187: Growing The Right Network Will Make You Money

Tina:

So my name is Tina Ganaldo, and I am new to the academy. And so I have a a question. I hope I can I hope it's clear? Yeah. I support health teams. And when I talk about health teams, I mean, the patient, the family, Health care providers and other professionals who might not be traditionally seen on the health team, so teachers, fire, policemen. Okay. And so but most people don't consider the health team being that encompassing. But I wanna speak to all 3 on LinkedIn, but I find myself mostly speaking to health care professionals because that's who my audience is.

Melissa:

However, like all of us on this This, session tonight are probably all or have been a patient.

Tina:

Mhmm.

Melissa:

So I know it it crosses over. So I help strengthen and build interprofessional teams using science and so or integrating the research. And so I I'm just I I don't wanna confuse my audience. So my question is, how do you appeal to 3 different audiences? Because a patient or a client could be my audience because I could help them navigate through their own lack of health care coordination. Okay. A health professional or provider, I could help them by just Taking down the hierarchies that exist in health care, and respecting active listening, all of that. And then I but I could also Speak to health care administrators, which say if we build healthier I mean, stronger teams, interprofessional teams, and so it's not a professional silo team. But if we build these teams of different professions, then your attention will be better, your burnout will be less, etcetera.

Melissa:

So it's Three different talking points as well. So any suggestions?

Tina:

Yeah. So are you looking for maybe kind of a little bit of strategy on the platform as as far as, like, Speaking to each of them and and being able to grow grow Brand awareness and authority amongst all of them and do it in a clear way. Is that what you're asking?

Melissa:

I think so. Or should I segment it and start off with Health professionals because right now, I'm in higher education. I've been there for 17 years, and that I'm a physical therapist by training, have been in higher education teaching The future health care workforce, how to work in interprofessional teams for 12 years now. Mhmm. So I I was thinking about starting with health professionals first, but then I'm missing the biggest Piece of the puzzle, which we wouldn't have a health team without a patient. Right. So I feel kind of bad not speaking to patients first.

Tina:

Right. Okay. And do does location matter, or is this like an Internet based business where you're coaching virtually All over the US, all over the continent? Like, what does that look like?

Melissa:

Yeah. It can actually be anywhere, up even the worldwide.

Tina:

Okay. Okay. And where do you see the large if you had to segment out revenue in your business Between the 3 and, like, looking at your business plan for the rest of the year, where do you project Or where is there 1 target audience that's gonna be bringing in the large majority of the revenue in your business, or is it segmented out like 3 ways? Like, talk to me a little about your business plan or your or your goal with revenue with 3 different groups.

Melissa:

So I initially went towards health professionals or providers because

Tina:

Okay.

Melissa:

They might have, money in terms of a a small private practice or a health care system to spend, in terms of that way. However, when patients are really struggling with coordination of care and not knowing what to do next, who to call next, what verbiage to use to speak up, I mean, I don't wanna ignore their their voice in all of it. And so I would say in terms of health Administrators was initially my first, going that's who I want to appeal to. But the heart part of this and health care providers, Actually, patients would fall before, and then health care providers would fall 3rd. So that's how I rank them initially. However, I am confused because I really want to bump Patients up to number 1. Mhmm. But I'm not sure if LinkedIn LinkedIn is the platform to bump patients up to number 1.

Tina:

Yeah. So this is a really great question that let's talk through. Right? Depending on your targeted audience is Going to hinge on whether you can, like, drill down and find that particular demographic. Right? If your demographic is literally anyone who's a patient in the United States, like, that's gonna be kinda hard to 0 in on. Then we wanna start there's gotta be ways to stratify. Is it based on price point? Right? Like, are you cash paying? Are you working with health care plans? Like, How are how are you billing, and who's paying? So let me start there.

Melissa:

It would all be cash based. So it's not something that I can code for through the CPP code. Yep.

Tina:

So it's gotta be people who prioritize their health care and also have the cash to pay for it. Okay. So probably more affluent, educated folks in that that When I say educated, I mean educated about their health care or prioritize their health care in a way that they feel that it's it's really important to them. So I do think you can find those people on LinkedIn. There's a couple ways I wanna go with this, but the first thing you could do, and this is for all of you guys, the first thing you can do is think about who is my ideal audience that would buy my products or services, and I'm thinking about active users on the platform who really value their health And maybe, the only way you're really gonna be able to target them on LinkedIn is by finding those who follow influencers who really educate in that based on LinkedIn and they engage. Right? Now this isn't gonna be all encompassing. There's gonna be a huge demographic of people who value their health care just as much as the ones who these influencers, but they're not following them, and it's gonna be harder to find them. But what I mean by this is, like, doctor Mark Hyman, who's, like, what the top influencer in functional medicine on LinkedIn.

Tina:

If you go pull them up, you know, there's people following them in the, like, the tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands. Right? So if you're growing your connections through people who follow him. It's an active user on the platform who values their health care, And you can you can strategize before you connect with them by looking at their titles. So this is where you can get really choosy on Mid level to high level career folks just kind of choosing based off of where they are in their career as far as where they probably are with Money in the bank, right, versus someone who's brand new right out of college who probably is not going to Pay, you know, out of pocket. Right? So this is where you just gotta get really clear with your avatar, with the avatar work that you're gonna go through. But I do think that you can start kind of reverse growing that network based off of finding people on the platform who are actively engaging and following influencers in the space of health and wellness. So that's number 1. Number 2, and this is for all of you guys to really think about, Is a lot of us get started in business.

