Monday 30 May 2016

Secrets About LinkedIn Stealth Mode

Why are you worried that people will see who is viewing your profile?

As I meet with female clients, often I hear their concerns about how to be private on LinkedIn and how to keep people from seeing them.

It is unnerving to say the least realizing that someone is lurking in the shadows spying on you. It impedes your work ethic and what you can and cannot do online to help market yourself and your business.

There are some secrets to help you be in "stealth mode" on LinkedIn.

1. In LinkedIn's Privacy and Settings menu, you can block people. However, here is what effect that has on your profile

  •  You won't be able to access each other's profiles on LinkedIn.
  •  You won't be able to message each other on LinkedIn.
  •  You won't be able to see each other’s shared content.
  •  If you're connected, you won't be connected anymore.
  •  LinkedIn will remove any endorsements and recommendations from that                    member.
  •  You won't see each other under Who's Viewed Your Profile.
  •  LinkedIn will stop suggesting you to each other in features such as People You           May Know and People also Viewed.


2. You can view profiles in "Stealth Mode".

  • In Privacy and Settings you can set your profile to "private". This way, when     you go to view the profiles of other members, they will not be able to see who viewed them.
  • This mode is often used by recruiting companies.
  •  When you view profiles in "Stealth Mode", it also hinders how open people will             be about connecting with you, because they will not be able to see your picture,      or anything about you, except a general mention like, "Someone in such and             such type of business viewed your profile".

When you are considering blocking someone or operating in private, think it through. It can impede your networking opportunities on LinkedIn.

Join us for our final FREE webinar in the series, "Sifting Through the Media Noise". Learn lots of great tips for branding and marketing and LinkedIn secrets. Next one is this coming Tuesday, June 14th at 3pm Pacific.  https://siftingthroughthenoise.eventbrite.ca

Till, Christine
LinkedIn Strategist
Cell 780-904-9557
marketingmentress@gmail.com
www.marketingmentress.com
www.2csuccess.com





Thursday 26 May 2016

LinkedIn Tip #32 - How to use your connections and have them love you for it!

Have you ever wondered what you can do with all your connections? 

You worked hard to get them; what  do you do with them?

So, when you have tens of thousands of connections, how do you magnetize those relationships? And how do you magnetize those relationships without continually spamming them?

Good questions!

Go to the tiny "Advanced" word in the top right of your LinkedIn search bar. Click it. It will expand to a window you can type some search words into. These would be keywords.

Then you can choose to just search your first connections.

Save the search parameters and move on to save up to three of these searches. 

When you see that the results you are getting on a search is not producing, just delete that search and set up a new one.

This little activity will cause people to check out your profile.

Woo-Hoo!

Now all you have to do is respond to the people who viewed your profile, thank them for visiting you and ask them how you can help them. They will be happy to interact with you.

Once you have opened a dialogue, all you have to do is keep the conversation pointed to them. Pretty soon they will ask you about yourself. This is your chance to share a bit, but not too much. Keep turning the conversation back to them.

The goal is to find ways you can help each other. When it results in business for you, that is a bonus.

You will discover how you can help them, either yourself or through your network.

Voila!

Join us for our final FREE webinar in the series, "Sifting Through the Media Noise". Learn lots of great tips for branding and marketing and LinkedIn secrets. Next one is this coming Tuesday, June 14th at 3pm Pacific.  https://siftingthroughthenoise.eventbrite.ca

Till, Christine
LinkedIn Strategist
Cell 780-904-9557
marketingmentress@gmail.com
www.marketingmentress.com
www.2csuccess.com










Friday 20 May 2016

Three Life-Changing Keys to Great Communication and 'Real' Teamwork.

It has been my pleasure to work with Neil Godin through the Canada run Business Owner Development Program. Neil has also been my guest on the Marketing Mentress Show. He is an awesome speaker and has been both a great mentor and dear friend over the years. If you are able to attend this presentation, you will be glad you did!

