How to Build a Superstar Brand on LinkedIn w/ Niraj Kapur

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Welcome to She Sells Radio so excited for today’s conversation and you know I

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was recently doing an audit of our most popular topics on the podcast and just

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really digging in to see like what do you want to hear more about and I wasn’t surprised that it seems like overall for

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our listeners the top rated topic is around mindset and abundance but the second one was

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about prospecting and lead generation specifically on LinkedIn and so today I

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am super excited because I get to bring you someone who I think embodies expertise in both of those areas both

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from the mindset and abundance space as well as just Pro Ninja level LinkedIn

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lead generation tips so I want to share with you a little bit about my guests today and then go ahead and tee him up

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Niraj Kapur is a really incredible human being who I’ve met over this past

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year through the Salesforce top influencer program and I would say he’s one of the best in the industry at

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coaching and training on LinkedIn so I want to share with you just a bit of his professional bio and then we’re going to

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dive into the conversation for it today after 23 years in London running sales

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teams Niraj wanted to raise the standards of sales which I love so he wrote everybody worked Works in sales

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which became an Amazon international bestseller he then set up his own sales coaching and training company to keep

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businesses accountable to help them achieve results he’s delivered LinkedIn training and sales coaching to over 400 small

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businesses and solopreneurs in May of 2022 Niraj was announced as a

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top sales influencer in the world to follow by Salesforce he’s also a top linked invoice in sales to follow by

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LinkedIn and just because this is fun in his free time Niraj plays drums in a rock band and raises money for Charities

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like November so naresh welcome to She Sells Radio I’m so glad to have you here today no thank you so much for having me

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Elyse and thank you also for that fantastic introduction seriously people are often when they go on stage have music pumping I’m just going to have

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your voice speaking about me you’re so much battery hey we all need to pump up sometime I need one sometimes

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we’ll introduce you Thunderstruck. That’s gone now this is at least well I know sometimes when we get on our

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Salesforce called you’ve got the AC DC shirt on which I love about you different vibe today which I also love but

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um I think it just shows you know part of what we’re going to talk about today too which is how you can bring your true

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self to what you’re doing on social media specifically with LinkedIn and and just sharing and you know I know Niraj

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you’ve got a really powerful personal story which I think for today because you’ve talked about it so much online

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right so we’re not going to go too deep into so anything you want to share about your background that’s helpful for the

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audience I’d love to of course have you weave that in but I also was just doing some Googling ahead of time and I was

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like if someone wants to know his personal story I think they can pretty much Google you right at this point and

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hear some other interviews that you’ve done so um so with that let’s dive in to the

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conversation today and I want to really I want to hone in on LinkedIn

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specifically and here’s what I think is super compelling so again it’s like

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anyone can call themselves a LinkedIn expert right but in 2021 LinkedIn

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awarded only 10 people in the world a top voice in sales and you were one of

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them and I know you’ve used LinkedIn to grow your Audience by 300 you’ve doubled your Revenue by 200 percent and you’ve

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done it in from what I can see outside looking in a way that really aligns with

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what we believe in and appreciate in this community which is that abundance mindset like paying it forward sharing

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your truth um sharing more of your personal brand so I think it’s going to be a really

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exciting conversation to talk about today so um anything before I’ve got some specific questions for you on LinkedIn

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but before we dive in is there anything specific you want to share about your background or kind of

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what got you to this point I know we talked about the process of building your brand on LinkedIn and that might be

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something interesting just to kind of tee up for people who maybe don’t have any context but I’ll give you space to

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uh to share what you want to share there a lot of people when they’re online then

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have a fear that they don’t have enough knowledge about LinkedIn uh or who am I to talk about LinkedIn a

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lot of people say well I don’t have much knowledge what do we talk about and it’s very important to understand that I spent my life working in sales and I

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spent my life as a sales trainer and until 2020 I was a nobody on

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LinkedIn it’s very important to remember that I had like 1 000 followers I was a nobody every person trying to make

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LinkedIn um I just want to pause I just want to pause for one second on that in case anybody didn’t hear that in 2021 you’re

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awarded a top sales voice a word by LinkedIn a year following what you just

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shared which was 18 months yeah yeah it started properly on a november-ish uh

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October November 2021 when I got that award so it’s only 18 months I turned it around very quickly that’s remarkable so

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no matter where somebody is when they’re listening today even if they’re like I feel so far behind or I don’t have a

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lot of followers what I’m hearing from you is if you’re intentional and if you implement what I

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know we’re going to talk about today you can really make some Headway and some progress it’s very important listeners

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know we can do this because I do not have ridiculously high levels of EQ I do

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not have a degree I am not the world’s I’m a good learner I’m not the fastest learner I do not work 18 hours a day or

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even 16 hours a day I do not sleep four hours a night I sleep eight hours a night you know to do what I did it’s

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going to sound really boring but so much of it this just consistency and showing up most people give up so quickly and on

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LinkedIn and in business and in sales you can’t do that you have to show up especially when you don’t feel like it

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you know today’s national holiday in England in the UK I’m based it’s a

