How to Brand Yourself. Highlight Reel

Hello, my friend, and welcome to another exciting episode of Negotiate Anything. Thanks for joining us today. With over 10 million downloads and listeners from more than 180 different countries, it's dedicated listeners just like you who have made Negotiate Anything the number one negotiation podcast in the world. I'm your host, Kwame Christian. I'm a business lawyer, mediator, author, and the proud CEO of the American Negotiation Institute. Now, before we get into today's insightful conversation, I have a golden opportunity for those of you who recognize the power of negotiation in your professional lives. Have you ever found yourself wishing that you could navigate those high stakes conversations with more confidence? Or perhaps you're looking to empower your team with the art of persuasion and conflict resolution? At the American Negotiation Institute, we've crafted specialized keynotes and workshops tailored for those very needs. We've transformed the negotiation skills of professionals worldwide, and we're eager to do the same for you. We believe the best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations. And our goal is to help you improve your lives and the lives of those around you, one difficult conversation at a time. Don't let another challenging conversation leave you second guessing. Click the link in the description to discover how we can help you find confidence in conflict, negotiate better deals, and have stronger relationships. Because in the world of business, every conversation counts. And now, without further ado, let's jump into the interview. That is why we had you on here, Steven, to talk about a personal brand and the importance of building a personal brand. And so I know people might be listening and saying, well, Kwame, why in the world are we talking about personal branding? This is a negotiation podcast, so why aren't we just talking about negotiation skills at the table? So what is the value of understanding and building a strong personal brand? As it relates to negotiation?

Yes. Well, as it relates to anything. We're living in 2021 in a post pandemic world. Everything is going to be digital, right? It already was. But even more so now, someone is going to be Googling you, whether it's for a new job, whether it's for you're running a business and you're looking for a new client. It could even be someone looking to date you. Someone's googling you, and the results that they find will more or less leave them inclined to do business with you, to hire you, or to date you. And so I think we have to take time to think about our online presence and our personal brand. And our personal brand isn't something that's static, right? It's a dynamic, iterative process to address different sides of whether we're talking about brand identity and the visual elements of your brand and. Or the things that relate to the messaging and things that influence your credibility and trust, both online and offline.

Yeah, man. And you know what's funny is that I've recognized this for myself, too, because in addition to the negotiation trainings that we do here at the American Negotiation Institute, I still practice because I want to make sure that my skills stay sharp. You know, I don't want to be that negotiation trainer who's pulling out stories from decades ago. So I've recognized in my negotiations, people do their research and they say, oh, I notice you have the podcast. I know that you have the TED Talk. I did the research on you, and it gives me kind of a leg up because I don't need to prove myself. They don't need to ask, oh, is Kwame legitimate? Does he know what he's talking about? They do the research and they can see that. So it carries a bit of the persuasive burden. And yeah, I was just going to.

Expand on what you're saying, you know, so as a marketer, we are trained as marketers, that the very first thing that happens with marketing your brand, whether we're talking about a big business or even right now as we're talking about a personal brand, is awareness. You have to be able to drive attention and awareness. That then leads to interest and engagement, that then leads to that quote, unquote conversion of whether you're landing a job or a client again. And so the very first thing is that you have to be able to amplify your identity again online through things you've done, such as TedX or some of the other speaking engagements that you have. And making sure that following you, getting off of a stage, off of a TED stage or after you've launched your book, that there's somewhere else there. Right. You've now made yourself memorable. But where are you leading people to from that point out? Right. Are you leading them to a website? Are you guiding them to your social platform? Is that going to leave them with a certain measure of credibility and trust? You, for one, are amazing at creating really valuable content on an ongoing basis in LinkedIn. And so over time, over the last couple years that you've been creating that content, you've been able to develop that credibility and trust, right?

Absolutely. And those two terms, you said it now twice, credibility and trust. And those two things are incredibly powerful during your negotiation. So let's Focus now on the various things that people can do to build that credibility and trust with their personal brand.