This program will benefit you if you answer “yes” to any of these questions:
  • Do you wish you could keep your cool when “life happens” and things go sideways? 
  • Do you need to build “real” teamwork in order to achieve your goals in business, and in life?
  • Is conflict hurting your relationships (with customers, colleagues, or people in your personal life) and costing you in time, anxiety and stress? 
Here is a little blurb that describes the program in a nutshell:

“This seminar is about building and maintaining ‘real’ teamwork – by learning and applying three powerful keys to sharply reducing conflict and the anger, resentment, demoralization, and stress that it breeds. This is a potentially life-changing ‘how-to’ program on self-management and communication skills. It’s about how to manage your reactions and maintain your cool in the heat of the moment. How to approach ‘safely’ when you have to confront someone, so you don’t provoke defensiveness. It’s about enhancing your ability to prevent conflict when you see it coming – and resolve conflict when it can’t be prevented. It’s about ‘you.’”

Neil Godin is a Vancouver based, business speaker, trainer, writer and coach. His client list includes The Royal Bank, Telus, Ford, Shell, McDonalds, Subway, and many other large organizations. However, he is best known as “The Turnaround Guy”™ for his work with small to mid size companies in trouble. In turnarounds, sales always have to be doubled (or more) – immediately – even though staff are cut and there is no money for marketing.  But most of these companies do recover – thanks to owners, managers and staff learning how to work together more effectively than ever before.
To support this work, Neil began studying and teaching communication and conflict resolution more than 30 years ago (including certificate training at the Justice Institute of BC’s Centre for Conflict Resolution). As a writer, Neil is author of “Selling in the (Comfort) Zone,” a comprehensive guide to marketing and sales for business owners and salespeople. As an entertaining and dynamic speaker he has addressed more than 300,000 from coast to coast in Canada and the US. 
https://ca.linkedin.com/in/neilgodin   


I’ve received several requests to clarify how to register for this Vancouver Business Network Meetup.com presentation on June 7. So, here we go. Please click here http://www.meetup.com/the-vancouver-business-network/events/231053835/ to reach Meetup.com, where you will click on the “Join us” button. This gets you membership in both Meetup.com and the Vancouver Business Network. Both are free to join. Then, to RSVP for my presentation, please come back here and click on the link again http://www.meetup.com/the-vancouver-business-network/events/231053835/ This will take you to the VBN page announcing my presentation. Click on “Yes” to indicate that you plan to attend. There is no payment required at this point...simply pay $12 when you arrive on June 7. Okay?

Christine Till
The Marketing Mentress

Tuesday 17 May 2016

How long do people read your blogs?

People often ask me about how to get more people to read their blog posts.

When I first started my podcast show, my main goal was to find ways to get people to click on them. I worked diligently to find things that would inspire people to click on my "pod-blogs".

I discovered that in order to entice people to click, read and listen, I needed a catchy headline for my post. I would think about the person I had interviewed and the conversation I had with them about their business, charity or book. I would ask them, "What is it that keeps your ideal clients awake at 2am?"

Wow! It made them think!

I once interviewed a gentleman who had invented a recyclable fire extinguisher. It was 9" long and 1.5" in diameter. He had some great contained fires on his website comparing the effects of a big, red 10# fire extinguisher and his small, recyclable one. But people would never get to even see this unless I could entice them to click and listen.

The caption I decided to put on his pod-blog was, "Help! My house is burning down!!!"

We had 124 people click to listen to this interview within the first 24 hours and one listener from Orange County California asked to be connected to this inventor because he wanted to get these through his entire county!

I think we hit the "staying awake at 2am spot" with this post.

Since then I tracked how long people were listening and reading my pod-blogs and discovered that the average person was listening about 3 minutes. The shortest was 1 minute and the longest was 13 minutes.

These statistics gave me insights on how long to make my pod-blogs.

Today people are busy and tend to read in short snip-its.

