Scaling UP! H2O

134 Transcript

The following transcript is provided by YouTube. Mistakes are present. To hear the podcast episode, click HERE.
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[Music]
welcome to scaling up the podcast where
we’re scaling up on knowledge so we
don’t scale up our systems
hello scaling up nation trace blackboard
here the host for scaling up h2o and
happy Friday the 17th it is April 17th
and I gotta let you know there’s a good
friend of mine who is in local Atlanta
broadcasting and I was listening to him
the other morning and he was talking
about what happened on that particular
day in history and when he finished
talking about all that he made the
mention you know how are you going to
make this day meaningful and I really
liked where he went with this so here’s
what happened on April 17th on 1939
April 17th Joe Lewis grabbed the
heavyweight boxing title after knocking
out Jack Roper in 1947 Jackie Robinson
made his first major lead hit and it was
a bunt in 1970 Paul McCartney released
his first solo album and that was called
McCartney in 1976 Chris Evert won her
second tennis championship in 1993 the
two officers that were responsible for
violating Rodney King’s civil rights
were convicted in 2011 the movie Thor
was released and on that same day HBO
premiered the game of Thrones and you
thought it was just another Friday so
what are you going to do to make today
meaningful many of us don’t ever think
about that we just go out and do the day
and last week somebody asked the
question about how I prepare for the day
and I shared some items about checklist
so I’m curious how do you plan for your
day what do
you do do you write goals down do you do
to Do’s what are the things that you do
to try to make today one of the best
days that you’ve had after all who knows
what you might do that will be recorded
in history and then maybe some podcaster
20 years from now we’ll be talking about
it every week I get to meet so many
awesome people because of this podcast
and I get to learn new things from those
people several the scaling-up nation
have asked me how to increase their
network size or specifically how do I
get to know more people and normally
when people ask me that they’re normally
talking about using the internet using
websites using social media I’m going to
be the first person to tell you that I
am NOT an expert on any of those things
but we do contract with someone who is
an expert that can guide us on what we
should be doing on those platforms I’ve
also attended several conferences where
there’s always been something about the
different social media platforms so what
I’ve done today I decided to answer
those questions for those listeners that
have either come up to me at a
convention or a technical training or
somewhere that I was and asked me how
they could get more context how they can
get more engaged with their clients or
the for the people that actually wrote
in for that this is what today’s episode
is I want to share with you some of the
things that I’ve learned from working
with the people that have helped us with
our social media presence and then also
some of the places that I’ve been where
people have given me some tips
last year I attended a conference and it
was just about podcasting but we had a
breakout session and the person started
talking about LinkedIn and I think it
was one of the best presentations at
that
conference and he just had so many tips
about LinkedIn so that’s what I’m gonna
share with you today and my hope is that
what I share with you maybe you don’t do
all of them and I’m gonna be honest I
don’t do all of them I do most of them
but one or two or maybe you do all of
them those tips will help you with what
your customer or your potential customer
is going to find if they start searching
for you on one of those platforms or
online the simple fact is before you
meet with a potential customer they’ve
already tried to size you up from
googling your name and seeing what they
can find out about social media so the
question I have for you is what does
your social media say about you and is
it the impression that you want to give
so here are a couple of tips something
that you really need to do is keep your
profile updated if you were to search
somebody and they have outdated
information especially if you are
leaving them contact information with a
specific company and then they go to
find you on LinkedIn and it doesn’t even
say that you work for that company folks
that is not the impression that you want
to give and I I actually do this when
somebody wants to meet with me I’ll see
what I can find out about them and that
allows me to make some questions so I
can make sure it’s an engaging
conversation well if it doesn’t have the
right information it confuses me and you
don’t want to leave your customers
confused something else you’d like to
consider is use professional photos of
yourself and make sure it’s an updated
picture of yourself
I met with somebody a couple weeks ago
and I really thought he was 30 years old
well when I got to the lunch I couldn’t
find him
he had white hair and was about thirty
years older than the picture that he put
on his website
I guess people do that because they
thought they look better at a certain
time folks people want to know what you
look like now be proud of that put that
out there and I would urge you to get
some professional photographs done
because that really makes a difference I
think when people are trying to figure
out who they’re going to meet and they
get a good sense of what that person
looks like and that they took some care
in taking that photograph I think that
really means a lot something you can
also do is you can brand yourself with a
background photo so the social media
sites like LinkedIn you can actually put
a background photo so maybe it’s an
event with your company logo in the
background just think what are some of
the things that you can do to enhance
your main profile picture with that
background photo that linked in allows
you to use now again I’m not an expert
with this but I think the resolution
they recommend with those is like 14 by
425 because it’s a real long photo for
that background make sure the picture
that you choose doesn’t distort if you
have to stretch it out in fact you
