Smart Hustle Event - Joe Apfelbaum Keynote

Coming in today from our social media, all the way from Brooklyn, New York, author, speaker, and wannabe gangsta rapper, my brother from another mother, Joe Apfelbaum! Thank you, thank you, thank you. Can you point to me? I'll point to you in a second. I'll point to you in a second. Oh my gosh, wow, wow. Let's give Ramon another round of applause for the amazing energy. I always look for a star because, you know, people ask me, Joe, how do you have so much energy? And I wrote a book about it, and I should have just said, it's showed a picture of Ramon. That's how I have so much energy. I just feed off his amazing energy. But I want everyone to vibe with me because, you know, like when we're in a place, we have to be one, right? In order for us to really connect, we have to be one, one. So when I say to vibe, I want you to just vibe with me, move your butt in your seat. If you're like super nervous to do that, maybe just tap your feet a little bit, okay? And then when I say, can I get a boom, what are you guys going to do?

Boom!

Okay, so I'm going to say, can I get a boom?

Boom!

Okay, that's right. I'm just training you guys. You have to train people if you want them to, like your employees, right? Right? You want to do something, you got to train them. You can't hand them business cards and say, just go out. You actually tell them what to say, what to do. Okay, cool. So I just trained you guys. You guys are now certified. Can I get a boom?

Boom!

Okay, good. You guys are certified to boom with me. I love to boom with people, and this is how— this is one of the ways that I boom with people. All right, you guys ready? All right, here we go. Vibe. Yeah, come on. I see some people vibing. Can I get a boom?

Boom!

Yeah. His name is Ramon and he's bad to the bone.

He's got this conference Fully, fully grown.

Who am I? Yeah, let me tell you right here. My name is Joe and I'm the LinkedIn pro. Everybody out there, they just want to grow, but they're not posting, they're just coasting. Don't be like them and get your LinkedIn toastin'. To be an influencer and not just a lurker, you need to start to post and don't be like most. But you might say that LinkedIn doesn't work. You don't work 'cause you dabble and lurk. Can I get a boom?

Boom!

Yeah! 500 million people lurk, they don't network. A small percentage even and acts like a jerk, but you're really smart. You're the expert in your field. Now you need to get real deal sealed, but you need that blueprint, you need those plans. Your content is good, then you just need fans, people to comment, to like, and to share. Put yourself out there if you dare. Now can I get a boom?

Boom!

Again, can I get a boom?

Boom!

Now I used to be afraid, and I used to be scared. People would judge me, and I would look weird. A strategy, a blueprint, that's what helped me, me be me. B to B. Now, can I get a boom?

Boom!

Yeah, this is Ramone's Bad to the Bone. Woo! All right. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. That was fun, right? That was fun. All right. I once went into a meeting and I wanted to make a point, so I got 100 $1 bills and I said I was gonna make it rain. And the lady at the teller was like, where are you going? What is an Orthodox Jew— what are you— I was like, you don't understand. You don't— Anyway, so I'm so glad to be here. Most people don't know this, but there are over 650 million people on LinkedIn right now. And it's growing at 2 members per second. And we're at Microsoft right now. Like, we're in LinkedIn. We're literally like in the belly of LinkedIn, like in the belly of it all. The thing is, the average CEO has 930 connections on LinkedIn. The average CEO has 930 connections on LinkedIn. 40% log in daily. But no one's posting. Like, only a million posts go up a day, and most of them are from me. People are not— but the question is why? Why are you not posting? I want to know why. And I started interviewing people. I've trained over 1,000 people in the past couple of months, and I started asking, hey, listen, why are you not posting? Why are you not posting? Why? Tell me. Tell me.

Tell me.

Anyone know? Anyone know why? Go.

Why?