It always begins, first and foremost with understanding and knowing your why in terms of building a solid brand foundation. A lot of people immediately hear the word personal brand and the default to the brand identity and the visual. And they're thinking of a logo, they're thinking of the visual elements. That's very important. But before we start defining what the visual elements look like, let me ask the listener or the viewer of this video and this conversation, do you understand what it is that you're doing, what you're offering, why you're offering it? Do you understand who you're serving? Do you have clarity on your audience that you're serving? And those things are critical because it impacts the messaging, it impacts the visual, it impacts everything else that you're going to develop. I always say from a messaging standpoint especially, I am not going to. I'm not speaking to everyone or I'm going to lose. In the messaging, you are speaking to a very specific professional nine times out of 10. But from a personal standpoint, if I'm communicating one message to my mom, to my wife and to my daughter, that one message is too broad. But if I'm gearing a particular messaging specifically to my wife, my daughter can't receive that. In the same way, you have to be very clear on who it is you're serving. Talking about persuasion, the more clear you are about who you're speaking to means that you understand not only who they are in terms of the demographic data that I'm speaking to a woman who's in her mid-30s, who has children, who earns X and does X. But I also begin to understand the challenges that this person is facing. The psychographic data, what's keeping them up at night, if I understand that group, if I'm able to then group like challenges and values, and I understand exactly how to frame that messaging. And it's not general. I'm not speaking to everybody with the same message. Now I'm able to really capture their attention again. I'm building the awareness initially, but I want to move from awareness to interest. And I want them to be able to engage with me in a way that they won't engage with anyone else. And that's all coming back to personal branding. So the foundation starts with understanding who you're serving.

Right?

For that very reason. Because when you understand who you're serving, then you're able to clarify your message. And I say if you confuse, you lose Right. So you want to make sure you're able to communicate and clarify that message so that you can persuade in that negotiation of whatever it is that you're offering up. And then comes that brand identity piece. Then we start to define how are you going to brand yourself. Are you branding yourself, Kwame Christian, or are you branding yourself American Negotiation Institute? Then we start talking about the different online elements of your brand, your domain name, your social handles. We start to look at things like your color palette, which sounds fluffy, but Kwame has listened to me talk about color a number of times over. And people actually make a subconscious judgment based on color alone within the first 90 seconds of seeing your brand. And so things like color, your fonts, your photography, your graphics, all of these things come into play.

Yeah.

