326: Connecting With Purpose On LinkedIn – with Lindsey McMillion Stemann

Meet Lindsey

She is a principal and owner of McMillion Consulting. Lindsey believes in the power of influence and is a connector to the core as a national and international speaker, writer, and prospecting trainer. Her expertise is founded on equipping successful professionals and teams to profitably connect with purpose on LinkedIn. She has worked with 1000s of people to help them drive millions in revenue. Lindsey believes teaching should be practical as learning is actionable love that she loves helping her clients win.

Building relationships is all about establishing trust. How do we go about building trust on LinkedIn?

I always talk about how LinkedIn is this powerful online tool, but at the end of the day, business and networking and connecting have always been social, even before the internet existed. Shaking hands, kissing babies, following up to people knocking on doors. So I like to just remind people that and part of this is just to let down the anxiety and fear that comes with using a powerful tool like LinkedIn. So many things that I say and speak about this tool are similar to what you would do offline in many ways. So how do you build trust on LinkedIn? You do it just like you would offline so you have to think about your reputation. When you think about your reputation offline, and the credibility that you have, you want to make sure that that’s mirrored online, specifically through your LinkedIn profile. LinkedIn loves keywords, just like Google does so the more you can strategically and completely build out that LinkedIn profile with keywords, you’re increasing your likelihood of coming up in a search result on the platform. If you were to Google somebody’s name, LinkedIn and Google love each other so there’s a high likelihood that it’s not the first result, the second or third result on that first page is going to be that person’s LinkedIn profile. Also, people do not have to have a LinkedIn account to see your profile because it’s public. So I always like to emphasize that remembering the foundation of any success on LinkedIn is going back to your LinkedIn profile. The other thing I like to incorporate, here is authenticity. My motto for McMillion Consulting is connecting with purpose and when you’re connecting with purpose, as it relates to LinkedIn, what does that mean? Well, it means personalizing your outreach, following up to start a conversation, getting offline. Sometimes parts of the conversation can be in LinkedIn, but you still want to meet them in person because at the end of the day, we’re all in the human to human business so we want to think about just being authentic, connecting with purpose, personalizing our outreach, following up, asking people if they want to have a conversation offline to continue the discussion that was started. So I think of reputation, I think of authenticity, I think of generosity. We have to be servants of our knowledge, and our networks, and what I mean by that is you are Lori, an expert in marketing and many things in advertising. You and I were recently speaking about marketing automation and so many things that I have no idea about, but some that I do. So it’s this idea that you are very intentional, as I was sharing our knowledge with our networks on LinkedIn. What I always say, when I think about generosity on LinkedIn is it’s not just about being a good steward, and a good servant of your knowledge, but it’s also about recognizing when others do the same. It’s also about being generous with your network and introducing people. I loved your opening comment, “Hey, if you know anyone else who should be a part of this podcast in the conversation and let me know,” and we have to tell people that so that they do think of us when they think of someone in their network who’s a great speaker, who should be interviewed by you on their podcast. Then lastly, I would say is this consistency. So one client goes into LinkedIn, he’s very consistent, every Sunday and Thursday. Now, I’m going to put a little disclaimer asterisk by this and that it’s not that Sunday and Thursday are the right time for you or me, but this just so happened to be his cadence. So Sundays and Thursdays, he would go into LinkedIn and on average, this specific activity that he was doing in LinkedIn, would yield him six appointments per week, of which he would close three on average. So he’s a really good sales guy as a 50% success rate is pretty darn good, I would say. But the cool thing about those six appointments is that that was on top of what he was already doing in his business to grow his business. So he was using LinkedIn as an additive as a supplement to enhance his already successful growing business. What he said to me when he shared that was, “Lindsey, it’s because I’m consistent and disciplined,” so another way to think about consistency is showing up so you’re top of mind.

Let’s talk about ROI specific to the advertising that’s available on LinkedIn. How can you go about getting that?

