[00:00:00] Daniel Alfon: So most people start with best connected, in other words, connecting with people we know well, keep hearing from other people or other sources that they need to grow their network as soon as possible, and they move into the direction of most connected without ever becoming most connected. And they land up in a no man's land where they have a few thousand connections thinking they get exposure.
[00:00:31] But what happened is that They've got very little marginal exposure.
[00:00:36] Teri Holland: Welcome back to success in mind today, I'm joined by Daniel Alfon. He's a LinkedIn author, expert and trainer. And today he's going to teach us all about how to use LinkedIn, to grow our businesses and become not the most connected. But the best connected. Daniel is the author of the book, build a LinkedIn profile for business success. He opened his LinkedIn account in early 2004 as an early adopter, he's helped thousands of entrepreneurs and consultants grow their businesses. He has a master's degree in English from lesser ball, new Val. And he comes with a warning that he loves busting LinkedIn myths. I have to say. Going into this interview.
[00:01:21] I didn't know what to expect because I have not been a big LinkedIn fan. And in fact. I was avoiding LinkedIn. But Daniel changes my mind on all of that. And I'm so excited to share this interview with you today.
[00:01:36] Also make sure that you check out the show notes of this episode because Daniel has graciously gifted the audience of success in mind with a very wonderful gift. He's created a digital guide to double your sales with strong connections. And this is free only for listeners of success in mind. So make sure you check that out and grab your free guide. All right, let's get on with the show.
[00:02:01] You're listening to Success in Mind, the show for high performing leaders, changemakers, and entrepreneurs ready to take your life and business to the next level. If you're ready for whole life success, keep listening.
[00:02:16] Teri Holland: Hi Daniel, welcome to the show.
[00:02:18] Daniel Alfon: Thank you, Teri. It's a pleasure to be part of Success In Mind.
[00:02:21] Teri Holland: Thank you. I'm looking forward to this because I have to admit, straight off the top, I do not use LinkedIn very well. I avoid it. It stresses me out.
[00:02:31] I go on there very minimally, like, just to do what I need to do, and I know I could be using it a lot more effectively. So, I'm looking forward to this conversation and how I can use LinkedIn better for myself, but also for the audience to be utilizing LinkedIn. So, why don't we, uh, dive right into why should we be on LinkedIn?
[00:02:51] Why should we be using it? What's there for us?
[00:02:54] Daniel Alfon: That's an excellent question. And the preliminary question would be if we own a business, if we're, uh, uh, entrepreneurs, are our clients on LinkedIn Teri or not? And if you say that your clients are on LinkedIn, then LinkedIn should be part of your marketing mix.
[00:03:09] It doesn't have to be the only one. For most entrepreneurs, when we run a simple Google search for their full name, their LinkedIn profile will often top the list. So don't let LinkedIn call the shots. You, Teri, need to own your own presence, just like you do on TeriHarlan. ca.
[00:03:27] Teri Holland: Okay. Okay. Sounds good. And okay.
[00:03:30] So let's say we are business owners. Our clientele is there, like, for example, I work with business owners, so I know they're there, but I find it really boring, where something like Instagram is so creative and fun to be on, and I don't get that same fix on LinkedIn. So how can we make LinkedIn engaging and enjoyable to be on?
[00:03:52] Daniel Alfon: Let's be told we don't have to use LinkedIn a lot. The first thing you said is that was you don't spend a lot of time on LinkedIn. Let's just try to make those minutes count.
[00:04:05] Teri Holland: In other
[00:04:05] Daniel Alfon: words, consistently using LinkedIn for 10 minutes a week would usually be better than binging LinkedIn, we're looking for clients and then forgetting about it for six months.
[00:04:16] So don't feel bad. It's fine. If you can dedicate on a regular basis, 10 minutes a week. To your career, then let's make those minutes.
[00:04:26] Teri Holland: Oh, that's it. Just 10 minutes.
[00:04:30] Daniel Alfon: Yes. And should you enjoy it more than you were absolutely allowed to move into 15 minutes or who knows 20 minutes, but start with something you feel comfortable and, and doesn't have to feel a burden.
[00:04:42] And if you connect with people, you know, well, it's one great way to see what happens to your network and people who used to work with you. And they're going places.
[00:04:52] Teri Holland: Interesting. So, okay. So we're starting with. 10 minutes a week, and what should we be doing on LinkedIn? How do we focus our time?
[00:05:02] Daniel Alfon: Great. So perhaps we could mention three layers.
[00:05:04] The first layer is our profile. The second layer would be our network. And the third is our degeneration or sharing or everything. Um, if we get back to the business owner, then the three simple questions we should ask is, A, who is our ideal reader on LinkedIn?
[00:05:26] Teri Holland: Okay.
[00:05:26] Daniel Alfon: So a business owners say that, uh, you could say that you were looking for, uh, entrepreneurs or, um, conference organizers or anyone else.
[00:05:40] And then let's, let's take an example. Say we're speaking of, uh, um, public speaker. Or someone who wants to launch a podcast. Excellent. So if our clients are people who consider launching a podcast, then you, Teri, can help them. Their question should be, if Teri manages to watch and to see my profile, what action would I like Teri to perform?