Well, let's talk a little bit about experiences and negotiations and how they help you with your personal brand. Right. And so for me, and part of my story, it's a little bit of a dandelion tale, because again, first half was in private practice. You know, you get out of law school, you know what you're gonna do, and then the good Lord does this great thing called life. And your journey takes you in different places, across different practices, different jurisdictions. And so what was really important for me during those times was to build relationships with folks and establish trust with them because I needed credibility with them, but to also do it in a way that I was true to myself. And as I work with professionals now, developing team members, mentoring and sponsoring different folks in the profession or across the country, the resounding theme of what is my personal brand becomes important. And so it becomes important because it's the centered space you can take yourself to in any circumstance. So early in my career, I did a lot of coal work and, you know, which was an interesting time in the early 90s, there was a lot of strike related violence, frankly, some of it fairly unprecedented for those times. And so, you know, being a young gal starting out in the practice of law, you had to be ready to take on what you needed to, but you also needed to be resilient and adaptable and had to have a strong sense of self. Now, quite honestly, that gets interesting for me. I was lucky to have been raised in a family with parents who believed in me, and I thought I could do anything. And it was really interesting when I got out to the real world after law school to see that maybe the world didn't necessarily agree with that. And so one of the first situations I had, and there were a couple that were very Formulative that I've learned a lot from and I've grown over the years to be grateful for, were just a couple of situations that I found myself in because I was willing to work hard. So one of them was during the time I was doing work in the coal industry, we had a strike occur. Wildcat strike, despite the fact that there was a collective bargaining agreement with a no strike provision that was in full force and effect. And so we found ourselves having to go to federal court to get an injunction and in order, sending the coal miners back to work. This was a big deal early in my career. I was so excited to do it. There were a few women, but not many women doing this work. And of course, on my side, for my client, my cfo, my CEO, were men, as were my partners on the team. It was very exciting to be going to the federal courthouse to argue this motion. It was very, very important. So we get there, and we go in, and the first thing that the judge does is the judge says, as we approach into the courtroom, I'd like to see the parties in chamber. And so I said, you, Honor, we really are going to need to go on the record here. And he said, well, I understand, but it's the court's practice to have you all come in chambers and let's have a conversation. All right, you, Honor. So we all proceeded in, and of course, our very worthy adversaries, union leadership, was as was my client. And so I explained the motion, and I'm making our points for the court's consideration. And then the judge says to me, Ms. McClure, I like you. I've heard what you had to say for your clients. And I'd like you to get the come hither look on your face and go up to the picket line and see if you can't get those gentlemen of the union to go back to work. Now, there's a lot of snickering going on in chambers. And I said, well, your Honor, I'm not sure I know what the come hither look is, but I'll be glad, sir, to go up to the picket line and see if I can get these fine gentlemen of the union to go back to work. And so he says, all right, Ms. McClure, please report back to the court after you have done this. And if you're not successful getting them to go back to work, the court will consider granting your motion and sending in the federal marshals to help get these gentlemen back to work. So, you know, it was interesting, and we can debrief Later. But the rest of the story is I promptly leave with my clients. We're heading back to the office, where there was another interesting event, and get back to the office. And then the discussion at the office with the clients and my partners is, what are you going to do? And I'm like, well, this is quite simple for me. I'm going to keep my word. I told the judge that I would go up there. And so now the issue is, who's going with me? And we'll go up there and see the gentleman on the picket line and see if we can't reason with them and get him to go back to work. So they stood with me, and we went up, and I get to the picket line, and there's fair amount of whistling and a couple of comments about me wearing shoes, and maybe I needed to get a frying pan and go home and do what other women do. And I talked to him, and I said, now, gentlemen, you know, you have a collective bargaining agreement. And I tried to charm them into understanding with great respect that we really needed them to go back to work or the court was going to intervene. That was met with a lot of snickers. Obviously, it didn't work, But I tried and then went back with the clients to the court. And what was interesting to me when I returned, same MO with the judge. I'd like to see the parties in chamber. Could you come into chamber? Your Honor, I'm going to have to insist this time we need to have a record. Well, I understand that, Ms. McClure, but you come on in here and let's see what the parties have to say. So I tell my side of the story. We've gone up there. I have my clients who can affirm this. And then I said, you, Honor, didn't work. They didn't go back to work. But I gave it my best shot. And then what the judge says to me is, Attorney McClure changed from Ms. McClure to Attorney McClure, then the court's going to keep its word. You've adequately argued the motion. The motion is granted. And bailiff, if you would bring down the federal marshals to go with Ms. Go with Attorney McClure back up to the picket line to get these gentlemen to go back to work. So we did, and the gentleman went back to work. There's a lot to dig in there. One of them is composure in the moment. One of them is knowing who you are in the moment and continuing. I mean, you know, and some of it's just overcoming Right. So make the best of the moment, turn that into an opportunity. And in that moment, it did not feel very good, to be quite honest with you. Like, I, you know, there's a part of you that thinks, oh, my Lord, should I drop and run? But the other part of me thought, I know exactly what to do and I'm not afraid to do it. I'm willing to invest in other people. And so I'm gonna give my word to do this and then go keep my word. Now, one of the things that was very interesting to me, and, you know, at the time, it didn't feel so good. As I've aged and practiced, I've looked back upon that and thought, even though it didn't feel like it in the moment, that judge gave me great opportunity to show what I was made of. And the fact that I could make my own decision, stand on my own two feet, not let it keep me off my game of representing my clients, but also receive and respect the positions of those who were not my clients kind of cemented my brand. It did more than announce I had just arrived to the practice. It announced who I was in my practice. And I'm very grateful for that because over my time practicing over the last more than quarter of a century now, working with others, either on my teams or who are part of my clients in their organization or those I mentor and sponsor, I've worked with folks. Sometimes it takes decades to have an experience that helps you cement who you are and validate who you are and then let you work towards it. And so I'm grateful for that. And it has translated for me in my career to there is nothing I can't negotiate or won't negotiate to my own personal standard. And so it freed me up a lot, I think, as a young woman who first generation lawyer from Appalachia to figure out how to Marylandize folks, I wanted to move, not try to be somebody else, another woman, another man, but to figure out how to use the attributes and the blessings that the good Lord gave me to sort of marylandize other folks and help move them. Because, you know, at the end of the day, negotiations is all about communicating. But it's deeper than that. You know, you're moving people. When you negotiate, when you communicate basically in the highest categories, you're either informing people of information they need to know, or you're elevating things for action. Right, so. Or a combination of the both. But when you're negotiating, you're moving people. And if you want to move people, you have to move too. And so you've really got to have a good centered. And I think you want, over time, a brand that allows you to flex your style and grow yourself and bring others along. But it's something that you can be true to regardless of industry, technical practice area, dispute, contract, marital bliss, whatever it is you're negotiating at the time.

