5 ways to actually get clients from LinkedIn!

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Thank you. Squirrel. Squirrel. Squirrel. In this episode, we're going to help you actually get clients from LinkedIn.

Hi, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money mindset coach. And welcome to the Weeniecast.

I'm doing this episode of the Weeniecast for extremely selfish reasons. I no longer want to hear from people that they are making these faux pas, which is French for up on LinkedIn. Okay? It hurts my soul when it's such a magical platform and when used correctly, can attract hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of business. But if you're making these simple mistakes, you're actually keeping that money from coming to you because A, you're not attracting your ideal clients, B, you are spending a stupid amount of time doing stuff that isn't going to move the needle in your business. And in some cases, these may actually be hurting you rather than helping you. If you're a business owner and you have not gotten on the LinkedIn train yet, let me tell you, here are some of the perks of promoting your business on LinkedIn. Number one, the average active user on LinkedIn makes $70,000 a year. Okay? That's the average. Many users on LinkedIn make a lot more, which means you are speaking to people who have the money to buy your services. Number two, there's not a need to dance or lip sync or follow trends like there are on other platforms. I'm talking to you, Instagram and TikTok. In fact, you don't even have to create graphics for your posts on LinkedIn. It helps to occasionally have a picture of your face so people feel like they're getting content from an actual human being. But genuinely, if you're creating content on LinkedIn and you're doing it well enough, people are going to form a relationship with you and they're going to start trusting you. And if they're your ideal client, they will more than likely end up booking a sales call with you. If they're not your ideal client, then they will still be supportive of your content, which as a result, pushes it to their network. Or if they know your ideal clients, I bet you they're referring them to you. So if you're not on the LinkedIn train yet, I hope this will Convince you to get on there and start promoting your business. There's. If you are on the LinkedIn train and you're doing any of these things wrong, I want you to forgive yourself. You didn't know any better. But after you listen to this episode, you will know better. So no more of these things, okay? Deal. First and foremost, LinkedIn does not like it when you share links in your posts. Okay? LinkedIn wants to keep its viewers on the platform for as long as possible. If you're sharing a link to, say, your YouTube channel or to an article you wrote in a magazine, you're sending people off of the platform. LinkedIn does not want that. So the LinkedIn algorithm will actually kill the reach of any post you share that has a link in it. This is also true for you resharing other people's LinkedIn posts, which sounds absolutely nutso, right? But LinkedIn is a janky ass platform. It can't tell the difference between a link to its own website and a link to another website. Okay? So if you're someone who shares other people's posts and you do it because you really want to promote them, you are a golden soul. You are so kind and so supportive and you're doing it from just a really beautiful place. Keep going if you want to. If you're not trying to get business from the platform. If you are trying to get business from the platform. This is killing you. Killing me slowly with his slings. The next bit, formatting. If you're formatting your content so it's not accessible to people with vision issues, you are missing out on a ton of business. And let me tell you why. On LinkedIn, when you use special characters, that post is no longer usable to any programs that help those with vision impairments. You know, so those text to talk kind of programs that read it for them, they can't read that story stuff. Likewise, if you're just writing everything in big block paragraphs, and this goes for LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, wherever you're creating content. There are folks like me out there who actually have a really hard time reading big blocks of text. You may not know this about me. I had a minor traumatic brain injury back in October of 2017. And for about two or three months, I literally could not read because the part of my brain that got bruised was the part that deciphers what my eyes see.

Now it's gotten a lot better.

I can read now. It's great.

Like I'm back almost to normal, but.

I'm still challenged when I see A chunky big paragraph that has no breaks in it. So you know those posts where it's like one sentence is a paragraph and then there's a big space and then there's another sentence that's a paragraph. That's what is actually accessible to people. And it feels weird to write that way. But let me tell you, you will get so much more engagement on your posts if you write that way, even if your content kind of sucks. It's also really friendly to people who skim. I don't know about you, but I'm not like, sitting down in a quiet room with my nice cup of tea just to go and read stuff on LinkedIn. No, I'm reading stuff on LinkedIn when I'm sitting on a park bench with my dog who's barking at a squirrel. I'm distracted. I'm looking at LinkedIn when I'm watching TV at night and I'm only half paying attention. I'm skimming stuff. If it seems interesting, I might read the whole thing, but I also might just, like, read the top bit and then the bottom bit and then comment and like something. It's not your reader's job to invest their time and energy into figuring out what you're trying to say. It is your job to make it easy to read. Another faux pas that many people on LinkedIn do is they get preachy or salesy in their content. And I'm saying that as someone who trains my clients on how to write sales content, salesy and sales content are completely different things. To paint the picture of what this looks like, I want you to imagine that you go to a networking event. It's like 5pm it's in maybe downtown at a hip bar. And you go there and you get your little name tag and you walk into the room. There's like a whole wall of hors d' oeuvres. And there's, you know, the bartenders that are pouring glasses of wine and beer and they might be making cocktails with, well, stuff, but they're not doing anything fancy. And you look around and you see all the people there. And instead of going and starting a conversation with anyone you like, pull one of the chairs out from a table and you stand on it and you start saying, do you have a problem with this? Do you ever struggle with why? Do you notice that other people are more successful in this area than you? Well, I have the solution for you. No, that's like, that's what the Oxiclean guy would do.

