Ashley Leeds - LinkedIn and Business Development

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Welcome to the Legacy Leavers series on Success Secrets Exposed. Tune in live every Tuesday at 7 PM Eastern Time or Wednesday mornings in Australia on W4CY Radio and Talk4TV. The series showcases experts, changemakers, and disruptors leaving a lasting legacy with those sharing their wisdom with the world.

Good morning, good evening, and g'day to you all, and welcome to another episode of Success Secrets Exposed. Our topic today is LinkedIn and business development. And we're absolutely thrilled to have Ashley Leeds, the unstoppable 15 Minute Guy. He has over 32 years in sales and 17 years in specializing in assisting, assisting accountants and bookkeepers. And Ashley is a business coach who empowers business owners to master their sales and marketing. He's created and renowned for the LinkedIn Daily Habit Workshop. He's led 41 cohorts and teaches LinkedIn strategies, etc., from stage presentations, webinars, through YouTube and podcasts. And he talks from free, free resources to VIP services. Ashley helps users excel on LinkedIn. Energetic and engaging, as you'll see, he'll share valuable insights to boost your LinkedIn profile and presence. Please welcome to the show Ashley Leeds.

Wow, what a lovely introduction! Hi Sally, how are you?

Very, very well, thank you. I am absolutely thrilled to be sharing the platform or the stage with you today. It's an absolute honour.

Oh, bless you.

Thank you.

Bless you. Well, no, it's lovely to be invited here, and I don't know if anyone can tell, we've got different accents. I'm from the UK.

Yeah, and I'm in Australia but from the UK, but I'm the little Aussie in my family. There you go. So I'd love to dive straight in because I know everyone always wants to know all about LinkedIn and how they can use it, etc. So can I ask you to share your backstory as it relates? Because similar to me, you've had lots and lots of different jobs. In your case, you've had 30 different jobs and you leapt out of that to become self-employed not that long ago. So I'd love you to share your backstory.

Yeah, so It's, it's incredible when you, when you, when you stop and look back at what you've done, you're just like, oh, okay, that's how I got here. Um, but everybody sees you as an overnight success. They haven't seen the last— I'm older than I look, and they haven't seen the last however many years I've been working.

Yeah.

I started my career as a chef. I wanted to be, I wanted to be a Radio 1 DJ when I was at school. And back in the day, you go to your careers teacher and say you want to do something out of the ordinary, it's like, no, you can't do that.

Yeah.

And so I lived in a seaside town, so I got myself a job as a chef, went to catering college, did really well, went up to London, worked in France, and then I came back down here to Sidmouth in Devon where I met my wife. Uh, we were both working at the same hotel, we're both chefs, and then we moved away and got jobs elsewhere. And then we got married and we wanted to start a family. And as a chef, you work silly hours and you don't get paid much at all. You didn't back then. And so I left my passion of cooking and went into sales and actually earned enough in my first sales role for my wife to give up work and be a stay-at-home mum.

Oh, good.

And, um, so I missed being a chef, but We've got the 2 most delightful daughters, a lovely relationship with them, and that I say is down to Deb's being at home for them and me having the support from an amazing wife so I could, you know, earn the money. And then when I came home, I was home and we, we had fun as a family.

Mm.

And the reason I've had 30 jobs is when it got a bit too much and the boss was saying, you need to work harder, you need to stay on later, you need to come in earlier, you need to work weekends, and I'm like, No,

no,

no, no. So I've never earned loads of money, but I've always been there for my kids. And, you know, just— they wanted to spend Father's Day with me, um, rather than, you know, a platitude and a card and a phone call. We, you know, we spent the day together. It was beautiful. That, I really doubt, would have happened if I'd have been that guy earning bucketloads of money and just showering them with cash.

Yeah.

Um, I shower them with love, and, and that is all down to Debs. And so fast forward my sales career, I ended up where I've had 30 jobs in my career and I've sold pretty much everything. But 17 years ago, I ended up working for a software company and we were selling software to accountants and bookkeepers. So real, real niche.

Yeah.

And really technical. And I love all that technical stuff. And when I was at school, we didn't have computers. There was no computers at school. There was one kid in one, in my maths class that had a home computer, and it was a Spectrum. It was a Sinclair ZX81, which is really showing my age.

I don't even know what that is. So, yep.

No, exactly. Um, and so we didn't have computers. So I'm now working at this job where I'm helping accountants, and we're doing all this software stuff, and it's amazing, and I'm absolutely loving it and exploring what computers can do, what software can do, how it can help us. So, you know, I'm loving all this AI and all the stuff we've got now. And I stayed in that space, and I've been in that accounting space since 2007 and had a couple of different jobs. But latterly, I ended up working with a business where we were coaching accountants to help them grow their businesses.