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national holiday most people aren’t working but I showed up today I started work at half past seven this morning as

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usual I went for a morning walk as usual I did learning for half an hour as you usual that a LinkedIn post as usual

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spent one hour planning and thinking as usual spent one hour doing charity work as you saw every day I show up and I

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have a schedule for the day and all about making the world better or about making me better I love that I love that

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so much that’s something that we teach a lot about the power of routine and a lot

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of times clients will ask me like well do you do you meditate on the weekends or do you work out on the weekends it’s

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like it’s a day I only do it if I want to feel good that

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day right it doesn’t really matter what day it is so already I think someone can

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listen and start to just hear that mindset of consistency but not hustle which I very much align with and

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appreciate um as well so take us to I think what

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would be interesting would be to start and look at that Journey that 18-month journey of what you were doing because I

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think we’ll be able to pull some really tangible takeaways that we can start implement

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planning in our own LinkedIn routine where you went from a thousand followers hadn’t built a Big Brand to now you know

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an 18 months linkedin’s top one of linkedin’s top sales voices so what did that Journey look like for you

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the journey was very simple I was a sales trainer I was sharing sales tips maybe selling a bit more than what I

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should have been but trying to sell sales tips and get work through Linkedin and I had a decent business it was

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breaking even making some profit but not a huge amount and then once lockdown happened within

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48 hours all my clients cancel for the year my Revenue went to zero and I think

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because I had a mortgage to pay and because my daughter was in her second year of University I panicked because

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I’m like how do I pay the bills and how do I help my childhood that’s what you’re concerned about as a business

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owner and as a parent and I didn’t have an answer because my business was only two years old at the time and you know

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now it normally almost five years to my business I feel so much more experience I feel like I’ve been doing this forever

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it’s kind of like dog years right

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so my clients will be having money and I’ve really panicked and I wrote my second book in lockdown which protected

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me for about two months it gave me some Revenue but it wasn’t enough long term and then after a few months my clients

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approached me saying look we have no money for sales training but can you do LinkedIn interesting and I’m like of

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course I can so I I hired Daniel Disney of course I think you and I both Daniel I hired him he did a lot of work with me

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I did his course I read his books I read every LinkedIn book there was going and I went I called everybody I knew running

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a networking about saying look right now times are very challenging I want to teach your delegates virtually how to

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use LinkedIn and I would give five minute talks 10 minute talks 50 minute talks I must have given about I’ve lost

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count 45 50 talks free of charge but what I was doing was I was building my craft I know how to speak publicly I’ve

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done that already but speaking about a brand new subject it’s much more tricky and I think when you do anything new at

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least it’s very important to understand you’re starting at the bottom don’t go with this I didn’t go with this attitude that I’m a sales trainer I shouldn’t be

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doing this or I know everything I literally knew nothing and I started the very beginning and you make mistakes

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luckily because I knew how to speak I got away with a lot I know 100 on camera I know how to raise

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my voice I understand tone being a public speaker helped massively of course at the same time you’re teaching

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something new for the first time and the one thing I learned was when you’re working with anybody you must

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have calls to action whether it’s a networking event whether it’s a virtual talk or whether it’s a live conference and when you get people action points

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and things to do at the end of your talk I find they learn so much more and

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learning at least the progress leads to results and that’s what I’m all about right right so one thing I want to just

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gosh there’s there’s a lot I’d love to pull out of that but one thing that I’m really getting from what you said is

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just that willingness to almost humble yourself and say I mean I’m just I’m

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taking I’m putting myself in your shoes and it’s like in 48 hours going from successful sales coaching business to

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suddenly no clients which I can only imagine you know what that was like but then your willingness to say I’m gonna

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get up and I’m gonna start again and I’m gonna have a beginner’s mindset if I need to

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um and that’s something we always we talk about and teach just from like a mindset and more like a spiritual

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principle here in the Community is that in every hardship there’s an equal and opposite blessing now you may not see at

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the time what that blessing is often you don’t but it’s interesting to hear your story and say I know a lot of people

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would probably have thrown in the towel and instead you said let me like I said like humble myself

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right and start again here and then to see the blessing that has come out of that right but you’re still creating and

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still um and and still manifesting is pretty powerful so all right so going out okay

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45 50 free talks built your brand consistently so somebody can be thinking

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about that maybe and think like what audience could I get in front of who can I go out and speak even if it’s for free

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um to start and and share anything else during that time that you think really made a big difference for

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you in terms of building the brand you have now on LinkedIn the biggest difference without a Dodge because at

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the time I was sharing things that were helpful to people no doubt about it but it wasn’t really that much different to

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what other LinkedIn coaches were talking about there was nothing really to separate me um one of the best lessons I learned was

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the importance of being different to a competition and starting out not enough people think about that I’m not just

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talking about LinkedIn or sales I’m talking about whatever industry you work in one of the most important things to

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do is stand out and I stood out by default because of the time I’ve gone through you know I’ve just been through

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a very painful divorce before lockdown and so I was trying to do online dating and so I was writing about my online

