Transcript

Not just your usual “where I’m  from and what I do”, because yes I am a personal brand strategist but there’s so much more to me, and that’s what makes my personal brand.

There are a million accountants, a million lawyers, there’s a million insurance brokers, there are millions of bankers, but there is not one that does it the way that you do.

There’s no one else that does personal branding strategy the way that I do it, you either gel with me or you don’t.

That’s the same for you, people will either gel with you or they won’t, they’ll find common ground with you based on your personal brand and what it is that you’re putting out there.

So here’s the first question: What’s more important? What you know, or who you know?

I reckon that they’re equally important, and it’s who knows you that is actually what makes the difference.

Because you need to have both components, you need to know people because when you’re trying to make your way in a career, or in your business, or you want more education, you want to learn more about something, you need to know who to go to in order to get that information.

What you know, yes, you need to have some sort of basic knowledge of something in order to be good at it, yes you can build on it, but you’ve got to start somewhere so both of those are equal.

Where the magic happens is when people know you, that’s where the opportunities lie, when people start thinking about you, and you’re front of mind and, and you’re the person that they are attracted to, or the person that they want to work with when a certain opportunity comes up that is your niche is your industry.

So what is your personal brand?

First up, whether you like it or not you actually have a personal brand, and you might be sitting there going “well I don’t do much on social media, I don’t do any branding, I’m not in marketing.” Doesn’t matter, it’s as simple as what people think feel and say about you.

You’ve got absolutely no control over what people think, feel, and say about you, but you do have the opportunity to influence it, and that’s what strategically building your personal brand is all about.

Your personal brand is 100% you. As a person you will be different when you’re with different people, a different part of your brand will come out whether it’s friends and family, with clients, at the sports club or with your colleagues etc

So a different part of your personal brand will come out at different times, but it is made up of four key components:

• Your Passion: What is it that actually lights you up because that’s what draws people to you.

When I talk about beer it’s like “beer is made from barley hops, I don’t know. I’m  sure WA farmers, there’s lots of them that make beer… great.” I’m  not lit up because I’m  not interested.

Whereas if you ask me about my favorite gin, i’ll tell you it’s the isle of Harris gin, from home, and it’s amazing, and I can have a full conversation with you about it because I’m  passionate about it

Same with personal branding. If you asked me about personal branding, I will chew your ear off for hours talking about the ins and outs of it,

But another part of marketing, if you asked me about SEO, I don’t know, I  basically know what it is, but I couldn’t help you with it.

So we want to be an expert in what it is that you offer you want to be passionate about it because experts are who actually make the difference.

It’s experts that make them more money it’s experts that get noticed generalists generally oh lots of general generally not as much so.

• Your Zone of Genius: Skills, knowledge, and experience. So what skills have you picked up? What education have you had? What experiences in the workforce or voluntary have you had that you’ve actually been good at?

Many people will concentrate their time on the things that they’re not good at, so we all have to have basic skills

Banking for one, we all have to have money,  it’s basic survival, and you know to be able to buy food, water,  have housing, so we need to understand money we need to understand tax etc it doesn’t mean we’re an expert in it, there’s other people that do that.

But your zone of genius might be something else, it might be something like keeping your indoor plants alive, (which is definitely not my zone of genius), and if you can monetize that then go niche on it

Because people pay a fortune for indoor plants, basically because they have to keep replacing them, because they’re killing them like I am.

Now, let’s be a little bit more specific about a profession.

So you might not have your own garden shop, you might be an accountant, if you’re an accountant you will be a certain type of accountant, you might do tax, you might do general business, there’ll be different parts of accountancy that you specialize in.

That’s the first time that you’ve niched down, and  narrowed, that’s your area of expertise.

The next time that you’ve niched down again is when you become an expert because of your experience, and your knowledge, when you service a particular industry

So perhaps you look at agribusiness, which means that you can help farmers or people in the agri sector better than someone who doesn’t have any aggregate experience, purely because you’re dealing with it day in day out

Whereas when you’re a generalist, again, it’s harder because you’re always pulling new information, so there’s definite value in niching, the more niched you can be the better.

• The People In Your Life: You are the sum of the five people you spend the most time with, you absorb them, you start projecting them out, so be careful about who it is that you’re spending your time with.

Because, like anything, whether it’s on social media or in real life, you’re eating, consuming things, it starts showing out in real life, so be careful that you’re surrounding yourself with the right people.

