Have you created a LinkedIn Profile? Or do you have one already, but it’s sitting dormant since you don’t know what you should be doing? If you want some expert, LinkedIn tips that will solidify your digital footprint, then this episode is a must-listen.
Over 49 million people use LinkedIn to search for jobs each week and almost 6 people are hired through LinkedIn every 60 seconds. Whether you’re looking for a job, a high-profile client, or to grow your business, LinkedIn can be a very powerful tool. On this episode, Porschia will talk about the importance of having a quality LinkedIn Profile along with Gregg Burkhalter, aka The LinkedIn Guy.
Gregg is a recognized authority on personal branding and LinkedIn. He has helped countless professionals in the U.S. and around the world define and grow their personal brand using LinkedIn. Tune in to the whole episode to learn how to network on LinkedIn and other best practices.
What you’ll learn:
The power of your personal profile on LinkedIn
How to properly connect with others on LinkedIn
How your personal brand can be the “door-opener” for other opportunities
Quotes:
“If you’re a business owner, LinkedIn is very important because it helps you build credibility” – Porschia Parker-Griffin
“Linkedin is the digital storefront of your digital brand” – Gregg Burkhalter
As a thank you for listening to this episode of the Career 101 Podcast, we are sharing our FREE master class – Career 911: Solving the Top 5 Challenges Executives and Professionals Have! It’s a training based on solving the common problems our clients have experienced to reach their goals. You can get access to the master class here!
Episode Transcript
Porschia: [00:00:00] Today, we are talking about LinkedIn 101, how to network on LinkedIn with Greg Berkhalter. Greg Burkhalter is a recognized authority on personal branding and LinkedIn. He has helped countless professionals in the U. S. and around the world define and grow their personal brand using LinkedIn. Greg is known by many as the LinkedIn guy.
He provides personal branding coaching and LinkedIn training via one on one and group training sessions, corporate presentations, and webinars. Hi, Greg. How
Gregg: are you today? Well, a good afternoon to you, Portia. And I’ve got to tell you, thank you so much for the invitation to be on your career one on one podcast.
I have been looking forward to this for a [00:01:00] while. So thank you.
Porschia: Absolutely. And I’m excited to have you with us today to discuss LinkedIn one on one and how to network on LinkedIn, because it’s something that people ask us all the time about, but before we jump into that. We want to learn a little bit more about you, Greg.
So tell me a little bit about seven year old
Gregg: Greg. Seven year old Greg, you will not believe this, was already having some inclination. He wanted to work in the broadcasting business. In fact, believe it or not, I found a tape of me at 12 years old pretending to be a disc jockey. Okay. I still have that tape.
So basically what happened was my dream came through at 16 years old. I got my first broadcasting job and that transition into a music distribution job. So basically broadcasting and music was the early start of my career. And then, you know what happened next, what we’re talking about today, LinkedIn and my journey down that [00:02:00] path.
Wow.
Porschia: Wow. So it sounds like you knew early on. That broadcasting was where you wanted to go. And I will say, Greg, I think you have a great voice. So, uh, I’m sure you already know that, right? Because you were in broadcasting, but I really think that you definitely have the voice for it. Um, so you are told us a little bit about some of your first jobs and all of that good information.
I want to know about some highlights or pivotal moments in your career. Before you became the LinkedIn guy.
Gregg: Well, probably the first pivotal moment is when my mother went to the radio station in my hometown at 16 years old and says, do you have a job for my son? They said yes. And that job happened to be on the radio.
That was the first pivotal thing that happened in my career. The next one come about 10 years later, came about 10 years later. Uh, it was when I got an opportunity to start working in the music business. And a capacity that I didn’t even know existed. I became the [00:03:00] person who made all the decisions on all the cassettes and CDs that went into every truck stop and convenience store in America.
What that means was I was spoiled rotten. I got catered to by the major record labels. I got to hang out with recording artists day in and day out. Concerts were like three to five times a week. I’m gonna tell you, I was spoiled, absolutely rotten. And Like most people, life throws you a curveball, that particular part of my career ended, and that’s where we kind of get to where we are today.
Porschia: So it sounds like you got all of the benefits of the schmoozing from the record labels, Greg. And the
Gregg: hearing loss too.