Oh, wow.

No disrespect to the accounting fraternity, but they're brilliant at numbers, not very good at standing up and saying they're brilliant and selling themselves. And so that's where my coaching bug came from, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. And, you know, you turn around to kids and you say, what do you want to be when you grow up? What do you want to do when you leave school? All that sort of malarkey. I still didn't know until I got that role coaching, and that's when I found what I really loved and I found my passion.

Yeah, beautiful.

Um, and so, so that, that's what I did. And then, then we had COVID. I don't know if you remember COVID.

I do, yes, yes, the Ugg boots and the track pants era. Yeah,

absolutely. And, and Staying indoors and not going out.

Yeah.

And, and it was that that totally changed my trajectory. Um, every day I go for a walk. I love walking. I— it's great for my mental health. It's also great for my fitness. Um, and it just gives me space. I use that space for walking, and I, you know, enjoy the countryside, but I also listen to a podcast. I listen to a, a, an audiobook. So I'm personal develop— developing all the time. Yeah. When we had COVID in the UK, Boris Johnson turned around and said, you're not allowed out of your house. You can go for 1 hour and do a walk. So I did my 1-hour walk first thing in the morning.

Yep.

And then that meant, what am I going to do at lunchtime?

Yeah.

And most people were working through lunch because there was nothing else to do. And, you know, I needed to do something different. So you see my guitar behind you. If you're listening on the podcast, you cannot see my guitar, but honestly, there's one there.

It's red, just so you know.

And so, so what I did is I grabbed hold of this guitar and I got my phone and I balanced it on something. I got my music book and I did a 30-minute, or probably, probably only 20 minutes, live stream to Facebook. First ever live stream I've ever done. First time I've played the guitar to, you know, that sort of audience. I do open mics, I sing in a band, but I'm not confident enough to go out and play guitar and have my own gigs. Yeah. So I did that and it was absolutely rubbish. And I've got that, that first video up on YouTube to prove how rubbish it is. Because when I say to people about doing stuff on LinkedIn, just have a go, because if you don't start, you'll never get anywhere.

You'll never start.

Yeah. And if someone had said to me on that day, just do this, play guitar, and it will change your life, and you'll be hosting things and writing books and stuff like that, I would never ever have believed

them. Yeah.

Um, but I did. And then I did it the next day, then I did it the next day, then I did it the next time. I did it for 100 days on the trot, every single day, Saturday, Sunday. For a, for a big chunk of that we weren't allowed out, so it was absolutely fine. But then we were allowed out, we could go here and go there. And, you know, weekends it was, oh, Dad's got to go back to do his show. But because I was close to 100, I thought, right, I'm gonna do 100.

And

because I did 100, I ended up in an exhibition for the 100 best 100 Heroes for Lockdown or something.

Oh, glorious!

So I was there next to the lady who made a load of face masks, next to the guy that was delivering food, next to the guy who project managed the Nightingale Hospital that they built in Exeter, you know, and it's just humbling, just absolutely humbling. But people were tuning in, it was giving people direction. I live just below a load of flats, so all the retired people were watching out their windows. And yeah, you just didn't know this was ever going to happen. Oh,

it was touching. Yeah.

And, and during lockdown, I also did an open mic on Zoom. So every Thursday, I'd open up, I'd open up my Zoom room and people would come in and they'd play a song each. We'd have a little chat, we'd bring a little beer with us. And, and for some people, this was a real lifeline.

Yeah.

During, during that difficult period, you know, I'm lucky I live with my wife. Um, my daughter was still living at home at the time, so we had things going on. We had a guide dog. Um, so he was living with us, and there was, you know, there was lots of things going on. We were Skyping, and my daughter and my family. But some of these people coming in on this open mic, that was the only interaction they were having all week. It was, it was incredible.

Yeah.

During the year, my friend, um, his little daughter got cancer. It's okay, she's fine. Um, we're goodness knows how many years on. She's, she's, she's a bundle of joy, but she was 3 at the time, and it was, it was invasive. She had to have lots of operations, she had to have lots of chemotherapy, and it was horrible. And my friend would phone me, and, and we had this rule in the house: if, if he phoned, just stop everything. And, and, you know, so, you know, normally if the phone rings at dinner time, ignore it. Yeah. Um, but, you know, I was there for him, and that was all I could do. Yeah, it was all I could do. He had a friend that did a, a, a run and raised a bit of money, and I kept thinking, what could I do? What could I do? Well, as we got to a year of doing the open mics, I had this silly brainwave, and the silly brainwave was to do a 24-hour open mic on Zoom.

Oh my gosh, yeah.

And raise a bit of money for the charity. So, okay, that's a good idea. So what I did is I sent an email round to all of my friends that were coming to this open mic.

