Monday 29 August 2016

LinkedIn Tip # 59 - Why should I be on a Paid Platform?

What does a paid platform give you that you cannot get from a free one?

Sales processes have changed drastically to what they were 20 years ago.

People are searching online to gather the information they need to educate themselves about products and services. It is when the customers have gathered all their information that they reach out to a sales rep. This leaves the sales rep with a totally different way of selling.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator has been designed to help the sales reps build the needed relationships they need with prospects.

Many companies have eliminated cold calling all together with the new LinkedIn Sales Navigator.

I never thought I would hear myself saying anything like this. I was pro-Free platform and used it for years. I was able to occasionally send out up to 400 free InMails to people I did not know through my searches on LinkedIn.

Then a year ago LinkedIn flipped a switch!

You could no longer send any free InMails! They opened it up to 15 Free InMails a month for a short time. Now they have closed them out altogether. People on the Free LinkedIn platform can no longer send any Free InMails.

No Free InMails limits what you can do with the Free Platform, and to be the most effective, one needs InMail.

With the Executive Platform that I use, I get 30 paid InMails a month. -And most months I use these up before the middle of the month!

There are other key assets to being on LinkedIn Sales Navigator.

1. It helps you stay informed with key updates and build trust with people, finding the right people, engaging them with warm insights and building trust through relationships.
Having access to our connections and their networks today means that we need to get laser focused on our ideal client base with the leads and accounts and the insights that we need to sell.

Sales Navigator helps us find prospects by helping us focus on the people and companies we care about with Lead build, advanced searches and lead recommendations.

            a. Boolean search terms using AND, OR and NOT eg: renewable AND energy.

            b. We can choose companies, title, size of company and find exactly the people within the company that we want to target. We can sort by location, current title, seniority level, company size. LinkedIn will give you a list of your search results. Then you can "save as lead" and Navigator will save these leads for you in a special file.

            c. We can use the lead recommendations on Sales Navigator to find exactly the people that we want to target. We are trying to find the 5-7 decision makers within an account. Sales Navigator gives you the other key decision makers within the account. The search results can be saved from a search results page or on a profile page.

            d. It is great because it does not notify the prospect, nor does it require them to make a connection on LinkedIn.com. This is a great way for sales teams to gather information and build a file on them before they are ready to start building warm conversations.

2. LinkedIn Sales Navigator makes sure that we are staying informed on the updates with our leads and accounts. This is done through Sales updates, Teamlink and Introductions.

            a. Sales Updates: These updates are sent to us from LinkedIn on our saved leads to help keep us up to date on job changes and the like. The best time to reach out to someone in our sales funnel is when they are encountering a job change. They are the most receptive at these times. You can check these updates on Android or iPhone apps as well.

            b. Teamlink: Stay informed on key updates at your target accounts. It will leverage your network and your team network and more to make sure that you're identifying the best way to get in the door with that account.

            c. Build Trust through Introductions: Find people on your team, on LinkedIn, or the company who can introduce you to the key decision makers on the account. You can do this through InMail.

3. Sales Navigator also helps you measure your success with your sales efforts. It comes with analytics that have resulted from LinkedIn's own research. It is still all about building relationships.

You build the relationships online, but real business gets done face-to-face.

Thanks to Nick Solano at LinkedIn for sharing this great information with me! Here is the full video:

Christine Till
The Marketing Mentress

LinkedIn Tip #58 - How Much Time Do I Need to Spend on My Social Media?

My question back would be, how much money do you want to make?

Let me share a little of my story with you.

Back when I first got started with LinkedIn and online marketing, I was more than just a little timid about the whole idea. Yup! I was scared spitless!

It took me many hours to figure it all out...and I had a LinkedIn coach helping me!

I could see that if I spent all these hours online working on my marketing program, I would soon burn out. I was spending 12-16 hours a day online. But I remind myself that I was also going through a steep learning curve. I had never used any kind of social media in my life. 

