A lot of people say, “I don’t want to give away too much.” I say, “Give away everything. Give away tons of stuff.” It works when you do that. Giving away free samples works.  – Bruce Johnston

 

Hi everyone, welcome to the show! Today’s guest is the first person who connected with me on LinkedIn that suggested we have an offline conversation, which I thought was a refreshing move in the social media world we live in.

Bruce Johnston is a LinkedIn Expert and Consultant, and I thought he’d be a great guest to talk about LinkedIn and where it should be in our professional lives as managers and (aspiring) leaders.

In this episode, we talk about his story as an accidental LinkedIn consultant, how to optimize your LinkedIn profile, memberships, LinkedIn publishing, and a lot more.

Click that play button to listen, and don’t forget to rate us on iTunes!

Practical Uses of LinkedIn

Your LinkedIn Profile

You have to think of it like a pyramid.

The base level of your pyramid is your LinkedIn profile. It’s important to have a profile, and it’s important to have it semi-completed. It’s important that people can know about you, your track record, background, because it’s the place that people go to reference check.

If I hear about someone interesting in a casual conversation, the first thing I do when I get a chance and no one’s looking is I get my mobile phone and look that person up on LinkedIn.

Your Profile Photo

A lot of people don’t bother putting a photo; you should have a photo. It makes you look trustworthy. The absence of a photo works the other way – when you don’t see a photo, people automatically think, “This person is a technological luddite; they don’t know how to put a photo on their profile” OR “What are they trying to hide?”

Publishing on LinkedIn

There are two big things you can do on LinkedIn: 1) you can increase your reach and have more people become aware of you or your company, and 2) you can increase your credibility.

I get a lot of people who go, “Well, I tried publishing for 3 weeks. I published 5 or 6 times in 3 weeks and didn’t really get anywhere.”

I go, ”Well you have to do it more often than that.”

Ford doesn’t advertise on three football games and then give up. They keep doing it, and keep doing it and keep doing it, and that’s how everyone’s aware of who they are and what they sell. It’s that repetition. You see it, and it doesn’t sink through the first couple of times, but sooner or later it does.

You have to keep it up, and you have to stay focused; you can’t wander off and doing odd things, talking about your hobbies. If you’re doing this as a business, then it has to be the business.

You know what your customers want and what questions they have? Good. Start answering them.

Bruce’s Productivity Tip

Figure out when you’re at your most productive and do your important work then. I’m most productive early in the morning, so I tend to do most of my writing and my work that takes deep thinking – that tends to take place between 6 and 8 o’clock in the morning.

It’s before all the preoccupations set in – before I start talking to people, before people start emailing me, before people start calling me. That’s when I’m thinking very clearly and I can be really focused.

 

Links and Resources

Connect with Bruce: LinkedIn

Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson

The New Strategic Selling: The Unique Sales System Proven Successful by the World's Best Companies by Robert B. Miller, Stephen E. Heiman and Tad Tuleja