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Squirrel. Squirrel. Squirrel. Do you think anyone at that networking event is going to look at you and be like, oh, my God, I have to buy from this person? No, they're going to look at you like you're a nut job. The preachy person pulls out a chair, stands on it and starts telling people, like, here's how you solve all your problems, here's where you're actually screwing up your life, and here's how you solve your problems, and here's what you really have to think about. No one in that whole event is looking at this person being like, wow, they're so smart. Wow, I really want to talk to them. Wow, I really want to give them my money and work with them. No, they're like, don't talk to that person. And they're telling their friends, if that person comes over here, let's pretend we have to go to the bathroom. If they follow us to the bathroom, then let's just leave. We're not dealing with that person. LinkedIn operates best when you, ooh, what.

Am I going to say next? Well, you'll have to keep listening to find out.

But first, squirrel.

Squirrel.

Squirrel. Squirrel.

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LinkedIn operates best when you treat it like it's actually a networking event or a neighborhood, meaning you have actual little conversations with people. If you were a normal human going to a networking event, you'd get your name tag, you'd walk in, you'd kind of, like, scan the room for who seemed approachable. You might go up to the bar and grab a drink and then head over to the hors d' oeuvre table and grab a little plate and, you know, fill up and then start some light chat with whoever was nearby. If you knew someone, you might go up to them, be like, oh, my God, hi, Tiffany, it's so great to see you. And then whoever she's talking to, you kind of join into that conversation. You're not going to go and be like, here's who I help and this is what I do, and this is how much I charge. No, you're going to ask, oh, cool. Like, where do you work? Oh, what do you like about it? There's, you know, someone might compliment you on your blouse and you'd be like, oh, yeah, I got this on sale at Bloomingdale's. Did you know that they have a sale every quarter at this time? Like, it's amazing. Someone might be talking about how they went on vacation last month to the Maldives. You might start asking them questions about it and start saying, oh, I've always wanted to go there. You're building actual relationships. And sure, yeah, Sometimes the conversation comes back to, what do you do? Oh, my God, I really need that. Sure. Can we book a car call? Absolutely. But you're not jumping there first. If you jump there first, no one's going to go with you on LinkedIn. When you go and you try to, like, just be salesy and just preach at people and you don't invest some time on having those conversations first. It's the equivalent of walking into that networking event standing on a chair, shouting some shit at them, and then going to the hors d' oeuvre table with your Tupperware, putting some stuff in and piecing out, and then expecting that you're going to get a job or a client out of it. It's not going to work. When you create content for LinkedIn, you have to make it kind of conversational. When you're writing content, you have to think about what would make this easy for someone to comment on. And before you even post it, you actually have to go and comment on a minimum of 10 other people's posts. And here's where so many people get tripped up. Okay, well, I have to go and comment on my ideal client's post. No, you do not go and comment on posts that you find interesting, that you find fun, that light you up, that you want to be part of the conversation. People are not scanning the interwebs for the person who is the most bland version of whoever can solve their problems. They're looking for people that they want to be in relationship with, that they want to be friends with. You showing up as your actual human self on LinkedIn is giving them that chance to recognize you as a human and think, yeah, they seem cool, I want to hang out with them more. The Beautiful thing about LinkedIn is that when you comment on someone else's post, even if they have nothing to do with what you do and they respond to you, and then maybe they come and comment on your post because you supported them, your content actually gets pushed to all their people in their network. Anyone who is active on the platform is more likely to see your stuff if you have this reciprocal relationship with this person. This content creator whose stuff you're commenting on may not be your ideal client, but I guarantee you, they're connected to your ideal clients, and they're connected to your ideal clients, spouses and siblings and work besties. And when you create content that's personal, that empathizes with your ideal clients, you make it so much easier for them to feel like they know you. And once they feel like they know you, they'll start paying attention to what it is that you actually do for work. LinkedIn is not a quick game. It's not something where you're going to post once and get a gazillion clients and then be done. It's a long game. There are so many LinkedIn programs out there that guarantee immediate results. And what they do is they're essentially engagement pods, which is another big faux pas that you do not want to do on LinkedIn. If you're not familiar with what an engagement pod is, it's a group of people that you join and you oftentimes you have to pay to join. And anytime a member of that group posts something, they share the link in the pod, and everyone in the pod jumps on that link and goes in comments. Now, this hurts you for multiple reasons. Number one, it's against the terms of service on LinkedIn. So you can get kicked off the platform. Number two, everyone in that pod is not your ideal client. Because they're all obsessed with getting their own clients on the platform. They're obsessed with growing their followership. Unless that's your ideal client, you're basically training the whole algorithm to show your stuff to more people like them who will never buy from you. The ugly thing here is that your newsfeed is going to be chock a box full of boring ass content. Oftentimes people in these groups are not trained on how to create good content that's fun to engage on. So instead of going onto LinkedIn and creating real relationships and real friendships and having some fun and attracting some clients in the mix, it becomes this arduous task that you have to spend hours on and you get more followers, but you never get a client out of it. And that sucks. Unless you're a masochist and you really enjoy making yourself suffer, then absolutely go for it. You do whatever knocks your socks off, buddy. The last bit that I will name.