All I had ever used a computer for was spreadsheets, word documents and Googling stuff.

Once I figured out a formula to shorten the learning curve and the amount of time I had to spend online, I realized that I was not alone. By this time, I had met many others who had found themselves in the same position as me! They all wanted to know how to leverage LinkedIn for clients and to make some money.

You need some basics to build on and once you have those set up, you can use a auto posting program, like SproutSocial to schedule posts. You spend a couple hours one day a week scheduling, and the rest of the days, you only have to respond to the messages from people.

Just block out time to spend 15-30 minutes once or twice a day. Do this consistently every day, except your 'electronics free Sunday' and you will be able to manage your online marketing systems just fine.

I have discovered that most of the time I had been spending online was being spent socializng and not really keeping business in mind.

My email was also taking inordinate amounts of time as well. I soon became aware of how to scan through them for the ones I needed to attend to right away.

I now receive anywhere from 150 to 300 emails a day. Most of them are blogs. I check them out and if they are something that I would like to continue, I let them roll in, but if I don't need the info, I unsubscribe quickly, so as not to clog my inbox.

The key platform I pay the most attention to is LinkedIn. That is where I get most of my business from, so that is where I need to spend my time.

The average income of people on LinkedIn is now at about $80K US. The average income of executives on LinkedIn is now $150K annually. So where are the people that can afford to buy your stuff as well as that full body massage?

If you are spending more than the 15-30 minutes once or twice a day online, it better be because you are spending it with clients. Otherwise, pick up the phone and start calling your connections on LinkedIn and booking phone chats, Skype calls, and coffee meetings.
You need to spend 80% of your time doing sales.

Yes, you heard me right.

If you are not making the money you would like, check how much time you spend in sales conversations every day.

Keep watching. More LinkedIn tips are in the pipeline.

Christine Till
The Marketing Mentress



Tuesday 23 August 2016

LinkedIn Tip #57 - My Secret Formula to Patience is a Virtue?!

Who in the world has such a thing as patience in this day and age?!

Remember when we had to physically go out and knock on doors to find people to buy our products? How many doors did you have to knock on before you found a purchaser?

Remember when you paid $1200 for that half page advertisement in the newspaper, and then waited for the phone to ring? How long did it take for the phone to ring?

Those were the days when life was great! -Or did I miss something?

Oh! It took a while before you found a buyer? Let me guess, it took 3-6 months before you were able to gain momentum from your efforts.

Yup! Thought so!

With social media and online marketing systems, things still do not happen overnight. It takes time to build that trust we all crave before we buy.

Yes, we may get a few customers trickling in right out of the gate, but those are rare.
It takes 3-6 months to get recognized online through your social media platforms.

Many times I have clients who want to start getting serious about marketing on LinkedIn. They are in dire need of making some money, so as a last big effort, they hire me to help them with that 'magic bullet'. -But there isn't one.

Remember that whatever your choice of platform, you still need a plan.

If you have never done any serious online marketing, you need a professional with lots of experience who can help you with your plan.

People seem to think that if they just start posting things once a week, that they will get business. They also think that they can just post any old thing and put their website at the bottom, and customers will come running.

If you are only posting something once a week, chances are that nobody will notice you!
It is all about the search engines. These have to find your article first. Then you need to be consistent with posting every day, in order for the search engines to find you on a regular basis.

This said, when you post on the LinkedIn Pulse, if you have almost never posted there before, the chances your article will get noticed are slim to none.

Here is my secret formula for posting on LinkedIn and getting noticed.

1. Start posting every day using the 'Rule of 10 Posts'. 6/3/1 - 6 are reposts; 3 are posts you have written; 1 is a pitch. Adhere to this strictly. (I learned this from my friend, Wayne Breibarth) It works like a charm!

2. Set up a Blogger page and publish your post there first. The reason for this is because Blogger is owned by Google. Google is the most powerful search engine on the net. You want their search engines to find you and recognize you.