Porschia: Oh yeah, and the hearing loss. So what is your favorite genre of music, Greg?
Gregg: I enjoy most every genre of music. The one genre I can’t really understand is opera. Now, I do enjoy classical, baroque, and symphonic music, but opera vocals, I have, that’s the one [00:04:00] facet I don’t know much about.
Now, the part of the industry where I really got my traction was mostly in the country music division, because, you may not be aware of this, but truck stops sell a lot of country music. So, naturally, the record labels, Wanted to get their artists in the truck stops, by the way, let me give you an insider tip on the trucking industry.
Don’t ever call a truck driver a trucker. They do not like that. They like to be called a professional driver. I learned that the hard way by calling a professional driver a trucker one too many times.
Porschia: Got it. Well, thank you. We will make note of the professional drivers out there. Uh, so what would you say has been your biggest career challenge so
far?
Gregg: Reinventing myself. That came eight years ago when that dream job, the one you and I’ve been talking about, the one that has all these wonderful memories, that job disappeared. The company I work [00:05:00] for went bankrupt. And as you’re well aware of the music industry, it used to be the music business. There’s not much business there.
A lot of free downloads, a lot of streaming. So my odds of getting another job in the music business were slim to none. So luckily I had a friend who cared enough about me as a person and enough about my career aspirations to reach out and say, Greg, You’re not on LinkedIn, man, and you’ve got to be on LinkedIn because you cannot move forward in this professional world without a digital presence.
So a friend of mine set up my account eight years ago, and that leads us to our conversation today.
Porschia: That’s great. That’s great. So Greg, I want to just start with the basics. How do you think personal branding ties in with
Gregg: LinkedIn? One of the things I say in my presentations very, very early on is LinkedIn is the digital home of your personal brand.
Okay. So, is your LinkedIn profile your brand? Well, [00:06:00] the answer to that question is, If I look at your LinkedIn profile, do I feel like I’m meeting the same person I just spoke with or saw at a networking event? Do I feel better about you? Or does your profile make me want to go buy a sympathy card? I mean, your LinkedIn profile represents you in the digital realm.
And let me tell you about LinkedIn when it comes to building your personal brand. LinkedIn is a great tool or a great engine for doing that. But you got to know the fuel is you. So you are what powers LinkedIn. It’s not vice versa. Okay. And one of the reasons why LinkedIn is so important, just like everyone, when we meet somebody for the first time, what do we do?
We Google the person’s name. We want to validate them. We want to see what they’re all about. And nine times out of 10, when you do a search for anyone’s name, what’s going to show up at number one or number two is going to be their LinkedIn profile. That’s why it’s so important. In fact, we all know how much the [00:07:00] business world went online during our recent pandemic.
Well, that trend is not going to change. In fact, going forward, you’re going to meet more people online than you will ever meet in person, the rest of your life. Think about that. And you tell me how important LinkedIn is. And nowadays too, when you talk about making first impressions, don’t worry about meeting or talking to the person on the phone the first time as a first impression.
Once they hear your name, they’ve already done the Google search. So nowadays most first impressions are digital. That’s where personal branding and LinkedIn merge. LinkedIn is the digital storefront for your personal brand.
Porschia: Wow. Very powerful. I love how you mentioned, you know, it being the digital home or storefront of your personal brand.
I was literally Greg talking to a client. This morning, uh, we’re actually emailing with her and [00:08:00] she has a business. And I mentioned that her business was not on her LinkedIn profile anywhere. It was just her previous jobs. And she said, Oh, I didn’t know I was supposed to put my business on LinkedIn. And, uh, she’s, you know, out there competing for contracts.
with against other businesses, and I told her exactly what you said in that when someone Googles you, generally, the first or the second thing that comes up is going to be your LinkedIn profile. And if you’re a business owner, LinkedIn is also so important because it helps to build that credibility, um, and all of that when it comes to your positioning.
So I completely
Gregg: agree. One thing I can make a statement on talking about your personal profile as compared to your company profile on LinkedIn. I can tell you that over 90% of everyone who lands on your company page on LinkedIn has gotten there by seeing someone at your company doing something on the personal side of LinkedIn.[00:09:00]
So on LinkedIn, the true power is the personal profile. When someone Googles your name, they find your personal profile way ahead of your company profile on LinkedIn. So again, your personal profile, that is the part that drives exposure for your company page on LinkedIn.