Here is, ooh, what am I going to say next? Well, you'll have to keep listening to find out.

But first, Squirrel. Squirrel. Squirrel. Squirrel.

Hey, quick question. Did you follow this podcast on your favorite podcast app yet? It takes just a few seconds. I personally love Apple podcasts because. But you can find us anywhere, even on YouTube. So as the kids say, smash that button and make sure you never miss an episode.

The last bit that I will name here is DMing cold DMing specifically. Never have I ever sat at my desk wondering, you know, I really want some weirdo who knows nothing about me and nothing about my business, nothing about what I'm struggling with, to send me an unsolicited message trying to sell me their thing. God, I just really want that today. Never, never have I ever. And I've never gotten that initial message and been like, oh, this is interesting. Yeah, I would totally love to hear about your cryptocurrency kind of thing. Tell me more. And then appreciated the 17 follow up messages that get sent after that. Trying to sell me their thing. No, that doesn't work that way. One of the things I train all of my clients on is how to create content that will actually attract your ideal clients to book with you without you chasing them down. And we do this through a few different ways. Number one, we edit your profile so it operates like landing page your profile. If you're running a business and selling services and trying to attract clients on LinkedIn, your profile should not be about you. And I know that sounds completely nutso, but your profile has to be all about your ideal client and what they're struggling with and what they're afraid of and what they're frustrated with and what they want more than anything. Because when someone comes to your profile, they're not going to care that you were on the lacrosse team. They're not going to know how you helping your company get to like 400% of their corporate goal is going to be at all relevant to how they're struggling in their life right now and how you might help. They're not going to understand how you are on the advisory board for some nonprofit is at all relevant to how you can help them solve their problems. They are going to recognize when your profile is all about them and calls out the things that they struggle with that they don't think anyone realizes that they struggle with and says, by the way, if you're done with this and you want something different, book a call with me. Once we have that dialed in, we then look at your content strategy to be successful on LinkedIn. To get clients from LinkedIn, you actually do have to share about yourself. And I know you hear so many content gurus out there being like, be vulnerable. Share authentically. And what the does that mean? It doesn't mean that you have to share all of your deepest, darkest secrets on LinkedIn. It doesn't mean that you have to share all of your traumas and all the weird, fucked up shit that's ever happened to you. Okay? It doesn't mean that you have to explain exactly how you're struggling right here in this moment. But it does mean that you have to give people a little idea of who you are. And so when I think about what makes LinkedIn so successful for people is when you treat it like a neighborhood, right? If you moved into a new neighborhood and you wanted to get to know your neighbors, you would not go door to door and hand out your very professional resume and then give them a whole little lecture on what makes you special. You wouldn't. You'd be like, oh, hi, I'm Katie and this is my dog, Luna, and we love going for walks. You'll see us around the neighborhood. You know, I'm a big fan of having people over, so I hope you like cheese and wine because I'll probably have a nice cheese and wine night. By the way, are you obsessed with Bridgerton? Because the new Bridgerton season is about to come out. It's dropping in two parts. Isn't that annoying? I just want all of it all at once. But if you like Bridgerton, I might be having a Bridgerton viewing party and you can dress up as a Bridgerton character. You don't have to dress up as a Bridgerton character. I'll send you that invite if you watch Bridgerton. And what do you like to do? It's stuff that you know about your neighbors that makes you trust them and know them and feel comfortable with them around. It doesn't necessarily have to be super deep. Growing up, my family lived in this really cute neighborhood, and we had some really nice neighbors. And I didn't honestly know what half of them did.