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dating experiences quite a bit and you know two years ago LinkedIn was a platform people really didn’t use that

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much for personal stories now of course so many people use the personal stories and selfies but two years ago not that

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many people were and you would have pictures of me at a restaurant on the table opposite was empty saying I’ve been stood up again

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it’s a horrible feeling it’s just awful but you know what in business sometimes you turn up and the class don’t turn up

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either and they don’t give you a reason why and it’s not what happens to your life is how you react so I would take my

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personal pain and most of the time I would try and turn it into a business story in some cases I just couldn’t and

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in some cases I would just say you know what loneliness is horrible and it’s so difficult when you’re post divorce

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you’re a man in his late 40s a special amount of color in his late 40s uh the

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few people in my life who I thought were my best friends weren’t they were my wife’s friends you know I had nothing

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and you kind of feel like you’re really alone in the world and what happened was through the power of vulnerability and talking about my

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personal story all of a sudden I went from having a thousand to two thousand to five thousand to ten thousand to

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having a massive number of followers interesting what I have to say because I wasn’t just sharing LinkedIn tips

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anymore I was sharing my personal story and how that relates to sales or

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business or LinkedIn and what had happened was after about a year and a half of doing that

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and during that year and a half I went from being stood up to getting rejected on dates to finally leaving London I

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worked in London 25 years and I consider that my home but what had happened was

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the struggle of lockdown the struggle of online dating and it just kind of beat me in life

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every time I’ve been beaten up always find the strength to come back I’ve always had the energy to come back might take a few days might even take a few

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weeks but I always have that resilience and this was the first time I just wasn’t coping and my parents were

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amazing my parents were based in Ireland and they said you know what put everything you own in storage come back home for three months and recover

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and at the time obviously now I realized how lucky I was but the time I felt really ashamed I’m a

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coach and I can’t even take care of myself I have to go to my retired parents it was really humiliating and

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again I wrote about that on LinkedIn and so many people came forward saying hey don’t worry we got divorced I’d go live

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for my parents again in my 40s and people are so supportive and so kind and because I humanize myself by not just

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talking about business but sharing my personal story and my personal struggle in a world of social media where people

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spend so much time bragging and exaggerating it made me the real deal and that’s what my following took off

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and that’s when my business took off because I distinguished myself from other coaches by sharing my personal

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story it’s such a gosh I mean it’s it’s like

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to hear you say that I think someone could hear and say okay I can see how that happens right and yet there’s

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there’s also so much fear for most people around being vulnerable and um

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and dropping the ego and was that I guess what sort of mindset tip would you give

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to somebody because sometimes people will say too like teach from when I say teach from the scar not from the wound

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so there’s different approaches to do this and obviously yours yours has worked tremendously if someone is afraid

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to share something they’re going that’s going on for them right now for fear of I’m going to lose clients or I’m not

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gonna look a certain way like what would you say to them oh very simple nobody is

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judging you as much as you’re judging yourself nobody nobody is sitting on LinkedIn

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going I can’t probably people are dealing with their own stuff they’re not sitting there judging you even who you think they are there might be a few

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people who do it might be a few jealous competitors the bigger you get the more haters unfortunately you’re gonna attract but generally speaking most

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people aren’t sitting there going hmm let’s follow me around just like they’re really not they’re trying to deal with their own stuff that they’ll follow the

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content but they’re not sitting there judging me and also of course now it’s easy for me to say that because I have

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the confidence now that maybe didn’t have two years ago and of course there is a certain naivete to what I was doing

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because I didn’t know any better and quite often like me don’t know any better you just do it and it’s often

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when it works out right but we know too much sometimes you just don’t take a risk you know yeah wow well it ties in

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so I thank you for sharing that because I think it just it gives someone context for your journey and and I think it also

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humanizes the process which I really appreciate um and you know you talk about this on

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your website so everybody works in sales.com someone can go and check out your site and um you’ve got a really

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great section on LinkedIn tips and one of the things you say there because I want to start I want to kind of talk a

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little bit about moving into this year what should somebody be thinking about for LinkedIn but you say

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look at what your competition is doing and do the opposite so can you can you speak a little bit more to that because

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I think you kind of you spoke to that a bit there but but give us a little bit more context for what that means certainly

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it’s important to be aware of the competition of course that’s very important and look at what they’re doing

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so I looked at what I was doing what my competition were doing so I was telling personal stories and back then my

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competition weren’t I was um doing video I’m back then my competition weren’t

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doing video I was told to do video once a week I hesitated because of my age and

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anybody listening the lack of my follicle hairs in my head you know or because my large nose or the fact I have

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ears like Dumbo I’m the last person I can’t imagine why anybody want to see my face like I just don’t

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um and so you know I did hesitate but none of my competition were doing video and I did but not just video on LinkedIn

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over 60 of people watch video with a signed off which means you need subtitles and any of my competitions

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were trying to copy me none of them using subtitles I was so again it’s about standing out

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um charity work and philanthropy is a big part of my life and so I spoke with the Charities I supported I said you