So if you are wondering why you are not getting many "likes" and shares for your blogs, perhaps you should take a long look at their length.

Have you tracked how long people linger to read your "stuff"?

For more ideas on branding and LinkedIn marketing, tune into our complimentary webinar series.

Till, Christine
LinkedIn Strategist
Cell 780-904-9557
marketingmentress@gmail.com
www.marketingmentress.com

www.2csuccess.com

Friday 13 May 2016

LinkedIn Tip #31 - Did you get the App?

With our busy, always on the go lifestyles today we seldom are in our offices.

Sound familiar?

With this lifestyle of being out and about continuously, we need systems to help us stay in touch with key messages and news that we need on a daily basis. Hence the influx of hand-held devices that help us do this. But these devices are more than just phones.

How many of you use a smart phone of some sort? I do, and it is a life saver! I can touch bases through email, and social media wherever I am. You will find me at my desk only when I am doing some serious writing or programming...and that is often late at night when I am less likely to get interruptions from the phone.

That said, do you have the LinkedIn app downloaded to your mobile phone, iPad, or Android?

Have you opened your LinkedIn profile through this app? What do you see?

Check it out and make sure that when people view your profile through the app, they are seeing what you want them to see.

Very important! Remember you only have 3 seconds to make that great first impression on LinkedIn.

If you have a LinkedIn question, feel free to message me.

For more ideas on branding and LinkedIn marketing, tune into our complimentary webinar series.


Till, Christine
LinkedIn Strategist
Cell 780-904-9557
marketingmentress@gmail.com
www.marketingmentress.com
www.2csuccess.com



Saturday 7 May 2016

LinkedIn Tip #30 - FREE Advanced People Searches.

With all the changes on LinkedIn recently, advanced searches have blossomed!

I think we were spoiled with the ability to do targeted searches in the groups, and through our connections, etc. It was a daily routine for many of us to go into some of our groups and search for people who fit our target market, check out their profiles, and start a conversation with them. It was like a huge networking meeting, where you could just walk up to pretty much anyone and introduce yourself.

However, what happened is people did more than just introduce themselves. There were people sending messages out to the entire group membership in each group they belonged to, and pitching to everyone.

UGH!

It has always been a bug bear of mine. The only times I have reached out to my network was to help out someone else. I never profited from it. I just did it as a favour. I also let my connections know that I was helping out a friend, and that if they wanted me to help them get the word out, please let me know and I would gladly help them as well.

Even with this non-pitch message, there was the odd person who would get their "Knickers in a twist". Funny thing is I never did it very often, perhaps once a quarter. It made me wonder why some people are on LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is the most professional platform on the 'net', bar none! Everyone on LinkedIn is there to do business of some sort, whether it is finding work or finding customers.

I always try to make sure that I am approaching people the way I would appreciate others approaching me. But that is an entirely other blog.

With these Advanced Searches, we can choose very specific target audiences. We can save 3 different searches as free subscribers. We can use Boolean searches with "+ Add" or  the "or". Eg: "owner + HR or CEO" in the advanced search bar. Then you can choose from all the lists that LinkedIn offers in the advanced search window.

Once you save searches, LinkedIn will give you suggestions of people that you might be looking for. With each of these, you can check out their profiles and search for people who are connected to them that you know and could introduce you. With your 15 FREE monthly InMails, you send a direct message introducing yourself and asking them to tell you more about themselves and their business.

Remember, this is not an opportunity to pitch to everyone you can about your business.
It is not about you. It is about how many people you can help in some way.

Join us for our FREE webinar series, Sifting Through the Media Noise. Learn lots of great tips for branding and marketing and LinkedIn secrets. Next one is this coming Tuesday, May 10th at 3pm Pacific.  https://siftingthroughthenoise.eventbrite.ca

Till, Christine
LinkedIn Strategist
Cell 780-904-9557
marketingmentress@gmail.com
www.marketingmentress.com
www.2csuccess.com



Wednesday 4 May 2016

My Father Was A Veterinarian.

