Blue Collar Culture

Business Results the Old Fashioned Way

Tracy Enos | Is LinkedIn Right For You & Your Business?

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In this episode of the Blue Collar Culture Podcast, we have the honor of sitting down with a LinkedIn expert and business consultant— Tracy Enos— whose focus is to maximize the investment business owners make on LinkedIn. 

Not only does Tracy work with business owners, but she’s also the author of LinkedIn: Publishing To Profit.

Think LinkedIn is just for select businesses and won’t work for you? “Think again,” says Tracy as she clears up some of the most common misconceptions people have about the platform.

This week we chat about myths about the LinkedIn platform, as well as…

  • Tips and tricks to get the most out of LinkedIn
  • How LinkedIn can work for various types of businesses
  • The biggest mistakes you’re making on LinkedIn— and how to fix them quickly
  • What’s changed over the years with LinkedIn and how to keep your profile up to date
  • And more

Listen now…

Mentioned in this episode:

Transcript

Ryan Englin: Welcome back to another episode of the Blue Collar Culture Podcast. I'm your co-host Ryan Englin. I'm here with Jeremy Macliver.

Jeremy Macliver: Welcome back, everybody.

Ryan: We're really excited to have today's guest. She has been becoming a LinkedIn expert for the last eight years now and has consulted thousands of business owners on how to maximize the investment they make in this platform. In fact, one of her recent clients just got a five-figure contract because of the work he was doing with her on the LinkedIn platform. So we're gonna go over some of the myths about the platform, she's going to share with us some of the little tips and secrets that can help you get the most out of that. So I want to welcome Tracy Enos to our podcast today. Welcome, Tracy.

Tracy Enos: Thanks, fellas, I'm excited to be here.

Ryan: So I want to start with this concept that LinkedIn is only for a very select few businesses, that it won't work for my business. It only works for these b2b, white collar businesses. And that's one of the myths that we hear. But there are other myths about the platform too. So what I'd love to do is just have you break some of those myths down and help us understand why they're not true. Can you do that for us?

Busting LinkedIn Myths

Tracy: Well, absolutely. In fact, that's probably one of the most common, I guess, comments that I get from folks when I, you know, I talk to a lot of people is that, you know, look, this isn't going to work for my business. And I'm like, Well, why wouldn't it? They're like, well, my prospects or my potential hires or, you know, that we can't find anybody to work with our companies on LinkedIn.

And I said, Well, first and foremost, back when LinkedIn was in its early days, in fact, they were just a few months older than Facebook, December of 2003. They, you know, the platform was built for people to add their resume and for HR people, staffing agencies and recruiters to go find talent for their clients to fill those empty positions or those available positions. But today, it's really morphed into even more than that. Sure, you know, that the talent solution side is still a big portion of LinkedIn revenue.

However, the rest of the world has really created a different platform and LinkedIn is starting to stand up and take notice that look, you know, we've got our other members on here really using it in a different way. And so I've, you know, I've seen just about every gamut of industries on LinkedIn, you know, from the big box brands to manufacturing boutique firms. And I mean like boutique like, you know, the salon. Even restaurants if they have like a catering side. I've seen realtors, I see construction companies and I don't mean the big guys.

I mean the smaller construction companies, lawyers and doctors, chiropractors, dentists. We're seeing, you know, the gamut of those folks. You know, we're seeing software startup, even multi-level marketing folks on there. And it's not just a business to business platform anymore. We're seeing a lot more business to customers on here but it's also a huge place for people to post their positions that they're seeking for and getting top talent for their companies.

Ryan: Wow. So it sounds like it really can work for just about any business out there. Is that right?

Tracy: Absolutely. Absolutely 100%. And in fact, you know, in the beginning, I had a lot of clients who said, You know, I work with a lot of high-end companies. I just want to use LinkedIn to brand myself because people nowadays, what are they going to do when they refer somebody? They're going to what?

Ryan: They're going to research you.

Tracy: Yeah, they're going to Google you, right? So what people don't realize is LinkedIn is an authority site with Google. And more often than not, especially if you're a small company or medium-sized company, your company page on LinkedIn and your LinkedIn profile is going to show up before your website. Is that not awesome or what? So you better have some sort of presence on LinkedIn, I would say.

