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Million-Dollar LinkedIn Profile in Minutes
00:45:59
In this episode, Charles dives deep into the world of LinkedIn mastery with Matt Cretzman, a digital alchemist who's turned personal tragedy into a thriving career of connection-building. Matt unveils his blueprint for transforming a static LinkedIn...
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- [00:00]
A
Welcome to the I Am Charles Schwartz Show. Today we're cracking The Code of LinkedIn Mastery with Matt Kretzmann, the wizard behind countless digital transformations. Matt's journey from tragedy to triumph is a testament to the power of authentic connections and strategic online presence. In this episode, Matt unveils the secrets that turned his LinkedIn profile into a client generating machine. From AI powered profile optimization to the game changing pipeline principle, he's about to flip your LinkedIn strategy. You'll discover why your current approach might be leaving money on the table and how a simple mindset shift can turn cold connections into hot business deals. Matt's tactics are practical, proven and ready for immediate implementation. So if you're tired of being a LinkedIn lurker and ready to become a lead generating powerhouse, tune in. Matt's insights could be the turning point your professional life has been waiting for. The show starts now. Welcome to the I Am Charles Schwartz.
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B
Show, where we don't just discuss success.
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A
We show you how to create it. On every episode, we uncover the strateg tactics that turn everyday entrepreneurs into unstoppable powerhouses in their businesses and their lives. Whether your goal is to transform your life or hit that elusive seven, eight or nine figure mark, we've got the blueprint to get you there. The show starts now.
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B
All right, everybody, welcome back. I'm excited about today's show because this one talks about tragedy all the way to radical success. So, Matthew, thank you so much for being on the show.
- [01:22]
C
Oh, no, it's my pleasure, Charles. It's, it's going to be a lot of fun. It's going to be meaningful conversation. And for those that are listening, I think we're going to take you on a ride today.
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B
Absolutely. Let's start that ride. You know, you've been through some stuff and most people have no idea who you are. And for those of you who are paying attention or don't know, go get some tissues. There's going to be some stuff here. So this is, this hurts a little bit. So let's get into it.
- [01:42]
C
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm, I'm actually right now where I'm recording from is this little town called Buddha, Illinois, which is, it's two hours outside of Chicago. I'd never heard of Buddha until one of my best friends moved here and I just wrapped up visiting my parents and, and doing a conference over in Toronto and, and wanted to route through here. But as we kind of get into the backstory, you know, my life has been always about relationships. I, you know, My one. One of the. The leaders in my life that I admire. He said, your destiny is defined by your relationships. And so, you know, John Maxwell says, you know, you're the. The sum. Average of your five. Who are your five that you're spending most of the time with. And as I look back on my life, that's always been the constant, like the ma. The ma. The biggest decisions that I've made in my life was because somebody spoke into that or somebody had influence over me. And I. I like. I know liked and trusted them, and there was a lot of respect. So back when I was young, I. I went on a couple trips to a few different countries and fell in love with. Fell in love with travel. I mean, I grew up watching Indiana Jones. Right. That. We were. I think we were from that era.
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B
Yeah.
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C
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Like, man, is that a job? Like, because I want to be that.
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B
Can I do that?
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C
Yeah, yeah.
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B
Funny thing, did you know with Indiana Jones, it was originally not going to be him. It was going to be the guy from Magnum PI it was going to be Tom Selleck. Was it the original person who was cast, but the TV show wouldn't let him out of it, so they had to bring in Harrison Ford. But now I can't imagine anybody other than Harrison Ford doing it. He's so iconic.
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C
He's so iconic. I know. Yeah. Yeah. And the young Indiana Jones Chronicles. I don't know if you ever watch that also. Yeah, it's so good.
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B
Yeah.
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C
So, I mean, that, you know, travel, anyways. Yeah, that's what. I grew up watching that stuff. And I was like, man, I just love the adventure, the travel, the pursuit of, you know, beating the bad guys and winning and. And so when I took trips at, you know, like, trips overseas and throughout Latin America as a young Kid, my first tr. To Mexico was 2001. My first trip to the Dominican Republic was 2003. And coming from Canada and Toronto, you know, growing up in suburbia, it just. It blew me away. I was like, how are people living in these conditions? How is this, like, this is what is actually what most of the world, I think, is actually experiencing as life. And. And so from a young age, I was like, man, I really want to do something to help these people and just make an impact on their lives and kind of improve their situation. So very young, like, that was inside of my heart and that was my focus and my goal. So later on, just to accelerate the story, ended up getting married in 2007. Had my first kid in 2008. I was 21 when I got married and I was a week 22 when I had my first child. Her name was Aslan. She was born eight days after I turned 22 and she made me a dad. And it was super special. I love being a dad. I've. I ended up having three girls, so I have no clue what it's like to raise boys. Maybe a little bit because I am one, but from this perspective, like, I'm a girl dad through and through. And so I had Aslan in 2008. At the time, I was working as a, as a used car salesman, though I was not that used car salesman. Okay. I was an honest used car salesman.
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B
That's. I might be an oxymoron. That might not be.
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C
It might be. You know, I'm trying up stream, man.
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B
Maybe not so much.
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C
You know, I'm changing, I'm trying to change the trend. It sounds like a campaign, you know, like, yeah, there you go. And so, yeah, I was doing that. And then it came to time where I was like, all right, I'm ready to do this thing and I'm just going to launch out. So I started a Nonprofit organization in January 2010, quit my job, packed up everything, put a bunch of stuff in storage. This was in southern Ontario. And I was like, I'm going to do this. I'm going to go and live in Latin America. I ended up setting my sights on Dominican Republic and being a Canadian. It was pretty easy for me to get into Cuba, whereas Americans, it's a little bit harder.