You’ve also got the rule of association, where you want to be surrounded by people that other people respect as well.

These people are really important when you’re building your personal brand because  it sort of seeps into your personal brand whether you like it or not.

Because you’re pulling things from those experiences, but you’re also trying to impress them and whether you know that you are or not.

For your personal brand you might be a careerist, and you want to be the cfo of the company you work for, you’re going to have to influence and spend time with those VIPs, which are the decision makers that will eventually give you that job down the line

• What drives you: Beliefs, values, motivation what gets you out of bed in the morning, because that’s a big part of your personal brand, that’s what lights you up as well.

So passion and your drive, they go very much hand in hand, but they will ooze into that professionalism as well.

The Seven Main Personal Brands

Here are the seven main personal brands: These are the ones that I like to focus on, we’ve got: The do-gooder, the careerist, the connector, the provocateur, the new ager, the regular person, and the journalist.

The Regular Person: It would be pretty awesome to be the Regular Person, that is, someone who just attracts a following no matter what. They don’t have a real expertise in anything particular, it’s just them as a person.

They’ve obviously got charisma, they’ve got a following, people want to aspire to be like them, they will tend to still have a niche though, because they will be attracting a certain group of people, but it’s just for them being them.

They literally will show you what they’re having for breakfast, they’ll show you the makeup they’re using, they’ll show you the kind of car they’re driving, and people will want those products based on the fact that they follow this person.

A couple of examples of that would be Kim Kardashian, she can post about lipsticks, banks, all of these things and people will go out and buy them.

Now she’s not an expert in lipstick, or underwear, or anything like that, she’s a user of it and like many of us, (and I mean I’m  not particularly good with lipstick, so perhaps she’s an expert you know compared to me), but she’s not got an expertise, she’s just a general person.

People will literally watch her wake up in the morning, watch her cook, I’ve seen videos of her showing people her kitchen and what’s in her pantry and people are literally watching that.

Now, I’m not a big Kardashian fan myself, but Ryan Reynolds is my favorite, he’s famous because he was an actor, so he’s got a platform that you and I might not have.

But what he’s done with that platform is he’s now a very successful businessman, he’s leveraging his personal brand to be able to sell products.

His aviation gin, that’s an easy sell for me, because I like gin, but his sim card, “Mint Mobile” I want a Mint Mobile, (and it won’t work here in Australia) because I want what he is selling because he’s a good marketer and because I trust him and I buy into his personality.

Okay so regular person is what we’re all aiming for, I guess because you just want to be liked for who you are, but there’ll be other aspects to your personal brand which will come into play as well.

The Do-Gooder: Someone who  thinks that they will make a difference in the world, and they think that by building their personal brand they’re going to get influence and credibility to actually have an impact and make a difference in what it is that they’re passionate about.

So they are going to make a difference in the world by being vocal by being a spokesperson for it, by being the face of it.

The Careerist: there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be the CEO, the CFO, the CMO, wanting to be part of that c-suite.

You build your personal brand because, like we know with most jobs, the higher up you go they’re not advertised, there’s someone head-hunting for them, or there’s a tap on the shoulder, or if they are advertised they’re ready earmarked for someone else.

You want to be that person who is thought of when the CFO leaves, and it’s going to be replaced.

The Connector: Love the connector, that’s probably the one I resonate the most with.

The Journalist: I think a lot of us have Journalists in us, it’s a journalist is someone who is bringing together lots of information that’s already out there and putting it into a new format and sticking it back out with their opinion on it.

They’re basically doing the research of what’s already out there and putting it back out.

Most of us probably are journalists when it comes to building our personal brand because a lot of us aren’t actually doing the research, we’re not on the ground actually getting that information.

We’re reading about it, we’re researching, and then we’re putting it back out with our take on, so the journalists will probably resonate with a lot of you too.

The provoker: You love to hate the provoker, and when they put out content, you go straight into the comment section because you want to know what’s being said.

They stimulate debate, they are definitely putting you on the side of loving or hating them.

I describe them as mermaids, either love or hate them, and that’s where you start really building your personal brand as well. If someone hates you, that means that someone over on this other side loves you, and that’s what you want.

Now this doesn’t have to be on a big scale, because again building your personal brand isn’t about likes, it’s not about being internet famous, it’s about being industry or niche famous, but you want to be that person that has an opinion and stimulates debate.

