071: The LinkedIn Struggle Is Real—Here’s What to Do

[00:01:04] Hey, what's going on everybody? David Noe with SpeakEasy HR presented by Payroll Partners. We are back for a brand new episode of SpeakEasy HR. Coming back from a conference last week, had just an amazing all day conference, talking to speakers and getting a chance to get out in the HR community was awesome. And now I'm back here in my studio with a brand new guest for today and a different topic than a lot that we've had in the past,

[00:01:33] which cannot wait to hear from this guest and dive into his topic. And for those of you who are also curious about this topic, it's all about LinkedIn and we are live on LinkedIn and YouTube. So I am thrilled to have on SpeakEasy HR, John Keel. Welcome, John. How are you today? Good to be here, David. And thanks for the opportunity to share. The week has already started fast. I can only share that.

[00:02:00] Yes, yes. And it is May. It is crazy how fast this year has gone. But we are both in the Midwest. You're in the Dublin, Columbus, Ohio area, correct? Yep. Moved up here seven years ago after a number of years in Cincinnati. Yeah, absolutely. And you spent some time at Xavier. I'm a former alum of Xavier, right? Yeah, I actually was an adjunct MBA professor there for about five years. Okay. Okay. Well, yeah, go X, right? Exactly.

[00:02:29] Yeah. Well, for those of you who are watching live on LinkedIn and YouTube, we are here to help you learn. And I'm going to learn with John in the driver's seat with this topic about LinkedIn. And before we get to that, just wanted to go through a couple of things. We're going to play the world famous envelope icebreaker game. John, you have no idea what this is. So it is a lot of fun, I promise.

[00:02:55] But for those of you who don't know John, who are watching, John, I want to hear just a little bit about your background. You talked about being at Xavier and being in northern Kentucky and being in the Cincinnati area. So tell everybody about your background and what got you to this point. Good question. I'm in my third career. Third career. Okay. And my first career, I have a couple of engineering degrees.

[00:03:22] Got to Cincinnati with P&G as an engineer, but knew I didn't want to be an engineer. I wanted to sell. And so I did tech sales for a local company for about 23 years. Sold a quarter billion dollars worth of process equipment in the water and wastewater treatment industry. Okay, here we go. Very successful sales career, almost at the cost of my family. So after I got my head together at age 42, decided that I needed to sell that business.

[00:03:52] I needed to get out of that. And so in January of 1997, I just discovered the internet and saw that as a great, I thought, as a great potential platform for helping small businesses grow. And for the next 25 years, that's what I did. Worked with about 1,600 clients in seven countries. And that came about because I did a lot of speaking from stage early on. Got me good exposure.

[00:04:21] And then March 1, 2020 hit. And I won't say the business shut down, but it was close. And so I knew I needed to pivot. Got connected with some guys in the UK who had developed a SaaS product back a couple of years before that. And said, I mean, LinkedIn is, I saw it early on as an opportunity, again, to get new business, to grow a business.

[00:04:47] And so for the last six plus years, that's what I have done. I focused 100% on LinkedIn. I developed a master class back in 2020. I've done 36 sessions over the last six years. And I had about 10,000 people go through my trainings. And then just established myself in some way as, I won't say an expert, but I know a little bit about LinkedIn. Wow.

[00:05:15] I remember being at lunch when someone asked me, do you have a LinkedIn account? And it was one of my first jobs out of college. And I'm like, no, what is that? They're like, well, you got to get on it. And I don't remember the exact date, but I know I can look that up. I just don't know where. I know I can find where you can see the date that you joined LinkedIn. But it's been probably 20 plus years now. And it's definitely evolved.

[00:05:44] I do this podcast live on LinkedIn and YouTube. And so part of my content is out there on LinkedIn every week, just like a lot of people. So we are here with a master of LinkedIn, folks. If you have a question or comment along the way, please chime in. Would love to hear from you. We do have Albert. Good morning to you, Albert. Thanks for joining. So if you have questions, please chime in about this.

