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The Futur with Chris Do
328 - LinkedIn’s Untapped Business Potential - With Michelle J. Raymond
01:03:44
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- [00:00]
Michelle J. Raymond
It is scary for a lot of businesses to go, but everybody else is doing it this way. I don't want to be the one that stands out and I think you have to connect that. The greater risk to the business is that you blend in. My name is Michelle J. Raymond and you're listening to the Future.
- [00:28]
Chris Do
I have talked to Richard Moore, I've talked to Yasmeen Alec, and I've actually did second episode with him, which was pretty much fire. And to my surprise, the LinkedIn content does really well elsewhere on podcasts and also on YouTube. So I'm just happy to have a different voice in the LinkedIn creator space. And Michelle, thank you very much for jumping on the podcast with me. How are you doing?
- [00:50]
Michelle J. Raymond
I am doing fabulous and a good day from Sydney. To all of your listeners that might be joining from anywhere in the world.
- [00:57]
Chris Do
And for people who don't know who you are, can you please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit of your background story?
- [01:04]
Michelle J. Raymond
For sure. So I'm Michelle J. Raymond and the J is there just so you can find me on LinkedIn searches. It's not to make me sound smarter, which is what somebody asked me one day, but ultimately I'm based here in Sydney, as I said, and I'm a LinkedIn specialist that trains businesses on how to get active on the platform. I. I've spent 20 years in B2B space in account management roles, sales roles in the manufacturing industry. And it was always dirty and a bit nasty around the edges, but I was fascinated with how things get made, and I still am to this day. And you might be thinking, like, what is account managing and manufacturing got to do with LinkedIn and how am I here? Well, around 10 years ago, I started a new job in the chemical industry. So I used to sell raw materials and ingredients that go into beauty products and I turn up at a new job in a new industry. And I just got my job through LinkedIn. Pretty common story back around then. And what happened was my boss gave me a customer list of 80 clients that were spread around Australia. So picture that's the same size as the US with 10,000 different ingredients to sell, and said, go and sell. And I was like, I don't know how this maths adds up, but I can't be everywhere. It's just fantastic. Physically impossible. And so I'd been messing around with creating some content on LinkedIn and I said to him, do you mind if I do this for this job? And he goes, what's LinkedIn? I was like, oh, you know where you get your jobs through. And he's like, yeah, is it free? And I was like, I think so. And he said to me, I don't care, just go and sell. And so off I went and figured out if you build an amazing community strategically on LinkedIn and then you create content that's of value to that community, boy did those sales come through. And so I am unashamedly come from a sales background. But I, when I set up my own business four years ago, I really had to get across personal branding, quick smart and branding for my business as well, because shout out to any marketers that has had the sales team take credit for all of their work and the sales team takes all the glory for the sale. I didn't realize the power of branding and marketing. So I just want to shout out to any marketers that are might be feeling like the sales team doesn't appreciate you. I can honestly say I do.
- [03:28]
Chris Do
Now that's a great story. So you've been doing content on LinkedIn for as long as I've been doing content on YouTube. So I'm super excited to talk to you. One point of distinction here, if I heard you correctly, you help businesses get onto LinkedIn, right?
- [03:43]
Michelle J. Raymond
That's right. So typically, Chris, it's those people that say we know we should be on LinkedIn, but. And they've identified that all of their target audience is on the platform. That's where the decision makers are hanging out. But they've been hesitant, especially in the business to business space. You know, it really is just getting started now, which is crazy to think that the B2C and E commerce, they've been online for 15, 20 years. But in business to business, it is literally just getting started, which it's mind blowing for me.
- [04:17]
Chris Do
Okay. There's a lot for me to try to figure out with you. These businesses who know they should be on there know that this is potentially the most concentration of entrepreneurs and businesses who are looking to work with people, to hire people. The fact that they're not there, the psychology of what these businesses are going through, what's causing resistance or friction for them, why they don't do it.
- [04:37]
Michelle J. Raymond
I think we have to rewind to a time before there was that thing called the Internet. And I have been selling for long enough to remember those times. And, and if you go back to that time, the whole way that business was done was people like me in account management roles would go around and build relationships one on one with customers. And it was all about the little black book. It was all about keeping secrets. You didn't want your competitors to know who you were working with, what you were selling them, what price you were doing. That's where success came from. Fast forward now you've got information at your fingertips at a rate that just is mind blowing. But what hasn't happened is the culture of selling hasn't caught up. We've still got the same old KPIs, customer visits. How many calls do you have? Like these kinds of things. And ultimately what's happening is people still want to keep everything a secret. Now in an online world and selling online, we're asking them to throw that all out of the window and now start to share everything with everybody. And you can see people that have been in that business, often in senior leadership positions, are just going, are you guys nuts? There's no way we want to tell people. Except now they've realized that some of their competitors have got the jump on them. And we're back at that point now where it's like, well, if you don't go now, you're going to get left behind. Like all of those Internet deniers back then, the advertising in the phone book know, where are they now? They disappear. And so often with these kind of industries, they don't. They have a lot of repeat business, a lot of ongoing business, a lot of history. But it's like what's happening now that these new players are coming into the market and they're just getting caught out.
- [06:22]
Chris Do
I'm glad you brought that perspective to the conversation, that what has worked in the past historically is the thing that's actually keeping you from taking advantage of the next paradigm. There's definitely a shift here that's gone on, not only from a technological point of view, but how we communicate ways of thinking. It used to be it's about secrets, trade secrets, and protecting ip, certain processes, non disclosures. And today, in the age and in time of social media and social currency, it's all about transparency in the relationship, the stickiness of your brand and your communication style and building community who seeks you out so you're not so much chasing them. That's perfect. I think you gave us the right kind of context for us to understand why. All right. The kinds of people that we typically talk to, the LinkedIn experts, are really trying to help solopreneurs, solo operators. So I'd like for us to focus more on the business component to draw a sharper distinction between the kind of expertise that you have. I'm going to ask this in a very selfish way. And maybe this is the way for us to get into our conversation together. I've been very fortunate to get a decent sized following on LinkedIn and I'm also very fortunate to have the kind of engagement and community that I have. I've not been able to be very effective at converting those people into customers. And I'd love to get your insight on this in any which way you think this is going to be a productive conversation.