Yeah, this is fantastic. I love this story and there's so many things to dig into, but just being big picture, I like how you're able to blend the personal branding along with effective negotiation strategy. Because in that moment, it's difficult to do. Because when you feel emotional, your mind gets focused on the thing that caused you to feel that emotional duress. And the thing that we want to do is immediately alleviate that emotional duress. And that's what leads us to make this mistakes in the moment. But you were able to take a big picture view and recognize not only what you needed to do strategically in order to get the outcome you wanted in this difficult conversation, but you were also able to do it in a way that improved your personal brand throughout the process. And I think what people often miss when we think about negotiation as a personal branding tool is that we think too short term, how can I be successful in this particular negotiation? And we don't take the time to say, how can this particular negotiation get me where I want to go in my overall career? And that's the difference between thinking tactically and thinking strategically. We have to have a grand strategy for our career and use negotiation as a tool to get there while at the same time being mindful of what we need to accomplish in the moment for our respective stakeholders.

Absolutely. Understanding emotion, whether it's yours or someone else's, and not being afraid to either overcome it or receive it it, but move past it or help others through it. Because you have to do a lot of that in negotiation. Right. It's huge. I think the other thing, one of the other big points you just made, which I always love listening to you for this very reason, timing right, that you got to get timing right on things. And you know, we use these adages like pick and choose your battles or it's a sprint, you know, do you want to win the battle or the war? And it's a marathon, not a sprint. And we all say, yeah, yeah, yeah, but it's true. And it's all about timing. So there are times to take a position you dig into, and we might get to one of those stories in a bit. And there are times to say, you know, I Might fly above this one right here, because there's a bigger issue to be accomplished. And when others see you do that yourself, there's something about that over my time in my practice that inspires and empowers others to give it their shot, too. And so sometimes you don't want to rush quick over negotiation time becomes your friend. So protracted negotiations like you often see in collective bargaining, which looks very different than maybe going in to mediate the resolution of a piece of civil litigation, depending on its complexity. I don't rush either of them now. We want to move them along and those kind of things. But sometimes you don't want to rush that. And then sometimes there are things that come up that could be what I call barriers or stop signs. And you just need to decide whether it's a rolling stop, if it's a stop at all, or if it's something you just overcome because you're going to let it go. I think on the personal branding side, and when you and I were talking a little bit, I think it's important to have your own brand and have your own motto. And so for me, over time, and I've been so blessed because I've practiced in so many different industries and different places and tried cases and negotiated labor contracts all over the country, as well as resolve complex litigation and other kinds of disputes, including disputes we resolve and negotiate to avoid litigation. Right. And that kind of spend. And so part of what that is, is I've had to develop my own motto that I want to bring myself back to and in any negotiation. And so my personal motto that I have developed is don't take it personal. Make it personal. And by that I mean be skilled at overcoming and understanding your own emotion and flying above things. So you don't take it personal because you're the one who ultimately decides if you need to, or in fact, you do. But then if you decide not to take it personal, turn around and disarm by making it personal. Make it a memorable experience or journey with people so that when they think of you over time, the journey they went on with you and the negotiations and how that made them feel lingers longer than that final end result. When you crossed the T, you dotted the I, you had a deal, you got a settlement, or you parted ways and moved on to other challenges.

How people can position themselves persuasively online. And so I know you are the master of that. So for everybody out there, what would you say the first few things they need to do in order to position themselves to have credibility online.

You know what's funny about that is there's so many ways to go about it, but there's some things that need to be consistent. And what I've found with people when they're, especially when they're first starting out online and they decide that, and it's usually a decision, well, you know, I need to make sure I have a good online reputation. But they don't start with the obvious. They don't start with making sure that their LinkedIn profile is up to date. Usually what you'll see is someone will create a Facebook page. They'll go out there, they'll create a Twitter account, if they don't already have one. They may go and, you know, get some. Some branding. If they have a website for their website and their Instagram and their YouTube, and they try to make everything look consistent, but they don't start with a very basic thing, which is LinkedIn, which is where everyone will probably focus to begin with, just to see what the person's background is. So the first step, I would say, is get your LinkedIn profile consistent with the messaging that you're trying to communicate about your credibility overall online. So if you're a digital strategist, make sure that your LinkedIn profile aligns with being a digital strategist, and you have examples of the work that you've done and some of the projects that you're working on, so that when people go to check you out and they look at LinkedIn, they'll see that then they'll start looking at your other social media profiles. So it's always good to start with LinkedIn as a foundation from a professional standpoint.

Yeah, I really like that advice because that's something I always tell the people that I mentor that LinkedIn is one of the best opportunities to present yourself online because it's one of the few opportunities we have to control our search results, our Google results, because that's one of the first things that comes up on Google. So that's really great advice. So what are some of the biggest mistakes you see with people on LinkedIn? Like, where are our areas of opportunity?