[00:06:13] So all right, John. So all I need you to do is to think of a number, 1 through 15. And don't tell me it yet. I'm going to transition, make sure this works. 1 through 15. And after this, I'll take your number. Hold on. 1 through 15, John. We have 15 envelopes.

[00:06:43] Each of them have one question that's very different but fun. What number do you have? Seven. Seven. Okay. He picked number seven. It is a popular number. Okay. What's a TV show or movie you quote way too often? Probably. Probably. Oh, boy. I'm going back.

[00:07:13] I'm going back 40 years now. Hill Street Blues. Hill Street Blues. Okay. I have not heard of that. I'm sure there's plenty of quotes in there. What's your favorite quote from that? Be careful out there. Be careful out there. Okay. Party chart with the surgeon. Set everybody out. That's awesome. Well, good. So the last question, just to get to know you a little bit more, John, is about your advice you've received along the way, right?

[00:07:43] You've been obviously focused on LinkedIn. You said you've had three different careers. You've been involved in a lot. You've seen a lot. What's been the biggest piece of advice you've ever received? Yeah, I've been in business over 50 years now. And when I was 28, a mentor gave me this advice. He says, if you'll get up and start with two to three hours before everybody else, you will gain a sustainable competitive advantage.

[00:08:10] And I started getting up at four and five, and I still get up at five every morning, seven days a week. And he was right on. That is very good advice. I know people do that, and I think it's great. So I always am curious what people say with that question. So, okay. So we are live on LinkedIn and YouTube. We are going to be diving into a topic a little outside of the norm, which I love.

[00:08:35] I love the topics that I get to talk to my guests about all over the country, all over the world. And it has become really a thing where the last 70 episodes, there have been five common themes that have come out of this. And I would strongly suggest if you are not following along, go out to speakeasyhr.com, go to the brand new Top Shelf Insider newsletter. Just put out May's episode today or May's newsletter.

[00:09:05] And there is a blog out there that has gone through those five themes that I have gotten from these 70 episodes. And it's pretty neat that the five most downloaded episodes kind of fit those five themes. So definitely go out there. So just a couple of messages from our sponsor, Payroll Partners. Grab a drink, John, whatever you got to do. And I'll see you here in about one minute. Finding a new employee takes time and money.

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[00:10:30] So if you are in the market for new technology, you have technology, but it's just clunky, outdated or just not working for your business, look us up, payrollpartners.net. Look me up on LinkedIn. Would love to connect and just hear about your background, hear your situation, what you have going on. See if we can be a good resource for you and your business. So, all right, John, the topic for today is the LinkedIn struggle is real and here's what to do.

[00:10:59] So let's start here. So why do so many people struggle with LinkedIn in the first place? Let me give you some background first. LinkedIn estimates that 98% of people who are on LinkedIn do not use it effectively. It's not 100, 98. And I mean, I'm on LinkedIn, of course, all the time. And my perspective is that why so many people are struggling with LinkedIn is number one, they don't have a strategy.

[00:11:28] They have never sat down and developed a whole strategy of what they want to do on LinkedIn and how they want to accomplish it. And the second, and number two is people do not do what they know they should do consistently. And just think about any business. If you're not consistent with what you know you need to do, you're not going to get results or you're not going to get good ones. And I think a third one might go into that is that many people come on LinkedIn and think

[00:11:56] of it as a transactional medium. And it is not. It is a relationship medium. Yeah. And I mean, you get the messages just like I do. Let's have a call when the person hasn't even earned the right to have a call. And I smell those out fast. So it's very common. And I'm on a mission to change that, quite frankly. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:12:21] It is one of those platforms that I think has been very consistent as long as it's been around and it's getting better. And people coming into the workforce, graduating. I know several that are just going through college graduation and going into the world of work and they're not their own business. They're hired to work at a business. And it's really about your personal brand so much beyond your resume, beyond what you've

[00:12:50] done, your involvement with the school, the church, your community, the people that you know and connect with on LinkedIn. So it is a powerful tool that, like you said, 98% of people are not using it effectively or however you had phrased it. Right. So what is the biggest mistake or what are some of the biggest mistakes you see people making on LinkedIn right now? Well, what's happened, first of all, just to give perspective to everybody, LinkedIn has

[00:13:19] crossed over the 1.3 billion users worldwide, 300 million in the US. And the biggest mistake I see people continue to make is that last year, LinkedIn started incorporating AI. And they formally announced it on November 3rd, the incorporation of three different AI systems that formed the basis of the platform.