3. When you publish your post on Blogger, the platform automatically invites you to share your new post on Google+, so be sure to have your Company Page set up on Google+.

4. If you are new, wait 2-3 days for the search engines to find your post before you publish it on LinkedIn Pulse. Now, if you have been posting regularly, you can shorten that time to 24 hours.

5. Everything you write online is written with SEO (Search Engine Optimization) in mind. Always think, "What will people type in the Google search bar if they don't know my name or my company name?" This keeps it simple and helps you to better understand the power of SEO. You do not need to be an SEO expert to understand a few simple tricks you can use. Once you figure out your keywords, just keep using them in all your online writing.

If you are finding it challenging getting started with your LinkedIn marketing and need help with a plan, contact The Marketing Mentress.

Christine Till
The Marketing Mentress



Monday 22 August 2016

LinkedIn Tip # 56 - Stuck in LinkedIn!

Are you on LinkedIn wondering where to begin and how to get momentum?

Have you heard of SSI (Social Selling Index) and feel like you are in way over your head?

There are so many LinkedIn experts now that it can get confusing. It is challenging to find the right mentor to help you with your LinkedIn and online marketing program. 

You are the only you there is. Thus your business is the only one of its kind because you are the only person that can do your business your way. When looking for the right LinkedIn mentor, you need to interview several until you find one that really listens to you and 'gets' you. 

Mind you, there are not a lot of LinkedIn mentors available now, who do personal interviews without charging mega-bucks.

My heart goes out to people who are struggling to learn LinkedIn and how to use it for their business. That's because I too was there once.

I could never have achieved the level of expertise with LinkedIn that I enjoy today without a mentor in the beginning. I realized that I cannot be a 'Lone Wolf'.

I am offering you a 30 minute complimentary consultation to help you discover if we are a perfect fit for your LinkedIn marketing program.

It will be my pleasure to help you in any way I can.

Feel free to email me at marketingmentress@gmail.com.

Christine Till
The Marketing Mentress
www.marketingmentress.com


Monday 15 August 2016

LinkedIn Tip #55 - A Lesson on Optimism from the "Old Iron Pot."

When I was young, my Mom had a rule about the breakfast table.

I am reminded about this simple rule as a result of responses I have seen on my Facebook page. I see people posting things that are meant to be positive. Then from out of the blue, someone has to pop into the discussion with a negative remark that spoils the entire conversation thread. Why is that?

Is it because they have had a sad life or have failed to search for the positive things in life? 

Have they perhaps listened to a little too much negative news, or have they been suffering from some deep wounds that have never been properly healed? Or do they feel that they need to make the world aware of all the gossip.

My heart goes out to those who seem to only find the negative in the things they see, read and hear every day. We all make mistakes and have our own crosses to bear. Why do we need to continue to open old wounds? Why do we need to feel that we need to rehash old news? The more we talk about these negatives things, the more it will recurr.

Here is the lesson I learned from my Mom at the breakfast table.

If we came to the table with a grouchy face in my childhood home, we had to go back to our bedroom until we could find our smile before we were allowed back at the breakfast table.

My younger brother, George, had huge challenges with this. He would come to the table invariably with a grouchy face. Mom would promptly send him back to his room. I watched him one day as he went down the hall and around the corner. He stopped, scrunched up his face in different contortions until he found a strained smile. Then he came back around the corner, down the hall and into the kitchen with this strained grin that made us all laugh. He had a great, sarcastic sense of humour.

Of course, he had a smile, and Mom would just laugh without saying a word.

From this experience I learned that being cheerful was a decision. It was not something that just happened. If I stubbed my toe on my bedpost as I was rushing around getting ready in the morning, that did not have to ruin my day. I could decide to make the day an awesome day.