[00:06:07] Or you can ask yourself. If I could make people who consider launching podcasts, and I'm not sure about the tech side or editing or guesting. So what information should I show them? And what action would I like those people to perform once they go to my profile? And the simple answer would usually be, I would like them to go to my website, Teriharland.
[00:06:32] ca, and then go to. Podcast, or then go to work with me or anywhere else. So question number one, who's our ideal reader? And that should usually be our prospects, our clients.
[00:06:47] Teri Holland: Okay.
[00:06:47] Daniel Alfon: Question number two, what action would you, would we like that person to perform after they visit our profile? Usually go to a specific website.
[00:06:55] Sometimes it will be schedule a discovery call or download gated content or subscribe to a newsletter or download our app, whatever the business owners, um, decides. And the last question will be, are we making it as easy for them as possible to understand quickly what we bring to the table and how we could help them?
[00:07:20] So if I look at your profile, I see that you're, you're a keynote speaker. I see that you're a podcast host and, and without even diving to, uh, uh, or strolling a lot, I can see that if you launch a podcast and you help other people launch their podcast. So here I would start discovering your services. And hopefully getting into a call and telling you about my wishes.
[00:07:49] Teri Holland: And that doesn't seem so scary. That seems, that seems doable. And then what about having like a business profile? Because we have our profiles. I know I have my company page up there. I do nothing on it. How do we use, do we need to have both? How do we use them? Do we use them differently? Should we have the same content on both or should they be different?
[00:08:10] Let
[00:08:11] Daniel Alfon: So I'm not affiliated with LinkedIn, I'll tell you straight as, as, as I can.
[00:08:16] Teri Holland: Perfect. Set it
[00:08:17] Daniel Alfon: up. Set it up and forget about it.
[00:08:19] Teri Holland: I like that.
[00:08:21] Daniel Alfon: In other words, we, we try to stick to 10 minutes. So yes, you could create a company page and the single most important benefit you would get is that when people visit your own profile, they would see this, that success in mind or your business has a logo next to it.
[00:08:37] Like Teri Holland has a logo next to it. But your own profile has close to 3, 000 followers, whereas the total number, grand total number of your page is four followers. And this is the proportion for most entrepreneurs and most consultants and most service providers. We don't have to feel bad about it.
[00:09:03] Some people have less than four. Some people have one. So yes, do set it up. But marketing will not happen through our pages. It will happen through our individual profiles simply because the natural action on LinkedIn is to connect as individuals
[00:09:20] Teri Holland: and
[00:09:21] Daniel Alfon: not following company page. You don't have to work hard.
[00:09:26] Teri Holland: Remember the platform is here to serve us entrepreneurs and not the other way around.
[00:09:32] Okay. Well, that's good to know because I was worried you were going to say I need to spend all this time on the business profile. And I was like, I don't even want to spend time on my own profile. Like, okay, so that's manageable.
[00:09:43] And what if we had, so what if we start doing 10 minutes a week and we're enjoying it and really getting into LinkedIn? Like, what would be the next level if we want to go further into LinkedIn?
[00:09:53] Daniel Alfon: So I love the question. The second level I would suggest is networking. Okay.
[00:09:58] Teri Holland: Okay.
[00:09:59] Daniel Alfon: And most entrepreneurs and most business owners will have a network, a real life network.
[00:10:04] Mm-Hmm. Hundreds of people we've collaborated on, worked long. We work with during the last 10 or 15 years. Yeah. And some of those people would be on LinkedIn. So the simplest suggestion would be to try to make our LinkedIn connections resemble our real life connections. In other words, if you, Teri, have, you know, if you have 300, uh, real life, uh, contacts.
[00:10:30] And say 200 are on LinkedIn, then do try to connect with those 200 people. Because whenever you run a search and you see that we share a mutual connection, that enables you to reach out to the common, uh, to the mutual connection and ask them, can you introduce me to that person? Okay. When I look at your profile, I see that JoshTap is our one mutual connection we Say, I wanted to reach out to you and wanted to be, um, a guest of success in mind, I could reach out to Josh and say, hi, Josh.
[00:11:07] I noticed that you were connected with Teri Holland. Do you know her well enough to make an introduction? And if Josh says yes, Then you open that email, thanks to Josh's name, not mine. Right. And the chances of us communicating and potentially working together would simply be better. It's like in real life, you had Bill Goldberg on a, on a previous episode.
[00:11:32] I recommend anyone check it out, 295, I think. I
[00:11:36] Teri Holland: think that's what it is. That's interesting. Thanks, .
[00:11:38] Have you ever wanted to start a podcast, but maybe you're not sure how to get started. Or maybe you're terrified about sharing your voice with the world, but you know that you have a message that's important to be shared. Well, I have something for you. The five day launch. Your podcast challenge is coming up again in November.
[00:11:57] The dates are yet to be fully finalized. But right now you can sign up on the wait list. And be first notified once those dates are settled, and come join me for five days to launch your podcast. There's more details in the link.
[00:12:13] The link is in the show notes, you know where to go.
[00:12:15] And I hope to see you there. All right. Back to our show.