[00:13:47] Now, I have 15 to 20 calls a week, David. And a good half the people I talked to are still unaware. I mean, the whole game has totally changed in that regard with the AI systems that LinkedIn has. And of the other 50%, probably half of them are going to wait, which is a, as the line from Pretty Woman goes, big mistake, huge.

[00:14:15] Just, I think people will be in a situation a year from now, if they wait, they'll never catch up, in my view. Yeah. And so, I think that's the biggest mistake is they're not aware of what has happened within LinkedIn. And secondly, and if I can talk directly, 90% of profiles suck. I don't know any other better way to say it. I got to give you the mini air horn to that, John. There you go. They're terrible.

[00:14:45] And people don't understand. You've got about five seconds. When somebody hears about you, they go to LinkedIn to check you out. You have about five seconds to grab their attention. And quite frankly, they don't care about your position. They really don't care where you went to school in most parts. It's the perspective you need to have is, here's what I do. Here's who I help. And here's how I help them. Yep. Period. Yep.

[00:15:13] So, your profile is not good. And then, tied back into the AI, posts and comments are terrible. They really are. Generally, it's all about me. You know, the most famous radio station in the world is with them. You know this. What's in it for me? That's what your users are looking at. How are you going to add value and help them move forward in their lives? They don't really care about you. Yep.

[00:15:44] So, and the last one, I'll just wrap up on this. There are so many. Is that people say, well, I do this, and then I do this, and then I do this. There is no primary focus. And I talk about this with my coaching clients all the time. I say, pick one. Because the AI is like a five-year-old kid. And those of you that have five-year-old children know this.

[00:16:11] If you give them one message today and another message tomorrow and another message the next day, you're going to confuse them. And too many people are confusing the AI because they're all over the map. Those are the three or four big things I see. Jeez. So, we are live on LinkedIn and YouTube with John Keel, founder and CEO of Improved Connect.

[00:16:36] So, John, how should someone think about LinkedIn differently if they really want it to actually work for them? Good question. And the place to start is Stephen Cully said many years ago in The Seven Habits, begin with the end in mind. What do you want people to do when they come to your LinkedIn profile?

[00:17:02] See, I think your profile is really like a website landing page. And it gets down to, you know, then you mentioned it earlier, the personal branding. How do you want to be seen? And from the perspective of what, how, and who you help. Even if you have a job. And that whole perspective is you got to be very specific on that. Not general, but be very specific. Yeah.

[00:17:31] And I think another situation, you also need to consider what time investment are you willing to make? Now, there's a good news and a bad news about this. LinkedIn, in my view, is simple. It's not easy, but it's simple. And I've talked to people within the last couple of weeks who are spending an hour and two hours a day on LinkedIn. And I asked a question. I said, doing what?

[00:17:59] Because I spend 30 minutes a day. And that's it. It's all it takes if you do things right, if you know exactly what to do and you've got that all spelled out. So, I think that's important. And if you are in line with that time commitment, are you willing to make a consistent effort? Yeah. I talk to people all the time. They say, well, I do it today and then I'll get back to it in three or four days. And quite frankly, you're going to be penalized.

[00:18:29] You have to be consistent with LinkedIn. Yep. So, how does a good LinkedIn presence actually look like today? Well, and I alluded to it earlier. I think a good LinkedIn presence, and this is my perspective. Not everybody agrees with me on this, by the way.

[00:18:51] But it all gets down to conversion because I'm in the process of building my business, increasing my revenue using LinkedIn. So, when people come to my profile, I want them to do something. So, I'm just not hoping they're passing time. And so, that website is set up for conversion. And there are four main areas that I teach in terms of how to do that. You have to have a very strong headline.