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B
We can't do it. Complicated.
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C
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Side Note, there's actually 11 provisions that allow Americans to travel to Cuba. Yes. Yeah, we'll save that for the bonus episode. Bonus episode. So. So, you know, as I was traveling, just kind of presenting my mission to people all over the U.S. i'm traveling to 45 different states and I've been all over the place. And people love my vision. Like, you know, we get it. We're going to, we're behind you, we're going to support you. And everything was going great. It was, it was super special. October 20, 2010, Maddie was born. And so the height of my Travel, which was 2010 to 2013, um, I had, you know, I had a two year old and a newborn. Um, and it was, it was tough. We just, we, you know, we grinded. I can tell you many, many stories. Again, bonus episode of driving all night, pulling over at pit stops, and falling asleep in the same bathroom stall that I had just driven three months prior. Because I was so exhausted. That's, you know, real talk. Um, you know, but when you're starting an early stage, even company or organization, that's what you got to do. Like, you gotta. You gotta put in the grind and you gotta put in the work. And for me, I was very mission driven and focused. I really wanted to make a difference. So it kept me going up until. Up until one event that just so radically changed my life. And I still feel the ripple effect of what that was even to this day. So to set the stage, Maddie loose. Maddie and Aslan. Aslan was three. Maddie was 18 months, had pulled over in North Carolina. We were traveling to Ohio for a conference. And as I was driving through northern North Carolina, Mount Airy, other side note, fun fact. Andy Griffith show was filmed in Mount Airy, North Carolina. And that's. That's really old. I know I'm not even that old, but I know that stuff.
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B
It's good to know these things.
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C
There you go.
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B
You're driving. You're driving through.
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C
I was driving through, yeah, North Carolina. And being a Canadian, this was February in North Carolina. And I wasn't that concerned about the snow because I grew up in the snow. But what I learned that day and since is not every state or place has the same infrastructure to deal with inclement weather such as snow, as Canada does. And so as I was driving north with my family, we were, you know, driving along, and I'd see a car in the ditch here and a truck in the ditch over there. And I was driving the speed limit, being very careful. Um, and Aslan, you know, she was falling asleep, and so was Maddie. And we came to a bridge just before Mount Airy. And as we drove over that bridge, our tires actually hit black ice. I didn't see it. And so they stopped. You know, they just lost traction. The back of the van started to swing out. Kids were asleep, thank God. And I remember my wife at the time, you know, just woke up just screaming as we're just careening out of control. And so what ended up happening was the van spun off in the middle between the north and south highways. There was this large green space, and in the green space, there was this big interstate pole. And our van came to a collision halt right on Aslan's door on that interstate pole. And so a bunch of smoke, glass shattered. I was a little bit disoriented. The airbag punched me in the face, and it kind of fractured my nose a little bit. And. And it was just. It was a scene out of a horror movie. It was. It was. It was unreal. And so. So I ended up. I drive with my shoes off, so I wasn't even wearing my shoes. My phone went flying. So I jumped out of the driver's side window and came around to the other side of the van, and that's where I looked. And, I mean, that side of the. Of the. Of the vehicle was just a complete disaster. It was a wreck. Like, it blasted the door. Aslan was there, kind of slumped over. And imagine, like, being a dad. Like, at that moment, I'm like, I don't know what I do. Do I pick her up? Do I not? Do I. You know, where's my phone? I can't call 911. And so I was just frozen. And I remember just, you know, shouting out, you know, God, don't take my child. I was like, you know, just don't take my child. And. And I remember scooping her up and holding her, and her body kind of heaved a little bit, and I was like, oh, thank God she's alive. What ended up happening later on was I found out that that was actually her body just express, you know, expelling all of the air that was in her lungs. And. And I. And I, you know, I held onto her to the last minute. And so there's a lot that I could tell about that story that's not for this podcast, maybe a bonus episode. But there were so many miracles that happened after that event that just brought so much healing and, And. And meaning, I would say, to what was a tragedy as an. Obviously ended up passing away. The community wrapped their arms around us and. And just. Just blessed us immensely. People donated burial plots. They covered the funeral cost. It was. It was actually live streamed on the local news, WXII NBC affiliate. So many people tuned into the live stream, Charles, that it actually. It froze and. And shut down. And it just caught the. It caught the local. Local news. It just went around. And now, because of, you know, the nature of my organization, all of our supporters, which there were hundreds, if not thousands of them, they were all tuning in. And one tweet that I sent out was really what set it into motion. That was the one domino I remember laying in the back of the ambulance, and I had my phone in my left hand, and I sent out a tweet, and I was like, we were in an accident. Don't know if Aslan's going to make it. Please pray. Retweet. And that got retweeted a number of times. And that's what kind of set the domino in motion and of just all these people around the world just loving on us and helping us and supporting us. Now we carried on. And since this, I think one of the main themes of this talk we're going to have is relationships. And so one of the relationships that came into my life was somebody who. He was a pastor of a church in North Carolina and he had been helping people in India for 30 years. He had a great organization doing great work in India. He invited me to come to India and I'm like, Indiana Jones style, yo, let's go. You know what I'm saying? And so I went to India and it again, like I'd been. I traveled a little bit, but when I went to India, that's when another, another shock. I was not prepared for what I was about to witness. And I didn't know there are 35 million orphans in India and the condition that they live in is. I mean, it's. It's horrific. It's unbelievable. It's horrific. And so I went. One of the guys that I met, he was the one that was in charge of kind of managing our itinerary and driving us around. His name was Danny. We went on the trip to India. We became friends just because we were, you know, side by side that whole 12 day trip. And at the end of the trip, he kept bugging me, like throughout the trip. It's like, hey, let me know when you have a few minutes because I want to come and show you something that I'm working on. And so we were just so busy. But at the end of the week, he. I had a window and I was like, cool, let's do it. So I jumped on a scooter, drove over to this, this place maybe a mile down the road, and I pulled up this tiny building, this tiny house that was clearly under construction. And what he ended up telling me