Porschia: Absolutely. Absolutely. A lot of gems here, Greg.
How did you become known as the LinkedIn
Gregg: guy? It’s called falling into it and not realizing what was about to happen. I mean, I, as I told you earlier, I lost my job in the music business. My friend set up that LinkedIn account and I very timidly started using LinkedIn with my own strategy, which turned out to be a correct strategy.
I was trying to build relationships on LinkedIn like I do in person. So I’m going through my first year of learning my way around LinkedIn by myself. And out of the wild blue, one of the large chamber of commerce in Atlanta sends me an email and invites me to come do a LinkedIn workshop. I immediately wrote him back and said, I am [00:10:00] new on LinkedIn.
I’m still a little timid about what I’m doing. You must have the wrong Greg. They wrote me back and says, Greg, we have sort of been stalking you for two months and there’s nobody doing LinkedIn like you’re doing it. So at that point I realized something magical was happening. The question was, did Greg Berkhalter, the LinkedIn scaredy cat, have enough confidence that he was falling into something that potentially could be a business?
Could I create a company with me at the forefront that would provide LinkedIn training and personal brand coaching and make a living? So I decided if I didn’t roll the dice, I might live to regret never trying. So in 2015, I began my journey, spoke to about 75 groups. My first year got one minor scare one into the Lincoln guy story.
When Microsoft buys LinkedIn, actually it was a major scare. It shook me up, but it worked out well because the day that Microsoft purchased LinkedIn. One of the reps in Atlanta emailed me and says, Greg, would you come to the Microsoft store in [00:11:00] Atlanta and help us celebrate the LinkedIn purchase? So at that point, I knew I was getting traction all various places.
And when I knew Microsoft saw my validity, I knew I was onto something. And as I said, it’s been the path I’ve been on now for the last seven or eight years.
Porschia: Wow. Wow. So it sounds like in 2015, the LinkedIn guy was born and started the, uh, the world tour of, uh, LinkedIn training. Uh, and that’s so cool, Greg, to know that, you know, you were on LinkedIn’s radar and they tapped you on the shoulder to kind of say, Hey, come celebrate with us.
Um, you know, that’s obviously proof, you know, and social proof that you’re, uh, out there doing what. You know, it takes to get noticed and to get noticed by LinkedIn. Um, to that point, I think it was 2016 or 2017. Uh, someone from LinkedIn reached out to me and said, Hey, you know, you’re one of the top career coaches, you know, in the Metro Atlanta [00:12:00] area and, you know, wanted me to do some, um, Some things for them as a career expert on LinkedIn.
So you never know who’s watching for everyone out there when it comes to LinkedIn. So really listening to what Greg is going to, you know, share with us today, what he’s already shared and some more tips that he’s going to share are so important, uh, with that visibility. Um, so Greg, you started talking about.
Uh, this, but I really want to kind of circle back, you know, for people in different, uh, stages of their career. So we have clients who, like I mentioned, some of our clients are business owners. Uh, we have clients who are executives, we have clients who are professionals. Uh, we even have some clients that are, you know, early career, um,
professionals, right? Recent graduates. Um, how can having
Gregg: What I can tell you nowadays, your personal brand precedes you and it actually follows you [00:13:00] around throughout your whole life. And you have two ways you can sort of build a personal brand. Be proactive, try to control the narrative, present yourself in such a way that you want people to see you, or you can do what a lot of people do and just say, I don’t really have a brand and I don’t need to worry about it.
Folks, everybody has a personal brand. The question is, do you have control of your personal brand? Because your personal brand is what really makes you stand out. I’m talking about whether you’re looking for a job, looking for a client to maybe be attracted to you, or you’re looking for a career opportunity.
Any of these scenarios, your personal brand is the door opener. And one thing I always tell my professionals I coach in career transition, or who are looking for jobs is, if you really have your LinkedIn game together, and you’re consistent, authentic, and seen as a valuable person in the community, jobs.