Ryan: So would you say that's one of the big mistakes that a lot of businesses make? They put a lot of expectation in the platform, but then they don't do anything to complete their profile?

Tracy: Yeah. They'll like oh, let's get on this LinkedIn bandwagon, and they'll throw up a profile, or they'll try and start a company page and then like, I don't know what to do next. They're like, Okay, I'm on LinkedIn. What now? You know, and it's, you know, there's a lot of misinformation out there. And there's some good information out there too. But, you know, it, LinkedIn is a very simple platform. But unlike Facebook, or Instagram or Twitter, it has a lot of moving parts. And that seems to overwhelm a lot of folks.

Ryan: Okay, so for our listeners right now, what would you say are two or three of the things, I don't want to say biggest mistakes, so let's say biggest opportunities for business owners? What are some of the things that you see that they're either doing incorrectly or that they should be doing better that would really help them maximize the results they get from the platform?

Maximizing Results on LinkedIn

Tracy: Well, a lot of folks that I see when they first, you know, get started on LinkedIn is they're not optimizing their profile based off of business objectives or even goals for using LinkedIn. A lot of times they're getting up there and they're positioning themselves like it's a resume. And especially if you're the business owner, or the company owner or the partner, co-owner, founder, whatnot, you need to position yourself in your company and the clientele that you serve.

And so, yes, when LinkedIn first originated it, that's what it was meant for, you know, for the passively, you know, the people that were actively looking for a new job and those who are passively looking for a new job. But nowadays, if you're the owner of a company or you're a high-level executive in the company, you should be using LinkedIn in that fashion and not as your resume.

That's the first mistake. The second mistake is they're not filling out pertinent sections that are really targeting the who. So when I say the who is, if you're looking for top talent or you're looking for referral partners per se, for your company, like let's say you're in construction, you might be looking for referral partners that can help you with maybe private investor loans, private money, hard money, you know, developers.

You might even go out there and, you know, want to find top talent to join your team, but you don't have a company page. And by the way, I'll you all know, if you don't have a company page, you can't put an ad up on the job board anyway. You have to have a company page. So, and that's where I find a lot of folks that they just stop. They go, Okay, I got a profile. Now people are gonna find me. So it's like a set it and forget it.

Okay, I'm here. You know, and it doesn't work like that. You really have to optimize your profile and your company in a way with keywords that people are looking for to find you. And what people don't realize is LinkedIn is a search engine. It's one big search engine. And, you know, when you get anywhere up in that search bar and you're looking for someone, or title or product or service, hopefully, you'll show up on page one of that search query. If not, then you need to go back in and start working on your profile and order your company page.

Ryan: Yeah, but that only works if you have a really complete profile and you keep it updated. One of the things that I've shared with some of my clients is it's actually better to have no profile than it is to have a profile you created in 2008 and haven't touched.

Tracy: Oh, I can actually probably agree with that. Or the photo that's 20 years old and doesn't look like you. So if you show up to in face meeting and they don't know who you are.

Ryan: Yeah, or I've even seen it where companies have completely rebranded and they still have an old profile page up. Like it's not a set it and forget it type of system and it changes so frequently. That is something too that I see is they're always looking for how do we get maximize engagement? The same things we talked about in business, how do we maximize engagement with our employees? LinkedIn is doing that with its members.

Tracy: It is. As a matter of fact, when you just mentioned changes just the last couple of weeks not rolled out to everybody yet but just in the last couple weeks, they changed the profile look. They've done a few things. And people are, they're not going to be wise to it unless they go visit their profile. Empty sections, like the new section is called featured, which now they took the media section that was in your about section and took that away and created a new section called featured.

And if you have old stuff in there or nothing in there, you know, it's not going to look good. You know, so you're right. I mean, even myself, I'm the LinkedIn consultant and expert, I still update my profile two to three times a year, especially if I get new projects or I have something that's really cool that I want to highlight. I'll do that.

Ryan: Sure. So what would your advice to be to that business owner that is just thinking, you know, my business is doing okay. I really think there's a lot of opportunity on LinkedIn, but how do I do this and run my business and take care of my clients and engage my team? Like, how do I add this on top of it? What would be your advice to them?

