Using LinkedIn For Lead Generation with Emily Wallace

Good day, guys. And in this episode of the podcast, I'm talking to Emily Wallace, who recently spoke at one of our events about the power of using LinkedIn for lead generation. Now, what's really fascinating is Emily's not in the video industry. She's actually a buyer's advocate. But what I saw was her journey on LinkedIn, how she scaled what she was doing on LinkedIn quite dramatically in less than a year. So in this podcast episode, Emily's going to share three really core aspects of building your audience on LinkedIn. One of the things to talk about is content creation and delivering value to your audience using video, which is really going to resonate with the folks watching and listening to this. But the second thing she's going to talk about is using the power of sales navigator to literally find any position in any company that you want to connect with. And the third thing that she shares is what to say in those connection messages. So I think you'll find this to be a really powerful episode, and I certainly enjoyed having Emily at the event. Our members of the Video Business Accelerator had an amazing time and got some really core strategies to share in their own networks and. But Emily, thankfully has decided to come on the podcast and share some of her knowledge with you. So I hope you enjoy this. And if you're interested in learning more about the accelerator program, you know, you can check it out videobusinessaccelerator.com and actually, for our members, we actually have the recording of her session, including a worksheet that you can access. So if you're interested in doing that, check out the links and enjoy the show.

Welcome to the Video Business Accelerator Podcast. Each week we uncover the secrets to creating a wildly successful and scalable video production business. With your host, Dan Lenny, discover how the accelerator is transforming the lives of our members at www.videobusinessaccelerator.com. enjoy this episode.

Well, Emily, it is lovely to see you again. Only last Friday, we actually had you guest lecture at our event in Melbourne, which was fabulously well received on the topic of LinkedIn. Welcome. How are you going?

Thank you. I'm going very, very well. Had a great day, great week. So can't Epic.

So obviously this is a business podcast for filmmakers and some people might be wondering why we would bring you buyer's advocate onto the podcast. But I think the reason we're here is because I saw your face pop up on LinkedIn and your content and was really kind of impressed with how.

Really how far and wide your message seems to go. And so we had a chat and we brought you into the workshop and I thought it'd be really great to bring you onto the podcast because you had some really fascinating insights into LinkedIn. Just for those of you, those people who are perhaps not familiar with you, how did you first kind of stumble across LinkedIn and what was your journey like in terms of how you use the platform?

That's an interesting question. Actually, no one's ever asked me that how I actually got into it from the get go. So I used to use it as a tool in my previous role in corporate to seek out particular decision makers. So I used the sales navigator function heavily, but I never posted content. I'd never made a video under the umbrella of another organization. I didn't know if that was the right thing to do and keeping in line with their branding and marketing. But when I went out on my own, as my own business owner, as a buyer's advocate, I just started and I really didn't stop in terms of producing video content that was value adding and making people aware of what an advocate was. That was the initial thought. No one really knows what I do. So I'll just keep trying to shed some light on the, on the role and hopefully more people become more of a household type of name and the done thing in real estate. So that was my approach from the start.

So you kind of just went into it fairly green and went, I'll just provide some value and see what happens. And then what happened? What was your kind of growth rate like?

So it was pretty quick in that not only the views on the videos and the interactions, which is a heavily engaged audience given the number of connections I had. I started with, when I started the business, I had just over a thousand connections and now I have just over 8,012 months later. And that's very much because I'm targeting the right people. So the growth you can see by the numbers. But the biggest thing, this is my biggest measure is people saying, oh, I feel like I know you or I've seen you somewhere and most of the time it will be because of the video. They actually haven't met me in person before. They've just seen my LinkedIn videos and that's pretty powerful.

One of the things that I loved about when we were chatting about bringing you to the workshop was, you know, you started making videos because not everyone can afford a buyer's advocate. And what I thought was really unique about your perspective was instead of just trying to create content for people who are going to pay for your service. You thought if I make content for everyone, it will provide more value. How have you found that approach has been received?