Yeah.

I've had this idea, what do you think? And I had this email back, and the email came, came back something like, yeah, well, it's a good idea, but no one's going to want to come. No one's going to want to do this. 24 hours is ridiculous. To that effect, why don't you just do 3 hours or 6 hours, and you could still Raise a bit of money.

Yeah.

And you're sort of like, yeah, someone's talking sense, because Zoom, you can't do Zoom for 24 hours, you can't, you know, and it's all, you know, you've got to stay up and stuff like that. But I know, I thought, I've got a few friends, you know, we'll hand over to Dave and then Ian can take over and I can go to bed and have a sleep because I need my sleep.

Yes, yes.

And my daughter turned around to me, she said, Dad, if you're gonna do this, you have to stay awake and be the host for the whole 24 hours.

Yeah, yeah.

Because you have to have the challenge that my friend and his family have had, you know, to really understand how difficult it can be. And I'm like, all right, okay, maybe this guy's— maybe this— yeah, she's brilliant, she's brilliant. Maybe this guy's got a point.

Yeah.

And then when you look at that letter or that email, you can do one of two things, can't you?

You can

either agree with him and go, yeah, you're right, Or you can say, right, I'm just gonna go for it.

Yep, absolutely.

And that's what I did.

Yeah,

that's what I did. And I had 3 and a half weeks until the anniversary of when we started.

Oh, so it was all tied in perfectly.

Yeah, so, but I had 3 weeks to get this ready, to get some musicians. My initial thought was 24 musicians and each do an hour.

Yep.

All right, and if I get each musician, we try and raise £100 for each musician,

that

would be £2,500 raised. That would be a nice amount of money.

Yeah.

For Cancer Versus— I can't think of the name of the charity now because it's, it's gone, but it, um, but it'd be great to give them some money. £2,500 is gonna help. Because at that time they weren't doing, you know, much because people weren't doing anything because they were all locked indoors.

Yeah, absolutely.

So I called in a few favours from friends. A friend did a bit of marketing, a friend did a bit of PR, a friend got a website business, and we built a website, got JustGiving, got involved with the charity, and the lady was coming in, oh, do this and do that, and you can do this and I can help you with this. Young Lives Versus Cancer, that's the— oh, love it.

Yep.

And, um, Steph was brilliant, and she said, um, if you're gonna raise some money, it would be better if you actually tied it to something. And, and so what, what my friend and his family were doing, they were staying in this little hostel thing, uh, it was called Sam's House. And, and so that they didn't have to drive up and down the motorway to go for, for chemotherapy, because it's at like stupid o'clock every morning.

Yeah.

And so they get to stay in this hotel. And it actually costs the charity £33 per night per family. And so Steph said, if you work on £33, and I said, right, okay, so let's go for £6,600, which is 6 months of £33 a month. The numbers are there or thereabouts, I think. I can't remember, it's about that sort of amount.

Makes sense.

So we started doing that and Rather than doing 24 musicians, I thought if we do 15 minutes, okay, then we're going to get more musicians and then we might raise a bit more money.

Yep.

Right, so that was what we did, and I'm writing to everybody and, and I've got people from America, people from Holland, Italy, it was, it was amazing, and it did, and up until the night before I was still getting emails, oh, can I be involved? And I was slotting them in.

Yeah, wow.

But there was this horrible gap between about 2 AM and 4 AM, and I'm like, oh my goodness, what am I gonna do? I've got one band from America coming in at about 4 or something. But my core gang that were, you know, part of this open mic, they turned around and said, what can we do to help? I said, well, I need somebody. And with that, I think I had about 6 or 8 of them all say That they would do the early period, you know, the middle of the night.

Yeah.

And if you speak to one of those people today, they will turn around and say it was absolutely magic. Sorry, it's 4 years ago.

Yeah, just goes to show how impactful it was for all concerned.

So

thank you for sharing. Keep going.

We, we did that through the middle of the night, and, and we were just jamming, but it was lovely. It was— and nobody could go to bed. They just wanted to see the next person, and it was just an incredible experience. And while all this was going on, I was still doing my job. Um, so I was still employed, and I was getting all these emails from people. Oh, this is amazing, Ashley. This is brilliant. You're amazing. And I'm just like I'm just doing this for this kid. I know, and I just want to raise a little bit of money. Anyway, it's on the Friday, so it starts at 4 o'clock on the Friday. So I did a full day's work before, um, and it goes off all day Saturday to 4 o'clock on the Saturday.

Hmm.

And about the Wednesday or the Thursday, I could see that I was close to my target of 6 grand, um, and, and Steph contacted me and she said, I think you might want to change the total. And I said, you know what, I was having exactly the same feeling.

Trust

you. It was £6,022.

Yeah.