was he and his wife took out a loan from the government because they were so, so burdened about caring for the orphans of India that they were willing to take out a personal loan to build a building, build a small house and care for as many as they possibly could. And he just shared his vision with me and I took a picture, a few pictures that day. I still have it. I reflect back on it. But what, what ended up happening eight months later is we continued to have, you know, a friendship and build a relationship and a level of trust. He called me one day and he said, matt, I'd like to ask you a question. Can, can we I'd love to team up with you to build this orphanage. I'd just like to know if you would you mind if I named it after your daughter? And I was like, you know, tears just streaming, like, I would love to. Man, it was a dream. Someday, a bucket list. If one day I could, you know, have an impact like that and just do something so incredibly meaningful. And it came much sooner than I thought it would. At the time I was probably 26, 27 years old and, you know, had young kids. I had Lucy in 2013. And so I had like two young girls and, and to find such meaningful film and through something like that, it just, it has become one of the greatest honors of my life to help these kids. And the interesting thing I'll say about where I'm reporting this from right now, I'm actually in, in a city where another one of my closest, dearest friends that walked through all these seasons of life with me, he lives here in Buda, Illinois. So I'm here hanging out with my friend Chanta, who's just, just been such an amazing anchor for me throughout my life. And so to speed up the story, I ended up moving to the Dominican Republic in 2013-16. My heart grew for India so much more. I was like, I need a better home base. I can't base out of the Dominican if I'm going halfway around the world with my family. And so essentially spun the globe. And I'm like, where should I live? Dallas looks great. And so I settled on Dallas, moved to Dallas with the intention of continuing to serve and love and, and help grow our, you know, our organization in, in Asia, really in India. Uh, and that's when real life hit. And the van that was spinning in 2012 felt like it continued to spin. And in 2016 when I moved to Dallas and I had my two kids, that's when my wife left and I was now full time single dad. And I had lost almost everything except my kids. I lost, I lost my, my organization because I couldn't travel anymore. As a single dad. I lost my sense of identity because I had done that my whole life. And the cost with which it came. I felt a great sense of grieving over all the blood, sweat and tears and the life that it cost for me to build what I have built. That was then taken away. My self respect was taken away. I was used to being flying, flown over to conferences and speaking in front of hundreds, if not a couple thousand people. And I had really settled on where I am in life. And I Am very happy and I am content. I am excited about my future, only to have all of that taken away. And in 2016-18, those are what I call my wilderness experience, where I was just wandering and I was searching for what's the next thing? I don't know. And I would assume that there's no doubt somebody who's listening to this podcast that is either going through that experience, they've come out of that experience, or they're about to go into a period of time like that, a season. Life comes in seasons, and there's going to be a season like that where the unexpected happens. And it may be very difficult.
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B
You know, so you've gone through all these things which most people will never experience in their lives. They've never experienced loss on that level. Where life happens and then a community rallies behind you, and then you build these relationships. And then even after all this healing, you know, life just continues to happen. There's a 67% failure ratio of all marriages in the United States. That's just. It is what it is. It's a better chance I wouldn't get on a plane that had a 67% credit ratio, hence why there's no ring there. So in that, you started thinking about, hey, relationships matter, and how we can leverage relationships, and there's different platforms and there's different ways to do it. I know you've written a book about that on how to jump into those relationships and how to. To kind of influence and connect in those relationships. When you're doing that and you're going into that, what have you learned? Tell me more about your book on how you can leverage this. Because, you know, I get everyone has thinks that their tragedy, whatever's going on, is. Is the worst that ever happened. And for them, it is. It's kind of like when, you know, you've got little girls when they first start crying that first time because they, you know, they hit their hand or they touch something warm, that's the worst pain they've ever felt in their life. So, yeah, there's other people who have inoperable bone cancer who are going through much more. But to that individual child, it's the worst they've ever come across. So everyone's pain they're going through is the worst they've ever gone through. But when you have the ability to look at other people saying, hey, you lost a daughter, you lost a wife, you lost everything, you know, all of these things, and yet you're still done this, okay, how do I get out of that hole, how do I get. Get back up and running? And you've always said it, you know, relationships are core of that and how to access this and leverage this and make sure that you present yourself in a way that you are engaged with. So tell me more about that and the platform you use and the book and all that.
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C
I love this. I love this. Then thank you for the segue. This is. This is perfect. So 2019 was. Was another year that changed my life and for the better. That was. That was the pivotal moment where in that year I figured out a couple things and it set me on a. On a different trajectory. And I will say, like, you know, the mindset that I had all through those years, though, there were certainly highs and lows and ups and downs, and I felt good one day and horrible the next day. As I was just on this constant pursuit for what's next 2019, I met somebody who became a mentor to me. And so I always tell for people that are going through a tough season or they're looking for a transition, who are the people that are where you want to be, who have. Who's gone through what you've gone through, They've come out successful, and they are at a level of life that you want to experience. Reach out to them and ask them for help, you know, and. And maybe, you know, there are some that will accept that and be open to that and some that might reject that. Fortunately for me, it came through an intro. A friend saw where I was at. He's like, hey, you seem to have some marketing skills. You've done a number of marketing things. Let me connect you to Brad, who runs a marketing company, and see if he's got a spot. And so I met Brad, talked to Brad, he offered me a spot, hired me in 2019. I figured out everything that had to do with starting a marketing agency and running a business. And these are the. These are the skills. And this is what I love about where. Where we're at in society. We live in the gig economy. We're in a skill economy. Where I went to school meant nothing. It had. It had no bearing on my success in business and into the next, you know, the next stage that I was going to step into. It was 2019, all about learning skills for me. And there's a lot of skills that you can learn. There's more skills than ever that you can learn.