Find you, but if you’re [00:14:00] like most people and you only get linked and excited when you’re looking for a job and then you land a job and you switch it off and get linked in dormant, when you do that, you are not moving forward on creating a ongoing, recognized, respectable personal brand. And there’s something I can tell you about a strong personal brand that I did not even know.
And that is a strong personal brand not only allows you to have opportunities that otherwise would not come your way. It creates opportunities for you to help other people at a level that would not be possible did you not have a strong personal brand. Also, another thing I can tell you is this, when I speak to a lot of people in career transition, no matter how well they speak to me and how confident they sound, Let’s be honest.
I’ve been there. You’re broken a little when you lose that corporate job for the first time in your life. But what I tell my clients is this, [00:15:00] if you’ll work on your personal brand and build strength to it, start creating attention to it and credibility, it actually will help build your confidence about yourself because it is so hard for people to really understand who I am.
But if you can have a good brainstorming session with a professional and help them to find who they are, you can watch their confidence level go up. So personal branding, job search, uh, trying to land a client, trying to find your very first job, trying to advance in your current company, all of this is about standing out and there’s no better way than your personal brand.
Porschia: Yeah, I echo all of that, Greg. And I really liked what you said about people only being energized, you know, about LinkedIn when they’re looking for a job or they’re looking for a client. And then once they, you know, seemingly reach that goal, they They become what you call LinkedIn dormant, right? And you don’t want to [00:16:00] do that.
Um, we actually have a LinkedIn makeover service. And I think I’ve talked to you about this before, um, where we, you know, rewrite the different sections of our clients, LinkedIn profiles, and then deliver that to them in a document where they can put that into their own LinkedIn profile. And having the right keywords, as I’m sure you know, are really important in terms of getting that, uh, visibility, whether that be with recruiters for a job or, um, potential clients who, you know, want to hire you.
So, um, thank you so much for sharing that with people. Um. Many of the people in our community are interested in developing their network. How do you recommend that professionals and executives network on
Gregg: LinkedIn? Well, as you recognize, the networking world changed dramatically in the last two or three years.
What used to be all the in person [00:17:00] networking events, the little online events, there’s a mixture of both right now, a little hybrid environment. What I learned about networking when I began my journey as a LinkedIn guy was it opened up opportunities for me. It allowed me to meet some valuable people. I mean, reality is you’re only one person away from meeting someone that could change your life or career forever.
So network is important, but one of the tips I share during my presentations, I’ll kind of share with you today when it comes to networking is this, and this tip, by the way, applies to in person networking or online networking. That when you meet someone for the very first time, there’s really only four things they’re ever going to remember about you.
Your face, your name, what you do, and the name of your company. And I can tell you right now, the thing they remember the least on the first impression is your company name. So if you lead that first conversation with your company name and you don’t allow them to make that emotional connection, you’re not building that connection.
That’s going to [00:18:00] start building a mutually beneficial relationship. So I wanted to share that tip with you. So what you’re going to do, of course, you’re going to meet people online. You’re going to go to LinkedIn. You’re going to invite them to connect. You’re going to add them to your LinkedIn network.
And that’s just where it begins. I mean, just because you’re connected doesn’t mean you’re networking. Networking means staying in communication with the person, trying to form a mutually beneficial relationship, adding value to their career journey, and helping each other out. That’s networking. Just having a connection doesn’t mean you’re networking.
By the way, if you invite somebody to connect on LinkedIn, please just don’t push the connect button without writing a personal note. It’s always to your advantage to write a personal note on LinkedIn. First of all, expressing where you met them or why you’re reaching out to connect and stuff like that, because once you write that first note to someone on LinkedIn and you talk to that person, say three years later, it’s the same matches, you’re sort of building a CRM inside of LinkedIn of the entire relationship.
So make sure [00:19:00] you write a personal note. And then when they connect with you, do a quick note back thanking them for connecting. What I don’t want you to do. is come back to them with that copy and paste sales pitch. If you do that, you do not understand the voice of the personal page on LinkedIn. It is not, that’s the company page voice, sales pitching people, company, the personal page, it’s more relational.
It’s a more, the opportunity to build a mutually beneficial relationship. So always write a note. You have time for the relationship to grow before you start trying to rapidly move it forward. And when you’re writing your note, trying to connect with people, remember that commonality helps build connection.