And she said, put it up to £10,000. And I just said, no, no, no, no, we've got to hang it on something. Let's do 12 months. Let's do 12 months of Sam's House, which is £12,044.

Yeah.

So I went into JustGiving and changed the dial, and it was— the dial was nearly up to hitting it, and I just knocked it straight back down.

Yep.

We did the 24-hour. It was absolutely incredible. I was here all night. My family kept popping in. Um, my daughter was here in the middle of the night. There was always someone around. Um, they got me loads of things, you know, loads of treats for every hour. I'd open it up and there was, you know, it was, it was just incredible. And every time someone came on from wherever they are in the world, thank you for letting me be involved. No, no, no, no, no, thank you. It was just amazing. Anyway, we ended, um, at 4 o'clock, and at half past 3 we had, uh, we had, um, Mike Read. I don't remember the Radio 1 DJ Mike Read, um, but he, he, he came, he came on and, and did, did 15 minutes, and then Will did 15 minutes.

Yeah.

And Will played some amazing songs and had us all in tears.

Yeah.

And we finished the day at about £8,000. We then ended up on the local radio And then on Wednesday, we ended up on local TV. And on local TV, that was also— the Wednesday was also the same day that, that my daughter, my friend's daughter, rang the bell to say she was cancer-free. So they ran this story all day. Going again. And they ran this story all day. And this little, little, little girl, she's ringing this little bell.

Bless her.

And then the show— so there's a little bit each, you know, there's breakfast show, lunchtime show, and then the evening show was right at the very end of the show. So this aired just before 7 o'clock and we were £1,800 short of our target.

Wow, oh my gosh!

My phone was pinging left, right, and center, donations coming in, and we had an anonymous donation of £1,800 at 7 o'clock.

Oh my God! Yep.

And I came in here.

Paul warned me about the tissue, so just joined.

I came in here and went live on stream, and I just cried my eyes out and just said thank you to everybody because it was incredible. And the next day, I told my boss I wasn't going to work for her.

Yeah.

And I left my job.

Wow. So from obviously that extraordinary experience, and I get, you know, you're going, the whole I wanna be more and do more, but there's obviously some things you learned around that, 'cause I picked up on the fact that you can rally a crowd, you've worked out how to market and promote, which is just talking to people, and you were doing that, the 15-minute thing was coming into play. So tell us now how this is all tied into you becoming the 15-minute guy and this, and how that's how you've ended up crafting this legacy that you're now leaving as it relates to LinkedIn and being the 15-minute guy.

Yeah. And, you know, I'd stop and I haven't told this story for a while, which is why I'm a little bit emotional. So I do apologize.

No, don't at all.

But like I said right at the beginning,

yeah,

I picked up my guitar. I didn't know. But what I was doing by picking up that guitar, I was getting confidence. Yes. Okay, I was getting confidence of being in front of the camera, I was getting confidence of doing stuff. I, by the second week, I was playing all the songs that I played the week before, and I saw like, right, I need to learn some more songs. So I was building up, you know, a mental memory of learning new songs, and so just developing myself. And, you know, people see me today and they go, oh my goodness, the way you play guitar, and it But it's because I did 30 minutes every day, and I was probably doing an hour every day because I was practicing as well. There was nothing else to do. I couldn't go for a walk, so it was fine.

So imperfect action, isn't it?

Absolutely. And this is what I tell people all the time. I can't do this because I haven't got— I can't do that because this isn't ready, you know. And if you go back and think about it, right, that first video, the reason I share it is because it is rubbish. All right. I didn't even look all right. I hadn't done my hair. I didn't know what I was playing, so I was just fiddling through the books. I was sat there and the camera angle wasn't right. It was all rubbish. Now, your average person would turn around and go, I've got to wait until I've got a decent camera. Oh, I've got to have a proper tripod. I've got to learn, I've got to learn, you know, 10 songs so I can play them. Like, while you're wasting your time doing all of that, I've done 50 gigs. Yeah. If I've done 50 gigs, I've got 25 hours of camera experience. Yeah, how much confidence has that given me? Yeah, and, and so the reason I left my job is I just didn't like working with my boss anymore. We were, we were at war, and I just had the confidence to just quit, and I was going to go and find myself another job. This was it. This is it. My, my whole mindset was, I will get another job. My wife grabbed me by the throat.

It's just gonna last.

Pinned me up against the wall. She said,

Ashley, you are

not working for anybody else ever again. again. You've just done that. You can do anything.

Yeah.

Set up your own business.

Good idea.

What can I do? You can coach accountants and bookkeepers. So that's what I did.

Yeah.

