Going on holiday? Should you stay active on Linkedin, or take a break? Linkedin Safari Session 9/12

Okay, and Hello, and welcome, again, Simon chapters out in South Africa. Welcome, Simon. Thank you. And may, Jim James here in the UK in wonderful wheelchair. We're going to talk about LinkedIn. And Simon is a LinkedIn expert. And I'm an aspiring LinkedIn expert. But I'm an author and an entrepreneur. And I'm making so many mistakes with my LinkedIn profile that I've reached out to Simon, who's kindly agreed to help Simon. Last week you looked and were very polite, but also pretty brutal about the profile. What are we going to do this week? Because I have made quite a lot of changes, but I know that it's still not going to meet your standards. So where would you like to start today?

Exactly. So yeah, right. So last week, we spoke about the header section, the header, Banner, headshot, and the headline, and we touch on the backstory, then your backstory. And so you did some work on the header banner, kind of look at that in a second, the headshot and the headline. And the backstory is such an important thing, because it gives you a backbone for everything that you do content wise, with the posts. And with the why was like the threat that is running through all your posts. So it's very important that the backstory is well written or that you have clarity. First of all, what your backstory is. And I think one of the things a lot of people struggle with is it's almost like in film, the film is super simplistic. The character has one goal and one obstacle. And at the end of the story, they've achieved this and realise what's differently, we have so many facets to our personality, we've done so many things in our lives. So to come up with this one backstory that we can capture on the LinkedIn profile is really a challenge for a lot of people, because they don't really know what to choose. So today, I want to use the time that we have to look at seven questions or nine questions in total, that helps you to define this backstory to capture the elements. And we're going to do this by looking at your about section and then we can chat about these nine questions.

Okay, perfect. So so just checking. So where do you want to start

that start with a quick review of the header section? The headshots banner and the headline and then we look at the about section.

Okay, so I'm sharing my screen. Can you see that? No.

I want to turn up,

see. Alright, it's coming up now. Should be

loading. Drumroll.

Come on Riverside. Let's get that

patients are rising. There we are. Okay. Oh, okay. So let's look at the Harappan. And I see you've done substantial changes. Last week, we had a white header banner, that also looks already quite cool. Just saying the unknown doesn't printer. And you've replaced that with the core element in your case, which is a book that is going to be published in a couple of days or weeks. And you've chosen a nice colour black background works nicely with the red, red and black well chosen. So it's it's beautiful. attention grabbing because it's dark. So really jumps into your eye. And like that you move down your headshot, I can now see your full face. And I know that you don't have any hair. But that gives me that's okay, I can try. I'm chasing you on that one. So it gives me I can assess you as a person it gives more trust when it comes to your profile instance. Check of your face. Is this guy trustworthy? So that that's a headshot. And then I think one thing yet that you did brilliantly. I have not seen this before. The you've changed your name. Last time. That wasn't the age brackets. You see people who have a second name and the profile. And I think this is almost like a brand that you've created by having the A in brackets between Jim and James. So brilliant. I love Thank

you. Thank you for that. And I got rusty Shelton for that. By the way. Rusty shout out to rusty Shelton, who said, you know Jim James, unfortunately is a rock star in America. So I need to have sort of something a little bit different from my name. So I've got Jimmy James here and for my website and for my Twitter as well.

Exactly. I was looking you up and I found some users. I was like, Who's that guy? Yeah.

He has a lot more hair than I do.

like rock stars do I don't know what to do. Anyways. So a little tan from what I also see is, and then I see a lot of people not to, you now have a logo next to the unnoticed group. Last week, you did not have logo, reason why a lot of people don't have this because you have to have a company profile. And in your, in your like in your lifeline further down, you connect your company with that company page, and then this logo pops up. And a lot of people just have a LinkedIn template, which is a grey circle, something which looks very bland and boring. So that's nice, again, that you have this logo sitting here. The headline, the third element of the header section, you've changed. You've added something. So last week, I think we only had champion of the unnoticed intrapreneur. And now you've added if you need more recognition, then let's talk and I think that's already better start because it gives you an idea when to reach out, and it's some of the soft call to action, and shows that you are willing to speak with people. And I know okay, if I'm an entrepreneur enough, if I'm not, I haven't been noticed enough. I want more recognition than probably Jim is the person to talk to. So that's definitely a more gripping headline.