- [07:39]
Michelle J. Raymond
Yeah, look, and that is a pretty common question that I get asked, you know, and I love that you've shared that, because I think people when they're starting out on LinkedIn, also faced with this mountain of hang on a minute, I'm active on the platform, I'm putting in all of this effort and I'm not getting any return on that investment. And I actually think that the problem that's happened on LinkedIn and it's a bit of a controversial opinion here, and I'm just going to put it out there, is that there is this undercurrent of don't be salesy on LinkedIn and I'm not sure where it started and I'm not going to point the finger at anybody, but what I think happened was we got so focused on being of service of people, which I'm absolutely on board. Right. So just to put it out there, sales for me is problem solving and helping people. That's all it is for me. But what I think happened was we're so busy sharing knowledge and empowering others and being of service that we forget to talk about what we do, the problems we solve and how our business exists literally to solve problems for other people. Like businesses exist so that you can get paid to make problems go away. But I think we've just made sales a dirty word. And I think it's to do with there's so many bad DMs. Like, as we discussed just before, you have an inbox full of spam DMs that are directed at products that you probably have no interest in, you've never expressed a need for, you can't even understand why they're even targeting you because it is just this mass numbers, spray and pray approach, which is just awful. I'm not someone that advocates for anything along those lines, but I think we forgot the strategy for the business on why we're there. And it's not a bad thing to talk about what you do and the problems that you solve. And it's all great to be helpful. I love being helpful. It's Part of my brand. It's why I love your content so much. But there's also a piece of it's okay to be salesy, as people say.
- [09:44]
Chris Do
Okay, I understand that we get to play because we're paid at some point. And so if we want to continue to play and be of service to people, we got to make sure we pay some bills. But are there specific strategies? Because I am one of those people, I'm. I'll throw myself out there. I tell people, your content sucks. Your content isn't highly engaged. No one shows up to yourself because it's so pretty much like following the advertising model. And you're pitching to me nonstop on your content. And I keep telling people, maybe the first thing you need to do is show up for the people, do something that feels like an act of generosity, and then eventually you can ask them for the sale. So let's say I'm in that space. Like, I just went and pulled up my analytics here. Are you a big analytics person?
- [10:29]
Michelle J. Raymond
I wouldn't say so. I love looking at the demographics part of analytics, but the numbers, because they're so far out of our control and quite often they tell a pretty bad story for a lot of people, I think they put them off from just being persistent. So I'm on the fence is where I'd say with analytics, okay, if you've.
- [10:48]
Chris Do
Ever looked at analytics, you'll know 10 times more than I. Because I was recently chatting with somebody from LinkedIn and I'm like, okay, let me pull up my analytics. Cause I don't even know what we're talking about. So I'm going to share some analytics with you. It's not to say it's good or bad, but I want you to listen to analytics and then say, okay, Chris, I see some problems already and feel free to say whatever you want. Okay, so I pulled it up here on LinkedIn. I'm looking at my thing. It says 334,000 post impressions in the last seven days, which is up 110% because I've been a little bit more consistent. It says 36,000 profile views in the last 90 days, 8,500 search appearances in the previous week. Those sound like really good numbers to me. But this is not reflective of any sales that we're doing in terms of, like, real dollars in our bank account or prospects that are qualified. What am I not doing? Or what should I be doing? Or whatever it is. What's your perspective on this?
- [11:38]
Michelle J. Raymond
Look, and absolutely there would be people listening to this myself Included that would dream about having high numbers like that. The reality is, for a lot of people, they're lucky to get 1,000 impressions in total for the week. And so relying on posting content alone, I think, is where people come unstuck. And your way of doing business and who you are and what you've set up is a little bit different to the everyday business that's out there. I would fit you more in the influencer category, which is completely different to a normal everyday business. So I'm going to talk to the marketers that might be out there or business owners that are looking at this. But I think there's an element of, I call it what goes around comes around. It's what my nan taught me. And some of that is, what do you do outside of your content? Do you have a strategy for actually reaching out and connecting with those in your target audience and nurturing those, you know, social selling, for me, is finding the right people, connecting with them and nurturing those relationships. So when they're ready to buy, you are the first person or brand that they think of. Now, a lot of people think the strategy on LinkedIn is content alone. And they keep saying to me, michelle, like, how do you have so much success? And I'm like, because it's the things you can't see. Yes. I post content on two company pages and my personal profile pretty much daily, every week for as long as you can remember. What you can't see is how thoughtful I am. I might see an opportunity for someone that has nothing to do with me. I've got nothing in it for me, but I will connect to people and say, hey, you should have a look at this. And so it's about using the search bar. I would put a lot of dollars on a bet that most people don't use the search bar as part of their LinkedIn strategy. It is the most underrated feature that's there. Why? Because they're too busy scrolling. And you have to keep in mind that when people are scrolling, LinkedIn's job is to keep you distracted. They're very good at it. So you have more ads go past your eyes. Ultimately, that's how they're making a ton of money. Your job, however, is to put the blinkers on, try and get out of that home feed and get back into a strategy. So what's the game plan? Who are you targeting, Chris? So that would be my first question. Who's your dream customers that you would love to work with? Because if you can tell me that I can Tell you how I can give you a LinkedIn strategy to find those people, connect with them and then go in through that process. But most people don't even have a dream customer that they're trying to target in the first place. So they're just kind of going all over the place on LinkedIn and then end up exhausted, end up saying LinkedIn doesn't work for them and moving on to the next platform where they have probably the same problem as well.
- [14:21]
Chris Do
Can I tell you what I think our dream customer is and we continue down this rabbit hole?
- [14:25]
Michelle J. Raymond
Yeah.
- [14:26]
Chris Do
Okay. You're the first person I've had on to talk about LinkedIn who's even mentioned the search bar. So already this is kind of interesting. As you can tell audience, hang in there. We're going to get to some gold. I feel, I feel like the metal detector is going beep, beep. I think there's something going on here, everybody. Okay. My dream customer is pretty straightforward. I understand who they are. They're a creative entrepreneur. And when I say creative, I don't mean you draw or you paint. It means you're a professionally trained service provider and you're solving a problem and you're usually creating bespoke solutions for people. It's not a productized business. Next, you're probably US based or in a country where there's good arbitrage and currency exchange because we probably price via the US dollar. So if you're in a country where the exchange is horrible, it's. You're probably not a customer. You've been in business for three to five years at a minimum, you have a couple of people on your team, so you're under 10 people, but you're definitely not over 30 because we don't solve those kinds of problems. And you're in business. So you've made somewhere between a couple hundred thousand dollars a year to possibly two and a half million dollars. But you're looking to grow. You found out a lot of success early on and now you're hitting that plateau and you need business help. And that's, I think, where we come in and we serve that market.
