity and I'll see everyone next time.

Paul: 28:52

See you later and I'll see you on MarketPulse Pros and Pioneers next week.