Oh, very well. I mean people, people in general, as humans, we've always, we're evolving and we always want to learn. And that was my approach from the get go was add value with no expectation. I literally had no metrics of what I wanted back from LinkedIn in the beginning. Now I'm a little bit more business minded about it and I probably do have a bit more sense of return on investment on my time put into it. But I think that giving with not expecting anything in return except that your name is heard more and your face is seen more and it's a marketing tool. For me, that was a great way to be in the beginning because if you didn't have that mindset and you would just, you know, wanted transactional value out of it, then it's probably not the right approach to take. But yeah, I mean value adding and letting people know things that they wouldn't have otherwise come across helpful tips. And I have people message me like I just didn't even think about that or you know, thanks for those insights. That's, that's pretty cool.

It's very, very cool. And I've, I've seen kind of like meteoric growth and it's like I'm very envious of your ability to put a post out and have just so much engagement. So for someone who's Perhaps not using LinkedIn yet, what would be an approach? So you know, you know some of my market because you spoke to it for us last week. For video. For video businesses, what would be a good starting point? Would you recommend for someone who's not yet using LinkedIn other than maybe having a profile?

Okay, so not actively yet posting content. One of the first videos I would put out is what do you actually do? What does your day look like? Who's your client that you look after and what skill set do you bring? And I don't mean that in a selling approach being this is who I am and you should use me. Not at all. It's very much this is who I am, this is what I believe and we would work well together. If you're a XYZ or. I think the biggest thing for video based businesses, given the fact I have used multiple videographers myself, is the human element is so important because you have to be comfortable with your videographer. If you don't have that connection and they're not on the same wavelength as you, you can just tell. And the videos don't come out as well because your personality just doesn't flow. So that's probably the biggest recommendation I'd have to somebody is tell us a bit about what you do, but show us more of your human side and really shine your personality through so that people can go, oh, that's someone I would want to work with because I'm like that, or I relate to that because not everyone's your client. I think that's really important to know. But the people who are, we're very loyal and they'll be very trusting of you. You can show yourself truly on video.

I love that, that it's such an amazing tip. I think sometimes in the video industry we can get a bit caught up in the process of making videos and forget that it's about people, which is really what LinkedIn's all about, isn't it? It's not about just, you know, smashing content, is about building relationships with. What other tips could you give for building solid relationships on LinkedIn?

Sure. So interacting in other people's content is huge. I think. When I look at all the different sort of titles that I've helped in my workshops to crack LinkedIn, I actually think of Videographer as one of the easiest ones because your target market is most likely sitting on there already producing videos that may or may not be to the standard or the quality that resonates with the brand or the person who's producing them. I mean, I know myself, I produce mine on my iPhone. And if someone approached me and said, hey, Emily, what if we were. I've seen you doing some great videos. I love the content. Can I make a suggestion? You know, would you like to do a day of bulk filming and film, you know, all your ideas all in one hit? What would that sound like for you? Opening up that conversation could be really key and it comes across relevant because if you're already finding people on LinkedIn who are producing content, just give them some friendly tips, people. I've had people do that to me in the past and I actually really appreciate it.

That's a great tip. And now let's moving on to the kind of what I think the hidden gems or not so hidden gem of LinkedIn, but it is kind of hidden because the number of people I talk to about this who get freaked out and go, what are you talking about? Is that the premium? I'm talking about sales navigator. And it's evolved a lot over the last even 12 months. Talk to me about some strategies around. Well, first of all, what is Sales Navigator and how do you go about using it for business connections?

Certainly. So Sales Navigator is a premium function. So it is LinkedIn Premium and it's the function you select. What it allows you to do is search very targeted profiles, not only just the title. So for example, you might be looking to partner with marketing managers who want to outsource their videographer. They don't have an in house one they want to outsource. So you're searching that title. You can select geographically where they are, so Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, you can select how long they've been in that role. Now this is actually a really interesting one because you might want to target someone who is less than 12 months in the role and is bringing new ideas to the business, or you might want to target someone who's been there long standing and has a lot of influence on the business. So you can choose that too. The other thing you can do is you can actually pick company names as well. So if you were trying to target people in a particular company, it's just like a really great way to refine your search and then to go through and connect with those people in a really personalized and targeted manner to add them into your network as well.