Well, the immediate— I don't get as much immediate gratification. I don't get gratification. My wife doesn't show me any appreciation. I'm not going to show up and take out the trash, right? I'm not going to post anything on LinkedIn. No one's liking it. and commenting. It's like a vicious circle, right? You don't post, no one comments, no one likes. But when I do post, they don't do it either. I'm damned if I do it, I'm damned if I don't. I sound like I'm having an argument with myself. Okay, what's your reason why we're not posting? They don't know what to say. They don't know what to say. What should I say? My content has no value. I'm not an expert. I don't know anything, right? Or somebody here recently said, Joe, I don't have time. I'm busy running my business. I don't have any time. By the way, I hear excuse after excuse. I've actually documented over 101 excuses and wrote an article with all the reasons why people don't post. What's what's the reason?

Good. Well, I post almost every day on LinkedIn, but the problem is you. I don't post as often because I think I have to write something long and not write a little.

Exactly. I think I have to TD TLDR, right? Too long didn't read. Like people send me messages. There are like a thousand pages. I'm like TLDR. I have no idea what it even says there. I have you know talk about focus, right? I'm just like yeah, right. So I don't have real. People don't realize that the reason why they're not posting. You either have reasons or results. Write this down. I either have reasons. Or results? If you want results, if you want revenue, if you want profits, you gotta say forget about the reasons. I don't care that I don't have time. I don't care that I don't know what to post. I don't care about any of this stuff. I need to show up. Not show up and throw up, because you want to have an actual strategy. Okay, write this down, right? I need a strategy. Okay, and today I'm going to talk about the 3 most important things that you need to know about LinkedIn really, really quickly. And I speak pretty fast. I was raised and grazed in Crooklyn, if you guys know me. By the way, how many of you see me more than once a day on LinkedIn?

Yep.

Look around, by the way. Okay, 50% of you. Usually in the room, 50% of you see me. I don't want to go viral. People are like, oh, Joe, you want to be famous? No, no, no, no, no. I don't want to be famous. I don't want to go viral. I don't want any of that. I want 1,000 people to see me 1,000 times a year. Think about that for a second. If 1,000— Kevin Kelly, anyone heard of him? Kevin Kelly, right? He wrote an article, 1,000 True Fans. If you have 1,000 true fans, you can build any business. Do you have 1,000 true fans? I started finding my true fans. I don't even have 1,000 true fans. I have 1,000— over 1,000 lurkers. I actually have 4.2 million lurkers that lurk on my stuff this year alone, but most of them are just lurking, lurking, lurking, lurking, looking, looking, consuming, and then reaching out to me in the DM saying, Joe, I want to spend $180,000 with your agency type of thing. That happens often, way too often. So I decided I'm gonna start teaching this stuff because if it works for me, I want it to work for other people. My goal is to help 1,000 hungry entrepreneurs go from frustration to to motivation, right? I remember I spoke to Mark Levy many years ago when I did one of my first seminars, and I was petrified on stage, petrified, and he gave me some really great advice. And one of the things that I realized, I need to have a plan, an actual strategy, a written step-by-step plan of what I need to do. So what do you think the 3 most important things you need to do on LinkedIn every single day? Most people think it's the feed, right?

Consistency.

Consistency. Comment on other people. Comment on other people. That's what I had. That's what I had. Okay, very cool. So the 3 most important things that you need to do on LinkedIn— let me tell you what not to do first, because most people don't spend your entire day on the feed, because just being on the feed is not going to help you. Okay, people are just on the feed, on the feed, on the feed, on the feed, on the feed, on the feed, and they're just lurking. If you're just lurking, are you going to make money? You're going to stay top of mind? No, it's not going to work. So you've got to do something. So there are 3 activities. Nothing happens without action, right? Does this make sense? But common sense is not common practice. I know this. I write this in my job ads. I write, common sense is not common practice. If you have no common sense, don't worry about the rest. All right? Common sense is not common practice. I want my employees to have common sense, but they don't. That's why I need systems and processes. Same thing. You need to learn how to post properly. Most people are— the people that are posting are posting in such a crappy way that they're not getting any exposure. Not because they're bad people or the content is bad. It's because they're doing it in a way that the algorithm basically says, eh, not going to show them to anyone. I don't care if you have 930 connections. Zero people are going to see this and you're going to get zero connectivity because you don't know the strategy of how to post. There's a certain way to post. I'll give you guys a quick hint: don't include a link in the post. Because if you're going to include a link in the post, LinkedIn basically says, I'm not, I'm not promoting this. This is— they're going to leave Microsoft. We want them in Microsoft, in the belly. So they don't promote you to anything. So you say link in the comments and you put the link in the comments, okay? And if you follow my stuff, I have lots of— I have over 200 articles that I've written. I have a lot Lots of free webinars, lots of free access, a lot of great things that I've written about that. So just that alone will give you 10 times more, 10 times more exposure on your post than if you just post it with a link in the thing. Okay, so I want you to think about that. It's number one, post. Number 2, engage. Most people are not engaging properly, and people think engage, what does engage even mean? What should I do? Don't freeze, do something. Like, how about this? How about like? If you see somebody, like, smile at them, right? A like is basically you smiling. When I see Jen, I smile at her. Comment, you're actually creating content. I like creating comments that are really well thought out and then taking that comment and repurposing it as a post. Comment. Use comments. Very, very powerful. They also show up in other people's feed. Everyone's on the feed, right? Your comment will show up on the feed. It's very powerful. Number 3, endorse other people. Recommend other people. By the way, how many recommendations do you think you have on LinkedIn? Raise your hand if you know. If you don't know, that's fine. How many? Okay, how many do you have?