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know what it doesn’t matter how difficult your life is never stop giving to others and I do movember fundraiser every year you know every November I

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spend most of it raising money for good causes in November especially and I put my ridiculous mustache on LinkedIn and

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social media my competition don’t do that none of my comments so again they

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don’t do it I will they’re on top of personal stories I will they don’t do video I will do videos on LinkedIn is

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one of the best ways to generate leads because it makes you a person of authority are you seeing so I’m really

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curious um just to know what you’re saying so as we record this like you said it’s actually a holiday it’s January 2nd and

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this this will Air likely it’ll probably be sometime in March so it’s going to be a little bit later but we’re still going

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to be relatively early in 2023 as this comes out so what are you seeing with

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video on LinkedIn right now as we go into this year so is it is it better to do a live is it better to do

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pre-recorded like what should we be thinking about if we’re going to be doing video content video clips are

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vital people rarely have time to take 30 to 60 minutes out of their day to watch LinkedIn live they just don’t have the

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time their folks is almost a close friend of yours or potentially a client might watch it but even my closest

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friends I don’t watch LinkedIn lives live because I’m running a business I’ll maybe watch it in the evening uh I’ll

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watch reruns as opposed to live but even then I really have to like you to do it again

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so you know up until about a few months ago watching a 90 second clip was fine

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now it’s come down to 60 seconds so again a good 60 second clip is all you need and you can see look if you want to

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watch the full video here’s a link but 60 seconds is what people have people it’s very difficult getting people’s

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tension span and it’s getting tougher and tougher because people are distracted from every single Medium as

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I’m sure you know so do a good 60 second video clip make sure you have subtitles

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that are very very important because people are watching it in transport in coffee shops in an office in many cases

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when the kids are sleeping so it’s important to have subtitles yeah yeah awesome got it and so with your I know

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one of the things you teach too is just consistency is key right and that can I’m assuming consistency in all areas

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including posting I’d love to hear a little bit more about just what consistency looks like for you but I’d

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love to First say on the video front if we’re so someone’s like okay great 60 second videos I get it everyone has a

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short attention span these days so it makes perfect sense for you is that a once a week type of thing is that daily

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how does that how do those shorter videos work within your overall content mix

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it’s really important on LinkedIn to vary what you’re posting so one day a

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week I’ll do a video okay because that’s it doesn’t get as much engagement as other posts but it’s where I get my leads from most of the time uh one day a

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week I’ll do a PDF document so today’s PDF topic is simply about routines and habits and how to have a great day

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because that’s really important to a lot of people uh one day a week I’ll just I’ll do a

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text only post where I’ll share some valuable tips on sales one day a week

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I’ll do a personal post you know on the first day of each month people look forward to my post called wins and

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losses on the first of January I spoke about December in December I went to London to see my uh LinkedIn connections

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that’s how far I would get on a plane just to go hug and see people because those relationships are important uh

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then I’ll say something personal like my daughter came over from England to see me and we did a Game of Thrones tour there’s a picture of us at the dark

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Hedges because I’m a big Game of Thrones spanner so is she I will talk about how it Fitness coaches all sent me the exact

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same copy and paste message in the exact same format please don’t do this it’s awful awesome and I’ll say something

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like you know don’t send me a generic LinkedIn invite I get them all day long and I reject them if you want to stand

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out send me a personalized invite a personalized invite isn’t we both live

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in Europe so do I let’s connect Sawyer post I saw you talk about this it

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really resonated with me simply saying you like my content is irrelevant to me because anybody can say that it doesn’t

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make you interesting or special when I connect with people I only send one or two advice a day at the mouse now but

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even then when I do that it’s very specific I’ll look at somebody’s profile I will check out their website I will

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think can I get value to this person who is this person what do they do how do they work you know what do they achieved

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I spend time really thinking about anybody before I connect with them and that’s what everybody should do before

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they do business you know most people don’t make the effort so again if you want to stand out Simply make the effort

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it’s it isn’t difficult for the way nothing I’m teaching you here is complicated and it’s very important to

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understand that um I want to ask a question about that so the Outreach piece so I read Daniel’s

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book too and I think it’s I’ve recommended it to um just some clients I think everyone has different approaches here right so I

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know I think if I’m remembering correctly part of the strategy there is like 25 outbound connection requests a

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day when you’re first building and what I’m hearing you say which I resonate with quite a bit because I know if I get

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a copy and paste invite message it’s like I’m not gonna I’m not gonna accept it you’re doing it more intentionally

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with that one to two highly curated ones when you were really building was it were you doing highly curated 25

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invitations a day to grow and build or what did that look like for you yeah it depends look if you want to scale your

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business as seven figures figures a year absolutely fine my goal is to go to six or eight seven figures a year this one

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this is six a year sure uh again it’s not even a high six a year because I don’t forget before I was divorced I had

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the English Country House [Music] my wife had a great sports car we had first class holidays we lived what I

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would call a life of luxury okay it took us almost 18 years of marriage to get there I want to make up very clear you