This is a really fun question because I flip it on its head. I’m asked this pretty often throughout the year where people will say, “Lindsay, I’m interested in spending some of my ad dollars on LinkedIn.” What I would say is that perhaps if you’re a really large corporation or enterprise, you can get away with dropping some pretty big bucks on LinkedIn advertising. But generally, there is truly a laundry list of items to get done for that spending to have some ROI. Meaning, what you might think of as a quick fix, with LinkedIn advertising, doesn’t work that way. So a few examples of those laundry list items can include brushing up and cleaning up those LinkedIn profiles of yourself and your team members, making sure you have a company page, making sure that the individuals in your organization have networks that include people that you want to do business with, making sure you’re posting content consistently across your individual profiles and your company page. I think that was like four or five things just right off the bat, right? So how do you get an ROI from your LinkedIn advertising, it’s making sure that you’re set up well for success because LinkedIn is looking at all of those little pieces, and not just saying, “Hey, the biggest better wins the honeypot.”

Which LinkedIn feature is currently your favorite? 

I’m not sure what year they released this, I want to say it was last summer. The feature that I absolutely love is setting an away message on LinkedIn. Many people have no idea that that’s even a feature and it’s a feature that you only get access to with LinkedIn premium. Now, when people hear LinkedIn premium, that’s kind of the umbrella. But underneath that umbrella, you have multiple options. As of the release of this podcast, there are four LinkedIn, individual subscriptions that you can invest in for yourself. Even on the lowest-paid subscription, which is career and it’s roughly $30 a month, you get access to set an away message. So few reasons I love this is one, I don’t want to look like a jerk if you send me a message, and I don’t respond to you within the blank amount of time that I’m out of the office. So you get a little ping back immediately, just like out of office on email works, that says I’m unavailable. Now the other reason I love it, which I do with my email as well is leveraging this as an opportunity for a little commercial or promotion. So I include a postscript on my LinkedIn away messages when I use them which includes one of my free guides. I mentioned a few moments ago that this is a feature you only get if you are paying for LinkedIn and so one of the things I want to share with your listeners is going back to what I mentioned at the beginning of our chat, which was the reputation. So I’ve got a free guide that anyone who’s listening can get access to if they go to https://www.linkedintoit.com/freeprofileguide and it’s about a seven or eight-page guide of how to prepare, build and launch your LinkedIn profile. Here’s the thing, similar to advertising in many ways you could spend all the money in the world on LinkedIn, but it goes back to that key foundation where if you don’t look reasonably intelligent, and you haven’t intentionally built your LinkedIn profile the right way, nobody’s going to respond to you, nobody’s going to engage with you. So that free profile guide is a great place to get started.

Can you share one of your favorite networking stories or experiences that you’ve had?

It’s actually when I was in college, and it’s made such a really powerful impression on me that I believe it changed the trajectory of my career and how I was networking and meeting people in my business community and as a professional. So when I was in college, I don’t think I even knew what a networking event was. But it just so happened that I was in the business school and they were hosting a networking event to teach us what it was and how to do it. So I show up to this event and you can imagine it was incredibly awkward and nothing was happening in this room of 20 or 30 students. Nothing was happening, we knew that it had a start time so we’re looking at our watches and I’m like, “Why isn’t this thing starting?” Well, I Look over and a gentleman is standing in the corner of the room. I’m sure many of the other students saw him and thought he was a professor observing the students and I just walked over to him, right, because I actually intended on asking him what was going on. So I walked over to him standing in the corner, I stuck out my hand to introduce myself, he put his hand out and handed me a $20 bill. He introduced himself as the event speaker and so the lesson of that impressionable story is the most important person in the room might be the person standing awkwardly and uncomfortably in a networking event. So as we brush off our in-person networking skills, be the person who speaks up first. If you’re all there for a common goal to meet other people, to me, that just really lets down the guard and discomfort that sometimes comes with showing up at a networking event. But yeah, I got 20 bucks out of it and it turns out he was the most important person in the room!

How do you stay in front of and best nurture your network or your community?

I think it’s important to meet them where they’re at and stay in front of them in multiple ways. So yes, I’m a LinkedIn expert, but when I say this, I really mean it, I’ve got a 17 or 18 point checklist that I share with clients that I train on how to use LinkedIn more productively and profitably and you can imagine that those 17 to 18 points aren’t all on LinkedIn. So that’s kind of the irony is that we have to remember to use multiple communication channels when we are networking and staying in front of our networks and growing our networks. So picking up the phone, following up via email, attending a local event, seeing if they’re on other platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and meeting them where they’re at because that’s generally going to be the place that they are most comfortable. I think, to me, that’s the most important thing is not getting that tunnel vision of getting so stuck on a specific platform. It’s using those other channels to connect with people.