[00:19:20] And again, that's not your job title. People could care less about your job title. Right. Who do you help? How are you going to help them? And so on. And then your banner image. That's the area above. At the top, I probably see 20% of the profiles I go to, they're blank. And that's the most in my view. That's free real estate. So, there are right ways and wrong ways to do that. Another area is your about section.

[00:19:52] You've got 2,600 characters. You've got, they're just saying, Lincoln's saying, fill it up. And by the way, it's not all about you. It's about how you're going to help people. But part of it also is, you know, what's your story? And this is where the emotional part of it comes into. Because people relate to stories. And the last piece is your featured section, which I believe should be set up. You can do all kinds of things in your featured section.

[00:20:20] But if you go to my profile, you'll see there's one thing you can do on my featured section. And that is to request a special report that I've created. And I track that. You know, with that element. So, those are just four. And there's a lot more. But those are the four things that most people really need to focus on. Okay. So, talk to the people that are in the job market right now. They're looking for a job.

[00:20:46] They are either laid off or they are working and actively applying for jobs, going to interviews. Is there any specific advice you would give them versus people who are happy in their job and content and not looking for a job? Well, I will say this. That there's a whole recruiting area of LinkedIn. And I am not a recruiting expert on LinkedIn. I mean, I'm not going to pay the $10,000 plus they want from me to do that.

[00:21:16] Right. Besides, that is not my area of expertise. But at the same time, if I were looking for a job, first thing I'd probably do is create the open to work option that you can do in your profile. And then position yourself from the perspective of your education, your experiences. What value do you bring to the table?

[00:21:44] I mean, and quite frankly, for most people, it's not about your skills. It's about your soft skills. It's, you know, do you engage with people? Are you a good communicator? And the other thing is, please check your spelling and grammar. Yeah. Oh, wow. Those are just some thoughts. Yeah. So I remember a while back when endorsements became a thing. Right.

[00:22:13] And people would endorse you for certain skill sets. And you can go out to their page and you can kind of not really, it's not like leaving a review, but it kind of is. So it's like a personal review about working with John. And I know there have been people that have left me one. Not that I have a ton of people out there endorsing me on LinkedIn. But, you know, how important are those right now to either ask people to do?

[00:22:38] Like if you met someone for coffee and you're like, hey, would you go out to LinkedIn and endorse me for XYZ skill set? Is that something that you hear people wanting to still have? Well, yeah. And in fact, in my, you know, I do a master class every couple of months. And one of the things I talk about is just set it up on your calendar. And by the way, you can only get endorsements from first degree connections. Yeah.

[00:23:06] And so, you know, and LinkedIn, by the way, will actually invite them. You have to tell LinkedIn you want an endorsement from that person. And LinkedIn will send the invitation out. Those are and can be very important. The more you have, the better. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So, so going along the lines of that when it comes to personal branding and company branding, right?

[00:23:29] So if you're working for a business, your banner might have their logo or something with relating to your business you work for. So how important is personal branding versus the company branding on LinkedIn? Well, let me ask the question this way. I'll redirect the question. How likely is it that you'll work for that same company for the next 40 years? Very unlikely.

[00:23:56] People, I don't know what the stats are, but people are changing positions frequently these days. So quite frankly, it's very little about the company. It's about you. It's about your personal brand. And that's why, by the way, when you post on LinkedIn, I always strongly recommend posts from your personal page, not the company page. Because the company page can be gone next year if you change companies.

[00:24:21] People position you or view you as who you are, not who the company is necessarily. Because at the end of the day, and yes, I'm in the B2B space, the business to business space. I'm not in the business to consumer space. But all of us who deal with people are in the B2B space, the person to person space. People deal with people. People don't really deal with companies. They deal with people.

[00:24:51] And that's the mentality I think you need to develop. Yeah. So when it comes to driving engagement on LinkedIn, you had talked about it in the past comments a little bit about how much you're on LinkedIn every day. And you've heard from people that are on LinkedIn two hours a day.