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know I don’t spend it took us such a long time to get there and when we got there I the first month is lovely don’t

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get me wrong when you first achieve that kind of financial success it is wonderful but then after a month it’s like this is

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really not what I was expecting and it was disappointing and it really shocked

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and surprised me how disappointing it was because she grew up in poverty in India so for her having an English

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country how I spent everything I grew up in middle class home in Ireland where most of the houses are big anyway because it’s so much cheaper so for me

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having a big property it was lovely but it just didn’t mean that much to me but it meant everything to her

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um we end up just working day and night to pay a a big house and bills and by the end of the month we had no money

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left I’m like this is I don’t like this and so many of my neighbors you know went and skiing holidays and some of my

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neighbors either inherited money or married into money so for them it wasn’t that big a deal

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but for us we were killing ourselves day and night just to get by I didn’t like that having a big home didn’t mean to me

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what I really thought it would and I realized we made a big mistake by doing that but the problem is you you have

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this lovely life you don’t want to give up and so what happens is really slowly cracks start appearing but they’re so

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small you just don’t see them and they get slightly bigger and you ignore them and think I’ll just work through it

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and then what happens is the cracks get bigger and bigger and bigger and our daughter went to University and then it

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just the marriage pretty much ended and we did try we had date nights we tried

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to keep it alive we ended up having a last minute holiday to India thinking let’s try and save this and just before

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day and night because we knew it was over and it was a really heartbreaking hard end and it really was

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um but I think it’s important to mention that because a lot of people especially young people when they get into sales or

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business they see the fancy pictures on Instagram and they get carried away

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and they think don’t get me wrong I I I’ve made those mistakes myself I’ve been to become a millionaire on a

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weekend courses you know manifest your dream seven figure income you know I’ve done all these things so I

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know what they’re all about and unfortunately if you want to be successful in life first of all people

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vastly underestimate at least how much hard work they have to put in you will rarely achieve anything great in life

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working nine to five I’m sorry you just won’t and the second thing is don’t make

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money your number one goal make living a life of purpose Tech customer guy has really messed up his past and luck been

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lucky enough to come back strong most men are my age that I’ve not met in the last few years

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have got an addiction to drugs I’m talking description drugs or an addiction to alcohol

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and they may never get better and I was lucky enough to get out of that because my mindset

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because of my Tony Robbins events I’ve been to because of my determination my personal development I saw myself with

27:42

very good people you know what my desire to be a good father and I think a bit of luck that my

27:48

parents are still alive and they’re great role models to me so I got a bit lucky but most people don’t so please

27:54

don’t make the desire of money the number one thing of running a business or working for somebody else money is

28:00

very important of course but do not make it the most important thing make fulfillment and purpose the most

28:06

important thing and the money to your surprise will come along ah I well I love that

28:13

you brought that up Mirage because I think you know so many members of our community they do come because they desire greater

28:20

Financial abundance and so kind of my specialty is I help women get to six multi six and seven figures in terms

28:27

of Revenue and but to your point and I’m so have you ever read the book prosper

28:34

by Randy Garnett and Ethan Willis I haven’t so prosper by yeah Randy Garn

28:41

um and then Ethan Willis so I was introduced to Randy recently and I was I was reading it this morning and what

28:47

you’re saying just reminds me so much of of the book which is about what is true prosperity for you right because I think

28:54

when it’s not coming from a grounded place and I know in my like I’ve had my own money Journey too where there’s

29:00

definitely a time that was all about like the money grab and if I can just make this amount then I’ll feel successful then I’ll feel happy in what

29:07

I realized for me was it was really about validation and I didn’t feel good enough and so I thought if I can just make a certain amount then I’ll feel

29:15

good enough about myself but the problem was it was never enough and so to your

29:21

point um like really knowing what is true success for me what is true prosperity

29:27

for me and that’s not just Financial right that’s also emotional happiness

29:33

quality of life like you talked about going out for a walk this morning and you’re going to shut down for the day after this interview and I just think

29:40

it’s important I guess what I’m taking from what you said is you could probably go out and send well

29:47

I don’t know if LinkedIn would let you do this you can send 100 connection requests today probably not because of LinkedIn [Laughter]

29:56

my personal Target not because I read this in a book not because someone else is doing it it’s what I think I should

30:02

do but what’s important for me and what feels most aligned as well is that is that what you’re saying

30:08

yes and look at me wrong it takes time finding out you can’t just not everybody knows exactly what their purpose is in

30:14

Life or what their meaning is in life and if they’re ever unsure I always say to people look it’s a really simple

30:20

exercise write down get a piece of paper and put a line in the middle on the left

30:25

hand side write down five things that make you incredibly happy um on the right hand side workout harder

30:32

to monetize it because that’s important as well and quite often by doing these exercises you’ll find out what you want

30:38

like for me you know people say your sales trainer do you help people with sales and I said yes but really what I

30:43

do is I serve people that’s a very different answer because when I meet people you know a prospecting client about a deal I’m not

30:51

thinking I must close this deal I’m gonna smash this deal I must win this client I think I must really serve this