So you might see that you are maybe a combination of two, or three, of these different types on any given day.

Three Brands That We Do Not Want

Then we have three brands that we do not want:

The Chameleon: The Chameleon just disappears. They don’t have an opinion, they don’t stand out, they’re just happy kind of bumbling along doing their own thing.

Which is totally fine, if you’re happy to do that, it just means that you won’t get noticed, and you won’t get in front of the opportunities.

Don’t get me wrong there’s always exceptions to every rule, but that in a such a competitive world you won’t really get to the top, because you won’t be noticed.

So we want to stand out, we want to have our opinions out there, we want to know, we want to be known for something, but we don’t want to be The Trump.

The Trump: The Trump is the other extreme where you 100% know what they’re all about, what they’re thinking, what they’re feeling, what they had for breakfast, and how damn good they are, because they will tell you and that’s all they tell you.

They’re not adding any value, they’re not contributing anything that’s inspiring or motivating for you, they’re just saying” I’m  wonderfull”, when you should be putting something out that is helping other people.

The Fence Sitter: We know them, but we never really know where they’re at and what they actually do.

It’s very hard to give a Fence Sitter opportunities because you don’t actually know what it is that they’re working on, and you kind of think “they do a bit of this but do they really?” You’re never really sure, so you don’t want to do it.

This is why building your personal brand is really important, because you want to be very clear about who it is that you are, and what it is that you offer.

So why bother?

Here’s my two examples: Mary and Heather They are both financial assistants, but they have two very different approaches to it:

Now, I’m  going to go back again to the fact that we’re not after masses and masses of numbers, when we’re building our personal brand it’s about being influential and credible in front of the people that matter.

So we’re in a big organization at the moment we’ve got Mary and Heather, and they’re in equal roles.

Mary is very private, and she doesn’t share very much of her personality at work, she comes in she goes out. She would love this new job that’s just come up, because the financial manager is leaving.

Whereas Heather has got rapport. She has made contact within the organization, she’s been very vocal about the changes she would like to make, what she’s implementing, what she’s done since she’s been there, and what an opportunity like being the financial manager would mean to her.

She has got some backing there, so when it comes to advertising this role, (which might be advertised publicly), someone will probably tap on the shoulder of Heather and say “you’re going to apply for the job”.

Now it doesn’t guarantee Heather gets the job, but she’s at least had the tap on the shoulder suggesting that she should, because people within the organization know what her direction is, they’ve got rapport with her, and they like her.

Because building a personal brand is about being on site, and being reputable, and credible within your peers and those above you as well.

People will talk about you no matter what. People talk about Mary in the completely wrong way, they think that she would never be interested in that job, and she wouldn’t be dedicated to it because they just don’t really know her.

Whereas they talk about Heather, but they have it right, they kind of have Heather suss because she’s put out a lot more information into the world about who she is, what she’s doing, and what she’s aspiring to.

The Benefits

Now, if you’re watching this master class, you will fit into two categories: You’re either a business owner, or you’re a careerist, or you might be someone who has a career and a bit of a side hustle, and hopefully will have a business at some point.

Why would you want to build your personal brand?

Number one: no matter what profession you’re in, or what you’re doing, it is all about getting in front of opportunities, it’s about being known.

It’s about being the person that’s front of mind when opportunities come up, it’s about attracting the right people, whether that’s clients or people to collaborate with.

If you’ve got your own business, you obviously need clients in order for your business to work, and if you work for a business, perhaps you’ve got KPIs that depend on you attracting people as well.

People are attracted to people that they resonate with, that’s why people buy from people, that’s why your network’s really important, because whatever you put out there into the world and what actually makes you different.

I always think that the saying “whatever makes you weird is your superpower” is true. Because it’s the little quirks you have that attract people and keep them excited about you.

If you’re a lawyer per se, you had to go through the same education as everyone else who’s a lawyer, there might be someone that you know who has the same amount of experience, did very similar kind of work and so on.

But even then, you’re going to be polar opposites, because your experiences, your likes and your dislikes, and the way that you approach things will be completely different.

Plus, whatever motivates you, and you have passion about will also be a different direction that you go in.

Which means that you never really have competition, in the sense that no one else can be you. You are the only one that has ever gotten to where you are with your specific journey, no one else will have had the same experiences as you’ve had.