[00:25:10] So when it comes to content, what kind of content actually will drive the engagement and connection the most and not just likes? And I know there's times throughout the week that are best to post on LinkedIn two. So is there anything that you would want to provide advice on that when it comes to driving engagements? Oh, sure. First of all, understand that they don't care about you.

[00:25:39] They care about what you're going to do for them. People have their own self-interest at heart. And that's, I think, human nature. So the three areas of content, number one is the profile. Number two are your posts. And number three are your comments.

[00:26:00] And going back to my earlier point about the five-year-old kid, the new three AI systems, I use this example. Consider that your posts, your comments, and your profile will get dumped into a pot. And it's stirred up. And the AI is trying to analyze that and come up with, who are you about? What happens when employees behave badly?

[00:26:27] Boy, we could do an entire TV show, maybe a Netflix special on that. Well, Ryan and I sat down and recorded episodes for FOMA. And we asked practitioners, give us your most outrageous story. You know, the sales leader that brings cocaine to work. You know, whatever. Just bring us the outrageous. And it is funny.

[00:26:52] So if you need a laugh, which we all do from time to time, search for workplace misconduct wherever you get your podcast. And you'll find it. And trust me, you will laugh and cry. But you'll definitely laugh. All right. Thank you. I mean, really, who are you about? That's where having a single focus is so important, that single niche.

[00:27:17] And as we get into posts, and my friend Richard Vanderbloom lives in Spain, because I've got a group of 10 people around the world. I kind of connect with my posse, I call them. And he puts an annual report out every year. And this year, the report analyzed 1.7 million posts. So it's all based on data. And I won't get into that. We don't have the time to get into a whole lot of detail.

[00:27:47] But they analyzed posting. In fact, I posted on that today six characteristics your post needs to have. And it needs to have them just every time, every time. And to the degree that you don't, you'll be, let's just say somewhat, it's not an active penalty, but your post will fall in reduction. Comments are comments that you leave on other people's posts.

[00:28:17] My number one rule is please do not leave weenie comments. A weenie comment is a comment that goes, nice post, or I agree, or two or three word sentence. Because what most people don't realize is that your comment gets exposed to their network. And the question is, how do you want to show up? In fact, I comment on five to 10 posts every day, seven days a week. And again, it takes me less than 30 minutes.

[00:28:48] But that gives me tremendous exposure. And my comments are such that I call it the free advertising concept on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is going to expose my content for free. And I have much more control with my comments than I do with my posts in terms of who sees my content. So I want to show up as a professional, not an amateur. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it really doesn't matter how long you've been on LinkedIn.

[00:29:16] And I know people that have, over the last two or three years, been more active on LinkedIn. They've added more followers. They've made more content. And so starting from scratch, it's like, oh, I want to have so many followers. I want to have 10,000 followers. Well, at the end of the day, I think it's a pretty low stat on how many people on LinkedIn actually have 10,000 followers or more. I know you have more than that.

[00:29:43] But, you know, like, so is there a way from people, you know, to start from scratch? And if their big thing is to get more followers, as a lot of people use social media for. And really everything you're talking about, I think, is going to help that. But should people be really, really worried about the amount of followers they have? In a short answer, no.

[00:30:07] And again, this is all tied back to the AI, the way AI is running LinkedIn today. I have a friend who, several actually, that have well over a quarter of a million followers. Yeah. And people that, I mean, these large creators, we call them big CEO creators. They saw their content, their reach decrease on an average 70, 70% last year.

[00:30:36] It has very little to do with the number of people you have following you. Because LinkedIn is looking at who is following you. Because LinkedIn is going out and judging them the same way. So I have a friend who says it this way. He says, I want to have a thousand followers that are in my ideal client profile. And they're engaging with all my content all the time. And all they're going to do is pay me a thousand dollars a year.

[00:31:05] That is a nice business. In case you're slow on math, that's a million dollars. And it has, I mean, you're limited by the number of connections you can have to 30,000. There's no limit on the number of followers. But, and I'll tell a story on myself. I was on a call earlier last year with a lady. And she said, well, at that time, I had about 16,000 followers. And she said, well, let me ask you a quick question.

