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Jasna Burza
Yet another powerful, beautiful conversation and we need for for another time. This is Lillian Cotter everyone from Lilian link. And we have we met what was it two weeks ago. And she blew me away about LinkedIn. So let me preface this by saying that LinkedIn has really become this beautiful placeholder for people to connect, and very genuinely enormous, intimately kind of like a town square, connect in a way that that is a little bit less spammy than general social media. And what I love about you, as you said, LinkedIn is no longer no longer I think you call this an online resume to digital reputation. And that’s a quote by someone else. But when you mentioned that, and you’ve started this business, where you’re teaching others how to properly use LinkedIn, and how to have that best foot forward and all the things so tell us, first of all, you know, why LinkedIn? Why did you get interested in the first place? And what are we doing wrong?

Lillian Cotter
Yeah. So LinkedIn is such a unique platform. So I’ve been working as a social media marketer for just about 10 years now. It’s the first thing I started doing in marketing. And I’ve done it for b2c companies. I’ve done it for b2b companies, I’ve helped individuals, all different shapes and sizes. But really, the reason that I landed on LinkedIn and is, is fairly similar to the reason that I stick with social media in general, which is, it’s such an interesting mystery to unravel. So if I know I’ll talk to a lot of people who talk about the idea of like, I just can’t keep up with it. And I always feel like I’m doing it wrong. Well, there’s a lot of reasons for that, especially as business people, they companies, these platforms want your money. And so they make it hard to figure out some of these pieces. And so it’s sort of figuring out that what are what is this platform want? What, how can I make sure to get what I want out of that. So the thing I always say, for my business is, I want to make LinkedIn work for you. And generally people it’s, it’s pretty minor adjustments. It’s a little bit of like, an understanding of the logic of the platform. So what is LinkedIn want? Why are they doing what they’re doing. So you can sort of interpret those changes, rather than get caught up in the tidal wave of like, this tiny little thing is different. Now you’re changing everything about your platform, that can be really overwhelming. So it’s more around like thinking through the process there. But LinkedIn, particularly right now is having this really special moment of it’s growing really rapidly, people are getting really sick of other platforms, because they don’t trust them, they’re really spammy, they don’t get quality information, and they don’t connect with people. And LinkedIn has continued to keep this professional tone, this professional vibe, where some of the other platforms don’t really have that. And so because of that people put this very specific foot forward when they’re on LinkedIn. And it gives us an opportunity to be that kind of break room space, that that watercooler space where we’re having those conversations with people that you would in an office, and I think especially in the last couple of years, as we’ve sort of been forced to, and then some people continue to work remotely, that connection, that corporate space to connect with other people working, you have to actively seek that out and create that. And that’s happening on LinkedIn a lot. So one of the statistics that I quote all the time is, there’s about 9 billion impressions a month on LinkedIn and impression being just scrolling past a post. So there’s 300 million people who log in at least once a month on LinkedIn, and of those people, you’ve got these 9 billion impressions. So that’s a lot on a normal platform. So Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, these other social media platforms, around 60% of users are also posting content, so pictures, their dogs, pictures of their friends, whatever it is, on LinkedIn, it’s 1%. So there is a huge opportunity, especially for small business people, especially people who are looking to make an impact to go in and do that on LinkedIn. So if you are a small business, selling to other businesses, if you’re trying to recruit, if you’re an individual consultant, even if you’re just trying to establish a professional brand, there’s a real opportunity to make really small changes online, on your LinkedIn and make a huge impact and really connect and establish yourself as that expert in your field. So it’s taking How do you take that idea? That’s what I do when I coach people. How do you take those things that you know in your head that you are the expert in and make that clear on LinkedIn, whether that’s through just updating your profile or creating thought leadership and sharing that out with people,

Jasna Burza
so you really help when you meet with some One, whether they’re an individual wanting to find, get a job or promoted or network with others or business, and then like, what is your agenda? What is your goal? And let me align your profile with what you’re trying to achieve?

Lillian Cotter
Yeah. So I always talk about, I give away, here’s my secret process. Here’s the secret to my work, I always give it away for free, because it’s, it’s what I always come back to. It’s the structure that I talk through with people. I talk about goal audience content. So what are you trying to achieve? And usually we zoom all the way out to your business goal or your your, your dream job, or whatever it is, what are you trying to achieve? How can we then what is what is our LinkedIn goal to help us achieve this larger goal, then when so that’s kind of that next step down? Then who do we need to convince? Who’s our audience to achieve that goal? And then finally, what’s the content we’re going to create to help convince that audience to achieve our goal? So if you’re looking for a job, how do you update your profile to make it clear that you’re really qualified for this job, and you’re the ideal candidate for those hiring managers. So your audiences, those hiring managers, your goal is your dream job? If you’re a small business, and you’re selling your consulting services, what is who’s the person at the company? Will every level of decision maker that first person who talked to that final person who signs off? And what are they seeing and reading on your profile, to actually make that sale and relationship with them? And then for dream jobs, sometimes I recommend posting thought leadership articles, posting articles, going and reading some of those business journals, things that most people are doing already. What’s the thing you’re already engaging in and share that? If you’re looking to be a consultant, if you want to establish that higher level of thought leadership? What are some easy blogs you can write? And when I say, like content creators, so often we think about like someone on Instagram, or tick tock or whatever it is making like we’re