[00:12:19] I have, like you mentioned, I have a lot of connections on LinkedIn, but most of them I have never interacted with. I don't know them. Is that a bad thing? Like, is that, should we, and I think that was because when I first got into LinkedIn, the idea was to like grow your connections really fast.
[00:12:36] And at least that was the advice I got, was connect with everyone you can. Um, does that, It might work against us if we've done that.
[00:12:44] Daniel Alfon: It might. So let's start with the good news. Right now, anyone visiting your own profile, the default action would be to follow you.
[00:12:52] Teri Holland: Okay.
[00:12:53] Daniel Alfon: Rather than connect.
[00:12:54] Teri Holland: Right.
[00:12:55] Daniel Alfon: And following comes with no price.
[00:12:58] Because that basically increases the number of people who would see whatever it is that you share on LinkedIn. Mhm. But when you run a search, they don't come into play. You're not, you don't see Jane Doe that you have known nothing about as a mutual connection between you and your ideal prospect. So you've, you've, you've made the right choice of, um, either turning on what LinkedIn called the ATO mode or making the follow the default button, but I could try and ask you one, two questions about the pro and cons of a large network or a trusted one.
[00:13:33] If that's interesting, could go into that.
[00:13:36] Teri Holland: Yes, please. Yeah.
[00:13:38] Daniel Alfon: Right. So most people start with. Best connected. In other words, connecting with people we know well, keep hearing from other people or other sources that they need to grow their network as soon as possible. And they move into the direction of most connected without ever becoming most connected.
[00:14:02] And they land up in a no man's land where they have a few thousand connections thinking they get exposure. But what happened is that They've got very little marginal exposure because maybe 2 percent will see what it is, what is, what we share.
[00:14:21] Teri Holland: And on the
[00:14:22] Daniel Alfon: other hand, we might have diluted or polluted the quality of our network.
[00:14:27] Imagine that, uh, when I visit your profile, I would see two people, one is a fan of yours and one is someone that would ask me, Teri who? Now I'm not sure I know her. So they don't have to bad mouth you, but if I, you won't be there to tell me, you know what? Speak to Bob. Bob is the go to person.
[00:14:45] Teri Holland: I would
[00:14:46] Daniel Alfon: see those two names and I would decide for myself.
[00:14:49] So try to ask yourself in simple terms. Teri, if you had to pick one for 2027, would you like to be the most connected or the best connected?
[00:15:02] Teri Holland: Best connected.
[00:15:03] Daniel Alfon: Yeah. Excellent. So best connected means it's, it's even easier because your feed will become more relevant because it's people you've really worked with.
[00:15:13] It's people you serve. It's people you, uh, know, you know, so it, it makes a lot of sense to, to many, many people. Don't try to, to have it both ways, it's impossible.
[00:15:25] Teri Holland: Okay. So if it's like with my profile and I have all of these connections who I've never interacted with, I don't know them at all, would you suggest cleaning that up or removing connections that you just don't know?
[00:15:38] Or is that a bad idea?
[00:15:39] Daniel Alfon: Um, if you decided that you really wanted to become best connected, it would make sense to do this. Really? Okay. Really think hard because it takes time to change. Uh, if you think that we'll stick to the best connected in the long term, yes. Uh, I could share in the show notes a specific resource about this and people who are interested in, who could go in and get a more detailed, uh, a walkthrough of, of what, how to handle our connections, including disconnecting.
[00:16:14] And maybe a quick tip we could, uh, consider is simply analyzing our network. And say out of the maybe 50 percent of people you have never interacted with, pick one or three that look interesting today and start interacting with them. Pick the most interesting people you'd like to speak with because You, uh, say you just booked, uh, um, um, uh, a public speaking, um, gig and your topic would be the secret to manifest your future and the organization that brought you in is an organization you haven't worked before.
[00:16:59] And you notice that one of the, your connections, your sleeping connections, shall we, shall we call it is a manager within that organization. So speaking with that person could help you maybe customize your speech or get it, get information that you would not get necessarily from other sources. So just pick one or two or three that are interesting.
[00:17:20] And basically try to move them from virtual or non existence into real life connections. That would help you decide whether you want to disconnect or if you had a gift, then you discover someone who's an interesting person to really know.
[00:17:37] Teri Holland: Cool. That's such a great idea. When it comes to interacting with people on LinkedIn, What are some best practices that you recommend doing like for reaching out to someone because I know I get hit with spam every day on LinkedIn and constant pitches in my inbox there.
[00:17:56] So how do we start connecting in an authentic way that really builds that connection?
[00:17:59] Daniel Alfon: Real quick suggestion, if we become best connected, then we'll get a lot less spam. This is prevention, if you like. Yes, because, because we will, uh, uh, get messages from people we actually know, and we could basically disregard 95 percent of incoming invitations if we don't know those people.
[00:18:19] That's the easiest way to, to, to look into it. It doesn't mean you will not get spammed. It means that you will have that stress because you know that your circle of trust is made of those people. And if, if I don't belong to that circle of trust, then it's my responsibility to show you that it's worth reading or worth communicating or worth connecting with.