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B
So what are some of those skills that you learned that you got to leverage into? Because, you know, a lot of people are going to want to have some really practical, tangible. What do I do? How do I get out of this? I get finding a mentor. What are the skills that we get in we get to that point?
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C
Yep, yep. Okay. So for me, the skills that I learned, LinkedIn became, you know, for whatever reason, I had a draw to LinkedIn, a poll to get into LinkedIn. So I jumped in on LinkedIn. My perception of LinkedIn was a place that I would spruce up my profile if I needed a job. It was essentially a digital replica of my resume. What I didn't know, but soon discovered was LinkedIn is. It is, in my opinion, one of the biggest gateways to unbelievable opportunities. More so than any other social media platform in my experience and for a number of different reasons. Because on LinkedIn it is, yes, now it's become a content hungry platform. 0.5% of the total user base on LinkedIn consistently create content and they're approaching a billion users. That's a lot of empty space.
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B
Right?
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C
Like LinkedIn wants people to fill that empty space. But the second thing and why I love LinkedIn the most, at least initially, was it's a platform to connect with people. It is a business first platform where people are expecting and get on there to do business. And that business is done through relationships. And it's also done those relationships are formed by having the right conversations. And so what I learned was, and to get to your question about what skills. My skillset that I developed was I became really, really good at finding and starting finding the right people and starting the right conversation with the right person in the right way. And we're talking about total strangers. So that's really the question. And I think through this all the time with my clients, like, how do you find the right person and start that conversation at scale that doesn't make them feel like they're being spammed or they're a sales target or they're just a number. Right, right.
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B
And I think that's why, you know, only 0.5% or whatever it is in LinkedIn actually creates content and pushes it out because they don't know how to do that. So if I'm in a situation and one of the things we love going is getting really tactical. If I'm sitting there going, Listen, I thought LinkedIn was just my resume in a different format, which is what most people think that LinkedIn is, how do I present myself so that it is in a way that is going to get that engagement, that is going to build that relationship. What are some of the things that people can do, that are tangible, that they can sit down and say, oh, crap, I just heard Matt, this is awesome. I'm going to pull over, I'm going to do this on my phone. I'm going to do this right now on my laptop. I'm going to stop listening to the podcast. I'm going to write down, I'm taking immediate action. What are some of the things that they can do immediately?
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C
Here's, here's, here's a step. And I just did this. Here's a process, very, very tactical. And I just did this with my dad two days ago. Okay. It took us about two hours. And you're probably going to need to be on your laptop to do this because I don't think LinkedIn lets you do it from your phone. But, but, you know, listen to this later and follow the process. Step one, go to your LinkedIn profile and you can download your profile as a PDF. Download your whole profile as a PDF. Step number two, sign up for a Claude AI account. It's free. If you pay the $20 a month subscription, you're going to get access to Claude projects, which I'm a big fan of. Go and do it. It's 20 bucks. It's totally worth it. Okay, that's step number two. Step number three, you're going to go and upload that, that, that PDF onto Claude, right? And then you're going to tell Claude. You're going to tell Claude this because the first thing that's really important for you is your profile. Your profile is, it's your digital billboard. You got to have a dialed in profile, right? And you're like, oh, I'm not a good writer. I can't think about how do I position myself as an expert. LinkedIn, you don't have to do that anymore. That's exactly 100% exactly. So take all this stuff, go into Claude, give it your PDF and tell Claude in just like you were talking to a human. Hey, Claude, my name is so and so I've given you a PDF of my LinkedIn profile. I want you to help position me as an expert. Look at my experience, and here are some things that I'm passionate about. Let's work sequentially through my profile so that it come I, I can produce something that's highly optimized and professional.
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B
Love it.
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C
Enter. Boom. Claude's going to analyze all of it. It's going to do all the hard work and it's going to spit out this amazing copy for your headline, your about section, your experience Maybe even like your, you know, your banner. And just work through it, go back and forth. Hey, Claude, I like this, but I don't like that. Tweak this, fix that, whatever. Just like you were talking to an editor or a graphic designer, and it'll do all the work. And then you can go to Canva, you know, Canva, of course, like, update the banner and stuff like that. Clean up your profile and you'll be amazed. Like, you'll be amazed what happens when you just do that one thing. You'll feel better, and that will give you the confidence, which I think is the reason why most people shy away from being really active on LinkedIn is because they're either insecure or they don't feel like, you know, they present themselves in the right way and they don't have any clarity on, you know, what's my authority, what's my expertise?
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B
I love that you started with that. And because I've had this conversation with people all the time, they're like, okay, what do I say to someone? I was like, listen, if I told you the absolute perfect thing to say in a networking environment and you walked in naked, covered in dirt, with your hair messed up, having bedhead, I don't care what you say, it's probably not going to convert. I love that you said, we got to start with your profile. We got to clean you up. Because if you're walking into a room, this is digital networking. You've got to present yourself in a way that integrates and connect in a really, really high way. So using cloud AI, and I am, there's a lot of people who are nervous about AI. I'm not nervous about AI in any way, shape or form. I think it's the greatest tool on the planet, is a virtual fleet of employees. For me, I use it all the time. I absolutely love it. Do I think it's going to take thing take over a bunch of different stuff? I don't know. I don't have a crystal ball. I don't know. All I know is that for a lot of companies that I've worked with, like content creators and all that, I'm like, y'all guys might want to get more skill sets because it's going to hurt. Things are going to change. You know, Ghost Riders got eaten alive. Eaten alive? Yeah.