Jasna Burza
all content creators. Yeah,

Lillian Cotter
yeah. But we think about it as something that you’re creating, like, you have to post three times a day like on Twitter, you can post 10 tweets a day, and it’s not a problem. On generally on LinkedIn, it depends a lot on what you’re trying to achieve. That’s where my coaching calls really come in is, is getting down to what would I advise for you, because my real answers to most things is it depends. But it can be once a week and have a post and you’re still going to really establish yourself as a creator. But it doesn’t always have to be fresh new content that you’re authoring so you can author one article a month, make that really high quality, really great stuff. And then share a friend’s post once the next week. And then find a news article that’s really related to this and write like a little conversation starter around it. So state your opinion, and ask other people their opinions. And then share a job that you found that is related. You just have to keep coming back to what’s interesting to your audience. And does it help achieve your goal?

Jasna Burza
Yeah, and share it because when you when you find it interesting, and you know that your audience will find it interesting, they’ll also be very thankful to you for it. You know, one of the things that I think people really don’t understand and this is where you have been just like Godsend oiling this into into ours in our in our training, is there’s incredible ROI for people who are individuals just looking to have that digital resume for a digital, or businesses of being on LinkedIn, to give us some examples of unexpected things that might come from being on LinkedIn that we don’t even think about and why really, why should everyone and you say everyone be on LinkedIn today.

Lillian Cotter
Um, so there’s, there’s the basic idea of the best time to have built your LinkedIn and made it really great was six months ago. And then the second best time is right now. That’s true of so many things. But I think that’s that’s particularly true of LinkedIn, because you want to build this really is, in social media, there’s often debate of quality or quantity. One of my least favorite cop outs for that is people will just say just do both. And I’m like, Okay, I also have unlimited time and resources. So great. But my my answer on a lot of platforms, that is quantity on LinkedIn, it’s absolutely quality. So if you put that quality content out there, consistently, you’ll get inbound leads. So whatever, as long as you’re clear as to what you’re trying to tell your audience. And what it is that you are an expert in and you’re putting that information out there. I get a lot of leads coming in on LinkedIn, from people reaching out to me being like, Hey, I’d love to be part of your network. I’d love to get and then those people ended up becoming refer people who refer clients to me, I get a lot of individuals who reach out and go, Hey, I want to learn more about how to make LinkedIn work for me, those leads always convert so much higher into sales than when I reach out to people. And I’m saying, Hey, let me let me sell this to you. Let me pitch this to you. Because those are people who there are people out there on the app, there’s enough people out there on the internet around the world, who are looking to improve their LinkedIn, that if they all searched for that, and found me, I would never have to sell another day in my life. So that’s what I’m trying to do is, instead of me going out and knocking on doors and being like, Hey, do you want me to help you with your LinkedIn? Hey, I’m gonna help you as a LinkedIn because I do believe that I could probably help almost anybody improve their LinkedIn, whether you’re going from zero to good, or Good to Great or great to truly excellent, I have different pieces of advice for different groups of people on how to get to that next level of improvement. But if I’m out there knocking on doors, those people might not be ready right now, they might not want to spend their money on it, whatever it is. But if those people are coming to me, they are at a point where they’re, they’re sick of their job, and they want something new and different. And they want to kind of subtly change their LinkedIn. So they’re showing up in searches without making it super clear to their boss, that they’re leaving their job. Or some a consultant, I get a lot of clients who are have been working for 3040 years, they’re done with the corporate world. And they want to go out and do consulting on their own, because they’re not done being they’re not done working. And it’s how do you translate that expertise into a digital space? And then they can do that and get those inbound leads as well? Because it’s, it’s not fun doing sales? I don’t like selling I like telling people about the solution to their problem. And then the people who are fine, who are having that problem can then find me, and they can see that I have that solution. That’s

Jasna Burza
a great process. I mean, that’s really what ultimately everyone wants, and you have a solution for it. So I mean, how do you work with people? Is it just one session? Or is it a, you know, do you recommend a longer engagement? Like how does that work?