- [15:38]
Michelle J. Raymond
Yeah, absolutely. So with all of those things in mind, things like, you know that they're in the U.S. predominantly, that doesn't mean you can't serve anyone else. But then we can narrow it down and if you go to the search bar, you can use keywords, you could type in a target client, you could narrow that geography down to. Actually, we know that we have more success with local entrepreneurs in la. For instance, and you'll probably find more than enough results to keep you busy in that. Then strategically move on to the next area. So there are filters for finding those kind of geography areas. You can then go into industries, you might realize that most of them are working in marketing services. You might actually find that you've got a particular niche for people coming from manufacturing like I did. But start to think about if you were to look at where most of your inquiries have come from with these new clients that have reached out from other platforms, what did they all have in common that you could use the search filters. So location industries, you can see sizes of the company. You could go and find those target companies. As such, you could put business sizes like there's all kinds of different ways you can do this. And this is for free. Right. So you don't need LinkedIn Sales Navigator. I'm not a fan of LinkedIn Sales Navigator for most people. Why? It's like giving a Ferrari to a learner driver. It is super powerful. There's nothing wrong with the actual product. It is a brilliant product. It's just not the right product for most people starting out that don't even have a sales process. The search bar is a much more user friendly version of that, a paired back version that you can really focus on. What am I looking for now? The more that you can refine that, and quite often what happens is you teach the LinkedIn search algorithm by connecting with a few people strategically because it's going to give you a list and then what happens is it will start to think, oh, how about you connect with this person? Based on your recent searches, we think you might like this. And so there's other ways that LinkedIn wants to support you. Why? Go back to their motivation. The more that you love hanging out on LinkedIn and it delivers results, the more you watch ads, right? So they want you to be successful, they want you to find the right answers. And quite often it's finding the first one or two people and that could be someone that's like a micro influencer that's got everybody hanging out with them. So find a much smaller creator that's like the mini Christo of your ideal client in that industry and go and see who's hanging out with them and hang out there and it just becomes so much easier.
- [18:16]
Chris Do
Okay. So as I'm searching for my ideal customer, eventually I'm going to hit pay dirt. And once I find that LinkedIn is already trained to make other suggestions and recommendations, there are more people like that around here. And now that I found this person, what is the next step that I need to do?
- [18:33]
Michelle J. Raymond
I think the next thing is just to take a look and show up and support that person. Often a cold DM or a random connection request from someone you don't know, most people are sitting there with their arms crossed, stay the heck away from me, because they're getting bombarded all day, every day. So from that perspective, if we just slow this process down, right, there's no rush in trying to build these relationships, which I think is also another mistake that people make. They think, find them, connect with them, sell to them. Bang, bang, bang, bang. Oh, they didn't buy from me. I think most selling that I've done in my career took 18 months, sometimes longer, give or take, you know, up to five years. So there's no need to try and just wham, bam, thank you, ma'am. You know, it's like, just slow down. So go and support their content. If they're creating, send them a personalized connection message to say, why do you want to connect with them? And I often say I'm trying to build my community of, say, Sydney marketing managers. Here's what you can expect from my content. Don't worry, you won't receive a spam message if we connect, you know, because I have a job title or a headline on LinkedIn that people get a bit nervous about, and I want to put them at ease. I want them to know why I come. And I'm waving my little white flag. I come in peace and I'm just coming with curiosity. I want to know more about them. You can't sell a product to someone that has no need, doesn't want to buy, and there's no point trying to sell to them. But if you come into those direct messages after connecting with curiosity, just to find out, park the sales side over on the bench for a moment and just think, what can I learn about this person? It takes the pressure off you, and, God, it makes a different experience to them because they literally are now no longer going, oh, my God, I've got a duck and weave because this person's trying to get me. Nothing feels worse than someone trying to get you on LinkedIn. So slowing things down, just go in with curiosity makes a huge difference.
- [20:38]
Chris Do
Okay, Michelle. I'm jaded. I think, because when people say, I just want to connect, I promise you I'm not going to spam you or sell you anything. I actually know they're going to sell me something eventually. So I'm like, I don't really want to get into this conversation right now. And I can tell, look, the way they ask questions like, Chris, what are you working on right now? I'm like, I know where this is going, going. You're prospecting me right now. I don't know you from Adam, and I'm not really that interested in this. So do you think that that's a pretty typical reaction or is it because I get bombed so much and relentlessly, like every day, just in my inbox, everywhere I go?
- [21:12]
Michelle J. Raymond
I think it's absolutely the experience of most people on LinkedIn every day. So as the good guys of LinkedIn trying to do things different, you have to be aware and mindful of that. And whether it's someone like yourself or it's a C suite decision maker, or it's anyone that's got founder or business owner in their title typically gets absolutely targeted by lazy people that aren't willing to do the work. And so you have to be mindful of that. And you can't just say, hey, I'm not going to spam you, and then go and do it because you've broken that digital trust, which once you break that, I don't believe you can ever recover from that position. And this is where I've always scratched my head about these people that are trying to connect with a thousand people, burning 999 relationships to try and get one meeting. And I'm like, what is going on here? Now, keeping that in mind, what can you do? Show up, be of service, be of value, and just keep chipping away at these things. And I would say, in fairness to those that are looking for quick wins on LinkedIn, I don't think they exist. You might get lucky by being active, but realistically, take time. And quite often businesses don't have time to take. And this is where I think sometimes that urgency comes across where they think more is better. But I would actually say come back down and write a list of 10 accounts that you wish you could work with and see what you can do with those. First, follow up the connection messages. If someone accepts, see if you can ask them a question. So my secret is someone connects with the message than trying to get one question to ask them about them. Don't be the person at the party that spends their whole time talking about themselves, because guess what? Nobody's interested. They couldn't care less. And I think you have to realize that. And maybe it's because I've been in sales for so long, it is literally no one cares. They do care. If you've got a solution to a problem that they have, then they're interested. And that may not be today, but it may be later. So just questions like what's your favorite part about your job? Is often a question that I ask them. What do you like least? Sometimes they reach out to me. It's like, what's the hardest part of LinkedIn for you? Not here's what I can sell you, here's my training program, here's how I work with businesses. None of that even gets into the conversation until I can really understand what is a problem that you have that I can help you solve. And if there's no problem, there's no sale. Coming back to that again, I like.