Okay, so you could go to maybe the company page where they work and see who you know in common there. Maybe go to the company page and see who attended your, your college you attended. Find something in common you can use in your introductory note and invite the person. [00:20:00] And the last comment I’ll make is make sure not only do you connect with people, you maintain your relationship.
One of the suggestions I give to people is you need to have a grasp of who’s in your network. And the easiest way to do that is to go to your settings and privacy area on LinkedIn and click on the data privacy area and go where it says, get a copy of your data and download a spreadsheet copy of your connection list.
You should do this at least every 90 to 120 days. You want to look at that list and see who needs some extra love. Who have I forgotten about? Who means a lot to me? Who do I need to reach out to and print this list and use this to maintain your relationships? Because here’s the reality of digital relationships.
It’s always nice to have a relationship. But in today’s digital world, if you haven’t digitized your old school relationships and started to maintain and nurture those relationships, you are slowly [00:21:00] losing those relationships. And LinkedIn is your place for nurturing those relationships.
Porschia: A lot of great, great insight that you gave there.
I definitely agree with, you know, everything that I’ve heard. I recommend that our clients, when they connect with people to definitely write a personal message about, you know, where you met that person or just what intrigued you to connect with them that you might’ve seen on their profile or online somewhere else.
Um, and. I loved your tip about downloading your connection list. I, uh, haven’t done that. Um, and so I think that’s definitely something important to do. Um, what I really also enjoyed was when you mentioned about adding value and really looking for ways to create that mutually beneficial connection. Which is obviously vital, but I’ll tell you this, Greg, I [00:22:00] have heard from clients where sometimes they get overwhelmed by hearing that.
Right? How do I add value? I don’t, how do I know if I’m doing that? Um, how can I make sure that, you know, my relationships on LinkedIn are mutually beneficial? Right? So I want to ask you. When people are thinking about maintaining their professional networks on LinkedIn, what should they actually be doing on the platform to, you know, add value or maintain those connections?
Gregg: Well, when you print out that spreadsheet of all your LinkedIn connections, what I’m going to recommend you do is go through and identify who on there, who important to you on LinkedIn and write that person a quick note that says, Hey, Bob, hope you had a great summer, uh, thinking about you today here to help.
If you need me, send that note off. You’re doing that for a couple of reasons. One is you want to let Bob know you care. And the other reason is you want to see if Bob responds. If Bob responds to you, of course he cares, but what it tells you is Bob is on [00:23:00] LinkedIn and he knows how to use it. Just because you’re connected with someone on LinkedIn does not mean you have the opportunity to build a mutually beneficial relationship, LinkedIn unengaged.
In fact, on LinkedIn, if you want to find where the really active people are, the people that you know, use LinkedIn, that you want to invite to join your network, there’s only two places on LinkedIn where you can go and rest assured, these people know how to use LinkedIn. One of those two places is your LinkedIn newsfeed.
Look not only at who’s posting articles, but look at who’s liking and commenting. Everybody there was just there in the last 24 to 48 hours. These people use LinkedIn, and that would be what I call an active LinkedIn user. And the only other place, and this is something new in the last dec last year that will help you, is searching hashtags.
Say, for example, I want to find out some new people [00:24:00] in the personal branding arena. If I go up to my search bar and I type in the personal branding hashtag, it brings me a brand new news feed of nothing but all the articles around the world on LinkedIn, where someone has used the personal branding hashtag.
These people, 99% of these people, I do not know, but you know what? I do know one thing about them. They were just there on LinkedIn. So those are some of my tips of how you find active people on LinkedIn to bring value. You bring value by being focused on the other person first. Don’t be needy, be helpful.
If you’re helpful and that is your approach, when it comes time for you to get the assistance you need, they’re going to be there. But if you’re one of these people I call an opportunist, where I only hear from you when you want something, those requests usually don’t get received quite as warmly. Mm
Porschia: hmm.
Yeah. A lot of great points there. [00:25:00] And one other thing, Greg, that I do, and I think this is to your point of helping other people, um, I tell our clients that if you see something that reminds you of someone else you’re connected with, right? So if you see an article, you see a video, um, you know, you see a LinkedIn news story, anything like that, um, you can just send that to someone in a quick message and say, you know, Hey, Greg, I.