It's such an incredibly powerful tool. I've been spending a bit of time digging into it recently and it's like you can create lists and you can tag people and, and do all sorts of cool stuff and obviously you connect with people. Now there is an opportunity to just connect, but that's not something that necessarily yields a high return. It's just. Just connecting with someone is not really the best way to approach the connection strategy, is it?

No. And in fact, for people starting out, this is a recommendation I think I made at the workshop too, was spend some time using Sales Navigator to pinpoint particular profiles and just to start with, aim to add 10 people a day. It's not a huge number, just 10 profiles that are really going to be a benefit to your network and that when they see your content, they're going to enjoy it and it's going to be relatable and write a personalized message. Now, this function is only available on the desktop version, it's not available on mobile. So you need to log in and need to spend the time at your desk to actually go through and write a personalized message. Something along the lines of I'd love to connect with you because I think there are some synergies in what we both do in our roles. Or perhaps I could add value to your feed through the content. I post something along those lines that's a soft entry point but is a message rather than just a connect request and someone go who's this person? And I don't know them.

One of the questions that I get often asked is okay Dan, so I've kind of done my profile and I've done connections, but what next, what do I say once someone's accepted a connection? And do you have any thoughts on that or any strategies that you'd be willing to share?

Certainly. So one of the ways I tried and tested a lot of different second messages because I had my first in my opinion my first connection request message nailed to a certain point was getting a good percentage to convert and my follow up message I played around with a lot. One of the biggest things I found was adding a question in your second message that was not sales related but asking of someone's opinion was a really great way to get them engaged. So for example, for me being in real estate, I simply asked what is your opinion on the current Melbourne real estate market? And people would give me back plenty of things, oh, you know, my neighbor sold for this or I've been looking here. So in the videography world, I think that would be something in the lines of do do you believe video is a powerful marketing tool or have you tried using video as a marketing tool in your company or who do you follow that does great videos? I'd love to know. Just asking a question that is relevant but not too salesy is a great way for the follow up message.

I love it. Now one of the stories you share with me a couple of times, which I just absolutely love is is the client, I think in Geelong who you started connecting with earlier in the year. Would you be happy to share that journey? Because I think what's really important here is people's expectations of how long a relationship takes to evolve and not to give up.

Yes. So I'll just bring up the message. I'm just for time frames but from memory was 31 January was the first message sent and on Sales Navigator I was targeting profiles that had the title founder or business owner because I knew if people were a founder or business owner, they'd be so busy running their own show they probably wanted to outsource their property needs also a great profile for videographers to target. Right. Because those sorts of people want to outsource their videos too. So this client Neil, we actually. So the property officially settled on Wednesday this week at 4pm so he's now, he's actually moving in today, he's got the removalist there basically. I'd sent a follow up message asking about the real estate market and he said I think it's gone downhill, I'm looking to purchase soon and I hope it continues to decline until I purchase. We had a chat on the phone, we exchanged numbers and then in February, mid February, he said, you might recall that we've spoken, can we have another call? Sure. And then it wasn't until June when he said I'm really keen to catch up for a coffee to learn more about your business because I'm nearly ready to buy. I'm in the process of getting paperwork to mortgage broker. So he came on in the first week of July, we purchased in the second week of August and we've just settled last week. So it is, it's a long term game but that's actually a pretty good life cycle for a client from not knowing me at the beginning of this year to now buying a house with me before the.

All through LinkedIn. All through LinkedIn. Only because of LinkedIn.

Only because of LinkedIn. I never would have called cross paths with him honestly if I, if I didn't reach out on LinkedIn.