Building Your Personal Brand on LinkedIn

So, let’s get down to what we’re all really here for: How do we start building that personal brand on LinkedIn?

We understand what personal branding is, we know why it’s important, and we know that it’s going to lead to lots of opportunities, but how do we start doing this online?

Personally, I think that LinkedIn is the best place to do it at the moment, the organic reach is amazing, you’ve got 720 odd million people on there, yet you’ve only got three million that are actively putting content out regularly.

What that means is you’ve got a lot of passive users that are consumers, but not got many people that are actually creating, so to be noticed you need to be one of those creators.

Now we’re gonna look at the four main components of LinkedIn:

• Your profile
• Connections
• Engagement
• Content

Starting with the profile, what you’re seeing here  is what you would see if you were to go on to my profile today.

The likelihood of many people scrolling down past this is slim, but this is the bit that will be to be the decider as to whether they scroll down or they press the return button.

This is where you capture people, and this is where you make it very clear and quickly what it is that you do and who you do it for

The three most important parts of your profile are your headshot, your name, and that headline, and I’m  just going to explain why:

• Headshot: It’s called a headshot for a reason. We want only your head in it, we don’t want full body, we don’t want props, we don’t want selfies, and we definitely don’t want other people in there.

It needs to be very clear that you are the person that this profile represents, and it needs to be a relevant and a fairly recent picture of you as well.

if I was to use a picture of me 18 months ago I had a short blonde bob, and if you came onto this master class after being on my LinkedIn you’d feel a bit uncomfortable.

You’d be like, “that’s not Megan, that’s that’s a different person!” So it needs to be a clear representation of you.

And I want you smiling all the way to the eyes, this could be the first time someone sees you, so make sure it is a good first impression.

• Your Name: Seems fairly simple; I’m Megan Mcneill, I am a “Megan”, not a “Meg”, not a “Migs”, nothing else.

If I was, however, a Meg, and that’s what I use professionally, that’s what I introduced myself as.

Then I would need to put “Meg Mcneil” there, because whatever you introduce yourself as, and whatever you show up as in the real world, you want that to be represented on your profile. This is a digital extension of you.

It has to represent you fully, so take away all the confusion and put whatever name you actually use there, not what’s on your birth certificate, what you actually use when you meet people.

• The Headline: Then thirdly this headline bit that says “personal branding for professionals to successfully achieve personal and professional goals without sacrificing what is important.”

That part’s really important as well, because one, it’s loaded with keywords but, secondly, it’s the first thing you see when you come on to my profile.

And this is probably the most important thing; when I’m  sending out a connection request, when I’m  posting content, and when I’m  engaging on content on LinkedIn, there are three things you see: My headshot, my name, and that line.

Make sure it actually says what you do, and who you do it for, not what your title is.

If you’re a CEO, or CFO, general manager, that’s fantastic, great for you, it’s a great accomplishment, I’m  not going to take that away from you. But honestly, nobody cares.

Nobody who’s actually looking at that (other than  your mom, your mom is going “Yes!”), really cares because everybody’s thinking “what’s in it for me? What can you do for me?”

So you need to use that line to very quickly show them exactly what you do for them.

They’re the three most important parts for your profile in terms of setting up to start using the platform

• Header: This is free advertising space. Make sure you’re leveraging that, make sure you’re using that, don’t leave it empty, and don’t have something generic in there.

If I see another beach picture… Unless you sell coconuts on the beach, I don’t understand why you’ve got it there, it’s beautiful, but it doesn’t tell me anything about what you do, or how you can help me.

So I want something really specific there, that actually quickly tells me what it is you do, this is your personal billboard, and it’s free advertising space, people are really visual so make use of that.

• Location when you’re setting up your profile LinkedIn will ask you what your location is this is less important for someone like me, I have an online business, so I work with people all around the world, so it doesn’t matter.

I don’t have a shopfront, so people wouldn’t be googling “lawyer in west Perth”, or “physiotherapist in Bear’s Den”, they’re not going to be looking for that because I’m  not in a specific location.

If you are, that location part is really important. I’ve seen people that got “Perth, Scotland” when they’re in Australia and  “Perth, Australia” when they’re in Scotland.

Just make sure you’ve got the right location there, I can’t stress enough that this part of your profile is like your hero, if your profile is a website this would be the hero header.