[00:31:33] She says, John, how many of those 16,000 followers are actually in your ideal client profile? And I didn't know, shame on me. So I, while we're on the call, I quickly opened up Sales Navigator, which is something I pay for from LinkedIn. And I went, oh my gosh. I said, I've got 980 people of the 16,000 are in my ICP.

[00:31:58] And she said, in other words, you have over 15,000 people who will probably never be business with you. I said, exactly. And so I'm in the process now winnowing that down. And that's a manual process. It's going to take a year or two to get done. And at the same time, I'm adding probably 80 to 100 new first degree connections every week to the process I use. And those are all in my ICP. Yeah.

[00:32:25] And so it's not just having a number. It's the right number. And the right number of the right people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You brought up a good point with Sales Navigator. And I don't know how many tools they have where it's a subscription base, you know, where you have to pay for it. I know there are some levels.

[00:32:47] So people starting from scratch, trying to figure out how to use the system or someone that might want to invest a little bit of money into LinkedIn. You know, is Sales Navigator the best tool in there to spend some money on? Yeah. I'll ask it this way, David. And again, I'm coming in from the perspective of growing business. Right. And the question I always ask people when they ask me that question is, what is a new client worth to you? Is it worth $1,000?

[00:33:18] A subscription to core level of Sales Navigator, which is what I recommend for most people, is about $1,000 a year. I cannot imagine doing my business without having a Sales Navigator subscription. It has 50 5-0 filters on it that we can go through and really tailor your approach so you're reaching out to the right people. And so, yes, I highly recommend it. Yep.

[00:33:50] So when you talk about being on LinkedIn, the amount of time you are, because I'm on it every day. I don't know how much time I'm on it every day. Probably a little more than you. But from staying consistent on LinkedIn without becoming overwhelmed or forced into using it more than you should, what are some of the advice or suggested focus on that?

[00:34:15] Like, how can you stay consistent without really getting overwhelmed? Well, first of all, put it on your calendar. I interviewed a number of my SaaS members about a year and a half ago. And I've taught something called the seven steps of effective social selling on LinkedIn for six years in all my master classes. And I asked them, so how many of those are you doing? By the way, they were manual steps back then.

[00:34:43] And the answer was 10%, maybe 20. Things happen. Things get in the way. And I said, I understand. Because I've been there, too. None of them were scheduling it. And so I just encourage people. And what I do is I do it early in the morning. It's one of my activities I do early before the day starts in my 30 minutes activity on LinkedIn, where I have certain things I go through and I check every day.

[00:35:10] And one of them is I comment on five to 10 posts per day. That's what I fill in that time with. Then I check my stats. I'm a calendar-driven person. And a lot of people I talk to say, well, so am I? And I say, well, do you have calendar integrity? I mean, that's a whole different thing than being, you know. If you say you're going to do it, do it when you say you're going to do it. That's integrity.

[00:35:42] And if you don't, just understand that you're like most. And if you do have it or develop that habit, you will stand out because very few people are. Yeah. So we are live on LinkedIn and YouTube with John Keel, founder and CEO of Improved Connect. And I've loved hearing about this, John, because, again, you've been the first one to come on and talk about LinkedIn this way.

[00:36:08] And, you know, seeing kind of what I've used it for personally for two years, almost having a podcast, doing it live, getting a chance to connect with people who I did not know, getting a chance to share my story, talk about what we do with payroll partners and what kind of brand we have. It's a powerful strategy and certainly a powerful tool. So authenticity for me is so important.

[00:36:39] You know, having this platform to do this live and show people kind of the content that I'm bringing on to it with people like yourself and all variety of topics and backgrounds. What role does authenticity play, do you think? And how do you balance that with professionalism? Well, to me, they go hand in hand.

[00:37:02] If you have the transaction approach to LinkedIn, which again, which most people do, I believe it's difficult to be authentic. And I didn't discover this until I was in my mid-40s because I was a certain type of person until that time. And I changed. And I remember talking to people later who saw, they saw a big change in me and they said, you know, you probably didn't know it, but we saw right through you.