I saw this article and I thought about you, uh, just wanted to make sure you were able to check it out, you know, and not even necessarily ask for a response or anything like that, but just kind of pop in someone’s messages that way, um, as another way to, you know, just be helpful and add value. Yeah, I
Gregg: love that tip.
And, uh, also one of the other benefits of having a strong personal brand and a really engaged professional network is you can make a lot of intros to people as you were talking about. You can create opportunities for people and what I see happen a lot of time when people are on [00:26:00] LinkedIn trying to develop their strategy of I want to grow my network.
So who am I looking for? Well, I’m only going to try to connect with potential customers. Well, if you’re only trying to connect with potential customers or companies you want to work for, you’re missing the gold mine inside of LinkedIn. You have no idea how many times I’ve been sitting training an elite executive in job transition about some advice of how to build their brand and find their next opportunity.
And we can work for two or three hours together. Never once do they ask me, Greg, do you know someone in your network who could help me? I can tell you the answer. I know a lot of people who could help you. But you know what? Most people are focused on the client or somebody that’s going to hire them. They don’t think about finding someone who is well networked, who enjoys helping other people.
Those are the gate openers on a wide scale for anything you want to do. Those are the relationships that you can help nurture. And how do you nurture those? Well, most times this person [00:27:00] who’s gonna open that door for you has a better or bigger brand than you do. Why don’t you help that person get their brand even bigger, say some nice supportive things about them on their post.
Introduce them to potential clients and speaking opportunities. That’s how you can help those people and return. They open up their address book to you and their connection list. Wow. There’s so much gold there that goes untapped.
Porschia: Wow. Wow. That’s a lot of great information. Uh, so from your perspective, Greg, what do you think makes someone’s LinkedIn profile stand out?
Gregg: As a general rule, You won’t, you’ll find this hard to believe, but most people aren’t looking for you on LinkedIn. There’s actually only two people that might even be looking for you. One is somebody that wants to sell you something. We know those people. And the other is possibly a recruiter that wants to hire you, but clients.
Clients aren’t looking [00:28:00] for you on LinkedIn as a general rule. They discover you. They see you doing something publicly on LinkedIn that attracts them to you. And then if they see something that attracts them, what do they do? They click on your LinkedIn profile. And as a general rule, the first three things that really kind of stand out on your profile are, are your photo.
Let’s make sure we got a nice photo there. We don’t want an animal photo. We don’t want a group photo. We don’t want a logo. We want a headshot. There was your face zoomed in about 65 or 70% of that circle. Let’s do that. Let’s make sure the words below our name, which is called our headline. Let’s make sure that says more than our job title, because if your headline only says your job title, you’re underselling yourself.
You don’t understand a personal brand because your headline can be more than your job title. It can be two or three other lines of some of your hard skills, soft skills, and attributes. So your headline area is important, and I believe one of the most important areas I look at is the about section, because this is your opportunity in your own words [00:29:00] in first person to tell me about yourself.
What do you do? What is the value you bring? Who do you work with? What is the end result of what you do? That is powerful. In fact, a solid LinkedIn profile. When I go look at a profile, in addition to what I just said to you, I’m also looking to feel something. That’s what makes a LinkedIn profile different than a resume.
You can make people feel something with your words, with your photos, with your videos, and sometimes you can use other people’s words to make them feel something about you. So, your LinkedIn profile is an opportunity for you to potentially have an unspoken conversation with someone you may never get a chance to talk to.
Because your profile, it never sleeps. 65. There is no vacation. There is no holiday. There is no calling in sick. It is out there all the time representing you. Ask yourself [00:30:00] 11 o’clock tonight. If someone landed on your LinkedIn profile, would they run towards you or would they run away from you? That is the power of your LinkedIn profile.
Porschia: Yeah. Wow. So that headshot headline and the about section, uh, are some of those prime areas. Uh, I know Greg, years ago, um, when I was doing some work with LinkedIn, one of the stats they shared, uh, with me was that over 80% of people are gonna check out your about section and then determine what they want to do.