It's so powerful, isn't it? Like just the ability, when I think back four or five years ago to how you try and find business, you'd literally go, well how can I get a hold of the marketing manager at this big company? And it's literally now so incredibly easy. But I think people freak out because they're like, well, what do I say? And of course from what you said last week, it's all about just being human.

Yeah, just being human. There's another example that's probably also relevant to your audience more so on the point of producing your own video. So I got a message from a financial planner about this time two weeks ago and he said, Emily, you don't know who I am, but I've seen your videos and I've passed your number on to my clients. They want to purchase an investment in Melbourne and they can't physically be there, please just let me know if they call you. I was like, wow, this is great. Turns out he'd seen my videos because we were mutually connected with a mortgage broker who was doing the loan for the house. The clients, I've never met them in person. I'm actually only going to be meeting them on Sunday. I purchased for them this week through the whole process and honestly they would never have known about me until that financial planner had seen my videos on LinkedIn. It's just another one that's literally a direct result of LinkedIn content.

Congratulations. That's phenomenal. But. But it also. But also predictable. Like, this is the thing, isn't it? It's like, it is amazing because it. We still get excited when that works, but it's actually predictable. You. And let's not forget, how many people do you think you've connected with manually through Sales Navigator?

I reckon Just over 60% of my network. But now I've actually stopped outbounding. Outbound connecting. Unless it's a really targeted profile. Because I get between now up to maybe six requests a day of wanting to join the network, which is great. So it just grows itself. But I did use a little bit of automation and extra tools to help me bulk message because it does take a little bit to do it yourself. You just have to be really careful with automation. LinkedIn's really cracking down on it big time. That's why I stopped using it.

But that means, in essence, somewhere around three and a half thousand manual connections. Because I think what's important here is context. You know, we always celebrate stories like, you know, when the bands had the big hit, but like, no one sees the.

Long working hours manually connecting. And I think one thing that I think is really important, and maybe you can elaborate is, you know, there's a lot of work goes into winning the deal.

Yeah, it doesn't just happen just like that. I mean, that example I just gave you of those clients we just bought for, like, that's all well and good, but my goodness, the amount of time prior to that to even lead up to the point where people go, oh, I know who you are through video is insane. I mean, that's thinking about content strategy. It's thinking about every Tuesday having a tip ready to go and filming it, uploading it. Captions. I mean, this is the easy part for you guys, right? You're in the space, probably can do it faster than I can, but yeah, there is a lot of work. But when it starts to domino effect and you start to get recognized, it definitely is worth it. But you can't take your foot off the pedal. The biggest thing I've learned in business, and I know that people will have heard this before, but it never hurts to hear it again, is consistency is key. And it's such a simple rule, but it's the one that's often broken by many people. And honestly, I think that's actually the sole reason why People don't succeed is because they're not consistent in what they do.

I think they give up. They give up because it's hard when you're not. Yeah. When you're putting out three and a half thousand connections in December, January, February, when there's no work, it's great to get to October and go, I've now got six people a day connecting. But that's only because of the compound effect of consistently putting out content. And, and it's only recently you started using a videographer. I remember some of your early videos were just, you know, it's just, just you and a phone. But it just goes to show that constant and consistent action yields results. And I love, you know, you talked a bit about this at the event, but the idea of coming up with some sort of theme, more not necessarily a catchphrase, but almost a jingle type approach to content so that you, you stick out in people's minds and you do Top Tip Tuesday, don't you?

Yeah.

I love it. So there's a couple of reasons I did that. Number one, having a segment related to a weekday made me accountable to myself and to my network to post. Like, I really, I can't now post, not post on a Tuesday. It has to be that way. Also, it gives me results in consistency, but also to bring other people into my videos to talk about their tips. When I ran out of tips, well, I thought I'd use every tip that I knew. I started bringing in other people. I said, the Top Tip Tuesday is going on a roadshow. So, you know, there's going to be more people joining and more content coming your way. I think the biggest thing around that is getting a catchphrase or a hand action. Whatever it is, it sticks in people's brains. Jingles even. Last night I went for a walk with Evelyn, who's the business partner for our podcast, and she said, oh, I've got to do my 62nd spill tomorrow morning, but I want to, I want the audience to have something to remember. I said to her, okay, this sounds lame, but use it. Don't be left in the dark. Call Evelyn Clark. And I said, it rhymes and people will love it. And she text me just before. She's like, it worked. Everyone loved it. I got a good laugh and people remembered it. So there is huge merit in having that as well. Whatever your interpretation of that might be, I would strongly encourage you to do something along those lines as well.