[00:18:42] The second thing is, is a secret weapon called actually reading what the person has written. In other words, you read that person's profile and look and see what they share. And that would help you communicate authentically because you would notice that last month, they were They shared about either moving to a new position or moving from Calgary to Nova Scotia or doing something else.
[00:19:10] And you could, and maybe that you didn't see that in real time, but within minutes you could discover that and your conversation will be more genuine, it should look. And the third quick tip is to leave LinkedIn. Yes, LinkedIn is great. But the, the biggest secret is to know when to leave the platform. So say we communicated and you accepted my connection request and you want to take it to the next level.
[00:19:40] Most people will find it easier to communicate via email in a business environment, at least. And because imagine again, going back to our, our public speaking opportunity. The manager you're connected with would like to introduce you to someone else within the organization. If it's an email, that's easy.
[00:20:01] I could forward your email, CC you and say, Jane, I'd like to use to speak with, with Teri. We discussed this over lunch. Could you please take it from here? Imagine you communicated over LinkedIn. There is no way that manager could forward that message and CC you. It becomes extremely complicated. It. So LinkedIn has shown you the name of the person you want to reach out to, but you don't have to stay in the platform all the time.
[00:20:30] You can leave and move to something that's more comfortable and easy and asynchronous because you can reply when you'd like. And if our time zone is different, then I'm not stressed about anything else.
[00:20:43] Teri Holland: Nice. Well, that's, I like that. I like that, especially, especially for speaking opportunities. I could see a lot of potential there, a lot of possibility.
[00:20:54] Now, what kind of content should we be posting on LinkedIn? Should we be posting more videos? Should we be linking them to, well, I'm just gonna be selfish and use my own example. I typically just post my podcasts there because I don't know what else to talk about there. So I'll post links to my podcast.
[00:21:13] Is that a good use of LinkedIn or should you stay more organically in the app and creating posts? Like what, what does LinkedIn like?
[00:21:21] Daniel Alfon: What does Teri like? I'm sorry to get back to this because LinkedIn can digest anything we'd like, but let's go back to the first question. Like who's our ideal reader?
[00:21:34] Teri Holland: If
[00:21:34] Daniel Alfon: our ideal reader is an event organizer, then maybe we should curate the 20 percent of our podcast episode dealing with public speaking or speaking confidently or something that deal with public speaking or even corporate, um, environments.
[00:21:53] And what I found is that the content that tends to work best for most of us is topo funnel educational content. If we go back to the, uh, dilemmas of someone, uh, considering launching a podcast, then you know by far the questions they're likely to ask themselves. How do I start? Where do I find the guests?
[00:22:18] Is my mic good enough? How do I edit this? So you, uh, position yourself as an expert in one or many of those, uh, entry level questions and you show them simply the way to move from point A to point B. And when they see the light, you tell them, you know what? There's a whole C and D. Let's go to that gated content.
[00:22:42] Or let's schedule a discovery call. Or let's move, but you have to serve first. You have to help them. Become more confident and then the questions would be even more interesting. So top funnel, top of funnel, educational content that is not salesy is the content that's easiest for you to share. Think of it as FAQ for people who have never recorded podcasts before.
[00:23:08] Teri Holland: So you, you can basically dictate or write a one pager or a PDF in less than two hours. And that could be a great lead management that you would distribute through, you know, a series of YouTube shorts. It's only 20 seconds. I might discover the third, uh, short, I might discover number five, and then I would go to your website and then I would say, I'm ready now.
[00:23:36] Daniel Alfon: And I would feel that I know you a bit better because I watched your videos. And I decided that your tone and your professionalism resonates with me. Okay. So, so like say those YouTube shorts, like you mentioned, and then sharing those shorts into LinkedIn, would that be the way to go?
[00:23:58] Part of your shorts may educate your ideal reader instead of, um, having, you know, dozens of shorts or dozens of content pieces on LinkedIn, I will try to find, say, if we go back to the 10 minutes, once a week, what's the single most valuable piece of content you would like to share with your ideal audience?
[00:24:23] Teri Holland: Okay.
[00:24:24] Daniel Alfon: And I don't mean creating new content, I mean, basically identifying the right content you already produced, not for the sake of LinkedIn. And my guess is that 99 percent of your audience have never watched that video, or have never read that blog post, or have never listened to that episode. So, show them and educate them.
[00:24:47] Teri Holland: Okay. Okay. How many posts would be ideal for LinkedIn? Like let's say we're ready to go all in a hundred percent. We want to grow our best connected network and really make a presence on LinkedIn. What would the ultimate look like?
[00:25:05] Daniel Alfon: I'm not sure I can give you a number, not because I don't want to, but because if we, let's put it like this.
[00:25:13] Most of our network. It's not interesting seeing too much of our content. Okay. Okay. Now, you may be an exception to this, but for most of our listeners, if I discover the same sort of content coming from John, then by the fifth time I see it, I know what that person is going to share and I sort of become blind to it.
[00:25:39] Teri Holland: I don't engage, I don't, uh, dwell, I don't like, I don't repost, I don't comment, I do anything. I basically remove that content from, from what I see. And our network is important if I, if, uh, uh, I'm alienated or I don't like seeing that, uh, number of shares, then maybe you get, you got an additional, uh, two people seeing that.