- [23:49]
Chris Do
This idea that you need to be of service and if there's no problem for you to solve, don't go chasing down that thing. I also like that you're saying just focus on 10 people right now. Don't try to do this in bulk or in mass because it usually doesn't work. Get to know some folks, ask smart open ended questions. Get to know the person will talk about yourself because no one's that interested in you, but maybe your mom and dad if that. Okay. So if I reach out and they start engaging, I find the problem. I kind of know what to do at this point. So I think there are so many conversations we've had on our channel about this part. I think you kind of gave me something to think about. Is there a different strategy that you have in terms of helping businesses to grow? Because it sounds like a lot of this is social prospecting showing up, being of service, maybe commenting on their posts, adding some kind of value so that you're not coming in, blindsiding them. Or maybe there's already a connection that's, that's already there that you don't have to work that hard for. And then to do that hard work and to start to engage with them in the DMs. Is there something else that we need to do or to be aware of?
- [24:46]
Michelle J. Raymond
Yeah. So a lot of people may not know, but I'm also known as the company pages queen and I'm pretty sure that nobody else that's been on your show will talk about company pages like I do. And I could probably hear the groans or the see the eye rolls of some people going, oh no, company pages on LinkedIn. Are we really going there? Yes, we're really going there. And I want to talk about them a little bit differently to how you may have Done it. So we're not talking old school where it's just PR comms, messages going out, all about the business, all about, here's our latest hire or fire or turnover or whatever, these kinds of poor content. I want to talk about something that I call page advocacy. And so this is for people who are managing company pages, but on LinkedIn right now, everybody talks about employee advocacy. How can you get employees to start posting content, talking about the business and generating opportunities that way? Like there are dime a dozen right now. But what I want to talk about is you can actually use your company page to set those employees up for success. Now, for your listeners, it might be the employee and the business owner. It's a one on one relationship and they are the one and same thing. That's exactly how I got started. And I managed to use my company page to build up the Michelle J. Raymond brand faster than I could do by myself alone, even though nobody knew my company. It was brand new. Because on LinkedIn, Chris, the amazing thing about company pages, especially for small businesses, is that you get the same features, the same space, the same functions. And this isn't about do we get the same reach on post between company page and profile? Right. Put that to the side. Absolutely not. Of course, I'm not here to change anyone's mind on that. But if when Michelle J. Raymond posts, there's always this company brand that shows up and supports it and you start connecting those two brands together, I now appear a much bigger business, a more legitimate business. I've now got the power of not just my personal brand, but also the company brand. And the two of them working together is that one plus one equals three. There's a real synergy between getting them to work together and people get so focused on, hey, it's all about how the posts perform. And if you just park that for a moment and go, yep, I'm not here to tell you anything different, but how else can you use that company brand to be the booster and really put the spotlight on you or your employees? And so things like company pages can comment on posts, company pages can repost employee posts. And if you're the employee, you're the business owner, you're the consultant, it's fine, do that. You are only going to help build that personal brand. And so I want people to look at it as, how can I use this other side of LinkedIn to support building the personal brands of my employees or myself? And looking at it from a fresh perspective. So this is the thing that people cut that side of LinkedIn off because they just look at post impressions. But page advocacy, I think is a shortcut to really giving you that step up when your competitors aren't doing that. It's time for a quick break, but we'll be right back.
- [28:17]
Chris Do
When I started my motion design company blind in 95, there was a lot I didn't know. So I tried reaching out to other business owners and professionals for help. What did I find? Many saw me as competition and those who didn't weren't able to give advice that made sense for my line of work. Thankfully, I was able to find my first and only business coach, Kieran McLaren, who mentored me for 13 years. I also learned that my story isn't unique. Many entrepreneurs feel like they're left to figure everything out on their own. It's why I created the Future Pro Membership, a community I wish I had when I first started. And I'd like to invite you to check out all that we have waiting for you inside@thefuture.com pro.
- [28:58]
Michelle J. Raymond
And we're back. Welcome back to our conversation.
- [29:01]
Chris Do
You're right about reaching engagement on company pages. I tell people it's dead, don't even bother because you're not going to get the kind of impression but you're talking about like this is a way weirdly you boost each other and you kind of create the impression that there's a lot more going on here. Now I have a practical question. I have other kind of concerns here and hopefully you can address them, which is do you write in two different voices? Does the company write a certain way and then Michelle writes a different way. And so even though you're writing both posts, do you don a different voice or Persona?
- [29:31]
Michelle J. Raymond
They're pretty similar, but there is a slight difference. You know, maybe on the company page it's a bit more third person, but the company page is Michelle J. Raymond's biggest fan. So you'll check out the post on B2B Growth Co is my company page and you'll see Michelle J. Raymond says this. So I tag myself. So if anyone comes across there and happens to discover my company page, because if you have a look at your analytics on your page, you it will show up in searches. And the thing that I want you to keep in mind is if somebody was to Google your business name, your LinkedIn company page, if you have one, is going to be in the first few results. Why? Because LinkedIn's a trusted platform. We can piggyback off their reputation. Now, if someone comes across onto LinkedIn and finds your company page, is it going to be a ghost town, which is a poor reflection on who you are as a brand, or is it going to be something that rolls out the red carpet, welcomes them in, and it's really clear they're in the right place. And I've worked with people in, you know, close to 20 countries around the world now. I don't want to give them a reason to not trust me as a small business owner. I want them to know that I'm the real deal. This isn't just a hobby for me. It's not just something I do on the side. And so by having a legit company page that just ticks over, I'm not putting as much effort into it, but it is just reminding people, hey, Michelle J. Raymond said this, and I've got two opportunities to show up now. And so I don't know how people land on my page or my profile or how they find me. It can be in all kinds of funny ways, but I want to make sure that they get the best impression. I know you're on team branding. I know branding is important to you and you know the power of it. So just think, if you've got two brands working together, in this case, two is better than one.