30:56

client and give them as much value as I possibly can it’s a very different attitude um you get another attitude of trying to

31:02

help other people it makes the whole business process so much more enjoyable as well it really

31:07

does yes which is it speaks to something that I wanted to talk with you about here and

31:13

and I think um gosh there’s so much I want to talk with you about when it comes to both mindset and Linkedin I gotta be mindful

31:20

of our time but let’s so so let’s do this um I want to talk one more tactical

31:25

piece for LinkedIn moving into 2023 and then I want to talk about the mindset piece for a moment um before we wrap if

31:32

that’s cool with you um so moving into this year and again we’ll probably a few months into the

31:38

year when people are listening but is there anything else that you’re focused on this year with LinkedIn specifically

31:44

anything that you think is different or new or just something we should be focused on if we’re wanting to grow Our

31:50

Brands and our platforms there so be consistent

31:55

vary your content and one of the most important things you can do when it comes to sales especially

32:01

artbond is to leverage LinkedIn video and Linkedin voice notes now what I mean

32:07

by that is I’ve been doing voicemails for over a year now and I’m still shocked number of people I

32:12

speak to who go oh my God thank you the first person to send me a voice I’m like really they’ve been around

32:18

and our good simple things like wishing people a happy birthday against a 30-second voice note uh Elyse I just

32:25

wanted to wish you an absolutely amazing birthday I know it’s a Tuesday it’s a weeknight you’re probably not going to get a chance to quite drinking and have fun but you know what I hope you have an

32:32

absolutely amazing birthday because at my age I’m 59 but between 41 and 49 nobody celebrate my birthday so I’m just

32:39

gonna be really celebrate your birthday in style happy birthday sending best wishes across the Atlantic to you there

32:44

you go that’s a 20-second voice note with so much love it’s called energy, it’s got enthusiasm it’s got sincerity

32:51

and it’s specific to you one of the worst things you can do on LinkedIn which unfortunately I wish didn’t exist

32:57

is people pressing a button which goes happy birthday a generic AI button my

33:03

birthday this year I lost con I got about a thousand messages and at least 960 970 were generic I didn’t reply to

33:12

them I replied to 30 messages that were video messages voice notes and people actually making an effort to say happy

33:18

birthday Niraj I hope you enrich a little while I hope you and your family are well something better than just happy birthday again standing out so

33:26

please use LinkedIn voice notes yesterday was quite nice because it was the first of January 2023 I received

33:32

quite a few videos from clients from France and that was lovely and of course what did I do I responded back you know

33:38

so I responded back shooting 30 second video saying thank you so much I really appreciate making the effort I’m sorry

33:43

I’ve not shared I’m sorry I got my Bon Jovi sweatshirt on but you know it’s the first of January and I finished work I

33:49

wanted to reply to you so here I am all my glory this is my cat Mitzi this is my other cat room here happy New Year so

33:56

again it’s real yeah and it’s sincere but again I mentioned the person’s name

34:01

it’s never a copy and Pierce job I’m always very clear to mention a person’s name and all my Outreach because I want

34:08

them to know this is not a copy and paste this is me talking to you directly because people buy from people unless

34:15

you’re dealing with the apples or the biggest companies in the world people buy from people so always keep that in

34:22

mind whenever you’re doing any kind of large reach and that’s why I always encourage voice notes and if you’re more

34:27

extrovert do video I love that so much I love that so much and that’s why for me

34:34

I’ve never been a fan of ads I’ve never been like when I think about how I’ve grown and scaled my business and maybe

34:40

you can relate to this it’s like it hasn’t been automation it hasn’t been ads it’s been one-to-one human

34:47

interactions and I really genuine I mean there is a place for those things um but I can’t tell you how many

34:52

automated messages I get from people who are like I don’t want to say bad service

34:57

providers but I get automated messages from people that like we fired vendors we fired because they were they weren’t

35:03

following through what they’re doing it’s like hey Elyse it’s so interesting the work you’re doing in the world would love to connect and hear more about it

35:09

it’s like we let go of you so anyway all of that to say the human touch the

35:14

personal element um I think is tremendous and I think it’s the key to success

35:22

um if you’re a service provider an entrepreneur sales professional so one quick question on that how much

35:28

time do you spend a day on LinkedIn right now I spend about two hours a day on LinkedIn two hours a day so I will spend

35:35

about 20 minutes to half an hour in the morning replying to messages okay um I will then spend about half an hour

35:42

to 40 minutes at lunch time doing a post and then replying to all the messages in

35:47

that post and I will spend time in the evening learning because learning is very important to look at what other posts

35:54

other people are doing not just sales related but you know in sales is such an important topic but includes marketing

36:01

it includes copywriting it includes communication it includes how you speak

36:07

there’s so many things involved in the sales process that most people don’t consider so I use LinkedIn as a big

36:12

learning platform as well because learning you know as you can tell I’m a massive reader of course and I read every day but there’s also different

36:18

ways of learning there’s reading a book let’s listen to podcasts there’s there’s reading content on LinkedIn so I was