Of course, I was.

I was a teenager. But, you know, I knew one of the neighbors was an ex parole officer. I knew that another neighbor had some kind of consulting firm, but he really liked cigars and whiskey. I knew another neighbor had chickens. And some other neighbors really liked having parties on the weekend that were a little loud we'd get annoyed with, but they seemed nice enough. Every single one of those neighbors my family would have trusted with a key to our house in case of emergencies. It's the same on LinkedIn. You're not trusting people on LinkedIn with a key to your house, but you're giving them enough so they feel like they know you. In combination with that, you're sharing about your ideal clients. You're empathizing with where they are right now. You're talking about what they're struggling with and what they're afraid of and what they want more than anything. And sure, you're sharing testimonials, but you don't have to bang on about how incredibly smart you are. When we interact with other humans, we just assume everyone else is as smart as we are until proven otherwise, right? And so unless you're an absolute moron, don't worry about proving how smart you are. People are just going to assume that you're the same level of smart as they are. You know, we're also coming up with some kind of system so that you can be consistent. Like I said, you're not going to post once and attract all of your clients. You're going to have to post for several months, consistently anywhere from four to seven times a week, which seems like a lot when you first get started, but trust me, it has an impact. And after a few months, you're going to start attracting clients who just see your content. They may not like it and they may not comment on it, but all of a sudden, they're going to show up on your calendar having Booked a sales call. I've had numerous people book sales calls with me, and I got on with them and started talking to them. And towards the end, they were like, listen, I didn't book a call with you to say no to working with you. I've watched every single live you've ever done, which, if you have at all, followed my lives over the last four years. That's like seven seasons of a Netflix show. It's like watching Suits. All of the seasons of Suits and then maybe a bonus season. I don't know. There's a lot of content on there. You're gonna have people in your audience who are following you to the same degree, but for them to do that, for them to follow you and watch you and absorb what you're saying, you have to actually show up and post. You have to be consistent. And the key to all of this is you have to invite people to book a call with you. You have to invite people to become your client. When I first started posting on LinkedIn, my dad started bragging to everyone that I had a LinkedIn blog. I spent the pandemic with them. And I remember he came home one day and he's like, oh, I ran into so and so from this committee in the town, and they were telling me that their daughter worked at LinkedIn. And I told him to ask his daughter if she knew about you because you have a LinkedIn blog. My dad had no idea what I did back then. It was so cute. He was so proud that I would post stuff and get people to comment on it. And he. I don't know if he understood that I didn't get paid for it. He understands now. He understands how it works now, but it took a while, but to the point, you can absolutely treat it like a blog and just write stuff and put it out there. But if you don't tell people, hey, I'm for hire, and if you have this problem and you want to solve this problem, I can help you with that. Book a call with me. They're not going to know. We are very simple creatures, okay? We take things at face value. I want you to think about all the different, like, Instagram people who post about cooking, like, cooking different dishes and baking and all this stuff. Would you assume that you could hire them for catering? You know, would you assume that this fitness person who's posting about healthy meals, that they could come over and do meal prepping for you once a week? No, of course not. You're just watching their stuff, thinking they're sharing valuable recipes that they use to stay in shape. You're not going to know that you can hire them to come over and do meal prep for you unless they tell you. And it's the same across every single industry. So if you are for hire, you have to tell people that you're for hire and give them explicit instructions as to how they could inquire about working with you. Squirrel. Squirrel. Squirrel.

Squirrel.

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And I want to acknowledge this is the weeniecast. It is a podcast for ADHD business owners, but this is something that is widely applicable to business owners everywhere. But I will say if you have adhd, this is where you actually get to share all your freak flags. All the weirdo things that you're interested in or have been interested in in the past. Those are such cool conversation starters that let people feel like they know you and help them connect with you on a different level. And eventually they may end up being your client or they may end up referring business to you. But the fact that you have all these like varied weirdo interests that you can talk about and share about and get excited for, that's all stuff that is going to make people feel like they know you. So full permission here to go and share about all of it. Well, maybe not all of it. The really weird stuff you and I both know you want to keep to yourself unless that's part of your service. But unless you run like a dominatrix S and M thing, maybe keep that stuff to yourself. Although I have to say I would be tickled to see an actual like dominatrix or something out there trying to promote their services on LinkedIn. I think that would be hysterical. I don't know if they would be like in accordance with the terms of service, but you know, that would be so much fun. That would really mix up the conversation a bit.

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I'm gonna stop with the musical stuff because I can't sing. I apologize if your ears are bleeding. Anyway, just. I just set up a microphone in the shower. Squirrel. Squirrel. Squirrel. Squirrel. Are you an entrepreneur?

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