And then my boss turned around and said, you signed an anti-compete clause. You're not allowed to do this. You're not allowed to do that. And you can't do this. And you shouldn't be doing that. And I sat with my mentor. I cried my eyes out. And I said, that's so unfair. I'm, you know, I'm just a little guy in a shed In a seaside town in the you know in the back end of nowhere at the bottom of the UK. She's got this big business. I am not a competitor. Yeah, and she did me a favor that day because that was when I turned around and said, "Right, I know what I'll do. I'll do LinkedIn." I've helped people with LinkedIn. I can see that they do it because I was helping one guy in in a week just working with me. And it was just 15 minutes a day. He got a £1,200 order.

Yeah.

And you sort of like think, that's incredible. And that was, that was the penny drop for

me.

Yeah. And so I know that people struggle with doing LinkedIn. I know that they go in and they, they lose an hour and nothing happens. And then therefore LinkedIn's rubbish.

Yep.

But this guy, we did a little bit every day. 15 minutes a day. We can all find 15 minutes.

Yeah.

Um, when I, when I meet with people, people want to Zoom. Yeah, they go, oh, have a quick Zoom and have a Zoom coffee. Yeah, great. And they book an hour. Well, you spend, you spend the first 15, 20 minutes talking about the weather and your dogs. You get into a bit of business and then you sort of like, oh, chatter for another 20 minutes and no business is really done. And you're sort of like, Well, I've only got room for a few meetings today. So I've been doing 15-minute meetings for ages. And that's how it's— I'll book a Zoom, someone comes on, and they know they've only got 15 minutes.

Yeah, straight

in. Do you know how many people turn around to me and say, Ashley, that's disgusting, you've only given me 15 minutes?

Oh, really?

None of them. Nobody ever says that because they can see that I value my time and therefore they're valuing their time.

Yeah.

And, and we get straight into business, right? How are you doing? Yeah, brilliant. Right, what do you want? I want this, this, this, and this. Right, this is how you do this, this, this, and this. Anything else? No, that's fine. Cheers, bye.

Aye.

Brilliant.

Yeah,

absolutely brilliant. So 15 minutes, we can all find 15 minutes. And so I built my workshop around a 15-minute-a-day habit, because if you get into that habit, if you do 15 minutes every single day, that's 65 hours a year free marketing. Who doesn't want that?

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

You know, and so that, that's, that's how it was born. That's what I did. And I've built that business up. And because I've been doing that, and because I've been doing loads of other things on LinkedIn, I am now seen as an expert at LinkedIn. Such an expert at LinkedIn in the accounting space that Just a few months, just a couple of months, about a month ago actually, I was asked to host the LinkedIn Lounge at Accountex.

I love this story. Yes,

which is the world's biggest accountancy show.

Yeah,

11,000 visitors, over 300 stands, 180 different speakers. It was incredible, and they got me to host a stand for them. It was amazing. It was absolutely amazing. So yeah, unbelievable. All from me starting playing the guitar on the 24th of March 2020.

You've just answered my question, and I was going to say, and it was not that long ago. So it's, it's been in such a short time. So, and I love this, the story, A, because it's that 15 minutes, it's short, sharp, it's shiny. But the other thing is the story as it relates to consistency and building that confidence muscle and just continuing to have imperfect action and then it becomes perfectly appropriate. Then you get asked to speak on the stage and you get asked to host the LinkedIn Lounge, etc., for the entire industry that you actually look after and represent as their guest expert speaker. You've done that in such a short space of time. I'm going to come back to where we've both had the conversation where people say, I've just got to get this right. I've just got to get that right. 12 months. I think we can all be guilty of that because I will say I actually caught myself doing that. No, I won't make that meeting yet because I just need to get this all stacked up right, getting all the ducks lined up. And then I went, oh no, let me just map it out quickly and then we can move on it. We all can get stuck in that. I've just got to have it perfect or I've just got to have all of the ducks lined up versus let me just get 3 of the ducks lined up and the rest will come into play after that. So I'm really glad that you shared the in-depth story around that because I think that's such a great everyday lesson for all of us and a reminder that that imperfect action is where the magic secret sauce is.

Yeah, absolutely. And like you say, consistency. People turn around to me and go, how do you beat the algorithm on LinkedIn? Stop worrying about the algorithm. Just show up every day. If you show up every day and I teach LinkedIn, as a networking meeting.

Yes.

Right. We've all been to networking meetings, you know, breakfast, it's lunch, evenings, whatever it is. All right. If you went to a networking meeting every single day. Okay. And so, you know, a breakfast one day, a lunch another day, an evening drinks another day. But you did 5 a week. All right. For a whole year, you would be fighting people off for business because everybody would know you. Everybody would like you. Everybody would trust you. Yeah, but the investment in time is crazy because you'd be getting up early, you'd be spending, you know, 2 hours at the networking event, an hour to get there, an hour to get back, an hour to decompress. So it's gonna take up an awful lot of your time. You can do exactly the same in 15 minutes a day on LinkedIn. Yeah, just by showing up.