probably want to make sure that it
specifically is set for those pixel
ratios after someone looks at your photo
they then go for a summary to see what
it is that you do and especially if
you’re trying to sell an appointment
what is in your summary that makes them
want to sit down and meet with you so
many people don’t take enough time to
write the summary about themselves it
should be very concise it should be very
persuasive to let them know that you’re
an expert in the field so maybe even put
a headline that highlights your
specialty some of your experience maybe
some of the accolades that you have or
Awards that you’ve won I will say with
that last bit I would I would lay off a
little bit because sometimes that comes
off as bragging but at the same time to
people like doing business with
successful people so never be ashamed to
let people know that you’re successful
in an industry now when you are typing
all these things up folks typos and bad
grammar they will kill the impression
that you are trying to leave so what I
would do is make sure you don’t have any
typos or grammar and the best way to do
that is to get somebody who’s really
good at proofreading to proofread those
before they go live and what we do is
before we post them we’ve got them all
laid out in a Word document
and we just cut and paste in there so I
urge you get somebody to read those
things because people are not impressed
when you have typos I can’t tell you how
many resumes I’ve read with typos and
folks if you can’t put your best foot
forward on a resume you got to think
what are you gonna do when you actually
get the job well if you look at your
LinkedIn page or if you want to apply
this to another social media platform
that’s your resume trying to get that
appointment so if you’ve got typos and
grammar issues in that what is that
telling your potential client about you
another tip that the individual gave us
was to use keywords that help show the
intent of what you do so making sure
that you have the right keywords in your
profile is the difference between being
found online and not being found so
identifying the words that you want
people to find you with is key and you
can even add keywords there and there
are several websites that you can go to
to see what keywords are searched the
best there’s one site that I think is
called keywords everywhere and you can
type in a couple of words
and it lets you know what the search
patterns are again the more that you’re
seeing the more people are going to look
at you as the expert so I don’t know
what your keywords are but my point is
you should know what your keywords are
so you can find more potential
connections with the industry that you
are in now LinkedIn will allow you to
put in your website but it’s not as you
would think I think if you just leave it
as the default website it may take them
to the LinkedIn page but there’s an
other button that you can select and
then when you edit your website’s
area you can put in your own website URL
and that cleans that process up quite a
bit once you get all that in LinkedIn
will assign a LinkedIn profile URL for
you and it will be extremely ugly and
that would be something like WWE
LinkedIn comm slash something slash
something slash something and it won’t
have anything that you could ever
remember to tell somebody and the more
important item is it’s not searchable
you can change that you can go into the
options and you can tell it for example
instead of that something slash
something slash something I could just
have it linkedin.com slash trace
Blackmore if nobody’s taking it that
will actually be my profile URL that
will help with some of your internet
traffic maybe somebody will find you
that way so why not do that as we are
finding with this podcast you know we
have to make sure that we’re putting out
a show each and every week but more than
that we’ve got to make sure that people
know that we put that show out each and
every week what that show is about and
make it so people want to share it so
hopefully we can find new listeners so
what content are you putting out I will
tell you that if you
update your social media page it is not
going to come up easily when people
search you unless they specifically
search for you people aren’t going to
find you but when you post things and
say you just have a network of 10 people
well those 10 people might have a
network of 200 people and maybe those
200 people post it to friends that they
have and they post it again so with
LinkedIn I will urge you to keep it more
businesslike because that is what it’s
for sometimes people break the rules
sometimes people get fussed at for that
but if you find something that you feel
is worthy for sharing go ahead and share
that because that allows people to see
that you’re posting content another item
that the gentleman that was facilitating
the LinkedIn portion of that podcast
seminar that I went to he said make sure
you list your endorsements out there
folks how many people have told you what
a great job that you have done at a
particular item and you don’t do
anything with that we’ll ask them hey do
you mind if I record you saying that you
can put that on your website or do you
mind if I write that down and actually
put your name well I’m not comfortable
with my name can I put your initials and
folks there’s actually a placed on
LinkedIn where you can get them to
endorse you for a particular skill that
can help you move up in some of the
ratings and again when your prospective
client is looking at your profile that
now paints a better picture of who
they’re getting ready to me
and folks the last time you went to a
conference or you met somebody at some
social gathering or maybe even at your
last account get in the habit to connect
with them on LinkedIn especially if
they’re a customer number one that
allows you to increase the number of
contacts that you have but now if you
post something and they like it and they
share it they’re now going to share that
with their contacts it’s very easy to do
but you have to get in the habit of
doing that and it’s very simple you can
just find the people on LinkedIn and
send them a request and you’ll be
surprised how many people will just
answer except for that request and now
you’re growing your network and it’s to