[00:37:33] And people see through you when you're not authentic. And that doesn't mean sharing your deepest soul, but it just means being who you are. And if you say you're going to do something, do it. That's authenticity. And I think that's part of being a professional. Yeah. See, and I talk about this when I talk about LinkedIn profiles in my teachings. I say, you have a choice of who you show up as.

[00:38:01] You either show up as an amateur or you show up as a professional. And David, I don't know about you. Well, I do know about you. You don't want to deal with amateurs. Nobody wants to deal with amateurs. I mean, they're in it for fun. I want to deal with professionals and I want to position myself and present myself as a professional. Yeah. Well, if anybody out there is listening live, wants to ask a question, chime in. We definitely have people watching live.

[00:38:29] So I appreciate you spending a little bit of your day with us on this Monday, first Monday in May. It's crazy. So I'm going to leave you with this question, John, and see if anybody else in the audience has a question to get to. But if someone feels like LinkedIn just isn't working for them, what's the one shift that they should make immediately this week?

[00:38:58] Have you decided what you want LinkedIn to do for you? Have you developed a strategy for LinkedIn? And here's just another one. This just occurred to me. There are hundreds, if not thousands of LinkedIn gurus and experts out there. I don't call myself a guru or an expert. I have people who do call me that and I'll accept that. But I don't call myself that.

[00:39:26] You have to pay attention to who you're listening to. I mean, there is a lot of crap out there and stuff that's not accurate. I was talking to somebody about two months ago and they said, well, I'm following so and so and so and so. I said, great. I know the guy. And I said, well, you follow him? I said, no. And they said, well, why not? And I got into a deep conversation with this person. I said, well, I had been for about two years.

[00:39:53] And then I saw a couple of things that he said out there on LinkedIn that I knew were old. And in a sense, if somebody was following that advice, it would harm them. So that's where the authenticity and integrity comes in. You have to know who you're talking to. And that's, you know, as I mentioned earlier, that group of 10 people I have, my posse. I just didn't go out and pick them.

[00:40:22] But I started following them and had conversations with them. It took about a year and a half to put that whole group together. And I implicitly listened to them because they are the real deal. And it's finding the real deal people that you can trust who are on top of things. And going back to the changes that were made last November or announced last November, there are people I know.

[00:40:50] I know one guy in particular who has a following of over 200,000 people. And he is still proposing things that happened that were valid six months ago that are no longer valid. And it's just like posting every day. I mean, I get that question all the time. How often should I post? And I said, well, the most recent advice as of a week ago, and this is backed up by 1.6 million posts being reviewed, is two to three times a week is fine.

[00:41:21] Because if you go seven days a week, you're hurting yourself. And I'm not saying don't do it. I certainly won't. Because I'm getting that information from people who I know and trust. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's one of those things that I think everybody just assumes that if you're on different platforms of social media, you have to have a strategy with each. And maybe it is posting twice a week or three times a week.

[00:41:49] If you're doing it every day, it might be too much. Time of the day, I really look at when I post things on LinkedIn on a Monday or Tuesday and when to post. Not that I do it every single time because it's hard to do that if I'm on an event and I'm posting about the event. I want to make sure that it's actually like real time. You know, like last week I was at an event live on Thursday.

[00:42:14] But, you know, I think there are times of the week that you probably should just Google it or look up best times to post. Right. And it'll give you a time frame. 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. or Monday morning at this time. So, like John said, with your strategy and when you post and what you post, you know, a lot of times I post things about being out in the community, whether it's at an event or a chamber of commerce.

[00:42:41] And that gets most high engagement than anything that I typically am doing. Obviously, with this and people coming on and talking about whatever topic they're bringing to the podcast is great. But, you know, a lot of times it's like you said, what is in it for me as the viewer of the content on LinkedIn?

[00:43:00] And if you're posting something about your activity with a community nonprofit or something in the community, not about your business and not about you being a great business. But it's, again, going back to that authenticity of of you in in the content and platform like LinkedIn.