When I had the opportunity as a volunteer to help guide the Arthritis Self Help program, I saw many people who were stuck in their negative thoughts. I also noticed that the stress that these thoughts caused added to their burden. Some were so negative that it was hard to even be in the same room with them. There were others who seemed to have the worst Arthritic conditions in the world, but they were so cheerful and positive that we all loved being around them. The positive ones were willing to try new things and implement them into their lives. The negative ones would just grumble that they had tried that and would not try it again.

No matter what our ailment or challenge, it is all about putting forth consistency in our efforts. Success in anything in life does not happen over night.

A next door neighbour who was riddled with Arthritis, went for a walk down the block and when she returned, she said she felt like she was going to expire. So, she vowed never to try going for a walk again.

There is a principle here. What do you think it is?

Consistency over time!

The Arthritic people with the negative mindsets had a far more challenging time dealing with life than the ones with the positive mindset.

Have you noticed that when you are with someone who is cheerful and positive, you enjoy being in their presence? Doesn't it make the day brighter and more welcoming!

When we have a positive mindset, the whole world is a better place.

Dwelling on the negatives of life will not make the world change. Only through creating a more positive, happy world will the negatives disappear.

I am thankful to wonderful musicians and entertainers, who perform from deep within their very being and share positive music with us to uplift our spirits. When I am feeling a little down, so to speak, I turn to "The Piano Guys", the classics or sacred music. Listen and feel their music as the Piano Guys uplift you. The Piano Guys

Life is never perfect every minute of every day, but we can find ways to make it so.
Remember, "If it's to be, it's up to me!"

Having a positive attitude will take you far not only on a personal basis, but also in business. People want to do business with someone who has a positive attitude.

I once saw a post that said, "Your smile is your logo." Let me add to that, "A positive attitude is the success of your business."

"When you do the things that most people don't do, you will have the things that most people won't have.!" (Zig Zigglar)

"Where there's a Till, there's a will; Where there's a will, there's a way!" (C.Till)

What's your motto?

Love & Blessings,
Christine Till
The Marketing Mentress


Friday 12 August 2016

LinkedIn Tip #54 - "Where there's a Till, there's a will; Where there's a will, there's a way!"

Have you been wondering exactly how to use LinkedIn to market your business?

This is my slogan that has evolved out of my challenges encountered through starting and running my own business. The first time I set foot on LinkedIn was May 24th of 2009. I was so scared of putting my face up there and opening myself up online that I read the entire terms of use for LinkedIn! I wanted to know exactly what I had to do and what was expected of me on this platform.

I was scared to death!

Here is what I thought: I figured that as soon as I opened up an account, I would be inundated with hundreds of clients that I could not even begin to handle. Imagine that!
Guess what happened?

It took me several months to build up my clients. I did manage to get clients in the first month, but not enough to pay the bills. What this taught me was that it takes time to build trust with people, so they will reach out to you and want to do business.

I discovered that building relationships with people online was just the same as building relationships in person, face to face.

We need to be willing to share a little from our own heart about what makes us tic...we need to be willing to share our "why". We need to share a bit about "who" we are. When we try to hide completely, people just do not trust us. They can sense that we are holding back and hiding something from them.

Now, we do not need to share all the skeletons in our closets, but we do need to share our "why". What inspired you to do what you do?

I notice this in the first 3 seconds of viewing someone's profile. Remember that you only have 3 seconds to make a great first impression on LinkedIn. People see our headshot and how welcoming we look with that great smile, then they check out our name and third, they check out our headline.

If we just state our degrees and titles in our headline, it says nothing about how we can help them. It says nothing about how we are different from our competition, who also have the exact same titles. There has to be something in our headline that makes people want to read on to our Summary.

Through all the challenges of learning how to build a "killer profile" on LinkedIn and how to build the relationships I need and want for business, my tagline has evolved.

Sometimes it just takes sheer 'grit' when you are building a business. There is nothing else that can replace tremendous tenacity and desire to fulfill your dreams.