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C
Oh, 100%.
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B
It's over. It's over. Sorry, guys. If you're a ghostwriter right now, contact Matt. Talk. Contact Matt. He'll teach you some new skill sets. You're going to need them. Sorry. It's like the people used to be the window knockers back in England. They would knock on your windows in the morning to wake you up and then alarm clocks happen. You're like, well, sorry. It is what it is.
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C
Sorry.
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B
It is what it is. Okay, so someone goes in, they use Claude. They've redesigned this. A lot of stuff that people run into that's a problem is how do I connect? I mean, we connected over LinkedIn. How do I connect? How do I reach out? How do I do this? Obviously the best way is just to send naked pictures. No, that's not right.
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C
So, no, that's Instagram.
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B
Yeah, that's only fan or something. But I also love what you said, that LinkedIn is specifically designed. They're there for a specific reason. You know, you go to an event that's all about knitting. You don't go and talk about how to make sushi. It's a knitting event, for God's sakes. Same thing here. They're here to do this. There's so many people who try and do business on Instagram and I'm like, it's a little harder, guys go to the path of least resistance. So if you're sitting there and you've gone through cloud and you've optimized your profile.
- [25:41]
C
Yeah.
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B
How important is social proof? You know, I know you've written a book. I ordered them as well. How important is social proof now?
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C
Yeah, yeah. So you know, the time old formula and it's never going to change is no, like, and trust.
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B
Right.
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C
And so you got to put yourself in the, in the, you know, the other person's shoes and look at you from an objective perspective. If I see me on LinkedIn or in town, like, do I exude trust?
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B
Right.
- [26:04]
C
Right. Is there any evidence of my expertise? That's essentially it, you know, So I love these, you know, these philosophies or, you know, approach to life that's like build in public. Right. Show your homework. And there's never more an important time for you to show your homework and work in public, build in public than now. It is the proof of your work. Right. So that's, that's super important. There's a couple of easy ways to do that, one of which, you know, you can do through content. So let me give you again, like really low hanging fruit, easy takeaway, super tactical. And again, I did this with my dad two days ago and I do this all the time, so, so this works. All right, so now that you've gone to Claude and you've cleaned up your profile. The next thing that you can do with Claude, and here's how I juggle Claude with ChatGPT. I would then go to Claude and say, based on all this information, what is your. What, what would you say are some topics that I should be talking about to build the right audience? Boom. It'll give you topics. If you want to take it a step further and build the roadmap to LinkedIn Voice, which I've done. Go to link, go to Google LinkedIn voice top LinkedIn voice topics. You'll come up with the website, grab the website, give it to ChatGPT and say X. And actually I would Compare both with ChatGPT. Copy all that, get the PDF, give it to ChatGPT with that link and say, I want you to blend my expertise with LinkedIn top voice topics and tell me what I should be speaking about on LinkedIn. Boom. It's going to make sense of all of it, make it super easy. If you want to take it a step further with ChatGPT, which is great for research and strategy, then tell ChatGPT, hey, what are some newly published books on these topics and authors that I can use to create content or possibly reach out to? And here's the magic, right? So now it gives you all those books, the authors, it'll even link to them. You can click those, and if you're really smart, you're going to find those authors on the sleepiest channel to connect with. High performance ever. And that's LinkedIn, right? Yeah. You see where I'm going with that?
- [27:51]
B
I've done this multiple times. Yes.
- [27:53]
C
And it works.
- [27:53]
B
Exactly. Not only does it work, it's a game changer. I remember there was an individual that we wanted to come out for an event and I reached out to him, I said, hey, I'm going to buy 500 copies of your books and give them away. Do you want to come speak at this event? And he's like, I'm sorry, what? And I was like, I'm going to. I was like, I'm going to give away for free. It would be great if you were there if you want to sign him, if you want to do a remote thing, he's like, I'll come out and I'll speak. And he's like, okay. And all it cost me, instead of having to pay him to come speak, I just bought 500 copies of his book. And we got the author's price, which is very. For those who haven't published a book, we authors get a very different price than you do. So, like, my book is the cheapest I can make it, which is like 14 bucks, 15 bucks. My author's copy cost me $4 free shipping. So just we will. Whenever I go speak at events, I will literally ship boxes of my books to the event and just give them away. Because if you're in the process of writing a book on a complete little tactical tip, books are nothing more than a sales funnel. They're your social proof. To create your sales funnel, it's building klt, which Matt talked about earlier, which is no like and trust. But it has to be written in a way which is feel, felt, fix. I feel what you've gone through. I have felt it too. This is how I fixed it. And that has all your content needs to be done. And if you're not doing these things, it's brutal. One of the things that you mentioned also that I think it's just, I love it. I think we need to bring back the age of authenticity. The ability to sit there and say, hey, I'm doing this live. For example, I sat there and we were doing an event. I'm like, I'm the Beyonce of podcast. They're like, I'm sorry, what? I was like the Beyonce of podcast back in when she was on Star Search and she got kicked off because she had no idea what she was doing. And to be able to say a podcast, I have no idea what I'm doing. But it hooked enough that people were like, oh. And I was self deprecating enough to be honest. Like, I don't know. I was doing it on a webcam. You and I talked before we started recording. I was like, I don't know math. And you're like, really? You're going to love it. I don't understand how to do anything. So having that authenticity is a huge factor.