36:25

probably spent almost as much as two hours but again it’s all communicating networking building my personal brand

36:31

and learning some there for a reason what I’m not doing is mindlessly scrolling because that’s just a huge

36:37

waste of time it is totally okay so up to two hours a day morning is all

36:43

responded so it’s inbound and obviously if someone’s just starting off they’re not going to have as much inbound so that time maybe more outbound maybe like

36:50

connection requests building relationships um but then middle of the day is content creation so you’re you’re creating some

36:56

of this is me selfishly getting coached on LinkedIn I hope you don’t mind so I figure if I have a question or audience

37:01

might have the question too so are you doing content same day are you pre-planning and batching a bunch I

37:08

spend 60 Minutes every Sunday writing content got it and I probably said that twice a week I just simply copy and

37:14

paste it um twice a week no I just repurposed something from a year ago okay and then

37:21

once a week I’ll write something just that suddenly because once a week and running a business quite often all these

37:26

things will happen thinking ah this will actually make a really good post today yeah so it does but I did now today was

37:32

simply I repurposed a post today from last year that literally took me less than 60 seconds and then I spent about

37:39

30 minutes replying to comments on it and thanking people for replying to comments on it and then I had somebody

37:44

want me to speak at their event and I said how much is that they go you’ll speak for exposure and I said okay you

37:50

have 2 000 followers and I have twenty six thousand followers what people should be talking about here [Laughter]

37:57

it’s really hard when people say dumb things on LinkedIn not to respond

38:03

no I always look out as a real test of my resilience just don’t respond because

38:08

it’s so it’s so easy to get triggered but I mean unreasonable it is and every

38:13

now and again I will say to somebody look you’re an MD of a business your job title saves MD why are you sending me

38:19

this ridiculous email for and I don’t know you why are you ask me to comment in your post stop it please stop it and

38:25

you’re another another Fitness coach I’ve had it already today seriously do you guys have you all been treated by

38:31

Grand card dong she all stink you know so stop it stop 10xing stop going to

38:37

stop it um you know every now and again I’ll just reply to somebody sarcastic and every now and

38:44

again I will go thank you so much here on solicited email I don’t get enough of these a day it really means a lot to me

38:49

that you’ve made this much effort you know so yeah every now and again sarcasm gets the worst of me but MO most of the

38:55

time most of my emotions are in check you know we all get to the edge sometimes every

39:02

single one of them another thing so not a natural segue but

39:07

I do want to share just a moment to abundance mindset so just with that you know I one of the

39:14

things you teach and that you talk about and I know that you do embody is that just giving right so any words of wisdom

39:22

around abundance mindset with prospecting with building your brand and just how that has influenced your

39:29

success absolutely it’s very important to remember in life

39:34

the more you give in the world the more good that comes back to you that is just a fact of life you can call

39:40

it karma you can call it law of attraction but that is a fact of life no what you

39:45

shouldn’t do is give to the world and then sit there going okay I’m just gonna wait here for something good to happen don’t please don’t do that I’ve seen

39:52

people do that I see a lot of people unfortunately who read the secret and then dream of good things to happen and

39:57

then wonder why nothing’s happening because guess what you actually have to put in the work and that’s the big chapter that’s really missing from the

40:03

secret you actually have to put in the work um but I support you know a lot of the

40:08

work I get there’s some other people that have helped out so at least once a week I’ll see somebody who’s lost a job

40:14

I’ll be made redundant on LinkedIn you know what that’s like that’s happened to me twice in my career and

40:20

it’s a horrible experience and I will look at the LinkedIn profile connect them and I’ll leave them a voice note to

40:25

say hi I’m neraj you don’t know me I want nothing from you but I see you’re looking for work I recommend you change

40:31

your banner in your about section but three lines give me some context let me know who you are also in your LinkedIn

40:37

recommendations the last one was five years ago that means and the perception of other people you’ve done nothing in

40:43

five years I’m sure you have but make sure you’re asking for recommendations and also please start posting content

40:48

that’s one of the best ways to get work on LinkedIn and have your voice heard I hope this is helpful please come back to

40:54

me in a week’s time and let me know how you’re getting on something as simple as that I’ll do at least once a week

41:00

sometimes more uh when I have a personal friend or a former client that’s lost work I will introduce them to other

41:06

recruitment agencies I’ll spend 10 or 15 minutes go through their LinkedIn profile again I don’t say oh by the way

41:12

can you buy my book or can you give me a shot I never say by the way I’d like a LinkedIn recommendation I never do that

41:18

ever you just do it because it’s the right thing to do and it helps other people and what I find is a week later a

41:25

month later sometimes it’s even six months later that person will come back to me sometimes even it’s a year later

41:32

and I’ll come back and say now it’s remember you helped me a long time ago I’ve been promoted now and I’ve got a budget so I’m going to recommend you to

41:38

come and do some LinkedIn training wow some one-to-one work with my team now sometimes that works so sometimes the

41:44

companies say forget it we’re not going to hire you we already have somebody in which case that’s fine but it’s more that made a difference in