This is the bit that will capture people, and it will make them scroll down further, or it will make them go back, and you need to get this set up at the very start before you continue doing anything else.

Connections: This, again, is  why you need to have your profile set up properly and as a real representation of you.

When you start reaching out to people, and they land on your profile to decide whether they want to connect with you or not, you want to make sure that what they’re landing on is true, something that’s going to attract them.

• When you’re reaching out to people, personalize it.

You can add a note every time you reach out to someone, so make sure you’re doing that because people are more likely to actually engage with you have conversation with you, check you out, and connect with you.

Do not put a sales pitch into your connection request, ever,  this is the exact same as in dating; you wouldn’t bring a ring to a first date, so don’t put a proposal in a first connection request.

Keep it nice and light,  make sure that it’s relevant to them, have a look at their profile, pull something from there that you can comment on, and that you can find some mutual ground.

You just want to have some rapport with them, just don’t sell, whatever you do, don’t sell.

• Network up. There is no other platform in the world that you can actually network up and get in front of some of the most influential people in the

Because one: Covid. We just aren’t seeing people the way we were before. But two: Geography.

You might not even be in the same country, town, or city as the person that you’re trying to get in front of, so you might not have that opportunity.

But thirdly, even if you are in the room with them, how likely are you to go and speak to them and be able to get through the crowds? Because if this is someone that’s attracting a lot of attention, then it might be really hard.

Whereas what you can do on LinkedIn is you can start networking with them.

What I mean by that is when they’re posting content, you can start engaging with it, start chatting to them on their own content, start chatting to the other people within the comments as well that’s networking it’s the exact same as networking in real life

You start congregating with people who have common interests, you start having conversations with them, it’s the exact same on LinkedIn, it’s like a 24/7 networking event.

So start doing that, don’t cold outreach to these people, don’t send them a connection request straight up.

You want to start building a bit of rapport, and start commenting on their content and engaging a little bit before you go in for the kill.

That way you’ve got something to talk about: “oh I’ve been following you for a while now, I really liked your piece, or I heard you speak at this event it was great, my key takeaway was whatever.”

You’ve got an opening, something to go in with, so you can really network up here you can get in front of some of  the best people in the world.

• Make use of the unfollow feature:Gotta love this.

So you might have had LinkedIn for a while now, and you built up some connections, and you don’t like your feed.

One of the main complaints I get about LinkedIn is “oh I hate my feed it’s just people sitting on cars and telling me that I need to be up at 5am if I’m  ever going to mount anything, and it’s all hustle hustle hustle”

If you’re seeing that kind of content, and you don’t like it, either unfollow or disconnect with these people.

Now, you can’t always unconnect with people, (you can as in there is a feature where  you can disconnect from them), but I know that you can’t because you maybe work with them, they’re part of the same social circle.

So it might not be appropriate for you to disconnect, but it doesn’t mean you have to consume their content, you can easily press unfollow.

• Rule of association:I’m  going to take you back to the school yard.

You’re in primary school, and you’re about nine. There’s a girl that’s not very nice at all, and  she’s got some friends because she rules with fear

Then you get away to high school, and it’s all diluted, there are loads more people there, and that girl is over in that corner, but she’s got some new friends, people from other schools that you know.

Those people are now part of her group you don’t trust them, you don’t like them, you’re a bit wary of them purely because of association. If she’s friends with them, the likelihood is they might be similar.

It’s the exact same as an adult. When you walk into a networking event, there might be someone that you really don’t like, someone who’s really bad in business.

You’ll avoid going over and speaking to them, and you’ll probably avoid the people that are around them as well, unless you can see that they’re also edging to get out.

Because you kind of think “oh well if that’s that’s their crew, that’s their people”, you kind of paint them all with the same brush.

So you don’t want to do that, it’s exact same on LinkedIn, just be careful with whom you’re connected. If you don’t know or trust them, there shouldn’t be a connection, and LinkedIn is all about building up your connections.

And it’s not someone that you maybe know them as a person, it could be someone that you have worked with over email, or it could be someone that you keep chatting to, or someone you’re trying to get in front of.

As long as you’ve got a reason, just be careful that you are you’re connected to the people that add value, and people you want to be associated with as well.