- [29:36]
C
It's huge.
- [29:36]
B
When you do this outreach, what are the ways? Do you have templates? Do you have normal ways that you do it? Say, hey, this is how I'm going to outreach. How do you do it?
- [29:43]
C
Yeah, yeah. Depending on the type of the campaign, right? Like the camp and the campaign strategy. I tell people like, tools, tools and data, both of them are a commodity nowadays. I don't use whatever tool you want. Right. They're all going to do a good job. If you want to use our tool, Lead Storm, I go for it. Like, but they're all, There's a ton of them. They all do a good job. Job. Data is everywhere. You know, don't buy lists from people. Just go get like a, you know, like a 99 subscription.
- [30:03]
B
Thank you. Thank you. Go to war.
- [30:05]
C
Please. Go to warp leads. It's 49 bucks, and you can export unlimited contact contacts at Warbleads. Okay. There you go. That was free. So that doesn't really matter. It's your strategy. And what we do when we're talking about outreach is we look. I do at least. And you probably do too, right? We look for commonality. What's the commonality between me and them? And some. And this is what I teach, you know, called. This is like my pipeline principle. Principle which most people, they think about pipeline and they hear sales. When I think about pipeline, I hear relationships.
- [30:30]
B
Yes.
- [30:30]
C
So how do I. How do I fill my.
- [30:33]
B
I think everyone listening to this needs to stop thinking sales and start thinking relationships. Correct. Your network is your net worth, and the better relationship you have with them, it changes it. So, yeah, I love that you have that differentiate.
- [30:44]
C
That's it. And I. I even say, you know what? A little bit. A little bit of a tangent. I don't say you're. I'm gonna redefine that one. You. I don't think your network is your net worth. Your network is your fund, is. Is your conduit to expose your net worth. Because my net worth doesn't come from people around me. My net worth is intrinsic to who I am. But my network is necessary for me to express and exchange that value. You know what I'm saying? It is. It's a way for you to spend those dollars and, you know, do do business in the economy. But. But no, you're right. Like, and your. Your net worth does increase with the quality relationships, which is really important. So you look for commonality and some easy ways to do that. There's a couple of different hacks that I. I've used over the years, and they continue to work. Well, alumni campaigns are easy, right? Like, did you graduate from a certain university? You know, like, we did one for president of a basketball team. He graduated from Notre Dame, lives in Dallas. And we just, you know, Notre Dame peeps in Dallas. Hey, I'm holding a luncheon. I'd love for you to come. Super easy. Like, that one works commonality and the other one could be, you know, beliefs or values go to, you know, maybe organizations. They may be a part of where you might view the world the same way or care about the same topics. Do you volunteer a part of an organization? The other one that works really well is LinkedIn event hacking. So go into LinkedIn in the search bar, put yourselves in the mind of your ideal client. What events would they attend? Put that in the search in LinkedIn filter by events. You can do it from your phone and then you're going to scroll through all the events. If you put, you know, sales, they care about sales, they have problems with sales, you're good at sales. Boom, there you go. Now there's thousands of people that are looking for what you're trying to offer and they care about leveling up. So those are like, you know, little strategies that I'll use. And then as far as templates, depending on, okay, go ahead.
- [32:22]
B
That's where I was going. I was like, so you, I get how you find the people and get stuck like, okay, I find someone who wants to do personal growth, wants to do sales, wants to do whatever. How do I do outreach? Because it's, it's interesting because some of the people I work with are like, well, how do I find people that I've like minded, that I want to date? I was like, it's not that hard. Where do you want to hang out? It's the same idea, it's the same commonality. Where are they going? And then go to those events and you're going to find like minded people. Absolutely not a good idea because you're just pissing in the wind. So when you do this and you say, hey, I found Bob, Susie, whoever it is that I want to connect with. Yep. What does the outreach look like? What does the temp look like? How do you communicate in a way that's effective?
- [32:59]
C
Yep. If I'm going to do the event hacking one, for instance, I like to open up my connection message, which by the way, if you put no connection message in your connection request, about 30% are going to convert anyways. If you have a really clean profile. So have a really clean profile, reach out. You'll get that connection, you'll get that success. Especially if your profile speaks to what they care about and they're like, oh, it's super obvious. Right. But if you're going to put a connection message into your request, I like to open up with a question or with, you know, a relational value statement for events. I usually start with you attending event name two, first name, question mark. Really cool. Bumping into somebody else who cares about growing, you know, leveling up in sales or leveling up in whatever. Right. Because that question, psychologically, the human wants to answer the question. So we've seen that one work really well. You might even say it's, it's a little bit cheesy, but it still works if you're reaching out to people that do fit the, you know, the ICP ideal customer profile. You still working at company name, first name, question mark. Right. Just to clarify, and because not everybody Updates their, their LinkedIn profile, they may have moved on and you don't know about it. So they're not a fit anymore. So that clarifying statement, we've seen crazy, crazy good metrics. Just with that one question in the connection request, sometimes even 80% will accept the connection request and maybe 40% will just directly reply without even accepting the connection request. With things like, yes, I am, why do you ask? No, I'm not, you know, or whatever.
- [34:24]
B
Right.
- [34:24]
C
And it just starts the conversation, you know, it's just a conversation starter. So that's the easy way. I don't think there's any substitute for the manual. Like highly, highly personalized, like, I'm going to do it myself. I don't think there is a substitute for that. The next best thing is a bunch of sophisticated tools like clay.com and hyper personalization, as we would call it as the intro message. Subsequent messages. I'm big on video. Put a video in that second message. Getting up as early as you can. Get people to see you.