Growing up, I lived on a ranch in southern Alberta, Canada.

The ranch was twenty miles west of Milk River. The roads were gravel and very dusty in the summertime. You could see cars coming for miles from our house on the Ranch. The air was so clear that sound carried as well. First you would hear a vehicle coming, and then you would see the dust flying as it came closer to our ranch site.

There was a regular occurrence that took place every few months.

We would hear a vehicle coming from the east. Then we would see the dust flying. The vehicle would come down the hill into the valley where we lived and stop at the end or our 1/4 mile long driveway.

Silence!

Then the vehicle would take off up the opposite side of the valley heading west toward Del Bonita.

Mom would look out the kitchen window and say, "In about 20 minutes we are going to have a new dog."

Sure enough, there would come sauntering up our driveway...another dog!

It was a regular occurrence. We always had at least two or three dogs running around the ranch.

Dad, the veterinarian, didn't have the heart to put them down. He would just examine them carefully, give them their kennel cough, parvo, rabies and vitamin A, B, C shots...whatever he thought they needed to be safe and healthy.

The dog was let loose to run with the rest of the pets we had.

As children, we loved all the wonderful pets and thoroughly enjoyed taking them with us everywhere we went, and the dogs seemed to love being with us as well.

Mom would cook up a huge roaster full of scrambled eggs, veggies, and special dog food every morning. The dogs loved this concoction, especially our Saint Bernard, Mike. We had to give him his own dish, because he would wolf down the lot leaving nothing for the other dogs.

Our dogs always had glossy coats and good fleshing over their ribs. Not too skinny, yet probably not show stock.

Most of them were the "Heinz 57" variety.

Those were great times we had with all the stray dogs that showed up at our place.

I always wondered why people would do that to their pets?

Food for thought.

I would love to interview some of you for my show and we could chat about your greatest experiences with your pets.

What about it?

Christine Till
The Marketing Mentress
www.marketingmentress.com

Monday 2 May 2016

Flying by the Seat of Your Plans?

May 24, 2009 I was dragged into the 21st Century kicking and screaming!

In one day I signed up on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, my website, and my podcasting system. You think your head is about to burst? I felt like crying every day for weeks! It was almost too much for my poor brain to absorb! But I had a dream and a point to prove, and I was going to learn this social media thing if it was the last thing I ever did!

At first my goal was to prove my point to my 'then' boss, but soon it became my passion.

I used LinkedIn to find people to interview on my podcast show. The very first time I published one of my podcasts, within an hour I had a response from a gal saying, "I had no idea that this was available to help me with my 95 year old Dad!"

That was proof enough for me!

This revelation empowered me to continue with my podcasting system using LinkedIn to find people to interview for my show. It worked beautifully!

So, when my boss and I agreed to disagree, I had my vision in place. I would build my own business using LinkedIn as the catalyst.

Today I see many business owners struggling with building a business. They struggle because they are building their business on a 'shoe string' budget. They have no marketing budget and yet they have a driving need to make money.

We are so privileged today to have many online systems that are FREE! But how do we know which ones to use and which ones are the ones best for our own business?

Here's the thing.

Most business owners start their business running by the "seat of their plans" (Betska K-Burr). They try to do it alone with no coaching and the only advice they get is from family and friends...who have never operated a business of their own.

Guess what!

You cannot be a lone wolf. You NEED a coach!

I would never have been able to get to where I am with my business without a coach, and I still have a coach to this day.

There are two key things that I have learned through my experience in running a business of my own.

            1. You need a plan.
            2. You need a coach.

Let me be your coach and I will help you get sales.

Christine Till

The Marketing Mentress
780-904-9557
www.marketingmentress.com
LI:/marketingmentress
FB:/marketingmentress
TTR: @mktgmentress
marketingmentress@gmail.com
www.2csuccess.com