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Webinar

2021 Webinar Series

Begin getting serious using LinkedIn as a Business Tool on February 9, 2021.

Each month I will host a 1-hour session where we introduce sales professionals, sales leaders, business owners, and executives to the real power of being serious using LinkedIn as a Business Tool.

We will discuss:

  1. Why sales professionals should use LinkedIn as a Business Tool.
  2. The top LinkedIn KPIs and what actions can improve them and your business success.
  3. Why it’s important to focus on your target audience and their influencers.
  4. The real power of Social Conversations regarding your professional brand.
  5. How Social Research (prospecting) can amplify sales efforts.
  6. The importance of Social Listening to the right audience.

These sessions are for people who want to begin using LinkedIn as a Business Tool with purpose focused on their business goals.

We will host a session at 9:00 AM and 4:00 PM EST on the second Tuesday of each month in 2021.

Register on Eventbrite today to get your ticket.

If you have any questions about the event, please don’t hesitate to contact me – 336-283-6121 or email webinars@burrissconsulting.com

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TLB Word of the Year

My Word of the Year – 2021

Teddy Burriss - LInkedIn Trainer & Coach - Breathe 2021 WOTY

My Word of the year for 2021 is Breathe.

The choice was sparked by numerous things that occurred in 2020 where I found breathing to be the most beneficial, if not the only appropriate action.

This included:

  • The Covid-19 Pandemic and all of the fear it created across the globe, including for me personally.
  • The 2020 Elections also caused me to think about breathing, the noun to the verb breathe.
  • Massive amounts of unemployment, financial crisis, including the impact all of this had on the stock market also caused me to use the word breathe.

Then I read the book Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor.  This really got me to think about the word breathe and how important it is in life, business, career, relationships, conflict resolution, negotiation and so many other aspects of life.

  • Breathe is a powerful tool that can resolve problems by fueling our minds for awesome thoughts and clearer perspectives.
  • Breathe can help us to listen better before responding, saving us from making mistakes caused by poor listening as we work to find quick responses.
  • Breathe flushes out the toxins created by negativity providing space for positivity.
  • Breathe allows our body to counter inner hate and allowing us clarity for the awesomeness of love.
  • Breathe heals the body from pain and illness.
  • Breathe is validation we are alive and a reminder to be grateful.
  • Breathe slowly is a style that enhances our lives and creates more happiness.
  • Breathe is the step needed to relax during conflict and periods of angst moving us towards resolution and a greater sense of calm.
  • Having our breath taken away by sights of wonderment, words of love & encouragement or immense happiness maximizes our lives.
  • When life throws us curve balls we don’t have control over, breathe is the only appropriate action.
  • Breathe is our most important life action. Never allow any other activity deter us from proper breathing.
  • When worry creeps into our minds, immediately take 10 breaths while influencing our mind to never worry about life situations we can’t correct or change.

It could be because I am sliding thru full adulthood, I’m realizing breath is not only a sustainer of life, but also the solution to so many things I’ve struggled with in the past. Regardless of why I am just now discovering this, I am grateful I have. Imagine if I had discovered the power of Breathe before I got to this stage of my life. I’m sure I could have handled life with much more grace and success.

Alas, I’m clearly a believer that “Take 10 slow & deep breathes” is the solution to so many problems.

In 2021 and beyond I am going to breathe more deliberately, especially when faced with challenges, or hard or grueling tasks. I will first breathe before attempting any other action.

I wish you long, steady, deep breathes in 2021 and beyond.

I found 99 quotes regarding Breathe that you may find interesting:

99 Awesome Quotes About Breathing (Respiratory Therapist Edition)

Welcome to 2021. Breathe and enjoy.

Categories
LinkedIn LinkedIn Network Sales Navigator

Organic vs Influenced Referrals

We all want referrals.

We spent countless hours networking in real life in the hopes more people will get to know us and what we do and will refer us to others.

We invest time on social networking, sharing, and engaging on LinkedIn with the same hope, someone will see us and our content and refer us to others.

Doing these steps routinely can create what I call organic referrals.
However, organic referrals alone are never enough.

However, we need to execute another process – Creating Influenced referrals.

Influenced referrals are purposefully asking the influencers of our target audience to introduce us for a conversation.