Tina:

We wanna help the underdog. It's like we wanna help, there's there's different demographics that we wanna help in problems that we wanna solve, but we also have to remember that cash flow is really important to have a business. And So I highly encourage all of you to consider solving the rich people's problems in your demographic first. Right? And then Once you've got and that sounds heartless, but the reality is, like, you can't solve broke people's problems until you have cash in the bank. And rich people pay to have their problems solved. Right? So I don't I don't fully understand your business model, but I would ask, Like, who's gonna be the high highest paying client? Who's gonna generate the most business for you? And I would hinge on making sure we're spending a lot of time on that, because it may not be where you wanna spend indefinitely, but you're gonna be solving problems in that niche space that's gonna bring cash into your business, And then you can go serve the underdog. Right? So, you know, we definitely price high and solve, You know, progressive entrepreneurs' problems before going out and starting to throw out scholarships in a much lower ticket kind of thing for people because it wasn't going to Keep get my business up off the ground to focus on clients who couldn't afford my services. Does that make sense? So, The last thing I'll say on this is I do think that not to confuse you, but you can totally market to all 3 on different days, And you can grow your network to all 3 on different days.

Tina:

So knowing the pain point of the administrator and how you solve their problem is 1 piece of content. Maybe you market to them once a week and then, you know, the doctor and their pain points and why they would need to work with you is a totally different message that you could market to, And the same thing with the patient. And if it's too much to do 1 per week in each category, especially when you're first getting started, is just do 1 per week In general. So, like, maybe you speak to the administrator 1 week, the doctor a 2nd week, a patient the 3rd week, and then you circle back to Again, this is where your subject matter expert, you're bringing value, as the authority, and they're seeing the value of potentially working with you through the Content you're putting out in the feed. And on separate days, when you post, commit to growing your network in that category. Right? So, you know, on the days that you post towards administrators, commit to adding 10 to 20 people in your network who are administrators. Right? On the days that you're posting around, the value proposition for physicians, grow your network of physicians. And that is the number one thing people miss on LinkedIn is that they'll spend all this time curating beautiful Content and putting it out, and they're like, nobody's engaging.

Tina:

And I'm like, well, are you strategically growing the audience that appreciates the content you're putting out? Because when you strategically grow the audience of people who appreciate it, they're gonna engage in it, and that's what's gonna create the activity and the visibility and it's gonna be seen. So be patient with that process. Some of you were on my call earlier today. Does anybody remember what the magic number of a new network is To really start seeing magic happen in your feed. Let me see. 500. Right? So what, like, Pains me is a client getting through, like, 4 months in the academy and getting into these calls and saying, I've been creating so much content. No one's engaging.

Tina:

And I say, well, show me your network. How many have you like, every one of you needs to write down where you are today. And the question is, How quickly did you get to 500 from today that are new, that are targeted, that are your ideal audience? Because I can guarantee you once you hit that magic number and You're putting content out that resonates with them, you know, a couple times a week. That is when the inner you will feel the flow. And some of you are in here who've been in the academy for a while know what I'm talking about. You'll feel the flow, you'll feel the energy once you hit that critical number because you have enough people to play with on the platform that are engaging with what you have, and it's creating visibility and virility on the platform. Does that make sense?

Melissa:

It does. Can I just ask 1 follow-up question? I believe the first person you talked. So when you talked about launching any type of Product or service. If we're brand new, do you recommend going 4 months building our, our followers and our connections before even trying to offer some type of product.

Tina:

Yeah. Great great question. Jen, I do think that you have to build community before you build your bank account. And I don't want this to slow you guys down from just, Like, I call it like, I I don't wanna demoralize this because I've lived in it, but it's failing forward. Right? Like, grow your network while you're growing your offer. And, like, just don't beat yourself up if the 1st month in the academy, you're putting something out there and it's not monetizing. You just haven't earned the right yet. But, like, fail forward till you get to a critical mass and an audience that you've earned the right to sell to.

Tina:

Right? It's gonna depend on how quickly you grow your network and how conscious and consistent you are putting content out as the authority in what you do. That's gonna hinge on how quickly people opt into the stuff that you're trying to monetize. Right? So if you come into the academy and you solely focus on network growth, but there's no content out there, so the people that you're growing network have no idea that you're open for business or that you're an authority, then they're when you go to sell something, they're not gonna buy. Right? But and the opposite can happen. If you're pushing out a bunch of content, but forgot to grow the network and then you go to sell something, Nobody's gonna buy. So I would highly recommend, as as as comfortably quickly as you can in the program is to be consistently growing your network on a daily basis and consistently have a content push plan where you're putting content out every week. Because it is a yin and yang. Right? That is totally worth the time.

Tina:

And I think that a lot of entrepreneurs and business owners Don't see how valuable the asset is of a curated network, until they go to sell something and no one's buying, and they start kind of Looking backwards at, like, why isn't anyone buying it? It's because they didn't do the work, which is 30% of your budget and your time needs to be marketing. Right? Even if it's Free. Meaning, even though LinkedIn is free, even though you can push the content out for free, you can create a multimillion dollar business By just being consistent with free content on the platform and leveraging a free content to glow grow your network. But I just find that people Overlook the value and the consistency of doing it daily like you brush your teeth. Like, we to this day, we grow my network Every single day. Because the reality is no matter where you are in business, you will eventually run out of leads if you don't continue to grow your network. Bottom line, doesn't matter if you're a $1,000,000 business, a $10,000 a year business. If we're not focused on serving and growing at the same time, We lose we lose, a a network to monetize it and grow continue to grow.

Tina:

Right? So hopefully, that was helpful.

Melissa:

Thank you. Appreciate it.