“I’ve just learned that I love speaking to college students. They ask great questions. Their excitement and desire to learn and grow is infectious. Hopefully, we inspire each other.” – Scott Ingram in today’s Tip 663
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Transcript
Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Last week I had an opportunity to speak to the students participating in the Northern Intercollegiate Sales Competition (NISC) at the invitation of Dr. Stefanie Boyer. We forgot to record the opening chunk of what I shared so I promised them that I’d do a quick recap tip just for them here on Daily Sales Tips. So I’m going to cram as much of that into the next 5 minutes or so as I can. The focus was on LinkedIn. So here we go:
First, start with the basics and your profile. Make sure you’ve got a professional headshot that represents you well. Your picture speaks volumes and shows up everywhere that you do on LinkedIn, so make sure you’ve got that squared away. From there, make sure you’ve got a strong headline and give people some insights into who you are in your about section. Don’t be afraid to be human and be yourself here. This shouldn’t read like a resume, but instead should be a friendly, easy way for people to get a sense of who you are. These are all important elements.
Once you’ve got the basics taken care of on your profile. Connect with people! That’s what LinkedIn is all about. It’s an incredible tool to help you stay connected with people. Take a long term view of this as well. Your friends today won’t always be in junior positions. 10 years from now you’ll be amazed at where they end up and the type of work they’re doing and the positions they’ve grown into. Stay in touch and work to maintain those connections over time. There’s literally no better tool than LinkedIn to help you do that.
This is a little hard to do right now, but things won’t always be this way. As much and as often as you can. Take things offline. LinkedIn and social networking platforms are great, but remember these are real people. Find ways to be with those real people. Connect over coffee, have a drink, or until that’s safe to do, setup a Zoom either one to one, or for a small group of people you’d like to develop deeper relationships with. There’s great power in being a connector, and it takes very little effort.
If you want to really start building your brand and start posting on the platform. Work to be consistent. You certainly don’t need to post everyday. LinkedIn will actually start to slow you down if you post more than once a day. Think about a manageable schedule that you can maintain over the long term. Even once a week is perfectly fine. Think you can do 2-3 times a week. Great. Just try to develop a cadence that you can execute consistently.
To get even better at posting I’d suggest you do two things. Learn from other people who are doing it well. You can find a ton of those folks on my LinkedIn Sales Stars list, and I’ll include a link to that list at DailySales.Tips/663 where you’ll also find a transcript of this tip. But don’t just watch what they do. Don’t be shy about reaching out and connecting in a more meaningful way. Ask them a question. Ask them for a few minutes to really connect in a meaningful way. One of the things I typically do is to informally bring the LinkedIn Sales Stars together after each update of the list, and we’ll be updating that list shortly. Doesn’t take a lot of effort and we all get an opportunity to get to know each other and learn from each other.
Last but not least, be you. Authenticity wins on LinkedIn. Give us some insights into who you are, what you’re interested in, and especially at this stage, what you’re learning. You don’t have to be the world’s foremost expert on anything yet. There’s value in sharing your journey. Post about the things that you’re focused on. Talk about your failures and what’s not working. All of these things remind the rest of us, who might be ahead of you on your journey of some of the important basics. There’s a ton of value in that. Inject your personality and your humanity. Be somebody that others might want to connect with based on some of those shared interests you’ve exposed.
I’ve just learned that I love speaking to college students. They ask great questions. Their excitement and desire to learn and grow is infectious. Hopefully, we inspire each other.
Thanks to Stefanie and the students for having me and being so engaged. I hope you’ll all subscribe to the podcast and keep learning, and then come on back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!