Tracy: Well, I'm gonna be honest with you, you know, it's tough for the small business owner. A lot of times they don't have an internal marketing team. But I'm going to tell you what, even the big box brands, including Microsoft, who owns LinkedIn, they outsource because sometimes their internal marketing team can't accomplish what some agencies on the outside can do for them.

And they don't want to invest the money to create a whole new team just for that project. So it does the same thing that a small company can do. They could hire an agency or consultant, a small, you know, consultant to come in and either teach a team member to do it for them or have them do it for them.

Ryan: Okay. Now, when I hear hire an external consultant, first thing I see is a lot of dollar signs. Is this something that's really expensive to have done?

Tracy: I think, you know, with any business, you're going to have your lower end folks, and you're going to have your higher-end folks and everything in between. So I think it's just a matter of research and getting on the phone and doing interviews, to be honest with you. I don't win every person that I get on the phone with, you know?

And sometimes it has to do with money and sometimes they just don't see the value in it. And that's okay, you know? And then sometimes they'll say, Well, here's my budget, and I'll go, Okay, I have a huge network of folks. I'm gonna, you know, introduce you to a couple people I know that may be more within your budget. But that's how we run our business.

Ryan: Okay. So there's always a resource out there. There's someone that would be able to help. One of the things I like to encourage clients, if you do have doubts and you're skeptical, just get started and do some of the right things early on and establish the value that can come from it.

Tracy: Yeah, absolutely.

Ryan: So, when I work with my clients, and I think you know this that Jeremy and I are working on a book together to really talk about how to build an engaged team, build the, get the right people, be able to hire. Hiring is a challenge for a lot of businesses right now, especially small and medium-sized businesses. And I know you had said that LinkedIn was actually started to be almost a recruiting platform. But in today's space where LinkedIn has definitely evolved and changed, what are some things that business owners could do if they really wanted to look for some good people on LinkedIn? What are some of the ways they could do that?

Finding Top Talent On LinkedIn

Tracy: Well, first and foremost, you need to simply start for free. And on a free membership, once you have a profile, and you get up there into the search bar and you start, you know, doing searches. Like, you might want to say social media expert or social media agency or Facebook marketing or anything that you, you know, don't have currently in your business or somebody that knows how to do it in your business, you can start from there. Now LinkedIn, I will say this, a lot of folks don't understand this, I'm not a big techie person. I mean, enough to get my stuff done, but also dangerous enough to get myself into trouble and break my laptop. I've done that.

But LinkedIn has its own what we call a Boolean tip sheet, and you can just Google that, LinkedIn Boolean tip sheet, and they will go in and tell you how to do searches if you can't, you know, just do a simple search and you're not getting the results that you want. And it's free. It's a little different than Google. It's not as robust as Google's Boolean. But this serves well for LinkedIn. If you want to go and be really effective, go ahead and get a Sales Navigator account. It's month to month, you can pay annually.

But it has, you know, 23 filters or so looking for people and then another seven or eight filters for looking for companies. And that's what I use. I've used Sales Navigator for five years, and I wouldn't do without it, never ever. And in fact, we encourage all of our clients, if you're going to use LinkedIn the way we're using LinkedIn, you have to have Sales Navigator. Absolutely 100%. And it's cheap. It's a cheap tool. If you pay month to month, it's 80 bucks a month. That's probably the cheapest prospecting tool I've ever purchased.

Ryan: Sure, sure. So one of the things that I heard in there is to find someone on your team who's tech-savvy to figure out these 23 Booleans and eight search things like a lot of stuff in there. So

Tracy: It's actually really simple and LinkedIn and Sales Navigator, they have a really cool tool now where you, it does the same thing as when you're building your profile. You can go from beginner to all star. Same thing and Sales Navigator. You can do from beginner to expert. And they have little 30 or so second videos that shows you how to do everything in Sales Navigator. It's really cool.

Ryan: Cool. Okay, so it's definitely a tool we could use for recruiting. But I also think if we're going to pay money for it and we're going to have these amazing tools, how do we use it for prospecting? Like I think in the b2b world, it makes sense because a lot of business salespeople, business development reps or there, CEOs are there, decision-makers are there. How do you use it in the b2c world?