[00:43:23] So any other advice that we haven't covered, John, that you think will be important for everybody, whether they're new to LinkedIn, just coming into the workforce as a 20 something year old or someone that's like in their third career, like you said. Any other advice that you would give them? Well, I'd say this. Yeah, I don't claim to know everything. Nobody does.

[00:43:49] But if you have questions or comments, you want to reach out to me, DM me, direct message me on LinkedIn. I respond to every message. Now, I don't get 100 messages a day, but I get probably 50 to 60. I respond to every one of them. And I'm not saying let's have a phone call because in fact, I had a lady asked me this morning. And she says, I sent her a DM. And she said, is this a are you trying to sell me something?

[00:44:20] And I answered her back. I said, well, that's a good question. I said, quite frankly, I don't know that I want to work with. And I didn't say it just this way. But quite frankly, I don't know that we qualify with each other to work with each other because I don't know anything about you and you don't know anything about me. So if it makes sense, it makes sense that we should have what I call a no sales zone phone call. I'm glad to do that with you. Let me know if you want to talk.

[00:44:47] I didn't send her my meeting, my calendar link. I haven't earned the right. And that's where I think a lot of people are screwing up, David, on LinkedIn. They want to have conversations and they haven't earned the right to have a conversation with you. And that's something you have to earn through providing value. Yep. And that's what I've seen, too. It's a good point that you brought up because I do get requests.

[00:45:10] And as soon as I look, I look at who it is and if I've met that person recently, because on the back of my business card, I have a QR code and it goes to my LinkedIn profile. And if I know that that person might be reaching out because I met them at an event and we've emailed. Great.

[00:45:26] If it's somebody I don't know and I have no mutual connections, I guarantee if I sit and I hit accept within 10 seconds, there's an inbox message about, hey, I can help your business X, Y, Z and save this and do this. And it's like, yeah, I get that all the time. Yeah, I wish I wish that LinkedIn had a way and I'm hoping they add it, but I doubt if they do that when I get those auto generated messages within a second or two.

[00:45:55] I just have to hit a button and I generally disconnect from those folks. Yeah. Right away. It's kind of like getting spam calls because it'll say on my phone potential spam. Right. It's like, yeah, yeah, that's a good point. You should. Yeah. You should recommend that to LinkedIn. Be different, stand out, be authentic and show your true self in everything that you do on LinkedIn. And you'll find that people will begin to reach out to you because they'll see through the crap that's out there. And there's a lot. Yep. Definitely.

[00:46:25] So John said, you know, doing these classes are part of his offering. And you've done, you said over 30 of them now. Yeah, I've done 36 masterclasses, all things LinkedIn masterclasses over the last six years. I've had over 10,000 people go through the trainings and they're free. And I do it free because it's a matter of paying it forward. And I've been blessed to learn a lot.

[00:46:56] And I'm just tired of seeing people not use LinkedIn to its optimal level for them, for their businesses. Yeah. So your next one is to be determined. You don't have a date yet, correct? No, I was doing them every two months. But with all the changes that LinkedIn made last November, I'm changing the format a little bit. It'll be sometime in June. Okay. So if you're interested in finding out about it, just message me and we'll get you on the list. You'll find out about it. Yeah, definitely. Well, John, this has been a pleasure.

[00:47:24] I have learned a lot as I'm sure everybody else listening has as well. So definitely appreciate your time coming on to Speakeasy HR. This has been great. Someone's probably trying to sell you something, John. There you go. Get more messages on LinkedIn. But definitely keep in touch. I really appreciate all you do and what you share and how you help people on LinkedIn. And let's stay connected and really appreciate all you're focused on.

[00:47:54] So we'll try to check out that master class that you have coming up. But I wish you all the best and have a good rest of your day. And thanks, everyone, for joining live. And we'll be back next week for a brand new episode of Speakeasy HR.

[00:48:09] So be on the lookout for all of that and everybody coming on, having new conversations, new topics and new approaches to how we do work, how we handle HR, AI, LinkedIn, as we talked about today. So thanks again, John. I really appreciate it. Thank you, David. Appreciate the opportunity again. All right. Take care, everybody. Thank you.