Very few.

Very few. Good. Lou, how many?

42.

Amazing.

42.

19.

19. 250.

Wow, 250, that's fantastic. You have 250? That's incredible. You're the first person I've ever met that has— Number 970 on LinkedIn. Wow, that's incredible. Congratulations, you're amazing.

62.

62, okay. So when I set my goal, I saw somebody that had 100 recommendations on LinkedIn. I was like, damn, I gotta get 150 because I'm super competitive. Those of you saw me around with the bingo thing, I'm like, sign here, sign here, sign here, right? So that's what I do. I'm super competitive. So when I saw, then I found somebody that had 200. I was like, I gotta pass the 200. Then I found somebody that had 250. I said, I gotta pass the 250. So I'm on my road to 300 now. That's where I'm on my road. And eventually I'm gonna have 1,000 recommendations on LinkedIn. But all I want you to do is to have 3, because you cannot have an all-star profile if you don't have at least 3 recommendations. Get a fresh recommendation every month. That's part of engaging. And then the third thing is messaging. People say if you build it, they will come. Not true. It's a lie. It's a lie, I tell you. If you build it, they will not come. I've built it many, many times. What you need to do is message. Message, message, message, message. What type of messages? 3 types of messages: greeting, feeding, and meeting. Okay, greeting, feeding, and meeting. Don't just sell. You're here networking. Network, build relationships, connect, have a real relationship. So there's a 3-step process that we teach, posting engaging messaging and how to do booming. We call it booming in social selling. That's the booming module. But before you do any of that, you have to have a goal. Does everyone here have written goals for their business? Raise your hand. Look around you. Only about 25% of you have written goals for your business. I have this little thing here. It says, set my goal for my business and my marketing. You gotta set your goal. If you don't have a goal, you're not going anywhere. Most people don't have goals, and the people that have goals have vague goals. They have wishes. They don't have timelines. They don't know exactly what they're doing, when they're doing it, how they're doing it. Have a goal for LinkedIn. Know what your goal is. Number 2, understand who your target market is. Understanding who your target market is. If you're going after everybody— You're going after nobody. Exactly. Thank you, Julia. I love that voice. I love that voice. The best voice in the world, the Julia voice. Understand not only your ideal client, but your ideal referral partner. That's probably one of the most important things you could think about, because networking is not about getting clients, it's about getting referral partners who will refer business. I'd rather have 10 referral partners than 10 clients, because the referral partners are ones that are always going to be feeding me. Like Adrienne Miller, she's an amazing referral partner. Ramon Ray, amazing referral. These are people that will constantly refer business to you over and over and over. If you add value to them, they'll be more top of mind and add value to you. And then the third thing is thinking about your messaging. And they're going to talk a lot about messaging, but messaging is everything on LinkedIn. Thinking about your stories, thinking about your profile. Is it optimized? What are you saying about yourself? And then how are you tracking your ROI? How are you tracking your— if you want to get an ROI, you got to track it. If you don't measure it— everyone hears these clichés over and over. You don't measure it, you don't manage it, blah blah blah. But that's the reality. How do you measure? What are you going to measure, right? What are you going to measure? Measure your connections. Take, recognize, strategize, and prioritize your connections. How many of you have downloaded your connections, put it into a spreadsheet, and went through this process of recognize, strategize, and prioritize? How many of you? None of you. One of you, 2 of you, 3 of you, right? Very few people. Very few. You have 100 people, 2, 3 people have done it. Why? Because people don't think about it. They're so busy in their business, they don't have time to go through their contacts. But