Yeah, yeah, beautiful. I'm gonna ask another question here because, um, there's obviously been lots of, I'm going to call it personal development, but it's more personal growth through that consistency and that habit. But I'm going to ask, having been through the experience as it relates to the fundraising that you did now, and as it relates to the work that you're going to do with the experts, I was going to ask this question of you, but I'm going to ask the question as it relates to the target audience that you serve. And that is, what beliefs are you still finding you have having to bust with the clients that you work with, e.g., where are they still getting stuck and what is it that you're actually helping them break through around this LinkedIn scenario? Obviously, it's coming from that perspective of it being a networking event and that they can do it in 15 minutes and they're not getting sucked into that time warp of losing time in it. And I think that's why I've sort of rephrased this question is because everyone— I've heard people say, oh, I went on LinkedIn and then I was going to do a post and I couldn't work out what to post. And then I was there for an hour, la da la da la da la da. And I'm sure you hear that and more. So share some of that with us.

It's the confidence.

Yeah,

it is the absolute confidence. And, um, I haven't always been this confident. I was a spotty teenager when I was a kid, and I couldn't say boo to a goose. Um, and, and, you know, and then I've just— it's just each day stepping outside of your comfort zone. I've, I've, I've been a performer, so I've been on stage singing and acting and stuff like that, and I think that does help.

Yeah.

But at the end of the day, it's trying to get over the fact that nobody cares because everybody else is suffering with the same confidence worries. So they really, really don't care. And I tell a story when I'm training and stuff like that about confidence. And so that is the thing that I give people because they can see that I've done it. I'm just the normal guy. Yeah. And so I was at this show, I did a contest, I took my daughter and She just sees me as dad, the joker, the idiot, the whatever, you know, the guy that puts a shelf up when I need a shelf, the guy that gives me a hug when I'm a bit sad. She doesn't see me as this expert in LinkedIn. She doesn't see me as being well known in the accounting space. Hmm. So I can walk down the seafront and I know, I know a lot of people in town, but just people wave at me. I was like a celebrity. at the Cakesets because so many people know me and want to come and say hello and stuff like that. And it's that that is mind-blowing.

Yeah.

But it is all down to the consistency and being confident. And so I share that with people and give them, and give them the confidence to go and do it because I can't write anything on LinkedIn. But this is, this is an accountant or a bookkeeper, and they have a client in that's trying to run a business, and this client hasn't a clue about numbers.

And

they'll spend an hour with this client and give them the confidence to go back to their business and shave things off here, do things here, and all that sort of malarkey.

Yeah.

Like, look at what you've done.

Yeah.

And they don't see that as being an expert because that's what they do.

Yeah, it's just part. And it's not

like

the thing.

Yeah, right.

Yeah.

Tell that story on LinkedIn.

Yeah.

Because that is an amazing story how you've helped that client. Yeah.

Yeah.

And and so but but part of what I teach is all about create is is doing comments on posts and things like that, and that's where you start getting your confidence.

Yes.

Yeah. So just put a little comment on, and then tomorrow do two, and then the next day do three. But while you're writing a comment, your brain is thinking of words and stuff like that. Because you're writing a comment, you've had to read the post. So you're reading the post and you're learning how the post is structured. And this is a really good post. I'm going to write. Oh, and then when you write a post, da da da da da, and it just comes. When I was at school, I was in the top stream for maths. I was really bright at maths. Yeah, and I did science and stuff, but I was in the bottom set for English because I was rubbish at English.

Yeah,

and I've gone through life thinking I was rubbish at English, but I've written a book and I write loads of content. I'm known as a content creator

now. Yeah,

and this is all just because I've practiced, just like I did my guitar. Yeah, and one of the things I say to people, um, that I get them all— it starts on a Monday and I'm running my very last one this week. Starts on the Monday, so yesterday they're all looking at me Like this,

deer in the headlights.

Yeah. Oh my goodness, what do we do? What do we do?

Yeah,

you know, I'm worried about this, don't know how to use it, etc.

Yeah,

hands up who drives. Every single one of the people in the room put their hand up, they can drive.

Yeah,

driving is far more difficult than learning LinkedIn. All right, and if you get it wrong, you could die or you could kill somebody. Yeah, that doesn't happen on LinkedIn.

And what were their faces then? You must show us that. Ah,

well

done.

But but but we just we just focus on this one problem. Yeah, and it's not like well and and and you know I've got no confidence, Ash. But you've just explained to a small business owner. how they can get out of their debt. And you've used complex modelling and spreadsheets and cash flow forecasts, and you've just explained all of that. That's rocket science from where I'm coming from.