the specific people that you want in
your network now when you do that I urge
you to personalize the message that you
send out to invite that person you can
definitely tell when there is a scripted
response about hey I’d like to connect
but if you can bring up something that
you said or they said during the
conversation they know it’s genuine they
know it’s from you and normally they
will not hesitate to accept connect when
you send them that invitation I remember
attending Collin frein’s sales class
probably 10 years ago I don’t know if it
was that long but it probably was and he
mentioned that if you go on Google and
you cannot find yourself that doesn’t
say a lot about you and what he urged
everybody to do was to write some sort
of post maybe a white paper if you don’t
have the technical expertise maybe you
just write an opinion on something you
did folks I bet if you think you’re not
technical you probably have a particular
way that you change out a pump head and
it’s not messy and it’s very quick or
it’s something like that we’ll write a
post on that and you can share that with
your network
and that will get shared within other
networks and allow your network to grow
and when you get published people assume
that you are an industry expert so it
only helps you with all of those items
LinkedIn also has special interest
groups there are several around
water-treatment James McDonald has
probably the most notable with his
industrial water page in fact if you go
to James McDonald’s LinkedIn page you
will see he’s done pretty much
everything that I am talking about in
this podcast James does a great job with
social media folks another thing that I
will mention is many of you are
volunteering for certain associations or
different societies well if it relates
to what you do people have an interest
to know that you’re doing that so
remember to update your status but don’t
put every single thing that you do there
some of those things you might want to
move down to interest and the last thing
that I’ll leave you with is you know
always be positive when you are writing
whether your content or your summary
about LinkedIn make sure it always has a
positive tone and folks just like I said
I am by no means an expert at LinkedIn
but we do pay an expert to help us with
what we do and she has been great at
giving us information that we would have
never received so you might actually
have somebody in your company that you
can utilize that has these skills so you
don’t have to go out and find them on
your own and if you go out and do some
searches on your own you’re gonna find a
lot of experts that want to prove to you
how expert they are and they will give
you free checklist on things that you
can do to boost your LinkedIn
nations so I hope these simple things
that we’ve talked about allow you to go
in update your LinkedIn page and give it
a little better look again our customers
and potential customers are looking at
these pages trying to see what they can
find out about us and what exactly are
they finding out and is that the message
that we want to leave them with as I
mentioned at the top of the show I was
able to get this information because I
attended an event the point is you have
to go out and look for new information
new information does not normally find
you so what are you doing to find what
new information that you need now you
know I talk about my business coach Tim
Fulton on this show quite a bit well the
thing that he is so famous for asking me
is how do you know what you don’t know
and he’s just ingrained in me that I’m
always asking myself that question
because you don’t know what you don’t
know and if you’re not actively going to
find out what it is you don’t know
you’re never going to know it so what do
you do to try to find that stuff out
take time and ask yourself what is the
topic I want to know something more
about and then we live in an age where
you can google it Google will then
search it and deliver it in a very easy
way for you to explore to see what it is
that you don’t know now keep in mind not
everything you’re gonna read on the
Internet is true I know that’s hard to
believe for some listeners but it is
like that so always maybe verify some
things depending on what the content is
and then what are the resources that you
now know about that you didn’t know
about before is there a particular event
that you can attend is there a list that
you could subscribe
and now you’re getting newsletters from
a particular company but it’s all about
information from a field that you want
to know more about folks maybe there’s
even a podcast about that find out what
there is to learn about the topic that
you want to learn more about and then
utilize those resources my point is by
default
nothing will ever happen but you have to
go out and look for these things but the
most important step is you have to begin
by asking yourself what don’t I know
and what am I going to do about it you
know when I think about it what don’t I
know is a question that I ask each and
every show so I’m gonna ask it again
today what don’t I know that I am
supposed to be talking about what are
some of the questions that you want me
to answer just like this one came in
from an audience member
we’re getting it answered and now that
person can take action on it and I’m
willing to bet lots of people within the
scaling-up nation are going to benefit
because that person asked that question
so don’t keep those questions to
yourself you can go to my webpage
scaling-up h2o calm you can leave me a
voicemail or you can go to the show
ideas page and just type out what you
want on this show I appreciate all the
people that continue to do that and I
want to thank you in advance if you are
getting ready to do that
who knows folks maybe next week we’ll be
answering your questions and I hope you
find out by tuning in to scaling-up h2o
next Friday have a great week folks
nation I think the secret to being
successful is aligning yourself with
other successful individuals and that is
exactly what the rising tide mastermind
is if you are looking for a group to get
you further faster then please look at
the rising tide mastermind the whole
group is designed with that purpose in
mind and if you want to find out more go
to scaling-up h2o com forward slash
mastermind