Most people treat LinkedIn like it's just a resume site. So I've talked to plenty of bloggers or social media experts that will have articles published, they'll have videos that they've done, they'll have panels that they've participated on. And this is. If you're a little further along, I'll step back to if you're not. But if you're a little further along and they have some content out there. They've got stuff they've created, even if it's just work related stuff. They work for an agency or something like that. But they don't highlight it on their LinkedIn profile either in LinkedIn post because you can post, you know, blog posts to your profile link, video, soundcloud, audio, all types of media that you can link in your profile. They don't do that. One of the biggest mistakes is to not highlight what you're doing. And if they're involved in other organizations, they're not putting those organizations at a prominent level in their LinkedIn profile so that when someone visits it, they really don't get a good outlook of who that person is. So now they're relying basically on anything that you're telling them, either in a conversation or what they see online. And those things may not consistently jive with each other. So it's important to highlight some of your skills and some of the achievements that you've made in your LinkedIn profile in order to try to make yourself look more credible.

Okay.

And one of the things that has been personally a struggle for me is really understanding how to effectively utilize the description, your personal description that's right below your name and the summary. And I feel like that's an area of opportunity that people miss out on. I probably am missing out on it too. I personally am interested in hearing your take on how to utilize those particular areas.

You know what's funny about that is I jump back and forth, forth all the time with whether or not my description and my, my summary is what I want it to be. When I looked at yours, I look at everybody's. I mean, it says what you do. It's negotiation consultant, lawyer, podcast, or mediator. I know from a quick glance what you're doing. Most people just put their position down there for their previous job or they don't put anything, it's just their name. When people visit your profile, that's your opportunity to tell them exactly what it is that you do and what your goal is for being on LinkedIn. You can put it as a summary or you know, whatever you want to put. Like for mine it says author, social strategy, podcast host, digital marketing, strategist, speaker. And I have LinkedIn profinder there. I need to change that. But I mean, you know, in a nutshell, I'm like, oh, okay, this is what he does. And then in my summary I talk about exactly what it is that I'm looking for with a sort of call to action. I talk about the fact that I do speaking. So I said, if you're looking for a great speaker for your association, consider contacting Vernon. And then I have my short bio along with some videos underneath of me speaking with some other videos that I've done, a couple interviews that I've done along with. Like, right before you even get to that, I have the post, the blog post that I've written, and it's kind of going back to what I was saying before, and I don't want to. I don't want to repeat myself, but making sure that your branding basically is consistent across every part of LinkedIn. If you're trying to speak, let people know that you're a speaker. So that should be in your little short summary, underneath your name and your name and your title. And then right in your summary, you should also be repeating that information. And that will work as far as also increasing the chances that SEO is going to find you. When people start searching, hopefully that answers that question.

When you take the time, and not many people do so when you take the time to define things like the color palettes, things like your fonts and why is your fonts important, Kwame? Well, there are certain font styles that communicate fun and happy and others that communicate professional and others that communicate dramatic kind of energy. And we're looking at fonts all day, every day. Whether it's picking up our phone, looking at a sign on the highway, looking on Netflix, you're looking at different types of fonts and they're communicating a different message every time. But the combination of fonts, the combination of colors, the combination of all these brand elements are impacting a cohesive footprint. When I land on Kwami, your LinkedIn page, then I now come back to your webpage and I see consistency from your LinkedIn to your webpage. Now I happen to show up at one of Kwami's events, and all of your materials now carry the same elements. It's cohesive, it's consistent, it's professional. Again, it comes back to that piece. Right. You don't come across in a way that leaves me questioning you.

I believe on LinkedIn, there's over 650 million professionals on the platform. So it's probably that one platform where people actually go to either do business, learn about business, and are not necessarily distracted by anything else. Right. If you're on Instagram, then there's a whole bunch of different things that you can see on Instagram, whether it's esports, Instagram models, whatever that May be if you're on Facebook, that's mainly for family now. And then Twitter is a lot of new stuff if you curate it the right way. But LinkedIn has sort of had this special place of always being that professional platform that individuals go to, and they have that sort of stereotype of I'm going here for legit content. Now, why is that important as well, in terms of from a personal branding perspective? Think about it this way. When you're going to sell someone something, or if you're applying to a job and someone sees your name, the first thing that they're probably going to do is Google your name and just see what pops up, just to see if there's any red flags. And typically the first thing that pops up is your LinkedIn if you don't have a website under your name or anything like that. And the reason that LinkedIn pops up so high is because of the domain authority that LinkedIn has. So if your LinkedIn game isn't on point and that first link on Google, they click on it and they see the blue background or an unfinished LinkedIn page, then they might already start off with a bad stereotype in the back of their head of does this person actually take their job serious, do they take themselves serious, et cetera. So you basically just want to have your LinkedIn as that really good first impression. And that's why I think it's super important to have that profile set up again, whether you're looking to sell something or find that new job.