if you go through your contacts and identify the 30, 50 people that are the most important people in your LinkedIn network that are the most engaged, and you sort it by different things that matter to your business, you're gonna— it's a game changer. So we created this dashboard in our Social Selling System. If you guys want to see like an hour-long boot camp that I did like 2 weeks ago at the Strategies for Success thing, where Danny Mizrahi spoke with me and a bunch of other amazing people. Just email info@socialselling.com, we'll send it to you all for free as my gift to you. So it's an amazing thing, so email info@socialselling.com if you need access to like our previous webinars or access to anything. My team is standing by, LinkedIn strategists, to answer all your questions because I wanna make sure that I'm on time and that I'm giving you guys value. So feel free to email us any questions that you have about this stuff. Email info@socialselling.com. People say, Joe, how'd you buy socialselling.com? How'd you do that? I said, very simple, I dropped the G. Apostrophe only. I literally dropped the G because I'm B2B. Anyway, I'm not going to get into a whole other rant, but the bottom line is Social Selling, no G. Okay? Memorize that. That's very simple. info@socialesselling.com. Tammy, Tara, and the whole entire team is there. I'm so excited. By the way, LinkedIn just contacted me and said, you can't use in in your name. I was like, really? I gotta call my lawyer. So now I gotta deal with that, right? I'm trying to grow a multi-million dollar— my second multi-million dollar business now. I'm trying And to grow my business. LinkedIn's giving me a hard time about it. But that's okay, I'm gonna figure it out and make it happen. And I'm excited about getting past this hump. I may have to change my company name. That happens, right? I may have to pivot. And if that happens, that's cool. I'm cool with that. I'll come up with another name that has an apostrophe only. I'm gonna figure it out. I'm excited about launching a new company. Like Ramon, I like launching, launching, launching. So maybe I'll have to launch a new company next year. But I'm excited. I'm excited about adding value to you all. And the bottom line is LinkedIn could be super complicated because there's a million things you could do on LinkedIn, right? There's so many different things you can do. But if you figure out what's the one thing that you're gonna do really, really well— if you want more influence, if you want more visibility, maybe you need to post every day. Just post once a day, 15 minutes a day. If you want more visibility, if you want more credibility, engage once a day. Spend 15 minutes engaging. And if you want more clients, you have to outreach. You have to meet people offline. If you're not having phone conversations with people— sales don't close through the DM. You can slide into the DM and be all cool and flirt with people. That's not gonna happen. And don't do that on LinkedIn, it's dumb. Okay, what you want to do instead is you want to build meaningful relationships. I'll give you a quick hint about sliding in the DM. Check this out. Everybody has one thing in common. What's the one thing we all have in common?

We're human.

We're human, very good. And humans have birthdays, right? And LinkedIn, what do they do? They notify you that it's people's birthdays, but very few people wish me a happy birthday. I know, I tried. I keep changing my birthday to see who's gonna wish me a happy birthday. You can change it in the settings. It takes a while for the algorithm to pick it up and send it to people, but I'm reverse engineering the algo. That's what I do, right? So keep changing— don't change your birthday. Don't worry about that. But wish people happy birthday. Okay? Wish people happy birthday. Very simple. That's a greeting. Wish people happy birthday. Then feed them and so on and so forth. So bottom line is, what I want to let you guys know is that depending if you want visibility, credibility, or you want clients, you have to do different things. I know that if I do all 3 in just 15 minutes a day, it explodes. And it works for our clients. We recently had somebody take our Social Selling System, 9 simple modules. He did one thing. He closed 2 $75,000 deals within 60 days.