- [31:15]
Chris Do
Okay, Is this part of your the power of two?
- [31:18]
Michelle J. Raymond
Yes, it is the part of the power of two. And it came probably from another side of things because, Chris, you may not know it, but once upon a time, I stole 5,000 followers from the company that I worked for. And this is a scenario that plays out every day in businesses. And you think about it. So I shared that I got started on LinkedIn because of the job that I had in the chemicals industry. I built the world's most amazing community built around beauty and personal care. And it literally hit 5,000 followers. And it was super nice. I didn't know any better. I was just connecting with people that would be interested, which makes sense in hindsight. But ultimately I then eventually changed jobs. The company that I worked for, while I was setting that all up and it was under my personal account, I eventually left. They had nobody else in the business creating content, nothing on the company page. And ultimately the whole community went with me into my next job, where I started talking about, these products are the most amazing ingredients, and so they got left with nothing. And so if you think about it, there's staff turnover in businesses everywhere, right? That's just a fact of life. So what do you do when they leave? So if you've got the hero that's got a really great community in your business. What happens if they leave? What happens to your brand? And the other part of it is how do you attract the best of the best to come and work for your brand? So there's a couple of different angles and having people poke around, because when you apply for jobs through LinkedIn, you go to the company page, you have a look around, what are you going to find? So if you want the best of the best to work for you, there's one angle. So that's employer branding, and that can be important. But also what happens is when people and staff turn over, and as the younger generations turn over jobs more frequently, what are you left with in the business? And so this is what I want people to have a look about. And this is why it's definitely the power of two.
- [33:15]
Chris Do
Okay, wonderful. There's a lesson to learn on both sides of this, which is you're not going to have your job forever. You might leave or you might get fired. They might cut back their staff. So if you build up your personal brand, some of those people will follow you. But this is a cautionary tale for businesses who don't mind their corporate page. And they just. People are coming and going and all of a sudden they're like, hey, all our leads dried up. What happened? It's because you gave them nothing else to engage with and it goes dead. Okay, so here's the question I have for you. We don't have that many people working for us, but I find that many of my staff don't like being on social media. It's not a regular habit routine for them, and especially to be on LinkedIn. So we have fairly low engagement from my own team, because if we took everything that you talked about, the power of two, which I like, and then you multiply that across eight employees, that's the power. I don't know, 64. I don't know what it is. Is it eight to the square root of two or whatever? Eight to the second power, that would be awesome. But people don't want to engage. How do you deal with that? Is that a company policy thing? Is this a culture thing? What's going on there?
- [34:25]
Michelle J. Raymond
That's a human nature thing. You know, there's so many online studies that show basically 9 out of 10 people never, ever want to, in an online community, show that they're available, especially on LinkedIn. I think you probably within your staff, out of those people, you might have some people that are really great at TikTok or maybe Instagram or they've been established on Facebook for a long time. And these kind of things are very common. LinkedIn is intimidating. It's a platform that scares people. I don't care whether you're a CEO that's had 50 years of experience and leading massive corporations or someone that's starting out fresh out of college or university, everywhere in between. Most people do not want to be active on LinkedIn. And this is where page advocacy can really come into play here. Because I found that with the teams that I work with and the businesses that I work with, quite often you can get those people to create some great content that can go out onto the company page. They're happy as long as it doesn't have their name on it. And so you can literally start people from there. Okay, get comfortable. You can hide behind the company logo and put your work out there and get them feeling much more comfortable and relaxed. And so I would say that everybody within the business is on a spectrum. And having someone that's confident to create content regularly, that's the one out of 10. And you should really nurture that person and look after them and appreciate and acknowledge, acknowledge them, because they are the unicorn. And so what do you do with the rest of the team? Well, you ask them, can they take baby steps first? So I often, during training would say, if you're one of those people that is currently affectionately known as a LinkedIn lurker, I. E. You log in, take a look around, don't click on any buttons, and then disappear. All I ask you to do is see if it's okay if you will like a post from one of your teammates or the company page. Start with the baby step. And when you're comfortable with that, maybe you'll move up to hitting repost and repost from an algorithm perspective is not great. It's not really going to make that much difference to anything. But it's that step and that action that's that giant leap for some people. Like it really is. And I think when you have empathy for the people that work for you, then you really understand that that's a big deal. And then you go and you appreciate them. As a business leader, you have to go and acknowledge that that person did that and that you create that safe space for them to then take the next step, which might be leaving a comment on the company page post. And I know that there's so much bagging out on LinkedIn, you know, don't go and reshare the company blog or that's Bad practice. And I think, yes, if we're just talking about the world from a LinkedIn algorithm perspective, but we live in a much bigger world than that. And I think it's really important just to acknowledge that that could be a really huge step for somebody in your team. So taking that next little baby step and then compounding on that and going on to the next one, where they're at in a year could be that they're comfortable in putting one post out a week. And so just meeting them where they're at with empathy and just going, what do you need? Because quite often people don't actually know how to use LinkedIn. They pretend they do because it seems like everybody else does. And so having conversations with them and trying to discover what would make it worth it for you as an individual, for me to help you build your personal brand and when you connect it to them, because a lot of people, Chris, this is what happens in their brain. They go, if I do a post, what will people think? It's all been said before. They're judging me. They might laugh at me. I'm dumb. English is my second language. The list of fears goes on in people's heads. If I stuff this up, am I going to lose my job? That might mean in the us I'm going to lose my healthcare benefits, I'm going to lose my house, I'm going to lose my car, I'm not going to be able to do my holiday. And so that's what's going on for people because it really is tied to their income, which is super scary. Can we just put that out there? It's super scary for people. This is why I bring this up. Just have some empathy that it is scary and see what can you do for them to help them take that next step.
- [38:47]
Chris Do
Okay, so we kind of covered this idea that you can post on the page, you can engage with your own self. The voice can even be very similar. Like, it's like a very close cousin, first cousin, and it's okay. And you give each other credibility, engagement, and it's a wonderful thing. Okay, so is there more that we need to know about company pages?