• Content: So we’ve covered your profile and how important that is, because that is a digital extension of you, and it should be a real representation of you as a person.

we’ve talked about the connections and engaging with them because that’s super important, but you need somewhere that they can land back to that represents you.

Lastly, you’re going to start creating content.

Now don’t go rushing off,  thinking “oh no I don’t want to create more content because I’m  already doing three things on Instagram, and reels, and lives and all sorts of stuff. How am I gonna fit this in?”

All of my clients are on a strategy of one piece per week.

Seriously one piece per week, and that gives them the same reach and engagement as three posts on Instagram, two reels, two IG TVs and being in their stories every single day.

That is because, like I mentioned before, we’ve got over 700 million people on LinkedIn, but the majority of them are consumers not creators, so if you’re creating content you’re filling that void, and you’re getting in front of them.

People are really passive on LinkedIn.

The magic doesn’t happen in the likes and in the comments, the magic actually happens when you’re walking down the street and someone says “oh saw that post you did” or you’re you get speaking opportunities because people have been following the kind of content you’ve been putting out continually.

Because people don’t always comment and engage on the actual piece of content, it’s where it happens offline, and that’s the best thing about LinkedIn, really bringing people back to you, not just for vanity metrics in terms of building up your likes.

Don’t get me wrong, likes and comments are brilliant for engagement, brilliant for reach, but it’s just not how the platform works, the majority of those decision makers are time poor, they’re consumers scrolling through.

They’re not actually cultivating their own content themselves, and maybe not getting in amongst the engagement themselves all the time.

Types Of Content

We’ve got a couple of options when we decide that we’re going to start creating content:

Short Form Posts: That’s basically just text you can just write to your heart’s content just right away

Articles: Your long form content. That would be the same as blogs and if you’re writing a blog for your website, you might as well copy it and stick it over on your LinkedIn.

Why? Because people are already on LinkedIn. Your website is always much better, you always want to bring people to your website, because you own that, it’s rented ground when you’re on any social media platform, that includes LinkedIn.

LinkedIn’s still in its infancy at the moment, so it’s really trying to encourage people to use it more, and to get more users activated, so you’ve got that brilliant organic reach at the moment which is great

Your articles don’t get priority in the feed, you won’t get much engagement from them, but you might find in three months or in three years time you’ll actually get notifications that someone has read it, or they’ve done something with it, which I get quite regularly.

If you’ve got the right keywords in there, you might actually start being found on Google as well for your titles and the words you’ve got in there.

Stories: very similar to Instagram, lasts for 24 hours, not particularly popular on LinkedIn yet.

Images: that would literally just be an image, so a picture that would go up there. You can add some text around it as well.

Videos: Like every platform, LinkedIn’s the same, videos have the best reach, the platform loves to push them out that’s just what they prefer at the moment.

Documents Its kind of like a carousel, if you’re familiar with Instagram, you know when you see posts, and you scroll through them, you can have up to 10 pictures, exact same as LinkedIn

I prefer to use that over images, just because the formatting is much nicer and people actually go through them more than if there are pictures of all sorts squished up .

LinkedIn Live: I applied for it. Still in beta testing, so not everyone has that at the moment, but I found it really good, again it’s sort of that live slash video, it’s great content and has quite good reach.

Polls: polls are bloody fantastic. They are a great way for you to get some real insights and some data from your target audience.

You can actually get quite granular, ask them specific questions, it’s all anonymous.

You’ll know who’s voted on what, but it’s anonymous to the rest of the world, but it’ll give you a good indication as to if you’re on the right track or some information o

It’s great for market research, testing new products, or finding out what people are actually thinking.

Some Content Tips

So that’s your forms of content, after that we have to decide what the content is actually going to be.

Be unique: We talked about the journalist earlier as someone who’s bringing all this content together, so the likelihood is lots of people will be posting the same articles, about the same type of content because it’s relevant,

We take inspiration from what’s happening at the time, (the news etc), but what happens when it’s unique is you have your own say on it, you’re having a different perspective, so you’re actually making your stance known and that’s how you start having a cut through.

Be consistent now there are two things with consistency: One is make sure you’re consistent with the amount of times that you’re posting.

So like I said, my clients are all on a strategy of one piece per week, and we normally start with once every fortnight, then go to once every 10 days, and then once a week.

Because that’s something that they can build up, and it’s something that they can actually keep doing.