We can’t create influenced referrals unless we are building our networks with both our target audience and their influencers.

This takes time and a constant set of activities of networking, engaging, and inviting these influencers into conversations.

These conversations must be focused on the influencers. Ask questions, listen, and learn about them, their roles, experiences, and anything else they are willing to share in order for us to get to know them better.

We also must be willing to help these influencers. Helping them in different ways is one of the tactics that create relationships with people who may be willing to help you. Maybe with a referral.

As you get to know these influencers and they get to know you more, in time you’ll uncover the opportunity to talk with these influencers and ask them if they could help you. You must ask if they are willing to do so.

Their positive reply is a statement not only to you but to them as well that they will help you, where relevant, appropriate and possible,  by introducing you to the person you want to get into a conversation with.

Once someone introduces you to your target audience it’s important that you return to the influencer and thank them for the introduction.

Organic referrals are truly fabulous things.

Influenced referrals are also fabulous things. And, you are more in control of the frequency and the results.

How often are you seeking influenced referrals?

Categories
LinkedIn

I don’t see the value of using LinkedIn

Teddy Burriss - LinkedIn Strategist, Trainer & Coach providing LinkedIn Training - LinkedIn ROI

I hear this phrase often; “I do not see the benefits of LinkedIn.”

Often they include statements like these;

  • ‘I’ve been on LinkedIn for years.’
  • ‘All of my employees are on LinkedIn.’
  • ‘We have a company page on LinkedIn.’
  • ‘I have a big network of at least 200 people.’
  • ‘I accept every invite I get.’

For those who say they do not see value using LinkedIn, I never hear about their strategy or execution.

Recently I researched two companies on LinkedIn.

The first company focused on executive staffing, primarily for B2B companies, has 10 employees on LinkedIn.

Between all of the employees, there are nearly 17,000 connections.
The company page has about 1,900 followers.

Yet, the company page has no new content focused on their target audience.
The employees have no content or public engagement with their target audience.
Most of the employee’s LinkedIn Profiles are only basic.
Some of the profiles are even less than basic.

I am sure LinkedIn is not creating value for this company.

The second company I researched is a financial services company primarily serving B2C companies.

They have 9 employees listed on LinkedIn.
They don’t have a verified LinkedIn Company Page.
Their page is one of those created by LinkedIn years ago and has no useful information available to their target audience.

The employees, including the President, VP of Operations, VP of sales, and all of the salespeople have less than basic LinkedIn Profiles. None of the employees have any content or public engagement with their target audience.

I am not surprised that the leaders of this organization feel LinkedIn is of no value to their business at all.

LinkedIn is a business tool. You can’t get value from a business tool that is not being used appropriately. These business tools require a strategy and appropriate execution within relevant business processes.

Otherwise, the value of LinkedIn will be lackluster at best.

Does your business have a strategy for using LinkedIn as a business tool?

Do your employees invest time using LinkedIn with purpose focused on the business goals?

/Teddy

If you want to discover better wayst for your team to use LinkedIn as a business tool, let’s talk – (336) 283-6121

Categories
LinkedIn

Executing a LinkedIn Page Follower Campaign

Creating a Following of relevant LinkedIn Members for your LinkedIn Page (sometimes called Company Page) is an important step. Having followers increases the opportunity your page content will be viewed, consumed, and even appreciated by the right people on LinkedIn.

The best makeup of Followers should include:

  • Your target audience – the people in the roles of companies who could use your product or service.
  • Influencers – the people who know your target audience and may introduce them to you.
  • Consumers – the people who can benefit from your product and service and could become Influencers or your Target Audience.
  • Business Partners – people who provide similar products and services and who could become Influencers.
  • Employees – the employees of your company who rally behind your products and services.
  • Your Tribe – business/personal friends who care for you and your business. You never know who they may know.

Creating a LinkedIn Page and building a strategy & execution plan to provide great content for your followers is only part of the process.
You will need to create campaigns to continually grow your followers.

Here are a few ideas you could use to grow your LinkedIn Page Followers:

#1 – As with any other social media presence, a consistent process of providing content your target audience and their influencers find useful is the best way to create followers. I call this “Feeding your LinkedIn Page”. You have to feed it consistently in order for it to thrive.

