Conversation between Rob and TJ Walker about networking effectively on LinkedIn. They advise using the About section and a personable headline (not merely a resume), recommend requesting informational interviews to learn about roles (not to ask for jobs), and discuss the tradeoffs of coaching startups versus larger organizations — noting LinkedIn activity can materially help startup valuations.
Questions this video answers
A meeting where you ask to learn about someone's role and organization; you are not asking for a job—only for their time.
Startup CEOs who are active on LinkedIn get on average 20% higher valuations.
Chapters
As you've done this, as the opportunities present themselves, maybe there is an opportunity to reach out and have that one on one conversation, especially as a student. Reach out and ask for an informational interview. An informational interview is just that I want to learn more about the role that you're in. I want to learn more about the organization that you work for. I'm not asking you for a job. I'm not asking you to buy anything. In fact, the only ask I have of you is the time that you would put forth into meeting with me. That is my only ask. You see the about section. One of the things that I see is an opportunity for people to get to know you. Yet so many of us use this page, this space in particular, as a digital version of our resume, a digital version of, of our cv.
And we can see you've written this very in a conversational manner. You're saying, ugh, I swallowed hard, took the job. You're, you're sharing your emotional side and how you felt. Most people don't do that on LinkedIn.
No, because you know, this isn't Facebook. TJ, okay, nowhere in LinkedIn's terms of service do they say this isn't Facebook. Nowhere do they say we don't want to know the personal side of you. In fact, it's just the opposite they want.
Nor does it say, you have to be boring here.
That's right. Which is why, you know, another thing? If, if you look at the, the top of the profile there, you'll see my LinkedIn headline is atypical. At my core I'm a teacher. I'm great at the middle of conversations and I'm not as athletic as I remember being. Well, Rob, that doesn't tell me what you do, but you're right, it gets a little chuckle. I don't mind a little self deprecating humor. And I want people to know me for what I want to be known for. I want people to know me as a teacher so well. What does this mean? You know, I'm great at the middle of conversations. I'm not as athletic as I remember being. If they're curious enough, they'll come to my profile and they'll read my about section and they'll learn more about me. And then as they learn more about me, the opportunity for relationship presents itself more and more.
I'm fascinated by your focus on startups because I like startups. And in fact I was the communication judge for something called. It was a lean startup group. I actually forgot the name of it what it was called in New York City and the, I don't know, the 2005-2012 range, it was. And I would go and meet all these startups and I would coach them, I would critique their presentations and we'd meet and some of them were interested in hiring me, but it was often the same message, oh, we'd love to hire you. We just have to go out and raise our first round of money and then once they get that, well, we have to spend all that on marketing. So as much as I love talking to startup founders, I found, at least for me, a horrible business model. It was much better for me to talk to executives that work for 100 year old insurance company. It may be a big boring company, but they have, you know, multimillion dollar training budget and they also get better at their communication skills. So when they wanted me, A, they could hire me, B, there was money already budgeted, C, it wasn't coming out of their own pocket or any investors pocket. So it was just infinitely easier for me to build a business around mid size and large businesses and government agencies and United nations agencies. Tell us how you've been successful navigating that startup world. Because I do know people who have a lot of expertise set out down that path of being a coach to startups, had a million conversations every day, built good relationships, never made any money or they got, you know, they got warrants for stock that never became. And at some point their family members said, hey, you got to start paying your share of the bills, do something different. So how did you find success there?
So you're absolutely right. In terms of financial success, it's challenging, but I do it for more than the, the financial success. I actually volunteer at a lot of startup incubators because, well, I know myself, I am never going to be a brain surgeon. I am never going to be the one who finds the cure for cancer. But I believe that the backbone of the American economy is the small business. And if I can do my little part to help small businesses succeed, then I have found my place in the world. I love working with small businesses, with ventures because there's so much Greenfield you never hear. Oh, that's not the way we do it here. Because they've not done anything here. And I love seeing the impact of what I've been able to do. I've worked inside and outside with tech startups inside. Fantastic opportunities to really cut your teeth on areas where you might not have tremendous experience. So for the students out there that are wondering, you know, how do I get hired when I don't have a lot of experience? Go work at a startup. You'll get experience across the board. For those ventures that I'm coaching and volunteering with, I love working with them right now on social enablement because they are seeing tremendous opportunity there. And a colleague of mine just stumbled across a recent study, a statistic that said startup CEOs who who are active on Twitter get on average 5% more for their valuations. Startup CEOs who are active on LinkedIn get on average 20% higher valuations. We're using LinkedIn to build a relationship that marketing and advertising is not doing for them, and we're doing it in an authentic way.