Yeah, tried to make it less of a washing list. And more of a you know, what's the next step? But I know it's done quite perfect.

Yeah, lots of stages. I mean, like Richard Branson, or other well known people, they don't really have to sort of have a call to action, because it's not a brand. But I think the league we play in, we have to be clear on what people can get from us because they don't know. Yeah,

no, that's right. And you kindly helped me as well with the talks about because that is in the creative studio module, which I think I had to turn on, I was looking for it, and you kindly shared a link, which we can also put in the show notes. Because if you can't find where to put the hashtags, they are in the creative studio for LinkedIn.

Cool. Now let's move down to the about section. Okay, and so we're going to look at the section on the background of nine questions that will help you to transform your about section.

Okay, that's a lot of work here. So okay, this one, I'll open some

go to click and see more. So we have the same view like

we're okay.

So the first thing you'll notice, it's, it's a wall of text. And I see this very often happen also with people writing posts that you see sort of like the the brief intro line and anxious and just like, Oh, sounds interesting, you click this thing, and then suddenly, you're hit by this wall of text. And I know a lot of people are speaking Gestalt myself, and not reading this whole thing because it's just too much. So first simple fix you can do here is to add more paragraphs, break it up. Ideally, American newspaper style, one sentence is one paragraph. And that makes it much easier for the eye to read that and sort of isn't a shock that you like.

Okay. And I think as when you put this into, for example, Grammarly, which I use and Quill bought, it actually said that this text would be read by sort of a university graduate, which and not not on one. Yeah. So although that would probably be my target audiences to entrepreneurs that have got some education, but it's interesting that we really do have to simplify, then I do have a wall of text, that's a bit of a kind of like, to your earlier point about over life, especially as you get to, you know, in my mid 56. Now, we've done a lot of things right. And so what you've identified earlier on is that we have to decide what to leave out exactly as much as what to leave in. Okay.

Yeah, and what is confusing and, and maybe one thing what you said was like, Yeah, I mean, the people who are supposed to read that are well educated, they shouldn't have problems read this text. And I always like to think about it is like, imagine you're, you're on the London subway, just like scrolling through a feed and you see this thing You don't have the mental capacity to read something that is maybe theoretically, your level of language mastery. So you need to really adapt to that situation and be as simple as possible. So it's not about what the reader can handle theoretically. But what reality isn't reality. Mostly, we are somewhere in between coffee staircase, subway on the bike. And then it's like, Okay, give me the thing in one sentence, make it easy. Don't use more than like the basic vocabulary.

Guilty as charged. Okay, so I'm in.

Okay, so I don't think we want to bore the listeners with reading the whole thing.

That's okay. I

think whoever wants to do this can do this,

those people that are listening, and for those people listening through the podcast and not watching, I basically got four paragraphs, and I've kind of used up that 2000 to 500 word allowance. And Simon's point is that it's really much too much. And I've gone through, you know, my early experience, my middle experience, what I've been doing, where I'm going. So it's kind of 56 years, in two and a half, 1000 words. So Simon's point is I really need to get down to a why would that be of interest to someone that I want to work with? To talk with me? Okay, it's not my life story. It's about how it relates to I need to serve. Okay, so what

what aspects of your life story need to show for people to resonate with you? And there are nine very simple questions. And we're going to walk through these questions and three kinds of scattered answer. And I think that will give people an idea of what to look for. And the first two questions are

close by. So I close my screen and stop sharing. Because it may be a distraction. Right,

exactly. So the first question is really very simple. It's like, who is your hero? And who's your villain? Who do you root for? And who are you against?