It's about keeping things simple, isn't it? I certainly feel that. And this, this this world we live now, where there's continual bombardment with digital messaging. I forget what the number is, but there's something stupid like 15,000 messages a day is what we get exposed to. And so sometimes just, you know, doing the simple things, almost going back to virtually being cheesy with it.

Yeah, you have to be.

Yeah, I think it has to be depending on your market. You just have to stand out, I think, in your market. And, yeah, I mean, we put our podcast episode out every Wednesday on LinkedIn.

Yeah.

But I'm. Since talking to you and watching your growth with. We're thinking about doing something kind of weekly that's a kind of much more a vulnerability piece. I think that leads on to a lovely piece that you did. Well, I mean, a lovely piece for you, but you did a very, very open and honest piece about burnout. And, you know, I felt really burnt out this week after kind of doing the event last week. I'm actually going camping next week to recharge because it's so important, because I think as business owners, you do work hard. You have so much riding on it that you put so much into it. But tell me about the powerful aspect of opening up on LinkedIn being. Being human.

Yeah. So, hands down, any video I've done that has been the human part of me still relating it back to business somehow. Like, it's not a Facebook video of me hanging out with my friends. It's me talking about a real issue that many people would face, I. E. Burnout. The response of that is so much of a. I felt that way too. Or, you know, I felt that way too, but I didn't feel okay to talk about it or things like that. It doesn't necessarily have to be not so much negative, but, you know, that real sort of piece of the vulnerability, it can actually also be. I did one recently where I said playing piano is like my outlet for when I get home and when I want to switch off, this is what I do. What do you guys do to switch off? So it was just kind of showing that next layer of not just me being the business person that I am showing some vulnerability that we are humans who happen to be in business. I think that's really, really key. And yeah, the response from the video about burnout was a lot of people had commented, but so many more people had messaged. They didn't want to comment on the post and show that they'd been through it as well. They actually private messaged me about it, and I found that to be really interesting. But yeah, it definitely just made people realize that I'm just as human as they are and there is relatability across, across a lot of things that we all experience and we all think and feel.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Now we talked about bit scripts earlier and one thing you mentioned at the workshop was understanding who you're targeting and having different scripts kind of ready to send to different people. How many, many scripts would be a good Number? Is it 3? Is it 5? Is it. Do you have any thoughts on that? Is there anything you can share around, around creating scripts and how to, how to approach people?

Sure. I think it's good to have them relevant to how many titles that you're targeting. Now I think most people can count on their hand like their ideal, what their title of the ideal person is. So marketing manager, brand manager, media production, you know, along those lines and having one under each umbrella, that's slightly different and I think finding pieces in their role that, that makes that message unique. For example, marketing manager. You know, hi, I'd love to connect with you. I can only imagine your role must be so involved as a marketing manager for Brand xyz. I'd love to connect with the, that sort of thing but. And I mean I guess you could put a different role title in there because everyone's role can be hectic. But it's just trying to find those little points of difference that's related to the title as well as having a generic. If you're, if you're ever unsure what to write to somebody. And I shared this at the workshop too was I always say to people, if there's any, if there's ever someone in my network you'd like an introduction to, please always feel free to reach out. I love connecting like minded people. That is always well received. If you've got nothing to say, say that. That would be my piece of advice also.

You're just giving, aren't you? You're not asking for anything, you're saying, hey, I've got a network. And something else that struck me that the bigger you make your network, like when you start to post consistent content.