Woo!

Okay, this really, really works. Thank you, Julia, you're awesome. And also, we have an incredible sales training course that Julia did called The Sales Cure. If you guys wanna know exactly what to say every time you're on the phone with somebody, we're offering it through Social Seller now. It's really exciting, really great course. It's specifically geared for women, and she really knows how to like do the crazy, crazy mindset stuff and teach you how to create scripts and all that stuff. So it's really exciting that I have this amazing partnership with Julia and a friendship that's over 7 years. When I met Julia first, I was this fat, bloated Hasidic Jew. I weigh 265 pounds and people are like, Joe, how'd you lose the weight? How'd you go from a size 42 stretch pants to a size 31 Express suit? And I said, let me write a book about it. Because Ramon's like, Joe, you gotta write a book, you gotta write a book. Anyways, I wrote a book about it. So if you guys, I only have 3 copies, so you can start bidding on it right now. Let's go, can I get bids? So, thank you very much. So you'll see me over there. Thank you very much. You guys are awesome. This was amazing! So now, before I leave, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. I wanna know, I want 3 people to tell me what are you going to do? Who is the— what are you going to do as a result of this speech? Write down, write down what you're going to do. Go, go, go, go, go. Okay. Get a mic so you can say it. I want 3 people to tell me what are you going to do. Write it down. As a result, I said a lot of things, right? I can literally talk— I'm like Tony Robbins. I could talk for the next 50 hours. Okay. So I want to know what are you going to do? Go. I'm Rich Oseguera from San Diego, by the way, and I'm going to get endorsements Get endorsements, baby! Give him a round of applause. He's gonna get endorsements. That's amazing. My business is Rich Awakenings. I work with visionary business owners and changemakers to help them tap into their purpose and kick ass in business. Amazing, amazing, amazing. And by the way, by the way, between this, I'm gonna give you guys a quick tip right now. Most people LinkedIn URL. Make sure that your LinkedIn URL is customized. And if your LinkedIn URL, your name is like Todd's blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, right? Your last name is like a million syllables long. What you do is you buy a domain. You go to godaddy.com. Are they a sponsor, godaddy.com? They should be a sponsor, OK? You go to godaddy.com. You buy a domain for $11. And then you forward it. You forward your domain to your LinkedIn URL. So if you go to joelinkedin.com, it just goes to my LinkedIn profile. So do that. It's $11. And then somebody says, how do I connect with you on LinkedIn? You say, just go to your first toddlinkedin.com. You buy—

Toddg.me.

Toddg.me, baby. This is how we go because we're B2B because we got Todd and Anna. She ate a banana. OK, let's go. Number 2. Who's the second person? Primero con ella. Vamos, vamos, vamos. Okay. ¿Qué quieres? ¿Qué pasó?

Joe, really a question for you. Most of us, myself, will post articles that we see, see something newspaper, or create our own videos talking to people, post those. So you're saying to do something different, to put put that into the comment section. So what do you put in? What is your primary post then? Like an observation?

Right, so there are 6 different types of posts that we teach about. There's entertaining posts, engaging posts, there's video, there's media, there's lots of different things that you can do. But inside the physical post itself, you put text in the post, try to do text-only posts. You put text with images, text with GIFs, text with videos, you can text with a document. But just put text only, you can put hashtags, up to 5 hashtags max, I recommend Max three hashtags, but presumably up to five. And then in the comments, in the comments, that's where you put the links. The magic happens in the comments. You ever heard that? The magic happens in the comment. And now here's another thing: the algorithm doesn't know the difference if you comment on your own thing or if other people comment. That's dumb algorithm right now. Okay, go. I'm gonna get on LinkedIn. I'm not even on LinkedIn. Oh, she's gonna get on LinkedIn! Round of applause. Thank you very much, guys. Thank you very much. I can keep. I loved like. I could keep dropping tips, dropping tips, dropping tips. This could be forever, but I just want to take a moment to just acknowledge Ramon. I love you so much, my friend.

Thank you.

Let's give him a round of applause.