Yeah, so I'm, I'm for the entrepreneur that is building something that can change lives. And so I'm for those people. And I'm against the big city like turgid company that has got scale, but not necessarily skill that's maybe dominating just through being politically savvy, or being manipulative of a market. So no, I'm, I'm in favour of those people that are creating positive change, not people that are sitting on established practice.

Hmm, that's beautiful. Okay. And I think that then ties nicely to the next question, what? And the next question is What struck you what held you back from what you wanted in life when you when you started, or when when you started your company, and to share the story with me that nicely ties back to that?

Yeah, I think that really, like so many people, you know, that are entrepreneurs. When I grew up, I didn't come from a family of entrepreneurs. So there wasn't sort of that example, but also in the UK, this in back in the 70s and 80s, a sort of a sense that somehow business and money were not truly good things manufacturers, Britain, which was sort of loads of money, and somehow that was, you know, sort of uncivilised in a funny way. So kind of no real role models that were doing it and a sort of a general sense that somehow talking about money was somehow, you know, not to be done. So sort of personal and social pressures. Simon, I guess.

And you mentioned another thing, which was that you weren't corporate and you felt like that's not your place. He was stuck. Yeah, in a corporate world. That's what I tried

working. Yeah, I tried working for a large multinational and sitting in meetings with 14 people and coming out at after three hours, nothing gets done. That wasn't for me, I only managed a couple of years of that. I couldn't manage the pace of it.

And what held you back? That's us from moving on from that thing. And that stayed?

Well, I think at the beginning, there was a sort of sense of well, how do you go from dissatisfaction as an employee to being self employed? How do you give up the money give up the car, give up the the Q das and everything being done for you to taking all the risks, right, and and investing all those things. In the end, I had a physical issue where I just was I got depressed and couldn't get out of bed. And so, after a week of just finding myself completely unmotivated to go to work, I decided that actually, I had to figure out the other side of that equation, because the staying where I was was being unhealthy for me

hit a wall. Yep. Interesting, then then there was a good say trigger or epiphany that you had. And interestingly, in your case, it was not something that happened at that moment. And I found it interesting, because very often, we try to sort of have a linear narrative of our lives. But I think often we make experiences, or we had experienced in the past, that at that moment was like, okay, but only in retrospect, and men, sometimes many years, back or many, many years in the future, suddenly, it's like this big thing. And I think you had a very interesting story that I would love to hear again.

Well, thank you, Simon, I think, as you say, really, you know, when I was 16, I want to place on Operation rally. And I'm sorry, you're when I was 17, I was on I got a place an operation rally, which had to compete to get on. And I realised that I would never make enough money, working selling toys, three pounds, 50 an hour, whatever it was back then. In the time that it would take me, I would never make enough money to get to that trip in Australia. And so I thought, well, what can I do that would get people to give me some, you know, some support, and I decided to jump out of an aeroplane and buy? Yeah, that's right, with a parachute. And I got it sponsor claims. But if I do something other people are afraid of, maybe they'll give me money, because I'm overcoming my fear. And they can overcome a little bit of their fear with me. And so I managed to raise the money to go on Operation rally through doing this sponsored event. And then I went to a local Outfitters and said, Look, if you give me a discount on my clothing, and boots and backpack, I will get you into the local newspaper. And they said, Yes. And I went to the newspaper, and they covered the story. And, you know, I was 17. And I still don't really understand, to be honest, how I made all that must be quite shocking for them to see the sort of young man coming in with an idea. But somehow, that then created the catalyst that actually, I could raise this money. And the other people needed what I could broker, the store needed publicity, and the media needed a story. And I was able to package that for everybody. And it was very successful. So yeah, that was my kind of Genesis, really, as a young man. I then went to university and then tried to work for other people. So I did try and ignore the lesson that I've learned as a 17 year old hold event, they came back

in an effort, but it wasn't enough.