[00:26:05] Daniel Alfon: But you might have hurt your relationship with one person who could mean a 20 percent increase in your turnover for 2025.
[00:26:16] Teri Holland: Okay.
[00:26:16] Daniel Alfon: There's no number, um, you need to stick to. If you produce a lot of high quality content, you may feel that you want to post a lot, but if creating content is something that you only do once a quarter.
[00:26:30] Once a quarter will be good.
[00:26:32] Teri Holland: Wow. Okay. And then how about, you know, I keep seeing these articles on LinkedIn that people contribute to, I don't know what they're called, but they, they contribute to 'em. I've contributed to a couple to kind of test it out. Is that something we should be spending a little bit of our time doing?
[00:26:50] Is that worthwhile?
[00:26:51] Daniel Alfon: Uh, LinkedIn has played with, uh, collaborative articles for some time now. And one of the speculation is that it's, it's basically training, uh, LinkedIn's AI with content that we provide to the machine. But regardless of that, um, I would ask is what LinkedIn asks me relevant for my expertise?
[00:27:14] Thanks. Thanks. And many people will see that they got tagged for all sorts of things. They never want to be associated with. However, if you do find, you know, your exact niche, then it would make a lot more sense to associate yourself and it would be easy for you to produce high quality content to write two paragraphs and do that.
[00:27:34] But basically I would say saying no is more important than saying yes. Because it would take you a lot of time and it would dilute your, like your efforts. You would write about something that you're not really, um, it's not part of your brand and it won't, it will, it could confuse your own net.
[00:27:56] Teri Holland: Right.
[00:27:58] Right. The ones that I, I have contributed to have all been around public speaking and communication. So those have been like niche appropriate to me. But what I find really interesting is that when I go into LinkedIn, those notifications where I'll see like David, like a connection of mine, he contributes to a lot of them.
[00:28:17] So it'll be like, David's contributed to this, David's contributed to that. And that just seems to draw my eye really quickly. So that's why I was wondering if that's worthwhile, because I always notice those right away and see like, well, I'm curious what he said on that. So
[00:28:30] Daniel Alfon: have you, have you gone as far as actually reading David's fifth contribution to collaborative article?
[00:28:36] Teri Holland: Fifth one? I don't know if I could say the fifth. I don't know if, yeah, good point. I would say I read the first few and now I just noticed the notification. Really good point.
[00:28:47] Daniel Alfon: Fine. So let's just, uh, say that people only notice one collaborative article of yours and it's about your expertise, public speaking, then fine.
[00:28:59] If number two is about something that's not part of your niche, you don't have to, uh, collaborate on it. You don't have to contribute. You don't have to. You need to be able to say no.
[00:29:10] Teri Holland: Okay, good to know. What about writing our own articles on LinkedIn? I used to do that like years ago. I got really into that and then I, I stopped the way we just, I just stopped.
[00:29:22] Uh, is that still a worthwhile thing to be doing on LinkedIn is to write an article? Or should we stick more to shorter posts and sharing our, our other content?
[00:29:32] Daniel Alfon: It's a great question. Um, I would try to ask. About the thought lead, how, to what extent would you like to be known or is, is thought leadership in your niche important to you?
[00:29:46] And writing LinkedIn articles, what LinkedIn calls articles is maybe a valuable assets, um, that you would share on LinkedIn, but it would have to be deeper in, in other words, the shelf life of the article must be at least 12 months long, so it cannot be. You know, yesterday I went to that event and it was amazing.
[00:30:12] This would be a good post. You could highlight, you know, the, the speaker, but something like that. But what are the, um, 10 important lessons I learned from producing over 100 podcast episodes and how could you learn from my mistakes? Oh, I'm going to write that one. Cause
[00:30:34] this would be basically, it's not time sensitive.
[00:30:37] Yeah.
[00:30:37] Teri Holland: Yeah.
[00:30:38] Daniel Alfon: It's not, you know, on, on Amazon, there is a, uh, now you can grab that mic for, you know, 20 less. It would be something that has a long, uh, shelf life and you could feel comfortable showing it to people down the road in 12 months. And the questions and the dilemmas would often be the same as people ask themselves.
[00:30:59] Teri Holland: Okay. Okay. And now how about, um, how about our profiles? How do we optimize our profiles, our descriptions? I know it's something I, I've changed many times in the past, trying to figure out what are the right words I should use, how do I communicate who I am and what I do? Um, any, any tips for that? How do we write our profiles?
[00:31:22] Daniel Alfon: Um, I would actually advise our listeners to, uh, visit your profile, cause this would be the simplest way to show, uh, important elements that we have on, uh, on our profile. So let's, let's mention a few. When, when we visit your profile, we see a banner and the banner is of you speaking. In other words, without even reading or scrolling, you're Public speaking is sort of burnt or associated with you, Teri.
[00:31:54] Before I even start to see, uh, investing time in a banner is one of the simplest, uh, actions our listeners and, and people who watch this could perform fine. A banner or create a banner that resonates with you and with your audience. So if, if, if, if someone is not a public speaker and someone is, is, uh, their specialty is mental health for X, Y, Z, then find a way to show that to our banners.