Like what this happened the other day when you posted your piece about the piano. I was like, I had no idea you played piano. Oh, here's my drum kit. And we're having a bit of a back and forth about drum kits. And then a friend of mine who I haven't spoken to probably in a year.

Goes, ah, he liked the post. So what that now means he's now seeing your post and that compound effect of LinkedIn is really powerful, isn't it?

Big time. The ripple effect of a post going to second and third connections. My views on just to give you a sense of power here, my views have gone up 260% since I posted that piano video, which was only three nights ago.

Wow.

Yep. Just traffic. It's traffic because it's got a ripple effect. And the engagement rate was so high because I asked people, please comment below. What's your outlet show me. I didn't ask anyone to post pictures, but people did. I mean, there's pictures of a drum kit. There was people who put in pictures of them on their bike hanging out with their kids, fishing. I mean, it's great. And it's business from it is because it's saying, what do you do to unwind from business when you're not your professional hat? What do you do?

Exactly right. And what are your views and experience using hashtags? I've seen, you know, LinkedIn really pushing like the sort of suggested hashtags on posts. Do you have any kind of testing or any data on how many hashtags to use?

Good question. Charlie actually, who was at the workshop just asked me about this because he got a screenshot from a friend saying you're trending in this hashtag. Now, when you put a post up and you do put hashtags, I don't have data for the number of them. I would say probably keep it under five. I don't think you need to go to town on them. But for me, I consistently put up buyer's advocate and hashtag real estate. I often get my posts trending in hashtag real estate. My views on hashtags is they'll become more relevant when people start to follow hashtags. At the moment, the following of the hashtags actually isn't that high, but the posting of hashtags is. So I think even like you think about Instagram, people don't necessarily search by hashtag. They might search by account name or place. I think there is a. There's definitely room in LinkedIn for hashtags. Will they become as big as Instagram? Probably not, in my opinion. But it is another avenue for people to find content that's related to what they want to learn about.

Awesome. So I'm guessing where can people find out more about you, Emily?

Well, there's a really obvious place where you can connect with me. That's LinkedIn. So Emily Wallace and I assume most people would be connected with you. So anyone who's not yet connected with me. We will be second connections because Jen and I are connected also. You can find me on my website, which is just my name emilywallace.com that's more so for the buying piece for content and things like that. Feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn. I'm very active on there and I often check my inbox like multiple times a day, probably more than my email inbox if I'm honest. So always feel free to reach out, ask a question or say hi, I will reply.

We'll post all the links below as well. Just something you mentioned that I think is really key and it just struck me this is what I do. Don't you find nowadays like we're doing business connections on LinkedIn messaging or you know, or tagging. It's like I don't really. We've done a bit of email back and forward to each other, but it was more so to kind of do some detail stuff once we were connected. You find that less and less people are connecting via your email and more and more people are coming through through messaging services.

Which is why it's important that in your contact information on LinkedIn you do have your contact details of email and phone. Because most of the time I have gone like I've set up a meeting with someone and the only way we communicated was LinkedIn messenger. And if I'm running late or need to communicate with them when we haven't exchanged details, I've got no reference point except LinkedIn messenger. So yes, I do think it's more common and to that point point on your profile, make sure that your contact details are up to date and accessible. Change the view to public as opposed to private so people can reach out to you through there. Because yeah, I've done, I've done business with people when it's been like two months down the track and I'm like, oh, do I have your email address? I've only got your LinkedIn. So yeah, that's important.

Very cool, Emily. Thank you so much for sharing some of your day with us and I look forward to chatting again soon.

Sounds like a plan.

You've been listening to the Video Business Accelerator podcast with your host, Dan Lenny. If you are a video business owner who is tired of going it alone and would benefit from mentorship, support and weekly accountability, then mouse over to www.videobusinessaccelerator.com to learn more about how the Accelerator program can help you today. Don't forget to subscribe and rate the show over on itunes, and we'd really appreciate you taking a few minutes to leave a review.