After all it’s really hard if you come off this master class, and you’re like “oh my god LinkedIn’s the best thing I have to start using it I’m  posting three times a week”.

You’ll do that for the next few weeks, so maybe you’ll last a month, and then on week five, you’re just tired, you’re burnt out you’ve just got no content to put out anymore.

So you go back to either not posting at all, or  maybe slip back to maybe once a week, once a fortnight, in which case the algorithm goes “haha you told me you were going to be posting three times a week”, and it will punish you.

You’ll be able to get that back, it’ll fall into your new rhythm, but it will punish you until it finds what that is again, so be consistent.

You “consistent” is not what my consistent is, and it’s not what someone next door to you’s consistent is. It’s whatever is actually realistic for you to be able to maintain, that’s the most important thing, what can you realistically do.

Be Clear: No jargon whatsoever. We want to make sure that an 11-year-old could understand what you’re talking about. It’s super important that you realize you’re not speaking to your peers, you’re not speaking to other people within your industry.

So some people might not get your jargon, they don’t get the shortcuts, you’re talking to the people that you’re trying to attract, the people that you can actually help, so speak to them not to your peers.

Now that’s not saying you can’t use them sometimes, of course you can, because that might be part of your strategy, or maybe that’s what your business is, you help your peers.

Then of course, go for it, but generally speaking you should really be talking to an 11-year-old, because people are time poor, they’re scrolling, they’re consuming a lot of content, you want to make it as simple as possible for them.

A confused mind just goes, “Nope! I’m out!” So make it as less confusing as possible and be believable, make sure that what you’re saying is actually something you can deliver on, and it’s not unicorns.

Be Believable: We really want to make sure that it’s something that you can do. For instance this master class I iwork in personal branding  is my one thing, I don’t do sales.

So I’m  not selling this master class as  “you’ll make 10 000 a month by implementing my strategy” not at all, what I’m  saying is if you go through my program, and  implement the strategy you’ll build your personal brand.

It’s a long game but, but it’s longer lasting, and sales come as a byproduct of that. 

That’s what’s believable, because that’s what’s true, that’s what happens time and time again, that’s what I see happening, and it’s what’s happened for me and my business as well.

It’s happened for my whole career actually, LinkedIn has been a massive part of that, and it has served me over and over again by building my brand, not by selling. So be believable in what it is you can actually deliver

Be Authentic: Be yourself. Because, guess what, everyone else is taken.

Closing Statements

Moral of the story: Brand yourself before others do it, because like it or not people are talking about you, and they’re thinking things about you, and they’re feeling things about you.

You want to get in front of that, and influence what it is that they’re saying.

You can work with me if you want, (I wouldn’t say no to that). I do one-on-one personal brand coaching, and that’s quite intensive.

That’s where I work with you for a minimum of three months, and we really dig into what your big goals are and some of these goals are for five to ten years time, or they could be in 12 months time.

These are big goals, and we reverse engineer them to make sure that you’re building your brand in a sustainable way that’s going to get you to these goals. That doesn’t just mean online, it encompasses absolutely everything.

But we’re very specific about what it is that you need to do to achieve, we get rid of all the fluff, where there’s accountability, it’s basically like having a personal trainer for you professionally, as opposed to your health and fitness.

You can do it on your own, but it’s so much quicker and easier with someone there helping you, because I can show you the machines and I can teach you the best strategy for you.

You can learn from the mistakes that other people have made, so you’re shortcutting that as well. I love working with my clients one-on-one, they’re all doing amazing things, which makes me happy.

And, if you sign up to be a one-on-one personal brand client with me through  masterclass, you’ll get access to the LinkedIn program as part of that as well.

Then there’s the “build your personal brand on LinkedIn” program, which is basically what we’ve been talking about today,

It’the step by step on how to do all of that how to build your personal brand from the very beginning to the end on LinkedIn, including your profile, engagement strategy and content strategy.

I talk loads about the algorithm on there, and it’s basically just a one-stop shop for being able to master your LinkedIn and actually build and position yourself.

And keep in touch, follow me on Instagram or LinkedIn, that’s generally where I am.

If I’m  on Instagram, you’re going to get a lot of gin poses and lots of gin Fridays, and lots of a king Julien which is my cat, and Stefan makes a bit of an appearance too.

Then there’s the podcast, which goes out live on LinkedIn and you can listen to it, and watch it on YouTube.