Ya know, that? Well, I physically, I found myself getting unwell. So yeah, so that was the beginning of it really was just that idea somehow, that other people would would want, what I could broke or what I could package together.

Beautiful, then let's jump forward to another question that needs to be answered. That is one who, what, what inspired you or whatever? Who's your mentor, like on a high level? And I think in your case, it's an interesting, interesting case. Because we identified that there was no real mentor. And

yeah, I think that's I think we had in those days role models like Freddie Laker so Freddie Laker who started the first airlines budget airlines to America, we had the beginnings of Richard Branson. But in sort of middle class Britain, we didn't have the internet, of course, so many of you have to remember that then it was whatever newspapers or magazines that you saw. And my family were living in Africa and America. And at the time. We didn't know those kinds of people. We knew authors and academics and social workers and political campaigners. So there wasn't really a mentor. You know, and I think that's partly why you and I think share the similar sort of background as it being creative and coming from a filmmaking background. And I suppose that's that's one of the issues isn't is not having a mentor when you're young part of why you decide when you're older that you'd like to try and solve that problem for other people.

Absolutely. And I think in your case, it's nice because it gives you gives you a story now a It makes your story more rounded, because you now want to be that to others. But you didn't have the mantra of inspiration to guide on getting noticed. And sort of in my mind nicely closes the loop of, of what you aim to achieve with a book was your work with your with the knowledge you share so that more entrepreneurs can get this inspiration and this visibility.

So thanks for that. So I think that also what you're highlighting, which I think is very powerful, is that your story doesn't necessarily fit in to a, you know, a regular narrative. I mean, everyone's narrative is their own narrative. And I think part of what you're doing with me is to give me a sense of that that's okay, that because I don't have a particularly regular pass in the last 3040 years. And what you're helping me to really understand is it rather than trying to write something that I think people might want to read, I need to write what I've got. And see value in a very, very smart

audience. Yeah. Cool. Excellent. So I'm looking forward to seeing a rewritten about section next week. So we can share that with the listeners. And a another thing that I wanted to touch on. I know we're tight on time. But let's quick take a super quick look at your posting, posting timeline, and what you post.

Okay, and so where do we want to do that?

If you could share your

LinkedIn, or share my screen and

recent shares section where you see all the posts that you've done,

okay, here we go. So for those people on the audio, only, we've gone back to my website, okay. And we've gone back to my profile. So I want to click on my name, do I say that right?

Tuesday, I'm not quite sure I have all the links saved. If you scroll down, and you click on further, further, further, you further go to activity activity here, click on activity, not at the bottom, select Show all activity. And then you can choose posts.

Okay, so now for those people that can't see, we've gone to my place where actually gyms activity. Okay, so I'm in today, you can see my website. Thanks.

So this week, I just want to focus on one thing, and if you scroll down, so you posted like two hours ago, the post before that was with no no likes nothing. The post before that was two hours ago with no lights. And the post before that was three hours ago with no likes. High. The post before that was 17 hours, was starting to say no likes 19 hours. So the the thing that I want to point at is not that you have no likes, but that you post a lot. And yeah, the challenge that we have here is that you have sort of a certain allocation of possible views per day. And if you post like three times in quick succession, you basically cannibalise your own posts. So okay, what you have to do is you and I mean, it's a lot of work putting just putting it together. So what I would ask you to do to at maximum, do one post per day, and do that at a time when most people are probably online or active, which is in the morning, because what you're aiming for is to get maximum engagement views, and even a click on the See More link counts as a positive signal for LinkedIn. You want to get as much of these in the first two hours. And if you post again, after like 90 minutes, or like 10 minutes, then you basically start from scratch and you sort of eat into your daily allocation. So

Oh, I see. So that's a there's an allocation from LinkedIn. Sort of. Yeah, I see. So in that sense, the the point here I'm hearing from you is it's about value not about volume Simon.