- [39:07]
Michelle J. Raymond
Yeah, can we stop creating crap content on company pages, please? Please. This is a public service announcement. I've got my shot to say, look, company page content has been horrific. It literally looks like an ad, smells like an ad, feels like an ad, and nobody needs more ads in their life. And I know you and I can probably agree on that one, that we're not coming onto social. I Think you know, you wrote something. We're not coming onto social to see an ad. And the same goes with your company page content. And so for me, it's all about having the right balance and keeping it in service of your ideal client. Talking about those problems again, we're coming back to that. How do you solve somebody else's problems and putting yourself in their shoes? And so I use a framework called rate for company page posts, which is number one. Is the art, Is it relevant? Can we stop just posting content because we want to say something? It's time to get into your buyer's mind and have a look around. What are they looking for? What information do they want? And so starting with that, A is all about authentic. And I don't mean it in the overused kind of term, but I mean as in not the polished version of company page posts that we get, Chris. Like the ones where everything's perfect, it's over, corporatized and branding is coming out of everywhere and you get the stock images. Like no one needs more stock images in their life. If I could stamp out one thing for company page content, it would be stock images, right? So T is all about thought leadership. What is it that you can teach someone else that they can learn about anything that's going to move the needle in their business that maybe your competitors haven't? What's a new approach? What can you see trending? What are the legal changes that might impact them? Like, really get out in front and not just copy what everybody else is saying. And then the last one is E. E is for empathy. You've heard me say that a lot during this episode today. And it's about putting yourself in somebody else's shoes. And I think that's where company page content comes unstuck the most, is because it's so focused on the business and trying to make the business sound good that we forget that we're there to try and make the person on the other side sound good. And the more you do that, when they sit down and they've actually got a problem that your business solves, that they're doing all that research over time. You're on the short list because we know if you make that top three shortlist, you're in with a chance. But if you're not, because you're too busy talking about yourself, then that opportunity's gone.
- [41:45]
Chris Do
I like that. There's a simple acronym here for us to follow. It's called the Rate Relevant, Authentic, thought leadership, and then empathy. Let's expand a Little bit, if we can. The word thought leadership is sometimes confusing for folks, and I think it's probably the one that's least understood. Can you expand that and break that apart for us? What does that really mean, thought leadership?
- [42:07]
Michelle J. Raymond
Yeah, it absolutely, I think, is the buzzword on LinkedIn of 2024. I mean, 2021 was all personal branding, but I think 2024 is thought leadership. And everyone's got their own. Their own definition of this. It's so funny because in my mind, I've got a friend of mine, Ashley Foss, and she always just goes, michelle, have thoughts. Be a leader. And it really is at its fundamental level, that simple. And so have thoughts. What's that? For me, it's something about originality. It is something about finding a unique twist on something that might be a common problem in your industry. How does your business solve it differently to what maybe your competitors do? Like, give me a reason to choose A over B. And there's not too many real monopolies out there. Like, there's so many businesses that really offer the same products and services. What makes you different and how do you approach these problems different? And I think as well, in a world of AI, like, it's not being the clone of what everybody else is doing. And so what are the experts in your business? Sharing that other people can learn from and solving those headaches that keep people on the other side up at night. That's what they're looking for. So unique ways. Thought leadership helps them confidently make buying decisions. And I think the other is really that leadership part for me, is your brand. It's not just individuals. Your brand can actually be an industry leader in that space. And again, that comes from just not copying what everybody else is saying. Like, it's sometimes going out first. It is sometimes going contrarian to what everybody else is saying. The herd's going this way, and you're prepared to die on that hill and stand by yourself over here. And I think brands need to do that more often. I think they play it pretty safe. You probably know more about this than what I do with the clients that you work with. But I think there's an element of you have to be okay to challenge the norm. And I would love to see more of that.
- [44:14]
Chris Do
Well, I think if you're saying everything that everyone's saying, then what's the point of listening to you? If you start opening up with platitudes, these kind of empty statements or these truisms, everybody already knows it's true and good. Why would Anyone care? So you kind of have to zig or zag when everyone else is going one direction. And to say something that's different, to have a perspective, a point of view, I understand that people are a little scared about that kind of stuff. Do you often work with clients where they say, michelle sounds good. I'm intellectually right there with you, but I'm not sure I have a contrarian point of view. What do we do then?
- [44:53]
Michelle J. Raymond
Yeah, or any personality in their content at all, really. Most brands are pretty bland at the end of the day. It is quite risky in their mind, trying to find the balance between corporate guidelines and having great social content that really stands out and is different to their competitors. And quite often when they do that competitor analysis, they look around and go, well, everybody is doing this. I'm going to do that too. Maybe my own slight flavor of it, but it's not really going to be that different. And there is a risk that it feels like when you're trying to do things different, it is scary for a lot of businesses to go, but everybody else is doing it this way. I don't want to be the one that stands out. And I think you have to connect that. The greater risk to the business is that you blend in. And it's really hard. I know the biggest thing that I struggled with when I first started in my own business was the concept of building a niche. It's something that feels so counterintuitive, and even to this day, to me, it's something that I probably struggle with, is that by being one thing to such a specific audience and being the obvious choice to them, felt like I could never work with anyone else ever again. And so that happened to me. Like, I was the company pages queen. Everybody in the world knew me for company pages, but I was like, I write really amazing profiles, or I can do social selling, training, and I can do all of these other things. But I had to separate what I'm known for and what I do. And this is where having two brands really helped me, because B2B Growth Co could do all the services and talk about that a little bit more. And I could be known for company pages and all the other things that I do. So it does feel counterintuitive to go out on your own and think that you're in no man's land. But the fact is, it is like a giant big game of Where's Waldo? On LinkedIn and you have to find the thing that makes you be the Waldo that stands out. And too many people are the crowd. Ultimately, that's what's going on. For businesses especially, I think the biggest risk that they've got going into 2025 is being bland and playing it safe. And those that are prepared to do a little bit of trial, you know, you don't have to go crazy. I'm not saying throw it all out the window. Use your branding guidelines as the guardrails. But for some people, it might be just try a meme, you know, like try some other content format out there just to see how it plays with your audience and being brave to try it once. It's not going to blow up your brand trying something once. It's that experimenting mindset that I think really makes the biggest difference.
- [47:36]
Chris Do
I have to say this. When you said memes, it doesn't bring a smile to my face. There's something so foolproof, almost like effortless, is to share a dumb meme. Share because it lets people know that you have a sense of humor and the weird sense of humor you have because there's many different kinds of memes. I like to share dad jokes which made makes my children cringe. And it's like, deal with it. I like them and they're like, oh, dad face palm. You know, but. And my community is like, yeah, because I'm a dad. I'm 52. This is kind of what makes me laugh. And it's so bad. It's good and love it or leave it, it's totally fine with me.