[00:32:32] Make sure that our profile photo is professional headshots, looking straight into the camera and smiling. That's excellent.
[00:32:42] Teri Holland: Perfect.
[00:32:42] Daniel Alfon: I could recognize you in this color, just thanks to that, to that photo. And then we can go into the, uh, the headline. The default headline for most people would be LinkedIn would say NLP trainer, Teri Holland, CEO, but you tweaked your own headline and you made it more interesting for the reader, because let me read it this, uh, uh, aloud, it says helping leaders to get the confidence to stand out, to be seen, And share their message and expertise.
[00:33:19] My performance coach, podcast host, keynotes. What's interesting for us is what you wrote in the headline. Cause if I'm not a leader, I don't want to stand out and I feel I'm way overconfident. Then maybe I should disqualify myself. If on the other hand, I struggle with confidence, but I do have a message I want to other people to learn about, then I would either go and visit your profile or scroll down to discover how Teri could possibly help me.
[00:33:54] And maybe one last element we could mention is the featured section that we see on your profile. That's a great way to highlight links. It could be a podcast episode, it could be a TED talk, it could be a video, it could be a screenshot. And this is something that visually attracts our eye. And we see that before even scrolling to see the experience section.
[00:34:19] So I'll, I'll only stick to the top parts. Banner. Mm-Hmm. . Go to Teri Holds, uh, profile and look at the banner. Make sure your, your pro, your profile photo is as professional as ies. And if you could invest or try to write an, uh, a headline that would speak directly to your audience, you'll get bonus points if you also manage to add featured sections.
[00:34:45] Teri Holland: You know, I wasn't sure about my banner because I go back and forth between thinking that it should be more of like a graphic designed banner with words on it of what I do and going, so I flip back and forth many times between the one that is on there now and then having something that's more, um, just descriptive.
[00:35:04] Daniel Alfon: You could play with that, you know, in, in six months time, uh, you could change it, or in three months time, you can change it, the, the limit is original creativity.
[00:35:12] Teri Holland: Okay. Okay. Well, that's good to know too. How much of our content on LinkedIn should be personal? I've, I've heard recently that there's a trend on LinkedIn of sharing a little bit more of like, personal life, you know, if you're going on vacation or a little bit about you behind the scenes.
[00:35:32] Um, I don't, I've never used it that way myself. I always keep it strictly business, but is, is there a place in LinkedIn for us to be sharing a little bit of an insight into our day to day personal lives?
[00:35:43] Daniel Alfon: Uh, so the answer would really depend on you. In other words, um, some people would prefer a root canal and not sharing something personal.
[00:35:54] And, and for those people, it doesn't make sense to share anything personal, whereas other people would be a lot more extroverted than you. So for them, it would be basically a hundred percent personal. And the three questions I think I would ask is one. Do you, Teri, like, okay, when you, when you think about sharing something personal, are you okay with that or do you do it because you think it would give you extra points for whatever?
[00:36:23] If you're happy with it, then fine, we can ask a second question. And the second question would be about people we're connected with. So people you serve, when they see that you share that, would they nod and say, Yes, these are Teri's words. That's the, that reminds me of the way she helped me, uh, improve my confidence in the bedroom.
[00:36:48] Teri Holland: Or
[00:36:48] Daniel Alfon: would they look and say, Hey, That sounds weird. What was Teri thinking? We want number one. So, A, do you, do we feel good about it? Is it natural for us?
[00:37:01] Teri Holland: And the
[00:37:01] Daniel Alfon: second question, do people who know us well, who recognize us through that decision? And lastly, would the people were interested in, people who consider launching podcasts or event organizers or anyone you, uh, uh, define as your ideal, uh, clients, if they were hesitant about reaching out to you, say for that speaking engagement, and they see that last piece of content you shared,
[00:37:27] Teri Holland: Teri,
[00:37:27] Daniel Alfon: would that make them more likely to want to speak with you?
[00:37:32] Is it neutral or would that turn them away? And you know the answers to all three questions.
[00:37:39] Teri Holland: Okay, I like that. And I like that you had that, that image. So, for those of you listening to the audio podcast, um, you need to go to YouTube to see it. But, uh, that image was really helpful for me to see, okay, these three, look at these three areas.
[00:37:55] Very helpful. Anything that we should be avoiding on LinkedIn, like just complete, like, do not do this, bad practices, mistakes that you see people making that we should just stay clear of?
[00:38:09] Daniel Alfon: Would that, would that actually be something we would do pre LinkedIn or not? In other words,
[00:38:15] Teri Holland: when you,
[00:38:15] Daniel Alfon: when you meet someone in, in a conference, You usually chat with them a bit before taking it to the next level, but you mentioned spamming.
[00:38:25] So
[00:38:26] Teri Holland: yeah,
[00:38:27] Daniel Alfon: spamming happens because it's very easy for people to basically dump 10, 000 messages on us. But for most people who do that, that hurts their brand because you don't want to be associated with a spammer. You don't want to be associated with that sort of practice. Right. Right.