Tracy: You know, I'm gonna be honest with you, we really haven't used it for b2c. We've used it for b2b. And all my clients are b2b because at some point like the current attorney, I have a disability and ERISA attorney in Florida, and we're using Sales Navigator. She had a current list that, you know, were inviting all those folks, you know, to connect with her on LinkedIn. But she has a long term disability book for professionals.

And just by using her list, we've actually gotten over 60 people to opt in to get her book. And they, you know, they're, it's really cool how we've used LinkedIn to do that. And they're already on her list, but for some reason, they didn't get her book from their Infusionsoft account, which is really expensive. But we're doing it from LinkedIn, which is really neat. And she's already received referrals, disability referrals nationwide, which is really cool.

So I could say she would though her long term disability book would-be customers. So we haven't really used Sales Navigator for that yet, but I think what we're going to do is we're going to find the most, the professionals that she is most typically works with the industries that she works with, and she wants people to get this book and to opt into the book because eventually at some point in time, if you have a long term disability policy, they could become clients.

That's not b2b, that's a b2c, right? So, or they become a customer, or they might refer, you know, somebody that they know in their family or whatnot. So we would look for industries that she works with primarily that would have long term disability policies and invite them to connect and then get to know them by asking them open-ended questions. Maybe do they have a long term disability policy?

You know, or, if not, why don't they kind of thing. Then we would go that route. But, you know, I've not used b2c you know, that effectively as far as using Sales Navigator. How we've used the to see or I've coached others use b2c is getting into the newsfeed and posting articles and connecting with the particular client because every market whether it's b2b or b2c has to have a market, right? You have to have a target audience, right? It's not everybody.

And you know what those pain points, those fears and those desires are and your product is what's going to solve that. But you got to get in there and you got to do it with content, and you got to drive people, you know, with content in order to do a b2c. And you really got to make your brand stand out above and beyond the competitors that you have. And you can do that very effectively with content and that's how we've seen other folks, you know, use it in the b2c area.

Ryan: That got me thinking about something I heard one time. Even though LinkedIn is very business to business, we have to remember that every single person that owns a business, works for a business, makes decisions for business, they have a personal life where they're consumers too.

Tracy: That's correct. Absolutely.

Ryan: And so it may not be as director is easy but there's definitely opportunities for it there. So, for those people listening, saying, okay, I want to, I really want to give LinkedIn a shot but I'm still a little skeptical. Do you have one or two success stories that you can share with us? Some of the things that you are really proud of, you've seen your clients accomplish, that you would love to share with our listeners?

Tracy: Well, I guess one with the disability attorney in Florida. And we're just getting started. We only just started with her in January and we've already accomplished that for her. And we're not even done with her profile yet. So, because she's a very busy lady, still trying to get some stuff for it. But the profile is, you know, speaks enough to that, you know, people see her as an authority. I have another attorney.

He was a PI attorney. For those that you don't know, that personal injury attorney, he does the DC area. We started working with him last spring. And in four months, and he already had a big network and like 12,000 people, but he wasn't getting anything from those people. And what he wanted to do is the last 30 years in the DC and Maryland area, he has actually really capitalized working with the Hispanic market. And he knows how to dominate that market.

And for those of you who probably have, you know, employees or are, you know, Hispanic, you all know that they're a very hard set of, you know, folks to get, they don't trust very much. But once you get in the family and they love you, even grandma is shouting out, you know, through the rest of them, you know you and how wonderful you are and you're in. You know, and if you can do that, they will tell everybody and that is what? That's free marketing, right?

And so, you know, that's what he has done. And he has capitalized on it and everybody loves him there. So what do you want us to do is he wanted to teach others, other attorneys around the country how to do the same in their own local area. And so he was kind of coaching them. Well, we took to LinkedIn, and through some posts in LinkedIn, and we connected with, you know, certain target metropolitan areas, and we send it through a messaging campaign. He actually did $60,000 in coaching fees in four months, just through LinkedIn.

Ryan: Wow. So he actually started a new service inside of his business using LinkedIn.

Tracy: He did. He absolutely did.