- [34:56]
B
Yeah.
- [34:56]
C
And build rapport through video. The better your campaign is going to perform.
- [35:00]
B
Because I'm curious, when you do that, there's this weird thing called KLT that seems to come into play when you send a video. It's weird. It's wild. Yeah, it's wild.
- [35:07]
C
Crazy.
- [35:07]
B
One of the things that, you know, even on Instagram, because there's different things in different platforms. Whenever I try to do outreach to someone, if it's on Instagram, I'll send a voice message. I'll never type it all day long because voice messages get opened on an exceptionally higher rate. And also, I hate typing. I can barely spell my own name, so it's just easier for me to go, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and just fire them up and just rocket fire those. Those convert on such a higher level and you're not going to get it all the time, which is okay. But they convert on. At least their team's going to get it.
- [35:37]
C
That's correct. Same thing on. Yep, same thing on LinkedIn. I do the same thing. The great. A great little hack. You know, shout out to my friend Morgan ingram. He's got 160,000 followers now on LinkedIn. He's crushing it. I've learned a ton from him over the years. And here's the one hack that he's always been teaching and I learned from him. Voice message on LinkedIn followed by this sentence. Any thoughts on my message above?
- [35:57]
B
Right.
- [35:58]
C
Push them back to the audio message, get them to listen to it. That's really same thing with video. Thoughts on my video question mark.
- [36:04]
B
Right.
- [36:04]
C
Leave it ambiguous so that it forces them to listen to it. It's a great, it's a great little hack.
- [36:08]
B
Beautiful. Very tactical.
- [36:09]
C
Yeah.
- [36:10]
B
So they're going through and we all know the basics of the profile. Like, you know, have a picture, look at the camera, so on and so forth. Some basics up there which I don't do. I don't think I've logged into my LinkedIn, my team does for me. So I might need, you know, we'll have a different conversation about that.
- [36:24]
C
Yeah, that's a lot of trust right there.
- [36:30]
B
Not my focus at the moment, but as they're going through this and okay, I've got this relationship going. My profile is updated. Are we sending out lead magnets? Do lead magnets work? Do you want to have booklets there? Do you want to send to a website? How long do you want to keep them on platform? Those are kind of beautiful.
- [36:44]
C
Beautiful, Yep. Here's how we think about lead magnets. Put a lead magnet. And again, not everybody knows this, but your LinkedIn profile, you can add additional features on your profile. So if you're looking at, if you're looking at it, there's a button that says add section. Click add section and then it. There's another section that says recommended. Click that one and then it's going to go featured section is. Is one recommended, which is another. Your banner and then the featured section are the two biggest parts of your profile. Put lead magnets in the featured section. Whatever your top of funnel thing is, put it right there. Make it easy and enticing. Design it. So it's really nice. Get people to click it. The second place that you can put lead magnets, right, I think it's right below your headline. You can actually put a custom URL. So, and that's an additional feature. Go into the settings, add a custom URL and you can actually change the words and then there's a hyperlink behind the words. So I would say something like grab your free whatever here.
- [37:37]
B
So that's the next question. What is the free whatever? Because people are gonna like, do I want a video? Do they want a course? They want a checklist? Do they? What? What is the free whatever that converts the highest Great.
- [37:45]
C
And the, and the third place where you're gonna do lead magnets is in your content. So to answer your question, good segue. Lead magnets work unbelievably well in content. Here are some very simple ones that you can do. Listicles work really well. Come up with a list of, you know, whatever thought, hey, top 10, whatever here, you know, best templates for this, most successful that like listicles are great. Case studies are great, right? Depending on what industry you're in. Like for instance, AI or automation. Like AI. It's like, oh my gosh, I don't even know where to start. Clarify for people by putting together a case study. Here's what I did to use this to help this company over, you know, overcome this and achieve that. Put that case study in there. The other thing that you can do is like you could do carousels work really good. Of course, walkthroughs, if what you're doing is, you know, involves software or tech, put a walkthrough together. Here's how I use these tools to accomplish this and that's clarifying. If you wanted to do like a mini, you know, a mini course. I see people launch these all the time on LinkedIn and they're great. Whatever, whatever extremely valuable, time intensive thing that you can create and give away and put a call to action at the bottom of it and say, if this helped you or will help somebody in your network, please share, right? And you will get people because they feel good, right? Like they're now like, you know, they're the, they're the dealer. They're just like dealing out, you know, good resources to their network.
- [39:12]
B
So because a lot of them are being a tad bit lazy in creating their own content and their own lead magnets and they're just going to appropriate your stuff, which is absolutely fine. Don't mind at all. So these are some of the things that work really, really well. What are some of the things that people make mistakes that are like, oh God, I just, if I don't do these five things, just please, for the love of everything, don't do these five things. It'll convert better. Because I know that you only have so much time with you. What are the five things that are like, oh, I wish they would do this.
- [39:38]
C
Yeah, things that they shouldn't do correct.
- [39:41]
B
Or like, I see this all the time. These are common mistakes list.
- [39:44]
C
Yeah.
- [39:45]
B
What are the five things?
- [39:46]
C
I think, I mean, look, I mean the big number one, the big number one, please just don't spam people just Don't. Just don't. If you think, if you think quantity is better than quality, you are dead wrong. So just, absolutely, just, just don't. If you think, you know, like, LinkedIn is a numbers game to an extent, but it shouldn't be like, it's different, right? You want to come with a sniper, you don't want to come with a, you know, an Uzi. So just, just don't get that automation tool. It's cheap and easy and whatever. I don't really care. Don't. You're going to burn more bridges than you're going to build, so just, you know, number one, don't do that. The second thing that I would say is, man, don't. Don't be a lurker. Don't be a lurker. You know, I think, you know, a lot of people I see, they just, they're fearful of getting on camera or just, you know, putting themselves out there and, and don't, like, just overcome that, you know, that fear. And you'd be amazed at how many people will just rally behind you. Yeah.