[00:38:46] Teri Holland: Right.
[00:38:47] Daniel Alfon: So before you perform that action, just switch places and think of it as the other person going back again to, to, uh, to Bob, you, you, uh, you interviewed, uh, Bob, one of many of Bob's rules is about, uh, uh, referrals and helping other people imagine again, it will take me more time to ask someone to introduce me to you.
[00:39:13] And it will take me less time to send you a boiler plate, cookie cutter saying, Teri, we have exactly what you need. We've never spoken before, but I'm sure you're interested in X, Y, Z.
[00:39:25] Doing it right. May means you need to spend a bit more time reading, researching, writing, shortening, editing, finding the right person to be the messenger to make the introduction, but usually it would mean we would have a more meaningful conversation.
[00:39:45] So in the long run. You have clients who are happy working with you, and you don't have to spam.
[00:39:54] Teri Holland: I like how you framed that, like, would you do it before LinkedIn? Because I think that's, I see that on all social media platforms, people rush to the, like, trying to get the sale without ever building a connection or a relationship.
[00:40:08] And you're right, we don't do that in person. You would never go up to someone in a conference and say, hey, buy my thing. You need to buy this, without having a dialogue. One error in it,
[00:40:16] Daniel Alfon: please.
[00:40:16] Teri Holland: And yeah, exactly. It's like dating, right? Like, if you don't propose on the first date, that'd be lunacy. Okay. So is it worth it?
[00:40:26] Let's talk about premium memberships on LinkedIn. Is it worth it to invest in a premium membership or the, I forget what it's called, but there's the sales version of it and there's different, is, are those worth it?
[00:40:37] Daniel Alfon: The answer is no. Especially if your, uh, network is the best in it, why is that? Because every few, uh, learn to perform advanced searches on, on LinkedIn, you could perform them say once a month, you take five minutes and you find your ideal prospect just once, one every week.
[00:40:57] And you focus on secondary contacts, people with whom you share one mutual connection and you reach out to that person. It's old school. It's pre LinkedIn if you'd like, but remember the secret is to remember when to leave the platform. So you discovered Mrs. Prospect, you notice that the name of the mutual connection is John Doe.
[00:41:19] And now you leave the platform. You communicate old school with your mutual connection. You ask how they've been, and then you ask, do you know that lady well enough to introduce me? And in the long run, it makes a lot more sense. And premium is basically. A permit to spam. You don't have to use it if you are best connected you can See who visited your profile without paying you don't have to send a ton of emails.
[00:41:50] You don't have to to You do have to invest a bit of time But paying for a premium account would only make sense once you, Teri, have reached a threshold of I can no longer stand being on LinkedIn just for 10 minutes a week. I want to be 24 7 on LinkedIn.
[00:42:08] Teri Holland: Then,
[00:42:11] Daniel Alfon: then you could be worthwhile, worth your while to actually purchase a premium account.
[00:42:15] But if you're a casual user, You don't have to buy into that.
[00:42:21] Teri Holland: Okay, that's good to know. I know I've had a premium account in the past, off and on, and then I cancel it, so I'm like, I'm not really benefiting from this because I'm not using it. And then I get sucked into, I think it's FOMO, I get sucked into the, like, what am I missing out on here?
[00:42:36] I need to have the, and I like the little premium sticker that goes on your profile, I don't know, but it's, it's FOMO. How about, you know, I'm also curious to know, what got you so into LinkedIn? What made you decide to focus on this as your expertise?
[00:42:53] Daniel Alfon: Pure chance. I would have liked to tell you a Disney tale about, you know, me growing up as a teenager knowing that I would want to own Linkin Bird back in 2004.
[00:43:02] Early 2004, I got an invitation from someone I trusted and Facebook was not then, so the whole concept of social was inexistent, but I trusted that person enough to check it out. And two years later, uh, I was delivering networking, uh, lectures and I mentioned LinkedIn for five minutes, then 10 minutes, maybe it was a half of the conference and at one point I just decided to specialize.
[00:43:30] Friends asking me to come and trail Dale Salesforce or their, um, the organization. And I'm happy I specialized because it's still is sort of the adult playground where it's more business oriented than it's you could live without sharing the fettuccine or your cat and it will still make a lot of success.
[00:43:54] Teri Holland: Oh, I love that. 2004. I don't think I even knew about LinkedIn until like probably 2010, 2011. So you were, you were in there early.
[00:44:04] Daniel Alfon: Thank you very much. Right now, as we speak, uh, thousands of people have joined LinkedIn since we started this very conversation. Each second, according to LinkedIn statistics, three people sign up.
[00:44:17] Teri Holland: Wow. Most of the growth is outside of North America. And right now it's close to 1 billion members. Including most decision makers in all Fortune 2000 companies.
[00:44:30] Okay. So really it is the place to be. I mean, like I mentioned Instagram earlier, that's where I spend most of my time on social media because it's fun, but I can definitely see through this conversation that to connect with the decision makers and connect with people who can really help me say, move my business forward.
[00:44:53] LinkedIn is the place to be. So you've convinced me, you've convinced me, Daniel, I'm, I'm not giving up Instagram, but I'm going to spend some more time and focus on LinkedIn.