#2 – Share your LinkedIn Page content across multiple online sites, where your target audience may show up.  LinkedIn Page content is fully public and can be shared and viewed by people who are not currently logged into LinkedIn. However, they can not engage on the content unless they are logged into LinkedIn.

Note – you can only share LinkedIn Page content as a LinkedIn Member. You can not do this step as the Admin (via the admin page)

Routinely pick one of your LinkedIn Page posts that got a good level of engagement. Share it on your Facebook Business Page, on Twitter, in your latest company ’newsletter’, on Quora, on your blog, in a comment to a relevant social post, etc. Invite your employees and/or Tribe to do so, where relevant and appropriate.

Anyone who sees a LinkedIn Page post, who is not yet a follower of your page, will see the +Follow Icon on the post. When you share the post, use an editorial statement that encourages the consumption of the content and potentially clicking the Follow button.

#3 – Invite your LinkedIn Network to be Page Followers. 

As a Page Admin, you can invite targeted members of your LinkedIn Network to Follow your LinkedIn Page. You’ll find this option on the Admin toolbar under Admin Tools, or in the right side column labeled “Invite Connections to Follow” Currently (09/03/20), you can send 100 invites per LinkedIn Page (across all Page admins).
Be very purposeful to invite the best LinkedIn Connections relevant to your page. If you have fresh content on your page when you send these invites out you’re more likely to get your invites accepted.

#4 – Give business development employees Admin rights so they can use the Page Follower Invite feature. It’s not unusual that the LinkedIn Page Admin does not have a LinkedIn Network filled with the business’s target audience.

An idea I have been exploring is to make your key business development employees Admins of the Page in order for them to invite their LinkedIn Network to be page followers.

This will take some planning to execute effectively.

Here is a task list to consider for this process:

  1. Schedule a day that works for the business developer to do this work.
  2. Have them build a list of up to 100 LinkedIn Connections they would like to invite.
  3. Invite the business developer to be a Page Admin from the Admin Tools option of your LinkedIn Page.
  4. Provide a quick training session showing the business developer how to use the feature.
  5. Give them time to execute this process for up to 100 invitations.
  6. Once they are done, remove them as a Page Admin.
  7. They will be able to see who they invited who has not accepted from their Sent Invites page
  8. Ask them to Withdraw any unaccepted invites 1 month later. (This will allow for another employee to invite them later)
  9. In the next month (when available invites go back to 100), repeat this step for the next business developer.

#5 – Introduce the value of your LinkedIn Page through other business communications.

Sharing the URL to your business page, as well as telling stories about how your use your LinkedIn Page to help your target audience, with an invite to follow the page is another useful tactic to create Page Followers.

You could share this in your newsletter, in blog posts, and even in routine messaging to your tribe, clients, prospects, and even employees. Be creative in this tactic.

#6 – Share your LinkedIn Page thru Blog Post commenting. As you find content relevant to your business you could comment on the article and use the LinkedIn Page URL as the Web Page entry for the comment. This can help to get others to find your LinkedIn Page as well as aid in the SEO ranking of your LinkedIn Page.

#7 – Create a private POD of LinkedIn Members who care for and/or are interested in your company products/services. This could be as small as 5-10 clients, prospects, peers, business partners, employees, and friends. As you share content on your company page invite this group (via email or messaging) to review and engage on the content with their perspectives or ideas. Encourage them to engage on each other’s comments on the post as well. Ask them not to always use the Like or Share option. A Comment or comment reply is more impactful for content reach. Ask them not to comment with simple statements like “Thanks” or  “Good point”, etc. Engagement should be meaningful. Be appreciative of your PODs involvement, maybe even to the level of sending them SWAG (trinkets) to thank them for helping to drive more views of the content.

#8 – Ask your POD, and others to share your LinkedIn Page Posts and to @mention target audience, peers, and even target companies to pull them into the conversation. Encourage them to pay attention to any and all engagement they solicit in their posts.

#9 – Simply mention your LinkedIn Page to people in conversation. Add the URL to your email signature, on your website, in all of your marketing content, etc.

Growing a relevant Following to your LinkedIn Page is just one step towards getting value from using LinkedIn as a business tool.

Do the work, reap the rewards.

/Teddy