It's so true.

It's white magic or whatever. And you've driven to get here to tell me that. So you're a genius. You know, and it's not like, yes, I have confidence in that, but I don't have confidence in LinkedIn. Yeah, but if you've got confidence in that, you can learn confidence in LinkedIn.

Yeah.

And when you stop and think about it, like, yeah, okay. And, you know, a lot of the stuff I talk about is common sense, but we don't listen to common sense. We start worrying, and this is all down to neuroscience.

Yeah,

because our brain is here to protect us. Oh, that's scary. I wouldn't do that. Just, just, just take a chill pill. Yeah, just have a go. What's the best that can happen?

Exactly. It's all about— I'm going to use the reframing— it's about reframing it and removing the blocks that we self-impose. And that has become the habit, isn't it? It's almost that the self-imposing has become the habit, whereas the reality, if we go back to Basic common sense. That's where the simplicity is. And it's then just practicing that simplicity.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

But it, but it, we just get hung up.

We do

just get hung up. And that is, there's another excuse to do. I'm gonna, I'm gonna make sure I've got a nice photo. I'm gonna use Canva. So I've spent 3 hours doing this amazing thing in Canva.

Yep.

I know it's time to go home.

Yeah. Yeah, and it's— I didn't do any business development today, but I did a post, but it took me all day. That's exactly what I hear all the time. I'm going to come back, um, to the, uh, event and the experience that your daughter had, um, has had at seeing you as that celebrity. Because one of my questions was, uh, because of it being the Legacy Leavers, is what type of legacy do you want to leave? And obviously this— the experience that your daughter's had around seeing you in a different light and having seen you through that process, what do you think that the legacy piece is, um, as it relates to your daughter? What's her comments been? And that's—

So you, you, you, you want to start me off again, don't

you?

Yeah. So

this is the magic of life, Ashley.

But, but I know. Yeah, I know. And we're learning every day. My daughter, my daughter's given us a a grandson, and, and just watching him grow, develop, and all of that.

Yeah.

It's a new life lesson for me. Yeah. You know, it's just amazing. And I, I see his awe and wonder in me because I'm like that, you know. I am childlike. Um, but, but she— I'm in my shed. This is a shed, right? This is where I do my work. I chat to somebody on Zoom, I help them, I post a little bit on LinkedIn, I do a little interview, um, and, and all that sort of stuff.

Yeah.

And my family don't really know what I do. Um, you know, they, they— there's a window the other side there, which is the living room, and they sort of like see me chatting and they come and wave at the window, and then they see that I'm busy, so they just ignore me. Yeah, they really don't know. And your kids think you're a bit of an idiot and stuff like that. So, so they don't really know.

Yeah.

But with this, with this thing I did up at the, the LinkedIn Lounge up at Accountex, it was a big thing. And the organizer turned around to me and says, look, you can't do it on your own. I'll give you an intern. And, and I said, oh, right, an intern doesn't know anything about LinkedIn, doesn't know anything about that.

Yeah.

Exactly the same as my daughter, but my daughter knows me.

And

my daughter will also keep me in check and, and, and help me and what have you. So I turned around and said, do you fancy coming up and, and, and helping me out? Oh my goodness, yeah, that'd be brilliant! 3 days away from my grand— from my son, perfect! 3, 3 days of not doing washing up and stuff like that. It was, it was just amazing. We, we had an absolutely lovely time. We stayed up there, we went out for meals and stuff like that, but she, she came on my stand.

Yeah.

And I talk about Accountex all the time. I've been going to Accountex for a long time because I've been in the industry a long time, and I've exhibited with different organizations. I've helped other people on their stand, so I've been quite a lot. And it's like, it's like Christmas for me. It's great fun. Lots of my friends are there. The great big stands, you know, you've got the big companies that, you know, spend an absolute fortune, and the stands are Just incredible.

Yeah.

And we walked in through the door. She didn't know what to expect. We walked in through the door and she was like, oh my goodness.

Yeah.

Now I see why you get so excited. It was brilliant. And we wander around and find my stand, which was amazing. Yellow carpet, all branded up. It was just incredible. And we spent 2 days on this stand. And there was people coming up one after another after another. And I just had queues on the stand. I've bumped into people since. They go, Ash, I wanted to see you at a CanTechs, but you just had— every time I came past, there was a queue, so I couldn't get to see you. It was just crazy. It was just crazy. And I'd sit down with somebody and I'd have a chat with them and I'd help them with their LinkedIn. And I'd, I'd come back at them with some comment that made them go, you know, and just, just thinking about it. And my daughter was there, you know, she was helping people. But then when it was quiet, she was watching me and she was laughing at me. Yeah, stuff like that. And when we left that evening, the first evening, we went to the exhibitor's party. And we were walking over to the party and she turned around to me and she said, Dad, you are incredible. You're just awesome. You are lovely with so many people and everybody loves you. I am so proud of you. Oh, that's so sweet. And, you know, she's one of my— I've got 2 daughters, and she's one of my, you know, she's my 3— one of my 3 toughest critics. And for her to say that, just, you know, you think you're doing a good job, but when your toughest critic tells you that you're awesome, yeah, um, you need to start believing it.