- [40:41]
B
I think it goes to a point that you said earlier when you found, I believe it was Danny, who was a mentor, who came up and connected with you. Find a map, find the people out there that already done it, who can say, listen, I know you're scared. I've been there before. I know where the rocks are. I know how to walk across this. It doesn't take a lot of energy. You sit down and you have that conversation, get the buildup of it. Because there's so many, as you said, what, 0.5% of the people are actually doing anything on LinkedIn. And this is basically like going back to Instagram a decade ago. This is, you know, this opportunity of a lifetime is only going to matter in the lifetime of this opportunity. It's not going to be around much longer, especially as we walk into a massive recession, which is going to be brutal. Everyone's going to start optimizing their world in LinkedIn and they're trying to get this and they're trying to fix this exceptionally fast.
- [41:26]
C
Yeah, there are two, two other things that I'm going to add to that just to. Just to jump in. Two other things. LinkedIn, if you pull up the app, the app on LinkedIn, if you look at the bottom, and this is an SEO strategy, too. We use this, we've used this for years. If you want to figure out what does this platform, whether it's Google or LinkedIn, want me to contribute, go into the platform and maybe put a little search term on Google and it'll show you images, videos, maps, articles, whatever order that is. That's what it wants. Google wants in order for you to rank on LinkedIn. It's the same thing. Open the app, look at the bottom, home video, network notifications, and then profile. So LinkedIn is making it very obvious we want you to create videos. And now you have TikTok style videos on LinkedIn with that feed. So it's definitely video hungry. The second thing that I'll say that it's highly tactical and I do see this all the time and I wish people would stop. Not because it's a bad thing, but it's not. The smartest thing is if you're going to post an article or a long form, you know, post on LinkedIn, but especially an article, do it under a newsletter. Because a newsletter is very easy on LinkedIn for you to build subscribership. And so brand your newsletter towards your audience. Publish the articles under the newsletter. And here's the cool thing, okay, there's lots of benefits. I could talk a lot about newsletters on LinkedIn, but number one, you can embed long form videos off LinkedIn's platform in an article on a newsletter and LinkedIn won't slap you for it. So if I wanted to embed a YouTube video in an article, I could do that in an article. You can't do that on a post. They'll penalize you for it. The second thing is subscribers to your newsletter, they get a push notification on their phone whenever you publish an article.
- [43:03]
B
Nice.
- [43:03]
C
Dude, do you know how like how valuable that is to, to like creep.
- [43:07]
B
Up on now huge newsletters? There's so many of these little secrets and these little hacks and I know you've written a book about it, but there's so many little things that we could probably talk for five or six days just on this. And there's a reason you coach people new to this. If someone's listening to this and all of a sudden they're like, holy crap, this. I didn't even know that you could even do a newsletter. I didn't even know about, you know, Claude and I know about all these things. How do people track you down? How do people get a hold of you and say, listen, this was great. I understand how much I don't know. Now I need to book some time with you. I need to figure this out. I need to get access to you. How do people track you down? How do they find you?
- [43:44]
C
I love it. You know, the obvious would be LinkedIn, but you know, surprise, surprise number two. Yeah. The book, the LinkedIn Advantage. Yeah, we didn't get to talk about as much as I, you know, would like, but uh, but I would say like the book is incredibly special. It's with a co author of mine who's written a hundred books and found him and through LinkedIn, like my life has changed because of LinkedIn and I get to write an amazing book with a guy like Tony Jiri. But yes, that next step, if they wanted to reach out and get started, go to LinkedIn thelinkedinadvantagebook.com and that's a good place for you to get started. You can, you know, look up information about the book. But the best thing there is the assessment I developed. It's called the LinkedIn Power Score. It's free. Go to the website, take the score, see where you're at and then you can figure out where, how to, how you can improve.
- [44:32]
B
Love it. And then it. So they reach out on LinkedIn directly to you and is there Instagram or emails or anything like that you want to have them track down to or is that always the best bet?
- [44:40]
C
Yeah, Snapchat. You know my only.
- [44:43]
B
No, I'm just kidding, man. I, I appreciate there were so many things you gave in this that people are like, okay, I've got it. I go knew how much I didn't know. I've got a couple things to get me going. There are things that I need to change on my LinkedIn as well, man. I really appreciate you coming on.
- [44:58]
C
No, Charles, it's a pleasure. Thank you, thank you so much. Yeah, reach out. Happy to help, you know, any way that I can.
- [45:04]
A
And that's a wrap on our LinkedIn Masterclass with Matt Kretzman. We hope you're as fired up about your LinkedIn potential as we are. A massive shout out to Matt for pulling back the curtain on his LinkedIn success strategies. His journey from rock bottom to relationship building guru is nothing short of inspirational to all you LinkedIn warriors out there. Your hunger for growth and connection is what keeps this show going strong. Want to put Matt's LinkedIn magic into action? We've got you covered. We've distilled this episode into a power packed action guide. It's loaded with Matt's top tips from AI powered profile optimization to turning your newsletter into a client magnet. Grab your free guide at podcast. I am Charles Schwartz dot com. Remember, as Matt hammered home, LinkedIn success is all about authentic relationships and consistent value. Now go out there and turn those connections into opportunities. Your LinkedIn Revolution starts today.