It took me time to find my vision for my future. In fact, I am still working on building my vision. I have discovered that every business owner continually works on building their vision for the future of their business.

I am not alone, and neither are you.

I have to push through every day. There are times when I fail and there are time when I am hugely successful...but I know in my heart that I can, I will, and I shall not be denied.

You can do it too. Develop your slogan. You are the only "you" there is, and only you can do your business the way you do it.

You can, you will, you shall not be denied!

"Where there's a Till, there's a will; Where there's a will, there's a way!" (Christine Till)

Got questions about marketing and branding online and offline? Check us out: 

Christine Till
The Marketing Mentress



Wednesday 10 August 2016

LinkedIn Tip # 53 - Can I Market to My B to C on LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is a B to B platform and is meant for business, but those are people on there.

People need 'stuff'. They get hungry, need medicine, more energy, a massage, to feel better, to buy a home, and the list goes on.

My humble opinion is that in spite of the fact that LinkedIn is the biggest and best B to B platform on the net, everyone on there is looking for something. They are ready to do business in a multiplicity of ways.

With the average income on LinkedIn being $120-125K annually, where do you think that the people are who can afford to buy your 'stuff'? Compare LinkedIn to Facebook. The average income of people on Facebook is around $22K annually. That's poverty line. Do you think the Facebook people can afford to buy your 'stuff'?

Probably your Facebook friends are less able to afford to pay for that full body massage than a CEO of a corporation. Am I correct?

The basics to all marketing is to educate and inform your network. Blog and send messages that uplift, educate and inform your audience. People love reading good copy. They do not love being pitched to.

Do you understand what a 'pitch' is?

A 'pitch' is where you invite people to come buy your 'stuff', or to your webinar, or your workshop. Too much pitching turns your audience off, no matter whether your audience is B to C or B to B. Remember they are all people.

No matter who your customer is, they need you to build that know, like and trust with them before they will buy from you. You build trust through educating and informing and being slightly transparent. (You don't need to share all the skeletons in your closet. Leave your skeletons where they are.)

What I mean is that people need to know what inspired you to build your business. Tell them how you can help them. Tell them how you are different from your competition.

Make a complimentary offer.

Remember it is all about your customers, not about you.

Check us out for some more marketing and branding tips: http://www.2csuccess.com

Christine Till
The Marketing Mentress



LinkedIn Tip #52 - What Do I Talk About in My Blog?

You've decided to start a blog and have no idea what to write?

Yup!

-And....And...And...

Think about your business. What is it that you do? What inspired you to start your business? What makes your business unique? How are you different from your competition?

Remember that you are the only "you" there is. Only "you" can do your business the way you do. There is no other person in the entire universe that can do your business the way that you do.

What tips can you offer to your "peeps"? Can you start a series of tips? I have my LinkedIn Tips. Perhaps you could have tips on how to buy the perfect soap, for instance?

Each blog post only needs be 250 to 300 words. It does not take long to fill a single page with "copy".

Ask yourself what kinds of questions your customers ask you and then think of the ways you have helped them find solutions to those questions. Each question could be a blog.

Start with one blog a week.

Once you get going with your blog, you can then turn it into a "Dear Diary" type of blog where people write in their questions and you blog about the answers.

The big key is to just start writing.

Many of my clients have mentioned that they don't think that they are very good writers, and hesitate to write. If that is the case, hire someone to edit for you on a "per hour" basis. There are many online editors available. Find one that is good with grammar and has experience writing for other companies, has written a book or two or more and already has a blog of their own.

A typical fee for editing a blog is $75/hour in Canada. Once you have written your blog post, forward it to your editor, and they will put the finishing touches on it to check grammar and story line, etc. You simply instruct them as to exactly what it is you want them to do for you.

It does not need to cost you "an arm and a leg". Sometimes I have edited for a client, and it only took 10 minutes, because all they wanted was help with grammar.

Just do it!

Check us out!


Christine Till
The Marketing Mentress