Absolutely. And I think about it in terms of negotiation too, because for people who know the show, I am very, very focused on preparation. We have to prepare. We have to prepare. I say it all the time. That's why I always talk about the free negotiation guides. Oh, this will be a good time to talk about the free negotiation guides. So if you go to americannegotiationinstitute.com guide, you can get access to over 15 different negotiation guides to help you prepare for your next negotiation. Salary negotiation, car negotiation, just general business negotiation, introverts guide to negotiation. We all have it there. But one of the things that I talk about there is the importance of taking the time and of do and do your research to do your research on the person with whom you're negotiating. What are they about? What do they like? What don't they like? What are their histories? When we talk about job histories, we can look at their profile and see what their interests are in terms of where are they spending their time when it comes to pro Bono activities and volunteer work. So it's just a treasure trove of information. And I feel like if you're not, and if you don't have a strong LinkedIn presence, you're missing out on an opportunity to shape the narrative about who you are in your career.

Yeah, exactly. Especially from the professional perspective of things. Right. That's why I think it's super interesting when you look at all the other social media, it's more for casual play for the most part, whereas with LinkedIn, everyone knows when they're going there, it's usually to find a job or you're trying to sell something. And that in that B2B space, it's more from that professional atmosphere. So again, for your space, especially in sales, it's super important to have a good looking personal brand on that platform.

The one thing that I would say is that if you are posting online, creating content online, take that content and put it on LinkedIn. Especially like, you know, for podcasters. I was shocked at the amount of traffic that I get from podcast episodes where I post a summary of the show, notes as a blog post, along with the same cover art that I would use for the podcast and I'll link a SoundCloud link to it. Or Spreaker was working within post, but it stopped. I'm not sure what works now. I know YouTube works on LinkedIn, so if you upload the audio that you've done from a podcast along with an image, you can basically create a video with a still image that has the audio and then post that on LinkedIn as the episode so people can listen to it right within the post. And I was shocked at the number of traffic that I got from that for the podcast from LinkedIn.

Yeah.

Only other thing I would say is make sure you're taking advantage of the LinkedIn post and posting there.

Nice, I like it. And so let's move on to the third point, which is how to properly connect with an individual on LinkedIn. So what are some things we have to keep in mind here?

Yeah, I think the biggest mistake that people do here is they just click the connect button and they leave it at that. And especially on mobile, that's incredibly easy to do. But this is sort of the last thing that you want to do because especially, let's say you're trying to connect with me. Right. I'm not necessarily Bill Gates or anyone huge like that, but I still get about anywhere between 20 or like, yeah, 20 to 30 connection requests every single day. So if you're not personalizing that invite, I'm most likely just going to cancel or like click Ignore. And if you continue to get ignores, then LinkedIn will like sort of derank your profile and they'll consider you spam. So the way that you can up that sort of acceptance rate is by adding a personalized note. And the way that I like to do that is I try to go to people's profiles, find one or two connection points. Typically you can find those on anyone who has a semi completed profile, whether it's the same school that you've gone to, same companies that you may have worked with, or at sort of things like that, and then put that in that personalized note when you're connecting with them so that they know that you spent a little bit of time researching them so that they can feel like, oh, this person's not just going to spam me or this person is not just going to try to sell me on something. That's how you can break that initial ice, so to say, with them.

And that makes a lot of sense. And then I think this ties in really well with the point that you just made previously, which is having a profile that makes you look legit. Because if somebody that has no pictures is asking me to be a connection, I'm like, I don't know who you are. Right. This makes a lot of sense. So I think that's a really, really great point. Congratulations. You've just joined an elite club by listening to a full episode. You're now officially on the Negotiate Anything team. So welcome, welcome aboard. What most team members do is they subscribe to the podcast because that allows them to automatically get the latest episodes of the show. The best things in life lie on the other side of difficult conversations. Keep learning, keep practicing, and keep getting better. Your relationships will improve, your career will soar, and you'll have the confidence you need to get the most out of these crucial conversations. Again, thank you for joining the team. We are excited to have you and I will see you in the next episode. I'll catch you later.