[00:45:06] Daniel Alfon: There's a place for, for everything in you, you could play with Instagram cause it's fun and then for 10 minutes investing in, in, in your marketing in a longterm way and it would complement each
[00:45:20] Teri Holland: other.
[00:45:21] I think that's, yeah, I like that. That's a great idea. So people want to connect with you and they want to learn more about LinkedIn. They want to learn more about what you offer. What's the best place for them to go?
[00:45:33] Daniel Alfon: Thank you very much. DanielAlphon. com is the place to go.
[00:45:36] Teri Holland: Perfect. And that'll of course be in the show notes and I'll put your LinkedIn there as well, if you like, if you want.
[00:45:42] Cause of course, they're going to want to go see like what, what you do. Cause that's, you know, how you set up your profile. That'll be, be very worthwhile to look at. ,
[00:45:52] now I have some rapid fire questions for you, if you're up for it,
[00:45:55] Daniel Alfon: let's try,
[00:45:56] Teri Holland: let's try. Okay. What's your favorite book?
[00:45:59] Daniel Alfon: Jeffrey Gitomer's, the sales Bible.
[00:46:02] Teri Holland: Oh, I haven't read that one.
[00:46:04] Daniel Alfon: Um, it makes me think every time I read, I'm
[00:46:07] Teri Holland: going to put that on my list. What's your favorite food?
[00:46:12] Daniel Alfon: Uh, it would be some kind of pasta that my daughter makes probably Fettuccine Alfredo or some, something like that.
[00:46:19] Teri Holland: Nice, but you're not posting on your LinkedIn, right? You're
[00:46:22] Daniel Alfon: not sharing there.
[00:46:23] No. Maybe one day I would give a, uh, a lecture to, uh, I don't know, uh, um, pasta manufacturers, but otherwise, no, I don't see that happening there.
[00:46:34] Teri Holland: Fair enough. What's your biggest pet peeve? I
[00:46:38] Daniel Alfon: have too many to, uh, to choose from. I'll pass.
[00:46:43] Teri Holland: Fair enough. Who inspires you?
[00:46:45] Daniel Alfon: Um, increasingly, uh, my family and our kids.
[00:46:50] Teri Holland: Nice.
[00:46:50] Daniel Alfon: So right now they're, they're grownups and they're making decisions of grownups and it's so refreshing to think back of the time, you know, you help them deal with all sorts of things they, uh, dealt with when we were very young and now it's a success to see that they've become so independent. They know they come back and consult you, not because they have to.
[00:47:15] Teri Holland: Oh, I love that. What are three things you would take with you to a deserted island? Super. Yeah.
[00:47:23] Daniel Alfon: Um, I'll try to take a music player.
[00:47:26] Teri Holland: Nice. And
[00:47:26] Daniel Alfon: probably, um, maybe a pen and a notebook.
[00:47:31] Teri Holland: Great. Who's a celebrity you'd like to have dinner with, dead or alive? Fifth.
[00:47:37] Daniel Alfon: Bob Dylan.
[00:47:38] Teri Holland: Oh, great choice. Sixth. And your go to karaoke song?
[00:47:44] Fifth.
[00:47:45] Daniel Alfon: So it will be a song by The Who, um, either Love Rain Over Me or, uh, Who's Next or, uh, or, um, like one of, one of The Who songs.
[00:47:59] Teri Holland: And any final thoughts that you would like to leave the audience with today?
[00:48:03] Daniel Alfon: I know we discussed LinkedIn extensively and both of us are now, uh, converted, but I think there is something that's even more important than LinkedIn.
[00:48:10] Thank you.
[00:48:12] So if you could do one thing, it would be to ask yourself, what's the best way you could keep in touch with people, you know, before you need them. I was listening to your episode about how to tackle setback and you mentioned resilience and you said the time to build your resilience is not when you're down in the dumps, you have to cultivate it early.
[00:48:37] I would say that for networking, it's the same thing. You build your network, hoping you would never have to use it. But if there comes a time and you need to reach out to those people, don't be that person who only reach out to you once they need something for you. That is great advice. Thank you so much, Daniel.
[00:48:57] Teri Holland: I, I've really enjoyed this conversation. I'm converted. I will be on LinkedIn. Thank you so much.
[00:49:05] Daniel Alfon: Thank you very much, Teri. It's a pleasure to be with
[00:49:06] you.
[00:49:06] Now you and I both know that if nothing changes, nothing changes. So what is the one thing that you're going to do differently after listening to this episode today? Are you going to maybe start your LinkedIn profile? Are you going to adjust your profile? Maybe upgrade it. Are you going to start connecting more and sharing more content there?
[00:49:29] Or are you just not going to do it at all? Let me know, reach out to me on Instagram at the Teri Holland. And tell me, what is the one thing you are going to do differently after today?
[00:49:41] Now I know that you got value out of today's episode because I sure did. So make sure that you rate the show, leave me a written review. You know how much I love those. And share it with one person who you think could benefit from listening to this today. Thank you all for being here. And I will be back again later this week with another episode of success in mind. Until then bye.
[00:50:04] For now my friends.