What advice would you offer to business professionals looking to grow their network?

I came up with this little term. I’ve been talking about it for years, and finally coined it as “The Who Pie.” I’m going to speak about LinkedIn specifically because it’s a platform we both love and it’s the sandbox I always say I play and stay and I don’t touch any other social platform out there. When you think about your existing LinkedIn network, so that’s your first-degree connections, I want you to think about your who pie. About 85% of your first-degree connections should be people who you authentically know, professionally. These people could be current colleagues of yours at the current company you work at, they could be people you previously worked together with, they could be people you’ve done business with, people you met at an event, people you went to college with, they’re your clients, your vendors, your connections, and essentially, this portion of your network should be people who you can introduce to each other. Then I think there’s this other 10% of your network that can be who you don’t know yet. This is where that growth actually comes into play. So you’re connected to about 10% or so of people who you don’t know yet, but you’re using LinkedIn as an entry point to get offline to schedule the phone call, or the zoom or the in-person meeting. So it is okay to be first-degree connections with people on LinkedIn who you don’t know yet. But you’re connecting with them intending to get to know them so that they essentially transfer over to that 85% of your who pie. So now, there’s this other 5%. To me, those can be your friends and family. Here’s the disclaimer: This 5% that can be friends and family need to represent themselves professionally. So both of my sisters are attorneys in the DC-Maryland area and while I don’t do business with them directly, they’re my sisters so I’m okay to be connected with them on LinkedIn, because they may know people who I need to meet. But of course, we have to be mindful of those family members who are not using LinkedIn professionally because if you engage with their activity, that activity is publicly visible. Similar to before I’ll say it again, it’s okay to be connected with your professional friends and family members, but to me, that 10% of the who pie is really where the opportunity is to grow.

If you could go back to your 20-year-old self, what would you tell yourself to do more or less of or differently with regards to your professional career?

This is so easy for me, not to take myself so damn seriously. I still struggle with this and I think I’m also just learning to embrace that I do tend to be a little more serious. Funny enough, I kind of blame it on my sisters. They’re much closer than age so in some ways you could look at our family tree and think, “Oh, Lindsey is an only child,” but here’s the deal. I didn’t have anyone to banter with, my two sisters are incredibly sarcastic and I was like this serious child that is black and white and life is not black and white. We have to take a deep breath and shrug our shoulders and just relax sometimes. So I would definitely say not taking myself so seriously. 

I understand that you have a giveaway for our listeners?

Yes! So my team and I have put together this incredible guide called the Ultimate LinkedIn Profile Examples Guide. In the years and years and years that I have interviewed clients, written their profiles, launched their profiles, time and time again, we’re visual creatures as human beings, and they want to see the before and after the makeover. So finally, I got a brilliant idea of putting an Ultimate LinkedIn Profile Examples Guide together to help folks who get access to this boost and level up their LinkedIn profile the right way. This guide has more than 20 pages in it with inspiration because the idea is to inspire people who get it in their inbox, who get access to it, inspire them with other top-notch profiles that I’ve cherry-picked, and hand-selected. At the end of the day, you have a unique story, your career, where you’re going, who you’re doing business with, where you came from is all unique to you, but I think it’s valuable to see other people who are doing it well. So I’ve handpicked tons and tons of examples and the idea with this is really so that you can get more time back on your watch when you’re transforming your profile. I recently updated this guide and it now includes five bonus features to make sure you’re using to implement in your profile to stand out even more. The offer is a 50% discount code on the guide. So when you go to https://www.linkedintoit.com/ultimate and apply the code “podcast50” you will receive 50% off your guide!

 

Connect with Lindsey

 

Claim your free profile guide: https://www.linkedintoit.com/freeprofileguide

Claim your copy of The Ultimate LinkedIn Examples Guide by heading to https://www.linkedintoit.com/ultimate and typing in promo code “podcast50”

LinkedIn: Lindsey McMillion Stemann | LinkedIn 

Website: McMillion Consulting 

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