41:50

somebody’s life that’s a huge thing to be able to do it’s also very very good for your confidence as well yeah wow wow

41:57

I love that so much and um and it always comes back right it always comes back sometimes through that person sometimes

42:03

through somebody else too right that’s one of the things I found is you just never know um but I think that’s the I just I think

42:11

that is one of the very best uses of our time is going out and helping people who literally right now cannot do anything

42:16

back for us in the future right exactly helping for the sake of helping it just

42:22

makes the world a better place I I had this thing I did for six months where I was a coffee shop and I’d pay for the person next to me

42:29

I love that an interaction was very interesting people were very grateful

42:35

man often didn’t know what to say all right thank you women

42:41

would often say no thank you or I have a boyfriend yeah that was interesting

42:47

um so you’re doing something out the goodness of your heart and some people really appreciate it some people get

42:54

confused by it and some people say hey hey you know I’m already spoken from like that that’s not why I bought you the coffee I don’t drink because you’re

43:00

pretty I’m buying a drink into the next in line okay and you do good in the world it does confuse a lot of people

43:06

because most people are so involved with themselves they don’t really take the time

43:12

to think about there’s Warren Buffett always says one of the most important things you can do every day is think and

43:18

because we live in a world where we’re addicted to these phones and technology of Queen addictive addictive technology

43:25

I turn this off three times a day when I’m working and it’s one of the best things I do and

43:30

it gives me time to to really focus another person but then also half an hour a day I spent thinking

43:36

and you mentioned I thought that was really interesting yeah it’s really important sometimes it does lead to napping don’t get me wrong

43:42

last time napped that was part of his strategy it’s so good and sometimes I’ll just NAB and nothing will happen but a

43:48

lot of the time I’m thinking and it’s much easier thinking with technology off and it’s much easier to do good things to be intentional when it’s just you

43:56

a pan yeah and a paper never underestimate the importance of a pen and paper it’s really important

44:01

especially in today’s technological world I totally agree I totally agree that’s

44:07

the first part of my day is getting up really early by myself not looking at the phone for probably like I don’t know

44:14

four or five hours in the morning um well like I get up early it’s not

44:19

it’s still kind of started the day by the time I’m looking at it but um but to your point like the best ideas come

44:25

during that time and having something to handwrite rather than write on your phone is key so

44:31

um this is so good this is so good I know nourage so there’s a number of resources I want to connect people with

44:38

if they want to get in touch with you I know you also have your new book out which is really exciting so if you want

44:43

to speak to that for a moment so it’s business grow tell me if this is right business growth lessons learned from

44:48

dating divorce and falling in love again right perfect for those of you who are watching the book here there we go it’s

44:54

about six days now almost in top 100 under business which I’m so proud of huge by the way huge huge and the

45:00

reviews have been fantastic so far and I’m really honored by that um and this is my first time hiring a

45:05

book team so I hired an editor a deputy editor a copywriter an indexer an

45:10

indexer for goodness sake you know a book designer I really hired a team this time because I wanted it to look amazing

45:16

and it reads like a professional book not because most self-published books out there unfortunately you can tell or

45:23

self-publish they’re pretty badly done and they’re done cheaply and I went all out with this because I wanted people to

45:28

get so much value from it and that was really important to me amazing amazing so someone can go on

45:34

Amazon or on your website assuming and get a copy yeah you can check that out amazing and then neurologist in terms of

45:41

where else to connect with you if someone wants to get in touch if they want to hire you um how can someone do that look if you

45:48

want to do better on LinkedIn you want to do better in sales connect with me on LinkedIn send me a message if you’re not

45:54

on that LinkedIn that much go to everybodyworksandsales.com have a look at my free resources section there’s

46:00

loads of documents there and just I don’t even need your email address just go ahead and download it and see if my

46:05

work resonates with you because it is very important it does that as well you have to be able to connect with a person before you actually want to work with

46:11

them so go ahead and download and most importantly take action that’s what I care about yeah again it’s doing things

46:18

differently right you don’t even have to give your email address to get these downloads you just go and see if it resonates so I think that’s a testament

46:24

to who you are and what you teach which is do the opposite of what everybody else is doing

46:30

um having abundance mindset so yeah this has been such a great conversation I’ve

46:35

learned so much thank you for the you know personal coaching on LinkedIn as well as just what you embody

46:42

um in terms of that givers mentality and sharing your story so vulnerably and I

46:47

think it’s a really powerful model that anybody can follow to really really

46:52

achieve achieve their goals and do good in the world too so Niraj thank you so much really really great conversation my

46:58

friend now it’s a pleasure at least look forward to talking later on this year and some various sales panels together I can’t wait absolutely absolutely same

47:05

here well to you my listener go connect with Niraj send him a personal message

47:11

please because you heard what you need to do on LinkedIn today go connect with him and check out his books check out

47:18

the resources on his website we’ll link everything in the show notes so grateful to have you as a member of the She Sells

47:23

community and we’ll see you on our next episode. Bye for now.