Yeah.

And, and so Yeah, it, it, it, it was, it was more than just me being on a stand those 3 days away with my daughter up in London.

Yeah. And what do you think that has changed for her as it relates to her life? Have you, what have you seen or noticed anything since then in her?

Yeah, she's more focused on her business.

Yeah.

Um, and, and she's cut out some of the stuff that she does, so she's Um, this is, this is incredible. This is— she's, she's a graphic artist. She designed my book cover.

Yeah.

Um, and, um, children's illustrator. And she's written a couple of books, and she does gift cards, birthday cards, and things like that. And she was selling them through one format, and now she's selling them through a company called Thoughtful. And the whole idea of Thoughtful is she can upload card designs and people can just buy them. She doesn't have to do anything.

Anything. Yep, that makes sense.

Okay, she— when she first started, she's— and at her home, she has got a pile of cards that she's got to sell, and she's got to wrap them up, she's got to post them off, and it just, just ridiculous. So she doesn't make as much profit on the thoughtful cards, but if she gets the right card—

yeah,

um, and she had a— she had a Father's Day card that did really well. So now she's more focused on that, and so yeah, she knows that she can make a living out of her business, and I know that she's already got it because she's homeschooling our little grandson and she's being an amazing mother, and this kid is just, he's incredible. Yeah. And she's doing Yeah. So she's not palming him off on us or childminders to go and earn a load of money. She's saving the family loads of childcare costs and giving that kid love, support, encouragement, and stuff like that.

Beautiful. Yeah, thank you for sharing that. I wanted to ask that with it being part of the legacy leavers. I think that, yes, our businesses leave a legacy of their own, which is clearly, clearly happening for you. But I think also with having children at different ages, we are leaving a legacy as it relates to the inspiration and the confidence and the strategies and all those sorts of things and the love that we give our children. So thank you very much for sharing that. We have fast, fast, fast, fast come to the end of the show. So I'd love you to share a little bit now in the last few minutes that we've got of how people can best reach out to you. Obviously, it's LinkedIn, but how, how can they find you and reach out with you and connect with you for support with their LinkedIn?

Yeah, so if you find me on LinkedIn, it's dead easy. The other thing is I go under the pseudonym of the 15 Minute Guy because it's all about 15 minutes. So if you Google the 15 Minute Guy, I will come up. And that is all because of the consistency. So it's Ashley Lees, you'll find me on LinkedIn. Just reach out, connect with me. On my LinkedIn page under contact details is a little website link that is free resources, so you can go and help yourself and get a load of free stuff. I love having Zoom coffees, so if you want a Zoom coffee with me, you can book. I've cut it down to 10 minutes because so many people want to talk to me. Yeah. But I do one-to-one coaching. I'm not doing my workshop anymore. But what I've done is I've packaged it up and you can buy that for £47. It's got a money-back guarantee and just do that. And what I've factored into that is once a month I do a free Zoom drop-in surgery. Yeah. So if you buy that course, you can pop in and ask me anything once a month and that's all free. So, you know, there's no excuse for not doing LinkedIn and what you've got to remember Is LinkedIn isn't a job site. It's a big networking place. There's a billion people on LinkedIn, so you're going to be able to find your client. But this is the thing, if you're listening to this right now, write this down, get a pen.

Yep.

Less than 5% of people create content on LinkedIn. So if you create content on a regular basis, and that only needs to be once a week, you'll be better than 95% of people on LinkedIn.

Thank you. Beautiful way to finish off. Take that advice. I giggled there around the title of the surgery because Ashley has surgically helped me with my LinkedIn profile in one of those 15-minute sessions, and it was gold. So I do invite you to do that as well and connect with Ashley and take advantage of those fabulous resources. Thank you once again, Ashley, and we look forward to seeing you again on another episode of Success Secrets Exposed. See you next time. Bye.

Thank you. Bye-bye.

Remember, if you want to be sought after and sold out, as well as being known as the obvious expert in your industry, you need to speak with Sally, our host of Success Secrets Exposed. Sally is the founder of Monetize Your Content, a done-for-you content marketing agency that helps you be easy to buy. See you next week on another episode of Success Secrets Exposed. Tune in live every Tuesday at 7:00 PM Eastern time or Wednesday mornings in Australia on W4CY Radio and Talk4TV.