Ryan: So you just need to be creative with the opportunities if there's not something that's super easy or super direct to the consumer. I think that's great, an attorney that said, Hey, I'm gonna go support other attorneys, it sounds like. Yeah, to go build another revenue stream or to build a deeper revenue stream with a community It's largely underserved. I love that.

Tracy: So, and here's the funny thing. He doesn't speak fluent Spanish and he's been able to do this. And that's really his, you know, the ploy was, you know, you can still dominate your Hispanic market without even speaking Spanish. It was brilliant.

Ryan: That's great. That's great. So what's the easiest way to get started? I know that it's very tactical. Go to LinkedIn sign up for an account. But what are some of the things that you need to do to have that profile that's complete? What's the easiest way to get that done?

Putting Together an Optimized, Comprehensive Profile

Tracy: Well, we've even drafted a 23 point profile checklist. And I did this because a lot of my coaching clients, we do this done with you session and we take it in pieces so they're not overwhelmed developing a great profile because it can get overwhelming. And we, that is the one biggest pet peeve I have in LinkedIn is people go, Oh, you know, our profile is good enough. I heard that from a CEO of a top HR company just a couple days ago and I about cried. Like, did you just say just good enough?

Are you kidding me? You're one of the top companies in the country and you work with fortune 50 companies and you said just good enough? Are your services just good enough? Heck no. So your profile shouldn't be just good enough either. So we're very meticulous about if, you know, if you can provide something in each one of these checklist points, great. Perfect. It needs to be filled out because not only is LinkedIn a way to attract new hires, top talent or new clients, or referral partners, it also humanizes you and gives you the likability factor.

And that's what people forget. Oftentimes, when you are online on a social media platform, that's your first touch with somebody and they don't know you. So it's up perceived perception if they like you or they don't. So, you still have to have that likability factor in your profile. You have to have that human side to you, not just the business side to you. Does that make sense?

Ryan: Absolutely, absolutely. And you have a book out, too, that goes into some of this. Is that correct?

Tracy: I do what's called LinkedIn Publishing to Profit. And it was about two years ago, it's a little bit outdated because LinkedIn has changed some stuff as they do. But the whole first chapter talks about optimizing your profile on your company page. And before you do anything in LinkedIn, depending on what your activities are, 99% of all your activities in LinkedIn is tied to your personal profile.

And if you do something, say something engaged with someone and they get intrigued by, you know, your profile photo and what you have in your headline. More often than not, you're going to go back and view your profile. And if it doesn't look good, or it sucks completely or it's not filled out completely, you've lost opportunity. So when the CEO and I'm not gonna name the company says it's good enough, I said, Okay, well, then you must be leaving, you could be leaving opportunity on the table and you wouldn't even know it.

Ryan: Wow. So for those listeners that are bought in, like you sold them on LinkedIn and they're like, I want to get started, but I need help. I don't, I'm just a little overwhelmed, a little intimidated. Or maybe they just don't have the time because business is doing really well, but they want to get there. How do they get a hold of you to get started?

Tracy: Well, actually, I'm the only Tracy Enos and that's ENOS. If you're a Dukes of Hazard fan, it's spelled the same way. And I believe it's the same way if you're, Enos Slaughter from the St. Louis Cardinals, I think it's spelled ENOS. Anyway, so I capture all your age groups there. So you can find me there. I'm the only Tracy Enos last time I checked with a profile photo and then I was the first Tracy Enos on LinkedIn.

And you can also go to linkedintopublishing.com and that will take you to a little landing page and you can sign up for my newsletter and you'll get two great bonuses. First of all, you'll get my book, on the digital side of my book. You don't have to go to Amazon and spend eight bucks for it. And you also get that 23 point profile checklist that I only give to my paying clients.

Ryan: That's fantastic. And we'll have links for that too on our website as well. So, hey, Tracy, I want to thank you for being our guest today. I've enjoyed the conversation. It sounds like there's a lot of great opportunity for LinkedIn. And the biggest thing is you just got to get started and you got to stick with it is what I heard. So thank you so much for sharing with us today.

Tracy: You are most welcome. It was a pleasure being here today.

Jeremy: Thank you so much, Tracy.

Tracy: Thank you.

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