You know, so do they want to keep reading or scanning your profile? Um, do they want to send you a message? Are they going to click away and go to another profile? Right. So yeah, that about section is so important as well as, you know, the headshot and the headline. Um, so to kind of shift gears a little bit, Greg, what are some of the biggest mistakes [00:31:00] you see people make with
Gregg: LinkedIn?
I would say the top one has to be, they don’t have a LinkedIn account. That’s, that’s number one. Then 1A is they have a LinkedIn account and they do nothing with it. 1B is they have a LinkedIn account, they do a little bit, but nothing consistently. So what generally happens is someone will set up their LinkedIn account, it kind of lies around for several years, and while it’s lying around and online and you’re doing nothing with it, A lot of the information on your profile is getting inaccurate is slowly losing the appeal of who you are.
So you’ve got to make sure if you set up a LinkedIn profile, you keep it fresh. And having a LinkedIn profile is only half of the way you grow your brand. Because think of your, your LinkedIn profile as a postcard in a spinner rack. Your next goal is you got to get somebody to spin that rack. And the way you get that to happen is by being present on [00:32:00] LinkedIn.
And no, step one of being present on LinkedIn for the very first time is not posting, posting, posting. Okay. Let’s get that out of the way. You cannot post your what is success unless you start building other foundation around it. So if you’re newer on LinkedIn, I’m going to recommend grow your network, start interacting with other people whose brands are bigger than yours, become part of the LinkedIn community and become recognized.
Also look at your newsfeed. How are people talking? Notice the voice and the tone so that when you do get active, you know the proper voice on LinkedIn. So that’s what I would recommend as far as moving forward on LinkedIn and some of the mistakes there. The other thing is connecting with someone. And neglecting someone you connect with, that’s the last day here.
And probably my number one irritant on LinkedIn is people that take the short game approach to LinkedIn, as opposed to the [00:33:00] long game. LinkedIn is a long game. If you’re trying to do anything really fast on LinkedIn, you might have some limited success, but you could end up burning your brand, and your reputation, and your opportunity to ever use LinkedIn on a long term basis, because that is not the voice of LinkedIn.
So just make sure you use the platform respectfully, bring value and don’t be so eager to sell really fast. It doesn’t work that way. It alienates people.
Porschia: Wow. I mean, I think that, uh, our listeners are going to need to listen to this episode twice because you have shared a lot of great insights. LinkedIn, Greg, if someone is interested in working with you, what is the best way for them to get in touch
Gregg: with you?
I would love for them to reach out to me, drop me an invitation to connect on LinkedIn with a personal note. [00:34:00] Mentioned that I was on the port podcast with Portia. I would love to connect with you. If you want to try to visit me via my website, you can go to gregburkhalter. com. Com. I would welcome the opportunity to add you to my network.
I look forward to being of assistance and Portia. I want to say thank you again for having me on your podcast. This has been a fun 30 minutes or so. And again, thanks for the opportunity.
Porschia: Absolutely. I’ve got a couple more questions for you, Greg. We’re definitely going to share, you know, that information.
Um, In the show notes for this episode, I want to know, and this is something we’d like to ask all of our guests. How do you think executives or professionals can get a positive edge in their career?
Gregg: Networking, building a support system. These are people that You trust that will shoot you straight, that will give you reality checks, that will open up their network and create opportunities for you.
People that [00:35:00] genuinely care about you. That is going to be one of the best ways to create and maintain a long career. No one is the island. It takes people around you. So that’s my number one recommendation.
Porschia: And, uh, it definitely sounds like LinkedIn is a way to, uh, build that island, right? And build those connections around people.
Gregg: It’s a great way to build those connections. It’s a great way to bring. Value and help other people and it’s a great way to be part of a conversation that has substance to it And you become part of the business work day and you’re ever present and people think about you you’re relevant If you’re not on linkedin and you’re digitally dormant, you’re slowly becoming irrelevant
Porschia: Wow.
Very powerful. Very powerful, Greg. Uh, you’ve shared a lot of, I think, tips and some secrets with us today, and I’m [00:36:00] sure that our listeners can use it to really be confident when they’re on LinkedIn and using LinkedIn, right, to network, uh, and for their career transitions. Uh, we appreciate you being with us.
Thanks again,
Gregg: Portia. I had a great time. Great.