- [48:15]
Michelle J. Raymond
And it's that relatability. But it's also, we're humans and it's a social platform. At the end of the day, we're going on there to be entertained, educated, inspired. These are the not just sold at all day, every day. And again, if you're prepared to try something different and for some people it might be you're an amazing graphic designer. That is not my skills. I'm here to confess crime Chris. But the funny thing is the worst my designs are because, you know, I'm just like photoshopping me or anything along those lines. We're not friends. But they're so bad. They're good, you know, like, they're so bad that they get attention because people are laughing at Michelle. Why did you use a smiley face photo in that? You know, you're standing in a prison cell lineup, you know, like. And so it gets the attention. And so I discovered that by accident and then I've repeated it a few times and it helped. You know, the team at Dream Data are a company that absolutely Nail the memes. Like they've found the formula of what works for their audience and they skyrocket. But it's not that they're doing it every day. They're backing up product demos, they're backing up their stuff. It's a whole part of a system and a playbook that they've created. But the memes are definitely what gets them the most attention. So much so I got to go to their office in Copenhagen and, you know, they've got copies of the post that perform so amazing. They're in photo frames up on the wall, like they've become artwork in the office. That's how successful they're being. But I think it's that trial and error mindset, that one post won't break a brand and you've got to give it a go. And so, yeah, it's easier said than done. I appreciate that people have a lot of reporting structures in a lot of business that they've got to keep happy. And it could be like a little. For me, one little thing that I did. All of my photos are happy smiley faces, Michelle. Bright colors. My branding's bright pink, bright blues. All digitally optimized to show up great on a screen. But sometimes I'll do a sad face in a black and white photo and that immediately captures people's attention because it's different. So breaking those patterns could be your way of doing something different and so doesn't always have to be something massive. It can be little things that you can try, but it's the trial and error that's most important.
- [50:32]
Chris Do
I know you've already kind of covered this by whole flipping the switch. And it's not about you, it's about them and serving and being of service to people and having deep empathy for the kinds of things you're going through. And you can make your content much more interesting. I'm all on board with that. That's my whole thing anyways. Is there anything else that we might be missing here from this kind of perspective of how businesses can utilize LinkedIn, get content going and activating certain things that we're not really thinking about. Is there anything else you want to share with us?
- [50:59]
Michelle J. Raymond
Yeah, I think there's something that I'm pretty passionate about, especially with company pages at the moment. Is. And it probably applies to personal content just as much if I think about it now. But ultimately I want people to stop and think, how will this feel to the person on the other side when this lands with them? And I would talk about it in a way of what's the energy that you're sending out with it if it is a tick and flick, we've done our quota for this week. The person on the other side feels that. And when they feel that, they're like, this isn't for me. It feels icky. It feels like you've just been slimed on. And I want people to stop and think, okay, if I took the pressure off to do more posts because everything seems to be focused on numbers, if I took that back and went, what is one good post that I could do that I'm going to put some effort into and really make sure it's in service of the person on the other side. I'm going to get into their shoes and figure out what post could I create that would make a difference to that person if I created content from that space? And being in service feels a lot different to someone going, oh hey chatgpt, could you please write me five LinkedIn posts with lots of rocket emojis and overused words? And we're just going to make sure we hit five for the week. That's why content doesn't work. And it especially doesn't work right now when so many people are doing the same thing. And again, coming back to what you said, zig when they zag or vice versa. And I just want you to think about what does it feel like for the person on the other side to have that content land in front of their eyes. And if you wouldn't stop for it, I don't care about your branding and your corporate guidelines. If you wouldn't stop for it, stop complaining about your impressions and your reach and your engagement when your target audience doesn't. And a bit of tough love here, but you can bang on about your corporate guidelines and then you don't get to whinge about how things aren't working out on a social platform. Because I think quite often it's to tick the box to get it done and not to be in service of the person that you want to help. And it sounds like it's an easy change, but it really changes a culture within a marketing team or the person responsible for creating content to shift. It's not about you, no one cares. It's about them. And so getting back to when did you start making it about you and not about them? And especially on company branded content. But I think these days with AI, it's definitely seeped across into there and we're going for volume. It's just horrendous. It's like I'm looking at LinkedIn, my feed right now going, what happened? This is not the LinkedIn that I love. I love unique thoughts. I love people that challenge things. I love people that come at things from a different angle. That's what I'm looking for. I'm not looking to just get a post that just regurgitates something. Can we say no to regurgitating? Maybe that's what I don't like.
- [53:58]
Chris Do
There's a lot of that going on though. It's not just on LinkedIn, it's all through social media because original thought is actually hard to come by. And people like shortcuts. They like to see, oh, this is a shortcut, shiny object of the month, of the day, the soup du shore. And they grab that and then they just put it on something else. They might change it ever so slightly. And in a way, social media works like that because it's the sharing and proliferation of ideas. But then if you're sharing other people's content and other people's ideas, it begs the question, what are your ideas? Why should I follow you? Why should I give up some of my time in my social feed for the things that you're going to save? You're just going to repurpose and regurgitate other people's content. Now, Michelle, you said things that are fairly logical. I understand it. There's a lot of people who are not going to be able to follow this. They continue to put out ad based things that are insensitive to the audience. They have low empathy for them. And we kind of have to just ask the question, when do you want to change this relationship or this dynamic that you have with your community? And when you decide that re listen to this episode again because you have to have an open mind to it, right? I gotta ask you one more question before running out of time here. You were talking about certain trend lines that you see, I'm not one to pay much attention to trends. And you're like in 2021 you're like, it's all about the personal brand. Then you said 2024 is about. What did you say 2024 was about?
- [55:22]
Michelle J. Raymond
All about thought leadership. It's the year of thought leadership.
- [55:25]
Chris Do
Okay, well, let's look into your crystal ball. What is 2025 all about? What are you seeing there?