Exactly. And so, that would be the one thing that I want to ask you from today on or this week that you reduce the amount of posts that you do to one per day. Okay, the next session we can also look into the quality because there are also some things in the posts that I would do differently that probably would then help to, to get more engagement. And so comments likes on your content.

So here's a question. We've been putting out all these posts, because with the podcast, we got Tuesdays and Thursdays. And we make a trailer. You know, for that on a Monday and a Wednesday, plus, we have the book, and then we make articles from the podcast. So we're generating a lot of content, we're repurposing a lot of content. How do you suggest then that we deal with what we post in LinkedIn, so that we're not abusing people. And yet, on the other hand, kind of meeting some of our objectives in terms of sharing and getting the show noticed?

So the first thing to look at is to, as you said, quality, what are what is the, if I have to make a choice out of 10 things that I could talk about what is the one thing that probably has the highest value to my audience. And as you said, you have you have the book yet the podcast, and you have the takeaways from the podcast. So now think about and we can do this together over the next week, stuff, like put together a content plan or like a structure, and try to really focus on individual things. And the strategic challenge here is to pick the one thing that triggers people to explore more things. So with a podcast, for example, with a podcast, I mean, there's so many things that you cover in one episode. And you can either, like try to cover the whole episode, which is a lot of stuff to talk about, and probably overwhelming similar with with the backstory, you've done so many things in your life, you cannot possibly cover everything. So what does, then there's one thing that you have to cover, and that possibly will get more people to engage, because the I don't know that three seconds, they have checking out your profile, they only see one thing that resonates with them, and they can make a decision. But if they have three seconds for your profile, and they see five things, then that leaves them only with the point six, six seconds per second. So it's even harder for them to make a decision. So we really want to identify this one piece per post per day, that will then sort of pull in more people that then can engage with yourself, if that makes sense.

Okay, so maybe, maybe one strategy is what we need to do is to summarise the learnings, from those podcasts into one post. And then still leave some things on the table where we say, you know, okay, here's some things we've learned from our guests this week, or this today. Maybe the carousel in the three lessons, we've learned one, two, and three, to find out more. Go here. And actually, one of the things we're guilty of is we use one of these, you know, platforms Zoho, and that I realise some of these platforms that enable you to kind of schedule and re multiply posts is actually they're almost doing this disservice because we're sending out more content for the sake of volume, rather than curating a small number of quality posts. Because that's a lot.

Yeah, and I think there's sort of a fundamental misunderstanding with with LinkedIn, it is it is social media, it's not media. So by just publishing, following, using a tool like Zoho, it's very easy. You can like put out a lot of stuff. But it's not social, just media subject, you're just pushing your stuff into people's faces. And what LinkedIn loves, and we're going to talk about this in future episodes, is your engagement around posts. So we see a lot of people that don't get tracked on LinkedIn, they just sort of push their content out pieces, pieces pieces, and then never engage. And then LinkedIn. LinkedIn rewards people who engage on content with other people being social. And if you fail to do this and you just push you get sort of sent to the to the to the centre to the basement of LinkedIn and you will not be seen.

Well, that's a great way to leave assignment. Yeah, go into the sin bin but it's as a scripture and Boni talks about you know we need to have you know, more listening Unless talking and I've definitely been guilty then through my LinkedIn activities of kind of shouting indiscriminately and not doing any listening. So Simon chapters out, once again, a great session, we just do 30 minutes. So thank you for session two. I've got a little bit of homework to do on my About section. Any final words before we

sign off, I'm looking forward to your new about section and our next call next week.

Me too, Simon. Thank you and be well in South Africa. Thank you to everyone for watching, listening. Bye. And we will sign off and Simon Chapas those details will be in the show notes of course and also on YouTube. You can watch this where we're sending that and Simon will guide me on the best place in LinkedIn to post information about this. And we'll be back this time as you will black 12 o'clock on Thursday of next week to carry on the sessions. Thank you so much for watching. Thank you

Greg