Greenblasters. 😓

Greenblasters, Greenblasters, Greenblasters…

I’m so sorry I left you hanging last week.

No Greenblast. I can’t imagine the disappointment, NAY, the TRAUMA you went through.

If you’re curious as to why, here’s my post on LinkedIn explaining what kind of a week I had last week.

But I don’t wanna make excuses, I really want to write this to you every single week until either:

• it completely transforms the way you speak, think and tell stories, thus helping you grow your business

• or you unsubscribe in disgust

So I am sorry for missing last week’s.

But enough idle, sentimental crap. I know why you’re here:

HOW TO START POSTING ON LINKEDIN (EVEN IF YOU THINK LINKEDIN SUCKS)

First off:

Why?

“Why the fuck would I need to post on LinkedIn?”

Well, I’ll tell ya:

1. It’s where people buy things

2. Very few people post

3. It’s not THAT bad

To prove those 3 points:

1. LinkedIn users have 2X the buying power of the average online audience, and over 96% of B2B content marketers use it!*

2. Less than ONE PERCENT of users post at least once a week 😳

3. There is a lot more to Linked than graduation photos, “Honoured to be blah blah blah-ing at Frito-Lays this week” and stupid motivational quotes. There’s great advice, real education, and even genuine laughs.

*(compared to 80% for Facebook and 71% for Twitter)

This means if you sell anything to anyone, especially to other businesses, you can find buyers on LinkedIn with relatively no competition, and build real relationships. Seriously.

If you post even once a week, you’ll get some attention from potential clients, customers, investors and partners.

And if you post everyday, like I’ve been doing since Jan 1, you’ll get:

You might still hate LinkedIn, even if the opportunity for an audience is there, because what we’re really talking about here, are for some people the WORST 2 words in business:

“Personal brand.”

(Followed by “thought leader.” Sounds like what Charles Manson was 😒)

But:

The world is changing. People want to buy from other people. Building a LinkedIn audience is a free way to find people to hire you or buy your stuff. All it costs you is your time and possibly your soul (just kidding).

“Ok, you’ve convinced me Will. Shut the fuck up. Jesus.” you may be thinking.

So here’s 3 tips on how to get started:

Step 1. Turn on creator mode

Creator mode allows you to have your posts seen more, highlight certain things on your page, and have “followers” instead of thousands of “connections.”

First thing you have to do is turn this on.

You’ll find it in the Resources section on your profile 👇

LinkedIn Help will tell you step-by-step here, it’s super easy.

Step 2. Fix your profile (goddamit!)

There’s a lot of nuance here, but the main areas that need attention are:

i. Your photo

ii. Your banner

iii. Your headline

Here are mine all in one photo:

i. PHOTO = You need a professional headshot, preferably with a colour background of your choice (use Canva to achieve the colour background for your headshot, see here).

ii. BANNER = The banner is where it says above 👆: “I help entrepreneurs transform their speaking skills” Put a pic of yourself like I did, or just a colour background (again, using Canva; there are so many YT vids to help!)

… but say what you do in one sentence! Use my template:

“I help (target customer) achieve (dream outcome).”

(This works great anywhere online or even in-person when you need a 5-second elevator pitch).

*Bonus points for putting logos of big companies you’ve worked for. In the “personal branding biz” we call this “credibility” and it’s “important.”

iii. HEADLINE = Simply copy the BANNER sentence that you came up with, but change:

“(target customer)” 

to:

“you”!

Some would say this is lazy. I call it efficient.

Then, state your “roles/credentials”, the things you want people to hire you for or buy from you and give you credibility:

• CEO

• 3x Founder

• Speaker

• Author

• Coach

… or whatever tells them who you are, what you do, and that you’re not some nutcase who’s never left their mum's basement but is trying to sell them something.

Still with me?

Oh good. Now the final step:

Step 3: Follow the Linky gurus

If there’s anything worse than the terms “personal brand” or “thought leader”, it’s “guru.”

However, there’s a whole cottage industry of “LinkedIn growth gurus” whom I’ve followed to learn this stuff. They’re crazy helpful (if a bit annoying):

Jasmin Alic

Lara Acosta

Matt Barker

Ryan Musselman

Fatima Khan

Follow them. Study their profiles. Learn from their posts, as I've done (all of them concern getting better at using LinkedIn).

That’s it!

No matter how lame or annoying this all may seem, I absolutely promise you one thing:

The cringe that you feel about putting content out on LinkedIn and building a personal brand will fade. Even if it never really goes away.

What will happen, as you begin to post, is:

1. Nobody will care or notice

2. A couple people you know will like and/or comment on some posts

3. You’ll start to gain confidence

4. You’ll say something shorter and clearer

5. People will start commenting that you don’t know

6. You’ll get some followers

7. Strangers will start to cheer you on

8. Then, it’ll happen: the people you want to attract will notice.

9. You’ll get work, offers, and make real connections, and you’ll wish you started years ago.

I can promise you this, because it’s happened to me and everyone I know who’s stayed consistently posting on LinkedIn.

Try the above steps, and let me know if you have any questions about optimizing your LinkedIn profile!!

I love you all, please reply THANKS if you liked today’s post, and MEH if you thought it was meh. Honest feedback is appreciated as always 🙏

Thanks for your patience, and I’ll see you next week (promise).