Lillian Cotter
Yeah, so I have sort of two different audiences. And they start at two slightly different places. One is generally small to midsize businesses, I have a few larger clients, but generally small to midsize businesses. I start with doing a larger project of an audit and a strategy for them, I’ll go through all their numbers, all of that stuff, and then suggest kind of how to address those goals. Same structure, though, it’s still that goal audience content. And then the other one is, with individual consultants or people who are job search, they want to get some of those bigger positions, I do coaching calls. So it’s a one on one call, I do some prep work in advance to make sure that we’re we’re in there, and I know of some pieces around what they’re doing. And if they have like resumes or things, sometimes they’ll send those over to me. And then we do a call. And what always surprises to people is on that call, they do most of the talking, I’m doing a lot of like, let’s talk about what you’re trying to achieve and really creating that structure for them. And then they get we go through the goals spend some time on that that generally pretty organically leads into the audience that they’re talking through. And then we talk about content really just for a little bit. And then it’s the follow up report that gives them a documentation of all these goals that people have, which I’ve always been surprised at that I get a lot of feedback from clients being like that in valuable and helpful. Because just they know it in their heads. But getting it written out and organized. And structures can be really, really helpful for people. And then they’ve got that to go back to when they’re when they’re trying to put some of these other content pieces into action. And then in that report that I sent over people I’ll put together like, here’s how to, here’s the changes you need to make to your profile, here’s the pieces of content I would recommend you make. Here’s some tips on how to do that I have these different guides that I’ll throw in on, here’s how to make sure you’re tagging the right people, here’s how to update all these things. So that that’s sort of what those coaching calls looks like. It’s technically one hour of a call. But really, it’s that that one hour is I try to make really, really valuable because I know how much other people’s time is worth and I know how much my time is. So I try to make that a really productive conversation piece. And then it’s really that that report afterwards, which is meant to be you take this and now you’ve got this guide that you can work from some of my clients I’ll then do ongoing pieces with so I can help them if there’s someone who wants to do some sort of thought leadership or piece like that, that those tend to be those consultant Since tend to be my ongoing clients, where they want to create that thought leadership, they want to create that reputation, I can either help them acting almost as a ghostwriter where they’re the expert, and I’m helping write that. Or as an editor, I also have these things I call marketing touches, where you change the title. So it’s a little bit more clickable, you add some graphics, just those little changes that make something a little bit more readable and give it that polish.

Jasna Burza
I love that. That’s so real. So how can people in first of all this is a this is not an argument for everyone? Awesome, their LinkedIn profile? I don’t know what it is. But how can people? Where can they find you? How can they hire you and work with you and have this conversation about showing up on LinkedIn?

Lillian Cotter
Well, one of the easiest ways to do it is to actually find me on LinkedIn. So it’s Lillian Cotter, L I L L i a NCOTTER. So you can find me on LinkedIn, send me a connection request with a little message, just reference the fact that you saw me on this. And I’ll know you immediately and we’ll we’ll chat for sure. Otherwise, I also have a website with Lillian link.com. And you can go see I’ve got a lot of different blogs and resources. So if you’re just looking to improve, kind of on your own, one of my most popular blogs that I know a lot of people find very helpful, is just how to improve your LinkedIn and five minutes. So you can go there and just like it because I know it can be overwhelming. And I know that not everyone’s at a point where they want to spend hours building up their LinkedIn. But there are some really simple changes you can make quickly, that will make an impact and kind of get that foundational work. So that stuff that we that I just referenced of six months ago, or today, this is the thing you can literally go do today, you can go take, if you’re taking the time to watch this, just go pop over to my website, or it’s also on my LinkedIn, read that article, take five minutes, make those little improvements. And then you’ve got that foundation and you can start building from there will be so

Jasna Burza
incredibly generous. Thank you for doing that. And seriously, thank you for being such a giver. In general, I’ve observed you in a community setting where you really give so much constantly and you genuinely want to help. And that has been beautifully interesting. And these business spotlights that has been a common theme is like we forget how many brilliant humans we have surrounding us who are genuinely wanting to be a service. And it is like the most beautiful thing out there. So thank you for for helping me with my LinkedIn. And it’s been wonderful and great. And Jana, and thank you for helping our community. And for really coming here today and talking about it.

Lillian Cotter
Thank you for having me. i One of the reasons I do this is because I find LinkedIn fascinating and I can talk about it all day. So any chance to sit in front of a mic and talk about it. I’ll take

Jasna Burza
folks if you need if you’re even curious. And if you’re listening to Gary Vaynerchuk, who has been drumming the drum of LinkedIn for years now. And you feel like you know, I really should spice it up a little bit because it is important whether we like it or not. We live on these devices and this is where that virtual town square happens. Reach out to Lillian, Lillian cutter on LinkedIn and see what’s possible for you. Thank you so so incredibly much and I will see you very soon.

Lillian Cotter
Thank you have a great day.