- [55:33]
Michelle J. Raymond
I see two sides. The dark side of me looks at next year and I'm scared that we're going to end up in mountains and mountains. More of carbon copies, clones, unoriginal content, templated Content that's faster and easier to do than ever. I'm sure as the generative AI tools become smarter, as more and more people create apps for that, there will be people that will flock towards that, which makes standing out online much more difficult. Going into 2025, I think as we're coming into the end of this year on LinkedIn especially, most people are probably experiencing pretty big drop in numbers right now. But when we look at what LinkedIn came out last year and said, what they want to reward, so I'm going to stick with this and hope that it plays out, is the LinkedIn algorithm is geared towards rewarding knowledge and advice. So I think those people who come back and separate themselves as being in service of their community and offering that to their audience are the ones that are going to find their space. Now, what they say as far as their algorithm goes is that we're talking about knowledge and advice for one specific audience. So having that target audience in mind, always come back to who are you actually targeting on LinkedIn? Always come back to that. What is the audience that you're in service of? They want to talk about one topic. So try to stay on your topic. Doesn't mean you can't have multiple topics within your brand, but you know, an audience that wants to talk about your topic and generate conversations. Chris I really hope that we move from just, it's not just posting to it's conversations that build community. And community I hope becomes a buzzword next year. I hope that there's a focus that moves to this, both for brands and for individuals, because community is the thing that outplays any algorithm. When you build relationships that are collaborative, that you can then build referral partners that you can build, then have other people selling on your behalf or basically it's how I ended up here because Ilya shout out to him was a stand for me in asking you could I come onto this podcast. And that's the real power of LinkedIn. Those partnerships is where you can get business growth. It's where you get opportunities. Whether it's maybe you want to be a speaker, maybe you want to be on a board, maybe you need a new position. All of these things come from relationship building. And so I have my fingers crossed that it's the latter, not the former that plays out, I'm not sure, but I'm certainly going to be fighting for it.
- [58:22]
Chris Do
Wonderful. Well, you may have influenced a few people, so we'll make sure that we're going to timestamp this today. We're having this conversation, it's October 9, 2024. So let's see what happens in 12 months time. We can look back on this moment and say, oh, she was right, or she was concerned and it went down the dark path, or we avoided a potential disaster. There are a lot of cookie cutter AI chat responses to posts and it, it annoys me a little bit. I'm appreciative of the engagement, but at the same time it's fake engagement and I'm trying to find the real people so I can answer them. And sometimes I'm fooled. For a beat I'm like, is that really a person? No, it's not. And then I was just like, I'm kind of annoyed by it. So I'm hoping that the algorithm gods that they are understand this and can shift the dynamic to counterbalance the amount of content that's proliferating by faceless, thoughtless machines. We saw that on Instagram. The CEO had said, you know what, we're going to weight content a little bit differently. If you reshare someone's post, you're going to get less and less traffic. We're going to give the first person the originator thought more of the traffic so that it feels like it's more motivating for you to go and create that. Because if somebody just grabs your thing and puts it somewhere else, they get as much traffic as you do. It doesn't feel like you're going to want to make more content. And without those people, there's nothing for us to share. It's been a pleasure talking to you, Michelle. I appreciate you taking a look at a little bit of some of the problems I have and sharing with us a completely different perspective on how to use LinkedIn for businesses in the B2B space. And your, your comfort with sales and realizing there's a business agenda here that we got to take care of. Otherwise there's no sharing of any kind of content at all. Appreciate you, Michelle. Thank you.
- [60:08]
Michelle J. Raymond
It is my absolute pleasure and I hope that this inspires some, you know, somebody out there to really look at what they're doing and say, what could I change up? Because you know that your content's not working when you're not getting leads in the door. It is that simple. So if you're someone that's struggling to get leads, you've got nothing to lose by trying this and everything to gain.
- [60:29]
Chris Do
If people want to find out more about you, where should they go?
- [60:32]
Michelle J. Raymond
Well, no surprises, but you'll find me over on LinkedIn. Michelle. J. Raymond is where you'd find me. Please let me know that you listen to this podcast. I would love to connect with more listeners and I've got content going out every day that will help you get through the challenges that will inevitably come with LinkedIn, because I think it's going to get harder going into 2025. So if I can help anyone out, by all means, reach out.
- [60:57]
Chris Do
And I just want to say this before I go away, that if LinkedIn implodes and you no longer find that it's a place you want to play, I believe you have a second career in voiceover talent. It's something you might want to look into if a very soothing, calming voice. Even when you said some, like, here, shots fired, I'm like, it's still pretty soothing. It's like a bullet coated in Teflon. It's going to just go right through the body and it's all good.
- [61:19]
Michelle J. Raymond
Oh, my God, I love it. I'm going to take that sound bite and I'm going to remind myself my voice is calming. My voice can help people. Maybe I could start doing some wake up, good morning messages to people. You are amazing. You are smart. Rise and shine.
- [61:37]
Chris Do
I think you should do what Matthew McConaughey does. He has a good night bedtime stories to help you sleep. It's a mindfulness thing. He has a very soothing voice and he found something. You never know.
- [61:50]
Michelle J. Raymond
Oh, well, I've listened to his. I love his accent. He's the king of the Howdy, y'all. So. Which, you know, I'm a fan of. So I am definitely drawn to those ones. But I just want to say thanks again for your kindness to the people that you help, because the reason that you have been on my bucket list to have this conversation is because I'm absolutely drawn to the way that you give so willingly to your community. And I know that that's possibly not your natural space as an introvert to be surrounded by so many people and giving all the time, but I just want to acknowledge you as a good human and I think the world needs more good humans. So thank you for being you.
- [62:29]
Chris Do
Oh, thank you. And on that note, everybody, that wraps our conversation. And we will include links to Michelle's social media accounts and anything else she wants to share with us. Be sure you check the description or if you're watching this on YouTube in the description below. That's it for me. See you guys next time.
- [62:46]
Michelle J. Raymond
My name is Michelle J. Raymond, and you're listening to the future. Thanks for joining us. If you haven't already, subscribe to our show on your favorite podcasting app and get new insightful episodes from us every week. Week the Future Podcast is hosted by Chris do and produced and edited by Rich Cardona Media. Thank you to Adam Sanborn for our intro music. If you enjoyed this episode, then do us a favor by reviewing and rating our show on Apple Podcasts. It will help us grow the show and make future episodes that much better. If you'd like to support the show and invest in yourself while you're at it, visit thefuture.com and you'll find video courses, digital products, and a bunch of helpful resources about design and the creative business. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you next time.